At noon on March 21, 1940, cadres at and above the battalion level were holding a meeting in Nankuang Village, where the advance headquarters of the Western Hebei Guerrilla Corps was stationed. Halfway through the meeting, there was a sudden rumbling of cannons.
Cannonballs whizzed past and landed on the hill behind the village, stirring up clouds of dust. The commanders and fighters present were nervous, did the enemy discover us? Yin Xianbing, deputy commander of the Western Hebei Guerrilla Corps, who was speaking, stopped and turned to Fan Jinbiao, commander of the 1st Battalion and 2nd Company of the 3rd Detachment: "Go and see what happened." ”
Fan Jinbiao, a shrewd and capable man who had served as a guard for Zhou Gong, did not hesitate to ride his war horse, wave his whip, and disappear from people's sight after receiving the emergency order.
About a quarter of an hour later, he galloped back, and under the gaze of everyone, he turned over and dismounted, and reported to Yin Xianbing: "Commander, our scouts have just returned and found about 300 Japanese troops rushing towards our base area!" ”
Yin Xianbing immediately reported to the dispatcher and asked for instructions from Commander Wang and Political Commissar Huang. Soon, Wang Shusheng and Huang Zhen's reply arrived: "Immediately interrupt the meeting and move quickly!" ”
Their decision was correct, because the Japanese army was well-armed, with machine guns, mortars, etc.**; Not long after the formation of our guerrilla corps, it was backward, many fighters had not even fired a gun, and some of them still had guns in their hands.
In addition, on the night of March 19 and 20, the 3rd and 6th detachments of Jiyou cooperated with the independent battalion of Yuanshi County to carry out four strong attacks on the enemy at Maling, but because the fortifications of the Maling stronghold were very strong, the battle was fought until dawn, and the troops were forced to withdraw from the battle.
Therefore, if you engage in an exchange of fire with the Japanese at this time, it is obvious that the timing is not right and you may suffer. Fan Jinbiao quickly made the right decision and successfully protected our base area.
Yin Xianbing decided not to retreat, he wanted to teach the Japanese army a hard lesson. His reasons are strong: the task of his superiors is to smash the Japanese army and smash their plots; The terrain around the Blackwater River is very suitable for ambush warfare; Our numbers are twice as large as the Japanese army, and if we fight hard, we have a good chance of winning.
Yin Xianbing insisted on fighting, and his personality determined that he loved to fight evil battles and liked to gnaw hard bones. He was born in 1915 in Hanchuan County, Hubei Province. He joined the Red Army at the age of 15 and was able to fight well; Although unlucky, he remained unknown until the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi and he became a regimental cadre.
Although he was born in the same year as ***, he was already a division-level cadre at the end of the Long March. Yin Xianbing's statement was the first to go, and Wang Shusheng and Huang Zhen had no choice but to agree to his request.
Thus, a battle known as the turning point in Yoon Xianbing's military career began. Although Yin Xianbing did not attend military school for a day, his military talent was innate, and he quickly developed a battle plan.
The plan can be summed up in 16 words: "Attract from the front, outflank the flanks, copy the enemy's rear road, and block reinforcements." Specifically, one detachment was used to block the enemy head-on, one detachment went behind the enemy to cut off his retreat, two battalions stuck knives into the enemy's ribs from the left and right flanks, and the other battalion blocked possible enemy reinforcements.
After Yin Xianbing's brief mobilization of various troops, his words were very inflammatory: "After our team was formed, we have not had a chance to fight a big battle, and now that the small Japanese army has been sent to the door, do you have the confidence to kill them and let Division Commander Liu and Political Commissar Deng (the Western Hebei Guerrilla Corps belong to the 129th Division) look down on us?" ”
Yes! The warriors' answer was unequivocal.
Group photo of some commanders and fighters in the middle field: from left, Yin Xianbing, Wang Huiqiu, Yang Yong, Su Zhenhua, Wu Shi, Pan Yan, they are united and high-spirited. They quickly entered the predetermined position, set up a pocket formation, and waited for the enemy to throw themselves into the net.
About a quarter of an hour later, the Japanese puppet army appeared southeast of the Heishui River. The Yuan's separate battalion immediately caught up and fired at the enemy from a distance. The enemy, panicked by this sudden attack, pursued the independent battalion.
Before you know it, the Japanese army has entered the deep valley of the Heishui River. Seeing this, one might ask, is the Japanese army really so stupid that they don't know that the guerrillas may set up an ambush?
