Author: Long March defender Xue Boling
Image source: @CYStudio
On December 24, 1950, in the port of Xingnan, when the last american troops boarded the evacuated transport ship, the most arduous battle in the history of human warfare, the Battle of Chosin Lake, officially came to an end.
The steel beasts of the US military roared angrily, pouring "impotent rage" on this innocent Korean land, the land turned into a sea of fire, and the entire port was burning. Throughout the retreat, the U.S. guns alone fired 34,000 shells and 12,800 rockets, more intense than the Inchon landings; the last soldiers frantically destroyed all the facilities in Hingnam Harbor and the vast amount of supplies stockpiled by the U.S. army, leaving an enduring mushroom cloud on the land they did not want to look back on.
On the transport ship, those soldiers who escaped death and lost their souls were still immersed in the nightmare of ice and blood. For them, the coldest winter of their lives, what they lost was far from a victory in a battle.
"Merry Christmas!" I don't know who reminded me that Christmas in 1950 was quietly coming in such an atmosphere. They should not forget that just a month earlier, the arrogant commander-in-chief of the "United Nations Army", MacArthur, had promised them that "the fighting would be over before Christmas and the boys would go home". Yes, they went home as scheduled, but they didn't expect it to be in such an ironic way of defeat. Perhaps at this moment, they could not imagine that after this parting, the 38th parallel of the north latitude would eventually become a dream that would be difficult for them to set foot in this life.
On Christmas Day, prisoners in the prisoner-of-war camp disguise themselves as Santa Claus
In his book The Coldest Winter, American war correspondent David Haberstam wrote: "For Americans and others who have fought there, many people have always buried this past deeply in their hearts, never mentioning this cruel experience to their families and old friends, and only seeing themselves as survivors." When they first returned from North Korea, none of them wanted to hear anything about the war. "The Americans cannot understand why hundreds of thousands of Chinese, who are short of food and clothing, can survive such a cold winter, and they do not understand why the last Chinese on the Little High Ridge position will give up the opportunity to survive and choose to cling to the explosive package and die with their opponents." Americans can't understand what it means to treat death as a homecoming, and what it means to defend their homes and defend their country. As to this day, we cannot understand why Westerners were able to package this utter defeat as a "Dunkirk" victory. After all, the US military did not come to Korea to perform a "decent" retreat, not to mention that such a defeat was not decent.
Who are heroes fighting for?
The volunteer soldier who picked up the explosive package and died with the enemy was named Yang Gensi, who was the first special meritorious hero and special combat hero in New China, and one of the prototypes of Wang Cheng in the movie "Heroes and Children". Before entering the Korean War, he was already a combat hero who had made many military achievements and was famous throughout the army. In September 1950, Yang Gensi participated in the first heroic model conference of the whole army, was named a "first-class combat hero", met Chairman Mao, and also ascended the viewing platform of the Tiananmen Square National Day Ceremony. During the Korean War, he served as the commander of the 3rd Company of the 172nd Regiment of the 58th Division of the 20th Army.
Enemies rot and turn to dirt, and warriors glorify Venus. In the second campaign, in order to cut off the US army's southward escape route, Yang Gensi led 3 companies and 3 platoons to defend the Xiaogaoling position in Jieyuli, repelled 8 consecutive US charges, and during the 9th attack of the enemy, Yang Gensi, who was alone, rushed into the enemy group with a 10-kilogram explosive package, died with many enemies, and fulfilled the generous promise of "man in the position" before the war.
About Chosin Lake, there is a story of "logs moving" in the United States: at the end of 1950, on the shores of Chosin Lake, when the American soldier John slipped into a duck down sleeping bag to prepare for bed, suddenly gunshots rang out. John, who hurried out, was stunned to see the volunteer soldiers rushing out of the woods in white cloth, the American tanks, artillery and machine guns firing at them in unison, they fell in rows like logs, and the soldiers behind them poured up like logs... "I was shocked by the souls who were not afraid of death, it was terrible. ”
At the Dongshan position where Yang Gensi was sacrificed, the assault platoon of the 2nd Company of the 172nd Regiment insisted on fighting until the last 7 fighters, losing command and lacking ammunition, holding the position for six hours, killing and wounding the strength of one company of the enemy, and finally meeting the brother troops in victory.
At the 1519 heights of the main peak of Dead Eagle Ridge, the enemy who broke through the siege attacked in turn with tank artillery, and the position scattered two shells per square meter, and the 6th Company of the 177th Regiment of the 59th Division crushed the enemy's 8 charges, holding out for 6 days and 6 nights. After the war, the unit was not rebuilt, and the division commander Decklin inquired to learn that the warriors who held their positions were covered in deep snow and severe frostbite and could not be transferred. The old Red Army, who had participated in the Long March and crossed the Hexi Corridor in blood, was moved, and he ordered the dispatch of troops directly under the headquarters to carry down all the more than 60 fighters without falling. At that moment, the steel men who had experienced the enemy's 6 days and 6 nights of indiscriminate bombardment and did not waver cried!
