On December 31, 1950, with the sound of an exhilarating charge, our volunteer army launched the third campaign on the Korean battlefield.
The American soldiers, who had made a big fuss about ending the war before Christmas, no longer dared to have too many extravagant hopes, and their only thought was to hope for a safe return to the United States.
However, there is often a huge contrast between ideal and reality.
On January 3, Ridgway, the new commander of the Eighth Army, who had been given high hopes and regarded the unruly MacArthur as the savior of the U.S. army, issued a combat order to abandon Seoul.
This was the order that the UN troops defending the front line of the 38th Parallel most wanted to hear, but it was a great stain on Ridgway personally.
Before he took office in North Korea, many political leaders in the United States did not even approve of sending him to take over as commander of the Eighth Army, and it was Eisenhower, the real power figure in the US military, who guaranteed him to get this important position.
Now, in the "debut" of the Korean battlefield, he directly abandoned the new capital of the Southern Dynasty as soon as he saw it, and the consequences of this will even cause political waves in the United States.
This era of famous american generals at that time was not well-known, but it could make Eisenhower personally vouch for macArthur as a "life-saving straw", was really just a coward who only knew how to escape? If not, then what is the earth-shattering strategic intention behind "Sai Weng's loss of horse and knowledge of non-blessing", and Li Qiwei's initiative to abandon Seoul?
Ridgway's "debut": the defense line collapsed, abandoned the city and fled south, leaving a message "Tribute to the commander of the volunteer army"
At the end of December 1950, Ridgway arrived in Korea on a peril, but he had a bad premonition when he got off the plane. He was greeted not by indignant soldiers with anger hidden in their hearts, but by "cowards" with empty eyes and no will to fight.
After arriving in Korea, Ridgway wrote to the chief of staff of the U.S. Army in this way: The oppressive atmosphere of tension, fear, and catastrophe filled almost every corner, and in their bodies, there was no longer the vigilance and courage of the soldiers, and I knew in my heart that these soldiers no longer had confidence in victory.
As an American general who had made achievements in World War II, Ridgway understood that the most important thing for the current US military is to win back the hearts and minds of the military, otherwise everything will be empty talk.
To this end, he took the lead in starting from the headquarters of the Eighth Army, ordering people to clean up and organize the entire command to meet the next combat command with a new atmosphere.
Subsequently, he summoned cadres at and above the regimental level and held a meeting to reorganize the hearts of the army. At the meeting, Ridgway unceremoniously yelled at the officers:
"Look at your current appearance, if our ancestors of the Army knew about it, they would have to crawl out of the coffin in anger."
At the meeting, he immediately replaced the 5 division commanders who shook the hearts of the army.
After this, in order to stabilize the military's morale, Ridgway hung two grenades on his coat to show his determination. He told the soldiers that only heroic fighting could end this tragic war early, and if it was just blindly dodging and retreating, it could only increase casualties. Under Ridgway's all-out efforts, the Eighth Army and the Allied forces of other countries improved.
After the general's heart was reversed, Ridgway personally drove to the front line to inspect and laid out two lines of defense on the Linjin River, which occupied the graben. In order to ensure that nothing was lost and that the DEFEAT of the UN forces was stopped, Ridgway ordered the MECHANICAL FORCES of the US Army to drive to the vicinity of the Linjin River, and set up 3 additional units as 3 reserve lines of defense to ensure that they could be supported at any time in the event of an accident.
However, Ridgway's cleverness was mistaken by cleverness, and in order to maximize the strength of the US army, he handed over the first line of defense of the Imjin River Graben to the South Korean Army.
Although he repeatedly stressed to the South Korean army before the war the importance of their responsibilities and personally went to the front line to inspect and appease them, the combat strength of the South Korean army and the fear of our volunteer army could not be erased.
When the third battle began, Han Xianchu led the 39th Army to directly attack the Linjin River defense line. Under the strong onslaught of the volunteers, the defense line carefully arranged by Ridgway lasted less than 15 minutes. The garrisoned South Korean army saw the volunteers charging straight forward, and based on the shadow of previous battles, they quickly gave up resistance and fled in full force.
When he recalled that scene that night, Ridgway was still stunned: On that day, after receiving the battle report from the front, it was unbelievable that so many soldiers had collapsed so quickly.
However, when I saw with my own eyes what the North Korean soldiers looked like, it was truly frustrating. Trucks full of North Korean soldiers were seen fleeing south in a continuous stream, and there was no order at all.
The First Line of Defense collapsed so quickly that the U.S. Army had no time to react, and the United Nations Forces on the Second Line of Defense were quickly breached. Under the influence of the completely different morale of the two sides, the UN troops were defeated, and Ridgway's 5 lines of defense were almost a decoration. The United Nations Army, led by the US Eighth Army, had no intention of fighting at all and fled south one after another.
