The most regrettable thing in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was the heavy loss of the 180th Division. However, different people have different views on this defeat.
From the perspective of the middle and lower levels, the command of the 180th Division is indeed problematic.
The predecessor of the 180th Division was the 24th Brigade of the 8th Column of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army. The first commander of the Eighth Column was Wang Xinting, who had been fighting in Shanxi after Liu Deng's army had moved south. Under the command of Xu Xiangqian, the Eighth Column successively fought classic battles such as the Battle of Yuncheng, the Battle of Linfen, the Battle of Jinzhong, and the Battle of Taiyuan. Especially in the Battle of Linfen, the 23rd Brigade of the Eighth Column took the lead in attacking the city wall and won the title of "Glorious Linfen Brigade". It can almost be said that the most elite main force under Yan Xishan's command was almost powerless to fight back under the blows of the Eighth Column. In February 1929, the Eighth Column was reorganized into the 60th Army, and the original 24th Brigade became the 180th Division.
In the fifth battle, the 180th Division was under siege, and the division headquarters held an emergency meeting. At the meeting, division commander Zheng Qigui raised the question of whether the division should stick to waiting for help or consider breaking through, and Wu Chengde, director of the Political Department, believed that he was already surrounded on all sides, but the military department demanded that it be stubbornly waiting for assistance, which was obviously unrealistic. Chief of Staff Wang Zhenbang and Deputy Division Commander Duan Longzhang also believed that a breakthrough was the most appropriate. At this time, some cadres said that if General Zhang Zuyu had commanded, the 180th Division would never have been used in this way, and we would never have come to this day.
Zheng Qigui was a division commander who resolutely obeyed the orders of his superiors, and he had been engaged in political work for a long time, believing that obeying orders was the natural duty of soldiers, and he could not directly break through without the consent of the military department.
Many cadres believe that the division commander Zheng Qigui was not flexible enough in command, which led to the 180th Division being in danger.
However, at this time, Wei Jie, the commander of the 60th Army, also faced the problem of insufficient troops. The other two divisions of the 60th Army, one is the 179th Division of the Linfen Brigade and the other is the 181st Division of the Pidingjun Brigade, both of which are well-known ace units of the whole army, but they are assigned to fight in other units. According to the orders of Wang Jinshan, the headquarters of the Third Corps, the 181st Division was assigned to the 12th Army, and the 179th Division was assigned to the 15th Army. In fact, there is only one unit that Wei Jie can command, but Wei Jie's combat mission is indeed to contain the US Tenth Army with 50,000 troops and 300 tanks and 800 cannons.
From the beginning, this battle, for the 60th Army and the 180th Division, was a mission of nine deaths.
Some people believe that Wei Jie should have sought out Wang Jinshan from the very beginning, leaving at least one division in the 179th division and the 181st division, and not transferring them all.
The problem, however, is that even if Wei Jie really made an opinion, he might not be able to get approval. In the fifth campaign, in order to strengthen the combat strength of the 9th Corps and the 19th Corps, Mr. Peng assigned the 12th Army to the Ninth Corps and the 15th Army to the 19th Corps.
Therefore, Wang Jinshan ostensibly commanded three corps of a corps, but in fact, only three divisions of the 179th Division, the 180th Division, and the 181st Division were really in his hands. Later in the battle, the 3rd Corps directly ordered the 180th Division to return to the direct command of the corps and continue to contain the American troops as the large troops retreated.
Zheng Qigui's command experience is insufficient, and he constantly makes decisions through the method of "promoting democracy" meetings, and falls into a strange circle of constantly collecting opinions downwards and reflecting the situation upwards. Unfortunately, Wang Jinshan's radio station was also damaged. Zheng Qigui' 180th Division, which was short of ammunition and food, was suddenly caught in a dilemma.
Put yourself in the shoes of Zheng Qigui and think about it, if Zheng Qigui could make a decision at the moment, command the troops to resolutely counterattack, or even break through the enemy's defense line to the south and find another way to break through, the 180th Division would still have a glimmer of life.
However, Zheng Qigui smashed the radio station, burned the documents, and scattered the breakthrough under the ashes of all thoughts.
