At this celebration banquet, everyone drank happily and seemed to have forgotten all the fatigue from the previous period.
Suddenly, an obvious high-pitched sound caught everyone's attention, and the hall became quiet. It was a Vietnamese army cadre who asked the Chinese military adviser: "How many generals like Chen Geng are there in China? Otherwise, he will stay in Vietnam and command us in the war?"
Saying such words really makes China The military adviser couldn't laugh or cry.
Chen Geng
We have many capable generals, but General Chen Geng is the only one. How can we let him stay in Vietnam? After such a joke, we are left with a lot of doubts. Why did the Vietnamese general say this? What did Chen Geng do in Vietnam that impressed them so much?
Let us walk into today's story together.
Picture | General Chen Gen
Chairman appointed Chen Geng to aid Vietnam
In January 1950, the Vietnamese proletarian revolutionary Ho Chi Minh walked through the virgin forest and walked for more than ten days to finally reach Nanning, China.
Then Ho Chi Minh arrived in Beijing, and from Beijing to Moscow, requesting the Chinese and Soviet governments to assist Vietnam in its struggle against France.
What is going on?
The Communist Party of China seized power across the country in 1949, allowing countless Chinese people to stand up again. The victory of the people's revolution led by the party nationwide has become a foregone conclusion, and the task of establishing a new China has been put on the agenda.
New China
But just when China is in desperate need of prosperity, our neighbor The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which is separated by a strip of water, is suffering from the invasion of the French army.
Faced with such a bad situation, Ho Chi Minh made a request for emergency assistance from China. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council quickly made a decision to aid Vietnam in resisting the French.
In order to formulate a practical plan to aid Vietnam, Luo Guibo, director of the General Office of the Central People's Revolutionary Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, was ordered to go to Vietnam in January 1950 as the liaison representative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to understand the actual situation on the ground.
Based on Luo Guibo’s inspection report, the Party Central Committee negotiated with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and made two specific arrangements.
Luo Guibo
The first thing is to provide all the equipment in terms of weapons, ammunition, medical and communication equipment to the main force of 20,000 Vietnamese troops who secretly entered our country in Yunnan and Guangxi provinces, conduct reorganization and training, and form a regular army, and It is planned to open up the China-Vietnam border transportation line.
The second thing was that Wei Guoqing led a military advisory group to Vietnam and served as the head of the advisory group to help the Vietnamese people fight the Anti-French War.
html In early June, after a period of fighting, the situation of the Vietnam-France war did not improve significantly, and the Vietnam-France war reached a critical moment.
After research by leaders such as Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De, it was decided to send another senior commander to Vietnam for guidance.
Chairman Mao
When talking about the issue of candidates, Chairman Mao asked Zhu De: "Mr. Zhu, who do you think is appropriate to send over?"
"How about sending Lin Biao over?"
Chairman Mao Shaking his head, he pointedly pointed out: " is not good. Lin Biao is indeed good in military command, but he cannot serve as a staff officer for others. If he had gone there, his identity would have been exchanged. He would not have served as an advisor to Ho Chi Minh, but Ho Chi Minh served as an adviser to Lin Biao. ”
Zhou Enlai proposed that Chen Geng take action, and both Zhu De and Liu Shaoqi agreed. Chairman Mao pondered for a moment, then smiled: " Good, this candidate is suitable, let Chen Geng help the Vietnamese army fight. "
Zhou Enlai
Two days later, he served as deputy commander and commander of the Fourth Corps in Kunming, Yunnan. Chen Geng, a member of the Central Military Commission, received a call from the Central Military Commission, asking him to quickly select outstanding personnel to form a central delegation, and took a train to Vietnam on July 7.
After arriving in Vietnam, Chen Geng met his old comrade Wei Guoqing.
