Battle of Baotou

Battle of Baotou
Part of the 1939–1940 Winter Offensive during the Second Sino-Japanese War
Date 17–24 December 1939 (1939-12-17 – 1939-12-24) Location Baotou, Suiyuan, Republic of China Result Japanese victory The Chinese army was unsuccessful in capturing the city of Baotou and eventually retreated voluntarily
Belligerents
China	Japan Mengjiang
Commanders and leaders
Fu Zuoyi Dong Qiwu Yuan Qingrong Sun Lanfeng Ma Hongbin	Kojima Yoshizo Nagaru Kumagawa Wang Ying
Casualties and losses
According to commander Fu Zuoyi's report on 10th January 1940 : 61 officers and 571 soldiers killed 106 officers and 807 soldiers wounded According to history of the Anti-Japanese War : more than 1,800 casualties	Chinese claim : more than 3,000 casualties Japanese claim for Japanese losses : 11 officers and 196 NCOs and soldiers killed 30 officers and 464 NCOs and soldiers wounded Puppet Mongolian losses : unknown

The Battle of Baotou (Chinese: 包头战役) was fought from 17 to 24 December 1939, in Suiyuan Province of the Republic of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Taking place in the Eighth War Area in Northern China, the engagement was part of the wider 1939–1940 Winter Offensive by the National Revolutionary Army.

With the aim of delaying the Japanese southward advance, the battle began with a perimeter battle on December 17 and a subsequent siege of Baotou, during which half of the city was captured at one point, but ultimately, due to the arrival of Japanese reinforcements, and the purpose of attracting the attention of the Japanese army had been achieved, the Chinese army chose to withdraw of its own accord, and laid the groundwork for the Battle of Suixi, which was to follow.

Background

See also: Battle of Suixi

In order to cooperate with the operations in other war zones and to delay the progress of the Japanese forces in North China to the south, Fu Zuoyi decided to start this battle.

Participating armies

Japanese Army

In December 1937, the Japanese began to form the "Mongolian Garrison Corps", which was formed on January 8, 1938. In addition, directly stationed in Baotou was the Cavalry Group Command of the Japanese Corps in Mongolia, headed by Lieutenant General Kojima Yoshizo. The unit had a cavalry artillery regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Nagaru Kumagawa, a cavalry company, an independent tank team, a rapid-fire artillery unit, and also commanded two Mongolian army divisions as well as more than a hundred gendarmeries and spies. Also stationed at Guyang were Ogami Shigeru's Cavalry Brigade and the 8th Division of the Puppet Mongolian Army.

In 1939, the Japanese army brought in Wang Ying to organize a “Suixi Autonomous Allied Army”, with him as the general-in-chief, and three cavalry divisions under the command of Chen Bingyi, Wang Biaozi, and Chang Ziyi, which were stationed in the area of Gongmiaozi in the Zhongtan area west of Baotou.

National Government Army

The main unit of the National Revolutionary Army in this battle was the 35th Army under Fu Zuoyi which had withdrawn from the Battle of Taiyuan. The 35th Army prior to the battle was established with the 73rd and 101st Divisions. The Army were later reorganized with the 73rd Division returning to Shanxi and the New 31st and New 32nd Divisions added to the Army.

In addition, local units under Fu Zuoyi's jurisdiction included the 81st Army, the 6th Cavalry Army, and the 3rd New Cavalry Division, the 4th New Cavalry Division, the 5th New Brigade, the 6th New Brigade, and the Suiyuan Guerrilla Army.

The battle

Beginning stages

Fu Zuoyi's orders for the battle were as follows:

1. Our army shall attack the enemy in Baotou with a long-distance surprise attack to achieve the purpose of completely annihilating the defenders and occupying the city. We have to make preparations for an encounter and a forced siege of the city, and advanced towards the enemy in Baotou. On December 20, a siege shall be carried out at the Baotou city.

2. Men Bingyue's 6th Cavalry Division shall cross the Yellow River from Maqi Ferry, pass through the Yimeng area south of the Yellow River, and advance between Sa County and Guisui on December 20, completely destroy the Ping-sui Railway, use guerrilla warfare to contain the enemy and prevent the enemy from reinforcing Baotou. Senior Staff Officer Miao Yutian shall be sent to accompany the army to strengthen contact with the headquarters.