This is tantamount to declaring one's own failure in advance.
In this battle, the casualties of the 80th Division and the unknown number of people reached a total of 7644 people, the battle losses have reached two-thirds (later known that more than 3000 of them were captured), more than 180 cadres alone, and even Wu Chengde, the acting political commissar of the 180th Division, was captured by the enemy.
After the war, Zheng Qigui was considered the main person responsible for the defeat, was dismissed from his post on the spot, and spent his life in regret and self-blame.
However, in the face of commander-in-chief Peng's thunderous anger, Wei Jie said: "It is unjust to hit the 180th Division with all the boards." ”
After the war, Wei Jie was called back to Beijing by Chairman Mao and talked for several hours. The specific issues discussed were kept secret by the parties.
What is certain is that many people believe that Wang Jinshan should bear the main responsibility for this.
Therefore, in the investigation of the responsibility for defeat, Wang Jinshan became the main target. In his interview with Chairman Mao, Wang Jinshan immediately admitted his main responsibility: "The damage to the 180th Division is mainly due to my ineffective command, and the main responsibility is mine." ”
However, Chief of Staff Wu Ying believed that the terrain, tactics, and equipment were the main reasons for the defeat of the 180th Division.
In the face of Chairman Mao's inquiry, Wang Jinshan kept reviewing and said that commanders at all levels of the 60th Army and below believed that there was a problem with Wang Jinshan's command and had great opinions on Wang Jinshan.
Chairman Mao said that some people wrote to say that the losses suffered by the 180th Division were mainly due to Wang Jinshan's "rightward leaning."
In order to find out the truth, Wei Jie, commander of the 60th Army, Zeng Shaoshan, commander of the 12th Army, and Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army, were all called to Beijing to talk. In the end, Wang Jinshan also laid down his ideological baggage and put forward to Chairman Mao the idea of a partial counterattack and annihilation war based on position warfare. Chairman Mao was very satisfied with this, and let Wang Jinshan re-enter the DPRK and commanded the troops to be humiliated.
Soon after, the 15th Army and the 12th Army commanded by Wang Jinshan fought the famous Battle of Shangganling, which was disgraced. Those opinions about Wang Jinshan disappeared.
And what was the fate of the 180th Division, which was once rumored to be "completely destroyed"?
The division commander, Zheng Qigui, was dismissed from his post, and after the review, he was appointed as the chief of the management department of the Third Corps (at the regimental level). In 1955, Zheng Qigui was awarded the rank of colonel in the army, and when he retired in 1970, he enjoyed the treatment of deputy military rank.
Wu Chengde, the political commissar of the division, persisted in being captured after a guerrilla war for 14 months and became the highest-ranking general of our army who was captured in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. After the review ended in 1955, Wu Chengde was expelled from the party and served as a deputy director of the Panjin Agricultural Reclamation Bureau. It was not until March 1982 that Wu Chengde resumed his party membership and restored the treatment of the old Red Army.
Objectively speaking, the 180th Division fought weakly and resolutely obeyed orders to block the enemy, in fact blocking bullets for the Third Corps and even the entire frontal front. Imagine if Zheng Qigui had retreated quickly from the beginning, he would not have been surrounded, but the brother troops might have been exposed to the flanks and annihilated.
However, compared to other fraternal units, the 180th Division did not perform well.
The 91st Regiment of the 31st Division of the 12th Army, under the command of division commander Cho Lantian and regimental commander Li Changlin, disguised as a South Korean army, circled around the east coast, capturing more than 100 prisoners along the way and withdrawing safely. This is the strong command ability of military commanders in complex situations.
According to the data, more than 5,000 people of the 180th Division were captured or sacrificed, and more than 4,000 people were rebuilt, which is far from the point of total annihilation. After the Battle of Shangganling, the losses of the 15th Army were much greater than that.
It is precisely on the basis of this consideration that the 180th Division not only did not cancel its title, but continued to replenish and strengthen, preparing for a snowy shame.
