A few years ago, Indian border guards crossed the Sikkim section of the Sino-Indian border to obstruct the Chinese construction team, for which the spokesman of the mainland Ministry of Foreign Affairs repeatedly expressed his position, and said: "Withdraw as soon as possible to avoid more serious consequences, and do not forget the lessons of history." ”
The historical lesson mentioned by the spokesman was the 1962 self-defense counterattack against India, in which our army won a one-sided victory in this short but fierce border battle.
Beat the aggressor
The "McMahon Line" is a border line signed between the British colonists and local governments behind the backs of the central government in the past, and it is a completely illegal boundary line, which has never been recognized by the Beiyang government, the Nationalist government, and the new Chinese government.
However, this line was regarded by the Indian government as the "legal basis" for the demarcation of the Sino-Indian border, which eventually led to a border war.
From the Indian side, the story begins in 1947.
At that time, India broke away from British rule and established an independent state, but India's high-level elites continued the British colonial mentality, and even tried in vain to establish a "Greater Indian Federation", in their vision, Tibet became a "buffer zone" between China and India.
For this reason, in 1950, the Indian government repeatedly obstructed the peaceful liberation of Tibet, and when it saw that it could not do so, it moved the boundary pillars forward little by little, and even sent troops to station, in a vain attempt to use actual control and the so-called overwhelming advantage to force the Chinese side to make concessions.
Before the outbreak of the war, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was very confident, and during that time, he was also a real hardline.
Nehru believed that China's strategic center of gravity was in the east rather than the west, because since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the western Pacific has been under tremendous pressure from the Western military bloc led by the United States; In addition, the Chiang Kai-shek clique also tried to carry out a "counteroffensive" against Chinese mainland, which constituted the most important strategic threat to Beijing.
By contrast, the conflict on the Sino-Indian border was clearly on the back burner, and Nehru naively assumed that the Chinese government would abandon the "car" to protect the "handsome" like a game of chess, that is, it was unlikely to carry out a large-scale military operation with India on the Sino-Indian border.
China's restraint and forbearance in the border conflict, coupled with the measures taken, made Nehru firm in his judgment.
Later, Nehru became more and more inflated, because in his eyes, China's founding of the country has not been developing steadily for more than ten years, and a lot of resources have been invested to support the Korean War, which makes China's domestic economic foundation relatively weak, and in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to lack of experience and made some mistakes, China's development will be slowed down.
Nehru, by contrast, decided that India was "recuperating."
He believes that Nehru believes that India occupies a natural geographical advantage, a complete industrial system and a huge railway network left by the British colonizers, and its economic development is relatively stable.
With this comparison, he quickly came to the conclusion that if the PLA were to fight in Tibet, it would need to overcome many difficulties in the natural environment; The natural environment on the Indian side is relatively superior.
At the beginning, when the Indian army was crazy and provocative, Chairman Mao did not regard them as enemies, but as friends.
Because the two countries have a history of friendly exchanges for thousands of years, and both sides are also world-famous ancient civilizations, both of which have suffered colonial aggression from foreign powers in modern times, so it can be said that they are a community with a shared future; And both countries belong to the third world camp and are friends who can deal with.
As a leader himself, when Nehru visited China in 1954, Chairman Mao said frankly: "It is normal for friends to have disagreements. ”
Therefore, Chairman Mao still hopes that India will learn from its mistakes and put the issue on the negotiating table as soon as possible.
In the face of China's peaceful moves, India intensified its efforts, adopting a "forward policy" from 1961 to July of the following year, when the Indian army even brazenly invaded the Galwan Valley in Xinjiang and set up a military base there.
On October 10, the Indian army took the lead in opening fire, killing and wounding 33 Chinese border guards.
This incident made Chairman Mao furious.
