A landlord and old fortune all know that the hired workers in the autumn harvest season must first let the hired workers eat well and be full. You, Yan Laoxi, asked the Eighth Route Army to work for you, but you were so stingy that you were unwilling to give weapons, food, and supplies. If you treat someone with a false heart, how can he treat you with sincerity? Therefore, the Eighth Route Army finally separated from Yan Xishan's army and parted ways, how can the Eighth Route Army be blamed for breaking away from his leadership without authorization?

For many years to come, Liu Maoen, who had preserved his strength in the Battle of Pingxingguan and watched the battle, wrote a memoir to evaluate the Eighth Route Army: "The Eighteenth Group Army coordinated to participate in the area of Yanmen Pass on the left flank, so there was no shadow of them in front of the main battlefield. In the enemy's Fifth Division (Itagaki Seishiro) main force attacking Pingxing Pass and Tuanchengkou (in Pingxing Guanxi 32 miles), the situation was urgent, and it had already run away, and Lin Biao's troops were hiding in Yang Town, Guanyou Mountain. Later, Lin Biao learned that the enemy's baggage team of more than 400 people, most of them with bare hands and a few rifles, was lagging behind in Caijiayu, so he took the opportunity to attack. The CCP's propaganda of "Pingxingguan Dajie" proves that my concerns are good. ”

You see, the battle of Pingxingguan with more than 115 people from the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army was only against the Japanese army with "about 400 people, mostly with bare hands and a few with rifles". Liu Maoen died in Taiwan in 1983. That was the extreme era when Taiwan denied the CCP's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. It is not surprising that Liu Maoen made this remark.

In the Battle of Pingxingguan personally formulated by Yan Xishan, the only victory was the ambush battle of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army. Chen Changjie commented: "The rear area of the Japanese army in the south of the East River was ambushed by the Eighth Route Army on the 25th, and it was an excellent opportunity for the Guo Army to attack in a hurry to draw troops back from Pingxingguan and Tuanchengkou. However, Gao Guizi's army gave up the regimental entrance in advance. Let the enemy unexpectedly drop his hands and occupy the position. Dealing an unexpected blow to the Guo army, which was separated from the attack, it was in a disadvantageous predicament, but the enemy's concerns in the rear did not dare to advance. Therefore, after the defeat of the Battle of Pingxingguan, Yan Xishan said hatefully: "Gao Guizi's abandonment of Tuanchengkou is more killable than Liu Ruming's abandonment of Zhangjiakou!" ”

In the battle of Pingxingguan, Chen Changjie concluded: "Pingxingguan and Tuanchengkou are between. The three armies of Sun, Guo, and Chen were successively put into the battlefield and fought hard for half a month against the main force of the enemy's Itagaki Division, sacrificing more than 10,000 soldiers. Because the Eighth Route Army's forest division copied to the rear of the enemy in Lingqiu, a good situation was created in which the army went out of the pass to encircle and annihilate the enemy. Just for the side rear of the Yanmen Mountain branch battlefield, an enemy invaded Ruyuekou and attacked Fanzhi City, and the defenders repeatedly retreated, and the commander of the side was full of doubts and fears, and there was no fighting spirit. The Eighth Route Army outside the Pingxing Pass intercepted the great victory of the East Henan River, but did not get the timely attack of the main army. The great effect of annihilating the enemy's Itagaki Division was achieved, and it was disappointed. ”

On the night of September 30, Yan Xishan officially issued an order to retreat, and the Battle of Pingxingguan, in which the Chinese army had an advantage, was defeated. Why did the Japanese army not take advantage of the victory to pursue? Chen Changjie analyzed: "The enemy planes may have clearly detected it, but apart from bombing and obstructing it, they did not rush to chase after it with their troops. This is not a missed opportunity, and it is beyond the reach of the power, and it is still terrifying for the snooping of my Eighth Route Army. ”

The reason for this is that the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, which has already arrived behind enemy lines, makes the Japanese army dare not pursue easily. Chen Changjie was a powerful general under Yan Xishan, and during the Battle of Pingjin, he was known for his tough guys who resolutely refused to surrender to the communist army. He was more objective and more accurate than the historian who stubbornly insisted on the selfish interests of the Kuomintang in the First Battle of Pingxingguan, and there was no need to use good words to buy the Communist Party's good.

