What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
Le Zhong Xun of the Vietnamese Modern General Series
Earlier we talked about the Vietnamese Wen Jin Yong who was trained by China, destroyed South Vietnam during the Vietnam War to unify Vietnam, and fought against China in 1979, this article tells you about a Vietnamese general who was trained at the Whampoa Military Academy.
Le Trần Trịnh was a senior general in the Vietnam People's Army, serving as vice minister of national defense of Vietnam and chief of the general staff of the Vietnam People's Army. Born in 1914 in An Ngeesha, Huaide Province, French Tokyo, his father was a Confucian student of Nguyen Dynasty Keju in high school. His father died of illness when he was 7 years old, after completing his studies in Hanoi. In 1935, he joined the French Colonial Army as a sergeant. He later trained at the Whampoa Military Academy in China and served in the Chinese National Revolutionary Army.
In 1943 he returned to Hanoi to participate in the anti-French revolution, and in 1944 he joined the Viet Minh Led by Ho Chi Minh and engaged in anti-French work in the Bai Mei area of Hanoi. After participating in the August Revolution in 1945, after the establishment of the Provisional Government of Vietnam, he served as a military commissar of the Ha Dong Provincial Uprising Committee and commanded the Viet Min army to seize power in Ha Dong Province.
During the War of Resistance Against France (the First Indochina War), he was an important party and government leader of the 10th Joint District (the Joint District was the administrative district of the military and government integration during the Vietnamese Anti-French War), and Le Zhongxun was also the commander and political commissar of the 209th Infantry Regiment during the First Indochina War. In 1953, he was appointed commander of the 312nd Infantry Division, captured the French commander General Christian de Castries at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and after the victory in the War of Resistance against France, he became the principal of the Vietnam Army Officer School.
During the peace-building period in North Vietnam, he was promoted to deputy chief of general of the Vietnam People's Army in March 1961 and promoted to major general. In 1962, he accompanied Wu Yuanjia to study at the China Military Academy, and then went to China several times to study.
During the War of Resistance Against American Aggression (Vietnam War), he was mainly active in the South Vietnamese theater and Laos. At that time, under the pseudonym Balong, he was one of the important leaders of the Southern People's Liberation Army, responsible for training the army. In 1970, he was transferred back to the north and reinstated as deputy chief of the general staff of the Vietnam People's Army. In March 1971, he was appointed commander of the Route 9-Ha Lao Campaign on the Lao border. In December 1971, he was appointed as a special commissioner of the General Headquarters of the Vietnam People's Army in Laos, participated in the campaign to liberate the Char Plain, and then returned to China for his excellent command skills and was promoted to lieutenant general.
On March 25, 1975, he led the North Vietnamese army to liberate Hue Da Nang, and in April 1975, he led troops to participate in the liberation of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, and served as deputy commander of the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, directly commanding the army to invade the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace and capturing President Yang Weng.
After the reunification of Vietnam, he was reused by Le Son, and served as the commander-in-chief of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979, and participated in the operational command of the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, before being promoted to general in 1984.
He was appointed Minister of Defence in 1986, but died of a heart attack on December 5 of the same year.