History will not forget that on April 26, 1979, the front-page long-form newsletter of the People's Liberation Army Daily read, "Motherland, Be Proud of Your Heroic Sons and Daughters!" 》
This is a yellowed April 26, 1979 People's Liberation Army Daily, on the front page of the prominent position, published by the military newspaper reporters and correspondents jointly written, about the heroic deeds of our 121st Division in the self-defense operation against Vietnam to defend the frontier operations of the long newsletter "Motherland, Be Proud of Your Heroic Sons and Daughters!" 》
Although we have also read and studied this article in the past, after 43 years to read it again, the kind of tragedy and pride, glory and imprint that have been engraved so far after the arduous and dangerous bloody battle still makes people feel thousands of tears in their eyes, and it is difficult to suppress their emotions. This newsletter is so precious to us, the survivors of the battlefield. Its reappearance once again brought my mind back to the early spring and February of the beacon southern Xinjiang 43 years ago!
Motherland, be proud of your heroic sons and daughters!
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O motherland, you have been proud of the Red Army's arduous 25,000-mile long march; you have been proud of the feats of a million heroic divisions of the People's Liberation Army in crossing the great river; you have also been proud of the immortal achievements of the volunteer army in defending the homeland and defending the country; then, please be proud of the heroic sons and daughters of the self-defense and the defense of the frontier! They have safeguarded the dignity of the nation and the honor of the motherland with their lives and blood. The brand-new page they have written in the glorious annals of our army will forever inspire a new generation to carry out a new Long March!
Now, we would like to introduce the heroic deeds of a unit interspersed on the guangxi border defense front. The experience of each of their commanders and fighters in perseverance and heroic fighting is always worthy of the pride of the people of the motherland.
(i)
In the face of the Vietnamese invaders who have regarded us as enemies for many years, it is unusual to set up layers of defensive lines according to danger, break through it and penetrate deeply. In the words of the warrior, it is to "break into the mouth of the tiger, step on the wolf's den, and cross the three dangers"!
The first level interspersed is to break into the tiger's mouth. Recessed under the steep ridges of the dangerous mountains, Mo Long was like an open tiger's mouth, guarding the gate where I penetrated the attack of the troops. Standing on either side of the 910 and 875 Highlands, the front teeth of the Tiger's Mouth, were guarded by a battalion of the Vietnamese Army and the forces of the nearby Gong'an Tun. The enemy's appetite is arrogant and amazing, dreaming of "how much the Chinese army enters, how much to eat, and not to spit bones"!
"Knock out the enemy's front teeth and break in through the tiger's mouth!" A certain regiment of four companies divided into small groups and multiple roads, like countless iron tongs from all directions to the tiger's tooth tongs. The enemy's open pillars, bunkers, trenches, and heavy and light firearms in the walls all opened fire on me. The hated warrior rushed up to the enemy's rain of bullets, rushed to the front of the warrior, found where the enemy's light and heavy machine gun sprayed, and pounced on it.
Zhong Yuangao, the commander of the eighth squad of the fourth company, saw that a heavy machine gun of the enemy was blocking the area where the troops were charging, and some of the soldiers were wounded, and their eyes were red. He rushed up with an arrow, threw a grenade into the enemy's bunker, grabbed the enemy's hot heavy machine gun barrel with his bare hands, and dragged it out of the enemy's hand. The stunned enemy hurriedly opened fire and wounded him. Forgetting the pain, he did not care about bandaging, picked up the explosives and rushed up, blowing up the enemy's fortifications and opening the way for his comrades-in-arms. Jiang Limin, the commander of the seventh company who rushed in front, blew up two enemy bunkers with a company of cluster grenades. The deputy instructor rushed up to him and said: I'll come next! Jiang Limin grabbed the grenade and said, "I am familiar with the terrain here, or I will come!" He jumped up again and blew up the enemy's third bunker.
When he was about to blow up the enemy's fourth bunker, he was shot and fell to the ground. He lay in the arms of the deputy instructor, opened his mouth and did not say anything, and died heroically, but his arms, dyed red with hot blood, were like red arrows, pointing to the enemy's bunkers and pointing in the direction in which our army was penetrating. The commanders and fighters rushed more courageously towards the enemy position. The enemy forts that spread over the mountains exploded one after another, and smoke rose one after another. After four hours of fierce fighting, they broke through three lines of defense and completely annihilated one battalion of the enemy.
The tiger's teeth were pulled out, the tiger's mouth was torn open, it did not swallow the bones of our border troops, and the enemy's bones were crushed.
