Today I will talk about something that few people know.
1.
Military enthusiasts are still discussing a question, that is, self-defense counterattack against Vietnam What will happen if Su Yuda is the commander in the future?
For generals who have experienced the war years, Su Yu is definitely one of the outstanding military strategists who is good at large-scale battles.
Once this idea is thrown out, everyone will discuss that relying on General Su Yu's military life experience, as well as his strategic decisions and good use of strange soldiers, he will definitely be able to achieve many superb achievements.
But what is unexpected is that this matter may not be established from beginning to end, because Marshal Su Yu and Ye Jianying opposed sending troops to Vietnam !
However, even if General Su Yu did not agree to send troops, many people later believed that his contribution was extremely huge. Why is this?
In fact, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, we also provided a lot of free help to Vietnam in the south. During the French-Vietnam War and U.S.-Vietnam War, China provided countless strategic materials, weapons and equipment to Vietnam's neighbor. and financial aid.
When the war situation was at its most critical, we even dispatched military advisory groups and anti-aircraft artillery units to directly support the independent cause of the Vietnamese nation and help them fight against the invaders.
Just when we were teaching each other our tactics and combat concepts, no one knew that we had raised a "white-eyed wolf" from scratch.
In exchange for China's help, Vietnam massacred and expelled overseas Chinese, and even invaded our territory with arms. It also took our money and equipment to unite with the Soviet Union in the north to contain China.
China spent 20 billion yuan to raise a wolf cub!
In 1975 alone, Vietnam was like a hungry wolf, provoking more than 400 bloody incidents on the Sino-Vietnamese border. Vietnam began to hate the Chinese nation. By 1978, these incidents suddenly increased to more than 1,100 incidents.
This was a heavy debt of blood. At that time, Vietnam killed and injured more than 200 Chinese border guards, militiamen and residents.
In those years, even our own land was not safe. Many villages on the border between Guangxi and Yunnan were destroyed by Vietnamese artillery fire. I don’t know how many residents were forced to leave their homes where their ancestors had lived for generations. Not only were they unable to carry out normal production activities, And life is not peaceful either.
The Vietnamese seemed to have forgotten what we had paid for Vietnam. They began to instigate and organize large-scale anti-Chinese activities in the country. A large number of Chinese were accused of being "Chinese spies" and were given a time limit to leave Vietnam.
The Vietnamese even required every Chinese who left to pay a full 12 taels of gold. If these people could not afford the money, they would be sent to places like concentration camps to work as coolies, and they might even be beaten to death on the spot.
The most infuriating thing is that Vietnam does not even recognize our sovereignty over the South China Sea. You must know that the sovereignty of the South China Sea has been written in international documents such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. The South China Sea Islands is still Chinese no matter how many years it has been.
But at this time, Vietnam sent troops to occupy most of the islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
has been forced into this situation. China is not easy to bully. It can't be tolerated and there is no need to tolerate it anymore.
On February 17, 1979, " People's Daily " published an editorial on the front page that will forever be engraved in history. The title of
's editorial is "What is Tolerable, and What is Intolerable". The article says: When dealing with the Vietnamese aggressors, there is no compromise. Patience has now been regarded as a symbol of weakness and can be bullied, and advice and warnings are all ignored. Out of earshot.
made a clear point at the end of the article, that is, after repeated consideration, the central government decided to carry out self-defense and counterattack , defend the borders of the People's Republic of China , and give Vietnam the punishment it deserves!
War is never the goal, but if the enemy's arrogance is not curbed, we can only end the war with war!
This is destined to be a difficult choice. When Mr. Deng made this decision, he went through many sleepless days and nights.
2.
Singapore Legendary Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once recalled an inside story about a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam.
That was the year before the People's Daily published that editorial. In November 1978, the 74-year-old Deng Xiaoping arrived in Singapore by plane. Deng held a formal meeting with Lee Kuan Yew in the Cabinet Room of the Presidential Palace.
Deng Gong seriously explained to Lee Kuan Yew the threat of the Soviet Union to the entire world. He said that all countries and people who opposed the war must form a united front and must oppose the warmongers.
At that time, many people did not know why Vietnam’s relationship with China had reached such a bad stage. Deng Xiaoping said that the key question was why Vietnam would completely fall to the Soviet Union when it was not in its own interests at all. .
