The 1979 self-defense counterattack against Vietnam lasted less than a month and was divided into three phases. Within a week of the battle, the People's Liberation Army on the eastern and western fronts broke through the northern defense line of the Vietnamese army and captured the important city of Gao Binh, followed by the famous Battle of Lang Son.
Lang Son is the last natural defense line in the north of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and as long as lang shan is taken by the People's Liberation Army in the densely forested and thorny rocks, Hanoi on the Ping River will be in jeopardy.
The first battle to capture Langshan was to first take the northern outer positions of Kouma Mountain, Bawai Mountain and 417 Heights.
Veterans of the war recall that the battle was so fierce that the Vietnamese army was bombed as soon as it appeared, and there was no chance to shoot. However, even so, the PLA's large regiment with 3,000 troops was still unable to eat the Vietnamese army, which had only 400 remnants of the enemy, and fought extremely hard.
During this period, Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou Yuansheng, who had been awarded the title of "Combat Hero" by the Central Military Commission for killing 14 enemy troops in a row, was in a hurry, and used flexible tactics to gnaw down the hard bone of the main peak of Kouma Mountain, annihilating the Vietnamese army that occupied all the time and place.
Zhou Yuansheng
Before the launch of the counterattack against Vietnamese self-defense, Zhou Yuansheng was also a liaison officer in the political office of the 487 regiment of the 163rd Division of the 55th Army. He took the initiative to join the assault platoon of the 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion as a member of the main offensive force to attack the 408 heights of the Vietnamese fortress of Dong Daeng.
The assault platoon moved very quickly, and soon reached the front of Hill 2 on the main peak of Highland 408. The recalcitrant Vietnamese troops on the high ground desperately suppressed the assault platoon with fierce fire, so that the fighters could not take the lead. Taking advantage of the moment, these Vietnamese troops, who had been led out by the Hands of the People's Liberation Army, began to insult our army, arousing the anger of all the fighters.
Thinking of the two billion yuan of aid to raise such a white-eyed wolf as Vietnam, Zhou Yuansheng gritted his teeth in hatred, grabbed the machine gun of the machine gunner around him, and directly rushed to the trench of the Vietnamese army to shoot at the enemy, killing two enemies in two clicks, shocking the arrogant Vietnamese army on the opposite side.
The other fighters of the assault platoon took the opportunity to launch a charge, killing three enemies in succession, frightening the other Vietnamese troops not to even take care of the bodies of their comrades-in-arms, and fled into the wilderness.
After participating in the battle for 4 days, Zhou Yuansheng was promoted to the commander of 2 battalions and 5 companies because of his bravery in battle and the scramble to kill the enemy, and led the troops to launch an extremely difficult battle to explore a certain battle.
Tanmou is the intersection of highways and railways in Gaoping, Tongdeng and Langshan, including the 29 hills in this area, which are still ravines and rugged mountain jungles, and the People's Liberation Army must constantly take a machete to open the way with each step forward.
Zhou Yuansheng accepted the task of capturing 5 high ground with 5 companies, and rushed directly to the enemy's position at the moment when the battle order was issued.
As the last major line of defense in Hanoi, the Vietnamese army put all its hopes on Lang Son. The 3rd Division, the main division of the Vietnamese Army, built a large number of tunnel fortifications here, using the complex and difficult terrain to set up various bamboo pole arrays, mine nets, coupled with the Vietnamese ambushes familiar with the terrain and environment, light and heavy weapons formed an airtight firepower cross network.
Before Zhou Yuansheng led the team to reach the enemy position, the Vietnamese army opened fire together in the bunkers and fortifications, the bullets poured down like hail, a platoon leader and a squad leader were immediately hit by bullets, heroically sacrificed on the front line, and the assault platoon that rushed to the front and was equivalent to a death squad was forced to withdraw.
Without taking any high ground and sacrificing several soldiers, Zhou Yuansheng was bitter and hateful, and decided to arrange the command of the company to the assault platoon, that is, to personally participate in the assault mission and lead the charge.
Zhou Yuansheng took 5 companies and took 3 highlands of the Vietnamese army in an hour, attracting the fierce fire of the light and heavy machine guns of the Vietnamese army, Zhou Yuansheng's kettle was pierced, and the pistol holster was also cut off.
Zhou Yuansheng was particularly calm in the flames and smoke, picked up the walkie-talkie, applied for the battalion headquarters to cover the enemy with artillery fire, and secretly approached the enemy position under the cover of smoke.
In the smoke of the invisible figure, Zhou Yuansheng did not find out until he was in front of him that 4 Vietnamese troops were operating a 37 anti-aircraft gun and firing in the direction where our army was located.
