Under the command of Luo Ronghuan, Chen Guang and other leaders, the Eighth Route Army successfully broke through the encirclement after heroic fighting and preserved its effective strength. However, the process was extremely tragic and a huge price was paid.

Author: Mo Guyan

During the Anti-Japanese War, 1941 was the most difficult year for in the Shandong Anti-Japanese Base Area. At the end of that year, the Shandong Branch of the CPC Central Committee and the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army were surrounded five times by the Japanese "iron wall encirclement". Under the command of Luo Ronghuan, Chen Guang and other leaders, the Eighth Route Army successfully broke through the encirclement after heroic fighting and preserved its effective strength. However, the process was extremely tragic and a huge price was paid. Especially during the fourth breakout, a large number of non-combatants of the Eighth Route Army suffered serious losses in Daqingshan, and the fate of many people changed as a result.

Since the Anti-Japanese War, the Eighth Route Army's troops in Shandong have included the 115th Division and the Shandong Column. The existence of these two parallel organizations has brought many problems, making the Shandong Branch spend a lot of energy on command and coordination. In order to solve this problem, Yan'an called in August 1941, requesting that the combat command be unified and that branch offices, division headquarters and columns should be closer together so that regular meetings could be held.

According to Yan'an's instructions, the leaders of Shandong Branch include Zhu Rui, Luo Ronghuan, Li Yu, and Chen Guang, with Zhu Rui as secretary. The specific division of labor is that Zhu Rui is in charge of the overall situation, Luo Ronghuan is in charge of military affairs, Li Yu is in charge of local affairs, and Chen Guang is in charge of finance. This division of labor is puzzling. As the acting commander of the 115th Division, Chen Guang did not manage the military, but took charge of finance, which he did not understand at all. You know, Chen Guang is the only pure military cadre among the four committee members of the branch. He has rich combat experience. He has been a general of our army since the days of the Red Army. Why has he lost his military command now?

115 division leaders group photo, from left: Chen Shiju, Chen Guang, Peng Weisan, Luo Ronghuan

All of this stems from the Lufang breakout three years ago. The Eighth Route Army lost more than 300 people in this battle, many of whom were old backbones from the Red Army period, which is heartbreaking. Chen Guang's sudden disappearance during the breakout became the biggest stain in his life. Everyone suspected that he had given up command and fled alone. After the war, there were many complaints within the 115th Division, and everyone believed that Chen Guang was responsible for the losses. Luo Ronghuan did a lot of work to stabilize the mood of the troops. Although Chen Guang won some victories after that, the impact of Lu Fang's breakthrough was too great. Coupled with his own shortcomings in temperament and character, he offended too many people, and his prestige was still greatly reduced.

After the division of labor was clarified, the 115th Division aircraft left the coastal area at the end of September and moved closer to the Shandong column in central Shandong. During this period, the Japanese army massively increased its troops to Shandong, and its intention to raid the Yimeng Mountains was very obvious.

The Japanese army was in the process of mopping up.

On October 8, the Shandong Column concentrated two brigades to launch anti-mopping operations north of Yimeng Mountain. They fought 19 battles of various sizes in more than half a month and annihilated more than 1,400 stubborn troops. The anti-mopping up operations in the Shandong base area were successful. However, just after the anti-mopping battle, the radio communication between the Shandong Column and the 115th Division was interrupted. It turned out that the Shandong Column headquarters was attacked in a place called Ma Muchi. It can be seen that the situation is very serious and one must not be careless. Intelligence shows that Japanese troops in Linyi , Feixian , Mengyin have been dispatched, with a total strength of at least 30,000.

115 Division's headquarters is in Liutian Village, Yinan County. It is surrounded by the Japanese army and must be moved without further delay. On November 5, the division headquarters and branch offices began to break out. Division Chief of Staff Chen Shiju particularly emphasized the need to protect the safety of German journalist Hans Sieber.

Hans Sieber is from Austria . He joined the revolutionary organization while he was in college and is a staunch internationalist fighter . He was full of interest in ancient China. He came to China as early as 1925, conducted in-depth investigations into various social phenomena, and published a large number of articles in newspapers. He was also one of the first journalists to expose Japan's aggressive ambitions in European media.