3. Sun Lanfeng, the commander of the New 31st Division, shall lead the division along with attached units such as the Provisional Police Brigade, Yu Linrui's regiment, and the 1st Mountain Artillery Battalion as the left column, and to advance to Baotou along the Bao-Wu North Highway.

4. Yuan Qingrong's New 32nd Division, attached with a battalion of mountain artillery as the right column, shall advance to Baotou along the Bao-Wu South Road and get in touch with the left column.

5. Dong Qiwu's 101st Division, attached with a battalion of mountain artillery as a follow-up unit, to advance after the left column.

6. Brigade Commander Ma Fengchen of the Suiyuan Guerrilla Army shall lead four regiments to sneak at night and hide in the Ula Mountain north of Baotou. If the enemy in Baotou rushed out of the city and fought with our army west of Baotou, the brigade would take advantage of the opportunity to occupy Baotou.

7. Wang Zixiu's New Sixth Brigade shall advance to the highway between Dasheta and Baotou and choose ambush positions in order to prevent the Japanese troops in Dashetai from reinforcing Baotou and to annihilate the enemy.

8. Ma Hongbin, commander of the 81st Army, shall lead his troops along the line from Wuzhen and Wuliangsuhai to Xishanzui to guard the Houtao area.

On December 17, the 6th Cavalry Army, under the leadership of Army Commander Mun Byung-yak, crossed the Maqidu River and annihilated the puppet troops in the East and West Laozangyingzi areas and destroyed the nearby railroad. On the 18th, the 6th Cavalry Army fought with the Japanese Army at the Twenty-four Hectares. On the 19th, the Army launched a night sneak attack on the Japanese troops stationed in Salazi. Meanwhile, the 81st Army acted according to the corresponding plan. On the afternoon of the 18th, Fu Zuoyi dispatched the chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Wang Xing and the staff officer Captain Jin Shuko twice to liaise with the New 31st Division, conveying an order confirming that the operation would begin on the night of the 19th.

After learning of the movements of the National Army's 6th Cavalry Army, Japanese Group Commander Kojima Yoshizang dispatched most of the troops of the Cavalry Group, with Kumagawa Nagaru as commander, to form the Kumagawa Expeditionary Force late on the night of December 19, using five tanks as the vanguard to move out of the city to make contact with the 6th Cavalry Army. In the early morning of December 20, after the Kumagawa Expeditionary Force had moved away from Baotou, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 93rd Regiment of the New 31st Division, led by Regimental attaché Lt. Col. Feng Zi, which had bypassed the bunkers and barbed wire outside Baotou on the night of the 19th, arrived at the northeastern corner of Baotou city. In the early morning of the 20th, Colonel An Chunshan, the commander of the 93rd Regiment, led direct units under the Regiment and the 1st Battalion to the northwest gate of Baotou City under the guidance of local youth Wang Youliang. When An Chunshan entered the northwest gate, he found that there were only a few Mongolian soldiers patrolling the city wall, so he immediately gave up his original plan, and instead used the easiest climbable spot in the northwest corner of Baotou City, "Shuiba Cave", to take the lead in attacking the city.

After receiving the order to attack, An Chunshan ordered the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion to first set up ladders to the city wall through the outer moat. As the attacking troops began to climb the wall, two Mongolian soldiers defending the city spotted the attacking Nationalist soldiers. The two soldiers then surrendered, allowing the attacking troops to climb the wall without casualties. With the help of the information provided by the two surrendered Mongolian soldiers, the attacking troops quickly launched an attack on the Japanese troops stationed at the northwest gate, annihilating more than 20 Japanese troops and capturing the gate. The battle at the northwest gate woke up the sleeping Japanese defenders, who immediately occupied various bunkers in the city and began to resist. At the same time, a Mongolian army stationed outside the city at Xiyingpan also began to attack the northwest gate, attempting to encircle the 1st Battalion of the 93rd Regiment, but was stopped outside the city by a squad led by Captain Yao Dezeng, the commander of the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion. The Mongolian Army stationed at the Xianling camp outside the city took the initiative to send someone to contact the 93rd Regiment, indicating that they did not want to get involved in the battle and offered to give the 93rd Regiment twenty boxes of ammunition. This saved the 93rd Regiment from the danger of being attacked from both sides, and also enabled the regimental commander An Chunshan to concentrate the main force of the 1st Battalion of the 93rd Regiment to quickly capture the Japanese ammunition supply warehouse.

