February 11, 1979 is a traditional Chinese festival, the Lantern Festival. Vietnam, which loves the influence of traditional Chinese culture, also celebrates this festival. However, that year's Lantern Festival was destined to be extraordinary and no longer peaceful. Due to the constant provocations of the Vietnamese, China and Vietnam have turned against each other, and the two sides have placed hundreds of thousands of troops on the border line, and war is about to break out.
A week later, on February 17, the People's Daily published an article entitled "Tolerable, Intolerable," announcing the official launch of a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. The Chinese border guards divided into two routes and launched the east and west fronts at the same time, opening a battle of "spanking children's butts".
The large-scale war between the two sides lasted only a month, and the outcome of the war was recorded, with heroic PLA fighters pushing the front into Vietnam and winning a great victory before declaring the end of the war and withdrawing to the country.
In the eyes of many, Chinese flooded into Vietnam like a tidal wave through a 500-kilometer stretch of border and won a great victory in the war.
In fact, the war is cruel after all, Chinese also paid heavy casualties, on the eve of the war, many fighters do not know the importance of picking up the Vietnamese, and even many fighters do not understand, why should we go to war with Vietnam?
Soldiers: Never fought like this before
Before the war, many fighters' feelings for the Vietnamese were still stuck in the past close-knit relationship between the two countries.
Vietnam has been China's Pan vassal state since ancient times, and has always been subservient to Chinese civilization and has paid tribute every year, all of which has disappeared with the decline of the Qing Dynasty. Feng Zicai and Liu Yongfu led the Black Flag Army to fight to the death against the French who invaded Vietnam, but they still could not change the fate of Vietnam's colony. After the end of the Sino-French War, France replaced China as the suzerainty of Vietnam.
The fate of vietnam in modern times is also tortuous, the French came and became a colony of the French, and the Japanese came and became a colony of Japan. After the Japanese were driven away, France made a comeback. Not long after the French occupied Vietnam, the Americans took the place of France, so there was the Vietnam War.
The same fate, neighbors next to each other, made the chinese and Vietnamese peoples friends and even brothers. Whether it was during the anti-French period or the anti-Japanese period, China was the rear area of the Vietnamese revolution, and the Communist Party of Vietnam was founded in Hong Kong. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Ho Chi Minh and others fought against the French forces mainly in the Guangxi area.
In 1942, in order to oppose the Japanese colonies, Ho Chi Minh again came to China to look for anti-Japanese forces, but was arrested by the Nationalist government, imprisoned for 13 months, and finally released.
During the Vietnam War, Chinese launched the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Vietnam, which not only contributed to the people, but also provided materials, the amount of which reached 20 billion US dollars, which effectively supported the struggle of the Vietnamese people. There are many things that we are reluctant to use ourselves, and we must also take them out to support the Vietnamese.
The Vietnamese's liking for China changed after Ho Chi Minh's death, and his successor, Le Son, was more inclined to the Soviet Union. At this time, China and the Soviet Union had already turned against each other, and Kosygin, chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, and Li Xiannian, then vice premier of the State Council, both attended Ho Chi Minh's funeral, and the two sides refused to meet.
Lee Sun
After leading the Communist Party of Vietnam and completing the heavy task of unifying Vietnam, it did not realize that economic development was Vietnam's top priority, but went to the road of expansion. Because Li Sun was one of the early founders of the Communist Party of Indochina, he also fantasized about the establishment of the so-called Federation of Indochina.
In order to become the hegemon of the Indochina Peninsula, of course, it must expand its territory, and in 1978, Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union, invaded the sovereign state of Cambodia. As early as 1951, at the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Indochina, the Vietnamese proposed to "establish a federation of Indochina", and the invasion of Cambodia was already the first step to realizing this dream, because they had taken control of Laos.
At this time, relying on the assistance of the Soviets, the Vietnamese built up a strong military force and called themselves the "third most powerful country in the world". At the same time as the invasion of Cambodia, Vietnam also began to invade China.
The Vietnamese suppressed the Chinese at home, driving more than 133,600 overseas Chinese and ethnic Chinese out of the country on the guangxi border alone, and the Vietnamese army deployed 4 infantry divisions, 1 engineer division, 9 independent regiments, 13 independent battalions, and several public security tun troops in the shallow and deep areas of southern Guangxi, shouting at China's border defense fighters with loudspeakers every day, threatening to "flatten Guangxi."
By February 16, 1979, the Vietnamese side had fired a total of 168 cannons into China's territory, killing and wounding 132 soldiers and civilians in our border defense. How our border guards persuaded and sent high-level government delegations to Vietnam many times to persuade and persuade them, the Vietnamese did not relent in the slightest, threatening to fight a big war with China.
As the People's Daily report declared: It is tolerable and intolerable. In order to combat the arrogance of the Vietnamese, our army decided to launch a counterattack and teach this white-eyed wolf a lesson.
Pre-war ideological preparation
After 1978, China began reform and opening up, established the goal of economic construction as the center, and had no intention of fighting wars. However, the enemy's unrelenting behavior can only actively prepare for war in the end.
China's border was so long, many people at that time did not know what happened on the Sino-Vietnamese border, coupled with the reasons for the underdevelopment of information, many people did not know the vietnamese's misdeeds, nor did they know the determination of the high-level to teach Vietnam a lesson, in their view, Vietnam is still a brother and comrade relationship.
