On August 13, 1937, the Battle of Songhu, which was extremely tragic in the War of Resistance Against Japan, broke out. With a strength of 800,000 troops, the Nationalist army stubbornly resisted the Japanese invading army of 300,000, completely powdering the arrogant remarks of the Japanese people that "China will be destroyed in three months." At a tragic cost of 200,000 casualties, the Nationalist army annihilated more than 40,000 Japanese invaders, dealt a heavy blow to Japan's arrogance, and wrote the heroic spirit of chinese soldiers who swore to die to defend their homeland and defend the country with the heroic courage of "one inch of mountains and rivers and one inch of blood."
After the implementation of the strategic retreat, when the entire Shanghai was planted with Japanese plaster flags, only on the roof of the Zhabei Sihang warehouse, a large and eye-catching Chinese army flag fluttered with the wind, which was also the only flag left in Shanghai for the Chinese army.
(Battle of Songhu)
And the one who swore to guard this sacred banner to the death was the "Eight Hundred Heroes" led by Xie Jinyuan.
Let us once again walk into this group of anti-Japanese heroes who were praised by Chiang Kai-shek as "loyal to the Japanese" and look up to their heroic deeds of defending the country like mountains and rivers.
First, be ordered to cover up and become a lone army.
After the Battle of Songhu began, after the Nationalist army stubbornly resisted the Japanese army for 3 months, the Dachang defense line was finally broken, and the Nationalist army began to implement strategic transfer. In order to show the world the firm determination of the Chinese people to resist aggression, the top brass of the Nationalist army decided to leave a force to continue fighting. The location of the fortification was chosen at the Sihang Warehouse, the headquarters of the 88th Division.
In this way, Xie Jinyuan led 423 people from the first battalion of the 524th Regiment to accept this difficult task.
When the division commander Sun Yuanliang found Xie Jinyuan, he said to him: "This is a lone army, doomed to have no backup, and it is very likely that he will be martyred." Xie Jinyuan just replied with two words, "Know." When Xie Jinyuan had assembled all the soldiers of a battalion, he asked his soldiers if they knew what was here. The soldiers replied that this was the headquarters of my division, but Xie Jinyuan said emphatically: "This is our grave." ”
(Four-line warehouse 800 heroes)
Second, stubbornly resist and annihilate the Japanese army.
After entering the Sihang warehouse, Xie Jinyuan's command sealed all the passages, doors and windows on the ground floor with the materials in the warehouse, and only half of the doors and windows were left on the second floor for shooting. Guns and ammunition left behind by the troops were distributed to the crowd and grenades were bundled into bundles to enhance lethality.
At the same time, Xie Jinyuan personally organized a death squad, hoping to give the invaders a fatal blow at a critical moment.
He also called on all officers and men to write a suicide note and register the 423 heroic officers and men, hoping that after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the chinese people would know that they had bathed in the bloody battlefield for the motherland and killed themselves.
In the four days and nights from the beginning of the first battle on October 28, Xie Jinyuan's command post repelled many crazy attacks of the Japanese army, killing more than 200 enemy troops and only more than 50 casualties of the four-line guard army.
During this period, some warriors faced the enemy's desperate counterattack, tied grenades to their bodies, and resolutely jumped from the second floor into the enemy group, blowing up the ghosts and ghosts crying wolf. A 14-year-old girl scout also risked his life to send a national government flag to the Four-Line Defenders, so that this lonely flag could fly on the roof of the Sixing Warehouse, showing that Chinese would rather die than die. There is also Xie Jinyuan's military bloodiness as a pioneer soldier and a blade of The Japanese Kou.
The banner on the roof of the Sihang Warehouse greatly encouraged the anti-Japanese enthusiasm of the Shanghai people, and tens of thousands of people braved the enemy's stray bullets to spontaneously come to help the Nationalist army. They used various channels to pass on the devil's offensive strategy to the nationalist army, some shouting loudly, some gesturing, some moving out of the small blackboard, telling the defenders the direction of the devil's attack...
Even the British troops in the concession were infected by the bravery and tenacity of the Four-Line Defenders, calling them "brave Chinese death squads."
(Xie Jinyuan old photo)
3. Retreat and enter the concession.
Because the Sihang Warehouse was located next to the concession, the Japanese attacked madly, which inevitably worried the foreigners in the public concession, and under pressure, the Nationalist government ordered Xie Jinyuan to evacuate. Although Xie Jinyuan and his subordinates had long been determined to die, the military orders were difficult to violate, and they had to retreat to the British Concession under the cover of nightfall.
But when they entered the British Concession, they were immediately disarmed and placed in a 15-acre area of Jiaozhou Road, under house arrest by White Russian soldiers. During this period, Xie Jinyuan's ministry had a large-scale conflict with the concession ministry and bureau for insisting on raising the flag. However, Xie Jinyuan did not yield and insisted on leading the officers and men to raise the flag, exercise exercises, and conduct military training.
4. Kill a traitor and kill himself.
In 1940, after Wang Jingwei established a puppet government in Nanjing, he repeatedly sent people to intimidate Xie Jinyuan in an attempt to lure Xie Jinyuan with a high-ranking official Houlu, but he categorically refused.
The Japanese also regarded Xie Jinyuan as a thorn in the flesh of the eye, and sent people to murder several times, all of which were resolved one by one by the alert Xie Jinyuan.
Annoyed and angry, he plotted a vicious plan to bribe Xie Jinyuan's four subordinates with heavy money and wait for the opportunity to assassinate him.
One morning, Hao Dingcheng, Long Yaoliang, Zhang Wenqing, Zhang Guoshun and four others deliberately did not exercise, and when Xie Jinyuan went to inquire about the reason, he was suddenly attacked by four people and was seriously injured. Due to excessive blood loss, the 37-year-old Xie Jinyuan was martyred without pay.
The news of Xie Jinyuan's assassination did not go away, and the citizens of Shanghai spontaneously went to mourn. For a time, the entire Shanghai crowded the streets and rushed to witness the heroic remains. The 300,000 people crowded Xie Jinyuan's garrison to the ground, and many people were left in tears of pain.
After being beaten up by Xie Jinyuan's men, the four traitors handed them over to the concession authorities and were later sentenced to death with the punishment they deserved.
(Reference: "Eight Hundred Heroes")