1979 self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, the Shuojiang defense line in Heguang County, Vietnam built by the 246th Regiment of the 346th Division of the Vietnamese Army was the most solid defense line in the entire war zone.
The Battle of Shuojiang was the most tragic, and the number of losses on both sides even reached 1:1. The 364th Regiment of the 122nd Division of the People's Liberation Army was ambushed by the Vietnamese army on the first day of the war, and the losses were very large. Only when Ou Zhifu, the commander-in-chief of the North Army of the Eastern Front, adjusted his tactics in a timely manner, the troops reversed the passive situation.
Shuojiang defense line was broken, and the Vietnamese Li Duan Group instantly lost the confidence to fight the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Military experts from various countries also saw through the strength of the Chinese and Vietnamese armies.
Hard bones on the Sino-Vietnam border battlefield
Shuojiang Town is the seat of the Heguang County Government of Gaoping Province, Vietnam. About 4 kilometers northwest of Shuojiang Town is Pingmeng Pass, Yuanpingmeng Commune, Napo County, Guangxi, China. About 16 kilometers northeast of the northeast of the Mengma Brigade of Yuantunpan Commune, Napo County, Guangxi, and about 20 kilometers south of the county town of He'an County, Gaoping Province, Vietnam.
Shuojiang Town belongs to the karst rock-like landform, with steep slopes and deep valleys. The road from Pingmeng Pass in China to He'an County and Gaoping City passes through the mountains. The narrowest part is less than 8 meters and the widest part is less than 300 meters. The stone mountains along the way are covered with natural caves, which are very suitable for blocking wars.
In addition, there are some little-known things that need to be explained: Shuojiang Town was always the headquarters of the North Vietnamese central government before the end of Vietnam War , and it can also be said to be the North Vietnamese base. During the North Vietnam War against France, its leader, Ho Chi Minh, was hunted by the French army and once brought a large number of subordinates to Pingmeng Commune, Napo County, Guangxi, China for asylum. As the base of North Vietnam, Shuojiang will naturally not be bad at all.
In addition, the commander of the First Military Region of Vietnam at that time, Tan Guangzhong , was a native of Shuojiang Town. In terms of military talent, Tan Guangzhong is even more powerful in competing with two famous Vietnamese generals, Wu Yuanjia and Ruan Zhiqing. In his early years, Tan Guangzhong studied at the Liuzhou Military Academy opened by Li Zongren , Guangxi Guangxi. In 1944, he participated in the establishment of the Vietnamese army. At that time, there were only 34 people in the Vietnamese army. Wu Yuanjia was the captain, and Tan Guangzhong was the platoon leader.
After that, Tan Guangzhong was demoted due to personal style issues and was stolen by Wu Yuanjia and Ruan Zhiqing. Tan Guangzhong served as the commander of the Ho Chi Minh Guard Force for a long time. In the 1950s, he went to the Soviet Voroshilov Military Academy and made outstanding achievements after returning to Vietnam.
is also the reason for this. Before taking the initiative to provoke a war between China and Vietnam, the Le Duan Group had already drawn the 246th Regiment of the 346th Division of the Vietnam Army, a long-term mission of defending Vietnam's central organs, to guard the Shuojiang defense line. If you can become a combat unit of a country's central government security force for a long time, your overall combat effectiveness will naturally not be bad. No matter how bad it is, it is also a combat unit with the best combat effectiveness in the country.
Let’s talk about this Shuojiang defense line. During the World War II , the Japanese Army’s Fifth Division, , dispatched aircraft, tanks, heavy artillery and tens of thousands of infantry, but failed to break through the French position. After the end of World War II, the French army, which made a comeback, spent a lot of money but failed to break through the positions of the North Vietnamese army. This has led to the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army that the Chinese army cannot break through the Shuojiang defense line.
At around 5:35 am on February 17, 1979, the 122nd Division of the People's Liberation Army, which was ordered to attack from Pingmeng Commune, Napo County, Guangxi to Mengma Brigade in Tupan Commune, after a 30-minute artillery fire, all the troops under his command quickly attacked.
As a result, the attack of nearly 12,000 front-line troops in the division was blocked, and the subsequent troops could not follow up and could only stay in China. This is the first infantry division among the first batch of outbound combat troops of the People's Liberation Army that was unfavorable to set out. The enemy troops defending the Shuojiang defense line were the Vietnamese Army's 246th Regiment, 1 battalion of the 245th Regiment, a small number of public security forces, and the Vietnamese civilian army, with a total strength of less than 2,500 (one infantry regiment of the Vietnamese Army has only 1,600 infantry regiment and 400 battalion).
