When it comes to the most ferocious battle fought by Xu Shiyou, the Battle of Lang Son should be ranked in the top three.
At that time, Xu Shiyou was already red-eyed, and he angrily ordered, "After the dawn attack begins, not a single house will be left in Lang Son!" In other words, he wants to completely overthrow everything that Vietnam has established in Lang Son.
Why is Xu Shiyou so angry?
"Student" hits "teacher"?
To a certain extent, the war of self-defense and counterattack against Vietnam was a "battle between students and teachers".
Vietnam and the mainland were iron buddies before the 70s of the last century, and the mainland provided Vietnam with $20 billion in aid, as well as a total of more than 9.43 billion tons of free military aid.
We not only gave Vietnam food, textile materials, and construction materials, and sent people to Vietnam to help with construction, but also gave Vietnam many military weapons such as guns, artillery, bullets, and tanks. Vietnam's military tactics were also taught by the mainland.
The mainland regards Vietnam as its own brother, and Vietnam stabs the mainland in the back. When the leaders of the mainland knew that Vietnam was going to fight with us, they were very angry, and Deng Gong stressed on many occasions that he wanted to teach Vietnam a lesson.
On 8 December 1978, foreign media reported that the mainland military had made large-scale moves, and US space spy satellites also captured that our army's fighter planes and fleet were assembling on the border between Korea and Vietnam.
On this day, the mainland's Central Military Commission officially issued an order demanding that the Kunming Military Region and the Guangzhou Military Region quickly assemble to annihilate Vietnam's front-line border defense troops, destroy Vietnam's military equipment, and retaliate against Vietnam's actions on the Sino-Vietnamese border a few days ago.
On February 17, 1979, the green signal flare lit up the night sky on the front line of the southern part of the mainland, and our army launched an attack on the Vietnamese army from both directions of Yunnan and Guangxi at the same time.
As mentioned above, the tactics of the Vietnamese army were taught by the mainland, and in the face of our army's attack, the Vietnamese army waged guerrilla warfare, advocating that "if you can fight well, you will fight, and if you can't win, you will run." This familiar tactic made our army even more angry.
So, is it the "student" who is good, or the "teacher" who is good?
It turned out that the "teacher" was even more powerful, and our army passed all the way to Dong Deng, 4,000 meters before the Vietnamese Friendship Pass, which is extremely important to Vietnam, and if Dong Deng is gone, Vietnam will be almost gone.
The 12th Regiment of the 3rd Division, which was assigned to guard Dong Deng, was Vietnam's "Venus Division" and was once awarded the title of "Hero of the People's Liberation Armed Forces".
Before the start of the war, the 12th Regiment of the 3rd Vietnamese Division said that it would "fight to the Friendship Pass for breakfast, and go to Nanning for the Spring Festival!"
This sentence undoubtedly aggravated the anger of our army, which defeated the 12th Regiment of the 3rd Vietnamese Division with a thunderous force, captured the Friendship Pass-Dong Dang Highway, and cut off the way for the Vietnamese army to flee south.
Subsequently, our army smashed Vietnam's counterattack plan again and again, completely blocked the communication arteries from Dong Deng to Lang Son and other places, and put an end to the "victory myth" of the 12th Regiment of the 3rd Division of the Vietnamese Army.
The Vietnamese were furious, and they made a frantic decision. It was this decision that made Xu Shiyou red-eyed and ordered not to leave a room for Langshan.
What did Vietnam do?
Emergency retreat
After our army conquered Dong Deng, Xu Shiyou ordered the Eastern Group to seize Lang Son in order to achieve the goal of threatening Hanoi.
If Dong Dang is a transportation hub, Lang Son is the last barrier in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and if Lang Son is gone, Vietnam will also be gone. The Battle of Lang Son can decide the winner.
After half a month of actual combat with our army, Vietnam also understood that it was impossible to win a victory against our army, so what should we do? Vietnam came up with a vicious trick, and they decided to use chemical weapons against our army.
The use of chemical weapons on the battlefield is a shameful act that triggers international condemnation, as chemical weapons are likely to cause permanent harm to the human body, which is a violation of humanity.
Vietnam also knows that if our army finds out that it has used chemical weapons, it will definitely lead to a more fierce attack by our army, and it will also cause condemnation from the international community.
It is reported that most of Vietnam's chemical weapons were given by the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, and they can be roughly divided into two types of weapons, such as meson gas and Ta Bang.
Vietnam did not dare to use chemical weapons against our army on a large scale, and only dared to mix less toxic agents and poisonous smoke grenades into artillery attacks and explode along with the artillery, so that it would not be easy for our troops to detect. In addition, Vietnam took advantage of the meteorological conditions to use poisonous smoke against our troops when there was a tailwind.
When our troops approached Lang Son, the 308th Division, which had arrived to support the Vietnamese troops, used chemical weapons against our troops.
Our soldiers smelled a strange smell in the air, immediately became vigilant, put on gas masks, and the Vietnamese army took advantage of the fact that our troops were wearing masks to launch an attack on our army, resulting in heavy losses for our army.
When Xu Shiyou learned of this, he was furious, and he ordered the 42nd Army on the front line to retreat urgently, and transferred more than 300 artillery pieces, he said, "After the dawn attack begins, not a single house can be left in Langshan!"
Many soldiers of our army were furious, and after Xu Shiyou's order was delivered, everyone held their breath and waited only for the attack after dawn, to hold Vietnam accountable for their wrong actions.
On the morning of March 1, 300 artillery pieces of our army were in place, and Xu Shiyou gave an order, and 10,000 artillery pieces were fired in unison. 300 artillery pieces were fired for 30 minutes before stopping, and Lang Son City was already a sea of fire.
Our infantry rushed into Liangshan City, the 489th Regiment launched an attack on the Lang Son Bridge, and the 488th Regiment attacked the Qi Poor River Bridge.
In fact, our army did not really want to occupy Lang Son at that time, the Central Military Commission meant to annihilate the 3rd Division of the Vietnamese Army, take the provincial government building, and let Vietnam see the true strength of the "teacher", and the mainland still remembered this "brotherhood".
However, Vietnam did not appreciate it and announced to the world that "the Chinese army did not occupy Lang Son". Vietnam's move once again angered the leaders of the mainland, and the Central Military Commission and Xu Shiyou said that "we will strive for a greater victory in self-defense and counterattack!"
Xu Shiyou was extremely angry about Vietnam's use of chemical weapons, and he was gearing up to clean up Vietnam, but due to the order of the Central Military Commission, he did not continue the offensive after taking the Lang Son Bridge.
Now, Xu Shiyou received a new order, and immediately gave the East Group an order to continue to advance and cross the Qiqi River. On March 4, our army took the city of Lang Son in Vietnam, achieving the goal of threatening Hanoi.
At this time, Vietnam was completely sober and did not dare to fight against its former brothers and "teachers" anymore.
Resources:
[1] China Military Network, "Unforgettable 1979: A Complete Documentary of the Self-Defense and Counter-Attack Operations against Vietnam", 20140812
[2] Baidu Encyclopedia, Battle of Langshan