Fakashan Battle started on May 5, 1981. It was a local battle between the People's Liberation Army Guangxi Border Defense Forces with the goal of recapturing the Fakashan area of Shangshi Commune, former Ningming County, Guangxi.
This battle was the first large-scale battle since the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam in 1979. The Vietnamese army successively dispatched a mixed army of about 30,000 troops from a military and air force. The Chinese People's Liberation Army used infantry from a division, a regiment and a battalion and some of the Air Force units to fight.
Although the forces of the two sides were not large in the front-line positions during the battle, during the repeated fighting for 57 days, the People's Liberation Army's participating troops showed national prestige and military prestige. People have discovered that in 1979, the Chinese army was not as good as the Vietnamese army in terms of weapons and equipment. After two years, it changed drastically and was no longer the army that the Vietnamese army provoked at will.
Seeing Vietnam dispatched an elite army of a mixed army of the army, both defensively and offensively, it was defeated by the Chinese army. The country that originally supported Vietnam to implement foreign expansion became impatient. Soon, the Vietnam Li Duan Group became an international outcast whose grandmother did not love his uncle and did not love him, and eventually lost his national destiny.
Faka Mountain See high and low on
Faka Mountain is a small mountain range across the border between China and Vietnam, consisting of 5 main peaks. On the main peak of Faka Mountain, you can overlook the important passage from Ningming County, Guangxi, China to Pingxiang City, and therefore it is known as an important barrier on the east side of the Pingxiang area. 20 kilometers south to see the view of Tongdeng Town, Vietnam and Lang Sang City, . For both China and Vietnam, the importance of Faka Mountain is self-evident.
In January 1980, the unwilling Li Duan Group instructed the 52nd Regiment of the 337th Division of the Vietnamese Army to occupy the Faka Mountain and continuously sent small groups of special agents to infiltrate into China to carry out various destruction. The Vietnamese artillery entrenched on the Faka Mountain also continued to shell out villages and various infrastructure facilities in Ningming, Guangxi, Pingxiang, and the local people could not live normally.
Vietnam Li Duan Group ignored China's warnings, and Zhang Xuden, then commander of the Guangxi Military Region, formulated a combat plan to recover Fakashan.
In order to ensure the smooth implementation of the Fakashan regaining war, Wu Kehua, then commander of the Guangzhou Military Region, ordered the 123rd Division of the 41st Army stationed in Guixian, Guangxi (now Guigang City, ), the former Marine Force 131st Division stationed in Hainan Island, to rush to Ningming County, Guangxi to gather and standby.
The troops responsible for the main attack mission are the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Regiment of the 3rd Guangxi Border Defense Division, which was responsible for defending the former Shangshi Commune of Ningming County. The Third Border Defense Division of Guangxi was founded in April 1979. It was composed of some officers and soldiers participating in the 55th Army after the war and all officers and soldiers of the former Guangxi Border Defense Regiment. It was nominally an Border Defense Force , and it was actually the first-class elite infantry division in the People's Liberation Army at that time.
The 123rd Division, which came to assist in the battle, was the predecessor of the famous Tashan Hero Regiment . In the 1979 self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, it was the main infantry division of the Gaoping Battle. The 131st Division was one of the eight marine divisions formed by the People's Liberation Army in the 1950s. Although the Marine Forces were repeatedly reduced, the division has always been trained in accordance with the requirements of the amphibious combat forces.
In addition, all artillery units within the Guangxi Border Defense Third Division must participate in this battle. The air force stationed at Ningming Airport must not only cooperate with the intelligence collection work of the ground troops, but also be ready to participate in the war at any time. In addition to the local personnel carrying out combat support tasks, the Guangxi Military Region used about 25,000 troops at that time.
Due to the war, the Second Battalion of the Ninth Regiment of the Third Border Division of Guangxi Border Defense was actually an army of a B infantry regiment. At the pre-war mobilization meeting, all the officers and soldiers of the battalion submitted a total of 1,582 letters of request to the regiment command center. Such a force configuration was already three fully organized infantry battalions.
Guangxi Border Defense Third Division Command gathered 8 battalions and 5 companies with more than 85 mm artillery groups, equipped with artillery 118; assembled 171 82mm caliber artillery pieces with 23 companies and 12 platoons; anti-aircraft gun and machine gun troops dispatched 4 battalions and another company, equipped with 108 anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns and (support). The Guangxi Military Region established a front-line command near Faka Mountain.
