On March 12, 1979, in the underground command of Qingshan, on the outskirts of Nanning, Xu Shiyou, commander-in-chief of the Guangxi front, turned livid, angrily smashed a telegram in his hand on the table, and got up to leave without looking back...
Xu Shiyou and the officers and soldiers
"Something is wrong!"
Political Commissar Xiang Zhonghua watched Xu Shiyou's action and immediately asked the people in the film screening team to shut down the movie being screened. Previously, Xu Shiyou was watching a movie with him.
"Hurry up, you guys leave first!"
After instructing the people of the screening group to leave, Xiang Zhonghua picked up the previous telegram and read it, he knew that it was definitely something bad in the telegram!
Picking up the telegram, Xiang Zhonghua looked at it with a solemn expression.
Xiang Zhonghua
The content of the telegram was that the 448th Regiment of the 150th Division of the 50th Army was defeated by the Vietnamese army, and more importantly, it was said that the 448th Regiment, mainly 8 companies, was captured by more than 200 people!
At a time when our army has entered the final stage of eliminating the remnants of the enemy, it is really "full of pockets" to produce such a crushing defeat.
What was even more unexpected was that a good establishment company was actually captured en masse.
Collectively, this is not called capture, but "surrender", which is simply a great shame for our army!
It is no wonder that Xu Shiyou is furious.
So what did it all look like? How could such a "dishonorable" thing happen?
Something that "shouldn't have happened."
The collective capture of the 8th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 448th Regiment seems to be something that "shouldn't have happened" today, but it has indeed happened!
In addition to the troops' "eagerness to win and the quality of soldiers," the most important reason for this situation is a mistake in command.
To be honest, it is only a matter of time before you drink Ma Hanoi if you want to. However, the Party Central Committee, considering that the purpose of punishing Vietnam had been achieved, chose to stop and retreat.
However, due to the rapid advance of our army's battle in the early stage, although the Vietnamese defense line was defeated, there were not a few Vietnamese troops who were reduced to pieces, causing interference and casualties to the retreating Chinese army. Immediately, our army launched the second phase of the operation to eliminate the remnants of the enemy.
At that time, compared with other units, the 50th Army had gone abroad to fight late, while the 150th Division of the 50th Army was even later, watching the 148th and 149th Divisions of the 50th Army "eating meat" in front, and all the officers and men of the 150th Division, which served as a reserve force, felt that their faces were dull, and they repeatedly asked their superiors for instructions to go abroad to fight, even if it was a few shots.
Considering that although the 150th Division had more recruits after "blood exchanges", the battle was nearing its end, and it was just an opportunity to train the troops, the higher authorities agreed to the request of the 150th Division.
Knowing that it was possible to go abroad to fight, the entire 150th Division was boiling, and after going abroad, it was a fierce rush. The 448th Regiment, which was the vanguard, was even more fierce. By March 10, in just a few days, it had rushed to the forefront of our army's invasion of Vietnam, and the whole way was like a bamboo.
However, as mentioned earlier, there are too many recruits in the 150th Division, and the phenomenon of "soldiers not knowing generals" is very common. This kind of victory achieved by enthusiasm and the momentum of "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers" are sometimes only appearances, and the crisis soon befalls the 448th Regiment.
This fight is also hit, the addiction is also over, it's time to retreat!
According to the initial plan of the retreat, the 448th Regiment was intended to withdraw from Banying along the road by car and motorized transport. But at this juncture, the 150th Division Guidance Group made a wrong decision.
They demanded that the 448th Regiment abandon the road and instead allow it to retreat from the trail north of Ban Ying. Its purpose is, first, to expand the results of the search and suppression of the remnants of the enemy, and second, to train the 448th Regiment more with actual combat. So the 448th Regiment obeyed the order and rushed into the reckless and dangerous mountainous area in multiple ways.
At this point they do not know that danger has come ...
After learning that a regiment of the PLA had come in and that it was scattered, the remnants of the Vietnamese army lurking in the mountains arranged an encirclement in advance. They let go of the sharp soldiers and reconnaissance teams in front, and they were bent on blowing the PLA with a heavy blow, and the first to bear the brunt was the second battalion.
At that time, the second battalion was marching to a basin surrounded by mountains near the village of Naga, when it suddenly came under heavy attack by the Vietnamese army.
The sudden attack made the second battalion instantly chaotic, and the lack of combat quality of the soldiers was reflected at this moment.
In fact, the number of Vietnamese troops attacking the second battalion at that time was not large, but they had rich combat experience. They took advantage of the terrain to shuttle and quickly crush the second battalion, and most unexpectedly, the forward troops heard the gunshots, but chose to wait for orders and did not go to support.
In an emergency, the second battalion immediately reported to the regimental headquarters of the 448th Regiment, hoping for support. However, it was reported that all units of the 448th Regiment were attacked.
Immediately, the headquarters of the 150th Division ordered all units of the 448th Regiment to retract and retreat in the northeast direction, but accidents reappeared. Due to dark, the 448th Regiment lost its way in the mountains, not only did not go northeast, but went further and further south, and soon fell into the encirclement of a reinforced infantry battalion of the 851st Regiment of the Vietnamese Army.
