[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 398: Immortal Monument (Ask for subscriptions, ask for monthly passes, ask for everything!) ）

Ma Zheng only learned the news of the Japanese army's expulsion and siege of the city on the afternoon of March 9, and Ma Zheng had not yet figured out how to deal with the order of the front-line commander to shoot. From a military point of view, shooting was the most correct move, but from the perspective of political influence, this order must have had a great negative impact on the reputation of the Eighth Route Army.

Fortunately, the company instructor risked his life that day to direct the civilians to lie down and instruct them to take a safe escape route, and finally half of the civilians escaped. Otherwise, those five or six hundred ordinary people would probably all die at the guns of their own people.

According to the report of the 93rd Division, the regimental commander involved has been relieved of his duties and placed in custody. Ma Zheng immediately instructed not to make any punitive actions against the people involved for the time being, and to wait for him to return to deal with it.

On 10 March, Ma Zheng convened a military conference in Chengde, at which he first announced the decision of the Military Region Headquarters on the establishment of the Eighth Route Army's Eighth Independent Division, with Liu Fengchi as the commander and Tie Xinlan as the political commissar.

In view of the fact that the current situation in Rehe is so dangerous that it has not yet stabilized, the establishment of the Eighth Independent Division is allocated according to the reinforced division. After study, it was decided that the 8th Independent Division would have a total of 22,000 men under its jurisdiction under the jurisdiction of the New 1st Brigade, the 2nd Brigade, and the 3rd Brigade, as well as the guard regiment, artillery regiment, cavalry regiment, engineer regiment, and baggage transport regiment directly under the division headquarters.

As for the soldiers of the Eighth Division, some of them were mobilized by the Independent Brigade and the 93rd Division directly under the Suicha Military Region, and the rest were all transferred from Tie Xinlan, Zhu Changgui, Li Debiao, and Niu Dazhuang.

Leaving Liu Fengchi and others busy forming the Eighth Division, Ma Zheng immediately ordered the troops to escort the prisoners back to the Suicha Military Region from Rehe in batches.

On March 11, after a day and a night of rapid marching, Ma Zheng returned to Xinghe ahead of schedule with a battalion of cavalry troops. Standing outside Xinghe City, Ma Zheng was stunned by the scene in front of him, Ma Zheng had just left Xinghe a few days ago, although Xinghe City was not very prosperous at that time, but at least it was not as dilapidated as it is now.

Nowadays, Xinghe City is almost a scorched earth, full of broken walls, not only the positions outside the city have almost been razed to the ground, but the city is also a mess, a large number of houses have collapsed, and there are almost few decent houses.

After the Japanese army retreated, all the people who had been evacuated before came back, and they were clearing the rubble and rubble in the city with the assistance of the troops, and of course, more importantly, they were building new houses.

Knowing that Ma Zheng and the others were coming back, Yang Chengwu and the others were waiting for them on the official road north of the Houhe River early, and after seeing Ma Zheng, Yang Chengwu was very excited. In this battle, he took the main force of the 93rd Division to deal with the siege of the two master regiments of the Japanese army, the pressure was not ordinary, and the Japanese army almost rushed into Xinghe County at the most critical time, but fortunately in the end they resisted the attack of the Japanese army.

The group did not do too much greetings, and went straight to the temporary division headquarters of the 93rd Division. The reason why it is a temporary division headquarters is mainly because the division headquarters of the 93rd Division has been bombed to the ground by the Japanese army in this battle, and there is not even a complete wall left in the large courtyard with three entrances and three exits, so the 93rd Division has to move the division headquarters to an air-raid shelter.

