Many groups of Japanese soldiers who were relatively lucky were not overtaken by the Eighth Route Army's pursuers. When they arrived near Jingxing Pass, they also chose to cross the mountains.
The Eighth Route Army at Jingxingguan Pass only had two squadrons of two special operations brigades. It could not spare so many troops to stop the Japanese army, so it could only watch them escape.
On this day, the commander, chief of staff and others of the 8th Division finally returned to SJZ, and the remaining defeated soldiers also fled back one after another. The troops who escaped were very scattered and belonged to various units. When the Japanese soldiers guarding the city gate saw their embarrassed appearance, they opened the gate and let them in.
The Japanese army did not notice at all that among the Japanese soldiers who escaped back, a detachment from the Mawushan Army Division Special Operations Brigade sneaked into them.
This is a move that Xu Dalong planned in advance, hoping to be effective at the critical moment. Leading this detachment is squadron leader Zhu Guangzhao of the Fourth Squadron of the Special Operations Brigade.
Before they entered the city, Li Changshui had already contacted the SJZ's underground party intelligence station through the underground party organization. After Zhu Guangzhao entered the city, he went directly to the agreed meeting point and met the liaison officer sent by the underground party. The team members went into hiding.
On the next morning, the commander of the 8th Division counted the number of remnants of the 8th Division who had returned to the city. Now no other troops have come back, which means those people have been eaten by the enemy.
After counting the number of people, the division commander really wanted to cry. The 8th Division is the first-class division of the Japanese army with a strength of 28,000. More than 22,000 people went to Shanxi this time. Only more than 7,000 people were able to return to SJZ. One brigade commander died in the battle, and most of the weapons and equipment were lost. Lost.
Such a loss has never happened in the history of the 8th Division. The division commander now has no shame to explain to his superiors.
This is not the worst. At this time, according to reports from Japanese and puppet military strongholds around SJZ, it was said that a large number of Eighth Route Army troops were approaching SJZ and there were signs of a strong attack on SJZ.
The commander of the 8th Division did not dare to neglect, and hurriedly reported the situation here to the North China Front Army Headquarters, and then began to organize troops to defend the city.
At this time, there were 7,000 people in the city who had escaped from the 8th Division, as well as the troops left behind by the 8th Division, a brigade of puppet troops, and some military police and puppet police units, with a total strength of more than 23,000 people. The military strength is obviously insufficient to defend a huge SJZ.
He accepted the chief of staff's suggestion and transferred all the Japanese and puppet troops from the small strongholds around the SJZ and the county town into the SJZ, thus adding more than 5,000 people.
Xu Dalong wanted to fight a big battle in SJZ this time. He wanted to attack SJZ by force, so he did not use sneak attacks and waited for the large forces to slowly gather at SJZ.
Soon after, the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi. Li Yunlong, Kong Jie, Ding Wei, and Cheng Xiazi led various troops to the outskirts of SJZ and surrounded SJZ.
Troops from the Jinan Military Region finally captured Gaoyi County and annihilated a Japanese infantry brigade. They continued northward and met up with Li Changshui, Li Qiulin and others in Yuanshi County.
Li Changshui informed the leaders of the Jinan Military Region about the situation in the direction of the SJZ, saying that the Japanese troops had been surrounded in the SJZ, allowing the troops in the Jinan Military Region to confidently and boldly launch attacks on the surrounding Japanese and puppet troops.
The only enemy forces currently blocked between the Jinan Military Region and SJZ are the Japanese and puppet troops entrenched in Yuanshi County.
Commander Wang led a large group of troops from the Jinan Military Region and marched toward Yuanshi County.
That night, troops from the Jinan Military Region camped in the wild and planned to surround Yuanshi County tomorrow morning.
That night, Li Qiulin said to Li Changshui: "It's just a Yuanshi County town, why does it need to mobilize so many troops? I might as well lead a special force to take it down overnight."
Although the various units of the Eighth Route Army cooperate closely with each other during combat, each unit has its own sense of honor and hopes to demonstrate the combat effectiveness of its units.
Li Changshui also wanted to show his hand in front of the Jinan Military Region, so he agreed to Li Qiulin's request. That night, Li Qiulin led the special team to set off first.
The Japanese troops guarding Yuanshi County included an infantry squadron, a gendarmerie, a puppet police brigade, and a puppet army company, with a total strength of more than 400 people. Although Li Qiulin's special force has advanced equipment and only has more than 200 people, its combat effectiveness absolutely crushes these Japanese and puppet troops.
At 4 o'clock in the morning, when the Japanese and puppet troops were tired, the special forces quietly climbed up the city wall, captured the city gate, and then launched a surprise attack. The fighting was all over at 5 a.m.