During the 25,000-mile Long March , Chen Geng was the leader of the Central Cadre Corps, and Wei Guoqing was the commander of the Special Branch Battalion under his leadership. The two were naturally very excited to reunite in a foreign country.
won the first battle
After Chen Geng arrived in Vietnam, he took a simple rest and went straight to Taiyuan, the center of Vietnam.
Swearing oath before going to Vietnam to aid
Chen Geng communicated with the main leaders of the Vietnamese army many times and formulated a campaign plan. General Chen Geng also called the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with the discussed plan.
Chairman Mao quickly replied to Chen Geng. In the telegram, Chairman Mao affirmed the battle plan drawn up by Chen Geng, accurately foreseen the possibility of Gaoping's French army abandoning the city and heading south, and reminded Chen Geng to be prepared for successive battles. .
In Chen Geng's battle plan, Dongxi was designated as the first place to attack. Why attack Dongxi first?
First of all, our army is sure of victory. Secondly, by attacking Dongxi, we can cut off the connection between Gaoping and Lang Son , embed a nail inside the enemy's entire defense system, dismember the enemy's defense deployment, and force the enemy to Assistance must be provided.
In this way, our army has a great opportunity to annihilate the enemy in the field.
In Vietnam and the French Army
Therefore, the plan to attack Dongxi this time was not to occupy the city, but to force the enemy to mobilize troops and create opportunities to annihilate the enemy.
However, things did not go as expected.
html On September 3, French aircraft bombed Guangyuan one after another and stepped up aerial reconnaissance of the areas along Highway 4. It is also reported that enemy troops on the front lines of Lang Son and Dong Xi are frequently mobilized. The enemy defenders in Dong Xi have received reinforcements and are building additional fortifications.In addition, worrying things happened one after another. Two Vietnamese army scouts were captured while performing tasks near Dongxi, and two Vietnamese army cadres went out for reconnaissance and their whereabouts are still unknown.
The plan to raid Dongxi that was previously formulated may have been leaked, which will definitely increase the difficulty of the battle and even undermine the smooth completion of the entire scheduled plan.
Chen Geng
General Chen Geng was very angry about this. He called the chief of staff of the Vietnamese army to express his dissatisfaction and asked the Vietnamese army to ensure that this kind of thing would never happen again.
The missing cadres of the Vietnamese army have not yet been found, and other cadres have encountered new problems. They believe that the French army has increased its defensive strength and that it is not an excellent time to attack Dongxi.
General Chen Geng, who could analyze the situation calmly the more urgent it was, analyzed the current situation for them and emphasized that as long as the battle plan was strictly implemented, victory would be completely guaranteed.
Therefore, his determination to attack Dongxi first remained unchanged. After some analysis, the Vietnamese army's frontline command post adopted Chen Geng's suggestion.
Ho Chi Minh and Chen Geng
htmlOn September 10, Ho Chi Minh arrived in Quang Yuan in person to take charge of the border battle. General Chen Geng reported to him seriously. Suddenly, Ho Chi Minh stood up and said to Chen Geng: " All Vietnamese troops are under your command. Please guarantee the victory of this war!""I will do my best to help you win. As for I feel somewhat certain about the final outcome, but not absolutely sure. To win the war, we mainly rely on the efforts of the Vietnamese army commanders and the support of the Vietnamese people."
html On September 15, Ho Chi Minh, Commander-in-Chief of the Vietnamese Army Vo Nguyen Giap and Chen Geng and others moved to the vicinity of Dongxi with the Vietnamese army's frontline headquarters. That night, after Vo Nguyen Giap and Chen Geng reviewed the combat deployment, they launched an attack on Dongxi as planned.At dawn the next day, the Vietnamese army launched an attack on Dongxi. At this time, Chen Geng was helping his brothers to fight and did not dare to take it lightly.
Chen Geng in Vietnam
In this battle, the 174th Regiment and the 209th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army were the main attackers. The 174th Regiment cleared the east and west peripheral strongholds, and the other lost contact with the headquarters until the afternoon. Just got in touch again.