When the battle to tear the mouth was still going on, Zheng Wenshui, the commander of the division who was nearly half a hundred years old, and Zhou Kaiyuan, the political commissar, personally led the main force and quickly inserted themselves through the tiger's mouth like steel knives. Standing in front of the interspersed troops was a section of "three dangers" of mountain danger, water danger, and road danger. Here, four treacherous peaks like Mount Hua stand in the midst of the lofty mountains; three iron cables like the Luding Bridge hang from the roaring river; the thorny slopes and cliffs have no way to find, and the enemy's bunkers are hidden everywhere, and the insidious enemy special forces are ambushed. My border guards are like advancing in a "wolf's den.".
Li Peijiang, a hero of the battle and a fifty-seven-year-old deputy division commander, led the sharp knife battalion to the forefront. The sharp knife camp went to Tongnong and was blocked by a canyon, what should I do? Time is the victory! Deputy Master Li waved his hand: "Follow me!" The young commanders and fighters followed the two white-bearded deputy division commanders to climb the cliff and bravely marched forward. The thorny grass is deep, and the warriors have to use their bodies to press out a road; the ditch is wide and the valley is deep, and the warriors grab the rattan and swing past; the cliffs are steep and dangerous, and the warriors sit on the steep slope and slide down; the enemy fire at the head of the iron rope bridge is tightly sealed, and the soldiers climb the iron rope with their hands and rush while fighting. The vicious enemy set up ambushes and blockades, and Deputy Division Commander Li calmly commanded the troops to alternately cover the advance. The entire unit broke through the enemy's twelve ambushes and blockades, marched and fought for six days and nights continuously, and experienced more than a hundred large and small battles, and successfully inserted themselves into the designated area.
(ii)
With an iron will and discipline, the messenger plunges straight into the enemy's deep troops, and cannot be scattered, dragged down, invincible, invincible. The firm conviction to defeat the enemy inspires everyone to fight in unity.
Look at the battle in which one of my logistical reinforcements defeated the enemy's sudden interception:
It was a mule and horse convoy of nineteen units. The cadres and fighters did not know each other, and after the concentration, they inserted themselves into the designated area. That night, when he came to Zongmei Pass, he was suddenly attacked by enemy secret service teams lying on dangerous slopes on all sides. The troops were crushed to the bottom of the valley, and the situation was very critical. At this time, the night secretly shouted: "The cadres are moving closer to me!" With the shout, more than a dozen figures quickly gathered here. They deeply understand that in the face of the crazy attack of the enemy, it is necessary to have a strong leader, a steel core, and squeeze the troops into a fist to defeat the enemy!
"My name is Xu Jiaqin, and I am an instructor of a 00 artillery company. Now set up a temporary party branch, I will be the branch secretary; we must quickly gather the troops and counterattack the enemy! ”
In accordance with the decision of the Provisional Party Branch, a heroic counterattack began.
The Party branch is temporary, but the orders it issues are the most authoritative. The line commands people who are highly conscious. In accordance with its orders, Zhang Yifan, deputy instructor of the communications company, led several soldiers to step on bareback horses, bowed on horseback, and clamped their legs like swords through the fire net to report the situation to their superiors; He Staff Officer of the Artillery Unit and Liu Shanhua, company commander, quickly mobilized mortars to form a circular position and bombarded the enemy; Lin Handian, the commander of the service platoon, organized infantry and bravely fought back against the enemy; Lin Jingyou, a doctor at the Military Horse Institute, was ready to rescue him. People of various positions gave full play to their strengths, and the personnel of nineteen units formed a steel collective, and they repelled the enemy's frenzied charge one after another, and the fierce battle continued until dawn. Sixty-seven enemy corpses lying on the position, seven horizontal and eight, announced the enemy's fiasco. Xu Jiaqin took this invincible and indissoluble contingent, with one hundred and two mules and horses full of supplies, to meet the rising sun and catch up with our main force.
Next, let's take a look at the heroic deeds of the lonely enemy!
During a battle, Chen Shuli, the squad leader of an eighth company, and six soldiers of the brother company lost contact with their superiors and were surrounded by the enemy in a separate house in an open area. The six fighters did not know each other, except for the deputy squad leader Wei Chenru and the soldier Chen Wuxian, the other four were wounded. The besieging enemy had more than one platoon, and it was a battle of disparity in strength.