At 6 a.m. on May 5, nearly 400 various artillery and machine guns fired fiercely at the Vietnamese position of the Faka Mountains with a radius of 1 square kilometer. The intensity of the battle was comparable to that of the Shangganling Battle during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. After the artillery fire broke out, the officers and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Regiment of the 3rd Border Defense Division of Guangxi attacked five main peaks in one fell swoop and carried out a clearance against the remaining enemies on the battlefield.
On the same day, our army annihilated about 500 enemies and completely controlled the Faka Mountain area. However, there were some highlands occupied by the Vietnamese army around Faka Mountain, and these highlands were located in the depths of Vietnam, so the participating troops quickly entered a defensive state.
From May 10 to 16, the commander of the First Military Region of Vietnam, Tan Guangzhong, 2, was ordered by the Le Duan Group to dispatch the 337th Division and 347th Division of the Vietnam Infantry, a helicopter brigade (12), the 514th Engineer Brigade of the First Military Region, the 166th Artillery Regiment directly under the First Military Region and the civilian army in Lang Son took turns to attack the positions in Fakashan.
11, after the Vietnamese army failed to carry out six company-level offensives above the scale, the Vietnam First Military Region Command advanced to Ping Jia area to open a front-line command, and the Vietnam 14th Army Command advanced to Lang Sang City to open a front-line combat command.
On the morning of the morning, the Vietnamese army ordered the 337th Division's three infantry battalions and one engineer battalion, and the forces of an agent company rushed to Faka Mountain. Behind its infantry units, four artillery battalions, provided firepower support, and four helicopters were also carrying out position reconnaissance missions over the south side of Faka Mountain.
The officers and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Regiment of the 3rd Regiment of the Guangxi Border Defense Division, who were standing on the Faka Mountain, carried out counterattacks on the Vietnamese army many times, shattering several attacks of the Vietnamese army that day.
13 On the morning of 13, the Vietnamese army used 160mm caliber heavy mortar to bomb the Fakashan position for the first time. A battalion of the 514th Engineer Brigade of the Vietnamese Army took the opportunity to enter the front line to repair the road from Lang Son to Naliang area.
Since the 12th, the Vietnamese army has dispatched infantry below the company level to carry out small groups of multiple attacks on the positions in the Faka Mountain. Therefore, the Fakashan Front Command of our army concluded that the Vietnamese army will have an offensive at or above the regiment level in the near future.
In order to avoid unnecessary casualties, the front command decisively ordered some officers and soldiers on the Faka Mountain position to withdraw from the position and ordered the artillery troops to shell the enemy's traffic routes. Both sides temporarily enter artillery battle.
16 at around 3 a.m. on the 16th, the Vietnamese army suddenly dispatched a reinforced infantry regiment to charge towards the highlands of Fakashan No. 5, 4 and 3. At this time, the Vietnamese artillery fire was also very fierce.
The People's Liberation Army artillery units concentrated on the 152 howitzers, 122 howitzers and various caliber artillery in their hands to violently intercept the Vietnamese charge route. The battle that night was very fierce, and even hand-to-hand combat occurred on the high ground. Fortunately, all the Vietnamese troops who attacked the high ground were defeated after dawn.
The Vietnamese army counterattacked for several days in a row, with hundreds of casualties, dozens of artillery pieces destroyed, and more than ten cars destroyed. Since the Vietnamese army consumed thousands of artillery shells every day and did not have the ability to produce artillery shells, its 14th Army and even the First Military Region had run out of ammunition and food, and had to temporarily give up the idea of counterattacking Fakashan. From June 31, the Vietnamese army suffered a great loss in the direction of Yunnan, and the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia was also beaten by the Cambodian guerrillas to suffer heavy losses, and the Faka Mountain gradually entered a state of calm.
People's Liberation Army's strength display
Fakashan Battle, both armies showed superb tactical coordination capabilities.
Let’s talk about the Vietnamese army first. These people occupied the Faka Mountain area for more than a year and knew every grass, every tree, every pit and every stone in the war zone. This time, the Vietnamese army did not send artillery observers like in 1979. Their curved artillery could hit the back of the mountain, causing huge destructive power to the PLA's logistics supply line.
The charge infantry of the Vietnamese army had experienced the strength of the People's Liberation Army in 1979 (the 337th Division of the Vietnamese Army was severely damaged in Lang Sang City). This time, although many battalion-level charges were adopted, the casualties rate was significantly reduced. In addition, its helicopter formations have always provided reconnaissance intelligence. When the People's Liberation Army artillery fire was concentrated in a certain area, the Vietnamese infantry in the artillery area was immediately evacuated.
