The first title awarded after the founding of New China was in 1955. At that time, General Xu Shiyou was awarded the "Founding General". New China, which is facing a lot of waste and is waiting to be revitalized, needs to build and develop its economy internally, and seek a foothold in the world environment externally. At that time, many countries were eyeing the newly established regime. Xu Shiyou once said in a chat with Chairman Mao: "If there is still a battle to be fought, I will fight for a while and then rest." Hearing Xu Shiyou's words, Chairman Mao laughed loudly with joy.
What I didn't expect was that Xu Shiyou's words came true in 1978. When he was over 70 years old, he really went to the last battlefield as he wished. He is 74 years old this year and is the oldest commander in the history of China's modern military.
In the 1970s, Vietnam ignored China's previous assistance and instead embarked on the path of hegemonic expansion. It wanted to invade and occupy neighboring countries, and it continued to invade China for several consecutive years. At the end of 1978, the central government finally decided to teach Vietnam a lesson, and Xu Shiyou was appointed commander-in-chief.
1. A warrior from the temple
Xu Shiyou was born in a small village in Henan. His parents gave birth to 8 children, only Xu Shiyou survived. At first, because his family was really poor, Xu's father wanted to sell Xu Shiyou for money. Xu's mother begged hard and finally snatched Xu Shiyou back from the traffickers. Xu's mother took Xu Shiyou to beg for a living, and barely raised Xu Shiyou until he was 8 years old. She was really helpless, so she sent Xu Shiyou to the Shaolin Temple, so that she could have a bite of food.
The young Xu Shiyou fetched water, chopped firewood, and practiced martial arts in the temple. He developed a strong body and a hard-working character early on. After practicing in Shaolin Temple for 8 years, Xu Shiyou encountered a squire and landlord who bullied the common people on his way back to his hometown to visit relatives. Xu Shiyou, who was jealous of his hatred, immediately came to help. Afterwards, his punishment of the squire was retaliated against as expected. In order not to cause trouble to his family and neighbors, Xu Shiyou had no choice but to leave his hometown, leave the temple, and start a wandering life.
When he was 23 years old, the Eleventh Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was established. After a little understanding, Xu Shiyou resolutely joined. After that, Xu Shiyou began his fighting career.
In the Red Army team, Xu Shiyou relied on his courage and superb martial arts to make repeated military exploits and was promoted successively. Xu Shiyou is not only good at fighting, but he also dares to break into the enemy camp alone and use his machete to confront the enemy's guns. "Death is like a lamp going out, and a head falling off is just a scar the size of a bowl!" With such ambitious words, Xu Shiyou joined the death squads 7 times in his life, serving as captain 5 times, commanding the team to go into battle to kill the enemy.
is such a fierce general who came from a temple. He was dissatisfied as early as when Vietnam began to provoke endless provocations against Chinese border towns.
2. Rebellious Vietnam
Vietnam's ability to become independent and prosper in domestic development and construction is undoubtedly inseparable from China's help. However, since Le Duan came to power, Vietnam has not been grateful. As Sino-Soviet relations broke down and Sino-US relations eased, Vietnam and the Soviet Union, which had gradually become hostile to China, had an opportunity to take advantage of it.
Vietnam believes that China and the United States, which once caused Vietnam to suffer from the war, began to get close to each other because they have "conspiracy" to harm themselves. This nonsense became even more serious after China did not support Vietnam's establishment of a federation. The Soviet Union believed that China's refusal to participate in the Soviet Union's "road to hegemony" because of its own sovereignty was a great disrespect to the Soviet Union and needed to be taught a lesson. As a result, Vietnam and the Soviet Union began to collude with each other to pursue socialist hegemony.
In order to maintain its hypocritical appearance, the Soviet Union began to use Vietnam to "attack" China. At first, Vietnam only created disputes on the Sino-Vietnamese border. Later, they began to expel overseas Chinese. Vietnam, which was afraid of China's remarks that it only dared to issue warnings, began to arrogantly compete with China for islands.
In this regard, Deng Xiaoping had already been preparing to teach the rebellious and arrogant Vietnam a painful lesson. However, his remarks on China-Vietnam issues during interviews in various countries are still not taken seriously. Since you don’t take words seriously, then let’s see what China does.
3. Xu Shiyou’s rejected plan against Vietnam
In 1978, the central government decided to fight Vietnam and appointed Xu Shiyou and Yang Dezhi as commanders of the east and west fronts respectively. When discussing the battle plan, Xu Shiyou proposed a "crazy" plan. The Western Front would create a breakthrough in central Vietnam, then move northward and join the Eastern Front, forming a trend of encirclement and annihilation of Vietnam.
Xu Shiyou's combat plan is a tactic often used by our army. If this tactic is moved to Vietnam, based on the command capabilities of Xu Shiyou and Yang Dezhi and the combat capabilities of our army, it will be able to annihilate approximately 16 divisions of the Vietnamese army, causing 300,000 casualties. This is tantamount to annihilation for Vietnam.
If it is just to teach Vietnam a lesson and shock it, there is no need to bring such severe trauma to Vietnam. Coupled with the consideration of international public opinion, Deng Xiaoping decisively rejected this proposal. Xu Shiyou, who obeyed the organization's command, retracted his idea of not leaving any consequences and carried out operations in accordance with the milder plan formulated by the Military Commission .
In December, Xu Shiyou led various armies to arrive in Guangxi one after another. The resolute and resolute Xu Shiyou ordered the local departments to quickly deal with the Vietnamese spies when he first arrived in Nanning. The relevant staff were still confused about what happened, so Xu Shiyou slapped a newspaper on the table: "If there were no spies, how could foreign media report that I was here as soon as I arrived in Nanning?"
From then on, Xu Shiyou personally surveyed the terrain on the pretext of hunting in Guangxi and other places to prepare for the official start of the war.
On February 17, 1979, 's counterattack against officially kicked off. The People's Liberation Army marched forward triumphantly and fought bravely against the enemy. The powerful elite weapons of the Vietnamese army do not seem to have any effect in front of the Chinese army. Seeing that the situation was not good, the Vietnamese army used biological and chemical weapons against the 42nd Army led by Xu Shiyou in the battle of Lang Son. The angry Xu Shiyou ordered Lang Son to be razed to the ground.
After several days of fighting, Vietnam's attacks and aid were defeated one by one, and Xu Shiyou led his army to successfully capture Lang Son. Looking at the Vietnamese capital not far away, Xu Shiyou was gearing up and wanted to take advantage of the Vietnamese army's disadvantage to capture Hanoi , but he received an order from the central government requiring all units to retreat one after another.
I thought that our deterrence mission had been completed. However, Xu Shiyou thought that the Vietnamese troops stationed in Cambodia might still pose a threat to China, so he proposed to extend the withdrawal time on the return trip, make a slight change in the route, pass through Cambodia, and defeat the Vietnamese troops in Cambodia, so as to avoid future troubles and further disputes.
Thinking that the withdrawal was already in progress as scheduled, and temporary changes or changes occurred, the Military Commission rejected Xu Shiyou's proposal. Unable to go to Cambodia to clear out the Vietnamese troops, Xu Shiyou ordered to blow up all the stations, power plants and other infrastructure built with Chinese assistance before retreating, bring back all the supplies and weapons, and lay mines along the retreat route.
It must be said that it was Xu Shiyou's move that made Vietnam busy with infrastructure construction in the following decades and had no intention of provoking border issues. There were widespread complaints in the country, and Vietnam's power had to change its political and diplomatic methods.
