After the 52nd Division of the 18th Army of the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet, due to the special situation in Tibet at that time, the troops went all out to build the Kangzang Highway and carry out production to help themselves and solve the problem of grain shortage. The 18th Army had formed a cavalry detachment and a Tibetan militia regiment dominated by cavalry, all of which remained in Kham. The comprehensive counterinsurgency in Tibet began in 1959, and before that, in 1958, the ganqingnan counterinsurgency, which is closely related to the counterinsurgency in Tibet, began, and it was at this time and region that the cavalry played an important role.
As far as Gannan is concerned, as early as before the end of the Northwest Liberation War, the new Yiye units that marched into Gansu and Qingqing, in order to suppress the remnants of the Majia Army in Qinghai and the bandit plague, all armies set up cavalry regiments, which were determined by the vast grasslands, Gobi, and desert in the northwest, and also determined by the operational characteristics of the enemy, and the role of cavalry was irreplaceable. For example, the cavalry regiment of the 1st Army participated in quelling the rebellion of the remnants of the Majia Army, and after the 1st Army entered korea to participate in the war, the cavalry regiment remained to continue to suppress the bandits; the cavalry regiment of the 2nd Army participated in the battle to intercept the remnants of the Usman in southern Xinjiang; the cavalry regiment of the 3rd Army absorbed the only camel regiment of the Kuomintang army and captured usman alive in Xinjiang; the cavalry regiment of the 6th Army participated in the large-scale suppression of bandits in northern Xinjiang and quelled the rebellion of the Majia Army's Fifth Army. At this time, the reconnaissance companies of the northwest field divisions were mostly cavalry, and there were cavalry brigades in various military divisions. A review of the sequence of battles in which Gan Qing countered the rebellion shows that the proportion of cavalry units is quite large. Mixed infantry and cavalry, multi-way attack, infantry garrison, cavalry pursuit, is the main way of combat to suppress bandits and counterinsurgency, due to the complex terrain and harsh environment, but also often rely on aviation airdrop supplies, so there is a battlefield spectacle of aircraft throwing horse feed to the cavalry.
When Qinghai was liberated, the local leader asked Liao Hansheng, political commissar of the 1st Army: Do you have three thousand cavalry, and if you do, I will listen to you. The role of cavalry is evident.
The most typical is that in 1953, Ma Bufang's uncle Ma Liang rebelled, received Chiang Fang's airdrop of weapons and secret agents, harassed the ganqing river, is the only remaining political bandit on the mainland, the local troops have repeatedly attacked and suppressed without success, the Central Military Commission urgently transferred the first cavalry division from Inner Mongolia into Gansu, the predecessor of the first cavalry division was the Daqingshan cavalry detachment and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia joint defense cavalry brigade, which was transferred to the Inner Mongolia region for a long time, and is the oldest cavalry unit of our army. The Ma Liang bandit gang was caught off guard, intelligence failed, and was beaten squarely by the 1st Mounted Division, the main force was annihilated, and Ma Liang was captured, and this arrogant "land Taiwan" was overthrown. The 1st Cavalry Division was stationed in Longyuan for a long time thereafter, and in the 1958 counter-rebellion, it fought side by side with the infantry and cavalry of the 11th Infantry Division, which was also the main force of Gan Qingnan's counterinsurgency and the only formed cavalry division in the whole army at that time.
The cavalry regiments of the Yiye Army that remained in Ganqing and Qing provinces were reorganized into independent cavalry regiments of the Lanzhou Military Region, plus the two old cavalry regiments of the 2nd Cavalry Division (that is, the two regiments of the 1st Cavalry Division that took the lead in crossing the Yellow River into the northwest in 1947, under the command of Yiye), a total of seven regiments, all of which were put into the Ganqing counterinsurgency. When Lanzhou was liberated, the North China 19th Corps, which was assigned to Yiye, also brought the 6th Cavalry Division from the 4th Cavalry Division of Fu Zuoyibu. When the 19th Corps entered the Korean War, the 6th Cavalry Division did not go, but also stayed in Ningxia to be responsible for counterinsurgency, this division was the first class main force of fu cavalry, and participated in the surprise attack on the Bailing Temple and the Great Victory of Wuyuan during the War of Resistance, and after the completion of the suppression of bandits, it was downsized into a regiment and also merged into the 1st Cavalry Division.
In Qinghai, the Yushu detachment and the Goluo detachment of the military sub-district were all cavalry; in addition, the Inner Mongolia cavalry divisions of the People's Liberation Army participated in the two major battles of Liaoshen and Pingjin during the Liberation War, and during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, they sent a large number of warhorses to the volunteer army and trained new horses, one of which was changed to rocket artillery to directly enter the Korean War, and was later downsized to the 13th and 14th Regiments of the Inner Mongolia Military Region, and was also transferred to Qinghai to participate in the war in 1958 when Ganqing put down the rebellion. The department is a strong cavalry brigade, before the decisive battle in Lanzhou, ready to be transferred to the northwest to fight a field battle with the Majia cavalry, officers and men have long heard that the Majia army is arrogant and arrogant, at that time, the Majia army, with a strong desire to fight, is ready to compete with the Majia army, but the Majia has no field battle attempts, and was defeated in Lanzhou in the urban offensive and defensive war. The two regiments participated in several large-scale counterinsurgency battles in northern Tibet until the end of the counterinsurgency and were re-established. At that time, on the Ganqing steppe, basically the whole army's formed cavalry arrived, and the Mongolian horses, the three river horses, the Shandan horses, the Menyuan horses, the Datong horses, the Hequ horses, the Tibetan horses, and the Ili horses gathered on the plateau, and the ten thousand horses roared and galloped across the plateau, which was an extremely spectacular cavalry battle.
