Vietnam is China's southern neighbor, and historically, Vietnam and China have had very complex relationships, with close and warlike relations between the two countries. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang unified the Huaxia region, and then 500,000 Qin troops and soldiers and civilians entered the Shanyue tribal area south of Wuling, successfully controlled the local area and established a county government.
Many people say that it is because the tribes in the south are relatively strong that Qin Shi Huang sent 500,000 Qin troops to Lingnan, but in fact, it is not. At that time, the southern region had not yet carried out large-scale development, especially in the Vietnamese region, which was still only a primitive forest, only a few primitive tribes existed, there was neither writing nor a decent army, let alone the existence of the so-called political regime, and it was the large army sent out by Qin Shi Huang that spread civilization like the southern region and the current Vietnamese region.
In later dynasties, Vietnam sometimes became a county of the ancient Chinese dynasty, and sometimes a vassal state of the ancient Chinese dynasty, like the Central Plains Dynasty called Chennagong. Before the founding of New China, Vietnamese people wrote Chinese characters and learned Chinese, whether it was from the customs and customs or costumes, official system, architecture, all copied Chinese culture.
After the Industrial Revolution, Western countries carried out large-scale colonial expansion, and China was reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society at this time, while Vietnam was completely reduced to a colony of the French. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Vietnam became a japanese colony.
After the end of World War II, the French, who had been badly represented during World War II, made a comeback and wanted to continue colonizing Vietnam, but they were met with fierce resistance from the Vietnamese people, led by Ho Chi Minh. In 1949, the founding of New China gave the Vietnamese people the dawn of victory. In 1950, after learning that the Erye And 4 corps led by Chen Geng had liberated Kunming, Ho Chi Minh traveled to China for more than ten consecutive days to seek Chinese assistance.
In order to help the Vietnamese people achieve national independence, China made great assistance to Vietnam, and the military advisory group headed by Chen Geng and Wei Guoqing went to Vietnam to specifically command the Vietnamese army in combat, and won a series of victories such as the great victory of Dien Bien Phu. In order to improve the military quality of Vietnamese officers and soldiers, China also asked Vietnamese to send officers to nanjing and Guilin military academies to study, and the Chinese side bore all the costs.
In the Vietnam-French War of 1950-1954 alone, New China was the only country to provide military assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, including more than 116,000 guns, 420 artillery pieces of various types, and countless supporting military equipment. Even in order to show its support for Vietnam, China secretly "handed over" the Nightingale Island belonging to China to Vietnam, and later the "Nightingale Island" became the "White Dragon Tail Island", resulting in the traditional Chinese fishing grounds in the history of the Beibu Gulf to Be returned to Vietnam, and hundreds of thousands of fishermen will be unemployed.
Later, the French withdrew from North Vietnam, and the Americans quickly infiltrated and replaced the French. By March 1967, there were 560,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam, and more than 72,000 troops from Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, causing smoke to fill the entire northern part of Vietnam.
From 1965 to 1974 alone, China assisted Vietnam with 1.778 million guns, 60,000 guns, 176 ships, 552 tanks, 320 armored vehicles, more than 170 aircraft, 16,000 cars, and 11.17 million sets of military uniforms. It can be said that from aircraft missiles, oil, to rice, white noodles, cans, China has undertaken all the supplies of materials in the North Vietnamese region, and for decades, cars and trains from China to Vietnam have not interrupted transportation.
At that time, China even assisted 50,000 Vietnamese with 56 types of submachine guns and Type 56 semi-automatic rifles that had just been finalized. China also sent 320,000 anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, radar troops, aviation and other arms to resist the United States and aid Vietnam, and now more than 1,400 officers and men are buried on Vietnamese soil.
But after the Americans withdrew their troops from Vietnam in 1975 and Vietnam achieved national reunification, they quickly turned against China. In fact, the contradiction between Vietnam and China can be seen as early as the end of World War II.
Ho Chi Minh's sensitive nerves were touched when Chinese troops entered northern Vietnam for the Japanese surrender ceremony after World War II. In order to let the Chinese troops withdraw as soon as possible, Ho Chi Minh constantly urged The Chinese troops to withdraw, and on the other hand, he secretly signed an agreement with the French army, trying to exchange the French garrison for the withdrawal of the Chinese army. Ho Chi Minh did not expect that the French would not leave in Vietnam, and finally had to ask China to help Vietnam resist the invasion of the French.
In 1975, the Americans withdrew from Vietnam, and the North Vietnamese army defeated South Vietnam in just a few months, unifying the whole of Vietnam. After Vietnam's reunification, it quickly invaded and occupied China's islands and reefs in the South China Sea and began to invade neighboring countries. In order to realize its aggressive intentions, Vietnam found a country, that is, the Soviet Union.
At that time, the Soviet Union had millions of troops in the northern part of China, and relations with China were very tense. When the Soviet Union learned that Vietnam wanted to get closer to it, it immediately agreed to Vietnam's request in order to put pressure on China. At the same time, Vietnam has also continuously encroached on China's border territory, confiscated the assets of overseas Chinese in Vietnam, and expelled overseas Chinese.
Vietnam's actions provoked strong outrage from China and, of course, resentment from Southeast Asian countries, in which case Deng Xiaoping began to visit neighboring countries and received promises from several countries, and Thailand said that China could transport supplies to Cambodia through Thai airspace.
Finally, in order to gain the support of the United States, Deng Xiaoping asked the United States to help contain the Soviet Union and visit the United States. On January 1, 1979, China and the United States established diplomatic relations, and only 27 days later, Deng Xiaoping rushed to the United States for a visit in order to let the United States contain the Soviet Union. When Deng Xiaoping was visiting the United States, when asked about his vietnam policy, Deng Xiaoping said in calm and relaxed language in front of US President Carter: "Children are disobedient and want to spank their butts." At this time, 225,000 People's Liberation Army troops had gathered in the Sino-Vietnamese border area, just waiting for an order.
On February 5, 1979, Deng Xiaoping ended his visit to the United States, and twelve days later, the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam officially began.
On February 17, 1979, the Central Military Commission appointed General Xu Shiyou, commander-in-chief of the Guangxi Border Defense Force on the Eastern Front, to command the 41st, 42nd, 43rd, 54th, and 55th Armies of the Eastern Front Group and the 50th Army of the 149th Division; general Yang Dezhi, commander of the Wuhan Military Region, was appointed commander of the Kunming Military Region, commanding the 11th, 13th, and 14th Armies of the Western Front Group and the 149th Division of the 50th Army to carry out a counterattack against Vietnam.
This time, using the method of killing chickens and using cattle knives, there were nearly 30 infantry divisions dispatched, and the air force dispatched 774 aircraft to carry out patrol tasks in the border areas. The Air Force's anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile units are responsible for air defense at the airport, and the Navy's South China Sea Fleet has assembled more than 120 ships of various types and more than 170 naval aviation combat aircraft in ports west of The Beibu Gulf and Chuan Island.
The whole process of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam was not long, and it took only 28 days to end the battle, and Vietnam was beaten from beginning to end. The mountainous areas of northern Vietnam were all conquered, and further south was the undefended Red River Delta region, which was very suitable for China's mechanized troops to fight. However, in view of the changes in the international environment, the Chinese army retreated after capturing Langshan.