What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
On April 6, 1951, General Peng held the Fifth Battle Preparatory Meeting in Zhisi, and the commanders of the 3rd Corps, the 9th Corps and the 19th Corps of the main force of the operation were all highly motivated. Song Shilun, commander of the 9th Corps, took the lead in speaking: "Our corps only fought the first battle in Korea, and the First Marine Division had already become a turtle in an urn, but I did not expect that God did not have long eyes, and the cold of more than thirty degrees below zero made the enemy pick up a dog's life." We had been resting on the Eastern Front, and Shiji had to transfer us back to China several times, but the soldiers could not swallow this breath. Now that the weather is warm, you must avenge the sacrifice of your comrades! ”
Wang Jinshan, acting commander of the Three Corps, made a second speech: "How many soldiers are there in the United States?" Coupled with Syngman Rhee's puppet army, it is not enough to be worth one of our military regions, and it is not enough for us to fight in the Huaihai Campaign! I don't think it's a problem to drive the Americans out of the sea, how big is North Korea? Urinating on the 38th line can nourish Busan! The rest of the generals also asked for battle, and the meeting was very enthusiastic, full of optimism from top to bottom.
Honestly, there's some truth to this optimism. With the entry of the 3rd and 19th Corps into Korea, the Volunteer Army had an absolute advantage in total strength. Moreover, the equipment of the first 37 divisions purchased from the Soviet Union has arrived one after another, and each division has set up artillery regiments, anti-aircraft artillery battalions, and each regiment has added a recoilless artillery company, an anti-aircraft machine gun company and a 120 mortar company. The various artillery pieces of the Volunteer Army have increased to more than 6,000, including more than a thousand large-caliber artillery pieces, and the firepower has been greatly improved compared with before, and the equipment of the Volunteer Army has never been so good.
After the crowd expressed their opinions, Mr. Peng put forward the battle plan for the five campaigns: "At present, the total strength of the enemy on the Korean front is 14 divisions, about 240,000 people, and no less than 120,000 reserve troops. Judging from the intelligence of all quarters, the enemy will continue to advance north after occupying the 38th Line, and it is likely that he will land from the flank and rear to cooperate with the frontal attack. Therefore, we must hold a campaign counterattack around April 20, destroy several enemy divisions, smash the enemy's plans, and regain the initiative; in terms of fighting style, because the enemy's troops are relatively close this time, our army must combine campaign division with tactical division, split a gap from Jinhua to the leveling line, split the enemy from east to west, and then annihilate each encirclement. ”
Peng Zong's idea was to use Wang Jinshan's three corps to attack from the front, and Song Shilun's 9 corps and Yang Dezhi's 19 corps to detour from both flanks. In one fell swoop, the Rok 1st Division, the British 29th Brigade, the US 3rd Division, the Turkish Brigade and the ROK 6th Division were encircled and annihilated, and then concentrated on annihilating the US 24th Division and the US 25th Division. It is not difficult to see that General Peng's deployment was to eat up the main force of the "United Nations Army" in one fell swoop through the decisive fifth battle, of which the US army reached three divisions.
On the evening of April 22, 1951, 14 armies of the Chinese and North Korean armies simultaneously began to attack along a front more than 200 kilometers wide, and the troops adopted the method of multi-way pincers to penetrate forward. Under the onslaught of the Volunteers, the "United Nations Army" was gradually defeated. By early May, our army had advanced more than 60 kilometers, and the 12th Army had rushed to the vicinity of the 37th Line. However, logistics supplies have once again dragged their feet, there are more combat units, more Soviet-style equipment, and the consumption of ammunition has naturally increased exponentially. A million troops had to be supplied, but the logistics were only 1400 cars, and they also had to face the bombing of American aircraft day and night. With the continuous advancement of the front to the south, logistics finally could not keep up, and many troops were forced to retreat, and the predetermined combat objectives were not completed.
Although the chairman is far away in Beijing, he is always paying close attention to the development and changes in the war situation. On 26 May, he sent the following telegram to General Manager Peng: "Successive battles have proved that it is difficult for our army to carry out a strategic or campaign detour, and it is difficult for us to achieve the task of annihilation by encircling several divisions or an entire division or even a whole regiment of the US army at a time. Fighting the United States, the British army and the Korean army are different. The ROK army can carry out a strategic or campaign encirclement, while the American and British armies should not carry out such a large encirclement for several months, but only implement a tactical small encirclement, that is, each army carefully selects only one battalion or slightly more targets of the enemy army at a time and surrounds and annihilates them all. This is the "zero knock kraft candy" tactic that our army has tried and failed to do so later.