In the Soviet Union's military advisory group to Vietnam, a major general named Demyanenko bluntly said: The Sino-Vietnamese war was doomed to failure from the beginning.
Sino-Vietnamese War
If we want to talk about the Sino-Vietnamese War, we have to start with the Qing Dynasty. At that time, Vietnam was only a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, and regularly paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty and received canonization.
It was not until it was occupied by France in 1661 and became a French colony, that the vassal relationship with the Qing Dynasty 224 ended.
It was occupied by Japan during World War II, and it was not until the end of World War II that Ho Chi Minh established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi.
However, Ho Chi Minh's power was still mainly in North Vietnam, which was still controlled by France, and in order to unify the whole territory, the Franco-Vietnamese War began for nine years.
In this war, the mainland also provided help to Vietnam, but after the reunification of Vietnam, not only did it not thank the mainland for its help, but also regarded the mainland as an enemy.
Later, with the support of the big brother of the Soviet Union, he repeatedly provoked the mainland border, and even carried out military activities on the border line.
As a sovereign country, Vietnam's move is tantamount to an attempt to infringe on the mainland's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the mainland cannot sit idly by.
On December 7, 1978, the Central Military Commission held a meeting, and after some discussion, it was decided to launch a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam.
It was not until February 7 of the following year that the Sino-Vietnamese War officially broke out.
Soviet Military Advisory Group
As mentioned earlier, Vietnam's daring to repeatedly provoke the mainland is inseparable from the Soviet Union, which stood behind them. As early as November 3, 1978, Vietnam had already signed a cooperation agreement with the Soviet Union's big brother, in a vain attempt to ensure the safe implementation of the expansion plan in the form of a military alliance.
Vietnam would not be unaware that their behavior would inevitably cause China's self-defense counterattack, so it launched its defense plan early.
However, despite the early preparations, in the face of the mainland's 550,000 troops, they were still defeated one after another, and the mainland's troops were like bamboos, destroying the positions of the first front of Vietnam in less than three hours.
Looking at the Chinese army that was becoming more and more courageous, Vietnam was a little frightened, and hurriedly asked the Soviet big brother for protection, but the big brother did not send troops to the war, but only came a 21-member military advisory group composed of generals and major generals.
A military advisory mission sent by the Soviet Union landed at Hanoi airport on 19 February.
Despite the help of the Soviet Union's powerful military advisory group, Vietnam was still losing ground and fighting with less and less equipment.
According to Demyanenko, one of the Soviet military advisers to Vietnam, the war was a ruin for him, and defeat was only a matter of time.
Although Vietnam's strength is less than that of China, there are no deserters, and the men who have the ability to move have stuck to their places and live and die with the country. Lang Son, which had been heavily bombed by China, even had only a dilapidated railway bridge remaining.
On the morning of March 1, 1979, the mainland army operated 306 artillery pieces and aimed them at enemy military targets in Lang Son, and the result was naturally the successful capture of Lang Son.
Soviet housework
During the Sino-Vietnamese War, there was a reason why the Soviet Union only sent military advisory groups, not troops or weapons.
When it comes to this, I have to talk about a Vietnam People's Army war correspondent named Sanno Zhengyang.
In Masahiro Mino's article, we can clearly understand the timeline of the Sino-Vietnamese War and the attitude of the Soviet Union.
On February 18, 1979, the day after the outbreak of the Sino-Vietnamese War, the Soviet authorities immediately announced: "The Soviet Union has entered a state of combat readiness."
On March 2, 1979, the day after the mainland bombarded Lang Son in Vietnam, the Soviet Union strongly condemned the mainland's actions and said that if China did not stop and let the war continue to develop, the Soviet Union would send volunteers to Vietnam.
Since then, we have even transferred many warships to the Nansha Islands to put pressure on China, but we are not afraid at all.
Mino Masahiro also expressed his opinion in his own article, he felt that the Soviet Union had no intention of sending troops from the beginning to the end, and Vietnam was just a pawn.
Such a view was not groundless, as the Soviet Union was too busy expanding its influence in the Middle East to manage Vietnam.
Especially at that time, after the regime change in Afghanistan, after Amin overthrew the Taliban regime and came to power, he did not like the Soviet Union's control of Afghanistan and began to gradually alienate the Soviet Union, which also made the Soviet Union anxious.
Vietnam's military strength
In fact, at the beginning of the Sino-Vietnamese War, all countries felt that China and Vietnam were facing each other, and it would take some twists and turns to win.
First of all, the most intuitive point is that the Vietnamese army is much better than the mainland in terms of the quality of weapons and the number of weapons per capita.
On the one hand, it has the support of military materials from the Soviet Union, and on the other hand, it won the War of Resistance against the United States and obtained a lot of advanced equipment from the US military.
The second was the signing of the Soviet-Vietnamese Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Vietnam and the Soviet Union, and paragraph 6 of the treaty clearly stated that if one of the two sides became the target of attack or threatened to be attacked, the two sides needed to negotiate immediately to eliminate the risk.
With this treaty, the outside world thought that once the Sino-Vietnamese war continued, it would inevitably lead the Soviet Union into the country, and the situation would be difficult to control.
The last point is that since World War II, Vietnam has fought countless battles, both large and small, and these wars have accumulated a lot of combat experience for the Vietnamese army.
At that time, there were no major battles in China recently, so it did not have any advantage in this regard.
China is not favored
As mentioned above, in the Sino-Vietnamese War, Vietnam relied on more and more advanced weapons, with its relations with the Soviet Union, and with the experience accumulated in the previous years of war, so that Vietnam was invincible in this war.
Unfortunately, it ran into China, which taught Vietnam and the world in just 28 days that China is not something to be messed with.
Our army not only won the final victory, but even did a good job in terms of combat casualties.
During the 28-day Sino-Vietnamese War, the mainland annihilated as many as 57,152 Vietnamese troops, while our side fought bravely and skillfully, killing 7,814 people.
In addition, Vietnam suffered huge losses in the Sino-Vietnamese War, its economy and infrastructure collapsed, and it even became one of the poorest countries in the 80s of the last century.
As a sovereign country, the territorial integrity and national security of the country cannot be ignored.