Shortly after the Inchon landing, the "United Nations Army" crossed the 38th Parallel and marched northward, and the forward force once hit the Yalu River. In order to defend the country, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, under the leadership of General Peng, entered the DPRK to fight. After the first to fifth battles, the American troops were driven from the Yalu River back to the area south of the 38th Line. After that, the enemy and us have been tug-of-war near the 38th Line, and the volunteer army has also shifted from mobile warfare to position warfare. At that time, the American army had absolute fire superiority, and its powerful attack fire caused great losses to the volunteer troops who held their positions.
So how fierce is the U.S. military's firepower? Aftershock, chief of the operations section of the 19th Corps, on a position called Lao Bald Mountain, casually drew a 1-square-foot area and picked out 287 pieces of shrapnel. Such a killing density, not to mention people, even ants, is also difficult to survive. Yang Dezhi, who was the commander of the 19th Corps at the time, recalled: "Our position is best recognized, which hill and which highland are bare, where is our position." "How to survive the enemy's heavy artillery and aircraft bombardment became an urgent problem for the volunteers to solve.
In order to solve this dilemma, Wang Yaonan, then chief of staff of the Suiyuan Military Region, was urgently transferred to the Korean battlefield. At that time, Wang Yaonan was a well-known engineer expert of our army, and his best skill was tunnel combat. Wang Yaonan, a native of Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, was born in 1911 by his father, who made a living as firecrackers. In 1921, wang Yaonan, who was less than 11 years old, followed his father to the Anyuan coal mine, worked as an demolition worker under the mine, and soon became an expert in tunnel excavation and blasting.
A year later, Wang Yaonan joined the Anyuan coal miners' strike led by our Party and thus embarked on the revolutionary road. During the Red Army period, Wang Yaonan successively served as the commander of the engineer company of the Red First Army and the commander of the engineer battalion of the Red Army Headquarters, and in November 1933, the Red Third Army attacked Shaxian, the enemy relied on danger to defend, stubbornly resisted, and the Red Army could not attack for a long time due to the lack of artillery fire. At the critical moment, Wang Yaonan personally led the sappers to carry out the blasting of the tunnels, blowing up the city wall in one fell swoop, and the Red Army took the opportunity to invade the city and completely annihilate the Lu Xingbang Brigade. After the war, Wang Yaonan was awarded the Red Star Medal of the Second Class.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wang Yaonan successively served as the director of the engineers of the 115th Division and the 129th Division, during which he repeatedly commanded the troops to blast the enemy's strongholds and columns. In the winter of 1941, Wang Yaonan was appointed as the director of the engineer corps of the Eighth Route Army and the Central Hebei Military Region. At that time, the situation in the Jizhong Military Region was very grim, and the Japanese forced the common people in the enemy-occupied areas to build more than a thousand pillboxes and strongholds near the base areas of the Eighth Route Army, and the maneuver and room for maneuver of our army were greatly reduced, and the situation was very passive.
In order to break the enemy's encirclement, Nie Rongzhen transferred Wang Yaonan to the Jizhong Military Region to assist Lü Zhengcao in finding a way. After Wang Yaonan arrived in Jizhong, he creatively proposed mine warfare and tunnel warfare, and used the cover of tunnels to bury mines near the Japanese and Kou strongholds, causing the enemy to be terrified every time he went out. The Eighth Route Army was able to gain a firm foothold in the Jizhong Plain, and Wang Yaonan was the most powerful.
After the outbreak of the Liberation War, Wang Yaonan assisted Xu Xiangqian in fighting in Shanxi and Yanxishan, and in the campaigns against Yuncheng, Linfen and Taiyuan, Wang Yaonan's tunnel blasting played a crucial role. With special talents, Wang Yaonan has been recruited and used by 6 marshals such as Zhu Laozong, Liu Shuai, Nie Shuai and Peng Laozong. In the autumn of 1951, in order to defend against the heavy artillery and aircraft of the Us army, Wang Yaonan rushed to the Korean battlefield. At his suggestion, hundreds of thousands of volunteers swung pickaxes and hammers and began tunnel work.
At the request of Wang Yaonan, the thickness of the tunnel mouth generally reached 10 to 15 meters. By the later stage, the thickness of the top of some tunnels had reached 50 meters, and ordinary shells and bombs could not collapse at all. By August 1952, the Volunteer Army had built 200 kilometers of tunnels, 650 kilometers of communication trenches, and more than 10,000 bunkers on the frontal front of the 38th Line, and the six armies of the first echelon. In these tunnels, shooting fortifications, traffic trenches, trunk roads, side roads and other combat facilities were readily available, and even dormitories, dining rooms, toilets, and even auditoriums were moved into the huge mountains by the volunteers.
The efforts of Wang Yaonan and the volunteer soldiers were not in vain, and in the ensuing battle, the tunnel exerted great power. In the Battle of Maliangshan, a company of the 64th Army relied on tunnel fortifications on the 216.8 high ground, repelled 21 American charges in one day, killed and wounded more than 700 enemy troops, and only 26 of its own casualties. Ridgway was not willing to accept defeat and launched a larger autumn offensive. Under the cover of aircraft, tanks, and heavy artillery, the US army launched round after round of attacks on our army's positions, and the units of the volunteer army relied on the tunnels to fight calmly.
As a result, the US army attacked for more than a month, paid the price of more than 100,000 casualties, and only seized 467 square kilometers of land, equivalent to advancing an average of less than two kilometers on a 250-kilometer front, advancing an average of more than 60 meters a day, and advancing less than 3 meters per hour, which was similar to the speed of snails. In the face of the volunteer army's tunnel warfare, The commander-in-chief of the "United Nations Army", Li Qiwei, racked his brains and could not think of a way to crack it, and was almost driven crazy. In 1955, Wang Yaonan, who had made great achievements in the battlefield, was awarded the rank of major general.