Kinmen Island is an island in Xiamen Bay, Fujian Province, China, with an area of 151.65 square kilometers and a population of about 105,400 people, and the distance between Kinmen Island and Xiamen City is about 10 kilometers. Kinmen is small, but the strategic location is very important, Kinmen Island chokes the throat of Xiamen Port, for the southern Fujian barrier, east to Taiwan, west to Xiamen, China, the Ming Dynasty once built a city wall on the island, and then Zheng Chenggong, Shi Lang led the army to recover Taiwan, are based on Kinmen Island as the forward base.
After the Battle of the River Crossing in 1949, the People's Liberation Army began to attach importance to the task of defending the islands along the southeast coast, and by August 1949, Chiang Kai-shek ordered that the 22nd Corps of the Kuomintang Army lead its troops into the Kinmen area, of which the Corps Headquarters, the 25th Army Headquarters and the 45th Division guarded Kinmen, the Fifth Army Headquarters and the 200th Division guarded Xiao kinmen, and the 40th Division guarded Dadeng Island.
At that time, the commander-in-chief stationed in Kinmen was Tang Enbo, who unified the command of the Kuomintang troops in Kinmen, Xiamen. However, in October 1949, after the Tenth Corps of the People's Liberation Army launched the Xiamen Campaign, Tang Enbo's troops were quickly defeated, and within two days, 30,000 Kuomintang troops were annihilated, and Tang Enbo ran all the way, and finally reluctantly boarded the warships moored by the Nationalist army at sea and fled to the island of Taiwan. After the fall of Xiamen, Chiang Kai-shek adjusted his deployment and ordered Hu Lian's 12th Regiment of the Kuomintang Army to take over the 22nd Corps to defend Kinmen.
Hu Lian graduated from the Huangpu IV Period and served as the commander of the 18th Army (the five main forces of the Nationalist Army), who had repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and caused headaches for the People's Liberation Army during the Liberation War. During the Battle of Huaihai, Huang Weijian, who was the deputy commander of the 12th Corps, successfully escaped under the heavy siege of our army.
On the night of October 24, 1949, more than 9,000 officers and men of the three regiments of the 28th Army of the 10th Corps of the People's Liberation Army launched an attack on the Kinmen defenders, but due to command errors, light enemies and other factors, the landing troops suffered heavy losses and almost the entire army was destroyed, which was a rare major defeat of the PLA during the Liberation War. Later, Su Yu had planned to gather the strength of three armies to launch the Second Kinmen Campaign, liberate Kinmen Island, and then liberate Taiwan, but due to the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Su Yu's plan to liberate Taiwan had to be postponed.
By the end of 1957, Chiang Kai-shek had set up a defense department on Kinmen Island, with Hu Lian as the commander, with 6 infantry divisions and special forces totaling more than 85,000 people, including 31 battalions and 2 companies of artillery and 380 artillery. The Kuomintang army also set up a large number of permanent and semi-permanent fortifications on the island, as well as a large number of anti-landing facilities to prevent the landing of the People's Liberation Army.
In 1958, the international and domestic situation underwent major changes, and in July of that year, the United States and Britain sent troops to invade Lebanon, interfering in Middle East affairs, and creating a Middle East incident. Chiang Kai-shek could not hold back any longer, and repeatedly traveled to and from Kinmen, Matsu, and the Penghu Islands, wanting to make a fuss, and also sent planes to frequently bomb the southeast coastal cities, and the artillery on Kinmen Island also bombarded the coastal villages and towns in Fujian. To this end, the Central Military Commission made a special decision to strengthen the military struggle along the southeast coast, instructing the air force and ground artillery to act immediately, the sooner the air force can move into Fujian, the better, and the ground artillery and coastal artillery block Kinmen and its sea lanes.
At that time, the artillery units mobilized were mainly divided into two parts, one part was the Xiamen artillery group, including Xiamen main island and several surrounding islands, and the other part was the Lianhe artillery group, at that time our army's artillery group had a total of 36 battalions, which were later increased to 52 battalions, plus six companies of the shore artillery unit, as well as a number of anti-aircraft artillery units, a total of 459 guns of various types, the air force had 23 fighter aircraft regiments and 520 aircraft transferred to the southeast coastal airport, the navy also gathered 92 surface ships, and the coastal aviation unit dispatched two regiments. There were 14 companies of coastal artillery.
The Kuomintang army has a total of 21 battalions of ground artillery in Kinmen, Matsu and other islands, of which 308 guns of more than 105 mm, 40 mm, 146 90 mm anti-aircraft guns, and some large-caliber 155 howitzers, plus infantry and logistics troops, have a total of 200,000 troops, and the strength should not be underestimated.
