Author: Chen Zhijun
Whether it is the victorious side of the battle, Vietnam under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, or the loser- France, or even the United States, which paid for equipment behind France and even clamored for the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the Vietnam People's Army, when looking back at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the first iconic figure that comes to mind is certainly not this Alandron who later became a legend in the film industry, but the Vietnamese military god Wu Yuanjia, who was called "the tiger of Dien Bien Phu" by western military history circles.
Vietnamese "god of war" General Wu Yuanjia
On August 25, 1911, Wu Yuanjia was born into a landlord family in Quang Binh Province, Vietnam. After graduating from the law department of Hanoi University in Vietnam, he became a secondary school teacher and regularly published articles in newspapers and magazines. After becoming a loyal follower of Ho Chi Minh, Wu Yuanjia, who was originally a scholar, embarked on the path of military commander growth.
According to online rumors, he once studied in the Yunnan Wutang in China, which is not true. There were indeed some Vietnamese youth studying military at the school, but Wu Yuanjia was not among them. He has made it clear many times that he has no formal military education and is "a graduate of the Jungle Military Academy."
In 1945, vietnam's "August General Uprising" was a success, and Wu Yuanjia entered Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh and was appointed the first minister of defense of Red Vietnam, becoming a veritable commander of the army. On January 20, 1948, when senior officers of the Vietnam People's Army were first awarded the rank, Vu Yuanjia became the only general to be awarded the rank of general.
Wu Yuanjia appeared on the cover of Time Magazine three times
On June 17, 1966, February 9, 1968, and May 15, 1972, Mr. Wu appeared on the cover of time magazine three times. It can also be seen from this that even in the years when the United States met with the Viet Cong and the Viet Cong, the Americans were still full of respect for Wu Yuanjia, the North Vietnamese military commander who gave him a headache.
Wu Yuanjia died on October 4, 2013 in Hanoi, Vietnam, at the age of 103. The Vietnamese media gave Wu Yuanjia's life a highest evaluation, such as "national hero", "genius military scientist", "great writer and historian", "red Napoleon", "the only genius commander who defeated France and the United States at the same time", and even compared it with Eisenhower, MacHathur, Montgomery and other Western World War II famous generals, calling him "the world's famous general", "one of the world's ten most outstanding generals", "one of the most outstanding military strategists in human history", and so on.
Among them, after winning the victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in the War of Resistance Against France, Wu Yuanjia, as the commander-in-chief of the campaign, ushered in a highlight moment in his life, which not only wrote the most colorful stroke for the military commander-in-chief of his life, but also made him world-famous and won the reputation of "Tiger of Dien Bien Phu" given by the Western military circles. However, is Wu Yuanjia's strategic planning ability and military command attainment really as superb as the Vietnamese side evaluated? I think this is really a question of the benevolent and the wise.
Wu Yuanjia was with officers and men of the Vietnam People's Army
People familiar with the history of China's aid to Vietnam and the Fight against France know that the first victory of the Vietnamese Anti-French Armed Forces under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh after receiving Chinese aid was the border campaign.
According to the information disclosed by the Chinese side, after Chen Geng went to Vietnam as a Representative of the Chinese side, he completely "subverted" the border campaign plan formulated by the Vietnamese side, and changed the original battle of The City (Gaoping) into a campaign battle of siege (Dongxi) to aid.
General Chen Geng
Wu Yuanjia was the commander-in-chief of the border campaign. At the most difficult and crucial moment in the battle, he did not show the decisiveness and determination that the supreme military commander should have, but instead wavered and wanted to withdraw his troops, so that Chen Geng was very annoyed and said to Wu Yuanjia by telephone: "If such a battle is not fought again, there will be no battle to be fought." "If such a battle is not fought, I will roll up and leave." "At this critical juncture, the headquarters is shaken, which will bury the great opportunity for victory in the battle."
