The Battle of Taierzhuang
The Battle of Taierzhuang was part of the Xuzhou campaign. On 23 March 1938 the Seya Detachment of the Japanese 10th Division attacked Taierzhuang on the north bank of the Grand Canal, and Sun Lianzhong's Second Group Army fought it house to house inside the town while Tang Enbo's 20th Corps maneuvered outside and drove back the relieving Sakamoto Detachment. The Chinese launched a general counteroffensive on the night of 6 April and retook Taierzhuang on 7 April. Officially the battle "annihilated more than 10,000 Japanese troops" and was China's first major victory of the war, though estimates of Japanese casualties vary widely. In May Chinese forces withdrew from Xuzhou.
Background: The Xuzhou Campaign
After Shanghai and Nanjing fell at the end of 1937, Japan planned to converge from the northern and southern ends of the Tianjin–Pukou railway to seize Xuzhou, where it crossed the Longhai railway, and then push west to Zhengzhou and south to Wuhan. Li Zongren, commander of the Fifth War Zone, organized the defense around Xuzhou, and the Xuzhou campaign began. In March 1938, part of the Japanese 10th Division (under Isogai Rensuke) advanced south along the Tianjin–Pukou line while part of the 5th Division (under Itagaki Seishirō) struck south toward Linyi from the Jiaozhou–Jinan railway, aiming to join up around Taierzhuang. On the Linyi front, Pang Bingxun's 40th Army and Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army held up the 5th Division's advance during March. On the Tianjin–Pukou front, Sichuan troops of the 22nd Group Army fought the Japanese 10th Division at Tengxian, where Wang Mingzhang, commander of the 122nd Division, ordered his men: "If the city stands, we stand; if the city falls, we fall." He was killed when the town fell in mid-March, and more than 300 badly wounded soldiers took their own lives. After Tengxian fell, the Japanese pushed straight on toward Taierzhuang.
The Battle
Taierzhuang, on the north bank of the Grand Canal, guarded the northeastern approach to Xuzhou. On 23 March 1938 a cavalry company of the Chinese 31st Division moved north to draw the enemy and made contact with Japanese troops, opening the Battle of Taierzhuang. The Seya Detachment of the Japanese 10th Division, supported by tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft, attacked the town day after day and broke into it in late March, where it fought house to house against units of Sun Lianzhong's Second Group Army in a seesaw struggle. The defenders suffered very heavy losses and at times held only part of the town; Wang Fantang, a company commander of the 27th Division, led the 57 surviving men of his company in a night raid that retook most of the northwest corner of the town, and only 13 of them survived. Meanwhile Tang Enbo's 20th Corps maneuvered north of Taierzhuang against the Japanese flank and rear, and on the morning of 6 April at Dige and Yanglou drove back the Sakamoto Detachment of the 5th Division coming to the rescue from the Linyi direction.
On 6 April the Seya Detachment ordered a withdrawal from in and around Taierzhuang; at 8 p.m. that evening the Chinese launched a general counteroffensive, with Tang Enbo's corps encircling the town from outside and Sun Lianzhong's army clearing it from the front. On 7 April Chinese forces retook Taierzhuang and pursued northward as the Japanese fell back toward Yixian and Zaozhuang.
Results and Casualties
According to the official account, at Taierzhuang "30,000 Chinese soldiers gave their lives and more than 10,000 Japanese troops were annihilated," making it "the first major victory since the start of the nationwide War of Resistance." Figures for Japanese casualties differ widely between Chinese and Japanese records and among researchers, and remain disputed. The victory drew wide attention at home and abroad and greatly lifted Chinese morale.
The Rest of the Xuzhou Campaign
After the setback at Taierzhuang, Japan brought in more troops from North and Central China to encircle Xuzhou. To preserve their strength, Chinese forces withdrew from Xuzhou in May and moved into southern Henan and northern Hubei; during the withdrawal the Yunnanese 60th Army held off the Japanese around Mount Yuwang for more than twenty days, losing nearly 20,000 of its roughly 40,000 men. After taking Xuzhou, Japanese forces pushed on westward, and the Battle of Wuhan followed.
Conflicting Recollections
After the war, participants' accounts of how the battle unfolded and of the roles of different units did not agree. Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, then deputy chief of the General Staff, gave sharply different assessments of Tang Enbo's 20th Corps in their memoirs, while Li himself, in a telegram to the Military Affairs Commission on 24 April 1938, had praised both Sun Lianzhong's and Tang Enbo's forces highly.
Narrative Comparison
| Source | Narrative |
|---|---|
| Xinhua and People's Daily commemorative reports (2025) | Official reports describe Taierzhuang as a victory of the weaker over the stronger, "China's first major victory since the start of the nationwide War of Resistance," in which "30,000 soldiers gave their lives and more than 10,000 Japanese troops were annihilated," shattering the myth of Japanese invincibility. They stress that the Chinese people "united against a common foe," and note that Zhou Enlai proposed "combining positional and mobile warfare" and "holding points while striking relief forces," sending an emissary to convey these suggestions to Li Zongren, and that anti-Japanese forces led by the CCP Shandong Provincial Committee blew up railway and road bridges, cutting Japanese military transport for more than ten days in support of the battle. |
| Diana Lary, The Chinese People at War (Cambridge University Press, 2010) | Lary places Taierzhuang within the "defeat and retreat" of 1938: after the terrible losses of late 1937, many foreign observers expected the Nationalist government to surrender and Chiang Kai-shek to be forced out, yet neither happened, and Japan's bombing and the conduct of its soldiers instead united China. In March 1938, for the first time, Chinese troops defeated the Japanese at Taierzhuang. The counter-attack did not hold, and by May the Chinese were falling back again, but in her view China's will to resist had been established and "surrender was no longer an option." |
| Memoirs of Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, and Li's telegram of 24 April 1938 (as cited by Jing Shenghong) | Li Zongren, commander of the Fifth War Zone, wrote in his memoirs that Tang Enbo's corps was slow to come south to relieve the town: "Even after repeated orders, Tang's corps still lingered in the Gupo hills. In the end I warned Tang that if he disobeyed again and lost us the moment, he would be dealt with as Han Fuju had been… but by then the defenders of Taierzhuang had been all but wiped out." Bai Chongxi, then deputy chief of the General Staff, wrote instead that "Commander Tang Enbo handled his troops well," quickly shifting forces to counter-encircle the enemy at Taierzhuang — "this was where his flexibility and sound judgment showed." In a telegram to the Military Affairs Commission on 24 April 1938, shortly after the battle, Li himself praised Sun Lianzhong's forces for "holding the villages of Taierzhuang" and Tang Enbo for "leading the main force in a swift flanking march through Zaozhuang and Yixian," asking for special commendation for both. On this basis and on Japanese records, Jing Shenghong concludes that Bai's account is closer to the facts. Li also recalled that on the battlefield "it was the people who rescued the wounded, the people who served as scouts, and the people who helped carry shells and grain for the troops." |
Key Milestones
- The Battle of Taierzhuang begins
A cavalry company of the Chinese 31st Division moves north to draw the enemy and makes contact with Japanese troops, opening the battle.
- Chinese general counteroffensive
Tang Enbo's corps drives back the Sakamoto Detachment in the morning; at 8 p.m. the Chinese launch a general counteroffensive as the Seya Detachment begins to withdraw.
- Chinese forces retake Taierzhuang
Chinese forces retake Taierzhuang and pursue northward as the Japanese retreat toward Yixian and Zaozhuang.
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