When the enemy saw the surroundings, one of the wounded unscrewed the cover of the grenade in his hand and said to Chen Shuli: "Squad leader, we will never disgrace the motherland and die with the enemy!" Chen Shuli held down the hand of his comrade-in-arms and said firmly, "We can't be so cheap as the enemy, we must fight!" He encouraged everyone: "We have a submachine gun, two rifles, nine grenades, more than a thousand rounds of ammunition, and we must resolutely destroy the enemy!" Chen Shuli took out a piece of paper from his pocket and asked everyone to write down their names and indicate whether they were party members or league members. Then, the seven warriors swore an oath to the motherland together: "We will fight for the motherland until the last drop of blood is shed!" When the enemy poured in, Chen Shuli asked the wounded to suppress the bullets, and he, Wei Chenru and Chen Wuxian calmly shot at the enemy, one with rifle points, the other with submachine guns, and repelled the enemy's two charge in a row. On the third occasion, the enemy tried to detour from the left, and the two enemies were knocked down as soon as they stepped on a small bridge; the third enemy turned back and fled, and a vengeful bullet caught up with him.
The red-eyed enemy called in six O cannons to bombard them, and the roof was blown down. After the enemy shelled and rushed over, Chen Shuli instructed his comrades-in-arms: "Let go and fight!" "When a warrior is determined to dedicate his life to the motherland, there is only one desire in his heart, that is, to destroy a few more enemies. Seventy meters, sixty meters, fifty meters..." Fight! With a roar, a burst of fierce fire, dozens of enemies fell in response, and the rest of the enemies crawled back with rolling belts to escape. In this way, they fought for a day, and no one could remember how many times they had repelled the enemy's charge, and thirty-three enemy corpses lay in front of the position, and the independent house was still firmly in the hands of seven soldiers. They were like tall green pines, standing still in the smoke of war.
That night, Chen Shuli led his comrades-in-arms to break out. During the breakout, he was separated from his comrades again. He was determined to fight the enemy to the end. He was alone in the mountains where the enemy was entrenched. In the artemisia grass, he took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and poured out the voice of a soldier to the Party, to the motherland and the people.
Chen Shuli drilled out of the encirclement circle again and again, and finally returned to the troops after a hard struggle. At this time, the handwriting on his letter had been eroded by rain and sweat, blurred to the point of being illegible, but the spirit of a soldier who bravely dedicated himself to the party and the country was as clear as the sun and the moon and would never be erased.
(iii)
"Minor injuries do not fall into the line of fire, and serious injuries do not cry bitterness" These are the words of people in the past to praise the tenacity of wounded soldiers. In this interspersed unit, the heroic feats of the wounded soldiers shine with a new brilliance of revolutionary heroism and show the invincible will of the Chinese people.
At one point, enemy artillery fire stopped the advance of the troops. Li Zhiqiu, the deputy squad leader of the eighth squad, was wounded and could not get out of the line of fire, and continued to lie there to suppress enemy fire. Another burst of artillery fire from the enemy struck, only to see the seriously wounded soldier Sun Ping suddenly stand up and pounce on the body of deputy squad leader Li Zhiqiu, using his body to cover Li Zhiqiu to continue shooting at the enemy. At this time, the warrior Qu Ningjiang also dragged his wounded body around and crawled towards the two comrades with difficulty. One meter, two meters, three meters... Blood stained the dirt and grass red. He finally climbed to the side of the two comrades-in-arms, and struggled to stand up and press on Sun Ping's body. Shells exploded around the three warriors. The two warriors above hugged each other tightly, guarding the bodies of their comrades below, three pairs of eyes glaring at the enemy fort, and bullets of hatred shot out from under the three bodies. ......
That's what our wounded warriors do! When they are wounded and cannot charge into the battlefield, they must also cover their comrades with their own flesh and blood, so that they can destroy the enemy fiercely.
The glorious wounded soldiers of this unit, each with a heroic deed to sing and cry. When they are rescued from the battlefield, it is rightful to give each of them a neat bed and to care for them with the best medical conditions. However, the troops inserted themselves deep into the enemy, and the wounded could not be evacuated for a while, so they had to follow the team for eleven days in the absence of medical treatment and medicine. These eleven days, for the wounded, especially the seriously injured, are not a moment, but a minute and a second of difficulty. On the way to follow up, none of the lightly wounded went on stretchers, and they rushed to the road on crutches, and the seriously injured were in unbearable pain, and no one said a word. The weather was hot, and the wounds of some comrades began to worsen and suppurate. The chiefs and comrades-in-arms silently held their hands, touched their hot foreheads, and the tears could not stop flowing down. The wounded soldiers hurried to comfort their chiefs and comrades-in-arms. What a self-conscious, strong warrior!
On the eighth day of inserting the enemy's heart, Comrade Xie Yanxing, the officer in charge of caring for the wounded, got eight penicillin injections, and he was really ecstatic. He and Liang Jun doctor calculated: platoon leader Liao Jianmin's bullet penetrated the abdomen, and one should be injected; the bullet in the abdomen of the soldier Xiao Caizhen had not yet been taken out, and one should be injected; the military doctor Qin Jiu was injured in the chest and arm, and he also needed to inject one... However, when they were injected according to the distribution list, no one would accept it. This one said, "I don't need it, leave it for the seriously injured!" The one said, "It doesn't matter to me, others need it more than I do." "You pushed me to let go, turned for half a day, eight injections, none of which were injected.