While the 93rd Regiment captured the northwest gate, the 91st Regiment of the New 31st Division and the 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade assembled at the north of the city and two battalions of the 93rd Regiment at the northeast of the city also attacked the Baotou city one after another. The artillery guns, under the command of Major General Liu Zhenheng, the deputy commander of the siege, took up positions near Huangcaowa and set up the divisional command post in Huangcaowa. The 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade under the leadership of the regimental attaché Major Liang Yanchi was the first to enter the city, Later, the main force of the 91st Regiment, after accepting the surrender of the Puppet Mongolian army in Beiyingpan, followed the 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade into the city to expand their positions. By noon, two companies of the 1st Battalion of the 91st Regiment led by Captain Cui Jianxin and Captain Linghu Li also attacked the city. The two battalions led by regimental attaché Lt. Col. Feng Zi of the 93rd Regiment were stuck at the northeast corner and failed to enter the city because the trench outside the city was too wide and they were engaged in a battle with the puppet troops stationed outside the city.

Japanese counterattack

At that time, the Japanese army in the city knew nothing about the attacking Chinese army, and its cavalry group commander Kojima appeared to be very alarmed. However, the siege units failed to closely coordinate, resulting in inconsistent attack times and weak offensives which allowed the Japanese army inside the city to gradually recover and organize their forces to resist. Only one battalion of the 93rd Regiment entered the city as the other two battalions were blocked outside the city and lost contact with the regimental headquarters. The commanders of the 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade and the 91st Regiment did not personally enter the city to command the battle, which allowed the Japanese troops to enter the bunkers and use their firepower to block the Chinese Army's attack. Just as the various units of the New 31st Division launched their siege, the Japanese Cavalry Group Command made contact with the Mongolian Garrison Command in Zhangjiakou. However, when the commander, Lt. Gen. Naosaburo Okabe, asked if reinforcements were needed, the Cavalry Group replied that they had already notified the 1st Cavalry Brigade stationed in Sa County of the need for reinforcements and that there was no need to dispatch other reinforcements.

At 10:00 a.m. on December 20, due to the varying progress of the attacking units and the fact that some units had not broken through the city walls, as well as the fact that the 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade, which was attached for the operation, was unfamiliar with the 35th Army's chain of command, the commander of the New 31st Division, Maj. Gen. Sun Lanfeng, ordered deputy divisional commander Maj. Gen. Wang Leizhen to enter the city and command the operations as the front-line commander in order to unify the command of the siege troops. However, Deputy Divisional Commander Wang did not enter the city after receiving the order, but only set up a temporary command headquarters outside the city to direct the troops outside the city to fight against the Puppet Army. He ordered Colonel An Chunshan, the commander of the 93rd Regiment who had already entered the city, to unify the command of the troops who had entered the city, and dispatched the 3rd Battalion of the 92nd Regiment into the city as reinforcement. At this time, the troops who had already entered the city included the 1st Battalion of the 93rd Regiment, two companies of the 1st Battalion of the 91st Regiment, the 3rd Battalion of the 93rd Regiment, and a part of the 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade.

AAfter gaining unified command, An Chunshan quickly contacted the various troops inside the city. He deployed the battalions and companies on the line from Qianjie to Jinlongwang Temple and launched fierce street fighting with the Japanese troops in the city. At ths time, the Japanese army, relying on their advantages of being well-trained and well-equipped, quickly entered the bunkers set up at various street corners to put up resistance. The fighting inside the city was very fierce and the progress of the Chinese Army was hindered. At 3:00 p.m. on the 20th, under the command of Regimental Commander An Chunshan, the troops which had entered the city pushed the Japanese troops to the southeast corner of the city and raised the national flag. After learning that the Chinese army into the city, the local Baotou citizens rushed to offer tea and water to comfort the Chinese troops. However, due to the complex configuration of Japanese bunkers in the southeast corner and the fierce fire pinning them down, the Chinese troops who had entered the city were never able to occupy the southeast corner. The Japanese also organized troops to launched several counterattacks, and the battle turned into a tug-of-war state.