Peng Dehuai had considered whether the 180th Division should be transferred out of the 60th Army and replaced by an independent division. However, in the end, after several trade-offs, the 180 division was retained, more than 6,500 people from Sichuan were added, and Li Zhongxuan was appointed as the commander of the division.
Since the fifth battle was severely damaged, the 180th Division has been holding a vicious breath, ready to do a big job before the shame. After 1 year and 9 months of training, the 180th Division was transferred to the Jincheng front and was responsible for frontal defense operations.
At that time, the summer counterattack battle began, and in the first phase of the operation, the 180th Division adopted the "zero knocking brown candy" tactic, taking the opposite Li puppet army to train hands, and successively annihilated more than 2,000 enemy troops. By the second stage, the 180th Division, which was more and more comfortable in fighting, after careful preparations, captured the square hill where Li Puppet's so-called "Changsheng 5th Division" was stationed, annihilated the enemy's 4 brigades totaling more than 1,500 people in one fell swoop, and seized 23 square kilometers of land.
According to the chairman's arrangement, each army counterattack was limited to annihilating one company of the Us army or 1 battalion of the South Korean army, but the 180th Division destroyed 4 battalions of the South Korean army at a time. Such a record was very eye-catching at the time. The Third Corps and the 20th Corps sent congratulatory messages congratulating the 180th Division on its turnaround.
However, this was not the highlight moment of the 180th Division, the real highlight moment, the counterattack at Jincheng.
The 180th Division, as the pioneer of the left group, taught the U.S. and South Korean troops a textbook of in-depth interspersed tactics.
At that time, the 180th Division was subordinate to the 20th Corps, and General Zheng Weishan, who was the commander of the Corps at the time, invited Xu Shiyou, Du Yide, Li Tianyou and others to watch the battlefield. Jeong Wei-san proposed to lurk more than 3,500 people where the enemy's grenades could reach, so as to take the enemy's high ground in one fell swoop and completely annihilate the South Korean army on the opposite side.
Earlier, Zheng Weishan told Zhang Zuyu, commander of the 60th Army, to protect the vegetation in the lurking area, prohibit going down the mountain, and whoever dared to go down the mountain was killed immediately! Zhang Zuyu knew Zheng Weishan's lurking plan, and he was also preparing to do a big job.
The next day, when Xu Shiyou and other generals came to watch the battle, a shadow of the lurking team on the opposite side could not be seen. That night, the volunteer artillery fired in unison, and after three rounds of coverage, the lurking forces launched a general offensive in only 50 minutes, which destroyed the strong position of the South Korean army that had been operating for 2 years. The three prominent heights in front of our army were all resolved.
In this counterattack, Zhang Zuyu's 60th Army made the first contribution, and the number of enemy annihilators reached more than 14,000.
At the same time, the commanders and fighters of the 180th Division also formed a bad breath.
Qin Fude, commander of the 5th Company of the 538th Regiment, fought guerrilla warfare for more than 300 days in that scattered breakthrough before returning to the troops. This time, he led the sharp knife platoon to defeat 1 battalion of the South Korean army in one fell swoop, and in one night, Qin Fude penetrated the enemy's 30-kilometer-deep Heiyun Tuling and knocked out one battalion of the enemy in one fell swoop.
The 540th Regiment, also based on combat groups, infiltrated into the enemy's defensive positions, occupied multiple enemy positions in a short period of time, annihilated two enemy battalions, and captured more than 300 people.
The two positions of Heiyun Tuling and Baiyan Mountain have now become the two fulcrums for our army to penetrate deep into the enemy's positions. Even these two places are already outside the scope of our artillery support, facing the situation of being surrounded by the enemy on three sides at any time.
In the three days and nights when the US and Roks launched a counterattack, the 180th Division was nailed to the position and repelled many enemy attacks. Squad leader Zheng Chaoyuan took the initiative to act as a platoon leader, and through the tactics of small troop groups, used the terrain to block the enemy, successfully annihilated 122 enemy personnel, and the 4 companies and 5 companies surrounded by the enemy were also able to retreat safely.
