Major General Yoshishige Mizuhara, commander of the 8th Brigade of the Japanese Army's Independent Mixed Brigade, was a "wise general" in the Japanese army invading China, known for his good intrigue and trickery, and created many combat cases of sneak attacks on the rear of the Kuomintang army in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, causing the collapse of the first defense line.
On September 24, 1939, Mizuhara Yoshishige led the 31st Independent Infantry Brigade of the 8th Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Invasion of China, as well as more than 2,000 Japanese puppet troops stationed in Shijiazhuang, Zhengding, Xingtang, Lingshou and other places, with the intention of capturing Chenzhuang Town, the capital of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region, from Lingshou County.
By the end of 1939, the Japanese army's personnel losses were approaching 500,000, and it was no longer able to muster the strength to launch a large-scale attack on the frontal battlefield of the Kuomintang. At this time, in the Japanese-occupied areas, the losses inflicted on the Japanese army on the battlefield behind enemy lines led by the Communist Party of China were also blowing out, and the Japanese army's grand strategy of feeding the war with war could not be implemented, and the problem of logistics supply became more and more serious.
Therefore, the Japanese army was anxious to eliminate the main division of the Eighth Route Army in order to stabilize the rear, but the Eighth Route Army carried out the policy of breaking up the whole into parts, focusing on guerrilla warfare in the mountains, and not giving up the policy of mobile warfare under favorable conditions. The Japanese Army, which is known for its rigidity, simply cannot cope with such flexible tactics and has been suffering losses.
Lieutenant General Abe Norihide, a mountain warfare expert who is known for his ability to use "new tactics" and the flower of the famous Japanese general, was also sent to the western sky by the first shot of the earth eight roads on the Taihang Mountain. However, Mizuhara Yoshishige thought he was smarter than Abe, did not believe in the evil of the Eighth Route Army, and wanted to use his newly invented "bull knife" tactic to eliminate the main force of the Eighth Route Army.
The so-called "cattle knife" tactic is "killing chickens with a cow knife", concentrating on fierce attacks to take all the big and small.
On September 25, the Battle of Chenzhuang kicked off, Suwon led his troops to raid and occupy Ciyu Town in the middle of Lingshou, and the commander of the 120th Division and the 716th Regiment rushed to 90 kilometers in one day and one night to meet the battle.
Mr. He judged that the enemy's target would not be Ciyu, and he would rely on this to attack Xiangchenzhuang, where there were newspaper offices, factories, banks, and munitions warehouses in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei border region, as well as the second branch of the Kang Da border region and the administrative organs of the border region.
The 120th Division decided to set up an ambush between Ciyu and Chenzhuang to encircle and annihilate this Japanese army. After occupying Ciyu, the Japanese army launched an attack on the neighboring North Tanzhuang, and the Eighth Route Army adopted the tactics of luring the enemy into the ambush area. But Suwon was very cunning, and after capturing North Tanzhuang, he stopped the pursuit, and refused to take a step forward no matter how he lured him.
At 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th, the Japanese army began to violently shell the ambush area of the Eighth Route Army, and the Eighth Route Army felt that the Japanese army had taken the bait, and the infantry should rush after the artillery bombardment. This is Suwon playing tricks, he knows that the 120th Division will not let him easily rush to the vicinity of Chenzhuang, and will definitely set up an ambush along the road, his wishful thinking is that the Japanese army will withdraw after the Eighth Route is busy all night, and then the Japanese army will kill againBack to the carbine
However, Suwon's conspiracy was seen through by Mr. He, who judged that the Japanese army was setting up a maze array and setting up an ambush and not withdrawing. This judgment proved to be correct, and the Japanese army took advantage of the night to return to Beitanzhuang that night. This trickBack to the carbineIt was Suwon who took half a month of painstaking work to come up with it.
The next move to return to the rifle isDarkness ChencangIn the early morning of September 27, Suwon left 500 people and most of the heavy firearms to guard Ciyu Town, and led the elite main force of 1,500 people, led by local traitors, pretending to be the "Eighth Route Army", and secretly attacked Chenzhuang through Yanchuan and Changyu Trail under the cover of night. This move surprised everyone, Suwon did not carry heavy **, walked lightly at night, and did not enter the pocket formation of the 120th Division on the main road.
