The self-defense counterattack and border defense operation against Vietnam in 1979 was the largest operation conducted by the Chinese People's Liberation Army after the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. For the past 40 years, there have been various rumors surrounding this short but fierce local border war, both in the army and in society. Among them, the most widely circulated, most famous, and believed by many people is that the People's Liberation Army suffered heavy casualties during the retreat phase, even greater than during the offensive phase.
Is this rumor the historical truth or a rumor that deviates from historical facts? Let us first review the process of withdrawal of various participating troops.
The withdrawal of the People's Liberation Army's participating troops officially began on March 6, 1979. The night before, Xinhua News Agency issued a statement on the order of our government: "Due to the continuous armed provocations and invasions of our country by Vietnamese invaders, the Chinese border defense forces have been forced to fight back in self-defense since February 17, and have now achieved the expected purpose. The Chinese government announced that starting from March 5, 1979, all Chinese border defense forces began to withdraw into China." This statement issued by Xinhua News Agency marked the entry into the third stage of the war against Vietnam, which is the withdrawal stage. Our army adopts the method of alternating cover, with the guiding principle of retreating and searching and suppressing at the same time. While organizing the retreat, it continues to search and suppress the remaining enemies and expand the results of the battle.
11 Army direction: The 91st Regiment of the 31st Division concentrated the strength of 4 battalions, and adopted the tactics of roundabout encirclement and interspersed divisions to encircle and annihilate the 1st Battalion of the 741st Regiment of the Vietnamese Army with 2 companies, 2 platoons of the 2nd Battalion of the 193rd Regiment and the 5th Public Security Company in the Ban Yao scattered area. The battle started at 5:40 on March 6 and ended in the early morning of March 8, with 317 enemies killed and 5 captured. After annihilating this enemy force, the entire army began to withdraw from the battlefield at 20:00 on the 8th, and safely retreated to the country at 10:00 on the 11th.
13 Military direction: The 38th Division will hold its position on the front line of the Po River and cover the evacuation of the entire army; the 115th Regiment, the 116th Regiment and the 13th Border Defense Regiment will respectively control key points on both sides of the Red River to ensure smooth roads and the safety of crossings. At the same time, artillery was used to conduct planned artillery bombardments on Vietnamese army positions and important targets south of the Waipo River, inflicting damage and shock to the enemy. From March 7th to 8th, the artillery fired 13 times on the following enemies. Among them, at 14:15 on the 8th, more than 90 enemy people were killed. This effectively covered the calm and orderly evacuation of the troops, many of them one person and one horse, and not a single wounded person or martyr was lost. By March 12, all the 13th Army's outbound troops had withdrawn into the country.
14 Army Direction: The 40th Division withdrew into the territory along Xiaocao in two batches on March 8th and 12th; the 41st Division withdrew into the territory on the 13th after clearing out the remaining enemies in the Mengkang and Zezhou areas; the 42nd Division withdrew into the territory via Mengkang on the 12th; the 124th Regiment, which was responsible for covering the evacuation of the entire army, completed its mission and withdrew into the territory on the 12th. The Army Front Point and the Army Base Point withdrew to Shimonoseki on the 10th; the Army Artillery Regiment and the Anti-aircraft Artillery Regiment withdrew into the territory on the 7th and 10th respectively.
42 Military direction: From 7:00 on March 14, the troops will be organized to gradually gather in, alternate cover, and gradually withdraw. The 126th Division returned from Kejia and Shuolong on the 14th and entered the Xiangshui area; the 125th Division returned from Shuikou and entered the Wude area on the 15th; the military commander and the 124th Division returned from Shuikou, Lu, and Nahua on the 16th, and the military commander entered Longzhou County, and the 124th Division entered the Xia Dong area.
43 Military direction: In this direction, the Vietnamese army acted more actively, and launched many counterattacks against our army with battalion and company-sized forces. The 127th Division and the 128th Division implemented blocking operations at Highland 390, Xiuqing, Bankeng, Highland 612, the Highlands south of Kelai, and the highlands southeast of Batang respectively, annihilating more than 1,000 Vietnamese troops, and were twice praised by the military region's front commanders. After dealing a heavy blow to the pursuing enemy, the entire army withdrew into the country on the 12th.
55 military direction: At dawn on March 6, all troops withdrew to the area north of Qiqiong River. At dawn on March 8, they withdrew to the front lines of Kuoma Mountain, 395 Heights, and Kuodang Mountain to occupy positions and organize defenses, preparing to rely on favorable terrain to attack the Vietnamese counterattack. As a result, after waiting for three full days, the Vietnamese army withdrew urgently from Cambodia. The two main divisions, the 304th Division and the 325th Division, which went north to reinforce the Lang Son , did not dare to counterattack our army. The troops continued to retreat from 0:00 on the 11th, and all returned to the country before 6:00 on the 12th.
During the retreat of the 55th Army, the Vietnamese army did not dare to organize a counterattack with troops above the platoon. There were only sporadic shelling and reconnaissance and harassment by small groups of personnel. As long as the enemy shelled me, I would punish them with 10 times the enemy's artillery fire. The fierce firepower made the Vietnamese army dare not fire easily. For example, on the morning of March 9, the Vietnamese army fired more than 20 artillery shells at me in the direction of Youyi Pass, and I immediately fired back more than 250 shells.