The Vietnamese artillery took the method of swinging and shooting to effectively prevent the position from being locked by the People's Liberation Army after firing.At the most intense moment of the battle, due to the tightly blocked artillery fire of the Vietnamese army, it was difficult for the PLA reserve team to reinforce comrades on the high ground. The Fakashan Heights 5, 4 and 3 were repeatedly captured by the Vietnamese army.
Of course, the officers and soldiers of the Third Border Defense Division of Guangxi also fought well. The 123rd Division and the 598th Regiment of the 131st Division, which served as the reserve team, have not taken action yet. The units of the Third Division have shown superb strength in electronic listening, communication support, ammunition control, troop mobilization, and infantry artillery coordination. The People's Liberation Army soldiers made great progress in anti-night attacks and anti-special operations compared with 1979. By the late stage of the battle, the Vietnamese military's agent troops did not dare to fight Kashan.
During the 57-day battle, the Vietnamese army dispatched two artillery groups to which the infantry division belonged and all artillery of an independent artillery regiment, and the artillery density was very high. Sometimes thousands of shells were fired a day, but the number of casualties in the PLA troops participating in the war was only 184, of which 78 were sacrificed. The Vietnamese army suffered about 1,200 casualties, of which more than 700 were killed.
The casualties ratio between the People's Liberation Army and the Vietnamese Army is 1:6. The People's Liberation Army calculated the number of casualties of the Vietnamese army based on the statistical principle of "death and death, and death", excluding the number of Vietnamese soldiers killed and injured when shelling the Vietnamese artillery positions. In this battle, the People's Liberation Army showed mercy and did not shell out Lang Son, Vietnam, which was close to the point, nor did it launch a strike on the Vietnamese infantry positions outside the Faka Mountain area, otherwise the number of casualties of the Vietnamese army would be greater.
Fakashan Battle is like the Shangganling Battle during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea . Both sides did not invest much force in front-line combat, but the skills accumulated by the two armies over the years have been fully utilized. In short, the People's Liberation Army is more skilled and the Vietnamese army is no longer confident. Fearing the combat effectiveness of the Third Border Defense Division of Guangxi, the Vietnamese army did not dare to contain hundreds of corpses abandoned in front of the position.
Vietnam was abandoned by its allies
In early September, Le Duan took a large-scale Vietnamese delegation to visit the Soviet Union.
Media from all over the world have speculated that Li Duan is bringing reinforcements.
As expected, when Li Duan met Brezhnev on September 7, he first cried about the experience of the Vietnamese army on the Sino-Vietnam border, and then habitually listed a list to request the Soviet Union to provide military assistance.
Brezhnev told Li Duan in front of reporters from many countries that the task of the Soviet Union and Vietnam is to strengthen the economy and should act frugal in all aspects. Then, he only mentioned the topic of economic aid and did not mention military aid. The talks were short and no longer talked about it as usual for a whole day.
Brezhnev's implication is: Don't provoke China anymore. What's the use of giving you so many advanced weapons? It’s better to do a good job in the economy.
In the afternoon, the Soviet TV news program reported the news of Li Duan’s visit, but did not play the TV scenes of Li Duan and Brezhnev meeting. The Soviet Union obviously became cold to the Li Duan group this time.
In view of the issue of the Li Duan Group going to the Soviet Union to ask for various aids every time it causes trouble, on September 14, the Central Military Commission of China decided to hold a large-scale military exercise in North China to test the achievements of the modernization of the troops and to show the world the new look of the People's Liberation Army.
This North China military exercise was very successful. The world discovered that the People's Liberation Army had the strength of modern combat, which played a key role in the future improvement of Sino-Soviet relations and also formed an effective deterrent effect on Vietnam.
At the end of 1981, when the Li Duan Group felt that the Soviet camp was no longer optimistic about Vietnam, it began to use the position of Vietnam's representative to United Nations and frequently sent misfortunes to the US camp. It did not receive any response from the US camp countries. In 1982, Li Duan published the self-criticism edict and decided to implement major adjustments to Vietnam's senior management.
But at this time, the inside of Vietnam was already broken, and Li Duan could no longer clean up the mess. Seeing that his former allies had no good faces, Vietnam could only keep making trouble.
