After the victory of the Hundred Regiments War, the North China Theater briefly celebrated, peng Dehuai was just about to go back to rest, Chen Staff Officer found him worriedly, said: "In recent days, the Shandong sub-bureau and the garrisoned 115th Division have not been in contact, they may be in trouble..."
At this time, Liushan, Shandong, was engaged in a war of encirclement and suppression and breakthrough. Secretly, there was another dark shadow trying to influence the war situation, this person was Mizuno Kiyoshi, a person who called himself the "Japanese Communist Party", who had sent a number of pieces of intelligence before helping the Luzhong Military Region to lay down several Japanese strongholds and eliminate and capture many Japanese troops. At the critical juncture of the siege of Rutamura, "he" once again sent me a piece of information to the 115th Division.
What happened to Liushan, Shandong? What did this Mizuno Kiyoshi do, and did he really come to help our army?
At the end of the Hundred Regiments War, Hata Shunroku, commander-in-chief of the Japanese invasion of China, also came to Jinan, Shandong Province, to inspect and found that the Eighth Route Army here not only did not participate in the Hundred Regiments War, but also expanded rapidly, and the growth of the team was visible at a glance.
Tuqiao once said that it was not his own problem, and presented a large stack of information to Hata Shunroku, defending: It is not that I am incompetent, I commanded the soldiers to start "sweeping" since the beginning of the year, and now it has been almost ten months, the number of the Eighth Route Army has somehow increased, far exceeding the strength of our troops stationed here, and our 12th Army is really unable to move forward.
Hata Shunroku flipped through these intelligence materials and couldn't help but be stunned, the Eighth Route Army here expanded at an unimaginable speed, and the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army stationed here already had six brigades and a Lunan Military Region, with a strength of up to 90,000 people. The shandong column also developed and distributed into four military regions of Luzhong, Qinghe, Binhai and Jiaodong, with a total number of more than 80,000 people. Hata Shunroku lowered his face and questioned Tokihashi once, "The Eighth Route Army is expanding so much, are you doing nothing?" The Eighth Route Army is so arrogant, what are you going to do next? Tuqiao immediately requested an increase in troops and vowed to wipe out the Shandong Eighth Route Army.
Previously, the Japanese army under the leadership of Okamura Ningji was responsible for the "sweeping" operation of Taiyue and Taixing, but his actions were not satisfactory and were blocked everywhere, and just when he was in a dilemma, he received a call from Hata Shunroku and ordered him to go to Shandong to support Tuqiao once. Okamura Ningji was overjoyed and said that he had finally gotten rid of this ghost place, but he did not know that the Shandong he was about to go to was another place that made him extremely frustrated.
Okamura mobilized the 36th Division of the 1st Army of the Shanxi Garrison, 10 companies of the Independent Brigade, and the 21st and 33rd Divisions of the Hebei Garrison to Shandong for support. In this way, the strength of the Shandong garrison increased to 50,000. At the end of October, under the command of Hata Shunroku, the Japanese army adopted the tactic of four breads and iron barrels and began a large-scale "sweep" of the Eighth Route Army's Yimeng anti-Japanese base area.
Hata's specific tactical arrangement was that the 30th Division and the 10th Independent Brigade formed an arc formation from the four counties of Fei County, Pingyi, Mengyin, and Xintai to the east; the 21st Division and the 5th and 6th Independent Brigades marched west in an arc at Gong county and Yishui; and the 16th and 33rd Divisions marched north in an arc from Linyi, Zaozhuang, and Tangtou. Beginning on October 26, Hata Shunroku and Tsuchihashi flew over the air as commanders to supervise the battle.
On the evening of November 5, 50,000 Japanese troops gradually formed an encirclement, approaching the area around Liutian and Niujiagou in Yinan County, which was only 20 miles away.
On the side of the Eighth Route Army, the Garrison positions of the Shandong Sub-district and the 115th Division were in Liutian Village, and the scouts immediately reported to the headquarters after surveying the Japanese army's marching route: The Japanese army has surrounded Liutian!
Chen Guang, acting commander of the 115th Division, and Luo Ronghuan, political commissar, who remained here, immediately held a breakout meeting, and the leaders of the Shandong sub-district also rushed to the scene to discuss. At the meeting, everyone was silent and pondered the plan for the breakthrough, and Political Commissar Xiao Hua spoke first, saying: The japanese army's troops in the east are relatively weak, the blockade line has not yet been fully formed, and our army can start from the Yi River, then cross the Shu River, and directly enter the coastal base area to meet the division. Chen Guang, on the other hand, said that he advocated a breakthrough from the north, and the main column of Shandong was stationed in the north.