He convened an enlarged meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee in Zhongnanhai and made it clear: "Over the years, we have adopted many peaceful ways to resolve the Sino-Indian border issue, but they have not done anything. ”
Zhang Guohua of the Tibet Military Region was sitting at the meeting venue, and Chairman Mao asked him: "I heard that the Indian army still has some combat effectiveness, can it win?" ”
The other party immediately got up and replied: "If you win, please rest assured Chairman Mao!" ”
Subsequently, Chairman Mao walked to a huge operational map, and after pondering for a while, he pointed to the Indian stronghold on the map and waved his big hand: "Sweep it!" ”
After the meeting, Zhang Guohua immediately returned to Lhasa, convened an emergency meeting and conveyed Chairman Mao's instructions, and then he himself said: "My determination is to kill 1,300 of his people, without considering casualties at all. ”
At that meeting, Zhang Guohua showed the bloody nature of a soldier, in fact, the war goal set by the top level was "to completely annihilate a battalion in India", but Zhang Guohua believed that this could not deter India, and to achieve the goal of ending the war with war, at least one brigade of him should be eaten.
Both opinions were transmitted to Zhongnanhai to ask Chairman Mao to make a decision, and Chairman Mao's reply was very simple: "Zhang Guohua is a front-line commander, let him fight, and if he can't fight well, he will start again." ”
In other words, in the face of this war, Chairman Mao gave Zhang Guohua great autonomy.
Under Zhang Guohua's command, there is a capable general, this person is named Ding Sheng.
Ding Sheng has always been known for his boldness and is very good at interspersing operations, he once taught his subordinates: "After the troops enter, they must be bold, and they must also pay attention to the changes around them, but they should not be afraid of being surrounded on all sides, and they should not be afraid of being cut off from the back road, and they are not allowed to love war or be greedy for money." ”
In 1949, when Lin Biao led Siye south into Hunan and fought a decisive battle with the troops of "Little Zhuge" Bai Chongxi in Hengyang and Baoqing, Ding Sheng, then the commander of the 135th Division of the 43rd Army, led the troops to break through the Hengbao Highway for a day and night, and broke away from the main army for about 160 miles.
After falling into the enemy's position, Ding Sheng decisively commanded all regiments to occupy the commanding heights, and Lin Biao was surprised and delighted when he heard this, and immediately sent instructions to Ding Sheng, and emphasized that "Ding Sheng's position is the key to victory."
And Ding Sheng's troops later cut down Bai Chongxi's main force of the 7th Army, and the name of "Ding Daring" also sounded in the army.
By 1962, Ding Sheng was already the commander of the 54th Army, and he was ordered to lead the 130th Division from Sichuan to Tibet to participate in the counterattack against India.
At this moment, it is time for history to test "Ding Daring" again.
Punch open
The Warong region of Tibet is as high as 1,000 meters above sea level, and the high mountains are as high as 4,000 meters above sea level.
During the march of the troops, a little soldier accidentally fell into the water, and the other two fighters hurriedly jumped down to save people, but they did not expect that the little soldier was paralyzed after being rescued, and the other two fighters who jumped into the water were also paralyzed in their lower limbs.
On November 6, Ding Sheng arrived in Chayu, Tibet, and conducted pre-war reconnaissance and preparations under the leadership of Dong Zhanlin, commander of the 130th Division.
When the battle began, the soldiers of the 389th Regiment launched an attack along the bottom of the knife to the Dongtai area, and suddenly, another high ground on the north side suddenly came to a group of Indian troops to flank the attack, and the troops were blocked halfway up the mountainside, and the front-line commander immediately ordered: quickly occupy the high ground at all costs and counterattack.
On the other side, the 7th company launched an attack on the "80" heights, and the 4th company of the 4th battalion of the Indian army's McSey Wing defended this highland.
Among them, Zhou Tianxi, the commander of the 3rd platoon of the 7th Company, was seriously wounded when he attacked the foot of the enemy's mountain.
Due to the heavy firepower of the Indian army, the soldiers of this platoon suffered heavy casualties, and then the Indian army launched a rampant counterattack.
Seeing that the situation was critical, Zhou Tianxi immediately shouted "avenge the martyrs and make meritorious contributions to the motherland." He himself served as a commander and a combatant, leading the whole platoon of soldiers to fight bravely until the last drop of blood was shed.
Chen Rong, the squad leader of the 9th squad, saw the platoon commander sacrifice and took the initiative to stand up and command the battle on behalf of the platoon leader.
