Chen Guang is a very important general in the history of the People's Army. The central leaders once wanted to train him to become Lin Biao's heir. Just look at two positions, you can understand: After the Xi'an Incident, Lin Biao was transferred to the president of the Red Army University, and Chen Guang took over as the acting commander of the First Red Army Corps; after Lin Biao was accidentally injured in 1938, Chen Guang took over as the acting commander of the 115th Division.
Red Army period and the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the central government reused him. However, in the late period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Luo Ronghuan was allowed to take unified leadership in the entire Shandong base area. Luo Shuai also served as commander and political commissar of the Shandong Military Region, political commissar and acting division commander of the 115th Division, and secretary of the Shandong Branch of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Chen Guang was transferred back to Yan'an.
Why don’t Chen Guang be used as a military cadre, but let Luo Ronghuan serve as the part-time position? One very important reason here is that Chen Guang's performance in the Lufang breakthrough battle made the troops unsatisfied.
In fact, from the perspective of the results alone, the results achieved in the Lufang breakthrough battle were even greater than those of the Pingxingguan ambush. Why was Chen Guang still questioned?
In April 1938, Li Yu, then Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, returned to Yan'an to report his work, informing the Central Committee that the Shandong People's Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Detachment, which is now led by the Party, has 25 regiments, more than 20,000 regular military forces, and more than 10,000 militias. Chairman Mao was very happy to hear this.
Because from a global perspective, most of our party’s main forces are in northern Shaanxi, and there are also guerrillas in many provinces in the south of , , and there are also guerrillas in many provinces, but Shandong has never entered the field on a large scale. Li Yu was ordered to enter Shandong in 1936, but he didn't expect that such a huge team could be developed in such a short time.
Chairman praised Li Yu's ability and also saw Shandong's potential. When Li Yu asked the central government to send the main force to Shandong, the chairman replied: After a while, a famous Red Army general will be sent to you, and another main force will be sent. They will not dare to call you the "Tu Eighth Route Army" again.
At the beginning, the Chairman wanted Luo Binghui to go to Shandong, but Luo Binghui had already served in New Fourth Army and could not get away for the time being, so the Chairman handed over the important task to the 115th Division.
In November of the same year, Chen Guang, the acting commander of the 115th Division and Luo Ronghuan, political commissar, received an order to go to Shandong. However, due to various reasons, it was only after real landing a month later. More than 3,000 people from the 685th Regiment of the 115th Division advanced west of Weishan Lake with the number "Suluyu Detachment".
More than a month later, Chen Guang, acting commander of the 115th Division, and Luo Ronghuan, political commissar, led more than 5,000 people from the division's direct troops and the 686th Regiment to advance towards southwestern Shandong under the number "East Advance Detachment". The reason why neither of the two departments issued the number of the 115th Division was because at that time, the Kuomintang did not approve the Eighth Route Army's actions. Even if they fled quickly, they would not allow our party to develop behind enemy lines. For the unity of both parties, the central government can only make compromises.
After our army arrived in Shandong, it developed very quickly, and successively eliminated multiple Japanese strongholds, strengthening the Shandong people's determination to resist Japan.
However, this momentum was also noticed by the commander of the 12th Army, the highest commander of the Japanese invaders stationed in Shandong, Tail Gaoguizang . He wanted to avenge the revenge of Xingguan for a long time. After hearing that the Eighth Route Army entered Shandong, it immediately began to mobilize its troops, assembled more than 8,000 garrison troops from two brigades and more than ten towns, and launched an attack on the Thai area in nine directions, hoping to eat the 115th Division in one breath.
On May 9, 1939, the Dongjin Detachment was stationed in the area of Lufang Village, Feicheng County, Taixi. The reconnaissance company went forward more than 10 miles as usual to explore the surrounding environment and found a large number of Japanese troops operating, so it immediately reported to the division headquarters. At that time, Luo Ronghuan was guiding the Dongwenning Detachment, and Chen Guang was the only one in charge of the division headquarters.
, and Chen Guang did not pay attention to it. He believed that these Japanese troops were just passing by "accidentally" and would not have any threats, so there was no strategy to deal with it. This huge negligence has made the troops take the opportunity to break through. From the evening of to the 10th, the Japanese invaders surrounded Lu Fang. Fortunately, they were not good at night fighting and did not immediately launch an attack on the Eighth Route Army, which was not prepared enough.
Seeing that the situation was urgent, Chen Guang led a large group of people to break through the siege in the southwest of . However, when he arrived near Dawen River , he found a large number of Japanese invaders guarding the south bank, so he had to order the troops to turn back toward Dafeng Mountain to advance north.
In order to boost morale, he ordered commanders at all levels to hold an emergency meeting at the division headquarters. During the meeting, he pointed to the map and mobilized: Comrades, if you want to smash the Japanese siege, you can only fight this way, and fight bravely and wisely! Bite this piece of fat that is delivered to your mouth and chew it!
11 Just as the geography was dawn, the Japanese invaders fired three signal flares above the landing room, and then launched violent shelling on the Eighth Route Army positions.
The enemy and us have a very different strength at this time. Although the Eighth Route Army was surrounded, there were more than 3,000 people on the surface, only more than 1,000 were combatants, while the Japanese invaders gathered more than 5,000 Japanese troops and nearly 3,000 puppet troops.
