On March 16, 1938, China and Japan launched a life-and-death struggle in the Taierzhuang area on the outskirts of Xuzhou. In the fierce battle, which lasted one month, about 290,000 people of the squadron participated in the battle, and besieged 50,000 Japanese troops with nearly six times the strength. During the campaign, Chiang Kai-shek rushed to Xuzhou three times to inspect the battle situation, and when the battle was at its fiercest, Chiang Kai-shek even went to the front line of Taierzhuang South Station to watch the battle and boost the morale of the officers and soldiers on the front. The squadron forgot about life and death, fought bloodily, and finally won the victory. This battle dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Japanese army and strengthened the confidence of the whole people in the victory of the War of Resistance. Let's review this period of history, it is not easy to create, bother the officials to pay attention to the comments, give roses, leave fragrance in your hands, and enjoy high-quality articles without getting lost.
1. Background of the war.
Taierzhuang is located at the junction of Sulu and Suzhou provinces, on the north bank of the Xuzhou Grand Canal, on the railway branch line from Lincheng to Zhaodun. Taierzhuang is connected to Jinpu Road in the north and Longhai Line in the south, which is the southeast gate of Shandong and the gateway of Xuzhou. The world-famous Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal traverses the whole territory, since ancient times it is the hub of north-south transportation, and it is a place where soldiers must fight. On July 7, 1937, Japanese militarism deliberately created the Lugou Bridge Incident, and the all-out War of Resistance broke out. Within half a year, the Japanese army successively captured large areas such as Pingjin, Songhu, and Nanjing, and was sure to win every battle. In order to speed up the forced surrender of the people, the Japanese army base camp decided to continue the offensive, with Nanjing and Jinan as bases, and gathered heavy troops to attack Xuzhou from the north and south ends along the Jinpu Railway, and the Battle of Xuzhou began at this point. According to the original battle plan, the area north of Xuzhou was defended by Han Fuyu, commander-in-chief of the 3rd Group Army. But after that, Han Fuyu was an old warlord of the civil war, and at the moment of the national war, not only did he not resist with all his might, but instead started a small abacus to preserve his strength. In December 1937, in the face of the Japanese offensive, Han Fuyu fled without a fight and abandoned the Yellow River defense line, which was originally a natural danger, resulting in the Japanese army easily capturing Jinan, and then occupying most of Shandong. At this time, the gateway to the northern section of Jinpu Road was opened, and the Japanese army was able to drive straight along the line, and the Battle of Xuzhou became extremely passive at the beginning. Li Zongren, commander of the Fifth Theater of Operations, repeatedly ordered Han Fuyu to recapture the lost territory and defend Tai'an to intercept the enemy heading south. Han not only ignored the order, but even called back angrily, "If Nanjing is not guarded, why should Tai'an be guarded." Li Zongren forwarded the telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, and the old Chiang Kai-shek was furious after reading it, and Han Fuyu had been privately engaging in anti-Chiang activities, and during the Xi'an Incident, he also publicly telegraphed to express his support for Zhang and Yang's soldiers, so Chiang Kai-shek moved to set an example by killing a hundred people. In January 1938, Chiang Kai-shek held a confidential military meeting of senior generals in Henan Province, at which Han Fuyu was arrested, and then secretly shot by the military commander, becoming the first senior general to be executed in the Anti-Japanese War.
In early March, the commander of the Japanese Second Army, Nishio Toshizo, ordered the 10th Division under his command to eliminate the squadron north of the Grand Canal, and the 5th Division captured Linyi and cooperated with the 10th Division. If the Japanese army wanted to occupy the area north of the canal, then Tengxian and Linyi would bear the brunt, followed by the first-line positions from Hanzhuang to Taierzhuang. Seishiro Sakagaki's 5th Division and Ryosuke Isoya's 10th Division both belonged to the First Division, which was the elite division of the Japanese army and was extremely strong in combat. The two enemy chiefs, Sakagaki and Isoya, are also veterans of the battlefield, sinister and cunning, and difficult to deal with. The two armies and their affiliated troops, totaling about 50,000 troops, marched towards Taierzhuang in two ways, the Banyuan Division advanced west along the Jiaoji Road and approached Linyi, and the Isogu Division moved south along the Jinpu Road and took Taierzhuang directly. In the face of the aggressive offensive of the Japanese army, the Fifth Theater is also deploying troops to actively respond. Li Zongren ordered Tang Enbo's 20th Army Corps to concentrate its main forces in Yixian and Zaozhuang to defeat the enemy in front of him, and then move towards Lincheng and Shagou, striving to annihilate the enemy on the east bank of Weishan Lake. The first part of Sun Lianzhong's Second Group Army carried out defensive operations on the south bank of the canal, looking for fighters to cross the river and advance north. Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army attacked Tengxian County and echoed the Third Army, intercepting the enemy who was moving south or retreating north. Sun Tongxuan's Third Army, in coordination with the 59th Army and other attacking forces, attacked the flank of the Japanese army, and blocked the enemy's reinforcements or intercepted the enemy's return route. Pang Bingxun's Third Army swept the Japanese army in Tangtou, pursued the Juxian side with one section, and assembled the main force in Tangtou to block the Japanese reinforcements. Chiang Kai-shek's thunderous means of dealing with Han Fuqu did give a great shock to the troops of the various factions of the Kuomintang, whether it was Chiang's descendant ** army or other local miscellaneous armies, they did not dare to slack off at this time, and all of them were waiting for the day with high fighting spirit. The area around Taierzhuang is full of war clouds, China and Japan have gathered more than 300,000 troops, and a bloody battle that will shake the people is about to break out.
