In 1958, the anti-Japanese film "Five Heroes of Langya Mountain" shot by Bayi Film Studio was released, which immediately aroused enthusiastic responses. The film reflects the tragic story of the five soldiers of the 7th Company and 6th Squad of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Division of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region who jumped off the cliff in the autumn of 1941 to cover the transfer of party and government organs, troops and the masses, and fought against the Japanese invaders until they ran out of ammunition and food.
So, what does the real history behind the movie really look like?
In July 1941, Okamura replaced Tada as commander of the North China Front. At this time, what was in front of Okamura Ningji was a headache: on the one hand, the "Battle of 100 Regiments" launched by the Eighth Route Army in 1940 annihilated more than 20,000 Japanese puppet troops and dealt a severe blow to the arrogance of the Japanese invaders; On the other hand, due to the inability to maintain the huge war expenses, the Japanese army had to gradually reduce its personnel. And Japan's imminent launch of the Pacific War made Okamura Ningji anxious to complete the so-called "law and order rectification" in North China. He claimed that "in 1941 it was an unprecedented event to thoroughly carry out a full-fledged war against the Communist Party." ”
In August 1941, Okamura Ninji gathered more than 70,000 troops from 5 divisions and 6 brigades to launch an unprecedented "sweep" against the Beiyue District of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Base Area.
On September 24, more than 3,500 Japanese puppet troops, under the leadership of the traitor Zhao Yukun, approached Langya Mountain, trying to find the main force of the Eighth Route Army for a decisive battle.
Langya Mountain is located in the southwest of Yi County, Hebei Province, 36 kilometers away from the county seat, with an altitude of 1,105 meters. The mountain is 50 kilometers from east to west, more than 30 kilometers from north to south, the mountain peak is upright, resembles a wolf's tooth, so it is called "wolf's tooth mountain".
At this time, the Langya Mountain area, which was only 100 miles in radius, was full of four county organs and people fleeing from Yixian, Xushui, Dingxing, and Mancheng, as many as 40,000 people. The main force of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Division of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region on the mountain was transferred to support other places, and it was impossible to hide so many people on the mountain.
Faced with the situation that the enemy was strong and outnumbered, Yang Chengwu, who commanded the operation at Langya Mountain, resolutely decided to break through the siege, and he designated Qiu Wei, the commander of the 1st Regiment, to be responsible for organizing the evacuation, and instructed Qiu Wei to leave a company on the mountain and strive to fight for another half of the day tomorrow, so as to give the enemy the illusion that the main force of the division was still on the mountain. Qiu Wei gave this task to the 7th Company.
After several fierce battles, most of the troops were withdrawn, and only the 7th Company remained in the mountains to continue fighting. During the battle, the company commander Liu Fushan was seriously wounded, and most of the soldiers of the 2nd squad and the machine gun squad he led also died.
During the crisis, the instructor found Ma Baoyu, the leader of the 6th squad, and said: "You take cover on the mountain, strive to let the local cadres and the masses go farther, and let the rest of the company break out safely, and then depending on the situation, you can retreat wherever you can." ”
So in the movie, although it was the commander of the 7th company who received the left-behind task, it was the instructor who conveyed the task to the 6th squad. This is not a mistake or negligence on the part of the screenwriter, but a true reflection of the situation at the time.
At that time, there were only 5 people left in Class 6, namely squad leader Ma Baoyu, deputy squad leader Ge Zhenlin, soldiers Hu Delin, Hu Fucai and Song Xueyi. In the film, they made a serious statement, although unpretentious, but the most loyal commitment to the responsibility of life and death.
At that time, the 1st regiment had two light machine guns, one was sent for repair before the battle, and only one was left to participate in the battle, with only a hundred rounds of ammunition. At the time of the evacuation of the 7 Company, the instructor left the light machine gun to the 6 squad.
So, how did the main forces of the 7th Company retreat in the end? At that time, there was a secret passage in the northeast of Qipantuo, which was secretly transformed by the first division according to the terrain of Langya Mountain, which even the native traitor Zhao Yukun did not know.
After accepting the task, the 6th squad rushed to a dangerous place called "Little Grimace" in Dongshan Pass and prepared to block the enemy. At dawn, the enemy began to attack, and Ma Baoyu and others responded calmly. With the fire of light machine guns, the enemy mistakenly thought that he had encountered the main force of our army, and constantly organized offensives in an attempt to encircle and annihilate the Eighth Route Army on Langya Mountain. When the sun went down, the transfer of the large forces should have been completed according to the plan, and Ma Baoyu ordered the 6th squad to retreat.
As soon as they had gone far, a fork in the road appeared: to the north was the direction in which the main forces and the masses had moved, and they could quickly return to their ranks, but the enemy was following behind and would soon catch up, which would undoubtedly have wasted all the work done and confined the main forces and the masses to a dangerous situation. Heading south, the road to the checkerboard will be a dead end.
In order to interpret this difficult choice, layers of foreshadowing were made in advance in the movie - first Hui Fen and Xiulian were killed by the enemy in order to cover the wounded 6th squad leader Ma Baoyu, and then Xiao Lingzi's grandfather, Uncle Zhang, led the enemy to a dead end in order to protect the 1st Regiment headquarters from attacking, but he died heroically.
In order to buy more time for the masses and the main force to break through, at this time, facing the choice of life and death, the squad leader Ma Baoyu said well in the film: "Comrades, the enemy is behind us. To take this path would be to expose the direction of the transfer of the masses and the main forces to the enemy. We must draw the enemy to the chessboard and hold out until dark before finding a way to break through! ”
In this way, the five warriors made up their minds to sacrifice themselves rather than ensure the safety of the main force and the masses, and they embarked on the desperate road of the chessboard without hesitation.
Everyone knows the later story, after the five warriors jumped off the cliff, Ma Baoyu, Hu Delin, and Hu Fucai were martyred, and Ge Zhenlin and Song Xueyi were blocked by branches in the middle of the mountain, and returned to the army after being injured and escaping.
In April 1942, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region established the "Three Martyrs Tower" on the chessboard, which was later destroyed by Japanese artillery fire. In March 1959, the "Three Martyrs Tower" was rebuilt and renamed the "Langya Mountain Five Warriors Memorial Tower", with an inscription written by the marshal: "The spirit of the revolutionary soldier who regards death as if he was returning to this is the glorious tradition of Yan Zhao heroes."
Although this small-scale cover operation was only a small-scale battle in the entire history of the War of Resistance Against Japan, it became one of the most classic heroic epics in this great national war. Their stories were included in textbooks and brought to the screen. On September 14, 2009, the "Five Heroes of Langya Mountain" was selected as one of the "100 Heroic Models Who Made Outstanding Contributions to the Founding of the People's Republic of China" and will be forever remembered.