Sanwei New Knowledge No. 169
In this issue:
Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, promote national prestige and establish military prestige;
The Butterfly Effect, Truman Abandons election;
Who is the winner?
— Read the article in conjunction with this episode —
01 Yang Guowei Establish military prestige
The Chosin Lake Campaign is coming to an end.
The background of the Korean War and the Battle of Chosin Lake have been described in more detail. In fact, at the same time as the Battle of Chosin Lake was being fought, on the western front of the second campaign, in the Cheongcheon River Campaign, the Thirteenth Corps of our Volunteer Army fought better than the Ninth Corps of Chosin Lake on the Eastern Front, completely repelling the United Nations Army with the US Eighth Army as the main force to the south of the 38th Line, and there were many wonderful examples. Among them, the 38th Army was commended by Marshal Peng Dehuai by telegram for its outstanding performance: "Long live the Chinese People's Volunteer Army!" Long live the Thirty-eighth Army! ”。 Therefore, the Thirty-eighth Army is also called the "Long Live Army", but the Western Front will not be discussed this time.
In general, in the second campaign, our volunteer army achieved great strategic success, beating the UN army on both the eastern and western fronts to abandon the north and retreat to the south of the 38th line. In fact, the situation in the entire Korean battlefield is basically back to before the war.
The end of the second campaign marked the completion of the U.S. military retreat at Xingnan Port on Christmas Day 1950. A week later, on December 31, our volunteer army launched an offensive to break through the 38th line to the south, and even eventually reached the vicinity of the 37th line, and occupied Seoul, which was the third battle.
In fact, from the official dispatch of troops to aid korea in mid-October 1950 to the end of the third campaign, a total of less than three months before and after, which can be regarded as the first stage of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In an extremely difficult situation, we paid a great price for the volunteer army to enter the Korean War, but on the whole, we achieved a strategic victory, which caused the UN army, which was indispensable after the Inchon landing, to encounter a major setback. More importantly, our gains are by no means limited to the Korean battlefield.
These three months can be said to have promoted the prestige of the country and established the military, which has completely changed China's international image, and has also affected the world pattern in the coming decades and the external environment we are facing.
02 If the enemy is facing a great enemy, the president threatens to drop a nuclear bomb
Let's start with external influences.
The first, of course, is the main rival, the United States.
After these three initial battles, the attitude of the United States toward us was a 180-degree turn -- from the earliest complete disbelief that China really dared to send troops to aid the DPRK, to the time when we sent troops, we looked down on the volunteer army and called us the "peasant army", and now we are facing a great enemy.
You must know that in 1950, the per capita GDP of the United States was more than 20 times that of ours, and the national steel output was 144 times that of China. But it was with such unequal strength that we feared the Americans in the first three battles.
The war situation took a sharp turn for the worse, leaving the US domestic media singing the voice of the US military. When the First Marine Division was still retreating south, the domestic radio program in the United States directly said, "Family members of the soldiers of the First Marine Division, please do not forget to pray, we may have lost this unit."
The reaction in U.S. politics has been more intense. On November 30, when the U.S. military on both the eastern and western fronts entered a full-scale retreat, U.S. President Harry S. Truman made a direct statement at a press conference, saying that the use of atomic bombs in the Korean battlefield would not be ruled out. Truman's statement frightened all the other countries. Because once the atomic bomb was used, there was no doubt that the local war in Korea would be expanded into a third world war.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman at the time
It was Europe that was extremely frightening at the time, especially the old European powers such as Britain and France. Because in World War II they were almost crippled, the economy was in decline, the people's livelihood was poor, and the reconstruction after World War II had just begun. At this time, if the United States really threw an atomic bomb and started a world war, Then Europe is likely to end up in ruins. So the British Prime Minister at the time, Attlee, immediately flew to Washington to meet Truman, trying to resist the impulse of the Americans. Truman's statement also forced the then US Secretary of State Acheson to quickly come out and wipe his ass, saying that the president's statement did not mean that we should use atomic bombs, and we still strictly abided by the principle of using nuclear weapons, and so on.
To tell the truth, Truman's words were purely nuclear blackmail and mouth cannons, and the United States would never have dared to use atomic bombs at that time. If it had been before 1949, the United States might have been a little more arrogant, because the Soviet Union did not have nuclear weapons at that time. However, in August 1949, the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb was also successfully tested, and the United States and the Soviet Union had formed a de facto mutual nuclear deterrent, so the United States did not dare to act rashly. But it's important to know that Truman has always been very cautious about the situation in North Korea, and we've said before that he has tried to restrain MacArthur's attempts to expand the Korean war. At this time, even he began to openly threaten the use of atomic bombs, which shows that the Americans are indeed a bit confused.
03 The Butterfly Effect Truman abandons the election
In fact, it was in the end that it was after the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, especially after the United States suffered losses in the first three battles, that they began to re-examine the impact of the rise of New China on East Asia and even the entire world. Only then did they truly realize that the opponent was no longer the poor and weak China, nor the little brother of the Soviet Union, but an independent socialist new China. Whether the United States wants to or not, New China will certainly become an important force in the international community. British Prime Minister Attlee at the time said that if the People's Republic of China seeks the status of the world's five major powers, the Western society cannot refuse.