Ah, this is our warrior, and as death approaches them step by step, they prefer to keep the threat of death to themselves and the hope of life to their comrades. What spirit in the world is more noble than it, and what fraternity is more precious than it!
In the face of these steel warriors, Officer Xie was moved to tears. In the end, he had to decide in the name of the party branch to inject eight injections into the comrades who were in urgent need of injections. What a deep class camaraderie contained in the little eight injections!
(iv)
Harsh tests after trials. On the fourth day of insertion into the enemy's rear, the warriors fought valiantly against the enemy, and waged an uphill struggle against hunger and fatigue. Some comrades have not closed their eyes for four days and four nights; some troops have begun to run out of food for three, four, and five days. Attacks of extreme fatigue and starvation are more threatening than enemy attacks. However, what every commander and fighter shows is not depression and retreat, but unity and fraternity, perseverance and optimism.
After a battalion of a certain regiment captured the eighty-nine heights, it gave the task of holding the heights to two companies and three platoons. On the first day of the defensive position, there was a shortage of food. Instructor Yan Qianyuan broke the only five and a half compressed biscuits left in the whole row into thirty-five thumb-sized pieces and distributed one piece to each comrade. Although everyone was very hungry, they pushed each other, and no one would eat. Finally, the five Communists gave one of their own copies to their infirm comrades.
The next day, the soldiers endured hunger and continued to dig fortifications. The instructor gathered everyone around and said deeply and forcefully: "The more we insist on one minute, the more we can grasp the overall victory." We are the descendants of the Red Army, and we must overcome the difficulties at hand! When the soldiers heard the kind word "Red Army," they unconsciously added infinite wisdom and strength to their bodies. Platoon commander Zhang Tongwen was pleasantly surprised to find a pocket of fern grass on the position, and boiled two boxes of grass soup with the accumulated water of the cattle rolling taipa and distributed it to the frail soldiers. The soldiers drank and talked about the story of the Red Army's Long March eating wild vegetables and weeds, and the high morale drove away the threat of hunger.
On the third day of the grain shortage, seventeen comrades in the whole platoon went hungry one after another, and some of them passed out several times a day. However, they still did not forget the duty of a warrior. When they woke up from their coma, they either touched a shovel or took a gun, and all they had in mind was to strengthen the fortifications and meet the enemy!
On the fourth day of the grain shortage, an exciting victory news came: "Gao Ping has fought down!" "The position immediately boiled over. The comrades cheered happily and kept asking the instructors to report to their superiors: "We will persist until the final victory!" In this way, thirty-five comrades in the whole platoon held their positions for six days and nights until they successfully completed their tasks.
In the struggle against hunger, organs and companies, chiefs and soldiers, care for each other, love each other. Behold, when the battle was fierce, the commanders of the divisions who were entrusted with the heavy command were always ahead of the charge; in the face of the threat of starvation, they always thought of the soldiers, gave the company what little dry food they had saved, and inspected the positions on their own stomachs. Under the silent order, the leaders at all levels and the comrades of the organs took out their only dry food and sent it to the company at the front. When the warriors received it, they were all moved to tears, and they said, "The chief is old, climbs more mountains than us, sleeps less than us, how can we eat them?" "Dry food was sent to Hollywood from the front line. Whatever the chiefs and organ comrades said, the soldiers should accept everything, and the dry food was sent back to the front position. It is precisely this spirit of unity and fraternity peculiar to the people's army that makes this unit unite like a single person in difficult circumstances, forming an iron current, and rushing to the ground wherever it goes!
Zhang Zhi'an, the old regimental commander, told us this with tears in his eyes: "On that day, as I do now, I gave a battalion an order to annihilate the enemy with tears in my eyes. Looking at a warrior who seemed to have to be supported when he walked, I really couldn't bear to give an order to force the army. But I finally got it. The warriors stood tall and shook their spirits, and suddenly they became another person.
A fierce battle was over, and our troops won the victory, and of course paid the price. I came to the front line with a heavy heart, and when I rescued the fallen soldiers and collected the remains of the martyrs, the two soldiers felt a handful of grass in their pockets. ...... They eat grass to fight the enemy for the last time. ”
O Motherland! It is you who fertile soil, elite aura, and feed the warriors. You have endowed them not only with flesh and bones, but also with a perfect soul, a noble sentiment, a strong integrity, an indomitable will and a fearless spirit that overwhelms all enemies.
O motherland, let us proudly declare that the fighters armed with Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought are invincible to the world!