In order to speed up the attack, Sun Shimin of the New 31st division ordered the 3rd Battalion of the 92nd Regiment in reserve into battle to strengthen the attack power of the troops in the city. However, he did not expect that the Kumagawa Expeditionary Force of the Japanese Army, which had left the city in the early morning to look for the main force of the Chinese army, to rush back to Baotou at the same time and fought with the Chinese army outside the northwest gate of Baotou city. This sudden incident plunged the Chinese and Japanese armies into a melee. While fierce fighting was going on inside and outside Baotou City, Major General Katagiri Shigeru, commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade of the Japanese Army, ordered two cavalry regiments to reinforce Baotou from Guyang and Anbei.

Siege of the city and attacking the reinforcements

At about 4:00 p.m. on the 20th, the 1st Cavalry Brigade of the Japanese Army and its direct subordinate troops broke into the city of Baotou and successfully joined the defenders. The 13th Cavalry Regiment in Guyang was reinforced by a battalion led by its commander, Colonel Kazuaki Obara. When it reached the Sanhehao area, it encountered stubborn resistance from the 92nd Regiment of the New 31st Division and the 1st Brigade of the Suiyuan Guerrilla Army of the Chinese Army. The Japanese Army used tanks to open the way and advance step by step. The position of the 2nd Battalion of the 92nd Regiment commanded by Colonel Yu Chuanyi was almost broken through by the Japanese Army. Yu Chuanyi urgently contacted the division headquarters by phone, hoping for reinforcements. At this time, General Fu Zuoyi personally visited the headquarters of the New 31st Division to inspect the battle situation and proposed to change the policy from "besieging the city and attacking the reinforcements" to "defending the city and attacking the reinforcements". Captain Jin Shuke, his staff officer, informed Yu Chuanyi of Fu Zuoyi's intention after receiving a call from Captain Yu. Captain Yu immediately expressed his determination to hold the position and dealt a heavy blow to the reinforcement of the 13th Cavalry Regiment of the Chinese Army. Regimental commander Osamu was also seriously wounded in the battle and was rescued and taken back to Guyuan by his subordinates. The remnants of more than 300 troops, under the command of a battalion commander, desperately advanced towards Baotou. On the early morning of the 21st, the Japanese troops rushed to the northwest gate of Baotou City, but were blocked by the north gate defenders of the 93rd Regiment and the northwest gate defenders of the 91st Regiment of the New 31st Division of the Chinese Army, and were forced to retreat to the moat outside the northwest gate to hold their ground. At this time, the New 31st Division sent Divisional Chief of Staff Colonel Song Haichao to lead an artillery company into the city to support the battle. When Chief of Staff Song saw the remnants of the Japanese troops in the moat, he immediately sent men to contact the 93rd Regiment on the city wall. Artillery fire suppressed the Japanese troops first, then the 93rd Regiment launched an infantry charge, completely annihilating them. The Japanese 14th Cavalry Regiment from Anbei was still on its way to the battlefield because it was far away from Baotou.

When the Japanese 13th Cavalry Regiment was defeated by the Chinese army, the commander of the Japanese army in Mongolia, Naosaburo Okabe, realized the seriousness of the problem. He immediately contacted the commander of the 26th Division, Lieutenant General Shigenori Kuroda, and ordered him to send the most of the 13th Cavalry Brigade and a part of the 14th Cavalry Brigade to reinforce Baotou. The remaining troops would move to Baotou one after another after they were assembled. At at the same time, he ordered the Puppet Mongolian Army near Baotou to relieve the city. After the battle inside Baotou continued into the night, Lieutenant General Kojima, commander of the Japanese cavalry group, contacted Lieutenant Colonel Kumagawa who was commanding the battle outside the city, and designated all the troops in Baotou to be under the command of Lieutenant General Katagiri Shigeru, the commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade. He also took advantage of the Japanese army's familiarity with the terrain and formulated a plan for a night counterattack.