Machine gunner Chen Shirong saw that his comrades on the front line were suppressed by enemy fire, he desperately drilled out of the bunker and fired at the enemy on the hill, the enemy threw a grenade when he saw this, Chen Shirong was blown off 3 ribs on the spot, and his intestines were hanging outside his stomach.
But in the face of this situation, Chen Shirong still fought tenaciously and fell only after seeing his brother's troops capture the high ground.
After 10 hours of fighting, most of the Indian army's forward positions were overcome, and after the Warong Zagong area was controlled, the Indian army's deployment was also fragmented.
When Ding Sheng heard about the situation, he immediately ordered all troops to speed up the attack, and soon the entire Warong area was captured by the Chinese.
Those Indian troops who had lost the battle fled all the way to the depths of the canyon and dense forest, and Lieutenant General Kaul of the Fourth Army of the Indian Army flew away by helicopter with the vast majority of the agency personnel.
In the entire self-defense counterattack against India, the Battle of Warong was the most critical battle and the last battle, which caused the Indian army to lose all of the 3 battalions and most of the 1 battalion, and those annihilated troops, who used to claim to have "participated in World War II and defeated Rommel", at this time, they did not say anything.
During the entire command operation, Ding Sheng always observed the situation of both sides, and this battle made "Ding Daring" prove himself again.
After the battle, the troops went to clean up the battlefield, and some subordinates came to report and asked: "Commander, the enemy has lost a lot of parachutes at the bottom of the mountain, many of which are hanging on trees and broken, what should I do about these?" ”
After hearing this, Ding Sheng said: "Pick it up and solve the problem of cadres using cloth." ”
In fact, Ding Sheng just said it casually at that time, but he didn't expect that later at a democratic meeting of the troops, some soldiers put forward their opinions: "Why is it that when parachutes are allocated, the parachutes picked up by ordinary soldiers must be confiscated, but cadres can be assigned parachutes." ”
The little warriors had barely seen a parachute before, and of course they wanted to pick it up as a souvenir.
So, because of this incident, General Ding Sheng, who had obviously won a complete victory, was criticized and reviewed.
Much later, Ding Sheng brought up the incident again, and he also said, "I made a mistake at that time. ”
It turned out that when the Indian army was defeated at the beginning, a lot of things were discarded, even food, canned food, which were inconvenient to carry, were thrown in place, and the soldiers ate them after picking them up, because it was a difficult time for the country at that time, and the soldiers' food equipment was not particularly sufficient, and there were many wounded soldiers who needed to supplement nutrition, so Ding Sheng let everyone share and eat.
When he heard that the soldiers had picked up the parachute, he thought that the parachute was made of cloth, and the cloth ticket was more precious at that time, so he thought about solving the problem for the cadres.
Ding Sheng recalled: "That sentence is broken, because the cadres took the parachute, what did the soldiers take? Even a box of cigarettes is a rare item, so I was happy at the time, made a mistake, and had a bit of a concept of making a fortune. ”
For the sake of these parachute matters, Ding Sheng specially went to the Southwest Bureau and the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee to make a review.
In fact, Ding Sheng was very good to ordinary soldiers, according to the situation at the time, in fact, Ding Sheng's idea was: the soldier ate the canned food, and the cadre took the cloth.
Once, when he saw a division commander's speech read exactly according to the script, he immediately reprimanded: "You only know how to read according to the script, where did your brain go?" ”
Another time, when he was inspecting, he found that a soldier was cutting pigweed very hard, so he took the knife and took a look, there were rust spots and chips on it, Ding Sheng was immediately unhappy, and called the regiment commander over: "Don't you know that you are the regiment commander who is tired and tired of being a soldier?" ”
The regimental commander was frightened, and within 3 days all the knives were polished to a shiny finish.
In his later years, Ding Sheng lived in Nanjing, with a retirement salary of 150 yuan per month, his house was very simple, and he had a lot of tea and light food all day long, but he was still leisurely, as an older generation of revolutionaries, he had long forgotten about material enjoyment.
Resources
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