New Street Battle: The First Victory of the New Fourth Army in Hubei

In 1939, after the establishment of the Henan-Hubei Independent Guerrilla Detachment of the New Fourth Army, it went deep into southern Henan and central Hubei, actively fought against the Japanese army, attacked the enemy and puppet, and gradually established base areas. On October 13, 1939, under the direct command of Li Xiannian and others, the New Fourth Army wiped out more than 100 enemies in Xinjie, Jingshan County, Hubei Province, and achieved the first great victory after advancing into central Hubei, which greatly enhanced the political influence of our army and was of great and far-reaching significance.
"Devil the enemy, shake up the military and awaken the people"
Hubei, Henan, Anhui and other places deep behind enemy lines are important revolutionary bases for our party to carry out guerrilla movements. In 1938, after the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made the strategic decision of "consolidating North China and developing Central China", the Party Central Committee decided to open up the battlefield behind enemy lines in the Central Plains and develop anti-Japanese armed forces. Under the instructions of this policy, Li Xiannian and others went to Henan to form the Party Committee of the Hubei-Henan Border Region. Combined with the situation of the struggle against the enemy in the Hubei-Henan Border Region, they established the Henan-Hubei Independent Guerrilla Detachment of the New Fourth Army and approached the periphery of Wuhan. In May 1939, the Japanese army launched the Xiangdong campaign. In order to contain the Japanese army and cooperate with the Kuomintang army to fight in the front battlefield, the Central Plains Bureau decided to send Li Xiannian south to Yingshan, Anlu, and even to carry out guerrilla warfare near Yingcheng. In the meantime, the Japanese army successively invaded Tongbai, Tanghe, Xinye and other counties, intending to attack Xi'an or Luoyang via Nanyang. Based on this, Liu Shaoqi, then secretary of the Central Plains Bureau, instructed the Hubei-Henan border to carry out war mobilization and launch guerrilla warfare, with the establishment of the party-led armed forces as the central task.
Subsequently, Li Xiannian notified the anti-Japanese armed forces of Yingshan County to come to Zhaojiapeng, the central market town in the border area of the three counties of An (Lu) Ying (Shan) Xiao (Gan), and reorganized the troops into a New Fourth Army advance regiment with three brigades under its jurisdiction. Among them, one squadron went to Zhonghe Township to consolidate and develop the existing anti-Japanese base areas. The second brigade and the squadron directly under it opened up a base in Zhaojiapeng. Li Xiannian and others led the rest of the troops to meet with the "should resist" led by the CPC Central Committee in the Dashan area of Jingshan. After the meeting, Li Xiannian and others organized an enlarged meeting of the party committee of the central Hubei region, discussed and openly played the banner of the New fourth Army, and unified the armed forces in central Hubei and southern Henan into an independent guerrilla detachment of the New fourth Army, with four teams under its jurisdiction, with Li Xiannian as commander.
At that time, after the fall of Wuhan, the political atmosphere of the Kuomintang's retrogression became stronger and stronger, and the mood of the masses was extremely depressed. There were stories about how powerful the Japanese army was: some Japanese wore a small steel pot (steel helmet) on his head, a monkey face (gas mask) on his back, a big covered gun (38 rifle) in his hand, and a pair of spiked shoes (leather boots) on his feet, there are also clairvoyance (binoculars), downwind ears (telephones) and turtles (tanks), just like "magic soldiers. After learning about these situations, Li Xiannian decided to use the actual actions of armed resistance to resist Japan to "evil the enemy, invigorate the military, and awaken the people".
Inverted "pin" shape deployment, resolutely counterattack incoming Japanese troops
In July 1939, Li Xiannian first led a team of guerrilla detachment to the east and came to the vicinity of Xiang (Yang) Hua (Garden), 10 kilometers west of Xiaogan, Hubei Province. Here, the first team set up a "pocket" array to ambush the Japanese transport convoy. Since then, Li Youtang, a stubborn puppet double-faced faction in Yingcheng, has been eliminated, making the area around Zhaojiapeng a relatively stable area in the central Hubei anti-Japanese base area. The headquarters and the party committee of the central Hubei district are located in the Dashantou area of the nearby Anlu county, while the first team is located in the area of Liujiachong New Street.
Xinjie, the full name of Liuxin Street, is located in the northeast corner of Jingshan County, Hubei Province. It is a small market town with 40 or 50 families, surrounded by a circle of earth walls. There are trenches outside the wall, with Songhe Town in the west, Luodian in the southwest, Cai Shudian in the southeast and Lei Gong Dian in the northeast, all of which are Japanese strongholds. For the safety of the detachment and the district party committee and other heads of state, Zhang wenjin, head of the first team, and Zhou zhijian, political commissar of the first team, decided to station a brigade in yang jiachong, northwest of xinjie, on guard towards song river. The three brigades stationed in Fan Chong, northeast of Xinjie, were on guard towards Lei Gong Dian. The regiment headquarters and the second brigade are stationed in Liu jiachong, north of Xinjie. The three brigades are in the shape of an inverted "product" in the southeast of Dashan.