On the early morning of the 21st, Japanese troops under the unified command of Lieutenant General Katagiri launched a surprise attack on Chinese troops inside and outside the city, breaking through the position of the 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade located on the front street of the city. Upon learning that the position had been lost, the commander of the 93rd Regiment, An Chunshan, immediately deployed his troops to launch a counterattack. After dozens of fierce battles, commander An Chunshan finally defeated the Japanese troops inside the city, while the Japanese troops located outside the city were also thwarted by the favorable counterattacks of the New 31st Division led by deputy divisional commander, Major General Wang Leizhen. In order to quickly annihilate the Japanese troops inside the city, regimental commander An Chunshan decided to launch a counterattack against the Japanese troops in the city after thwarting the Japanese army's night attack plan. However, after the attack began, the Japanese fierce fire from the bunkers prevented the Chinese troops in the city from expanding their gains. From day until night, the troops commanded by Colonel An Chunshan were still in a stalemate with the Japanese army at the front street. Only the 3rd Battalion of the 92nd Regiment, led by Major Qiu Zilin, captured the fortified compound of the Japanese army in the south of the city and completely annihilated a platoon of Japanese troops stationed in the compound. At this time, the 6th Cavalry Army, which was besieging Sa County, sent news that it had captured Sa County and destroyed the Ping-Sui Railway

Outside the city, the infantry and cavalry regiments commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Kumagawa Nagaharu attacked Liujiayaozi, the front-line command post of Deputy Divisional Commander Wang Leizhen of the New 31st Division, with more than 300 cavalrymen under the cover of two fighter planes. This Japanese unit was effectively blocked by the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion and an artillery company led by Colonel Liu Jingxin, the commander of the 91st Regiment of the New 31st Division. The Japanese cavalry gave up frontal attacks after 4 consecutive unsuccessful charges and attempted to detour to the flank of Liujiayaozi to attack again, but was still repulsed by Liu Jingxin's troops. Seeing that the attack was ineffective, the Japanese troops turned to launch a sneak attack on the headquarters of the New 31st Division in Huangcaowa, but were once again defeated by two battalions of the 92nd Regiment of the reserve force. THe remnants of more than a hundred troops returned to the east of Baotou City.

Just as the 92nd Regiment of the New 31st Division was blocking the cavalry in front of it, the 14th Cavalry Regiment of the Japanese Army was approaching Baotou. The 14th Cavalry Regiment's base in Anbei was under attack by the Chinese 81st Army at the time, so the regimental commander, Colonel Kazuo Kobayashi, did not lead all of his troops out. As he did not conduct any reconnaissance on both sides of the road, they were ambushed by the New 5th Brigade of the Chinese Army when they were approaching Baotou. The troops were almost wiped out, and Colonel Kobayashi, the regiment commander, was killed on the spot. Only the remnants of more than 100 men escaped the ambush, but when they fled to Kundoulun, they encountered the 11th Battalion of the 94th Regiment of the New 32nd Division which had just arrived at the battlefield. Due to a lack of battlefield experience, the commander of the 1st Battalion, Major Lu Leshan, tried to persuade the Japanese troops to surrender. After rejecting the request for surrender, the Japanese remnants fled back to Anbei before the 1st Battalion of the 94th Regiment was ready to fight.

The 101st Division of the Chinese Army defeated the Puppet Mongolian reinforcements in the Maogi Shenyaozi area. The 302nd Regiment, under the command of Colonel Guo Jingyun, surrounded a puppet Mongolian reinforcement in the Kundoulun area and captured more than 300 troops including regimantal commander Yu Zhenyun. After being captured, the puppet regimental commander Yu Zhenweng took the initiative to successfully persuaded the puppet Mongolian army in Xinchengbao to surrender.

