In 1988, the People's Republic of China re-awarded the rank, and the founding lieutenant general Qin Jiwei was awarded the rank of general.
The most famous battle in the veteran general's life was the Bloody Battle of Shangganling to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. His 15th Army fought bloody battles with U.S. troops in the Shangganling area for more than a month, destroying the American conspiracy and forcing the Americans to return to the negotiating table.
Today we will talk about the heroic performance of the Fifteenth Army in the Battle of Shangganling.
When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Qin Jiwei's 15th Army was not included in the list of the first batch of troops to enter the DPRK. Like Li Yunlong in the bright sword, the general who came out of the war years could not bear the days of sitting in his office, and he asked his superiors three times in a row, hoping to go to the Korean region to fight.
It was not until March 25, 1951, that the Fifteenth Army received orders from its superiors to fight in Korea, and 48,000 sons and daughters crossed the Yalu River with great vigor. The fifteenth who had just entered Korea participated in the 5th Campaign, only this time it was a small test.
After the end of the 5th Campaign, the Korean War entered a phase of stalemate. By this time, China, North Korea, and the United States were already at the negotiating table.
However, the two sides still insist on their own bottom line, and the United States has always believed that the victory between China and North Korea is just a fluke. Therefore, the United States has always been unwilling to compromise.
As a result, the United States decided to launch a campaign to change its passivity at the negotiating table. This october 14, 1952.
The Un army concentrated more than 60,000 troops and began a fierce attack on the Shangganling position. Shangganling area is located at the foot of Wushengshan Mountain, is a small village with only a dozen families, the capture of Shangganling means to control the Five Sacred Mountains, and the Wushengshan is the gateway to the central line of Korea, once occupied by the Americans, the volunteer army will have no danger to defend, and the battlefield situation will change in an instant.
When at 3:30 a.m. on October 14, the United States concentrated artillery and aircraft shelled the Shangganling area, the volunteers did not know what to do for a while. Because of the lack of intelligence support, it is not clear whether the enemy is trying or attacking with all his might this time.
The Volunteer Command had no way to make an accurate judgment after learning the news. But Marshal Peng Dehuai had only one order: Whoever loses the Five Holy Mountains is responsible for the history of Korea.
Soon, Qin Jiwei, Deputy Director Zhou Fatian, Chief of Staff Zhang Yunyu, and Political Department Director Che Minyan held a meeting and discussed, unanimously believing that this was a premeditated military operation by the US military, the purpose of which was to catch us by surprise, take the Five Holy Mountains, and even force the volunteers to make concessions at the negotiating table.
This conjecture was soon confirmed, and at dawn on October 14, the enemy's main offensive forces began to approach Heights 597.9 and 537.7. At that time, the officers and men who were guarding the two highlands were not reinforced at the first time, and in the face of the 10 times the strength of the Us army, even the volunteer army with an extremely strong will to fight was difficult to overwhelm.
In just one morning, a large number of field fortifications were destroyed, the volunteer soldiers suffered heavy casualties, had to enter the tunnels for defense, and most of the surface positions were lost.
When Cui Jiangong, the commander of the 45th Division, who was in charge of frontal defense at the time, reported to Qin Jiwei, he was ordered to retake the position.
Sure enough, the supported 45th Division recaptured the lost surface positions on the 15th, how could the U.S. army just give up?
From the 15th to the 20th, the surface positions of the Five Holy Mountains experienced many times being captured and retaken.
The 45th Division, which was holding out on the front line, suffered heavy casualties, but no one withdrew from the position, and the commander of the 45th Division, Cui Jiangong, even made a statement to the commander Qin Jiwei that if there was only one company left, he would go to be the company commander, and there was only one squad left, he would go to be the squad leader, as long as he was still there, Shangganling would still be Chinese people's volunteer army.
By 23 October, the 45th Division had suffered a counterattack defeat, by which time the American artillery had covered the Shangganling area, and the Volunteers had suffered unprecedented casualties.
At this time, some people within the 15th Army advocated that they should retreat from the two heights to avoid the exhaustion of the troops.
However, Qin Jiwei did not agree with this view, believing that the Shangganling area was the key to the Korean War, and the Fifteenth Army would have to defend this area even if it was completely fought.
After losing a large number of surface positions, the soldiers of the 15th Army began to switch to tunnel operations. The use of tunnels to avoid heavy artillery shelling by the American army, while harassing the United Nations troops in the surface positions, and then cooperating with the counterattack of the peripheral troops, continue to hold the five holy mountain areas.
However, tunnel warfare was no better than positional combat, and the living conditions of the volunteer soldiers were very bad, and there was no time for free movement and no rest in the enemy's encirclement.
At the same time, as the war continued, even contact with the outside troops was lost, which led to many volunteer soldiers in the tunnels being unsupported, and even some troops did not even have weapons for combat.
At the same time, the wounded warriors could not go out, and all the soldiers had to defecate in the tunnels, and the hygiene was extremely poor.
Later, in order to give the front-line soldiers a gift, the command stipulated that as long as an apple was sent in, it was considered a second-class merit.
However, under the onslaught of enemy artillery, the casualties of the logistics units were even higher than those of the combat troops.
Even in such difficult circumstances, the volunteer soldiers fighting in the tunnels still withstood the American offensive. Even if the enemy cut off the volunteers' water source and set fire to the tunnel entrance and release poisonous gas, they were not able to eliminate the volunteers.
At that time, in order to ensure the combat ability of the volunteer army in the Shangganling Tunnel, the Political Department of the 15th Army ordered all cadres to be divided into three groups, one group was responsible for holding on to the position, one group was on standby, and the other group was trained and ready to refuel at any time.
Even the military commander Qin Jiwei was included in the list of cadres. Even he sent his own guard company to the Battle of Shangganling, and he didn't even have a personal bodyguard by his side. From November 14 to the end of October, both sides experienced great attrition in the Shangganling area.
Blind insistence could not ensure the final victory of the war, and on the night of October 30, the commander Qin Jiwei personally organized the attack from the periphery with 8 companies of troops, and the strength of the two companies in the tunnel should be combined inside and outside.
Not only did it completely annihilate the defenders occupying Hill 597.9, but also repelled many enemy counterattacks. After retaking this high ground, the volunteer army successively put in 21 companies of troops, using various fortifications as a cover to withstand the enemy's fierce bombardment for 6 days.
Eventually, the UN forces stopped the offensive on 6 November. Successive attacks also left the Americans physically and mentally exhausted, and their ammunition losses and casualties were beyond their own expectations.
From the afternoon of November 11, the 45th Division of the 15th Army withdrew from the Shangganling area, and the main force of the 12th Army was thrown into the Battle of Shangganling, replacing the 15th Army with heavy losses.
After that, the U.S. army was unable to launch a large-scale counterattack due to insufficient troops, and by December 25, 1952, Van Deret finally withdrew from the Shangganling area.
The American military experts who participated in the Shangganling area lamented sadly: Even if the atomic bomb is used, it will not be possible to wipe out all the communist troops on the Wusheng Mountain.
And it was in this Battle of Shangganling that there were also volunteer heroes like Huang Jiguang who sacrificed their lives to block the gun hole. Qin Jiwei, the supreme commander in the Battle of Shangganling, was received by Chairman Mao in Zhongnanhai after returning to China in June 1953, and Chairman Mao praised it: The Battle of Shangganling was really a miracle.
In August 1986, when Qin Jiwei accompanied the delegation to visit Korea, under the arrangement of the DPRK, the commander of the 15th Army re-ascended shangganling, and at the same time bowed deeply to the sacrifice of the hero Huang Jiguang, and also mourned the comrades who were buried here.