In 1938, the commander of the 115th Division, Lin Zong, led the main force south, preparing to open up a new anti-Japanese base in the Luliang area.
Unexpectedly, because he was wearing a captured Japanese overcoat and riding a captured Japan war horse, he was shot by Yan Xishanbu sentry and almost died.
The injury is serious, Mr. Lin can only return to the rear for treatment, who should lead the troops? Chairman Mao and Teng Daiyuan felt that Luo Ronghuan was good and could serve as the acting teacher.
However, Mr. Zhu and Mr. Peng of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters are more interested in Chen Guang, who was born as a military cadre. There was a difference of several hours between the two orders, and in the end Chen Guang became the acting commander of the 115th Division.
Speaking of which, this is not the first time that Chen Guang has represented Mr. Lin, in 1936, Mr. Lin went to Kang University as the president, and Chen Guang also acted as the commander of the Red First Army. It can be seen that the central leaders attach great importance to Chen Guang and have the intention of cultivating him as the successor of President Lin.
It stands to reason that Chen Guang can be so valued, this word "generation" is just a transition, as long as he performs well, it is only a matter of time before he becomes a full-time job.
But the reality is that he was a division commander in the 5th century, but he never became a regular, and later he was directly transferred back to Yan'an. Why?
Li Yu, the main person in charge of Shandong's local armed forces, once expressed a point of view: Chen Guang did not understand tactics and loved to fight to the death, causing considerable casualties to the troops.
The 115th Division will enter Lu for development, which has a lot to do with Li Yu. This person was the secretary of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1936 and had been actively developing the revolution.
After the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Li Yu led the Shandong Provincial Party Committee to launch a number of armed uprisings, and successfully preserved the uprising force and reorganized it into the Shandong People's Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Detachment of the Eighth Route Army.
By the time Li Yu returned to Yan'an in April 1938 to report on his work, the guerrilla detachment had 25 regiments, more than 20,000 regular troops, and more than 10,000 militiamen.
Without the support of the central government, Chairman Mao was overjoyed that Shandong could develop this achievement. With such a good mass foundation, Shandong should be built into a key anti-Japanese base area.
Therefore, the chairman ordered Chen Guang, the acting commander of the 115th Division, and Luo Ronghuan, the political commissar, to lead the main force of the division into Shandong.
In November 1938, the 115th Division set off in batches, first more than 3,000 people of the 685th Regiment advanced to the west of Weishan Lake under the name of "Sulu-Henan Detachment", and then Chen and Luo led the troops directly under the division and more than 5,000 people of the 686th Regiment to advance to southwest Shandong with the number of "Eastward Detachment".
In March 1939, the 115th Division successfully arrived in Shandong and began to develop and uproot a number of Japanese strongholds. Originally, the situation was very good, but I didn't expect the 115th Division to hit a "nail" soon, and Chen Guang was questioned because of this.
The supreme commander of the Japanese army in Shandong and the commander of the 12th Army, Otaka Kamizo, learned through intelligence that the "Eastward Advance Detachment" was the 115th Division of the Japanese army that had ambushed the Japanese army at Pingxingguan.
He secretly assembled two brigades and garrisons of more than 10 towns, totaling more than 8,000 people, and launched an attack on the Taixi area in nine routes, hoping to eat the "eastward detachment" in one go.
On May 9, 1938, Luo Ronghuan went to the Dongwenning detachment to convey the spirit of the Yan'an Conference, and only Chen Guang was in charge of the division headquarters stationed in the area of Lufang Village in Taixi.
On that day, the reconnaissance unit went forward more than 10 miles as usual to explore the environment and found that a large number of Japanese troops were moving. Since this was the day when the Japanese troops changed their guards, Chen Guang did not pay attention to it.
Who would have thought that this was exactly the strategy of Ogaka Kamezo. He knew that there would definitely be spies of the Eighth Route Army in the town, and the large-scale transfer could not hide from everyone, so he deliberately chose to march during the change of troops, causing the 115th Division to suffer a big loss.
On the night of the 10th, the Japanese invaders surrounded Lufang, but fortunately they were not good at night fighting, and did not launch an attack on the poorly prepared Eighth Route Army, giving them some respite.
Seeing that the situation was urgent, Chen Guang led his brigade to break through to the southwest, but when he reached the area of the Dawen River, he found that the south bank had been blocked, so he had to order to turn back to the direction of Dafeng Mountain.