Ridgway knew that the situation at that time was no longer able to face the impact of the volunteer army, and immediately ordered the whole army to withdraw south and abandon Seoul. In the European theater of World War II, Ridgway has always been invincible, and he believes that he has never despised the Chinese army, but he still suffered a major defeat.
He finally realized that his opponent was an unfathomable and excellent commander with great experience in large-scale warfare. Before abandoning Seoul and fleeing south, he left his nightgown in the headquarters of Seoul and left a sentence on it to show his respect:
The Commander of the Eighth Army would like to pay tribute to the Commander-in-Chief of China!
However, as a good commander, it is obviously illogical to abandon a military stronghold of special significance such as Seoul so easily.
The reason why Ridgway did this was because he had already thought of a countermeasure, and the nightgown and honorific he left for the volunteers had a deeper meaning in addition to showing respect.
A major secret is discovered from the grain bag, and the abandonment of Seoul is only a strategic temptation to the enemy
As early as when he was still in the United States, Ridgway looked at the continuous rout reports of the Far East battlefield and was very surprised in his heart: Why would the Chinese army, which was far behind in military equipment, defeat the United Nations army with such advanced weapons?
With this doubt in mind, as soon as he arrived in North Korea, he ordered the formation of a special laboratory. This laboratory does not engage in weapons research, let alone biochemical research, and they only study items obtained from Chinese soldiers who died on the battlefield. Guns, cotton shoes, backpacks, etc., no matter how big or small, they do not let go.
Although Ridgway could not find the secret of the volunteer army's long-term victory on these things, he found a major secret. That is, every Chinese soldier carried a long, narrow bag of dry food.
You know, the most important thing in fighting a war, especially in the extremely harsh environment of the Korean battlefield, is logistics.
The volunteer army lacked mechanized food delivery units and did not have the same sophisticated food as the American army, so it used individuals to carry some food as needed on the march. It was Ridgway seized on this point that he "pushed the boat along the water" and abandoned Seoul.
As the "capital" of South Korea and the largest city, Seoul occupies too much space to be fully fortified. What's more, Seoul does not have natural dangers to use, which is important because of its deep political significance.
For Ridgway, he came to fight, and his responsibility was to lead the U.S. military into victory, not to consider international politics.
Second, after the abandonment of Seoul, the area south of Seoul was more suitable for the deployment of mobile units of the US army. Once the volunteer army pursued the south, the long front was too long, and the material supply of the volunteer army was not enough, which was the time for the US counterattack.
For this purpose, he also deliberately left a nightgown with respect for the commander-in-chief of the volunteer army, and the deep purpose was to make the volunteer army think that he was inferior to others and retreated south in a hurry.
However, unfortunately, the elaborate plan designed by Ridgway did not bear fruit in the hands of General Manager Peng, and when he found the words left in his nightgown, General Manager Peng was already aware of his plan and immediately ordered the whole army to rest in place.
Seeing that Peng Zong and the volunteers were not fooled into their own traps, Ridgway did not have a sense of failure. Because, this also confirms their own conjecture, the Chinese army's material supply can not keep up.
According to the situation of the first three large-scale battles on the Korean battlefield, Ridgway found that the time of our army's large-scale offensive was basically maintained for about 8 days.
From this, Ridgway made a bold assumption: the dry food carried by the volunteers could not support their march for more than a week. Ridgway, who was good at research, also found a more fatal weakness of the volunteer army.
Because the United States has an overwhelming advantage in the air battlefield, the large-scale surprise attack of the Chinese army can only be placed at night. Because only under the protection of darkness, the US warplanes can not carry out precision air strikes against the Chinese army.
At that time, the US military even had the saying that "the moon belongs to the Chinese", so that after the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the surviving UN troops were still full of fear of night.
In response to the two fatal weaknesses of the volunteer army, Ridgway decided to launch a counter-offensive to confirm his strategic vision in practice.
The Fourth Campaign: Ridgway's strategic offensive and defensive attacks were effective
On January 25, 1951, when the Volunteer Army and the Korean People's Army were not completely resting, Ridgway launched a counter-offensive from west to east with the strength of three US armies and another brigade and a regiment of 16 divisions in South Korea, totaling more than 230,000 people, from west to east, that is, the Fourth Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Unlike the previous three campaigns, this time the UN was no longer chased by the ass, but became the attacking side.
In the face of the menacing US troops on the opposite side, General Peng immediately made a decision to return the other in the other way - abandoning Seoul and dividing the army into two parts and withdrawing all of them to the outside of the city.
The deputy commander of the Volunteer Army, Han Xianchu, led two volunteer regiments and a Korean People's Army corps, which extended 68 kilometers from east to west for the western front to block the regiment. On the eastern front, four volunteer armies led by The Four Wild General Deng Hua marched out of Hengcheng.