In the conference room of the temporary division headquarters, Ma Zheng, Yang Chengwu, Wang Tao and others sat down across a table of eight immortals, and finally Ma Zheng got up and said: "Comrades, I have seen the battlefield outside the city, you have fought very hard, everyone has worked hard!" On behalf of the Headquarters of the Military Region, the Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, and the Party Central Committee of Yan'an, I would like to pay tribute to all of you, as well as to those martyrs who died in battle! ”

Yang Chengwu got up and said: "Commander, in this battle, we have attacked continuously, and have successively fought with the Japanese North China Front, the Mongolian Army and the puppet Mongolian Army. So it's not just our 93rd Division that's hard, everyone is very hard! ”

Ma Zheng nodded and said: "It's true, everyone is really hard, this battle is so large in scale and wide in scope that it is the only one since the establishment of our Suicha Military Region." According to incomplete statistics, our army lost as many as 33,000 soldiers in this battle, and 12,765 troops died directly, which is equivalent to a division. ”

Speaking of this, all the people were silent, Ma Zheng just said very clearly, this is incomplete statistics. In other words, the actual casualties may be more than the figure of 30,000, which may be a cold number here, but it means the loss of young lives, including their subordinates, friends, and even relatives.

Then Ma Zheng's voice changed and said loudly: "Casualties are the price paid and the inevitable law of war, what we commanders and fighters have to do is to make the casualties of the soldiers meaningful." We did pay an extremely heavy price in this battle, but our sacrifice was worth it, because we not only repelled the frantic attack of the Japanese puppet army, but also captured 10 banner counties in northern Chabei and 9 banner counties in Rehe from the Japanese puppet army, and also opened up the passage to Rehe and the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, laying a solid foundation for the future development of the troops. ”

"More importantly, in this battle, we also killed and captured more than 80,000 Japanese puppet soldiers, including more than 40,000 prisoners, including more than 10,000 Japanese soldiers. It dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Japanese puppet army and deterred the enemy. The ancients said that people are inherently dead, or lighter than a feather, or heavier than Mount Tai, I think that although our warriors sacrificed, but they set up an immortal monument in the hearts of the people. ”

"Bang Bang!"

As soon as Ma Zheng's words fell, there was warm applause in the conference room, which lasted for a long time.

After a long applause, Yang Chengwu got up again and said: "The commander is right, although our soldiers have sacrificed, their blood has not been shed in vain, and it is precisely because of their bloody sacrifice that we can achieve such a brilliant and great victory." ”

"That's for sure, but there were some controversial things that happened in this campaign, such as the Houhe battlefield, where our commanders and fighters ordered soldiers to shoot at the common people, which caused a very bad impact among the masses. Although it is said that there is a reason for this incident, Jiang Hao's kid cannot be blamed entirely, but after all, it has caused a great negative impact on the troops. At the same time, this incident has also presented us with a difficult problem, what should our commanders and fighters do when they encounter similar things in the future, and this matter will have to be determined by the military region headquarters. ”

Ma Zheng said in a deep voice: "I already know about this, I heard that it was Commander Jiang of the Second Regiment of the 275 Brigade who gave the order, I don't know if anyone has arrived!" ”

At this time, a short middle-aged man sitting at the head of Wang Tao got up and said: "Report to the commander, Jiang Hao, the second regiment of the 275th brigade, salute you!" ”

"Head Jiang, tell me what happened that day!" Ma Zheng said.

"Commander, since our troops withdrew to Xinghe City, they have been fiercely attacked by the Japanese army. In the fierce fighting for three days and two nights, the first and third battalions of our regiment were all disabled, and less than half of the 3,000 men of the regiment were killed. Just when the commander launched an attack on Chengde, the Japanese intensified their offensive and launched four consecutive attacks on our positions in a very short time, which led to heavy losses for our troops. ”

Then Jiang Hao continued: "As a last resort, I transferred the second battalion, which had always been a reserve, to the front and replaced the first battalion and the third battalion, which suffered heavy casualties. The commander of the second battalion was a material for fighting a tough battle, and the Japanese army continuously invested a whole reinforced wing to attack their positions, but they were never able to break through, and the Japanese troops who jumped over the wall in a hurry brutally drove the civilians to attack the city, they let the civilians walk in front of the team, and they also tied explosives bags to them" (to be continued. )