Zhou Yuansheng crawled forward with a bundle of grenades, until he reached a distance of only 30 meters from the position, jumped up, threw all the grenades out, and knocked out all 4 Vietnamese troops and anti-aircraft guns.
Zhou Yuansheng's success and bravery instantly inspired the soldiers of the 5th Company, and everyone rushed to charge the Vietnamese position. Zhou Yuansheng took a pistol to solve an enemy, and then took turns using three submachine guns to strafe at the fleeing enemy, and the correspondent and translator around him pressed the bullet for him.
The 5th Company's mighty and awe-inspiring momentum frightened the Vietnamese, 5 enemies were killed on the way out, and the remaining two 37-flank guns became the spoils captured by the 5th Company.
On his first day as a company commander, Chow used pistols, submachine guns and grenades to eliminate 14 Vietnamese troops. Exploring a certain offensive battle lasted until the early morning of the 23rd, Zhou Yuansheng's 2nd Battalion had captured all positions, of which Zhou Yuansheng led the team to seize as many as 7 positions.
On the tenth day of the battle, Zhou Yuansheng became the deputy battalion commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 487th Regiment and was awarded the title of "Combat Hero" by the Central Military Commission.
After the end of a battle, the People's Liberation Army attacked along the only road from Tongdeng to Langshan. The only road was flanked by mountains and jungles, with countless Vietnamese troops lurking in ambush, and the fire of mortars, bazookas and anti-aircraft machine guns was dense and crossed, and as long as the MECHANIZED troops of the People's Liberation Army appeared on the road, they would be hit by the Vietnamese army.
The Central Military Commission could only advance by controlling the outlying mountainous highlands, removing the enemy's strongholds one by one, and then launching a general offensive on the road.
In the early morning of February 27, the Battle of Lang Shan officially began, and the 487th Regiment of the 163rd Division of the 55th Army attacked Kouma Mountain, with two tank companies and a fire-breathing squad of the anti-chemical company, and the number of the regiment reached as many as 3,000 people, and the attack was difficult along the jungle and caves scattered throughout.
Responsible for the defensive tasks in the Khao Ma Shan area were the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the 3rd Division and the 3rd Battalion of the 42nd Regiment of the 327th Division, distributed on more than a dozen high grounds of all sizes, but only one platoon was tasked with defending the main peak of Khuma Mountain.
These dozen highlands were surrounded by tunnels and circular trenches by the Vietnamese army, which were connected by communication trenches and could provide the fastest fire support to each other.
The only road covered with anti-tank and anti-infantry mines seriously hindered the offensive and deployment of the PLA's mechanized troops.
PLA Mechanical Unit
Because of the light rain in the sky and the water vapor spread among the bushy mountains, the attack of the 487th Regiment was extremely difficult, and often accidentally bumped into the crosspoint of the Vietnamese fire, causing accidental casualties.
In order to advance the progress of the battle, the superior instructed the tank troops to use as a precursor to attract enemy fire, and the infantry followed behind to attack. However, the Vietnamese quickly reacted, concentrating anti-aircraft machine guns and "hail" rockets to attack our tanks, resulting in the tactics of step-to-tank coordination also being suppressed.
In desperation, the division headquarters successively mobilized 7 artillery battalions to alternately cover the advance with the infantry, and every time the infantry attacked a commanding height, they called the artillery through signal flares to come forward to carry out a fire raid, and used a dense fire net to cover the infantry to capture the next high ground.
The battle lasted from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., when the 487th Regiment finally took the 303rd Hill and began to attack the main peak of Kouma Mountain. At this time, the Vietnamese troops on the lost heights near Mount Kuoma gradually gathered on the main peak, and the remnants of the Vietnamese army totaled more than 400 people stubbornly resisted the attack of our army.
The enemy used heavy artillery and machine guns as cover and used Soviet-made anti-tank guns to bomb 11 tanks of our army, and the continuous rain and fog and the thick smoke of gunfire seriously blocked the line of sight, and the tank commanders and fighters even personally commanded the attack.
However, the enemy concentrated superior firepower, coupled with the fortifications and bunkers built on the high ground, resulting in the 487 regiment unable to close the attack, even anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns could not be used, and for a while it fell into a state of stalemate with the Vietnamese army.
The regimental headquarters quickly adjusted the battle plan, and the three battalions were surrounded from the north, east and northwest directions of Kouma Mountain, and Zhou Yuansheng's 2 battalions were responsible for attacking from the eastern ridge as the main force.