To tell the truth, Wu Yuanjia was only the nominal commander-in-chief of the border campaign, and the famous Chinese general Chen Geng behind the scenes was the real supreme commander, and he was the first hero of the border campaign. Of course, the Chinese military advisory group, headed by Wei Guoqing, also played an important role in the victory of the battle.
After the victory in the border battle, the Vietnamese side rejected the strategic concept of developing the northwestern mountains of Vietnam proposed by the Chinese military advisory group, and instead pointed to the Red River Delta Plain. At this time, Chen Geng had already been transferred back to China, and soon after he rushed to the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Wu Yuanjia actively advocated that the main force of the Vietnamese army go to the plains to fight. He held that the Plain of the Red River Delta is a grain-producing area, and military grain can be supplied on the spot; the local people are mostly the Jing ethnic group (the main ethnic group in Vietnam), and the mass base is good; while the mountains in the northwest are densely forested, which is not convenient for large troops to march and fight; and the local residents are mostly ethnic minorities, the mass base is weak, and the local people cannot raise grain, and it is difficult to supply, and there will be too many unexpected difficulties. To put it bluntly, the vietnamese military's top brass is unwilling to develop into the northwest region, in fact, it is afraid of hardship and tiredness, and is unwilling to carry out work under difficult conditions.
On the plains of the Red River Delta, French strongholds were dotted with artillery support from each other; well-developed road traffic was conducive to the French army's mobility advantage, not to mention the French air superiority. I don't know if the vietnamese military's top brass have considered these difficulties. Do they really think that the Vietnamese People's Army, through the baptism of the border campaign and with china's full support, can completely overcome these difficulties and is already able to win a decisive battle and win a hundred battles?
Sure enough, between December 1950 and June 1951, the VietnamEse People's Army launched three campaigns in the Plain area of the Red River Delta (the Battle of the Middle Reaches of the Red River, the Battle of Route 18 and the Battle of Ninh Binh), the results of which did not achieve the expected objectives of the campaign, and the troops suffered heavy losses. Each battle was the advantage of the Vietnamese side in the early stage, but under the absolute air superiority of the French army and the ground artillery attack, the Vietnamese side gradually showed its inferiority, and then it became a war of attrition that did not pay off, and the Vietnamese side had to take the initiative to withdraw its troops from the battle.
According to official Records of the Vietnamese side and China, all three battles were won. However, the Chinese military adviser's statement was that "the stronghold that should be attacked was not attacked, and the stronghold that should have been fought was not defended; the reinforcements (referring to the French army) did not wait, and the waiting troops could not be annihilated." ”
If we look at these three battles from a historical point of view, the Vietnamese side still has certain gains: first, it has destroyed a large number of enemies; second, it has accumulated experience and tempered its troops in actual combat. Of course, this came at the expense of heavy casualties on the Vietnamese side, and at the same time, all guerrilla areas in the plains of the Red River Delta were lost.
It can be seen from this that the strategic concept of attacking the Red River Delta plain advocated by Wu Yuanjia actually ended in failure.
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, on which Wu Yuanjia became famous, was actually a "temporary uprising" by Chinese military advisers.
Dien Bien Phu is a small basin surrounded by mountains in the mountains of northwest Vietnam, near Laos, which was originally controlled by the Vietnam People's Army. However, the French suddenly parachuted 6 battalions of paratroopers and occupied Dien Bien Phu.
Wei Guoqing, the head of the Chinese military advisory group, and Mei Jiasheng, deputy head of the regiment, almost at the first moment of receiving the news, thought, "A wonderful fighter plane has appeared." Think about it, the French army took the initiative to transfer the strength of 6 battalions from the plains that are not conducive to the operation of the Vietnam People's Army to the northwest mountainous areas, and there is no reason not to "eat" this kind of "fat meat" sent to the mouth.