On October 1, 1937, nearly the third month after the outbreak of the National War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the defenders of the Second War Zone on the first line of the Great Wall in Shanxi Province retreated on all fronts, and the Battle of Pingxingguan organized by Yan Xishan ended in failure. The main force of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, which had already been behind the enemy, moved to Niangzi Pass, and when leaving, Yang Chengwu's independent regiment was left to persist in fighting in the Yanbei area and open up a base area.

On October 2, the main force of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army began to move to the Fuping and Wutai areas. The 686th Regiment departed from Xiaguan and arrived at Fuping East within two days, the 685th Regiment and its division set off directly from the East Great Wall and Ranzhuang, arrived at Xiaguan on the same day, and arrived at Fuping Qiligou through Nanpu, Tongluya and Tieling the next day, and arrived at Fuping City on the 4th. This was the foundation of the base area for the establishment of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region a month later.

The Yang Chengwu Independent Regiment, which remained behind, relied on the Shangzhai area to strike at the enemy in the Lingqiu, Guangling, and Laiyuan areas, mobilize the masses, and establish an anti-Japanese base area. On the 10th, the first and third battalions of the independent regiment set off from Laiyuan and Shangzhai respectively to the Fengjiagou area between Lingqiu and Guangling. On the 12th, it ambushed the logistics and transportation brigade of the Japanese army to support the Xinkou Campaign, annihilated more than 100 enemies and captured a large number of military supplies. The Second Battalion set out from Shangzhai to Laiyuan, Zijingguan, and Yixian to mobilize the masses and launch guerrilla warfare. After that, Yang Chengwu divided the independent regiment into two: the second battalion took Laiyuan County as the base and developed to Yi County; Yang Chengwu personally led the first and third battalions of the Independent Regiment to develop from Yanbei to the northeast of Wei County.

At this time, it is winter, the weather in the north of the wild goose, the north wind is howling, and the cold is biting. Fortunately, most of the people in the independent regiment were from northern Shaanxi and could withstand the severe cold, but the soldiers who came from the south on the Long March froze miserably.

Speaking of which, after a short pause, I will first talk about the composition of Yang Chengwu's Independent Regiment.

The predecessor of the Independent Regiment was the 1st Red Division, which originated from the Red Army ranks in Jinggangshan and Ruijin. The Communist Party's army stresses "inheritance," and the 193rd Division of the 65th Army in Xuanhua today developed from the 1st Red Division, the 1st Division and the Independent Regiment during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

In October 1935, when the Central Red Army marched to the red base area in northern Shaanxi, the Red Army had only a fraction of 6,000 people left from 86,000 at the time of departure. At that time, Chen Geng, who had been reappointed as the commander of the 13th Brigade formed by the 13th Regiment of the former Third Army Corps, recalled: "As the captain of the brigade, I rode a horse in front of me, and I didn't dare to look back, because I saw the whole brigade at a glance. ”

Then, the Central Red Army and the Red 15th Army Corps in northern Shaanxi joined forces to carry out the eastern expedition to Shanxi and the western expedition to Gansu. The Red 15th Army Corps was composed of three armies together: 3,000 men of the Red 25th Army from Hubei, Hubei, Henan and Anhui Base Areas, 2,000 men each of the Red 26th and 27th Red Armies of the local Northern Shaanxi Red Army, and 6,000 men of the Central Red Army, totaling 13,000 men. The purpose of the westward expedition to Gansu was to welcome the Second Front Army and the Fourth Front Army that had come from the Long March.

At this time, the Red First Division, division commander Chen Geng, and division political commissar Yang Yong. Yang Chengwu, who took over the post of political commissar of Yang Yongshi, has not yet arrived. Not to mention Deng Hua, the political commissar of the division after Yang Chengwu.