During the shelling of Kinmen, Han Xianchu served as commander of the Fuzhou Military Region, and Ye Fei served as secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and political commissar of the Fuzhou Military Region. However, in this campaign, Chairman Mao personally ordered the generals and made the political commissar Ye Fei the commander-in-chief of the campaign. The front-line headquarters is located on The Highest Mountain in Xiamen, Genting Rock. Before the battle began, it rained heavily for more than a month on the Fujian front, and the front-line troops braved the rain to build roads and fortifications. For the sake of secrecy, the troops operated at night and secretly assembled at forward positions.
In mid-July 1958, Defense Minister Peng Dehuai and PLA Chief of General Staff Su Yu presided over an operational meeting in Beijing to study and formulate a specific plan for military operations in kinmen and Matsu, which was mainly to coordinate the unified operations of the navy, air force and artillery units. In order to unify the command of the Air Force into Fujian, the Fuzhou Military Region Air Force Headquarters was established, with Nie Fengzhi as commander. Peng Deqing, deputy commander of the East China Sea Fleet, was also transferred to the Xiamen Front Command, commanding the naval fleet and naval aviation, coastal artillery, and cooperating with Ye Fei's command.
By early August, all the ground artillery troops had stopped at their positions, and a large number of aircraft, warships, artillery, and tanks had entered Fujian, which made the people very excited, and many ordinary people said happily: "This time we must not only liberate Kinmen, but also liberate Taiwan!" ”
At 17:30 on the afternoon of August 23, nearly 500 artillery pieces of Xiamen's front-line troops opened fire at the same time, and the entire Kinmen Island was plunged into a sea of smoke and fire. In just seven or eight minutes, all the communication systems and radar stations of the Kuomintang army were destroyed, the combat command center and the artillery command post were all out of touch with several artillery units, and the three deputy commanders of the Kinmen Defense Command of the Nationalist Army, Zhao Jiajun and Zhang Jieji Xingwen, were killed on the spot; Yu Dawei, the "defense minister" who was inspecting the island, was carried by soldiers to take refuge under a large rock, and Hu Lian, commander of the Kinmen Defense, also survived and immediately ran back to the headquarters.
The Nationalist artillery did not start counterattacking until 20 minutes after the PLA shelling, but due to the interruption of communications, it could only carry out a scattered counterattack, which was quickly suppressed by the PLA artillery fire, and many of the island's fortifications were destroyed by PLA artillery fire. In the first two hours of the 23rd, the PLA fired a total of 57,500 shells, and the PLA Navy and Air Force also frequently dispatched to cooperate with artillery operations.
Kinmen was blockaded, the Kuomintang authorities were in a hurry, and the United States hastily dispatched the main force of the Pacific Seventh Fleet and part of the Mediterranean Sixth Fleet to assemble in the Taiwan Strait area. By the beginning of September, the United States had amassed more than 430 aircraft of various types and more than 60 ships in the Taiwan Strait area. On September 8, the Kuomintang Navy's landing ships Meile and Meizhen were full of ammunition, supplies, and personnel, and under the cover of several Kuomintang warships and several American warships, they sailed out of Penghu Magong and drove into The Bay of Luo to dock and unload. At the same time, U.S. warships have repeatedly invaded China's territorial waters in the Kinmen and Xiamen areas eight times.
The Plaster's Fujian front-line troops immediately assembled 42 ground artillery battalions and 6 coastal artillery companies to carry out the third large-scale shelling of Kuomintang warships anchored in Qiluo Bay and important military targets on Kinmen Island. The "Meile" was shot and caught fire, then exploded and sank, and the "Meizhen" was shot and fled. The US warships that came to escort the Kuomintang warships saw that the PLA artillery really dared to open fire, and quickly retreated backwards, leaving the Nationalist warships to continue to be bombed.
By October 25, the Pla.D. had fired 470,000 shells at Kinmen Island, and had reached the goal of warning and punishment, halting large-scale shelling. After that, the People's Liberation Army announced that it would not fire artillery on every double day, and that the number of shellings would gradually decrease.
The Kinmen standoff lasted for nearly 30 years, and the shelling lasted for 20 years, until 1979, when the People's Liberation Army announced that it would stop shelling Kinmen. After the gun battle, Wu Junnai, the owner of the Jinheli steel knife shop, bought the island's discarded shell shell and used it for forging knives. Due to the excellent quality of the steel of the warhead, the kitchen knife made from it is also particularly sharp and durable, and the characteristics of the toughness in the middle of the stiff, even if it cuts hard objects, is not easy to deform, making the Golden Gate kitchen knife well-known in Taiwan Island. According to local estimates, the shells left by the Kinmen 823 artillery battle alone can produce at least 60 million kitchen knives, equipping all Taiwan housewives.