In the spring of 1938, a brigade of the 10th Division, an elite unit of the Japanese invaders, attempted to move south along the Jinpu Line to capture Xuzhou. At that time, Li Zongren, the commander of the Fifth Theater of the Kuomintang, was responsible for directing the war in the Xuzhou area. When Chiang Kai-shek was in an emergency in Xuzhou, he also believed that it was strategically necessary to strengthen the Fifth Theater, so he hastily transferred the Tang Enbo Corps and Sun Lianzhong's Second Army, which had not yet completed supplementary training in Henan, to reinforce the First Theater in the starry night.

The Commander's Department of the Fifth Theater judged that the commander of the Isogu Division, who had defeated Yu Wei and was arrogant, would not wait for the reinforcements of the enemy army in Bengbu to go north, and would go straight to Taierzhuang, in order to capture Xuzhou in one fell swoop and seize the great achievement of opening up the Jinpu Road first. In addition to Sun Lianzhong's troops facing the enemy head-on, he also sent Tang Enbo to sneak south to break the enemy's back, and cooperated with Sun to encircle the Japanese army and annihilate it.

On 19 March, Sun Lianzhong received the order to immediately direct the troops to move eastward and designate staff officers to go to the area north of Xuzhou to select the forward command post. At the same time, the 31st Division of Chifeng City was ordered to enter Taierzhuang and its vicinity, build fortifications, and cover the concentration of other units one after another.

The general situation of the deployment of the Second Army after the completion of the Second Army was as follows: The Taierzhuang Walled City was defended by the 184th Regiment of the 31st Division. Part of the other units of the division defended Fankou Village, seven miles west of Taierzhuang, and Guanzhuang, about three miles east, preparing to coordinate the operation with the core of Taierzhuang. The other part is deployed along the south bank of the Grand Canal.

Chi Feng Cheng commanded outside the walled city. The 27th Division, 30th Division, and 44th Brigade of the Second Army were successively assembled in the area northeast of Jiawang and south of Taierzhuang. The headquarters is located five kilometers away from the Taierzhuang Walled City.

On March 22, the Chifeng City Division was stationed. The next day, the enemy from Yicheng to the south invaded Taierzhuang, and the Chinese army returned fire, forming a state of confrontation. Liu Lanzhai led the cavalry to attack the Japanese army from the north gate of Taierzhuang, and the brigade commander Qi Zibin led the 183rd Regiment to follow up, and encountered the Japanese cavalry in Kangzhuang.

The 183rd Regiment fought fiercely with the Japanese army at Zhangshan until late. On the afternoon of the same day, a number of enemy planes flew at low altitude in the vicinity of Taierzhuang to carry out reconnaissance and strafing, and a bloody battle was about to begin.

On the morning of the 24th, about 5,000 or 6,000 men of the three wings of the Japanese army, with the cooperation of aircraft, tanks, and heavy artillery, pounced on Taierzhuang. When the battle was about to be fought, Sun Lianzhong personally went to the front line to order his subordinates: "In the face of a powerful enemy, we can only rely on the terrain to block it, and then use the small assault at night to drag it down." Without an order, there will be no retreat. ”

During the battle, the Japanese destroyed the northern wall of Taierzhuang and rushed in from the breach. Chi Feng Cheng personally led the death squad to fight the enemy. When Li Zongren heard the report, he ordered a reward of 100,000 silver dollars. But the daredevils unanimously said: "As long as you resist the war, you don't want silver dollars!" ”

That night, Chi Feng Cheng took the lead and led the team to attack the enemy at night, and with the cooperation of the 186th Regiment, he fought a bloody way to destroy all the Japanese troops who rushed into the breakthrough from the breakthrough. For several days in a row, the enemy took advantage of its superior weaponry and used daylight to fight. The Chinese army resolutely resisted, and at the same time attacked in the dark and at night, destroying the enemy, and the two sides launched a fierce tug-of-war.

In the early morning of the 29th, Sun Lianzhong convened a meeting of army, division, brigade commanders and artillery regiment commanders to reiterate his ambition to stick to Taierzhuang. He also pointed out: The enemy in front seems to be waiting for reinforcements, and I can gather and annihilate him with a pincer offensive; The 31st Division still had to fight on its own in order to organize the battle on the outside line.