Located about 1 mile south of the Watergate Bridge, Heights 1081 is a must for U.S. troops to escape from a narrow winding road 3 to 4 kilometers long.
In the fierce Battle of Huangcaoling, the 2nd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 180th Regiment of the 60th Division, which was holding the main peak of the 1081 heights, fought bitterly for days and days, ran out of ammunition, and all of them died heroically on the position. Shen Zhaoshou, an officer of the organization unit of the Political Department of the 180 regiment, climbed the 1081 heights with the order of "people in the position" and the last supply- more than a dozen pounds of potatoes, and saw the last side of the warriors: "It is too cold, the gun cannot be fired, only by grenades." "The fortifications were all snowdrifts, the warriors were lying in the fortifications, their faces were frozen purple, some covered their ears with cotton, some wrapped their legs in quilts, and almost no one spoke, just looked at you with their eyes. In front of the fortifications, grenades were swung, and the covers were uncovered... The potatoes I brought with me were frozen, and I wanted to eat them, but I couldn't bite them. ”
However, such a team that seemed to be transformed into ice sculptures broke out at the last moment with the most magnificent cry of life. The Korean war history "Battle of Chosin Lake" records such a scene: "Until the last moment, after the defenders had thrown grenades, (both sides) began a white-knife battle, and after fighting until 15 o'clock, [the American army] finally captured The 1081 Heights." U.S. military records said: "None of the Chinese soldiers here surrendered, and all of them held their positions and died in battle." The 20th Army of the Volunteer Army described the scene when cleaning the battlefield in the "Summary of the 60th Division's Campaign in 1950": "The remains were all shot by the enemy's automatic firearms, the Capin Tom bullets were all empty, there were only 4-5 rounds of ammunition in a few shuttles, and there were no grenades on the position." Until the time of their sacrifice, these warriors still maintained a fighting posture, like the ice flowers proud of the wind and snow, placed in the ice and snow of a foreign country, living into the immortal memory of a nation.
The bridge section in which the US military salutes the "Ice Sculpture Company" that appears in many film and television works belongs to artistic processing, but in fact does not exist
After the war, foreign military researchers tried to analyze why these soldiers, who had an empty stomach for a month and only a few bullets in their magazines, did not stop fighting for a moment as long as they did not fall. They believe that this is the spirit advocated by Mao Zedong that "no matter what difficult and difficult occasions, as long as there is one person, this person will continue to fight." But researchers overlook a central question: Who are they fighting for?
Yang Gensi was born in 1922, his grandfather, father, and mother died of hatred under the oppression of landlords, and when he was a teenager, Yang Gensi followed his brother all the way from Jiangsu to Shanghai to work as a child laborer in a factory, and soon his brother also died under the cruel exploitation of capitalists. Yang Gensi later recalled: I can't remember how many times in the dark night, I cried by the Huangpu River, crying grandpa, crying my father and mother, crying my brother, crying this evil old society! Until one day, he met the Communist Party... Growing up in the people's army and practicing in the people's war, he understood "for whom to fight."
In his only surviving line, he wrote: "Under the leadership of the Party and Chairman Mao, we will make progress together and serve the people to the end." "Defend the motherland! Defend the people! Defend the peace! This is also the inner cry of every volunteer soldier on the Korean battlefield who has a common experience with Yang Gensi.
Unquestionable victory
As far as the volunteers were concerned, the hardships of the Battle of Chosin Lake were beyond doubt, and the severe cold was the same fateful enemy as the US army: "Due to the hasty entry of our army into the DPRK, all winter materials could not be replenished completely, such as cotton shoes, cotton hats, cotton vests, and coats of our army, except for most of the division with cotton hats, the rest could not be put on, ammunition and grenades, the average of the whole army was only two, and the military station could not be set up in time, so the grain could not be transported." Such equipment conditions, however, were faced with a severe cold of more than 40 degrees below zero, and during the entire Battle of Chosin Lake, the Ninth Corps lost nearly 30,000 personnel due to frostbite.
To this day, there are still people on the Internet who are entangled in the victory or defeat of the Battle of Chosin Lake. Indeed, due to insufficient preparations in subjective thought and objective conditions, the volunteers in this campaign did not achieve the goal of annihilating the first and seventh divisions of the UNITED States Army, and the opponents also failed to realize the arrogant plan of ending the battle before Christmas and were forced to withdraw to the vicinity of the 38th Line. Neither side fulfilled its original fighting intent. Song Shilun, commander of the Ninth Corps, began his sentence in the "Review of the Operations on the Eastern Front of the Ninth Corps": "This operation was not well fought..." Compared with the calmness and objectivity of the volunteer army, the great commendation of the US side for the rest of the disaster is incredible: The US military has awarded a total of 17 Congressional Medals of Honor and 70 Naval Cross medals for the Chosin Lake operation, which is the record for the most medals awarded for a single operation in the history of the US military. The Western propaganda machine," which has been running for decades, perfectly packaged the campaign as "the greatest maritime retreat in U.S. military history." Under different cultural thinking, we cannot understand the American obsession with survival, just as americans cannot understand the spiritual source of Chinese sacrificing their lives for righteousness to pursue victory.