People have long seen that Vietnam has actually had a dream of establishing a federation of Indochina for so many years. Even Vietnam regards China as the biggest obstacle to its dominance of Indochina .
Our judgment is accurate. Not only has Vietnam not changed its position, but it has also intensified its hatred of China.
In the turbulent late 1970s, what people were most worried about was that Vietnam might really launch a massive attack on Cambodia. Deng Xiaoping asked himself in front of Lee Kuan Yew what should China do?
Then the great man of the generation, Deng Gong, answered himself: What China will do depends on how far Vietnam will go. If Vietnam controls the entire Indo-China Peninsula, many Asian countries will lose the chance for peace.
The Indochina Peninsula under the control of Vietnam will become an important step in the Soviet Union's global strategy of marching southward into the Indian Ocean .
Lee Kuan Yew felt a little heavy because he thought that just a few weeks ago, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong came to Singapore for a visit. At that time, Lee Kuan Yew asked Pham Van Dong a sharp question: How should Vietnam face overseas Chinese? The problem.
Unexpectedly, Pham Van Tong actually gave Lee Kuan Yew a very rude answer. He said with a stern expression, as a Chinese, you should know that the Chinese will always turn their hearts to China, just like Vietnam. People will support Vietnam no matter where they are!
Lee Kuan Yew himself is a member of overseas Chinese (his ancestral home is Guangdong). After hearing this sentence, he suddenly had a deep understanding of the contradiction between China and Vietnam. Vietnam has the most direct and instinctive suspicion and suspicion of the Chinese in its own country.
Deng Xiaoping said that China provided Vietnam with a total of US$1 billion in economic assistance, with a current value of 20 billion yuan. If China withdrew its economic assistance to Vietnam, the Soviet Union would have to shoulder this burden alone.
The Soviet Union was far away from Vietnam. They could not satisfy the appetite of the Vietnamese, so Deng Gong saw the hope that Vietnam would reunite with China in the future, but not now. China would never be intimidated by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not dare Blatant invasion of China.
One day the Soviet Union will find that supporting Vietnam is a burden they cannot bear.
After Lee Kuan Yew said goodbye to Deng Gong and left, something in his heart seemed to be touched. He vaguely understood that something big might happen.
Sure enough, Lee Kuan Yew learned from the news that Deng Xiaoping began a visit to the United States at the end of January 1979, and on the premise of "one China", he restored diplomatic relations with US President Carter .
At this time, Lee Kuan Yew suddenly realized what Deng Xiaoping, an outstanding politician, was doing - he was ensuring that if China took certain actions, the United States would never stand on the same front as the Soviet Union.
When Lee Kuan Yew saw Deng Xiaoping and Carter waving to the masses in the United States, Lee Kuan Yew knew that Deng Xiaoping's goal had been achieved, and he couldn't help but admire and admire them.
Then it is self-evident what China will do next, but at this time, there are different voices in the country, such as Su Yu and Ye Jianying.
3.
The late 1970s was also an unstable era for China.
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping received a request from Cambodian leader Pol Pot, hoping that China could help Cambodia resist the invasion from Vietnam just like it did when it resisted U.S. aggression and aided Korea.
For this reason, Deng Xiaoping immediately summoned the generals and held a Central Military Commission meeting. When people talked about whether to launch a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, most senior cadres raised objections.
People's main concern is that the Soviet Union in the north is likely to invest a large amount of troops. Once China falls into the quagmire of war, the peaceful situation that China has maintained for nearly thirty years will no longer be restored. The consequences are really unimaginable.
Senior revolutionary leaders of the party and the country have expressed a certain degree of concern about the Soviet Union's possible interference in China. Although Marshal Ye Jianying and General Su Yu did not explicitly express their opposition, their attitudes were clearly against it.
Their point of view is that they are worried that the Soviet Union and Vietnam will encircle China. If China adopts the enemy's military strategy, it will easily be fought on both sides, which will be a very severe test for soldiers and logistics.
And there is another very important point, that is, the People's Liberation Army has not fought a war for many years, and its armaments in peacetime are different from those during the founding of the People's Republic of China. But Vietnam has been at war, fighting with the French and the Americans. Even the Americans have been stuck in the quagmire of war for so many years.
If war breaks out, we will still need time to train soldiers.