At dawn on the 11th, the Japanese fired three signal flares over the Lufang, which was their agreed signal for attack, and then the artillery attacked.
At this time, there was a huge disparity between the strength of the enemy and us, and only more than 1,000 people of the besieged Eighth Route Army were combatants, while Otaka Kamezo gathered more than 5,000 Japanese troops and nearly 3,000 puppet troops, which seemed to have no chance of winning.
Fortunately, most of the more than 1,000 people were veterans of the Long March, with rich combat experience, and even if they were surrounded, they did not panic and still calmly faced the enemy.
It's just that Chen Guang, the acting teacher who should have come forward to calm people's hearts, behaved a little unsatisfactory. On the way to the retreat of the troops in the direction of Dafeng Mountain, the Japanese invaders carried out a fierce bombardment, and the mules and horses of the 115th Division's organ brigade were frightened and ran everywhere, and the entire division headquarters was thrown into disarray.
Chen Guang hadn't eaten or slept for a day and a night, and this situation made him even more anxious, and he fainted immediately.
Fortunately, Zhang Renchu, commander of the 686th Regiment, decisively ordered the 1st Battalion, the regiment's special service company, and reconnaissance company to quickly seize the commanding heights nearby, which allowed us to temporarily stabilize the situation. After Chen Guang woke up, he also sent a special battalion to seize the commanding heights in the north and east directions.
Later, when the battle was deadlocked, Chen Guang was too excited and did not sit at the division headquarters, but ran to the 2nd Battalion to arrive at the front command, and was not at the division headquarters for more than 6 hours.
How can I say this, although he is very courageous, he is the supreme commander, and it is not appropriate to pay attention to one part without coordinating the overall situation. Fortunately, Wang Bingzhang, chief of staff of the division headquarters, Li Zuopeng, chief of the reconnaissance section, and others also have strong military capabilities, and there is no chaos on the whole, otherwise Chen Guang would still be responsible.
At dawn the next day, the 115th Division broke out of the encirclement, and from the perspective of the battle loss ratio, the Japanese suffered more than 1,300 casualties, and the 115th Division suffered more than 350 casualties, which was not considered a defeat.
However, Chen Guang did not notice it before the war, and there were many mistakes in the course of the battle, and most of the more than 300 casualties were old Red Army, the essence of the ranks, and the seeds of opening up base areas.
Li Yu, who was the political commissar of the Shandong Column at the time, although he had not been in contact with Chen Guang before, had also seen this information from the internal battle report. Later, after several times of cooperating with the battle, Li Yu also felt that Chen Guang's tactics were problematic.
For example, in the third Jiazishan Rebellion Campaign, Chen Guang commanded the 115th Division to teach the 5th Brigade, the 6th Regiment of the 2nd Brigade, the new 111th Division, the 5th and 6th regiments of the 2nd Brigade of the Shandong Military Region, and the Independent Regiment of the Binhai Army Division to attack the rebel Sun Huancai.
At first, the fight went smoothly, but Sun Huancai soon retreated to the area of Liujiadongshan, using strong fortifications to condescend and stubbornly resist. Due to the lack of offensive equipment, the 13th Regiment of the 5th Brigade of our main attack suffered heavy casualties.
At this time, Zhu Rui, the former leader of the mountain column, suggested that he withdraw first and wait for a suitable opportunity to fight again. But Chen Guang had already come up and resolutely refused to retreat, and the two argued and slapped the table at the meeting.
Luo Ronghuan had no choice but to temporarily adjourn the meeting and coordinate one by one. In the end, Luo Shuai gave an order to surround but not fight, and when the enemy could not be exhausted and wanted to break through, he would use artillery bombardment. And it worked.
If Chen Guang's style of play is followed, Jiazishan will definitely be able to be taken, but the casualties paid by our army are much greater. Li Yu has also seen Chen Guang reckless as soon as he came up many times, so he gave an evaluation:
He doesn't talk about tactics and often fights hard. A man in charge of military leadership and command always gave death orders to attack strong pillboxes at every turn, resulting in heavy casualties among the troops. Luo Ronghuan put forward his correct opinions many times, but this person couldn't listen.
Chen Guang's temper can be said to have affected his life. Later, in Yan'an, he also had an unhappiness with Chairman Mao; In the Northeast, there were also conflicts with Mr. Lin; In Guangdong, I also slapped the table with Ye Shuai. In the end, it went to the extreme.
It's really embarrassing to have such a high starting point, but it ends like this.