So who is the winner? The Battle of Chosin Lake was a contest between gas and steel, and under the extremely difficult situation in which the strength of the two sides was completely unequal, the volunteer army Chinese the people's volunteer army brought into full play the level of technical combat and the steely will to fight. Ed Rivers, a veteran of the U.S. First Marine Division who fought at the Battle of Chosin Lake, recalls the Battle of Chosin Lake many years later with a lingering feeling: "None of them had shoes or socks, many wore only single shoes, others' feet were wrapped in rags, their feet were frozen, swollen and black, and it was hard to believe that those people could still walk, let alone attack the positions in front of them, and from that moment on, I felt that this battle could not be won." ”
After the Second Campaign, most of the korean peninsula north of the thirty-eighth degree north latitude was recovered, and the situation in Korea was completely reversed, which laid the foundation for the final victory in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. As the Korean War witness American writer Bevin Alexander wrote in the last words of the Battle of Chosin Lake in "The Korean War: Our First Defeat": "The great effort to conquer North Korea ended in failure." ”
In this battle of gas and steel, we won more than just war. When Beechcraft, a reporter for the Chicago Daily, met Freeman, an American military officer who served as a military attaché in China during the War of Resistance, and talked about his feelings about Chinese, Freeman replied: "They are no longer the same Chinese." As Mao Zedong said: "The imperialist aggressors must understand that now that the Chinese people have been organized, they cannot be provoked." If you mess with it, it is not easy to do. ”
The price is enormous, and the victory is great.
Victory, no doubt!
Spiritual inheritance
"I don't believe that there are tasks that cannot be completed, I do not believe that there are difficulties that cannot be overcome, and I do not believe that there are enemies that cannot be defeated." It was Yang Gensi who made the oath on the battlefield, and this great revolutionary fighter not only practiced the oath to the last moment of his life, but also let the spirit of "three disbelief" spread throughout the Korean battlefield, and 38 Yang Gensi-style heroes emerged in the Linqingjiang counterattack. By the Battle of Shangganling, including Huang Jiguang, there were 68 Yang Gensi-style heroes with names and surnames. After comrade Huang Jiguang's sacrifice, he found three comic strips from his rice bag, the first of which was "Yang Gensi".
In December 1951, the headquarters of the Volunteer Army named yang gensi's company "Yang Gensi Company", which was the first company named after a hero after the founding of New China. 70 years have passed, at the Wenchuan earthquake relief site, at Zhu Rihe, in the Tiananmen Square National Day military parade, and at the arduous African peacekeeping scene, the banner of "Yang Gensilian" is still flying high, and the souls of the "three unbelieving" still resound through the sky.
A company of a brigade of the 83rd Group Army was formerly the 2nd Company of the 180 regiment that insisted on adhering to Huangcaoling, that is, the "Ice Sculpture Company" widely praised by netizens, and now this unit has been transformed into a digital sharp soldier in the new era, the times are progressing, the equipment is upgrading, and the soldiers have also changed stubble after stubble, but the "ice sculpture company spirit" of "resolutely obeying orders and vowing to complete the task to the death" has always remained unchanged.
Chinese to talk about inheritance, after the Battle of Chosin Lake, only 4 people survived in Yang Gensi's company, and in the Huangcaoling Blockade Battle, in addition to the wounded left in the rear, the commanders and fighters of the 2nd Company of the 180 regiment on the battlefield fulfilled their oath of coexistence and death with the position. Even if a hundred flowers wither, as long as there is a seed, the hero's red gene will sprout and bloom in the ice and snow like an ice flower, and the hero's bloodline can be passed down from generation to generation like the soul of "Yang Gensilian".
Perhaps, as the movie "Chosin Lake" said: "We have fought all the battles that should be fought, and the next generation will not have to fight." "71 years later, when the dawn of peace still shines on this ancient land, we miss them very much, those blooming "ice flowers" on the shores of Chosin Lake, the Cheongcheon River, and the Shanggan Ridge, our loveliest people!
It's December 25th again, and it's an ordinary day for countless Chinese who don't have Christmas. We said good morning to each other in the warm winter sun and began our day of life and work, but the world is still constantly at war and strife.
Some countries dare to invade a sovereign country with a tube of "washing powder" as evidence; some countries have set up more than 200 biological laboratories in dozens of countries and regions around the world, but no one knows what experiments are being carried out; some countries will only blame others if they do not respond well to the epidemic, regardless of the safety of their own people; some countries commit genocide, but rely on public opinion hegemony to point fingers at others.
We are not living in a peaceful era, we are just living in a peaceful country where we can live a life without turmoil.
Not forgetting the past is the best consolation for the martyrs. The great spirit of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea is immortal!
Editor 丨 Jia Chongyu
Proofreading 丨 Liang Taihua
Proofreading 丨 Chen Yuan
Duty Editorial Board 丨 Tang Jie