During the period of Ganqing's counterinsurgency, due to the vast territory and serious rebellion, and the shortage of troops stationed in the local area, the troops who had just withdrawn from the Korean battlefield were also urgently transferred to the west, including Ding Sheng's 54th Army, and the famous "Ding Zhi" was established at this time. In 1958, the 11th Infantry Division, the unit of the flying soldier Bailey Trail in the later counterattack against India, the main force of the division was at the time of the counter-rebellion in the Tibetan area of Gannan, and the division artillery regiment of the division remained in Linxia (Ma Bufang's hometown) in Gansu Province, which was suddenly besieged by tens of thousands of local people and surrounded by regiments, and the artillery regiment took up infantry weapons and threw it into battle. However, there were quite a few remnants of the Majia Army among the rebels, and their combat effectiveness was very strong. The artillery regiment was outnumbered for a time, and the situation was quite critical. Just as the rebels were preparing for a final general offensive against the artillery regiment. At this time, a regiment of the 134th Division that came down from the Korean battlefield happened to pass by nearby, and they were originally going to participate in the Gannan counterinsurgency battle, but after hearing the news, they rushed to break the encirclement of the rebels and join the artillery regiment. The arrival of the infantry boosted the morale of the People's Liberation Army, and the two regiments quickly took the initiative to attack after combining their troops, resolutely quelling this large-scale riot that wanted to take the opportunity to ignite in the backyard.
The volunteer troops returning from Korea at that time, as well as the 61st and 62nd Divisions, also participated in the counterinsurgency, and by this time, all four field armies had troops participating in the battle.
After the troops of the 134th Division entered Tibet, this unit, which had just fought against the mechanized US army, also formed cavalry according to the terrain of northern Tibet and the characteristics of the rebel bandits, also with the reconnaissance company as the mainstay, and the backbone of the cavalry brigade was drawn, as the vanguard of the infantry to seek out the rebels, and in combat, they often could not catch up with the other side because of their poor riding skills, and they often lost their fighter planes. A squadron of the cavalry brigade of the 134th Division, pursued on horseback, tightly grasped a group of rebels in the Sotai area, and finally encircled from both wings, and suppressed these forty rebels in the mountain pass, and when they were cleaning up the battlefield, there was a sudden burst of gunfire on the surrounding hills, more than five hundred mounted rebels came in an instant, surrounded them from all sides, the other side's fire was quite fierce, it was the backbone of the rebels who had received american air-dropped weapons, the cavalry squadron immediately occupied the favorable terrain, asked the division headquarters for support, and came to reinforce the 32nd Regiment of the 11th Division, although due to unfamiliar terrain, Some of the companies did not reach the designated position, but the regiment still gave the rebels a counter-encirclement, and ordered the battalions to quickly launch a fierce attack on the rebels with the newly formed cavalry commandos as the front.
At this time, the cavalry squadron fought outward, the 32nd regiment attacked inside, the rebel bandits divided a small number of troops to block the outside, concentrated their forces to pounce on the cavalry squadron, trying to quickly eat the cavalry squadron, and then find a gap to rush out of the encirclement, the cavalry squadron was extremely tenacious, and repelled the rebels' five consecutive charges, at this time the 32nd regiment companies arrived one after another, the attack power was greatly enhanced, the internal and external attacks, the rebels were all wiped out, more than twenty people in this cavalry squadron were sacrificed, 85% of the people were wounded, the old soldiers, the new cavalry, hit a successful center blossoming.
The cavalry of that year, in training, immediately shoot, immediately chop, riding horses to cross obstacles is the basic training subject, and according to the needs of actual combat, dismounting on foot is an important training content, counterinsurgency battles are more adopted in high-speed mobility, control favorable terrain to destroy the enemy with firepower, generally by new recruits in the rear control of horses, veterans in the front of the battle. The old cavalry still has a lot of unique work, stirrup hiding and other techniques needless to say, the technical cavalry, such as those cavalry participating in the founding ceremony, will also get on the horse from the side of the horse, that is, the horse stands at a distance of eight steps in front of the body, run violently, and jump on the horse's back with the hand, this action is called "eight steps to catch up"; and many old cavalry, in case of emergency, are not first sorted out the saddle, but first throw the saddle on the horse's back, and the person gets on the horse, fastens the belly belt in the control of the horse, and in one go is very neat, and can quickly enter the combat state. Very practical.
The Great Northwest of the 1950s was the last glory before the glorious end of cavalry as an ancient and legendary class of soldiers, and this history should not be forgotten by future generations, and the assumption that the cavalry withdrew from the stage of history when automatic firearms appeared was based on foreign countries and did not understand the important history of our army's cavalry at all. China has its own national conditions, its own geographical environment, and it is bound to have a form of operation that meets the needs of actual combat; tens of thousands of soldiers who galloped on horseback and raised their swords galloped across the gobi plateau and made great contributions to national reunification and peace.