41 Army direction: The army fought on the northern battlefield of the Gaoping Theater and began to retreat on March 13. By March 16, the 121st and 123rd Divisions retreated from Longbang and the 122nd Division from Pingmeng.
The divisions affiliated to the 50th Army and the 54th Army were put into the battlefield as battle preparation teams after the battle began. Therefore, the two armies did not have their own independent combat directions. Among the retreat operations of all participating troops, only the 448th Regiment of the 150th Division of the 50th Army, which was assigned to the 41st Army, suffered a defeat and lost one reinforced battalion due to the wrong command of the army working group. In other words, during the entire withdrawal process, except for the losses suffered by the 2nd Battalion of the 448th Regiment, our army never suffered any losses. The so-called heavy casualties and heavy losses are typical exaggerations and generalizations, which obscure the view of the mountain.
Hundreds of thousands of troops retreated, but only one battalion was defeated and lost hundreds of people. Is this called heavy casualties?
Vice Chairman of the Military Commission and Chief of General Staff Deng Xiaoping specifically mentioned the only loss this time at the self-defense counterattack report meeting on March 16: "Let me tell you that we suffered a loss. We suffered a small loss on the 12th. Our battalion was surrounded by the enemy due to command relations. Encirclement, half returned, half lost. "
448 Regiment The general process of the retreat failure is as follows:
448 Regiment was ordered to withdraw its troops from the Banying area on March 12. On the choice of retreat route and marching method, the 150th Division and the 50th Army working group stationed in the division had differences of opinion. Commander Liu Tongsheng advocated taking cars along the highway and retreating by motorized transport. However, the military working group believed that the troops entered the war too late and had not received enough actual combat training. They requested that they retreat on foot along the route that the 121st Division took in the early stages of the operation, that is, the trails in the Tianfeng Mountain area north of Banying, and fight a few more battles on the way to search for and suppress the remaining enemies and expand the results of the battle. This meant "hugging the grass and hunting rabbits."
The two opinions were at loggerheads, so they reported it to the Guangzhou Military Region for capture. The front commander of the military region agreed with Division Commander Liu's opinion and approved the troops' retreat along the highway via Gaoping. However, the confidential department of the 150th Division actually missed translating this crucial telegram. Then the 150th Division could only obey the decision of the military working group and order the 448th Regiment to retreat along the path.
As a result, the 2nd Battalion led by the regimental commander was blocked by the condescending Vietnamese army during night operations in Naga and the areas north of it. The Vietnamese army used intensive firepower to separate the 2nd Battalion from the main force of the regiment, and suppressed the 2nd Battalion in the valley. Deputy commander Hu Qingzhong was shot and died at the beginning of the battle. Deputy political commissar Long Dechang failed to effectively control the troops, causing each company to lose unified command and fall into an unfavorable situation of being passively beaten. After the
2 Battalion was ambushed by the Vietnamese army, the military working group did not pay enough attention. It believed that the 448th Regiment could solve the problem with its own strength and did not agree with the division's response plan. The 448th Regiment sent deputy chief of staff Fu Peide to lead the 1st and 8th companies to reinforce the 2nd Battalion. Due to insufficient strength and unfamiliar terrain, they were defeated by the Vietnamese army one by one, and all 7 companies were lost. The defeat of the 448th Regiment was the most serious loss in the ten-year war against Vietnam, resulting in a total of 542 people being separated (219 of whom were captured and returned) and 407 guns of various types lost.
First, he was careless and allowed the troops to act alone in mountainous areas where the enemy situation was unknown and the terrain was unfamiliar; then he was careless and failed to take resolute and powerful response measures after being ambushed by the enemy. The command error of the military working group was the main reason for the failure of the 2nd Battalion of the 448th Regiment, and it must bear the main responsibility. After the war, the Party Committee of the 50th Military Region conducted an investigation and reported its opinions on how to deal with the members of the military working group to the Party Committee of the Chengdu Military Region. After approval, Deputy Commander Guan was demoted, Deputy Political Commissar Hou was given an intra-party warning, and Deputy Commander Liu was transferred after being demoted. Although
lost the battle, everyone's performance was completely different.Some fought bloody battles and would rather die than surrender. For example, Wang Lixin, deputy commander of the 8th company, decisively executed the traitors sent by the enemy to persuade them to surrender, and led the commanders and fighters of the 1st platoon to persist in the battle. At the last moment of his life, he fired a grenade and died with the enemy, and was posthumously awarded first-class merit. Except for two seriously wounded soldiers who were captured and returned, all died. Some were greedy for life and feared death, and surrendered with their guns. For example, the instructor of the 1st company, Feng Zengmin, and the company commander, Li Heping, lost their fighting spirit and led their troops to surrender to the enemy. After the war, he was repatriated and sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment by a military court.
It is understandable that he was captured because he lost the ability to resist due to objective reasons; he was greedy for life and feared death and voluntarily surrendered his gun as a prisoner, which is unacceptable to the discipline of the French and French military. In recent years, there has been a very bad trend, without distinguishing the specific circumstances of the capture, calling those weaklings who lost their position and surrendered to the enemy as heroes. Where does this fallacy leave the countless martyrs who shed their blood? What would they think if they knew something? The word hero is very sacred and not everyone is worthy of it! The author of
is a master of history and a university lecturer, focusing on the history of the Sino-Vietnam War.
WeChat public account: The tenth year of war in southern Xinjiang
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