Stalemate

At 3:00 p.m. on December 21, two battalions of the Japanese 26th Division arrived near Baotou after breaking through the Suiyuan Guerilla Army's peripheral blockade, and launched an attack on two battalions of the 93rd Regiment of the New 31st Division at the east of the city under the cover of five fighter planes. Ater breaking through the defense of the two battalions, they joined forces with cavalry artillery regiment of the Kumagawa Expeditionary Force, sent half of their troops into the city to join the group headquarters, and sent the rest to directly attacked the headquarters of the New 31st Division in Huangcaowa. The other part of the force went straight to the New 31st Division's headquarters in Huangcaowa and launched an attack. At this time, apart from the troops directly under the divisional headquarters, there were only two battalions of the 92nd Regiment and the 2nd Battalion of the 94th Regiment of the New 32nd Division which had just arrived at the battlefield. As the three battalions had already suffered considerable losses in the previous attacks on the cavalry artillery regiment of the Kumagawa Expeditionary Force, they failed to stop the Japanese troops in front of them. The commander of the New 31st Division, Maj. Gen. Sun Lanfeng, had no choice but to order the retreat of the division to the vicinity of Beishangen to reorganize. Due to the ferocity of the Japanese attack, an artillery company staioned near the divisional headquarters of the New 31st Division was wiped out when Liu Zhenheng, the deputy commander of the siege, failed to notify them in time, and the company's four mountain artillery guns were all captured by the Japanese Army.

After capturing Huangcaowa, the Japanese Army turned their attention to the Northwest Pass. The 2nd Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 91st Regiment defending the Northwest Pass and the regiment's machine gun company under the command of Captain Sun Yingnian, the commander of the 2nd Company, concentrated their light and heavy machine guns to successfully block the Japanese Army. At this time, the 95th and 96th Regiments of the New 32nd Division rushes towards Baotou City. Under the command of divisional commander Major General Yuan Qingrong, the two regiments immediately engaged in battle and fought fiercely with the Japanese Army attacking Northwest Pass. At the time, the follow-up troops of the Japanese 26th Division also arrived one after another and joined the battle, resulting in the New 32nd Division to be attacked from both sides and suffered heavy losses. divisional staff officer Captain Wang Xiaopeng and the two company commander of the 96th Regiment were killed in action one after another. Just when the New 32nd Division was in danger, the 101st Division, after getting rid of the Puppet Mongolian troops along the way, also rushed to join the battle at Northwest Pass. The Chinese and Japanese sides fought around the Northwest Pass until after nightfall.

On the morning of December 22, the Japanese Army, which had taken a short rest in the city, ordered Major General Katagiri Shigeru, commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, as the commander-in-chief of the counterattack, commanding 6 infantry companies, 3 cavalry companies, 1 tank team, and part of the artillery to launch a general counterattack against the various units of the 35th Army inside and outside the city. The 101st, New 31st, and New 32nd Divisions and the 1st Regiment of the 5th Provisional Police Brigade simultaneously launched fierce attacks against the Japanese Army. The battle lasted until noon and ended when the Japanese Army stopped their attack.

Active retreat

As Japanese and Puppet reinforcements continued to rush towards Baotou, the Chinese Army was already extremely fatigued after two days and two nights of bitter fighting. If they continued to fight with the Japanese Army, they will inevitably suffer greater losses. For this reason, General Fu Zuoyi, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the 8th War Area, believed that a large number of Japanese and Puppet troops had been killed or wounded in the three-day fierce fighting, and it was impossible to recapture Baotou at this time, so General Fu decided to withdraw his troops. The summary of the order was as follows: "Our troops have already entered Baotou after a long-distance attack, annihilated a large number of enemies, and attracted the main force of the Japanese army. The mission of cooperating with the Xiangbei Campaign has been completed. In order to avoid disadvantages and seek victory, it has been decided to make a strategic shift. All units should cover each other and disengage from the battle according to the order of first the units inside the city and then the units outside; first the units attacking the city, then those intercepting reinforcements. The withdrawal will proceed on the night of the 21st toward the Zhongtan area."

At noon on the 22nd, the 35th Army began to retreat. After disvoering that the main force of the 35th Army showed signs of retreat, the Japanese Army sent a large number of tanks and automobiles in hot pursuit, but they were immediately entangled by the 101st Division in the rear and forced to withdraw to Baotou. Although the main force of the 35th Army escaped from the Japanese pursuit, it was attacked by the Puppet Mongolian Army in the Kundoulun River area. In this battle, more than a hundred troops below Captain Zhang Luchen, the commander of the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 94th Regiment of the New 32nd Division, who were covering the main force of the 35th Army in their retreat, were killed in action.