Hans Sieber (first from left) with Chen Yi and Su Yu

Sieber settled in China in 1932. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he went to Yan'an and later went to the Anti-Japanese Frontline for interviews. He first worked in the New Fourth Army and wrote a large number of reports published in the "Meiya Review". Then he became very interested in the Eighth Route Army in Shandong and decided to go north to Shandong. The leaders of the New Fourth Army considered that Shandong was the focus of the Japanese army's raids and was highly dangerous, so they advised him not to go.But for a professional reporter, the more dangerous the place, the greater the value of news. Heber had to go no matter what, so the New Fourth Army had to send someone to send him to Shandong and safely arrived at the 115th Division headquarters.

During this breakout, Luo Ronghuan personally observed the enemy's situation, correctly chose the breakout route, used the cover of night, and jumped out of the encirclement without firing a shot. After experiencing this wonderful breakout, Heber immediately wrote the article "The Silent Battle".

Liutian's breakout was the first of the Shandong Eighth Route Army's five breakouts, which brought the elusive guerrilla warfare to its extreme. The 115th Division was originally going to be transferred to the safer area of ​​southern Shandong. However, after the Shandong Column headquarters was attacked, the 1st Brigade of the Column also hurriedly jumped to the periphery. This resulted in the absence of the main force of the Eighth Route Army in the center of the Yimeng Mountain base area. , the base area is bound to be wildly destroyed by the enemy. The Eighth Route Army could not leave the masses alone. After discussing with Zhu Rui and Chen Guang, Luo Ronghuan led the 115th Division back to the central area to persist in counter-mopping up.

Luo Ronghuan commanded the Eighth Route Army to constantly deal with the enemy. When the enemy comes in, we go out, when the enemy leaves, we come in, going back and forth in circles with the enemy. The division headquarters and branch offices cleverly avoided the enemy from Dagutai in Xuezhuang Town, Fei County, and moved to the east of the Linmeng Highway, thus defeating the encirclement of the Japanese and puppet troops once again.

[In January 1940, some cadres of the 115th Division took a group photo. From left: Chen Guang, Lai Keke, Xiao Hua, Luo Ronghuan, Liang Biye, Wang Bingzhang, Chen Shiju, Wang Liren, Yang Shangru, Su Jing, Zhang Xiong]

15 After the division broke out, it fought fierce battles with the Japanese army many times. The battlefield was complicated, but maybe it was peaceful the day before. A place that had nothing to do would become a deserted place the next day. After they broke out from Dagutai, students from the Kangda First Branch came here again and reported that no enemy was found. The head of the 115th Division decided to have non-combatants from the division headquarters and directly affiliated units quickly cross the Mengyin Highway overnight and move north of Daqingshan.

There was a serious problem with the intelligence of the Kangda Yi Branch. They did not discover the enemy's situation. In fact, a mixed brigade of the Japanese army had already deployed an encirclement circle here, with a strength of more than 5,000 people. The 115th Division, the Shandong party and government leadership agencies, and the directly affiliated teams got in and crowded together with the first branch of the Anti-Japanese University. A total of more than 6,000 non-combatants were surrounded by Japanese troops.

In order to cover the agency's breakout, the guard companies of the Kangda First Branch and Shandong Branch resisted desperately and paid a huge price, and Hans Sieber also died in the breakout. There are different accounts of the details of his sacrifice.

According to tradition, Heber fought with the enemy with a gun. The guards and translators around him died in the battle. He hid behind a boulder and continued to fight. Finally, he died from a bullet, and his body was riddled with bullet marks.

However, Zhou Zhitong (the founding senior colonel of the People's Republic of China and former captain of the Bayi Work Team), who was then the chief of the fifth section of the 115th Division Headquarters, had a different view. What he knew about the situation was that Heber did not have a gun at the time, but his translator had a pistol, and neither of them had combat experience. He heard from Li, one of Heber's servants who survived, that Heber couldn't run anymore and didn't want to be a prisoner, so he committed suicide by taking medicine next to a big rock. In addition, when Ma Futang, director of the supply department of the Shandong Column, later talked about Heber, he also said that he committed suicide. These are all witnesses of Daqingshan's breakthrough into , and their statements should be credible.

Looking back now, if the 115th Division had gone to the Lunan area after breaking through in Liutian, the situation would have been much better and no serious losses would have been suffered. But if the main force of the Eighth Route Army leaves, the folks in the Yimeng Mountain area of ​​central Shandong will suffer, and the Eighth Route Army's prestige among the masses will be damaged. This loss may be greater than the loss of casualties. As a people's army, the Eighth Route Army will naturally not disregard the life and death of the masses, and will go through fire and water even though it knows that Shandong is dangerous. Therefore, the huge price paid for the counter-mopping up in the Yimeng Mountain Base Area was unavoidable under the historical background at that time.

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