The battle continued until April 3, when the Japanese captured the southeast gate of Taierzhuang, invaded 100 meters inside the walled city, and threw tear gas at the same time. Two-thirds of Taierzhuang was occupied by the Japanese army, and the Chinese defenders suffered seven or eight out of ten casualties. Sun Lianzhong's troops were stationed in a corner of Nanguan and did not retreat.

At this time, Li Zongren called and strictly ordered the Second Army to hold until dawn the next day, waiting for Tang Enbo's corps to come for reinforcements. Sun Lianzhong said with great righteousness: "With this determination, it is not a pity that our Second Army has sacrificed everything, and Lian Zhong has also repaid the country with a death." So they gathered all the available soldiers, including cooks and stretchers, to form a death squad and attack the enemy at midnight.

At this time, Chi Fengcheng called to ask if he could retreat to the south bank of the canal, and Sun Lianzhong ordered: "When the soldiers are finished, you fill in it yourself." You've filled it in, I'll fill it in. Whoever dares to cross the river will be killed! "Ikebe was determined to die, and resisted house by house until the evening of the 4th, repulsing the enemy reinforcements.

On April 6, after completing the encirclement mission, the Chinese army attacked on all fronts. The Japanese divisions of Isoya and Itagaki were in great confusion, and the wolves rushed to the north, gradually withdrawing north. Sun Lianzhong's troops and friendly forces flanked inside and outside, sweeping away the remnants of the enemy.

The Battle of Taierzhuang ended with the complete victory of the Chinese army, and it is known as the great victory of Taierzhuang. In this battle, although Sun's weapons were inferior, the spirit of the officers and men who had the courage to fight and was not afraid of sacrifice made up for it. In melee combat, the broadsword is very powerful. Sun's officers and soldiers also used twelve bundles of bundled grenades to blow up enemy tanks.

After the Battle of Taierzhuang, Sun Lianzhong's troops suffered heavy casualties, but they still participated in the military operation on the east bank of the canal to cover the retreat of the large forces of the Kuomintang army in Xuzhou. Later, the Japanese army captured Xuzhou along the Jinpu line, and the back road of Sun Lianzhong's department was cut off, and Chiang Kai-shek sent a special plane from Hankou to pick him up, and his team also crossed the Jinpu railway from the south of Xuzhou to Xinyang to assemble and organize.

After occupying the area of the front section of the Xuzhou and Jinpu lines and the eastern section of the Longhai line, the Japanese army attacked Wuhan on a large scale. The Chinese army was deployed in the high mountains on the border between Hubei and Anhui and Henan, and was ordered to carry out operations to defend Greater Wuhan. In the summer of 1938, Sun Lianzhong's troops went to the area of Xiaojieling and Lianglukou between Macheng, Hubei Province and Huangchuan, Henan Province to participate in the battle, and it was still under the command of Li Zongren, commander of the Fifth Theater of Operations.

Relying on the favorable terrain here, Sun Bu successively stopped the Japanese attack and supported it for a long time. In September ~ October, the front to defend Wuhan gradually collapsed, Wuhan finally fell, and Sun Lianzhong's troops retreated to the Nanyang area to assemble.

On the way to retreat, Feng Anbang, the commander of the 42nd Army, was killed by Japanese planes. After arriving in Nanyang, Sun revoked the number of the 42nd Army and transferred Tian Zhennan, commander of the 30th Army, as the deputy commander-in-chief of the group army, with Chi Fengcheng, commander of the 31st Division, as the commander of the 30th Army, with jurisdiction over the 27th, 30th, and 31st divisions. The 44th Independent Brigade was transferred to the direct jurisdiction of the General Headquarters.

At that time, the commander of the 27th Division was Huang Qiaosong, the commander of the 30th Division was Zhang Huatang, the commander of the 31st Division was Qi Zibin, and the commander of the 44th Independent Brigade was Wu Pengju.

Sun Lianzhong's troops were stationed near Nanyang for a period of time. It was also sent to Yexian and Wuyang to supplement the training, and was placed under the command of Wei Lihuang, commander of the First Theater, and as a reserve corps in this theater, Chiang Kai-shek also added the rank of deputy commander of the First Theater to Sun Lianzhong.