At this critical juncture, Wang Liren, minister of enemy engineering, pushed the door in, handed Chen Guang a piece of intelligence, and said, "Mizuno Kiyoshi sent urgent information!" This is a special piece of intelligence from the Japanese position, the "Japanese Communists."
Chen Guang opened the intelligence, gathered with Luo Ronghuan, and quickly read the information at a glance and ten lines. Then Luo Ronghuan thought for a moment and said to everyone, "In fact, Mizuno Kiyoshi's intelligence is roughly the same as the enemy situation we know now. However, Mizuno Kiyoshi passed by the enemy situation in the east, and only said that there were one or two Japanese strongholds on the plain between the Taiwei Highway and the Yi River. After everyone listened, most of them still said: Since the enemy in the east is weak, let's break through from the east according to Xiao Hua's suggestion.
But Xiao Hua suddenly raised his hand to object, saying: "Although the information sent by Mizuno Kiyoshi before was accurate and helped us eliminate many Japanese troops, but the matter is big, we must maintain a high degree of vigilance, do we really want to believe a Japanese who has never even met?" Then, Xiao Hua continued to analyze that Mizuno Kiyoshi claimed to have been sent by the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party, that he had infiltrated the strategy department of the Japanese secret service in Jinan, and then contacted us, but this was all his one-sided remarks, the Japanese Communist Party did not introduce him to us, and our enemy ministry did not grasp his true situation. The information passed on several times before is true, and it may just give us a little sweetness and make us believe in him, and this time we will set a trap for us to plant a big one, which is not a small possibility.
Luo Ronghuan nodded, thinking that Xiao Hua's analysis had a certain truth. This breakout operation is too important, not only to break the enemy's encirclement and ensure the successful transfer of the main force and the Shandong military and political organs, but also to the success or failure of the anti-Japanese struggle of the entire Shandong Military Region.
Finally, Luo Ronghuan said: Mizuno Kiyoshi's intelligence is very timely and exactly what we need, but Xiao Hua's reminder must not be ignored. In the past, Mizuno Kiyoshi sent some intelligence that made us win several battles, but it may indeed be a bitter trick played by the enemy, intending to exchange the results of the great war at a small price, and we cannot afford this consequence. Time is ticking, and it is right for us to think about how to break through, but don't forget that attack is the best way to break through, we can think a little deeper, while trying to save ourselves, we can also strike the enemy and crush their big "sweep" operation.
Then everyone gathered in front of the map, and Luo Rongheng continued, in addition to Comrade Xiao Hua's concerns about Mizuno Kiyoshi, and our previous anti-"sweeping" operations were also marching from the east, and the enemy may have figured out the law and deliberately left a gap here, so the east was excluded. There was a Shandong column to the north, but there were also many Kuomintang recalcitrant troops here, and after the Anhui Incident, they sided with the Japanese army and rebelled against our Eighth Route Army; while in the west, near Jinpu Road, this place was full of Japanese pillboxes, and hundreds of armored tanks patrolled here day and night. So finally decided to break through to the south!
At this moment, Wang Liren sent a piece of intelligence again, or Mizuno Kiyoshi, only to see that it read:
The encirclement operation of the Japanese army this time was intended to annihilate the Shandong division and the 115th Division. From all aspects, the Japanese army to the east is relatively weak, I still recommend you to break through from the east. If you feel unsafe in the east, you can break through from the northwest and reach the Laiwu or Xintai areas. Here, in the name of the International Red Cross, I have set up a pilot zone where no soldiers are allowed to enter, only ordinary people and the wounded can enter. I am an internationalist advocating peace, and I will never stand idly by while the Eighth Route Army is brutally attacked. Therefore, I suggest that all of your troops come to our experimental area to take refuge in the name of wounds and illness. I have a responsibility to protect you, trust me! --From a Member of the Communist Party of Japan: Kiyoshi Mizuno.
After listening to Mizuno Kiyoshi's second piece of information, Luo Rongheng said to the comrades in the headquarters: "Mizuno Kiyoshi said about the construction of the experimental zone in Xintai and Laiwu, I heard Luo Shunchu, political commissar of the Luzhong Military Region, say, how much do you know about this experimental zone? Wang Liren hesitated for a moment, but still said: Mizuno Kiyoshi is indeed running an experimental area, helping the people, and taking care of the wounded of the Luzhong Military Region, this is open, but the Japanese army is extremely hateful to the Communist Party, how can it be suddenly kind and allow him to openly help us the Eighth Route Army?