As soon as the 4th Company of the 365th Regiment of the 122nd Division of the People's Liberation Army left Pingmeng Pass, he was ambushed by the Vietnamese army entrenched on Changpai Mountain in Vietnam, and the company commander Kong Linghua died.When the 4th Company soldiers launched a strong attack, they fell into the Vietnamese army's dense firepower blockade circle. More than half of the entire company lost, and even did not kill or injured a few Vietnamese troops, and they could not figure out the position deployment of the Vietnamese army.
In fact, the Vietnamese army cleverly built natural stone caves of all sizes into secret bunker fortifications within the entire Shuojiang defense line, and there are trenches and traffic trenches connected between each fire point. In the area where vehicles are accessible, not only large mixed minefields have been set up, but many anti-tank trenches have been dug.
Each mountain is equipped with 82 recoilless cannon , US-made B41 anti-tank rocket launcher, US-made M-79 grenade launcher, 82 mortar, anti-aircraft machine gun and other heavy firearms. Each infantry company is also equipped with anti-tank missile team, which shows that there are more weapons than personnel.
Due to the large density of local stone mountains, the distance between the peaks is less than 10 meters. After the attack of the 122nd Division of the People's Liberation Army was blocked, the division's heavy artillery group was used to continue to open the way, but the effect was not good. Therefore, Ou Zhifu, commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front North Army, had to order the 122nd Division to suspend the attack.
Teachers took the initiative to teach students a lesson
Commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army North Army Group Army Ou Zhifu served as the head of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters during the War of Resistance Against Japan . In mid-November 1941, he led 2,000 soldiers of the secret service regiment to fight more than 7,000 Japanese 36th Division at Huangyadong in , and achieved a record of killing and wounding more than 2,000 Japanese troops. The loss of the war between China and Japan was 1:6.
Let’s look at the Huangyadong area located in the central part of Taihang Mountain in and in Licheng County, Shanxi Province. It belongs to the lava landform. Each stone mountain is covered with cracks of varying lengths and sizes. There are basically a canyon between mountains that are a canyon that can’t be opened by thousands of people. It can be said that the terrain of Huangyadong area resembles the Shuojiang area in Vietnam.
The mountain combat experience obtained decades ago told Ou Zhifu that it is not advisable to attack Shuojiang strongly. The Japanese invaders' combat power and firepower were not bad at that time, and they were defeated in the face of terrain advantages. Nowadays, the PLA soldiers can no longer make this mistake. Then Ou Zhifu ordered the 122nd Division to send some troops around the fire blockade line of the Shuojiang Yue Army for detour, and the units serving as the main attack re-scored.
After reconnaissance, it was found that the position deployment of the Shuojiang Yue Army was a large net spread out, and the firepower in each grid was very strong. After learning about this situation, Ou Zhifu repeatedly reminded the 122nd Division Command: the troops must seize the commanding heights and use condescending advantages to tear open the enemy's defense line. At the same time, multiple assaults must be taken to expose all the enemy firepower points. Small-caliber artillery units must be split into squads and platoons before they can get rid of hard bones.
According to the idea of European wealth, it is actually cutting off the Vietnamese army's network cable one by one, and finally cutting off the entire large network.
Then, the commander of the 122nd Division, Yu Xinyi and political commissar Zhang Dengfang organized a combat meeting for commanders at the company level and above. Each company re-forms a new combat plan based on its own combat tasks. After discussion by the meeting, the plans with certain feasibility can be implemented. Plans with omissions must be corrected in a timely manner to avoid unnecessary casualties.
Under the direct guidance of Ou Zhifu, the main attack troops of the 122nd Division were divided into feint attack troops and assault troops. The feint attack troops attracted the attention of the Vietnamese army with fierce firepower, while the assault troops used night cover to secretly catch the enemy.
The 4th Company of the 365th Regiment of the 122nd Division, which had suffered a great loss at the foot of Changpai Mountain, sent a infantry squad, , who was good at climbing, quietly climbed to the top of the mountain from the cliff of Changpai Mountain, and then searched down from the top of the mountain layer by layer. The Vietnamese army, who fought based on the fortifications, did not expect that the People's Liberation Army would appear at their defensive dead corner. As a result, the barbed wire and traps set up by the Vietnamese army at the foot of the mountain became obstacles to trapping oneself.