Second, the course of the war.
From March 1938, the 5th Division of the Japanese Army moved south from Weixian County, Shandong, and trapped Yishui, Juxian, Rizhao and other places, and the troops pointed directly at Linyi. Pang Bingxun's troops established a defensive position in Linyi, resisted step by step, and lured the Japanese army deeper. Pang Bingxun's Third Army was born in the Northwest Army, and its equipment was far inferior to that of the ** Army, although it blocked the frontal attack of the Japanese 5th Division, but it was extremely heavy and was already struggling to support. Li Zongren had no other mobile troops at this time, so he had to dispatch Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army to rush to Linyi. Zhang Zizhong and Pang Bingxun are both from the Northwest Army boss Feng Yuxiang's disciples, the two are old acquaintances, but they have no friendship, but have a grudge. During the Great War of Chiang Feng in the Central Plains, Pang Bingxun was bribed with a lot of money and secretly surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek. During the battle, Zhang was defeated, and Zhang Zizhong himself was seriously injured, and the two have since become enemies of each other. At this time, Zhang Bu was still in the Huai River valley, but after receiving the order, he resolutely put aside his personal grudges and led his troops to quickly reinforce Linyi. Although the Japanese army grasped the movements of Zhang's department, they miscalculated that the distance between the two armies was far away, and Zhang and Pang had a grudge, even if the 59th Army was willing to support, it would take at least 3 days, and Pang Bingxun, who was exhausted, could not last for three days at all. But the Japanese did not expect General Zhang Zizhong to show a very high style in the face of the national war, he led the 59th Army to sleep tirelessly, day and night, and rushed to Linyi in one day and one night. The 59th Army, when the Japanese army was completely defenseless, launched a fierce attack on the Japanese 5th Division from the flank, and the Japanese army, which was caught off guard, suddenly fell into passivity. The morale of the Pang soldiers was also greatly boosted when they received reinforcements, and many officers and soldiers rushed into the enemy position regardless of life and death, and the Japanese invaders were attacked from inside and outside, and were dealt a very heavy blow, so they had to withdraw to Juxian County to wait for reinforcements, and there were countless corpses on the battlefield. The Battle of Linyi severely damaged the Japanese army in the northern section of Jinpu Road, and created a fighter for the subsequent Battle of Taierzhuang, in which Li Zongren surrounded and annihilated the Lone Army's deep Isogu Division. On March 17, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to commend Pang Bingxun and Zhang Zizhong, and ordered his troops to continue to fight together, surround the enemy army and seek opportunities to annihilate it. On March 19, Chiang Kai-shek sent another telegram to Sun Tongxuan and Cao Fulin, ordering them to quickly attack the enemy's flank and back, so as to plan for a frontal battle, in order to completely annihilate the Japanese Fifth Division as soon as possible.