At that time, the number of French troops in Dien Bien Phu was small, the fortifications had not yet been repaired, there were still many loopholes in the defense line, and it was still in a temporary defensive state. In order not to lose the fighter, the Chinese military advisory group first formulated a plan of "quick war and quick decision". However, due to the dense mountains around Dien Bien Phu, the artillery of the Vietnam People's Army marched very slowly, and it was delayed in entering the preset positions, resulting in the delay in the attack on Dien Bien Phu. During this period, the French army also used its strong air transport capacity to transport a large number of personnel, heavy equipment and equipment to Dien Bien Phu, turning Dien Bien Phu into an "impenetrable fortress" and "Verdun in Southeast Asia" composed of 8 stronghold groups and 2 field airfields.
According to the Vietnamese records, after Wu Yuanjia, as the commander-in-chief of the campaign, arrived at the front line of Dien Bien Phu, after understanding the situation on the ground, he was the first to think that the plan of "quick battle and quick decision" was difficult to achieve, and he persuaded Wei Guoqing and the front-line commanders of the Vietnamese army "with his own strength" to change the plan of "quick battle and quick decision" to "steady and steady fighting.". The Evidence currently supported by the Vietnamese side is Wu Yuanjia's memoirs and the work notes and diaries of the staff around him at the time. The Vietnamese side's positioning of Wu Yuanjia as a "military strategist" also came from this.
Researchers on both sides have debated who first considered the need to change the battle plan. According to Chinese records, Wei Guoqing considered changing the battle plan before Wu Yuanjia, as evidenced by a number of telegrams from the Military Advisory Group with China.
Admiral Wei Guoqing
On March 13, 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu officially began. For the Vietnam People's Army, this is an extremely tough battle. At the most difficult moment of the battle, Wu Yuanjia's determination to fight was shaken again, and he wanted to withdraw the attacking troops from Dien Bien Phu and end the battle, or to send troops from China to take over the battle. At the insistence of Wei Guoqing, Wu Yuanjia still ordered the Vietnamese People's Army to fight to the end. After a fierce battle, the Vietnamese side finally won the victory, and directly led to the signing of the Geneva Agreement by France, the withdrawal of all French troops from Indochina, and the liberation of all North Vietnam.
General De Castries, the supreme commander of the French forces at Dien Bien Bien Phu, became a prisoner of the Vietnamese side. After being captured, he talked about his views on the main reasons for the defeat at Dien Bien Phu: first, the location of the Vietnamese heavy artillery positions was not found and destroyed; second, the Vietnamese used the correct tactics.
In fact, the two reasons summarized by this French general are inseparable from the specific suggestions of the Chinese military advisory group, and many of the experience gained by the Chinese army in the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea have been passed on to the Vietnamese side, and even some Chinese engineer cadres have been transferred from the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea to the front line of Dien Bien Phu to directly guide the Vietnamese side in building fortifications.
Without the help of Chinese military advisers and the full assistance of China's domestic help, with the vietnamese people's army's ability to attack the stronghold at that time, it would never have been possible to "gnaw" the hard bone of Dien Bien Phu, and the flesh and blood of vietnamese people's army soldiers could only turn into cannon fodder to nourish the land of Dien Bien Phu.
At the Dien Bien Phu Battle Memorial Hall in Hanoi, Vietnam, neither the objects and illustrative texts on display in the museum nor a 15-minute campaign introduction documentary that was the main content of the visit did not mention anything about Chinese aid and the role of Chinese military advisers in the campaign.
At the same time as the French army withdrew from Vietnam in its entirety, the Americans gradually took control of South Vietnam. After the "Beibu Gulf Incident" in August 1964, the United States began to carry out "south-to-north bombing" against Vietnam, and Vietnam began an armed struggle against the United States.
China has continued to provide comprehensive and selfless assistance to Vietnam, a "comrade and brother," and has also sent air defense, engineering, railway, logistics, naval mine clearance, and other units to North Vietnam to carry out missions. However, unlike the period of the anti-French struggle, China did not send a military advisory group this time.