In particular, this Japanese army is a reserve unit of Japanese officers, most of whom are members of the non-commissioned officer training team, and they are undergoing intensive training and are about to be promoted to lieutenants. According to common sense, we also know that this is a military danger, and we should not rush into it.
But the Japanese army was well-armed and fearless, and judging from the sparse gunfire, the other side was nothing more than a ragtag army. Therefore, the Japanese army did not pay attention to it at all.
However, the doom of this group of Japanese soldiers was about to befall.
They pursued the independent battalion closely, and step by step they fell into the encirclement of the guerrillas without realizing it. Until the detachment condescendingly attacked, they did not wake up. It wasn't until the gunfire on the hillside that they realized that they had been ambushed by the guerrillas.
The Japanese immediately regrouped their formation, changed the rear team into the front team, and tried to break through. However, they found that the back road had been cut off. The Japanese did not panic, they decided to rush to the commanding heights and occupy favorable terrain.
In their view, although there are many guerrillas, as long as they counterattack with superior firepower, they can save the day. However, they did not expect that the puppet army among them was vulnerable, the formation was chaotic, they lost their armor, they were cut off by the guerrillas, and they lost their combat effectiveness.
The Japanese army could only fight alone. Due to the steep slopes of the mountain, their attempts to rush to the commanding heights were also blocked by the intense fire of the guerrillas. The guerrillas, who did not have guns in their hands, worked together, some carrying stones and others throwing stones.
After hours of fierce fighting, the Japanese army, which had been fighting vigorously, was exhausted. The surrounding villagers brought dry rations to the partisans, while the Japanese were hungry all day.
The commander had no choice but to order the Japanese army to abandon the breakout, conserve physical strength, and resist on the spot. Back to back, they began to deal with the attacks of the partisans. The Japanese understood that the guerrillas had a geographical advantage and that it would be difficult for them to take advantage of the attack, so they had to pin their hopes on close combat, that is, white-knuckle warfare.
The Japanese army's level of white-knuckle warfare was so high that even the tall Russian army in the Russo-Japanese War was difficult to contend with, and the American army was also very difficult to deal with in the Pacific theater.
Soon, the guerrillas, shouting, rushed down the hillsides on all sides like tigers and smashed into the enemy line. The Japanese army was bold and fearless, and it was easy to deal with several guerrillas at a time.
In a short time, many guerrillas fell in front of the Japanese ranks, bleeding all over the ground. However, as the guerrillas came one after another, more and more, the formation of the Japanese began to loosen, and the rifles in their hands began to tremble.
After all, the Japanese commander had been on the battlefield for a long time and had seen the world, and he screamed and ordered the soldiers to calm down, carry out rectification, and change their tactics, from the original formation to fight in groups of three, and groups of five to form battle groups to resist.
The Japanese soldiers, with blood-red eyes, methodically stabbed the partisans with bayonets. The guerrillas were not trained in assassination, but they shared the same hatred of the enemy, their eyes spurted with anger, and they stabbed the enemy with a disorderly pace.
In an instant, in the entire valley, the sword flashed, flesh and blood flew everywhere, and corpses were everywhere. During this period, Yin Xianbing took the lead and fought into the enemy group with a bayonet. During the fight, he was wounded in his left arm, and blood flowed, but he still opened his eyes angrily and competed with the Japanese army.
When the warriors saw it, they were even more courageous.
The Japanese commander panicked and hurriedly organized the remaining soldiers, prepared to fight and retreat, and fled to a large temple called Guilin Temple in the west of the ditch, trying to rely on the strong temple walls and machine guns to resist stubbornly and wait for reinforcements to arrive.
Guilin Temple was built in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and the walls of more than four meters high are made of blue bricks, which is very strong. The enemy placed machine guns at the entrance of the temple, blocked the open area in front, and aimed at the intersection from several angles.
The partisans launched several charges, but they were all repulsed by the enemy, and many fighters fell in the open field. Yin Xianbing saw it in his eyes and felt pain in his heart. Although he fought with his life, he cherished the lives of his warriors very much.
Therefore, he immediately gave the order to stop the offensive. The battle reached a stalemate. The time is already around 4 p.m., and if it continues to drag on and enemy reinforcements arrive, things will get troublesome.
Moreover, after several hours of fierce fighting, the partisans ran out of ammunition. Therefore, this siege and annihilation battle may fail. Yin Xianbing was anxious and began to think quickly about how to break the deadlock and destroy the enemy.