No matter how powerful Vietnam is, it will not be valued by these generals who have defeated the Japanese army. They are most worried about the Soviet Union, the superpower in the north, because in November 1978, the Soviet Union and Vietnam signed a military alliance treaty. One of the contents is, if If one side encounters a military attack, the other side must provide unconditional support.
This treaty is aimed at China, and anyone with a discerning eye can see that.
Just when Su Yu and Ye Jianying put forward their suggestions, someone expressed a different opinion at this time. This person was Chen Yun.
Everyone knows the importance of Chen Yun in the party, especially the decisions he made, which are basically without mistakes.
After Mr. Chen carefully analyzed and made a very careful evaluation, he decided to support Deng Xiaoping's views and ideas.
This old revolutionary expressed his opinion: Most of the Soviet soldiers are stationed on the borders of Europe. If they really want to attack China, they must mobilize troops from Europe. This cannot be done in a few days. To achieve such a large-scale mobilization, it would take at least a month.
If we fight Vietnam for a very short time and adopt a "speed war" approach, we can avoid our country falling into a stalemate and have very few opportunities to meet the Soviet Union head-on on the battlefield.
The arguments of both sides are very reasonable. Deng Xiaoping listened to everyone's opinions, especially Chen Yun's detailed views. Subsequently, Deng Xiping secretly ordered our country's relevant intelligence personnel to carry out activities on the Soviet border and began to monitor closely. If there was any trouble, they would report it to the Central Military Commission.
At that time, we had already conducted a large-scale transfer of people in the Ili area near the Soviet border, and evacuated about 300,000 civilians.
Under the general opposition of other members of the Central Military Commission, Deng Gong, with the support of Chen Yun and others, decided to curb Vietnam's ambitions. If no action is taken, the situation in Southeast Asia will be more complicated and difficult in the future, and Vietnam will feel that China is good Bullying will make them even more aggressive.
Because in just these years, Chinese people on the southern border have been forced to leave their homes and hide in caves to live a cave life. Many Chinese villages have even become deserted under the threat of Vietnam.
According to authoritative statistics from Xinhua News Agency , until 1984, armed harassment by Vietnamese soldiers caused a total of 235 casualties among Chinese civilians, most of whom were powerless, old, weak, women and children.
That’s not all. There are still 31,793 acres of land in the south that are difficult to cultivate and manage. There are 100,000 acres of rubber that cannot be harvested. There are also 52 schools that have run out of children and have been forced to close classes in desperation.
Faced with this despicable and vicious behavior by the Vietnamese army, the Chinese people were outraged, which ultimately prompted China to decide to punish Vietnam.
Mr. Deng successfully visited the United States in January 1979 and reached formal diplomatic relations with the United States. We had informed President Carter of our plan to attack Vietnam. Later, when we visited Japan, we hoped that Japan would not carry out any attack on Vietnam. level of help.
At the end of November 1978, troops from various military regions across the country began to gather at the Vietnam border and were deployed on the 1,300-kilometer-long border between China and Vietnam.
We made full use of the mobility capabilities of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. These maneuvers were completed at night, minimizing the possibility of being noticed by the Soviet Union and Vietnam.
On December 25, 1978, the bulging Vietnam sent a full 120,000 troops to invade Cambodia and occupied Phnom Penh in 12 days.
At the same time, as soon as the Central Military Commission and Deng Xiaoping learned about this incident, they ordered Xu Shiyou, who was the commander of the Guangzhou Military Region at the time, and temporarily transferred Yang Dezhi, the commander of the Kunming Military Region who was familiar with the Vietnamese army's operations, to take command and organize the Chinese army in The East and West fronts were prepared to teach Vietnam a lesson they would never forget.
Deng Xiaoping was very busy at that time. Not only did he focus on diplomatic and military preparations, he even had to organize the Central Work ConferenceThe Third Plenary Session.
Some people say that Deng Xiaoping was deeply involved in military command. At that time, Deng was even familiar with the deployment of our army to the platoon level.
Deng Xiaoping wanted to fight a quick war of annihilation, use a quick battle to determine the outcome, and achieve the goal of annihilating the main force of Vietnam, thereby combating Vietnam's arrogance that has been threatening China.
2 is the coldest month of winter. In a collision of wisdom, we chose the time when the ice on the Ussuri River has not yet melted, so as to prevent the Soviet army from taking the opportunity to invade our country from the north.