Therefore, the general attack was postponed.
At dusk, the battle started, and various regiments of the Vietnamese army launched attacks on Dongxi from different directions.
At midnight, Chen Geng breathed a sigh of relief when he received the news that the attack team had entered the enemy's core fortifications.
html In the early morning of September 17, Chen Geng was informed that the troops had not entered the enemy's core fortifications and were currently in a stalemate.
Chen Geng
An anxious Chen Geng came to the Vietnamese army's frontline headquarters. After some discussions, he learned that the main reason for the failure in the early stages of the war was improper communication and the commander's failure to provide effective command.
It turns out that the troops did not strictly abide by the time schedule in the combat plan, and the commanders did not follow the troops and communication was inconvenient, resulting in the commander being unable to make correct deployments based on the actual situation of the troops.
General Chen Geng helped the Vietnamese frontline command summarize experience and readjust attack deployment.
At dusk that day, the Vietnamese army launched another attack on Dongxi. By midnight, the Vietnamese army occupied part of the city, but they never got close to the enemy's core area.
In the Vietnam War
Learning from the previous lesson, Chen Geng gave suggestions: Change the previous four-sided attack to a one-sided assault, and capture where you hit, and don't give it to the enemy easily.
The Vietnamese army quickly made adjustments according to the command of General Chen Geng.
html At 2 a.m. on September 18, the Vietnamese army broke through the core area of the enemy. By 8 a.m., they had annihilated 260 French troops and also seized many French military supplies. The battle ended with victory, which greatly boosted morale.After this, the French army also made large-scale adjustments and urgently reinforced Qixi. At the same time, a large number of troops were mobilized from other places, all of which were elite foreign mercenaries . They were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lebarge to conduct a large-scale raid on the seat of the Vietnamese government.
French Army
What kind of plan does the French Army have?
If the attack on Qixi is carried out according to the predetermined battle plan, the difficulty will inevitably increase.
At this time, Chen Geng had his own judgment. He believed that the French army's additional troops in Qixi were going north. He insisted on staying put and could not change his plan because of a series of actions of the French army.
In view of the delay in the enemy's action, General Chen Geng ordered the troops on the northwest border to step up the attack on nearby strongholds to threaten the old street, and asked the troops besieging Gaoping to further tighten the encirclement, which has achieved the effect of knocking on the mountain and shaking the tiger. , forcing the French army in Qixi to go to the north for support as soon as possible.
Ho Chi Minh discussed with Chen Geng and others
On the other hand, he sent the 174th Regiment to attack the south of Qixi, giving the enemy the illusion that the People's Army had moved south, allowing the enemy to boldly advance to the north. Both Ho Chi Minh and Giap agreed to the plan.
The Vietnamese army and the French army waited for several days. Finally, the French army command began to mobilize troops, and the calm Vietnamese army ushered in a turning point at this time.
The French command at the time must have believed that the Vietnamese army had moved its troops to the location of the leader, so that they could invade northward with confidence. However, this idea just fell into the trap of the Vietnamese army.
html On the evening of September 30, French army chief Lebarge led his troops out and headed north.
The French army
The French army, which had been walking all night, entered the encirclement of the Vietnamese army south of Dongxi and met the Vietnamese army.
Unfortunately, half of the soldiers of the 308th Division where the Vietnamese army is on guard here are not here. What is going on? It turned out that the 308th Division had eaten up the food they had brought during the confrontation over the past ten days and had no choice but to go to the Chinese border to carry food.
Chen Geng was furious when he heard the news. How could this be possible? So he quickly called to urge the soldiers to come back without delaying even a minute.
Since only half of the troops were engaged in the battle at that time and the organization was not strict, most of the Vietnamese army's attacks were ineffective attacks and did not cause much harm to the French army.
The Vietnamese army
The Lebarge Corps sensed that something was not going well, so they took advantage of the cessation of fighting with the Vietnamese army and secretly fled towards Gushe Mountain.
