Some people believe that the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was the first confrontation between New China and the Five Permanents; in fact, before that, China had indirectly engaged the French army, one of the Five Permanents, by sending a military advisory group. General Chen Geng, who commanded the War to Resist France and Aid Vietnam, had a pertinent evaluation of the French and Vietnamese armies in his diary, which made people can't help but be amused after reading it.
[Chen Geng (second from right) and Ho Chi Minh (second from left)]
Vietnam was once a French colony, and due to the Japanese attack in World War II, the French army fled without a fight. After the end of World War II, the French army made a comeback in an attempt to reoccupy and colonize Vietnam. But the awakened Vietnamese people did not agree, and under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, the war of resistance to France began. In 1946, France sent 100,000 troops to attack many areas of Vietnam, and the Vietnamese army was not only far less well armed than the French army, but even fewer than the French army. But with the home advantage, the two sides have been playing back and forth for three or four years, and no one can help anyone.
When the news of the founding of New China came, Ho Chi Minh's spirit was greatly lifted, and he immediately secretly rushed to China, asked China for help, and asked by name to send Chen Geng Da as a commander in the future. At this time, Chen Geng was in Kunming, serving as the commander of the Yunnan Provincial Military Region, and Chairman Mao ordered him to rush to Vietnam first. Subsequently, a military advisory group was formed, with Wei Guoqing as its head. Before leaving, Chairman Mao repeatedly admonished: "The advisory group should only do a good job as a staff officer, and must not be too emperor." ”
【Vietnamese guerrillas led by Ho Chi Minh】
Hearing that Chen Geng was coming, Ho Chi Minh was overjoyed and could not help but recite a poem by Gao Qi, a poet of the Ming Dynasty in China: "Gao Shi lies in the snowy mountains, and the beauty of the Moon Ming Forest comes" to greet Chen Geng. Chen Geng also humorously replied, "I am not a beauty." Then he went to the Vietnamese army to understand the situation on the ground, and found that the two sides had fought for several years, and although the Vietnamese army had also won a victorious battle, there was no decisive victory, and many places occupied were rural areas that the French army did not want to go, and important cities and transportation routes were always in the hands of the French army.
In the past few years of war, the Vietnamese army was very tired and the morale was not high, so Chen Geng decided to fight one or two big victories first to boost the morale of the Vietnamese army. On August 14, Chen Geng arrived at the Vietnamese army headquarters in Quang Yuan, Gao Binh Province, and after fully understanding the situation, he proposed to attack Dongxi first, but this proposal was strongly opposed by the Vietnamese army chief of general staff, Hoang Van Tai, and others. They believed that Gaoping should be attacked first.
【Ho Chi Minh and Wu Yuanjia (first from right)】
Chen Geng had to patiently persuade them, pointing out the reasons why they could not win a great victory for several years, and teaching them what are various tactics such as annihilating the enemy in motion, ambushing and annihilating the enemy, and fighting reinforcements at encirclement points. Finally, Ho Chi Minh made a decision: listen to Chen Geng's. At the same time, he patted Chen Geng on the shoulder and asked him to "wrap up the victory in this battle." ”
At 6 o'clock on September 16, 1950, the Battle of Dongxi officially began. The Vietnamese army sent 2 regiments, 2 independent battalions, and 3 artillery battalions with a total of 7,000 men to attack Donghe. The French garrison at Dongxi had only two reinforced companies totaling more than 300 men, and after two days and three nights of fierce fighting, the two reinforced companies of the French army were completely annihilated (only 20 people escaped). The Vietnamese had never annihilated so many French troops in a single battle, and morale was boosted for a time.
【French troops driving Xiafei tanks】
However, Chen Geng was very speechless, more than 20 times the strength of the troops, to be handed over to the People's Liberation Army to fight, an hour or two to solve the battle, even if it takes so long to fight. It turned out that the front-line troops did not attack from three sides according to his deployment, but obeyed the command of Wu Yuanjia, attacking only from the place where the French firepower was strongest in the front, and did not make progress until midnight. After hearing the news, Chen Geng was taken aback and suggested that the troops should not waver in any way, immediately adjust their deployment to a three-sided attack, and break through the enemy's defense line at all costs, only to finally conquer Dongxi at 8 o'clock on the 18th.
After the capture of Dong Kyi, the Vietnamese army took the initiative tactically. Then Chen Geng attacked the east and west again, and successively annihilated the French Le Baje Regiment and the Sak Dong Corps that rushed to the rescue. By November 17, Chen Geng commanded the Vietnamese army to annihilate more than 8,000 French troops, capture 3 generals, advance the front hundreds of kilometers, liberate the five northern provinces of Vietnam, open the 1,000-kilometer Sino-Vietnamese border, and achieve a major victory that had never been seen in several years in the War of Resistance against France, this battle is also known as the border battle.
【Captured French soldiers】
After the border battle, the French army in Hanoi was puzzled, and in just a few months, the Vietnamese army seemed to be reborn. However, Chen Geng was still not satisfied with the performance of the Vietnamese army, because he had made a comprehensive plan for an operation on October 3, and when he was about to leave, it suddenly rained heavily, and the Vietnamese army asked to wait until the rain stopped before moving. Chen Geng felt unbelievable, because the heavy rain delayed the departure, and who was the missed fighter? The previous deployment was likely to fall short, but Chen Geng was only an adviser after all, and Wu Yuanjia insisted that he would not listen to him and had no choice but to sigh and give up. Unexpectedly, in the end, the news of the great victory came, and it turned out that the French army saw that it was raining and postponed the departure time, and finally the Vietnamese army rushed to the front and defeated the French army in one fell swoop.
[The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was actually commanded by a military advisory group sent by our country]
On October 4, Chen Geng wrote in his diary: "Vietnam and The French Emperor are a wonderful pair of rivals... "People with high emotional intelligence speak euphemisms, and I guess when he writes the word "wonderful", he has the word "strange" in mind. However, with the stabilization of the situation in the War to Resist France and the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Chen Geng soon returned to China, otherwise he might see more interesting diaries later.