On the evening of April 22, 1951, the volunteer army launched a simultaneous attack on the enemy along a front of more than 200 kilometers wide, with Wang Jinshan's three corps attacking from the front, and Song Shilun's 9 corps and Yang Dezhi's 19 corps detouring from both flanks. In order to strengthen the frontal assault force, before the war, Wang Jinshan withdrew the 179th Division and the 181st Division belonging to the 60th Army, strengthened it to the 15th Army and the 12th Army respectively, and soon after changed the 180th Division to the direct command of the corps, so that Wei Jie, the commander of the 60th Army, became the "Light Pole Commander".
Under the onslaught of the volunteer army, the "United Nations Army" was gradually defeated, and by early May, our army had advanced more than 60 kilometers, and the 12th Army rushed to the vicinity of the 37th Line. As the front line continued to lengthen, the logistics of the volunteer army began to fail to keep up, the front-line troops were already short of food and ammunition, and Shiji was forced to order the three corps involved in the battle to retreat. Ridgway took the opportunity to command the United Nations forces in a ferocious counterattack.
In order to cover the main force and the transfer of the wounded and sick, the Third Corps gave the task of rear of the palace to the 180th Division, which ordered the division to block the enemy on the south bank of the Han River. On 23 May, the U.S. 24th Division and the Han 2nd Division began to attack the 180th Division. On May 24, another enemy army crossed from the Cheongcheon River to the North Han River crossing. Zheng Qigui, commander of the 180th Division, found that the rear road of the troops was in danger of being cut off by the enemy, and immediately asked the commander of the corps, Wang Jinshan, to retreat, but there was no response for a long time. It turned out that the headquarters of the Third Corps had lost contact with the three corps below due to poor air defense on the way back, and the radio car was blown up by enemy aircraft.
After seeing the response of the corps for a long time, Zheng Qigui asked the commander Wei Jie for instructions. Wei Jie, who had been in the battle for a long time, saw the danger of the 180th Division at a glance, and immediately ordered Zheng Qigui to lead his troops across the Northern Han River to quickly retreat. However, due to the fact that the American army was a mechanized march and was very fast, the 180th Division was never able to get rid of the enemy. On May 26, the main force of the 180th Division fell into the siege of three enemy divisions at Mount Zhaode, and Zheng Qigui and Acting Political Commissar Wu Chengde decided to break through after studying it.
At that time, after many days of fierce fighting, the 180th Division had basically run out of ammunition, and it was difficult to break through the siege on its own. Therefore, Zheng Qigui sent a telegram to the military commander Wei Jie, asking for troops to respond. At this time, the closest unit to the 180th Division was the 536th Regiment of the 179th Division, and the rest of the troops were at least 3 days away from the 180th Division. In a hurry, Wei Jie picked up the phone and spoke directly to Zhou Zhushan, the commander of the 536 regiment, and ordered him to lead his troops to attack in the direction of Driving Deshan that night, and be sure to take the 180th Division out.
But what Wei Jie did not know was that the 536 regiment was already in danger at this time. When the 3rd Corps began to retreat, the 536th Regiment, as the vanguard of the 179th Division, made a surprise attack, and after a series of fierce battles, it came to the maping area on the morning of May 26, only a day away from the military headquarters. Just when the soldiers thought they could return safely, a regiment of the US 7th Division caught up and launched a fierce attack on the 536th Regiment. At that time, after a series of fierce battles, the 536th Regiment only had more than a thousand people left, and the shells had been shot out. The enemy was fully loaded, aided by planes, tanks and artillery.
The strength and firepower are seriously inferior to those of the opponent, and it is an encounter, and if you want to repel the enemy, you can only desperately fight. Without anti-tank weapons, the fighters used cluster grenades and explosives to blow up enemy tanks; in order to prevent enemy aircraft from bombing and dropping napalm, the fighters rushed into enemy groups and fought in close quarters. Relying on the heroic and tenacious spirit, the 536th Regiment repelled 6 enemy charges in succession. At this time, night fell, and the enemy was afraid of the volunteers' night counterattack, which ended the day's offensive.
In this day's bloody battle, the 536th Regiment killed and wounded hundreds of enemy troops, but it also paid a great price of casualties, all the regiment's troops added up to only 4 platoons, and the second battalion was only a dozen people left, so heavy casualties that Zhou Zhushan, an iron-clad man, was cut off. At this time, the call of the commander Wei Jie arrived, and he ordered him to lead the 536th Regiment to immediately attack the Driving Mountain and receive the breakthrough of the 180th Division. For this order, Zhou Zhushan had more than enough heart but insufficient strength, and in a hurry, he actually yelled at Wei Jie: Now the total strength of all the troops in my hands is only 4 platoons, do you know the commander?
Wei Jie did not expect that the situation of the 536 Regiment would be so difficult, and the 4 platoons could not complete the task no matter what, so he could only hang up the phone with a heavy heart. In the end, the 180th Division failed to wait for reinforcements and was forced to disperse and break through, losing more than 7,000 men. Division commander Zheng Qigui, deputy division commander Duan Longzhang, and chief of staff Wang Zhenbang broke through the siege under the desperate cover of guards and returned to the military headquarters, but Acting Political Commissar Wu Chengde failed to rush out and was captured after 14 months of guerrilla fighting behind enemy lines. When the title was awarded in 1955, Zheng Qigui and Wang Zhenbang were both colonels, Duan Longzhang was a lieutenant colonel, and Wu Chengde was transferred to a battalion-level cadre after returning to China, and was not awarded a title.
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