The 448th Regiment had no choice but to rush into battle, and the two-hour battle went on very tragically, Deputy Regiment Commander Hu of the 448th Regiment was killed, and the regiment commander and political commissar did not know where to go. The 2nd Battalion, which had suffered heavy casualties before, was pressed by the enemy in the encirclement and could not rush out, so the division headquarters once again ordered the 448th Regiment to return to the 2nd Battalion.
This wrong decision not only caused the regiment units to gradually lose contact with each other, but in the end they could only fight separately. Moreover, the 1st and 8th companies fell into the enemy's heavy encirclement, and there was almost no room for maneuver.
Choose to surrender
As the battle progressed, the enemy gradually compressed and surrounded the 1st and 8th companies on a small hill, but the gunfire gradually thinned, and it was clear that the enemy wanted to catch them alive.
Sure enough, it didn't take long for the enemy to arrange a line of interpreters who understood Chinese to shout and persuade them to surrender:
"Brothers of the Chinese army, surrender, we give preferential treatment to prisoners, someone on your side has already begun to surrender! If you surrender later, the benefits of preferential treatment will be gone! ”
At first, the soldiers ignored it, but as time went on, after being besieged on the mountain for three days, some undetermined soldiers began to surrender to the Vietnamese army.
And the Vietnamese army's shouts of persuasion to surrender became more and more frequent, and even sent the soldiers who had originally surrendered to turn back to persuade them to surrender, resulting in a dull and depressive atmosphere in the entire ranks, and many people also had ideological differences, some planned to persist in fighting, and some planned to surrender.
Like Wang Lixin, deputy company commander of the 8th Company, when he saw that the Vietnamese army instigated the soldiers who had surrendered to persuade them to surrender, he not only shouted at the "traitors", but also shot them dead with a gun.
Then he led a platoon of soldiers to break through the fierce battle with the Vietnamese army again, and in the process of fighting bloody battles with the enemy, the soldiers fell one by one, and finally all but two seriously wounded were killed. When Wang Lixin was wounded and surrounded, he resolutely fired a cluster grenade and died with the enemy.
Contrary to Wang Lixin and others who swore not to surrender, Feng Zengmin, the instructor of the 8th Company, and others advocated surrender!
But as the leader of the company, Feng Zengmin also knew that if he went to surrender alone, he would be despised by the entire army, but if all of them surrendered, the situation would be different.
Of course, this is just what he thinks in his eyes, in fact it makes no difference!
Thinking of this, Feng Zengmin organized everyone to open a branch committee, nominally to discuss how to solve the current dilemma, but in fact he planned to instigate everyone to surrender.
"Comrades, everyone also knows our current situation, there are only two options, either the whole army is destroyed or surrendered!"
When the word "surrender" popped out of Feng Zengmin, everyone's eyes widened.
Looking at the atmosphere a little embarrassed, Feng Zengmin then said: "Of course, I don't engage in a word, I can say anything I want, and I respect everyone's suggestions." ”
"Don't say this first, surrender is impossible!"
Company commander Li Heping took the lead in speaking at this time. As the company commander of the company, Li Heping's words undoubtedly played a leading role.
"Lao Li, what time is it now, it's not the time to be emotional. The troops have already retreated, you should know what your decision means, the fighters are still so young..."
Under Feng Zengmin's words, Li Heping was silent. Feng Zengmin saw that Li Heping did not speak, and continued to strike while the iron was hot:
"Fight to the end, the 448th Regiment will have one more heroic history!" But Lao Li, you must also know that this is a senseless sacrifice, so that the soldiers are sleeping in a foreign country, do you want to see it? ”
In the end, Li Heping was also shaken. Then he just said: "This is not my word, and I respect all of your suggestions!" ”
Li Heping's ambiguous words undoubtedly became the final opinion on surrender.
In the end, the whole company gave up resistance and became a prisoner of the Vietnamese army!
After the incident, the Vietnamese army made a big fuss about it, and they arranged a program called "Peace to Relatives" in a television program. Let the prisoners of our army take turns to protect their names, ages, positions, home addresses... This is a big hype, which has caused great shame on our side.
In May 1979, as the war subsided, the exchange of prisoners between the mainland and Vietnam began. The mainland released 1,636 Vietnamese prisoners, and the Vietnamese released 238 Chinese prisoners.
Of the 238 captured men, 219 were all from the 448th Regiment, of which the 8th Company was the most prominent, and almost all of them surrendered except for the sacrificed company.
After the prisoner exchange was completed, Feng Zengmin, Li Heping, and the cadres of the Ping Ping Company were all court-martialed and sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.
And the members of the 50th Army garrison command group, due to major mistakes in command, Xu Shiyou directly removed Deputy Army Commander Guan Huanming, Deputy Army Commander Liu Zhonghe was demoted and transferred, and Deputy Political Commissar Hou Peijuji was warned and punished within the party!
The 50th Army was also abolished in 1985 because more than 3,000 officers and men of the 180th Division were captured during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, plus the incident of the 448th Regiment of the 150th Division.
More than ten years later, Feng Zengmin was released from prison, and the past was revisited, and when someone asked him why he did it at that time, Feng Zengmin just said four words calmly "helpless"!
I don't know what I think of this when I get home?