Unlike Han Xianchu on the western front, the main strategic purpose of the army led by Deng Hua was to wait for an opportunity to rise up and carry out a counterattack with the cooperation of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Corps of the Korean People's Army.
General Manager Peng is well aware that although the Un Army is well-equipped, its combat effectiveness and combat quality are far inferior to those of our Volunteer Army, and as long as the Eastern Front is defeated, this counter-offensive will surely collapse.
Mr. Peng's tactics are indeed clever, and Ridgway did not expect to carry out such a "bet" defensive tactic. However, this is not important for Ridgway, because the offensive method he has adopted in this counter-offensive is quite intriguing.
He ordered the Americans to attack the Volunteers during the day with the help of the fire suppression of warplanes and tanks. As soon as it was getting dark, they immediately organized their troops to retreat 30 kilometers by truck.
Because the volunteer army did not have mechanized troops, the march could only rely on foot, and 30 kilometers was already the maximum number of kilometers that soldiers could travel in one night by relying on human power.
If, on the other hand, the volunteer army pursues the enemy deeply based on the tactics of the US army, after a week of such a strategic offensive and defense, it can launch an all-out counter-offensive and no longer implement the strategy of "attacking during the day and retreating at night" to bite the volunteer army and not let it go until the moment when it runs out of ammunition and food.
Under the support of Ridgway's new tactics, the US counterattack was quite effective. The volunteers on the Western Front were already fewer than those on the Eastern Front, and their task was still to resist severely, and they could not pretend to avoid retreating and luring the enemy to go deeper like the Eastern Front.
Ridgway's offensive, suppressed by the powerful artillery fire of the US army, made the volunteers on the Western Front suffer hardships and suffer heavy losses.
On 11 February, due to the smooth U.S. offensive on the Eastern Front, the volunteers could not retreat for more than a week, and Ridgway finally made up his mind to launch a general offensive against the volunteers in the direction of Hengcheng. After waiting for many days, Deng Hua, who had been luring the enemy deeper, finally waited for the opportunity.
At about 5 p.m., the US 2nd Division and the South Korean 8th Division entered the encirclement of our army, only to hear Deng Hua's orders from the 39th, 40th, 42nd, and 66th Armies to launch a annihilation counteroffensive. When they saw the densely packed volunteers around them, the U.S. army immediately realized that they had been deceived and hurriedly sent out a distress signal.
For this battle, he had already ordered his ace troops, the 117th Division, to penetrate into the enemy's rear and ambush, just to wait for the arrival of American reinforcements to cut off their formations and annihilate them all.
For the counterattack on the Eastern Front, the comrades on the Western Front supported it with their lives for nearly 20 days, and when the reinforcements arrived, the 117th Division used its specialty to intersperse the enemy formation back and forth, cutting it apart.
On February 13, the Hengcheng counterattack was a complete victory, which annihilated more than 12,000 enemy troops, including more than 5,000 American troops, completely destroying Ridgway's offensive on the Eastern Front.
Subsequently, the headquarters, which had already received the "tight western front" battle report for many days, did not have time to adjust the troops, and ordered Deng Hua to lead his army to Pingli on the night of the same day after a brief rest to "encircle Wei and save Zhao" to force the US troops on the western front to return to reinforcements. However, due to a misjudgment of the enemy's situation, the attack failed to achieve results.
On the 14th, since the volunteers did not have the advantage during the day, they could only watch as the American troops on the western front drew some troops back to reinforce Pingli. Since the best opportunity to attack was not seized, and the volunteers did not want to give up, the next two attacks did not achieve the expected results, and had no choice but to retreat. Because the eastern front forces failed to achieve the expected results, the 38th and 50th armies on the western front could only temporarily retreat to the north bank of the Han River.
In the first stage of the fourth campaign, the enemy and us suffered mutual losses, and it was not a matter of winning or losing. However, Ridgway deeply tasted the sweetness of the strategic plan he adopted.
After that, Ridgway used this tactic to communicate with our volunteer army and stop the collapse of the United Nations army. After the end of the fourth campaign, Ridgway succeeded MacArthur as the commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army in Korea because of his outstanding performance.
Ridgway was indeed an excellent commander, but he did everything he could to resist the volunteer attack. In the end, it was because it was unable to defeat the volunteer army that it had to take the initiative to seek negotiations.
Chinese People's Volunteer Army, armed with backward weapons, wearing thin winter coats, and eating frozen potatoes, defeated the 17-nation coalition army wearing thick cotton clothes, eating roast chicken and drinking coffee, absolute air supremacy and countless tank cannons with 1 country, which is a miracle that can never be replicated in the history of world military.