Pingxingguan dajie memorial hall Oriental IC data
Guangming Daily reported on November 26th that in the Pingxingguan Victory Memorial Hall, rich and informative pictures, documents and cultural relics were displayed one by one, and the fierce battle that shocked China and foreign countries was still in sight.
On September 20th, 1937, the 5th Division of the Japanese Army invaded Lingqiu County. On the 21st, San Pu, head of the 21st Brigade of the Japanese Army, led six infantry battalions to attack Pingxingguan in two ways, in an attempt to break through the Pingxingguan defense line and join the Japanese army north of Yanmenguan to capture Taiyuan, and then occupy Shanxi province. On September 23rd, Zhu De and Peng Dehuai ordered the 115th Division to send troops to Pingxingguan and Lingqiu to take advantage of the favorable terrain in the northeast of Pingxingguan to ambush Qiaogou on the east side of Pingxingguan.
Gao Chunping, director of the Institute of History of Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Before the war began, Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen had twice made field reconnaissance in the area of Baiyatai-Qiaogou, 35km southwest of Lingqiu County. The first time they went with staff officers and radio stations. First, go to the Pingxingguan Pass, climb the mountains on the north side of the Pass, and observe the mountains, rivers, villages and roads east of Pingxingguan on the map. Then go down the mountain and follow the west running pool and the east running pool highway to Qiaogou to East Henan, and look at the topography on both sides of the canyon highway. The second time, the terrain in front of the Laoye Temple and the mountain landform on the southwest side of Qiaogou were investigated. "
Before the battle, the troops of the 115th Division assembled in Ran Zhuang. On the evening of 24th, by the faint candlelight, Lin Biao, the division commander, and Nie Rongzhen, the deputy division commander, drew pictures back and forth on a military map and made careful arrangements. Finally, the two men made up their minds and immediately issued an order: "Set out at 24 o’clock this evening and head for Baiyatai."
"That night, in order to hide, the participating ministries chose the rugged path that was difficult to walk. At that time, it was raining heavily, the wind was not stopped, and the road was slippery in the dark, so it was very difficult to move. The soldiers’ clothes were soaked through, and almost all of them became’ clay figurines’. Coupled with the cold night in the mountainous area of northern Shanxi, the soldiers were shivering with cold. " Gao Chunping said that the ensuing flash floods have blocked the way forward. The soldiers hung their guns and bullets around their necks, held hands and dragged the ponytail through the waist-high or even chest-deep rapids, marched in an emergency and rushed to the scheduled ambush position.
After a night of stormy marching, all the 685th, 686th and 687th regiments of the 115th Division who participated in the ambush arrived at the ambush position as scheduled and quickly built fortifications to carry out camouflage. A night of wind and rain, cold and bone-piercing, the officers and men were covered with "yellow mud soup" and their legs were numb with cold. The soldiers were cold and hungry, but they were still waiting on the wetlands and rocks, and their morale was high. The division command post is located on the hill on the southeast side of Qiaogou overlooking the whole battlefield. The 115th Division opened its pockets and waited for the enemy to come.
At about 5: 30 on the morning of 25th, the first Japanese car entered the ambush circle, and Nie Rongzhen gave an order: "Hold your horses and don’t fire without orders. After the follow-up troops of the 21 ST Brigade of the Japanese Army took more than 100 cars and more than 200 carts with baggage all entered the ambush position, they used grenades to blow up the last enemy car. "
When the enemy vanguard troops entered the fork between Guangou and Xinzhuang, Guo Chunlin, deputy company commander of the 3rd Battalion and 9th Company of the 687th Regiment, fired the first shot. Machine guns, rifles, grenades and mortars were fired at the same time, which knocked the Japanese army jammed on the road upside down for a while. After the 685th Regiment repeatedly competed with the enemy for commanding heights, suddenly two Japanese bombers flew over the position. In the face of a critical situation, the soldiers rushed down quickly and got into a mess with the Japanese army, so that the Japanese plane could not tell the enemy from me and dared not bomb it easily. A fierce hand-to-hand combat broke out, and the enemy and I fought bayonets in narrow positions.
In hand-to-hand combat, Zeng Xiansheng, the company commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 685th Regiment, took the lead in attacking the enemy. He stabbed a dozen devils by himself and was seriously injured himself. When a group of devils approached him, he rang the only grenade left, and died with the enemy …
After six hours of fighting, the Eighth Route Army annihilated more than 1,000 Japanese troops, seized a large number of light and heavy machine guns and military radio stations, killed war horses, burned more than 100 enemy cars and more than 200 carriages. In this battle, the Eighth Route Army dealt a heavy blow to the elite ace divisions of the Japanese army and dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Japanese aggressors. President Mao Zedong telephoned Zhu De and Peng Dehuai the day after the victory: "Celebrate our army’s first victory", saying that "the significance of Pingxing Pass is the best political mobilization".
Gao Chunping said: "The Pingxingguan campaign is a battle to invigorate the national spirit. With crude equipment, the Eighth Route Army took the initiative to confront the main divisions of the Japanese army, which greatly inspired the confidence of China’s soldiers and civilians in the war of resistance against Japan, and proved to the world that the Eighth Route Army led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) was a brave and good-fighting team ready to shed its blood for the national and national interests at any time. The Battle of Pingxingguan was also a famous battle of the Eighth Route Army, which broke the invincible myth of the Japanese army, demonstrated the heroic and tenacious spirit of the Eighth Route Army in the war of resistance, and was the backbone of the national spirit. This spirit is always worthy of our admiration. "
(Original title "Pingxingguan Campaign: Breaking the Myth of" The Japanese Army is Invincible ")