At this time, on the front line in Baotou, when General Fu's order was issued, Major General Wang Leizhen, deputy commander of the New 31st Division, urgently sent men into the city to convey the order to Colonel An Chunshan of the 93rd Regiment. However, the officers and soldiers who entered the city to fight expressed their determination to recapture Baotou and refused to retreat. The troops outside the city had begun to retreat one after another, and the deputy commander Wang of the New 31st Division, sent men repeatedly to urge An Chunshan to withdraw his troops. At this time, An Chunshan could only falsely claim that "the retreat was fake, and the real plan is a decisive battle outside the city" to trick his troops to retreat from Baotou. When the troops led by Colonel An Chunshan withdrew to the Kundoulun River, they found that the main force of the 35th Army was entangled with the Puppet Mongolian Army, so they immediately joined the battle and attacked the Puppet Mongolian Army from the side. The Puppet Mongolian Army was attacked from both sides and retreated to the northwest foothills of the Kundoulun River. Although the Japanese and puppet troops in Baotou had assembled nearly 10,000 troops, they did not take further action because they were blocked during the previous pursuit.

On the early morning of the 24th, the divisions of the 35th Army withdrew to the Zhongtan area and returned to West Suiyuan. The attack on Baotou was over. While the 35th Army withdrew from Baotou, seven soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 93rd Regiment were still holding on to the Niangniang Temple in Baotou city. They had not received the order to retreat, and after discovering that the main force had retreated, they chose to continue fighting. After running out of food and ammunition on the nightfall of the 22nd, they committed suicide. After the battle, the Japanese Army, moved by their loyalty and bravery, erected a monument for these seven heroic Chinese soldiers.

Aftermath

The 35th Army killed and wounded more than 3,000 Japanese and puppet troops, destroyed more than 60 Japanese vehicles, 4 tanks, destroyed an arsenal, captured a large number of weapons and munitions, killed a Japanese regimental commander (the commander of the 13th Cavalry Regiment, Kazuaki Ohara, died of his injuries after returning to Guyang), and captured a Puppet Army commander. According to the statistics of the Japanese Army's internal confidential documents, in the winter counterattack launched by the Japanese army outside Baotou in late December, a total of 11 officers and 196 troops below NCOs were killed in action. In addition, 30 officers and 464 troops below NCOs were wounded in action, for a total of 701 troops killed or wounded. If the casualties of the Japanese Army in mid-December and the casualties of the Japanese Army caused by the Chinese Army in Baotou were added, the Japanese Army should have suffered nearly 1,000 casualties in the Battle of Baotou. The 35th Army suffered more than 2,000 casualties in this battle. Although the 35th Army failed to recapture Baotou in this battle, this attack was beneficial to the consolidation of the anti-Japanese base in North China, attracted the attention of Japanese troops in northern Shanxi, southern Chahar and most of North China, and prevented the Japanese Army's plan to withdraw troops from North China to the south from being implemented. It has played a huge role strategically.

This action by the Chinese Army gave the Japanese Army a great shock. They had never expected that Fu Zuoyi's Group would have the strength to launch an offensive against the Japanese Army. In order to prevent Fu Zuoyi's Group from harassing Baotou again, the Japanese troops stationed in Mongolia formulated "Operation No. 8" on January 15, 1940, aimed at annihilating Fu Zuoyi's Group. Considering that Wuyuan is more than 200 kilometers west of Baotou, beyond the combat control line of the Japanese military headquarters, the Japanese Army in Mongolia submitted the combat plan to the headquarters. The Japanese military headquarters had not considered occupying West Suiyuan at the time, so although it approved the plan on January 24, it ordered the attacking troops to withdraw immediately to their original defense areas after achieving their objectives. This decision eventually led to Fu Zuoyi taking advantage of the opportunity when the main forces of the Japanese army withdrew one after another after completing their mission, launching a counterattack and ultimately winning the battle at West Suiyuan.

External links

• Scene from the 1939–1940 Winter Offensive in the Vicinity of Baotou, Suiyuan Province, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (Saint Louis Art Museum)