In Vietnam's struggle against the United States, the two most famous offensive battles launched by the Viet Cong were the Spring Festival Offensive in January 1968 and the Nguyen Hue Offensive in March 1972 (also known as the Battle of Quang Nghe, known to the United States as the "Easter" Offensive). The Viet Cong lost both battles and suffered heavy losses.
Take the "Battle of Xishan" in the Spring Festival Offensive as an example. The Viet Cong forces surrounded Khe Son, an isolated stronghold of the Us army, with absolute superiority, and prepared to turn Khe Son into a second Dien Bien Phu. Unfortunately, the sky did not go according to people's wishes, and under the blows of the us army's powerful land and air firepower, no matter how brave and tenacious the Vietnamese offensive was, it was impossible to break through the US defense line. According to the data released by the United States, more than 7,000 people were killed by the Vietnamese side, and more than 8,000 people were injured.
U.S. Marines in the Battle of Creek Hill
In the "Easter Offensive" of 1972, when the US ground forces had basically withdrawn from South Vietnam, the Viet Cong armed forces concentrated almost all their elite forces and equipment, ready to "completely accomplish their work in one battle" to completely eliminate the South Vietnamese army and realize the reunification of the motherland. However, under the carpet bombing of the AMERICAN B52, the Viet Cong's armed forces suffered extremely heavy losses, with more than 100,000 casualties, and had to withdraw from the battle.
These two large-scale battles were planned by Wu Yuanjia, but both became the Waterloo of the "Red Napoleon".
The military strategy displayed by Wu Yuanjia is not to make full use of its strong points and avoid its weaknesses, and to give full play to the advantages of the People's Army's own proficiency in guerrilla warfare and jungle warfare to attack the US army, but to use its own weaknesses and attack the strengths of the other to fight with the US military for firepower and logistical support capabilities. You know, what still leaves Americans with an unforgettable "nightmare" memory is not a fortress (city) offensive and defensive battle like the Battle of Khe Sanh, but an encounter and ambush battle in the jungle of Vietnam.
Some people think that this is exactly what makes Wu Yuanjia stand out. After the brutal images of the bloody battle in Xishan and the battle in Quang Chih Street were broadcast by the American television media, the American people were indeed frightened by the extremely bloody pictures, which led to the increasing anti-war sentiment in the country, and finally forced the Americans to withdraw from Vietnam. If this is the foresight in Wu Yuanjia's strategy, then he has indeed succeeded.
In an interview with the famous Italian journalist Faraki, Wu Yuanjia said, "There are hundreds, thousands, of people dying every day in the world, for the sake of revolution and national reunification, even if these people are my compatriots, I will not hesitate." This is really a response to the sentence, "One will make a thousand bones dry".
Chen Geng (center), Wu Yuanjia (left), and Wei Guoqing (right) in Vietnam
In addition, the Vietnamese side called Wu Yuanjia "the only talented commander who has defeated both France and the United States", which is certainly not true. In the armed struggle against the United States, the Vietnamese side has hardly won victories in battles of medium size or above. The eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam was not militarily defeated by the Viet Cong, but by the boiling anti-war public opinion in the United States.
The Vietnamese are really forgetful, the famous Chinese general Chen Geng defeated France in the border battle, and also defeated the US army in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, which is the real "genius commander who defeated France and the United States at the same time", but Chen Geng willingly acted as the hero behind the border battle.
There were also many cadres in the military advisory group who participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea before going to Vietnam, such as Ryu Fuyi, who served as an adviser in the Operations Bureau of the General Staff of the VietnamEse Army, and Xu Chenggong, who served as an adviser to the 316th Division of the Vietnamese Army.
Imagine that in the Battle of Xishan, if there were Chinese military advisers who offered advice, I don't know if Xishan could be turned into a second "Dien Bien Phu", but history is history, and there has never been an "if".
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