At that time, Major General Akira Nara, the head of the 26th Brigade of the Japanese Army, learned that the New Fourth Army was concentrated near the Dashan. He immediately led more than 200 Japanese troops and more than 400 puppet troops from Songhe, Luodian and other strongholds, and dispatched overnight in an attempt to sneak attack the New Fourth Army stationed in Xinjie. At dawn on October 13, when the puppet troops were quietly approaching Xinjie that day, the first team's traveling whistle discovered the enemy situation and fired a police report because it was too late to report to the leadership. The Japanese heard the gunshot and rushed to the south of New Street with bayonets. The officers and men of the New Fourth Army woke up in their sleep, immediately took up their weapons and ran in the direction of the gun. The battle started instantly, and there was chaos inside and outside New Street. Some people shouted, "oh, my god, the devils are going to enter the village". Hearing the news, Zhang Wenjin and Zhou Zhijian were full of anger and hatred in the face of this situation, and they wanted to fight the Japanese army to the death. Zhou Zhijian jumped to the stone by the side of the road and shouted loudly: "Folks, don't run around. We will definitely defeat the Japanese devils. Don't be afraid, hide first." Zhang Wenjin patted his chest and shouted to the crowd: "folks, I am the head of the delegation. I promise you that we must defeat the Japanese devils." Zhang Wenjin and Zhou Zhijian commanded the battle while organizing the transfer of the masses and sent communication soldiers to report to the detachment headquarters at Dashan.
In the face of the incoming Japanese army, Li Xiannian immediately said: "Fight, fight resolutely!" Then he led the second team, which had just arrived in central Hubei from southern Henan, to rush to reinforcements. After listening to the brief reports of Zhou Zhijian and Zhang Wenjin, Li Xiannian said firmly: "This battle must be won, and it will not work if we lose or draw! The people of Central Plains are looking forward to the battle report of our New Fourth Army."
Cure a lot of people's "fear of the disease"
The Japanese army was lying around New Street, but could not get in. After dawn, the Japanese concentrated all the fire of the charge were repulsed. After commanding the second team to reinforce, Li Xiannian demanded that "one battalion hit the enemy's flank and the other went up the mountain to prevent the enemy from escaping" in an attempt to wipe out the enemy. At this time, Zhang Wenjin commanded the first brigade and the second brigade to launch attacks on the Japanese army from west to south and from east to south respectively, basically forming a three-sided encirclement of the enemy. When the battle was fierce, many people were moved by the New Fourth Army's spirit of death and blood spattered the battlefield, and they risked their lives to come forward to support. In order to get rid of the encirclement, the Japanese army released poisonous gas on the battlefield, and our soldiers continued to fight bravely after simple protection. Under the retaliation of our army, the Japanese army was crushed into the depression beside the Huang's ancestral hall outside the Nanzhai in Xinjie, and the puppet troops on both sides were scattered and fled. By dusk, the besieged Japanese troops suffered heavy casualties and burned their bodies while feinting. A small number of crippled enemies fled through the path, leaving more than 20 bodies on the battlefield that were too late to burn.

Although the battle was won, Zhang Wenjin still regretfully said to Li Xiannian, "What a pity, what a pity! We didn't wipe out all the devils, leaving dozens of them to run away!" Li Xiannian said wittily: "It doesn't matter, we are here for the first time to fight devils. It is better to let them run back to report a few funerals. It is also to publicize our New Fourth Army!"
The battle in Xinjie lasted more than 10 hours, killing and injuring more than 180 Japanese and puppet troops and seizing a large amount of military materials. The Xinjie battle was a heavy blow to the Japanese army near the enemy's rear after Li Xiannian led the New Fourth Army to advance into central Hubei, which made the New Fourth Army famous. Shortly after the battle, the "Battle Daily" of the Kuomintang's five war zones issued an extra-large number, prominently publishing the news that "the strong brigade fought a fierce battle in New Street, severely hit the Japanese aggressors and attacked hundreds of enemies. The victory of the Xinjie battle extinguished the prestige of the enemy and the puppet. More importantly, this victory cured many people's "fear of Japan" and greatly inspired and inspired the anti-Japanese aspirations of the people of Central Hubei.

Source: Learning Times