When the Itagaki Division was in trouble, the Japanese Army's West Road Isogu Division was advancing vigorously, attacking the city all the way, and advancing to the south, and the troops soon approached Tengxian. At this time, it was Sun Zhen's division of the Sichuan Army that was deployed in Tengxian County, and the troops were mainly old 79 rifles, broadswords, and grenades, with only a small number of machine guns and mortars as heavy firepower. The Sichuan army had fought with the Japanese army on the Jindong battlefield for more than 40 days, suffered heavy losses, and the troops were once again pulled to the front line without resting, and the contrast in strength between the two sides was extremely large. On March 14, the Isoya Division launched a fierce attack on Teng County, and the Japanese army, supported by aircraft, artillery and tanks, launched one charge after another. Wang Mingzhang, commander of the 112th Division, led the defenders to resist step by step, inflicting a large number of casualties on the Japanese army with a rudimentary **. The Japanese army rushed into the city, was blown out by the Sichuan grenade, rushed into the city again and was forced out of the city by the Sichuan army with a white-knuckle battle, and the two fought repeatedly near the city wall, both of which were heavy. On March 17, the Japanese army once again bombarded Tengxian County with artillery fire, and then used more than a dozen tanks to break through the city wall and break into the city. The defenders desperately used cluster grenades to blow up several tanks, and took advantage of the panic of the Japanese army to fight back desperately, and once again drove the Japanese out of the city with broadswords, but at this time the Sichuan army had already killed and wounded more than half of them. In the afternoon, the Japanese army used aircraft and heavy artillery to concentrate on attacking the south wall, and under the cover of tanks, the Japanese finally broke through the defense line, and the defenders of the south wall were killed and wounded, and the remaining Sichuan troops retreated into the city and began street fighting. Wang Mingzhang has always insisted on fighting, and finally died heroically, the defenders insisted on fighting until the 18th, and the ammunition was exhausted, except for a small part of the desperate breakthrough, the rest were all killed. Although Tengxian County was lost, the Japanese army also suffered great losses, with more than 2,000 casualties, and was blocked by a very poorly equipped local army for 3 and a half days.
On March 20, about 40,000 people of the Isogu Division moved in the direction of Taierzhuang, trying to quickly break through the defenders in front of them and capture Xuzhou in one fell swoop. Li Zongren's response was to order Sun Lianzhong, commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army, who was good at fixation, to defend the front line of the Taierzhuang Canal, to attract the Isogu Division, which was lightly advancing to the southern area of Yixian, and then use Tang Enbo's 20th Army Corps, which was hidden in the mountainous area of Yixian, to attack the enemy's flank and annihilate it. On March 23, the Japanese advance and the defending cavalry engaged in battle, in order to lure the enemy deeper, the squadron retreated while fighting, and the Japanese army made rapid progress in the early stage of the war. Taking advantage of the Japanese army's carelessness, Gao Hongli, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 183rd Regiment of the 91st Brigade, led an assault team to penetrate the gap and raid an artillery position of the Japanese army. On March 24, the Japanese army began a large-scale attack on Taierzhuang, and the defenders resisted stubbornly, and engaged the Japanese army in a white-knuckle battle outside the north gate of the city, repelling many Japanese attacks. On the day of the Japanese attack, Chiang Kai-shek went to Xuzhou to supervise the battle, so that all troops were sincerely united and bravely resisted the enemy. In the following days, the Japanese army repeatedly launched attacks on Taierzhuang, and repeatedly attacked the village, and the defenders resisted tenaciously, launched fierce battles with the Japanese army, and repelled the Japanese army several times. At the height of the war, Chiang Kai-shek went to the front line to supervise the battle despite the dissuasion of Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and others, and met with Chi Fengcheng, commander of the 31st Division, at Taierzhuang South Station. Seeing that the commander of the First Army was on the battlefield regardless of life and death, this general from the Northwest Army was grateful, and immediately told Chiang that the whole division would fight to the end and live and die with the position in order to repay the country.