At 6 a.m. on May 5, nearly 400 various artillery and machine guns fired fiercely at the Vietnamese position of the Faka Mountains with a radius of 1 square kilometer. The intensity of the battle was comparable to that of the Shangganling Battle during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. After the artillery fire broke out, the officers and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Regiment of the 3rd Border Defense Division of Guangxi attacked five main peaks in one fell swoop and carried out a clearance against the remaining enemies on the battlefield.
On the same day, our army annihilated about 500 enemies and completely controlled the Faka Mountain area. However, there were some highlands occupied by the Vietnamese army around Faka Mountain, and these highlands were located in the depths of Vietnam, so the participating troops quickly entered a defensive state.
From May 10 to 16, the commander of the First Military Region of Vietnam, Tan Guangzhong, 2, was ordered by the Le Duan Group to dispatch the 337th Division and 347th Division of the Vietnam Infantry, a helicopter brigade (12), the 514th Engineer Brigade of the First Military Region, the 166th Artillery Regiment directly under the First Military Region and the civilian army in Lang Son took turns to attack the positions in Fakashan.
11, after the Vietnamese army failed to carry out six company-level offensives above the scale, the Vietnam First Military Region Command advanced to Ping Jia area to open a front-line command, and the Vietnam 14th Army Command advanced to Lang Sang City to open a front-line combat command.
On the morning of the morning, the Vietnamese army ordered the 337th Division's three infantry battalions and one engineer battalion, and the forces of an agent company rushed to Faka Mountain. Behind its infantry units, four artillery battalions, provided firepower support, and four helicopters were also carrying out position reconnaissance missions over the south side of Faka Mountain.
The officers and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Regiment of the 3rd Regiment of the Guangxi Border Defense Division, who were standing on the Faka Mountain, carried out counterattacks on the Vietnamese army many times, shattering several attacks of the Vietnamese army that day.
13 On the morning of 13, the Vietnamese army used 160mm caliber heavy mortar to bomb the Fakashan position for the first time. A battalion of the 514th Engineer Brigade of the Vietnamese Army took the opportunity to enter the front line to repair the road from Lang Son to Naliang area.
Since the 12th, the Vietnamese army has dispatched infantry below the company level to carry out small groups of multiple attacks on the positions in the Faka Mountain. Therefore, the Fakashan Front Command of our army concluded that the Vietnamese army will have an offensive at or above the regiment level in the near future.
In order to avoid unnecessary casualties, the front command decisively ordered some officers and soldiers on the Faka Mountain position to withdraw from the position and ordered the artillery troops to shell the enemy's traffic routes. Both sides temporarily enter artillery battle.
16 at around 3 a.m. on the 16th, the Vietnamese army suddenly dispatched a reinforced infantry regiment to charge towards the highlands of Fakashan No. 5, 4 and 3. At this time, the Vietnamese artillery fire was also very fierce.
The People's Liberation Army artillery units concentrated on the 152 howitzers, 122 howitzers and various caliber artillery in their hands to violently intercept the Vietnamese charge route. The battle that night was very fierce, and even hand-to-hand combat occurred on the high ground. Fortunately, all the Vietnamese troops who attacked the high ground were defeated after dawn.
The Vietnamese army counterattacked for several days in a row, with hundreds of casualties, dozens of artillery pieces destroyed, and more than ten cars destroyed. Since the Vietnamese army consumed thousands of artillery shells every day and did not have the ability to produce artillery shells, its 14th Army and even the First Military Region had run out of ammunition and food, and had to temporarily give up the idea of counterattacking Fakashan. From June 31, the Vietnamese army suffered a great loss in the direction of Yunnan, and the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia was also beaten by the Cambodian guerrillas to suffer heavy losses, and the Faka Mountain gradually entered a state of calm.
People's Liberation Army's strength display
Fakashan Battle, both armies showed superb tactical coordination capabilities.
Let’s talk about the Vietnamese army first. These people occupied the Faka Mountain area for more than a year and knew every grass, every tree, every pit and every stone in the war zone. This time, the Vietnamese army did not send artillery observers like in 1979. Their curved artillery could hit the back of the mountain, causing huge destructive power to the PLA's logistics supply line.
The charge infantry of the Vietnamese army had experienced the strength of the People's Liberation Army in 1979 (the 337th Division of the Vietnamese Army was severely damaged in Lang Sang City). This time, although many battalion-level charges were adopted, the casualties rate was significantly reduced. In addition, its helicopter formations have always provided reconnaissance intelligence. When the People's Liberation Army artillery fire was concentrated in a certain area, the Vietnamese infantry in the artillery area was immediately evacuated.