This was the eleventh day of Zhou Yuansheng's participation in the war, and the warriors had been fighting for ten consecutive days before, and they were already exhausted in the mountains with complex terrain, lack of water and food.
After launching the attack, the regimental headquarters transferred the 152 plus howitzer battalion to suppress the fire on the main peak of Kouma Mountain, and Zhou Yuansheng led people to charge upwards from the front. However, the Vietnamese army set up an artillery observation post on the main peak, which could quickly and accurately aim at the offensive route of the 487th Regiment and suppress our army's attack.
Veterans with rich experience said that when charging into the mountains, they did not have to comply with the 200-meter safety boundary stipulated by the infantry and artillery coordination regulations, even if they followed the shell explosion point 100 meters or even tens of meters, which was safer than facing the Muzzle of the Vietnamese Army.
Zhou Yuansheng had been using walkie-talkies to keep in touch with the regimental headquarters when he charged, but suddenly found that no matter where he hid, the next Vietnamese shells would roar in, closely following his moving footsteps.
Filmography
Zhou Yuansheng soon realized that the enemy had been monitoring the telephone contact of our army, and immediately decided to take the plan into account, sending the correspondents and liaison officers around him to quickly run back to the command post to convey the information, and at the same time quietly continued to hide behind the boulders or in the bomb craters to report the situation to the headquarters on the scene.
Zhou Yuansheng held the walkie-talkie and weakly reported that the 2nd Battalion was unable to continue the attack, requested the support of the regimental headquarters, and had no troops to send on the other end of the phone, but to hold on to all pressure, it was necessary to take the order of Kouma Mountain before dark.
So the Vietnamese troops on the main peak heights watched as the Platon Army, which had originally attacked very fiercely, violently concentrated its fire on itself after receiving the order, and countless guns and cannons spewed fire tongues. But the fierce attack did not last long, and the FIRE's firepower soon weakened.
The Vietnamese artillery reconnaissance station and the correspondents all thought that the last blow of the PLA just now, especially when they saw that most of the PLA was carried, carried, and supported by their comrades and retreated backwards, they felt that the opportunity for counterattack had arrived.
The Vietnamese troops on the nearby highlands surrounded the main peak as quickly as possible, intending to launch a counter-charge against Zhou Yuansheng's 2nd Battalion, waiting for an opportunity to retake the previously captured 303 heights.
The 2nd Battalion of our army fought and retreated under the command of Zhou Yuansheng, and the rear artillery and soldiers fought back from time to time, but the intensity was not large, the firepower was not dense, and it seemed that it had reached the point of running out of ammunition.
So the Vietnamese army almost completely dispatched and pounced on the 2nd Battalion. As soon as the Vietnamese army left their superior terrain, Zhou Yuansheng shouted "fight", and the soldiers who were originally limping or even lying on the stretcher and groaning quickly counterattacked with guns, and the artillery also fired at the Vietnamese troops who had already descended the mountain, trapping the enemy in the middle of the mountain.
The Vietnamese army fell into the original difficult situation of the People's Liberation Army on the mountain, and its combat effectiveness was far inferior to that of the People's Liberation Army, and it was finally easily suppressed by the 2nd Battalion, which only used light machine guns, and had no backhand power at all.
Half an hour later, the 3rd, 7th, and 8th companies of the 487th Regiment simultaneously captured the main peak from three directions, destroying the observation posts set up by the enemy artillery in one fell swoop, the Vietnamese long-range artillery became blind, and the attack speed of the rest of the troops was greatly accelerated.
Before the battle was launched, the superiors had promised which unit would take the lead in rushing to the main peak and ask them for credit, but Zhen Ping, the platoon leader of the assault platoon of the 8th Company, fell down at the moment before reaching the top of the mountain.
According to the People's Liberation Army Daily at the time, Zhen Ping was the only son of Zhen Wenlin, the former political commissar of the 163rd Division and deputy director of the Political Department of the 55th Army at the time. As the son of the head of the army, Zhen Ping did not rely on his father's merits and status, and started from ordinary creeps in a down-to-earth manner, taking the lead in participating in the surprise mission, but fell before the triumph of meritorious service.
The self-defense counterattack against Vietnam lasted less than a month, and the PLA reached the south of Lang Son, just one step away from Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. The victory in the Vietnam War under the military defense painstakingly arranged by the Vietnamese Army for many years and the harsh conditions of the Northern Vietnamese Graben relied on the brave and fierce killing of the enemy and the loyal defense of the people's Liberation Army soldiers such as Zhou Yuansheng and Zhen Ping.