On March 27, the Japanese army, which had received reinforcements, launched a more fierce attack on Taierzhuang. The north wall of Taierzhuang was blown down, the officers and soldiers guarding the small north gate were sacrificed, the Japanese army broke into the city, and the tragic street battle began. The defenders in the city fought fiercely with the Japanese invaders street by street, house by house, soldiers on both sides charged and counter-charged regardless of life and death, with the support of strong firepower, the Japanese army once occupied two-thirds of the whole village, but the Chinese defenders who held on to the area of Nanguan did not retreat to the death, and won time for the outer line troops to complete the counter-encirclement of the Japanese army. On the 28th, the Japanese army invaded the northwest corner of Taierzhuang, in a vain attempt to cut off the connection between the headquarters of the 31st Division and the defenders of Zhuangnei. While directing artillery fire to suppress the enemy, Chi Fengcheng organized death squad members to fight the enemy hand-to-hand with grenades and broadswords, and repelled Japanese attacks many times. At this time, Guan Linzheng's 52nd Army and Wang Zhonglian's 85th Army were assembled on the outer line and launched an attack on the flank of the Japanese army in Zaozhuang and Yixian. On the 31st, the squadron completely surrounded the Seya detachment of the Isoya Division that had entered the Taierzhuang area, and the Japanese army began to turn to the defensive, and at the same time urgently transferred the Sakamoto detachment of the Itagaki Division to rush to the aid of Taierzhuang. However, the Sakamoto detachment was blocked by the squadron on the way to the march, and the fierce battle was heavy for several days, unable to advance, and the rescue plan was completely defeated. Seeing that there was no hope of rescue, the Isogu Division began to fight to the death, and although the squadron besieged with 5 times the strength, it was difficult to completely annihilate the enemy, and the battle was in a state of stalemate. At the beginning of April, the squadron launched a general offensive, and the three armies of Tang Enbo's division launched a fierce offensive against the enemy, and the Chinese Air Force also dispatched planes to bomb the Japanese positions in Taierzhuang. The Hase Valley detachment was powerless to stop it and began to flee towards Yixian. On April 7, Li Zongren personally went to Taierzhuang to command**, and Sun Lianzhong's department and Tang Enbo's left and right flanks attacked in a big way. As soon as the order was given, the sound of killing shook the sky, and the guns and bullets in Taierzhuang City rained down, and the blood flowed like a river, and the Japanese army soon collapsed. Knowing that he was no longer able to return to the sky, Isoya ordered the troops to retreat on all fronts. At this time, the Japanese army had become the end of the strong crossbow, and the whole army was lost and fled in embarrassment. Li Zongren ordered the whole army to pursue, the Japanese corpses were all over the field, and Isoya himself led the remnants to desperately break through the siege, and retreated to the direction of Yicheng and Zaozhuang on the 7th, so that the Battle of Taierzhuang ended victoriously.
III. Post-War Impact.
The Battle of Taierzhuang lasted more than a month, and the squadron fought bravely in the battle, killing and wounding 11,984 Japanese soldiers, capturing 719 people, and the enemy Seya Detachment and Sakamoto Detachment suffered heavy losses. In addition, 31 artillery pieces, 11 armored vehicles, 8 combat vehicles, more than 1,000 light and heavy machine guns, and more than 10,000 rifles were also captured, which was a major victory after the start of the Anti-Japanese War. However, due to the huge gap in the strength of the Chinese and Japanese armies, the Japanese army far surpassed our army in terms of individual soldier quality and fire support, and the squadron participating in the war also suffered huge sacrifices, with a total of about 50,000 people in each department, and the battle losses were about four to one compared with the Japanese army. The Chinese people relied on the fearless spirit of killing themselves and sacrificing their lives for righteousness, and fought to the death with the Japanese invaders with their flesh and blood, as the so-called "one inch of mountains and rivers and one inch of blood", the sacrifice of countless compatriots finally won the victory of the War of Resistance. After the war, the people awarded Tang Enbo, Sun Lianzhong, Chi Fengcheng and other generals the Order of the Blue Sky and the White Sun. General Wang Mingzhang, who was martyred in the battle, was posthumously awarded the rank of army general, and Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly called it "the glory of the nation, the martyrdom of Juyang, and the heavy death of Mount Tai" on many occasions. We are determined to annihilate the enemy, die for the country, and bring glory to the Chinese nation."
The victory in the Battle of Taierzhuang was the first defeat in the offensive since the Japanese army launched the war of aggression against China, and completely shattered the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese army. Although in the end, the Japanese army was not completely annihilated.
The 5th and 10th Divisions, but they also dealt them unprecedented heavy blows. Even the Japanese army's "Detailed Report on the Battle of the 10th Infantry Wing" also commented on this battle: "If you don't know others, you will be content with self-absorption, and you should take this as a caution for the sake of the best plan." Before the Battle of Taierzhuang, China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was defeated in every large-scale battle, the elite troops suffered heavy losses, and most of the country fell to the enemy. However, Li Zongren of Taierzhuang defeated the powerful Japanese army with a weak division, which greatly enhanced the confidence of the whole people in winning the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, boosted the morale of the squadron, and showed that as long as the Chinese people are united, sincerely united, and desperately resist, it is entirely possible to defeat a strong enemy. The victory in this battle also changed the pessimistic international view of China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and shattered the rumors of the death of the country. The United Kingdom, the United States and other mainstream countries have reported and praised this victory, and China has also demonstrated its strength through the victory in Taierzhuang, which has improved the country's international status and created favorable conditions for foreign aid in the future. If you want to know more about the Battle of Taierzhuang, I recommend you ** "Blood Battle of Taierzhuang".