In the summer of 1939, Sun Lianzhong took the opportunity of the army's training and went to Chongqing to live for two months. He felt that his troops had performed well on the battlefield of resistance against Japan, especially the famous battle of Taierzhuang, and he wanted to seek the status of commander of a theater or chairman of the province.

However, because he did not join the faction, among the Kuomintang military and political leaders, except for his close personal relationship with Zhang Lisheng, there was no other effective foreign aid, and Chiang Kai-shek would not easily grant a large position of power to miscellaneous generals.

After Sun Lianzhong's activities for two months, Chiang Kai-shek could not help but deal with such a meritorious man as Sun Lianzhong, so he decided to transfer Sun to the deputy commander of the Fifth Theater of Operations as Li Zongren's deputy. Because Li Zongren is a veteran, letting Sun be his deputy is better than being the deputy of the "rising star" Wei Lihuang.

At the same time, Chiang also incorporated Liu Ruming's division of the 68th Army into the sequence of Sun's Second Army. The 68th Army was also a unit of the former Northwest Army, which had 119th and 143th divisions and the 27th Independent Brigade at that time. The deputy commanders of the 68th Army were Li Jintian and Chen Xinqi, the commander of the 119th Division was Tian Wenqi, the commander of the 143rd Division was Li Zengzhi, and the commander of the 27th Independent Brigade was Liu Ruzhen.

In this way, Sun's Second Army had five divisions and two separate brigades.

Soon after Sun Lianzhong returned to Yexian, an order was issued to transfer him to the post of deputy commander of the Fifth Theater, and then Li Zongren ordered the headquarters of the Second Army to move to the Tang River, and ordered the 30th Army and the 68th Army to take over the defense of the first line in the area east of Miyang and south of Queshan Mountain, and to confront the Japanese troops on the Xinyang side.

In addition, there were also the southern part of Tianzhen, the guerrilla commander-in-chief of southern Henan, who was active on the east side of the Pinghan Road, and Yan Tingjun, the guerrilla commander-in-chief of the Henan-Hubei border area, who was active in the Tongbaishan area, which were also under the command of Sun Lianzhong.

At the end of the year, the Fifth Theater launched a "Winter Offensive". The task of the Second Army was to capture Xinyang. At that time, there was a brigade of the Japanese army stationed in Xinyang and Guangshui, Hubei, and the troops commanded by Sun Lianzhong had 70,000 or 80,000 people, so it was said that it would not be a problem to capture Xinyang, but the generals of Sun's department saw that Chiang Kai-shek put most of the troops in the rear and put the miscellaneous troops in the front line, so they also held the principle of "the whole army first", and no one was willing to fight to the death with the Japanese army.

This offensive lasted for more than a month, and not even a single outlying stronghold of the Japanese army was captured. It's just that the 30th Army drew a regiment and attacked Xinyang City by night, fired indiscriminately for a while, and automatically withdrew before dawn. This "winter offensive" continued until the Spring Festival of 1940.

In the spring of 1940, Chiang Kai-shek planned to ask Sun Lianzhong to replace Lu Zhonglin as commander-in-chief of the Jicha Theater and chairman of the Hebei Provincial Government, and to take part of the team to Hebei Province to fight guerrillas. After Sun Lianzhong received Chiang Kai-shek's telegram asking for opinions, he studied it with his senior staff.

At that time, some people advocated accepting this position, because Chiang Kai-shek would not give up the official post of commander of the theater and chairman of the provincial government in the rear to Sun Lianzhong. Although the conditions in Hebei Province are not good, it is finally in charge. However, some people advocated not accepting it, believing that Hebei Province not only had a Japanese puppet army, but also an Eighth Route Army.

After arriving there, if he cooperated with the Eighth Route Army to resist Japan, Chiang would not agree; If there is friction with the Eighth Route Army, I am afraid it will be difficult to stand on its feet, and as a result, it may not even be able to keep the "old book". Sun Lianzhong weighed the pros and cons, and thought that it would be better not to go, so he resigned from the telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, to the effect that:

The situation in Hebei Province is complicated, and he is only shallow in his studies, and he is afraid that he will not be able to complete the task.