The Vietnamese artillery took the method of swinging and shooting to effectively prevent the position from being locked by the People's Liberation Army after firing.At the most intense moment of the battle, due to the tightly blocked artillery fire of the Vietnamese army, it was difficult for the PLA reserve team to reinforce comrades on the high ground. The Fakashan Heights 5, 4 and 3 were repeatedly captured by the Vietnamese army.
Of course, the officers and soldiers of the Third Border Defense Division of Guangxi also fought well. The 123rd Division and the 598th Regiment of the 131st Division, which served as the reserve team, have not taken action yet. The units of the Third Division have shown superb strength in electronic listening, communication support, ammunition control, troop mobilization, and infantry artillery coordination. The People's Liberation Army soldiers made great progress in anti-night attacks and anti-special operations compared with 1979. By the late stage of the battle, the Vietnamese military's agent troops did not dare to fight Kashan.
During the 57-day battle, the Vietnamese army dispatched two artillery groups to which the infantry division belonged and all artillery of an independent artillery regiment, and the artillery density was very high. Sometimes thousands of shells were fired a day, but the number of casualties in the PLA troops participating in the war was only 184, of which 78 were sacrificed. The Vietnamese army suffered about 1,200 casualties, of which more than 700 were killed.
The casualties ratio between the People's Liberation Army and the Vietnamese Army is 1:6. The People's Liberation Army calculated the number of casualties of the Vietnamese army based on the statistical principle of "death and death, and death", excluding the number of Vietnamese soldiers killed and injured when shelling the Vietnamese artillery positions. In this battle, the People's Liberation Army showed mercy and did not shell out Lang Son, Vietnam, which was close to the point, nor did it launch a strike on the Vietnamese infantry positions outside the Faka Mountain area, otherwise the number of casualties of the Vietnamese army would be greater.
Fakashan Battle is like the Shangganling Battle during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea . Both sides did not invest much force in front-line combat, but the skills accumulated by the two armies over the years have been fully utilized. In short, the People's Liberation Army is more skilled and the Vietnamese army is no longer confident. Fearing the combat effectiveness of the Third Border Defense Division of Guangxi, the Vietnamese army did not dare to contain hundreds of corpses abandoned in front of the position.
Vietnam was abandoned by its allies
In early September, Le Duan took a large-scale Vietnamese delegation to visit the Soviet Union.
Media from all over the world have speculated that Li Duan is bringing reinforcements.
As expected, when Li Duan met Brezhnev on September 7, he first cried about the experience of the Vietnamese army on the Sino-Vietnam border, and then habitually listed a list to request the Soviet Union to provide military assistance.
Brezhnev told Li Duan in front of reporters from many countries that the task of the Soviet Union and Vietnam is to strengthen the economy and should act frugal in all aspects. Then, he only mentioned the topic of economic aid and did not mention military aid. The talks were short and no longer talked about it as usual for a whole day.
Brezhnev's implication is: Don't provoke China anymore. What's the use of giving you so many advanced weapons? It’s better to do a good job in the economy.
In the afternoon, the Soviet TV news program reported the news of Li Duan’s visit, but did not play the TV scenes of Li Duan and Brezhnev meeting. The Soviet Union obviously became cold to the Li Duan group this time.
In view of the issue of the Li Duan Group going to the Soviet Union to ask for various aids every time it causes trouble, on September 14, the Central Military Commission of China decided to hold a large-scale military exercise in North China to test the achievements of the modernization of the troops and to show the world the new look of the People's Liberation Army.
This North China military exercise was very successful. The world discovered that the People's Liberation Army had the strength of modern combat, which played a key role in the future improvement of Sino-Soviet relations and also formed an effective deterrent effect on Vietnam.
At the end of 1981, when the Li Duan Group felt that the Soviet camp was no longer optimistic about Vietnam, it began to use the position of Vietnam's representative to United Nations and frequently sent misfortunes to the US camp. It did not receive any response from the US camp countries. In 1982, Li Duan published the self-criticism edict and decided to implement major adjustments to Vietnam's senior management.
But at this time, the inside of Vietnam was already broken, and Li Duan could no longer clean up the mess. Seeing that his former allies had no good faces, Vietnam could only keep making trouble.