Chen Guang immediately agreed with Wang Liren's words. Luo Ronghuan pushed his glasses and said to everyone, "Mizuno Kiyoshi itself is not clear. All of our sources of suspicion are true, first ignore him for the time being, do not freeze the relationship, no matter how much information he sends, we gladly receive, but do not necessarily believe, nor take the initiative to approach him, to see how he will go next. ”
Chen Guang immediately made a decision that our army would break through to the south and at the same time resolutely attack the enemy army; he ordered the 115th Division to start from Liutian, pass through Zhangzhuang, and then bypass Gaoli, thus turning southwest, crossing the Linmeng Highway, and then marching rapidly south of Zhuman, and arriving at Wanggou and lurking on standby. Wanggou was only 50 miles away from Linyi, the enemy's central position, and this place was also the junction of the two divisions of the Japanese army, which was the empty place in their rear. For us, the mountains and ravines of Wanggou are the best terrain for ambush.
After the meeting, Chen Shiyu, chief of staff of the 115th Division, summoned Chen Shifa, commander of the special battalion, and Huang Guozhong, deputy battalion commander, to the map, and carefully arranged their tasks. Moreover, in order to avoid the radio monitoring and tracking of the Japanese army, Luo Ronghuan and Chen Shiyu ordered the Shandong division and the division headquarters to cut off all communication.
That night, the hills near Liutian had been completely occupied by the Japanese army, and more than 3,000 Eighth Route Army troops were quietly hidden on the river beach, including the personnel of the Shandong Sub-district and the 115th Division, as well as the soldiers of the special service battalion. They were nervously awaiting the order to leave.
Soon, Chen Guang, Luo Ronghuan, and others from the headquarters came out of the simple conference room, and they walked to the front of the line, and then the personnel of the Security Department and the Reconnaissance Department quickly took their places. The soldiers also took advantage of the night to set out south one by one, climbing two hills, crossing a river, crossing a high ridge, and gradually they managed to reach the Taiwei Highway. The reconnaissance men were 200 meters off the road, on high alert, and the reconnaissance departments in all directions were equipped with a machine gun squad, ready to strike at the enemy who suddenly appeared. The troops were fortunate to pass through the first blockade line, and the 3 miles ahead was about to reach Zhangzhuang, which was the second blockade line deployed by the Japanese army.
At this time, the forward reconnaissance troops brought news: there was a dim area about a mile east of Zhangzhuang, which should be the combined part of the two Japanese troops. Chen Guang issued an order: the troops were ready for engagement, divided into three columns, and ran quickly through this dark area. Orders were passed on one by one from the front and rear, and the team was quickly divided into three columns. Half an hour later, the line passed halfway through, and at this moment the soldiers of the Japanese Xishan Sentry Booth found the clue through the telescope and immediately issued a signal of enemy attack, the Japanese bullets roared over the heads of our soldiers, and the rear troops of the 115th Division did not stop and quickly sped south. Because the line of sight was obstructed, the situation under the mountain was unknown, and the Japanese army did not dare to attack, but only fired while shouting. Half an hour later, our troops had safely passed through the second line of defense.
The front of Gaoli was the most heavily guarded third line of defense of the Japanese army, and Luo Rongheng ordered zhou Yun, the leader of the reconnaissance team, to go out with five scouts to find an opening that could break through with a large force, pay attention to the vigilance, and return in time to report.
After more than half an hour, the reconnaissance force reached Gaoli, where all the large and small hills were full of fire, and the sentries walked around from time to time, firing green signal flares into the air every few minutes.
Zhou Yun, the commander of the reconnaissance unit, judged that this should be a sign of safety, and then they found an intersection with a narrow pedestrian path in the north-south direction, and Zhou Yun decided to use this place as a breakthrough.
At this moment, there were sudden footsteps on the west side of the avenue, and then 3 figures appeared, and they stopped to observe for a while and then issued a green signal bomb, and then several green signal flares rose from several nearby hills.
After they finished firing the signal bomb, Zhou Yun decisively made a gesture to kill the enemy, and several scouts silently covered the mouths of the three sentries of the Japanese army and simply strangled them. Then Zhou Yun loaded up their signal flares, took off their military uniforms, and hurried back to the large troops to report. Zhou Yun suggested to Chen Guang that three soldiers who knew Japanese be dressed in Japanese clothes, carry their signal guns, disguise everything normally, and if my large troops were discovered, our disguised soldiers would give the wrong direction to guide and try their best to buy time.
In the end, Zhou Yun's proposal was a great success, and the Japanese army could not have dreamed of it, and the Eighth Route Army of several thousand people broke through the encirclement under the eyes of 50,000 people. As Luo Rongheng said, "Mizuno Kiyoshi itself is unclear. The Shandong Division and the 115th Division avoided his erroneous intelligence and broke through like heavenly help, reaching the rear of the Japanese army with minimal losses. When the Japanese realized that something was wrong and began to frantically sweep the fields, they pounced on an empty space, and the people they besieged were already staring at their empty rear.