When the Chinese troops began to assemble, many people were asking the same question: Aren't the Vietnamese good brothers to us? Why fight Vietnam? Not only did the old Red Army ask this question, but also the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, and commanders at all levels also asked this question.
Since December 1978, while our army was mobilizing large armies, the political departments of various armies began to organize and convene political trade unions to study and deploy the work of combat readiness education.
The cadres and soldiers were not ideologically prepared for this large-scale battle, and they still thought that this was another way of scaring people through the mobilization of large troops, as in the years of the Liberation War, and it was impossible to really fight. A director of the regimental political office reported to the thinking of the troops and said: In small battles on the border, why should we use large corps to take back the hills occupied by the Vietnamese army?
Combatants at all levels are not only not ideologically prepared for war, but also are not fully prepared for materials, and a director of the political department of a division: "Two B divisions, half of the soldiers and weapons are missing, and even tactics cannot be formed when a war starts, so what kind of battle is being fought?" ”
The top brass of the unit immediately decided to carry out extensive combat readiness education throughout the army, focusing on cadres, stimulating hatred against Vietnam and establishing the idea of fighting, wanting to fight, and daring to fight.
Combat readiness education is led by political commissars at all levels, and with the working group as the unit, it goes deep into the combat units at the army, division, and regiment levels to carry out combat readiness education.
Take, for example, the first division and one regiment of the Forty-first Army, which has long been stationed in a village 30 kilometers from the border, and the conditions of the troops are extremely difficult, they live in the simple wooden slab houses of the local residents, the upper level lives in people, the lower level guards livestock, and emits a foul smell.
Under the windows of the house, the ventilation conditions were poor, the light was dark, the bed was only straw, mats and a bed of cotton tires, the pillows were still wooden, and the sacked mosquito nets had been broken and could not be repaired. The warriors preferred to eat in the open air rather than live indoors. It is rainy in the local area, the road is often wet, accidentally fell, is a mud man. The soldiers have been preparing for battle for two months under such difficult conditions.
Not only do they not understand why they want to fight Vietnam, they are also not optimistic about the prospects of war. Under such circumstances, the political work officials of our army decided to combine combat readiness education with combat readiness training, so that the soldiers could understand the necessity of this war and let them build confidence in winning the war.
The working group invited border guards and overseas Chinese fighters who had returned from persecution in Vietnam to report to the fighters and accuse them of the anti-China crimes committed by the Vietnamese authorities. At the same time, the working group organized a photo exhibition to display pictures of Vietnamese shelling houses and killing our border people, exposing the ungrateful and resentful behavior of the Vietnamese people, and arousing the soldiers' hatred and hatred.
The soldiers of the People's Liberation Army and the people have always been in a relationship of water and milk, and the evidence such as the personal evidence and physical evidence of the parties is overwhelming, and the soldiers unanimously believe that they should take revenge and punish those who are unjust with war.
However, the warmen still cling to the illusion that as long as they can teach the Vietnamese a lesson, they support small fights, and they are still a little hesitant about big fights. The personnel of the working group stressed: War is in the service of politics, and we resolutely avoid war, but to fight it is to fight a big war, to eliminate the enemy's living forces, so that they cannot invade Cambodia in terms of troops, material resources, and financial resources, and they are unable to provoke and sabotage on our border.
Under such a lesson, the soldiers firmly established their goals and expressed their position on the spot that the PLA is an army loyal to the party, and we will fight as the party Central Committee wants to fight.
Take the worries out of the warriors
Before the outbreak of the counterattack war, our army had not fought a war for many years, the soldiers wanted to make meritorious contributions to the country, some cadres were worried that the war would be unfavorable, and let their soldiers die in vain, and many soldiers did not have great trust in the combat commanders.
In view of this kind of thinking, combat commanders at all levels are also very clear that it is necessary for soldiers to build up the confidence that "the battle will be won." This is because our army carried out extensive military training before the operation and carried out drills in advance for mountain jungle operations. Combat commanders at all levels have won the trust of the vast number of soldiers with their calm and calm command and courage to stand up at critical moments.
However, some of the fighters still looked embarrassed, and under careful questioning, it turned out that some of the fighters had also spoken their hearts. It turns out that many warriors have very difficult families, they are not afraid of dying on the battlefield, but they are worried that their families will fall into difficulties after their own sacrifice.
In this regard, the members of the working group did not accuse the fighters of asking for too much, but thought about the problem from the perspective of the fighters. This was indeed the case at that time, everyone had families with elderly people and children, and the soldiers could not be allowed to shed blood and tears.
The staff went out of their way to explain the state's pension rules to everyone, and everyone was silent, letting go of the last worries in their hearts. After the end of the war, the state also issued a regulation: all cadres who died in the war and owed debts due to the difficulties of family life before their deaths were repaid by the public. In this way, the soldiers have no worries and only want to fight for the interests of the country.
After doing sufficient ideological work and undergoing adequate combat training, the units participating in the battle quickly regained their powerful combat effectiveness. At the beginning of the war, all the soldiers bravely competed to destroy the trend of decay, fiercely cleaned up the Vietnamese white-eyed wolves, cleared the obstacles on China's southern border, and even the Soviets in the north were frightened and abandoned the plan to directly intervene in the war.
Text/Sima GuanShi