Due to the implementation of the mixed organization of the troops, when the 1st Red Division was stationed in Zhengning County, Gansu Province at the end of 1936 and the beginning of 1937, this division had more than 1,700 people, most of whom were soldiers from northern Shaanxi from the 26th and 27th Red Army of the 15th Army Corps.

A veteran of a former independent regiment recalled: "The Red Army in northern Shaanxi, formed by Xie Zichang and Liu Zhidan, was originally called the Red 26th Army and the Red 27th Army respectively. After the Central Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, most of the 15 th Army Corps was incorporated into the Red First Army, and the Red First Division had the largest number of soldiers from northern Shaanxi. ”

In August 1937, when the Eighth Route Army was reorganized from Zhengning County, Gansu Province to Yunyang Town, Sanyuan County, Shaanxi Province, these soldiers from northern Shaanxi were the ones who resisted the most and took the lead in escaping. A veteran of the former Independent Regiment recalled: "Some even said: 'I think there is a problem with these southerners, they have engaged in some kind of rebellion as soon as they came, and now they are going to carry out reorganization, and the Red Army is no longer called, and what kind of revolution is there to make!'" 'The effects of the purging of mistakes are even more harmful at the turning point of the revolutionary struggle. ”

The soldiers from northern Shaanxi refer to the Red Army of Xu Haidong, which arrived in northern Shaanxi before the Central Red Army. It also brought with it the brutal suppression policy carried out by Zhang Guotao's Fourth Front Army in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area. By the time the Central Red Army put an end to the policy of suppressing and expanding the rebellion, more than 400 leaders of the Red Army at all levels in northern Shaanxi had already been killed. Therefore, whether it is the 1st Red Division or the Independent Regiment, the cadres above the battalion level are almost without exception the Southern Red Army that came from the Long March. The Red Army from northern Shaanxi, which had the largest number of people, was mostly cadres and fighters below the company level.

From 1939 to 1949, Yang Hao wrote letters to the uneducated veterans of the Independent Regiment for ten years. Most of the letters were sent to the old red area in northern Shaanxi.

When the first division reached its peak, the total number of people was about 20,000, and the more than 1,000 Red Army soldiers who came from Gansu and Shaanxi were already inconspicuous among the talented people of the Eighth Route Army. In the headquarters of the first division, there is a guard squad of more than ten people, which is dedicated to guarding Yang Chengwu. This squad of more than 10 people, all Red Army soldiers from Jiangxi, northern Shaanxi, and Shanxi, is very reliable.

In order to take care of these Red Army soldiers who had died all their lives, Yang Chengwu privately told leading cadres at all levels to put these soldiers with Red Army identities in departments that did not often fight, such as the management platoon, cooking class, and special service battalion of the headquarters and political department. Even in combat regiments, such as the first regiment, the Red Army fighters were specially concentrated in the first battalion and three companies, and during the counter-sweep, they were placed in the back, with the regimental headquarters. In 1941, the headquarters of the 1st Division counter-swept and broke through the siege in Tizigou in Huata Mountain, and always brought the Third Company, which was mostly composed of Red Army soldiers, with him.

In the middle of 1937, the Independent Regiment dispatched a local working group headed by Fang Guohua to mobilize the masses in the Shangzhai area of Lingqiu, Laiyuan, Weixian, and Guangling to form anti-Japanese guerrillas, establish an anti-Japanese regime under the leadership of our party, and open up anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines. The local work group of the Independent Regiment organized the Shangzhai anti-Japanese guerrilla force in the Nanshan area of Lingqiu County, with four brigades and more than 1,000 people.

From the Yanbei area to Hebei Province, it is Wei County (which belonged to Chahar Province in those years) and Laiyuan County. In the next ten days, Yang Chengwu led the independent regiment to recover several county towns in Hunyuan, Lingqiu, Laiyuan, Weixian, Yangyuan, and Yixian one after another. By the end of October 1937, when Yang Chengwu was stationed in Wei County, the Independent Regiment had conquered seven county seats, and the number of soldiers had grown rapidly from more than 1,700 at the time of departure to more than 7,000. (To be continued......)