The 6th Company of the 538th Regiment from Sichuan was attacked by an enemy regiment on its position. For three whole days, they were fighting. By the third day, Lai Yongze was the only one left on the position. An enemy battalion attacked our position from three directions, and Lai Yongze found only 2 anti-tank grenades and 2 explosive canisters on the position. He struggled to throw these 4 explosive weapons into the enemy group, took advantage of the opportunity of the enemy's offensive being blocked, ran to the platoon command post to get ammunition, and was injured again on the way.
On the Black Cloud Tuling Ridge and the White Rock Mountain, the 180th Division was humiliated and fought a wonderful battle of interlude and defense. The 180th Division regained the honor of heroic troops.
In the Liberation War, the 60th Army had many remarkable achievements in the Shanxi battlefield and the Sichuan battlefield, and it was recognized as a unit within the army that could fight. Because of this, the 60th Army will be named to fight in North Korea and incorporated into the Third Corps as the main attack. In the fifth battle, the 180th Division, everyone wrote a blood letter to fight, putting itself in the most dangerous position. Unfortunately, the situation was unfavorable, and the 180th Division broke into the sand.
The 180th Division, which was replenished and strengthened, was later incorporated into the 20th Corps, and the commander was replaced by Zhang Zuyu, the old commander of the 8th Column in North China. This kind of adjustment will undoubtedly optimize the command system to the greatest extent and enhance the combat effectiveness of the troops.
Zhang Zuyu's 8 columns are actually a relatively complex army. This unit can be traced back to the 129th Division's Resistance. In the southeastern Jin Dynasty battlefield, Zhang Zuyu successively participated in the Battle of Qiquan Village, the Battle of Shentouling, and the Battle of Hundred Regiments, and was also a famous general of the Hundred Battles. During the Liberation War, Zhang Zuyu successively served as commander of the 19th Military Subdistrict of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region, chief of staff of the Eighth Column of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army, deputy commander and chief of staff of the Eighth Column of the First Corps of the North China Military Region, and deputy commander, chief of staff, chief of staff, and commander of the Sixtieth Army of the Eighteenth Corps of the First Field Army.
Zhang Zuyu watched the 60th Army come over and had a deep affection for this unit. When the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea broke out, Zhang Zuyu served as commander of the Sixty Army of the Eighteenth Corps and commander of the Chengdu Garrison Headquarters, and deputy commander of the Western Sichuan Military Region. The troops were dispatched to the expedition, and Zhang Zuyu remained in western Sichuan. When he heard the news that the 180th Division was surrounded by the enemy in the fifth battle and suffered heavy losses, Zhang Zuyi burned all five of them. When he heard that the 180th Division might be revoked, Zhang Zuyu immediately applied to his superiors to return to the 60th Army and fight a turnaround battle!
The 60th Army was an old unit brought out of the Taiyue Military Region by Zhang Zuyu, attacking Yuncheng, breaking Linfen, fighting in Jinzhong, taking Taiyuan, and fighting from Shanxi to the northwest. From the northwest to the southwest, there have been many impressive records. For the honor of the troops, Zhang Zuyu's request to return to the troops was supported by Generals Such as Peng Dehuai, Chen Geng, and Wang Jinshan.
Before leaving, Chairman Mao received Zhang Zuyu and said, "The 180th Division lost. In addition to some objective reasons, from a subjective point of view, on the Battlefield of Shanxi, your 60th Army fought well and liberated the Great Northwest and the Great Southwest, and it was also too smooth. It is good to win the battle smoothly, but it also breeds the possibility of failure. If you are not cautious, if you do not take the enemy seriously, you will not fail!" Zhang Zuyu distilled Chairman Mao's speech into 16 words of "conscientiousness, caution, trust from top to bottom, and unity" as his motto for fighting a good war in Korea.
Zhang Zuyu also did not fail in his mission, and played the military prestige of the 60th Army, and the 180th Division, which was almost cancelled and assigned to the Northern Wilderness, also became the pioneer in the Battle of Jincheng.
Zhang Zuyu wrote a shining stroke of his combat command career on the Korean battlefield, but he insisted that the individual was always a drop in the ocean, and the victory was attributed to all the soldiers of the 60th Army.