Due to the rapid offensive of the Vietnamese army, the French commander-in-chief decided to abandon the military stronghold in the north, temporarily abandon Gaoping, and concentrate his forces for retreat. It can also be seen from this that the real purpose of Lebarge's regiment heading north was to assist Gao Ping's army in retreating south.
It was the Sakdong Corps that organized the retreat of more than 1,000 Gaoping defenders. When the Sacdon Corps heard that the Lebarge Corps had not captured Dongxi and was trapped in Gushe Mountain, they felt that something was wrong.
During the process of withdrawing southward, the Sacdon Corps destroyed power plants and related facilities along the route. They abandoned the city and instead walked along Route 4 toward the location of the Lebarge Corps.
War pictures
He wanted to join up with the Lebarge Corps, and then seize the opportunity to move towards the Seven Creeks area.
In fact, as early as the beginning of the battle, Comrade Mao Zedong told Chen Geng that there was a possibility that the French army in Gaoping would abandon the city and withdraw southward. Therefore, when the French army behaved like this, it did not exceed Chen Geng's expectations.
Gushe Mountain has its own unique terrain, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. The Vietnamese army did not make much progress in several attacks. They only killed some enemies, but the Vietnamese army also suffered many casualties. The war fell into a stalemate for a while. .
The anxious French army made a timely emergency rescue plan. First, they ordered the Sacdon Corps to quickly advance to Gushe Mountain and move closer to the Lebarge Corps.
Corps
On the other hand, the troops from Qixi were ordered to form a corps, commanded by Colonel Naben, to assist the Lebarge Corps.
Their little thoughts are also obvious. First of all, they want to use the Naben Corps and the Sakdon Corps to form a counter-encirclement against the Vietnamese army and change the current predicament. Secondly, it helps the three corps to merge and withdraw southward.
In order to assist in ground operations, the French army provided support to the Gushe Mountain area from the air. A large number of planes were sent to bomb the area indiscriminately. At the same time, in order to alleviate the food shortage problem of the Lebarge Corps, ammunition and supplies were airdropped to the Lebarge Corps.
The Vietnamese army and the French army were also quite exhausted after a period of fighting.
Airdrop supplies on the battlefield
Vo Nguyen Giap, who led the 308th Division, called Chen Geng and believed that the two regiments sent by the French for reinforcements would soon meet up, and the Vietnamese army could not immediately annihilate the enemy and should rest and reorganize first. .
At this time, Chen Geng was very aware of the current development of the war. Now is the perfect time to decide the outcome of the war. Whoever can persist to the end will be the winner.
Chen Geng, who couldn't hold back his anger, said: " If we rest now, there will be no battle to fight. "
Vo Nguyen Giap on the other side of the phone was still not giving up and wanted to ask for a rest.
Vou Nguyen Giap
Angrily, Chen Geng slapped the table, stood up and said: "If this kind of battle cannot be fought, I will pack up and leave!" Vo Nguyen Giap did not make a sound.
At this time, Chairman Mao also sent Chen Geng a confirming telegram, which made Chen Geng overjoyed and made him more determined. Chen Geng handed Chairman Mao's telegram and his own handwritten letter to Ho Chi Minh.
Chen Geng then expressed to Ho Chi Minh: We must have the confidence to win, we must overwhelm the enemy with momentum, and we must win at any cost. Chen Geng said "This is an excellent opportunity to win. You must not miss it. The corps cannot be allowed to rendezvous or escape to Qixi."
Immediately, Ho Chi Minh personally issued an order to the front line to annihilate the enemy within 7 days. military.
Ho Chi Minh
After several days of fighting, Lebarge himself had lost his fighting spirit and hurriedly called for help from his superiors through the radio. His superiors also expressed their helplessness and asked him to find a way to break out.
On October 6, the 308th Division of the Vietnamese Army launched an attack on Le Bagé. In an emergency, Lebag led his chief of staff to retreat into a cave.
