At the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, the Northern Army was stronger than the Korean Army. One of the important reasons is that the Korean People's Army includes more than 40,000 officers and men of our army's Northeast Field Army who have been in the battlefield for a long time, and regardless of their tactical quality or actual combat experience, the ROK army in the early stage of the war belonged to the "cattle knife for cutting chickens." These troops returned to Korea in two groups over a period of 49-50 years, and after the end of the war in 1953, more than 10,000 Korean soldiers voluntarily chose to return to China for the rest of their lives. Why are there more than 40,000 Korean Dongye veterans?
In 1910, Japan officially annexed the entire Korean Peninsula, staying in the country would be enslaved by the Japanese army, although China was also in a low period, but relatively better than the living environment in Korea, so a large number of Koreans chose to go into exile in China. China's northeast region borders North Korea, the climate and customs are close, and North Koreans move to China's first choice for Jilin Province. By 1940, there were more than 2 million North Koreans in Jilin Province, and many of these North Korean immigrants were young, patriotic men who wanted to form their own armed forces and find a chance to restore their homeland. At that time, China was also a country seriously invaded by Japan, and in the 1930s, the Kuomintang and Communists took in a group of Korean youth, and some of them even stayed in the northeast and north China to carry out guerrilla warfare with the Japanese army. In the late 1940s, during China's Liberation War, Koreans in the northeast region (especially in the north of the Songhua River) obtained land through land reform and their livelihood was guaranteed. They are very grateful to the People's Liberation Army, and 40,000 young people have joined the Northeast Field Army and participated in the northeast and subsequent southward operations in 1948, becoming a very lean combat force.
In order to strengthen its military strength and prepare for war with the South, the Korean regime made a request to our side in early 1949 to send these 40,000 officers and soldiers back to Korea. Objectively speaking, the Dprk Division helped China's liberation cause, so our army quickly fulfilled the DPRK's request, not only allowing the DPRK soldiers to return to China, but also preparing grain and ammunition for these troops. When war broke out in 1950, more than 40,000 officers and men who returned to Korea from China were divided into 10 main regiments, and the strong combat strength they showed immediately "hanged" the ROK army, and the southern army regarded these units as "heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals", and the people's army relied on powerful vanguard troops to quickly push the front line south. At that time, these troops returning from China were the strongest part of the North Korean army. After 1953, the scope of the Inter-Korean regime was relatively stable at the 38th parallel, and it was reasonable to say that these Korean soldiers should stay in the motherland to live, but in fact, in addition to the more than 10,000 people who died in battle, more than 13,000 people voluntarily returned to China to live (mostly in Jilin).
After the end of the Korean War, the North Korean hierarchy was divided into two main factions and controlled different military systems. The returning troops from China were visibly marginalized, their officers and men were of low status, and they were commanded by the upper echelons of the DPRK. The Korean soldiers who have participated in the People's Liberation Army all pay attention to the consistent style of officers and men, and are very disgusted with the clear hierarchy in the DPRK, and if the political environment is not good, they are easily punished, and most of the living conditions are very poor. Therefore, many people choose to return to China. From 1910 onwards, for more than 30 years, a large number of Koreans have taken refuge in China, some families have gone through two generations in northeast China, can speak fluent Chinese, and the land allocated during the land reform period, it can be said that eating and wearing in China is not a problem, decades of feelings are even no less than nostalgia for the homeland, tens of thousands of people returned to China after the end of the Korean War.