After the formal decision was made on the Vietnamese counterattack, Xu Shiyou' position as the head of the army was naturally his, and a large part of the reason was that there was a lesson about his combat style, and since it was decided to teach the Vietnamese army a lesson in a quick battle and a quick decision, it was necessary to go up to a fierce and vigorous general; however, it was nominally divided into the east and west fronts, with Yang Dezhi as the commander-in-chief of the western front and Xu Shiyou as the commander-in-chief; in fact, the command of the entire battlefield was basically biased toward the troops on the eastern front, and Yang Dezhi had always been known for his steadiness in fighting wars.
Yang Dezhi was also a very brave general during the war years, and not only was he able to fight a war, but he was also very powerful in political work; as a result, he made many military achievements, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he also repeatedly held important posts, and finally became a member of the leading group; in February 1979, Yang Dezhi, as the commander of the Great Military Region, temporarily received an order to lead his troops to go out on a campaign, and in just one month the Vietnamese army was basically paralyzed; so the central authorities ordered the withdrawal of troops.
In June, only three months after Yang Dezhi withdrew his troops, the central authorities decided to readjust the three major groups, and at that time Yang Dezhi was already a 68-year-old man, and he had just returned from the war, and no one expected him to be used so much again, and he was appointed as the chief of the general staff and became a core figure.
As a revolutionary of the older generation, many generals regard the army as an encyclopedic school, not only limited to knowledge; in the end, the eldest daughter of the four children, Yang Huarong, and the eldest son, Yang Jianhua, have the highest achievements, all of which are major generals, which is undoubtedly the icing on the cake for such a family, and there are three generals in a family.