The 365th Regiment of the People's Liberation Army destroyed the enemy in Changpai Mountain and captured the 475th Highland and the highland on the east side of Naliangnuo. At this time, a huge hole was torn through the Shuojiang defense line. The tank troops and infantry units responsible for intersecting and encircling also appeared behind enemy lines. For a time, the remnants of the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army were unwilling to fight and fled to the Shuojiang Town area.
pillar collapsed, and the Vietnamese army was defeated on the front line, and the three generals who claimed to be the most capable of leading troops in the Vietnamese army, never expected that the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army could not stop the attack of the People's Liberation Army's 122nd Division, while having the advantage of terrain, having weapons, and knowing themselves and the enemy.
The 122nd Division of the People's Liberation Army, on the first day of the war, was still in ambush circles. Just one day passed, and they all resurrected as if they were injected with chicken blood. The Vietnamese army once made the tunnel warfare that the US special forces feared was so vulnerable in front of the People's Liberation Army that the senior general of the Vietnamese army had to admit defeat.
20020 On February 18, Wen Jinyong, chief of staff of the Vietnam Army and commander-in-chief of the Vietnam North Front, had just returned from Cambodia to Hanoi , and hurriedly ordered the 346th Division of the Vietnamese Army and its subordinate troops to be broken into pieces, and squads and platoons should be used to delay the attack of the Chinese army.
At this time, the Vietnamese army still has air force available, and the second line of defense has several regular infantry divisions available, but the senior Vietnamese army knew that the Shuojiang defense line with such a tight defense system could not be defended. If the second-line troops go to reinforce, without preset positions to protect them, no amount of troops would be enough for the Chinese army to make dumplings. Therefore, whether it is the mobile troops deployed before the war or the reserve team, they have been changed to guerrilla warfare, and mutual rescue is prohibited.
Seeing that the 246th Vietnamese Regiment was besieged in the Shuojiang area and the 567th Vietnamese Regiment was besieged in the area from Fuhe County to Guangyuan. Huang Bianshan, the commander of the 346th Division, as the highest commander of the Vietnamese Army in Gaoping, was unable to concentrate his troops to rescue. Vietnam's foreign military adviser suggested: immediately use the transport aircraft to urgently transfer three elite infantry divisions from Cambodia to go north to participate in the war.
However, such decisions were not decided by the Chief of Staff of the Vietnam Army, Wen Jinyong, and Vietnamese Defense Minister Wu Yuanjia. Whether to expand the situation or not is in the hands of Li Duan . Li Duan knew that if Vietnam dared to use the air force to participate in the war, China would also dispatch the air force to participate in the war. If we continue to increase troops to the Sino-Vietnam border area, China will also increase troops.
Before the battle, Wu Yuanjia, Wen Jinyong and Tan Guangzhong formulated a combat plan to stick to the front line and win the front line. At that time, Vietnam believed that the Vietnamese army had a great chance of victory, and the funds were insufficient, so they were not prepared for defense in the second and third-tier regions. After the first-tier positions were lost, the second-tier and third-tier Vietnamese army was unable to organize defense in a short period of time.
For this reason, the front-line units can only act as cannon fodder, and the delay will be as long as they can. The most important thing at the moment is to concentrate troops to organize the defense line in the Hanoi region.
From February 22, the 122nd Division of the People's Liberation Army captured Shuojiang Town. At this point, the Vietnamese army had worked hard to manage the Shuojiang defense line for decades was completely completed. The 246th Regiment and its subordinate troops were almost wiped out, Vietnam's base was lost, and a large amount of weapons, equipment, food and supplies became the spoils of the People's Liberation Army.
3 days later, Wu Zhong, commander-in-chief of the PLA South Group, led his troops to attack the city from the southeast side of Gaoping City, and attacked the 346th Division and the remnants of the troops with the North Group. At this point, starting from Mangjie City, Guangning Province, Vietnam in the east and Fengtu County, Laizhou Province, Vietnam in the west. On the 1,000-kilometer front line, the front-line troops of the Vietnamese army were completely defeated, and the battlefield situation quickly shifted from the original positional offensive and defensive battle to the People's Liberation Army's initiative to clearance operation.