Yin Xianbing knew that the city wall was strong, and the guerrillas were not heavy, so it might be difficult to attack directly. But a long siege is not good for our army. So, he came up with a brilliant plan"Fire Attack"。
He proposed his idea to political commissar Yang Xiufeng, and received support. So, Yin Xianbing gave the order, and the soldiers and nearby villagers began to act. At 4 p.m., crop stalks such as corn, cotton, and sorghum were piled up on the temple's façade.
At this time, the northwest wind blew in the sky again, and the fire burned, and the wind helped the fire, and the fire borrowed the power of the wind, and swallowed the entire temple in an instant. However, after a long time, the Japanese troops were not seen rushing out.
Because the fire was still a few tens of meters away from the Japanese army, they only felt difficult to breathe, but there was no danger to their lives, so they did not dare to come out easily. At this moment, a soldier inadvertently said, "This is the same as a haunted cave room", which gave Yin Xianbing inspiration.
During the Anti-Japanese War, Yin Xianbing came up with a peculiar strategy to fight the Japanese army. He advised the villagers to add a variety to the fire"Seasoning", such as sulfur, artemisia and neem, caused the fire to release an unpleasant odor.
After the Japanese army smelled the strange smell, they thought it was a chemical ** and decided to break through desperately. In this way, the partisans could take advantage of the opportunity to attack them. In a battle, Yin Xianbing led the soldiers to successfully kill more than 200 Japanese soldiers, eliminate more than 100 puppet soldiers, capture many Japanese soldiers, and capture various ** equipment.
This battle dealt a blow to the arrogance of the Japanese army, and Yin Xianbing became famous in the first battle. Soon after, his talent was reused and he served as the commander of the new 129th Brigade of the 11th Division of the Eighth Route Army.
His deputy brigade commander was the famous Qin Jiwei. Although Yin Xianbing performed well in the war, his life was full of ups and downs. Qin Jiwei later became the founding lieutenant general and even served as the Minister of Defense, while Yin Xianbing was only awarded the rank of colonel.
Why is that? Although he did not participate in the Korean War, this was not the only reason.
During the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Qin Jiwei served as the commander of the 15th Army, and Yin Xianbing served as the commander of the 16th Army, both of whom led their troops to participate in this important war. It is worth mentioning that the 16th Army is the only composite army of our army, which shoulders the important task of anti-airborne and anti-landing.
Although the 16th Army did not have the opportunity to participate in large-scale battles and establish miraculous feats like the 15th Army, its first political commissar, Wang Huiqiu, was awarded the title of founding lieutenant general.
At the same time, the political commissar of the 16th Army during the period of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea was also a founding major general. It is worth mentioning that ** Kai and the other five generals originally had the qualifications to be awarded lieutenant generals, but they took the initiative to apply for the promotion of major generals, and this noble spirit is worthy of our admiration.
Although the performance of the 16th Army in the war may not be as dazzling as that of the 15th Army, its contribution to the country and the people is equally worthy of our respect and gratitude.
Despite his outstanding performance in military exploits and seniority, in 1955, he was awarded the rank of colonel, which was considered unusual at the time.
It is said that he himself was dissatisfied with this rank and was reluctant to wear a military uniform even on non-essential occasions. So, why is Yin Xianbing's military rank so low? This is because he made a mistake during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
At that time, the 16th Army was fully prepared in the Soviet style, and before entering the DPRK, the cadres of the army were trained by Soviet instructors and studied the Soviet-style training courses. In the process, Yin Xianbing learned to dance with the instructors of the Soviet Army.
During his time in North Korea, Yin Xianbing not only found a dance partner, but also held a dance party at the military headquarters of the 16th Army. In order to facilitate dancing, he even transferred a female secretary as a dance partner.
However, after the matter was revealed, Yoon was forced to step down as military commander and instead serve at the School of Political Science. However, on New Year's Day 1983, Political Commissar Deng made him deputy commander of the Beijing Military Region, which made him very happy and promised to report for duty in a month.
Regrettably, Yin Xianbing failed to fulfill the will of his old leader Yang Yong and his comrade-in-arms in the Second Field Army, General Xu Liqing. Unfortunately, the news of his death on 6 January, along with Generals Yang Yong and Xu Liqing, hit him hard.
Sadly, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that night and died in Beijing in early February at the age of 68. General Wang Jinshan, who is equally well-known to him, has been dead for five years.