On October 7, the Vietnamese army occupied the commanding heights of the French army's position - Mao'er Mountain.
subsequently found Le Barge's hiding place, and Le Barge himself was captured. All four battalions of Le Bagé's regiment were wiped out.
Chen Geng
At this time, the Sacdon Corps was only one kilometer away from the Lebarge Corps. Not only did he fail to reinforce the Lebarge Corps, but he also suffered a fierce attack from the Vietnamese army.
On the afternoon of October 7, the Sakdong Corps was annihilated. Subsequently, the main force of the Vietnamese army moved south and annihilated the Corps in one fell swoop.
The French army suffered a disastrous defeat in the battle at Gushe Mountain, which caused heavy losses to the French army in the Vietnam-France War and greatly weakened their vitality. After this, the French army fled across the border in panic and retreated to Hanoi .
The Vietnamese army pursued them in one go, and by the end of October most of Vietnam had been liberated. The Vietnamese army wiped out more than 8,000 enemies, fundamentally changing the situation of the Vietnam-France War.
Battlefield
Celebrating Victory
This situation far exceeded the expected results. Ho Chi Minh was so happy that he held a celebration banquet at the Vietnam headquarters. Ho Chi Minh walked up to each of the Chinese military advisers and raised his glass in a toast.
Ho Chi Minh came to Wang Yanquan to drink with him, but he only drank half of the wine, so he put down the glass and said: "I can only drink half, and leave the rest to my wife!" Wang Yanquan was startled, everyone was stunned. Knowing that Ho Chi Minh was not married yet, how could he have a wife?
Chen Geng on the side saw this scene and came to alleviate this embarrassing situation. He said that Ho Chi Minh worked day and night for the revolution and did not even pay attention to his personal life. He had three months to find his wife, otherwise he would be punished himself.
Everyone drank happily, and Ho Chi Minh took advantage of his joy to say: "The war is victorious. Thank you for everyone's efforts. Let us celebrate together!"
General Chen Geng (second from right), Ho Chi Minh (second from left), and Vo Nguyen Giap (first from left)
Afterwards, Ho Chi Minh came to Chen Geng to express his gratitude. Some cadres of the Vietnamese army secretly asked Chinese advisers: "How many generals like Chen Geng are there in China? Otherwise, he will stay in Vietnam to command us in the war?"
On October 27, 1950, Chen Geng was invited to give a speech to the Vietnamese people. A summary report of the campaign was made at the border campaign summary meeting held at the military headquarters. On the first page of his report, there is a sentence that expresses his revolutionary attitude: "The spirit of internationalism, tell everything you know, and speak everything you can."
In the first part of the report, General Chen Geng clarified the great significance of the victory in the battle and made an objective evaluation of the war. The second part of
introduces the strategies and tactics of China's revolutionary war in detail, and expounds the basic principles of Mao Zedong's military thought.
In the third part, General Chen Geng conducted a detailed analysis and improvement suggestions on several problems in the construction of the Vietnamese army.
Chen Geng
The third part of the report involves the relationship between officers and soldiers, troop discipline, and the ideological leadership of officials. Many people sweated General Chen Geng's frank remarks.
Facts have proved that this worry is unnecessary. General Chen Geng’s speech generated a strong reaction among Vietnamese army cadres and also received high praise from Ho Chi Minh.
Ho Chi Minh said in one of his later reports: "We have fought two victorious battles. In the first battle, we eliminated the enemy and liberated most of the area. In the second battle, we clearly saw our own advantages and Shortcomings."
After the four-day report, General Chen Geng received a new mission - to go to North Korea. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has appointed Chen Geng as the commander of the 3rd Corps of the Second Field Army to reinforce the front line.
Chen Geng and the Vietnamese officer
have just walked out of the hot North Korea and are heading to the cold Northland to join the next battlefield and fight for the peace of mankind. Let us pay tribute to such a great hero.