Seeing that the Japanese army was about to rush into Chenzhuang, the students of the second branch of the Anti-Japanese University who were training outside the town discovered this situation in time, and on the one hand, they blocked the enemy, and on the other hand, they quickly sent people to inform the organs, organizations, and people stationed in Chenzhuang, and immediately moved to the northern mountainous area.
At 10 o'clock in the morning, all the personnel in the town were withdrawn, the trainees also withdrew from their positions, and the Japanese army entered the empty city of Chenzhuang. Suwon was overjoyed and proudly reported to the headquarters of the Japanese army in North China that he had used a strange plot to capture Chenzhuang, the capital of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei border region. And proudly boasted to his subordinates that he was a commanding genius.
The 120th Division quickly adjusted its strategy, believing that the enemy had become a lone force in the depths, and decided to make plans according to its plans, concentrate superior forces to besiege it, and set up an ambush again to annihilate the enemy when the enemy retreated.
Mr. He mobilized all the mobile troops in the vicinity to surround Chenzhuang, and attacked and harassed the Japanese army day and night. Suwon's happiness lasted only one day, and it was found that the situation was not right, there were no resources to use in the empty city of Chenzhuang, and the Japanese soldiers were exhausted by the harassment tactics of the Eighth Road, and there were more and more Eight Roads outside the city, and they were about to fall into a heavy siege, and if they didn't run, they would be made dumplings.
On the morning of the 28th, the Japanese began to set fire to the city, and the 120th Division decided that Suwon would run. The most urgent task at the moment is to find out which way the Japanese army is going to runAccording to Suwon's usual cunning performance, Mr. He believed that the Japanese army would not take the path they had come, but would flee along the main road to the southeast.
The ambush on the main road was the 358th Brigade, and the brigade commander, Zhang Zongxun, was later the founding general. Suwon's cunning was once again on display and played a trickThe sound of the east and the west,He ordered the Japanese to break through to the main road, but halfway through the road he turned back and retreated again from the path from which he came. Brigade Commander Zhang reported the situation, and Mr. He saw through Suwon's tricks at a glance and strictly ordered him to continue to lurk and not be exposed.
Sure enough, Suwon didn't go far on the path and turned back, and under the cover of reeds and trees, he went on the road again, and he returned to the carbine, but this time it was the muzzle of the black hole that awaited him. At 10 o'clock, all the Japanese troops entered the area of Fenggouli and Pomen, and the 1st Independent Detachment, the 716th Regiment, and the 2nd Regiment suddenly launched an attack. The 4th Regiment blocked the Japanese retreat east of the breach, encircling them on all sides. At 23 o'clock, the Japanese army was all compressed in the two villages of Fenggou and Pomen.
In desperation, Suwon began to send a telegram in clear code, asking for help from the Japanese headquarters in North China. The Japanese army urgently dispatched more than 500 people from Lingshou County to join up with the Japanese troops left behind in Ciyu Town, and attacked Chenzhuang in an attempt to meet the besieged remnants of Suwon. However, the 120th Division of the 719th Regiment and the 4th Division of the 5th Regiment stubbornly resisted, the Japanese army used aircraft, artillery and tanks, and the battle lasted for two days.
At the same time, at 19 o'clock on the evening of the 29th, the 120th Division launched a general offensive on the whole front, and the Japanese front completely collapsed, scattered and fled, and was completely annihilated under the siege of the 120th Division and local guerrillas, militia, and anti-Japanese masses, and Suwon was also killed by a grenade in the melee.
After the war, a total of 1,280 Japanese soldiers under Major General Yoshige Mizuhara were killed, 16 were captured, and about 500 long and short guns, 19 light machine guns, 7 heavy machine guns, 9 grenadiers, 2 radios, 52 horses, more than 10 boxes of shells, and more than 40,000 rounds of ammunition were captured. Our army has about 500 people, and such a battle loss ratio was very rare before 1943.
The signboard of "wise general" of Mizumi Yoshishige was kicked and smashed by the Eighth Route Army, and the Japanese army's new tactic of "bull knife" completely failed, and after that, it no longer dared to fight alone in the liberated areas with troops below the brigade level. Chen Zhuang Annihilation WarIt was praised as a "model war of annihilation" by the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, and Chiang Kai-shek also called it "a model for the anti-Japanese war in North China".