In the early morning of February 17, 1979, everyone on the Sino-Vietnamese border smelled the smell of gunpowder smoke. Just under an order, our country simultaneously launched a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam at 26 locations along the entire Sino-Vietnamese border .
4.
The situation at the beginning of the war was beyond people's expectations. We originally planned to use the most advantageous troops to quickly occupy the provincial capital cities in Vietnam, but the Vietnamese army relied on Soviet weapons to organize waves of effective resistance.
This is due to the foundation left by the Vietnamese troops' many years of combat, and also because our soldiers have been a little out of touch with their battle formations during many years of peace, and the relevant preparations are somewhat unsuitable.
But as the fighting continued, the brave and fighting side of the Chinese soldiers was completely inspired. The battle in Lang Son was brutal, but we consolidated our advantages bit by bit and made great progress all the way.
The Chinese army's tactics shocked the Vietnamese. We have begun to impose an extremely strong deterrent on Vietnam's capital. Faced with this pressure, Vietnam had no choice but to withdraw its troops from invading Cambodia and reinforce the country.
In less than a month, on March 16, 1979, our country had achieved our original goal. Deng Xiaoping announced that we had achieved victory and began to withdraw our troops.
Because there was no ceasefire between the two sides at that time, our troops adopted a strategy of staggered cover and gradually withdrawn domestically. In the process, all of Vietnam’s industrial infrastructure was destroyed, and we also recycled China’s original aid to Vietnam in fighting the war. American supplies and weapons.
10 days later, our last unit also withdrew. At this time, only 29 days had passed since we attacked Vietnam, but the Vietnamese were frightened.
In Beijing, another old man also contributed his own strength to this battle.
He is Su Yu. Although he did not agree with sending troops at the beginning, once the organization makes a decision, he will absolutely support it without saying a word and will never ignore anything that has nothing to do with him.
As early as the preparation stage of this self-defense counterattack, General Su Yu put forward many important opinions and participated in the formulation of many combat plans.
When the war officially started, Su Yu became very busy. According to the memories of those involved, General Su Yu did not go home almost every day at that time and had been living in the underground command post in Xishan, Beijing.
At that time, many of the roundabout tactics of the soldiers were proposed by this famous general of the Republic. After Wang Shangrong, the deputy chief in charge of combat deployment, saw Su Yu's strategic deployment, he was as if he saw a wonderful painting and admired it extremely.
Su Yu also had a very important task at the command post, which was to keep an eye on the movements of our northern neighbors. After the People's Liberation Army captured the northern urban area of Lang Son, Su Yu looked at the map of the Soviet Union and waited to see his next move.
When Su Yu discovered that the Soviet Union only chose to condemn us in the end and had no intention of using force, he instantly understood that the Soviet Union was strong on the outside and cadre on the inside, and made a request to the general headquarters that it should agree to front-line operations and continue to expand its results.
Therefore, the People's Liberation Army took over the southern urban area of Lang Son in one go. The Vietnamese authorities were so frightened at that time that they directly launched a general mobilization in Hanoi for fear that the People's Liberation Army would come over. The arrogance of the year seemed to have disappeared in an instant.
After the People's Liberation Army returned to China, General Su Yu did not leave. Instead, he observed some problems exposed by the People's Liberation Army in the war. Many casualties that should have been avoided happened helplessly. He was extremely sad.
Su Yu painstakingly wrote "A Discussion of Several Issues on the Initial Combat Methods of the Future Anti-Aggression War". This work was published in the Academy of Military Sciences. It contains the military thoughts and wisdom of a veteran. Many unique analyzes are very important for military construction. Inspirational.
At this time, Su Yucai hid his merit and fame. After giving everything he had for his beloved army, he quietly returned home.
Chen Yun gave Deng Xiaoping strong support. If something is not supported by a person of sufficient weight, there will be no confidence in doing it. Just like when we fought to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, many people did not support Chairman Mao, but Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai and others did.
It is precisely because of these great people in China who have dedicated their lives to the revolution and to China that we have the wonderful life we have today. Their pain is not known to outsiders, but they leave their smiles to all Chinese people.
Editor's profile: Song Xiaole is a post-90s dad from an ordinary family. He has been writing full-time for 5 years. He made his first pot of gold through self-media writing and has cooperated with many new media companies. If you are interested in self-media, writing, and making money, and want to do side jobs or part-time jobs every month after work, you can search and follow my public account " Today's People Magazine " on WeChat to discuss and make progress together.