Then British Prime Minister Attlee
The United States also began to regard China as its main rival in East Asia after the DPRK and ourselves, and attached great importance to containing new China, both politically and economically. There is actually an interesting message here, that is, the United States and China did not declare war on each other during the Korean War. The US military sent troops in the name of the United Nations army, and our army sent troops in the name of the "Chinese People's Volunteer Army", and both sides are actually cautiously and carefully avoiding expanding the military conflict into a situation in which the two countries formally declare war. As a result, the two sides were never in a war relationship. But after the start of the Korean War, the United States greatly increased the strategic importance of containing China, which led to a frozen period of more than two decades in the relationship between the two countries, and finally began to gradually break the ice in the 1970s due to changes in the international landscape. This is a shift in U.S. attitude toward China.
Looking at the United States, the fates of President Truman and MacArthur were changed because we entered the Korean War. Before we said that MacArthur is very unsympathetic to Truman, then the first three battles of the Korean battlefield, the US military suffered heavy losses, the situation is critical, the American people are also greatly shocked - everyone knows that popular support is the biggest political capital of American politicians, which is equivalent to MacArthur digging a big hole for the president, so Truman hates MacArthur.
MacArthur and Truman
Later, Truman ordered that it be forbidden to express his views on the Korean War in public without the authorization of Congress, but MacArthur repeatedly violated the ban and talked about his North Korea strategy in the media, which completely angered Truman. Finally, in April 1951, Truman ordered macArthur to be relieved of all military leadership positions, including "Supreme Allied Commander-in-Chief, Commander-in-Chief of United Nations Forces, Commander-in-Chief of the Far East, and Commander-in-Chief of American Forces in the Far East."
This made MacArthur retire directly, but MacArthur returned to the United States with unprecedented prestige, and he said the famous sentence "Veterans do not die, but slowly wither away" in a public speech, and the applause at the scene was thunderous. As a result, his dismissal was ultimately a lose-lose situation, and President Truman's own approval rating was greatly affected, even creating the lowest support rating for a sitting president in the history of the United States, which led Toruman to finally abandon the 1952 presidential election to seek re-election. These are all "butterfly effects" that began with our volunteer army's War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
MacArthur gave a speech
04 The toughest opponent appears Our army is the best to be captured
After MacArthur was dismissed, he was succeeded as commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army, General Ridgway of the U.S. Army, one of the oldest and toughest opponents our army had encountered in the Korean battlefield. It was he who analyzed the "prayer offensive" of the volunteer army and began to use new methods such as "magnetic suction tactics" to restrain our army, and from the fourth battle onwards, our army suffered considerable losses. In fact, Ridgway's visit to the Korean battlefield is also somewhat related to Chosin Lake.
It was at the Battle of Cheongcheongang on the Western Front of the Second Campaign that our army defeated the U.S. Eighth Army, whose commander, Lieutenant General Walker, was killed in a car accident while redeploying the defenses— walker was also the highest-ranking U.S. general killed in the Korean battlefield. It was precisely because of the death of Lieutenant General Walker that the United States assigned Ridgway to Korea to take over his command of the Eighth Army, which allowed the strong opponent of the volunteer army to appear in the Korean battlefield, and there was a possibility that after MacArthur's dismissal, Ridgway would be promoted to the supreme commander of the United Nations Army.
Ridgway
Another interesting thing is that at that time in the Korean battlefield, because the volunteer army was notoriously preferential to prisoners. We will give our captives what we eat without fighting, without killing or abusing, and even if we cannot guarantee food ourselves, we must first meet the needs of our captives. Therefore, in the United Nations army, it is widely spread that the volunteers give preferential treatment to prisoners. This has created a situation in which the United Nations army, especially the American soldiers, after losing the battle, desperately wants to run to the volunteer army to surrender, and must not be caught by the Korean People's Army, otherwise there will be a fear for their lives.
Ridgway also wrote in his memoirs that the tradition of preferential treatment of prisoners by the Chinese People's Volunteer Army is completely different from that of the Korean People's Army. To tell the truth, during the first three battles, we suffered a big loss of logistical supplies, and there was a shortage of food on the front line, which led us to take the initiative to release the UN prisoners many times, because we could not afford to raise them, otherwise the number of volunteers capturing the enemy army at that time would greatly increase.
05 China's Aid to Korea Japan Benefits
After talking about the United States, let's talk about Japan.
It should be said that Japan was a major beneficiary of the Korean War. On the one hand, it is economic, because the cannon is a golden ten thousand. As soon as the Korean War began, the United States needed a production base and transit warehouse close to the front line, and Japan was naturally the most suitable choice. This is equivalent to giving a shot in the arm to the Japanese economy that was destroyed after World War II, and Japan began to produce military supplies for the United States in a steady stream, and the economy recovered rapidly.
On the other hand, Japan has gained politically, and they have directly become allies of the United States. Because Japan is the most ideal bridgehead for the United States in East Asia to contain New China, the Korean War actually improved U.S.-Japan relations, allowing Japan to become a close partner of the United States in Asia directly from a defeated country in World War II. So in fact, we sent troops to aid the DPRK, and Japan was the direct beneficiary, and to be honest, this also changed the future and destiny of Japan after World War II to a certain extent.
The time has come again, and we have divided this summary into two phases. The next issue will continue to talk about the great impact of the previous campaigns to resist US aggression and aid Korea on China, bringing a great impact at home and abroad, and ending this series.