Just by judging from the numbers, our army is far from defeated. Fortunately, most of the more than 1,000 people have passed the Red Army's long-term foundation in , , and have very rich combat experience. They know when to avoid and when to attack the most. Therefore, they repelled 9 attacks in one day, leaving the Japanese invaders with more than 1,300 corpses.
When the most critical moment, the Japanese invaders rushed to 30 to 40 meters ahead of the 2nd Battalion of the 686th Regiment of the 115th Division. In order to win, the soldiers of our 2nd Battalion rushed out of the position to fight the Japanese invaders in hand-to-hand battle with . The courage is really a hero!
Eighth Route Army soldiers all performed their duties in this battle, but Chen Guang, the division commander, was a little unsatisfied. Not long after the large army turned from the Dawen River to the direction of Dafeng Mountain, it was discovered by the Japanese invaders' reconnaissance unit . Then the Japanese invaders used a lot of cannons to bombard it, causing the mules and horses of the 115th Division to be frightened and attacked randomly, and the entire division headquarters was in chaos.
At this moment when Chen Guang needed to stand up and stabilize the people's hearts, he fainted from anger. Fortunately, Zhang Renchu, the commander of the 686th Regiment, made a quick decision to let the 1st Battalion, the regiment spy company, and the reconnaissance company quickly seize the nearby commanding heights, which gave us a geographical advantage. After Chen Guang woke up, he also sent a division special agent camp to seize the commanding heights in the north and east directions.
Later, when the battle was in a stalemate, Chen Guang made another mistake. He was not in the division headquarters, but instead ran to the 2nd battalion, which was the most intense battle, to command, and was not in the division headquarters for more than 6 hours.
On the plus side, he was the leader without fear of sacrifice, but from the overall perspective, he, as the acting division commander, must command the entire army, and make overall plans in combination with the battle reports in all directions. This is the responsibility for the lives of more than 3,000 people surrounded.
In the six hours after he left, Luo Ronghuan, the political commissar of the 115th Division, was in the Dongwenning Detachment, and the Chief of Staff of the 115th Division, was already missing. The division command headquarters was only the Chief of Staff Wang Bingzhang, the chief of the reconnaissance section Li Zuopeng and others. Fortunately, the military capabilities of the several of them were also very strong, and they mobilized all parties in an orderly manner. Otherwise, if something goes wrong, Chen Guang will be suspected of dereliction of duty.
Chen Guang returned to the division headquarters at around 5 pm and soon discussed the way to break through with Wang Bingzhang and others. At 22:00 that night, the troops began to break through in different directions under the leadership of their fellow villagers.
At dawn the next day, the 115th Division successfully broke out of the encirclement, and the 115th Division headquarters and the 686th Regiment were transferred to Wuyan Village, Dongping County; the Communist Party of China's Shandong District Committee, the Taixi Prefectural Committee and the Jinpu Detachment were transferred to the south bank of Wenhe.
From the results, our army was not defeated in the Lufang Breakout. The Japanese invaders themselves admitted that more than 1,300 casualties were killed or killed, including more than 50 officers and a colonel captain. The Eighth Route Army suffered more than 350 casualties, and the proportion of casualties between the enemy and us was almost 4 to 1. This was not the Japanese army before surrendering in 1945. It was not easy to fight like this.
Take Pingxingguan Victory to compare it. The Eighth Route Army invested 12,000 people to ambush more than 3,000 Japanese invaders during the Pingxingguan Battle. In the end, more than 600 casualties and more than 1,000 Japanese invaders were killed or killed.
Breakthrough is inherently more difficult than ambush. The Lufang Breakthrough is stronger than the Pingxingguan ambush in all aspects such as the number of people participating in the battle between the enemy and us, casualties between the enemy and us. However, this result was not brought by Chen Guang, but mainly because other comrades were in the middle of command and the various departments fought hard. This actually made Chen Guang, the acting division commander, not able to coordinate the unity and coordination.
Originally, the enemy's movements were detected before the war, but Chen Guang did not pay attention to it; during the battle, Chen Guang did not play the role of the backbone. If these two aspects can be done well, our army will definitely reduce some losses.
Most of the more than 350 people who died in this battle were the Red Army's foundation and the essence of the entire army. Therefore, the 686th Regiment, Luo Ronghuan, and the Central Committee all had some opinions on Chen Guang, which also affected Chen Guang's development in the late period of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Of course, from the overall perspective, the impact of the Lufang Breakthrough War was positive. The Eighth Route Army gained a reputation in Shandong through this battle, arousing the will of all military and civilians to resist Japan. Local youths saw that the Eighth Route Army was so brave, and enthusiastically signed up to join.
Even though Chiang Kai-shek, who has always hated the CCP, sent a telegram to Commander-in-Chief Zhu De and Deputy Commander-in-Chief Peng Dehuai, saying that it is "very consolable."
Originally, the Eighth Route Army was not allowed to enter Lu, so there were almost guerrilla numbers such as "Suluyu Detachment" and "East Advance Detachment".
But after the commendation telegram was sent, the Kuomintang made acquiesce. The 115th Division then took the banner openly and gradually led the Shandong Anti-Japanese War into a new stage of vigorous development in an independent way.