After breakfast the next day, the leaders of the Jinan Military Region gathered together for a combat meeting to prepare to study how to capture Yuanshi County.
Li Changshui said: "Everyone, leaders, I'm really sorry. Yuanshi County was taken down by my special forces last night."
"What? How is this possible?" The leaders of the Jinan Military Region were shocked after hearing this. They had already seen the special forces team brought by Li Changshui. Although they were well-equipped, they only had about 200 people in total. The defense of Yuanshi County was strong, and there were at least four to five hundred Japanese and puppet troops inside. How could they easily capture it?
But they also believed that Li Changshui would not lie to them. Commander Wang asked with concern: "If we capture Yuanshi County, the casualties will probably be considerable, right?"
Li Changshui said: "One team member was sacrificed and four others were injured."
His words once again shocked the leaders of the Jinan Military Region. At this moment, three big words were written on their faces: Impossible, absolutely impossible.
Li Changshui handed over the telegram sent by Li Qiulin to the leaders of the Jinan Military Region. It clearly stated that it took them only one hour to annihilate more than 460 Japanese and puppet troops in the city. One person was killed and four members were slightly wounded.
"This is too outrageous." The leaders of the Southwest Military Region sighed with emotion.
Commander Wang said: "Minister Li, your special force is really powerful. It is the most elite unit of your Shanxi Eighth Route Army, right?"
Li Changshui shook his head and said: "It can be said that they are troops, but compared to Captain Xu, the gap is still very big."
The leaders of the Jinan Military Region have heard Xu Dalong's name so many times that their ears are calloused. Hearing what Li Changshui said, they were looking forward to meeting this legendary figure even more.
At this moment, Xu Dalong sent a telegram, saying that the 8th Division had been completely surrounded in SJZ City, and that enemy reinforcements in the direction of Baoding also had troops to block them.
Xu Dalong asked them to let go of their hands and launch an offensive in the vast area from the south of the Hutuo River to the SJZ, completely destroying the basic Japanese and puppet organizations and expanding the Jinan base area.
This was what the leaders of the Jinan Military Region wanted to do most. They were very excited and immediately organized troops to disperse and attack the Japanese and puppet grassroots organizations scattered throughout the country.
At the same time, Li Yunlong, Kong Jie, Ding Wei, and Cheng Xiazi also received a telegram from Xu Dalong, asking them to leave part of their troops to monitor the Japanese and puppet troops in the SJZ city, and to allocate part of their troops to launch an offensive in the suburbs of SJZ. Eliminate the small group of Japanese and puppet troops outside the city.
After three days of fighting, various units of the Eighth Route Army successively captured the counties surrounding the SJZ such as Zanhuang, Yuanshi, Zhengding, Huolu, and Jingxing, and wiped out the Japanese and puppet grassroots organizations in the villages and towns in each county, wiping out a total of more than 17,000 enemies.
In the future, these areas will be handed over to the Jinan Military Region to establish anti-Japanese base areas. This is a generous gift from the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi to the Eighth Route Army in Hebei.
In order to ensure the success of the SJZ campaign, Xu Dalong took all possible factors into consideration.
Nowadays, the ones that can pose a threat to the Eighth Route Army in the direction of SJZ are the Japanese troops from the direction of Baoding and Xingtai.
In the direction of Xingtai, Sun Desheng's cavalry brigade was responsible for blocking.
After blowing up the Hutuo River Bridge, Monk Wei and others continued northward to Baoding to intercept Japanese reinforcements from Baoding.
Monk Wei and others arrived at the Fifth Military Division of Baoding. The leaders of the Fifth Military Division of the Jizhong Military Region were very excited. They had long looked forward to fighting together with Xu Dalong's troops, but they did not expect that their wish would be realized so soon.
The main purpose of Wei Monk and others coming to Baoding this time is to attack the Japanese airport. Baoding is not far from the SJZ and is completely within the range of Japanese bombers. In order to ensure that the Eighth Route Army avoids the Japanese air threat, the Japanese airport in Baoding must be removed again.
After Monk Wei and others arrived in Baoding, they cooperated with the troops of the Fifth Division and attacked the Japanese airport that night.
For Wei Monk and others, it is not easy to seize the Japanese aircraft because they must fully control the Japanese airport. But it's not that difficult to shoot down a plane parked at the airport. They have 82mm recoilless rifles and rocket launchers. These things can shoot one at a time, not to mention how fun it is.
They used 240mm heavy mortars to fire more than a dozen mortar shells at the Japanese building complex and the airport runway. Heavy mortars, experts in building demolition, caused serious damage to the Japanese airport. Not only were ammunition depots, oil depots, barracks and other buildings destroyed, but the shells fell on the runway of the airport and made many large craters.
After this attack, the Japanese airport could no longer be used in a short period of time, which also solved the threat of the Japanese air force to the Eighth Route Army troops gathered in SJZ.
The Japanese troops in the direction of Peiping were dispatched. The troops of the Central Hebei Military Region received instructions from their superiors and harassed the Japanese troops along the way.
The troops of the Central Hebei Military Region mobilized a large number of militiamen and ordinary people, destroyed all the bridges that could be destroyed, and dug many large trenches on the roads. The Japanese reinforcements could only move at a snail's pace toward the SJZ.
After this series of preparations, the time is ripe to conquer SJZ.
In order to reduce casualties as much as possible, Xu Dalong ordered all ministries to launch an attack at 5 a.m.
The troops participating in the siege included 23 regiments from the four military divisions of Ding Wei, Kong Jie, Cheng Xiazi, and Li Yunlong of the Taiyue Military Region, 13 regiments from the Jinan Military Region, and 8 county brigades, with a total strength of more than 85,000 people. There are more than 460 artillery pieces of various kinds.
After the battle started, the Japanese army felt great pressure.
Zhu Guangming led the special operations team to take advantage of the chaos to raid the north gate of SJZ. After capturing the north gate, they began to block the Japanese reinforcements.
Ding Wei's troops were here, and soon they took the lead in attacking the city.
Cheng Xiazi saw Ding Wei's troops entering the city, so he followed them into the city.
Li Yunlong was not a freeloader. He did not wait for Ding Wei and Cheng Xiazi's troops to respond from inside, and directly ordered to concentrate the artillery and bombarded the east gate of SJZ. Not only did the city gate shatter, the city tower collapsed, and even the nearby The city wall was also blown open with a large gap more than ten feet wide.
Under the cover of the chariot troops, the officers and soldiers here rushed into the city first, and other troops followed closely.
Kong Jie's troops were already well-equipped, and this time they received additional advanced weapons and equipment from Xu Dalong, and they fought fiercely. After the troops led by Li Yunlong broke through the enemy's city defense, in less than ten minutes, they also entered the west gate of SJZ.
The troops from the Jinan Military Region were responsible for attacking the South Gate. They fought relatively hard. This does not mean that their troops are weak in combat effectiveness. It is just that the equipment of the officers and soldiers is too backward. The firepower of a regiment belonging to the Mawushan Military Division , can rival the four regiments of the Jinan Military Region.
Everyone wants to save face. Seeing that the Eighth Route Army from Shanxi had broken through the city defenses, the Eighth Route Army from Jinan also tried their best.
They organized commandos to launch a fierce attack. After sacrificing many commanders and combatants, some commandos rushed to the city gate tower and blew open the city gate with explosives. Troops from the Jinan Military Region then also entered the city.
Among the defenders in SJZ City, the most effective ones were those who escaped from the Eighth Division. There were less than 10,000 of them. They were beaten in great disarray by the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi.
Facing the powerful attack of the Eighth Route Army from Shanxi, they were unable to resist and were beaten back steadily.
As for the miscellaneous troops, puppet police, puppet troops and other troops in SJZ City, they were no match for the Eighth Route Army. Soon after, they were compressed into a small area centered on the train station in the west of the city.
Various units of the Eighth Route Army continued to compress the encirclement, and also allocated part of their troops to control other areas in the city.
The battle went very smoothly. By 12 noon, there were only more than 4,000 Japanese troops left, and the area they controlled was getting smaller and smaller.
As various units of the Eighth Route Army were preparing to launch a general offensive, Xu Dalong received a telegram from the commander of the Taiyue Military Region, saying that he had instructions from his superiors and hoped to force the remnants of the Japanese Eighth Division to surrender.
Being able to have an old Japanese division surrender to the Eighth Route Army would have a much greater impact than annihilating them. Xu Dalong ordered all departments of the Eighth Route Army to suspend the offensive and persuade the Japanese army to surrender.
The Eighth Division of the Japanese Army is worthy of being a veteran division, with a very tenacious will to fight. They knew that continuing to fight would be a dead end, but they did not waver at all.
When they heard the Eighth Route Army's persuasion to surrender, they completely ignored it and instead shot at the Eighth Route Army.
Xu Dalong knew that it was impossible to persuade the Japanese troops to surrender, so he issued an order to completely annihilate them.
All units of the Eighth Route Army immediately launched a general offensive. After an hour of fighting, they finally completely annihilated all the remaining soldiers. Senior officers such as the commander and chief of staff of the Japanese Eighth Division saw the entire army destroyed and finally chose to commit suicide by caesarean section.
(End of chapter)
