Chapter 8 Chapter Seven: The East China Field Army was defeated in Kinmen, and the whole army was shaken

The defeat of Kinmen made General Ye Fei soberly say: If only relying on wooden sailboats to cross the Taiwan Strait... (Golden Gate, October 24-27, 1949) It has been more than forty years, and Ye Fei still regrets it. If Jinmen Island had not been attacked at that time, he would have moved the headquarters of the Tenth Corps from Tong'an County to Xiamen City.That way, he can grasp the overall situation and make serious preparations for the liberation of Kinmen. On October 24, Xiamen had just been liberated for a week.In the city of Xiamen, in front of the gate of the compound with the wooden sign of "Xiamen Military Control Committee", people in military uniforms or cadre Lenin uniforms hurried in and out, and their steps were extremely hurried.The headquarters of the 10th Pong Regiment of the People's Liberation Army had just moved from Tong'an County to Xiamen, and it was located in this western-style building in the courtyard.The sign of the Military Control Commission is hung on the outside.Before and after the founding of New China, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized the need to shift the focus of work to the city, and Chen Yi, the head of the Third Field Army, also served as the mayor of Shanghai.Ye Fei moved the headquarters of the Tenth Corps from Tong'an County to Xiamen City. This is the requirement of the objective environment and is beyond reproach.

After liberation, Xiamen, like all newly liberated large and medium-sized cities in mainland China, was a mess.Xiamen is one of China's five major treaty port cities, which is well-known at home and abroad. Today, the 200,000 residents are very short of oil, salt, firewood and rice.The stored food has been exhausted, and Ye Fei just ordered the logistics department of the Corps to ask for help from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.The shortage of fuel, and even the phenomenon of tearing down the floor for firewood, is also something Ye Fei worries about.The city takes over the work, which involves managing the family and managing wealth, the national economy and the people's livelihood. It is more busy and headache than fighting.

On this day, he and the comrades of the Xiamen Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China had not yet finished studying the received issues, when they received a telegram from the 28th Army reporting that they would launch an attack on Jinmen that night.Time was running out, so he took a few mouthfuls of lunch indiscriminately, and immediately convened a meeting with the Chief of Operations, the Chief of Intelligence, and relevant personnel to analyze the situation.In his memoirs, Ye Fei described the meeting and the scene where he approved the attack on Jinmen—— At that time, we already knew that the Twelfth Corps of Jiang's Army (Hulian Corps) had withdrawn from Chaoshan by boat, and its whereabouts were unknown.I asked if Hu Lian's corps had reached Jinmen?The staff officer replied that Hu Lian's corps was wandering at sea and had not yet reached Jinmen.At this moment, the confidential personnel sent a piece of information that it was Hu Lian who asked Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw to Taiwan.It's a pity that this telegram is from yesterday!Chiang Kai-shek's call back was to strictly order Hu Lian to follow the order.But we did not intercept Chiang Kai-shek's call back at that time.I analyzed that there are two possibilities for the actions of Hu Lian's corps, one is to reinforce Kinmen, the other is to withdraw to Taiwan; it may be that Chiang Kai-shek ordered Hu Lian to reinforce Kinmen, but Hu Lian was unwilling, so he sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek asking to withdraw to Taiwan, so he wandered at sea .Before Hu Lian arrived at Kinmen, it was the last chance to initiate a landing and capture Kinmen. If there was any further delay, the situation in Kinmen might change.After repeated consideration, I finally approved the 28th Army's attack on Kinmen.

At noon on the 24th, Ye Fei held a combat meeting and approved the launch of the attack on Jinmen that night.At that time, the defense situation of the Kuomintang army on Kinmen Island had changed a lot, and Chiang Kai-shek had successively ordered more troops to Kinmen Island. Compared with Xiamen Island, Kinmen was just an unknown island at that time.The area of ​​Dajinmen on the main island is 124 square kilometers, and Xiaojinmen is 15 square kilometers.Kinmen Island is located ten kilometers east of Xiamen and ten kilometers north of the mainland.The island is shaped like a dumbbell, with mountains in the east and hills in the west, and the beach in the north is easy to land on.There is Kinmen County in the west of the island. There are about 40,000 residents on the island, most of whom are families of overseas Chinese. The island is very desolate and has no important products.It is said that Chen Yuan, a native of the Central Plains in the Tang Dynasty, came to Kinmen Wild Island to graze horses, and the island was able to benefit from farming, fishing and salt. Later generations built the "Chen Muma Hou Temple" on the island.After the founding of New China in 1949, this remote island was valued by Chiang Kai-shek mainly because of its geographical location.Once Kinmen is under control, the outlet to Xiamen, the main port of Fujian, can be blocked.Chiang Kai-shek understands that the CCP is crossing the sea to attack Taiwan, and Xiamen Port will be an important gathering place for ships, and controlling Kinmen will play an important role in protecting Taiwan.Chiang Kai-shek knew very well that he could no longer withstand the PLA's sweeping offensive on land; however, he knew that the CCP did not have an air force or a navy. Relying on his own advantage of the navy and air force that had not been lost, he could intentionally manage several islands off the coast of Fujian as Taiwan. The first line of defense in the strait also serves as the first springboard for counterattacking the mainland in the future.Kinmen is so important to Chiang Kai-shek!After Xiamen was lost, he asked Tang Enbo to retreat to Kinmen, and continued to strengthen the defense force of Kinmen Island.The 22nd Corps of the Kuomintang Army, the Li Liangrong Corps, was originally in charge of defending Kinmen, plus the 201st Division of the Youth Army that had just been transferred from Taiwan, and the division commander was Zheng Guo.The total number of troops is no more than 20,000.The attack plan of the 28th Army of the People's Liberation Army was formulated based on the more than 20,000 troops on Kinmen Island just before the battle in Xiamen.

After the battle in Xiamen, Chiang Kai-shek immediately adjusted his deployment and transferred the 11th Division and the 43rd Division, the two main divisions of the 18th Army of the Hu Lian Corps, from Shantou to Kinmen for reinforcements.Around October 20, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 19th Army of Hu Lian's Corps, which was transferred from Shantou to the Zhoushan Islands, to divert to Kinmen halfway.Chiang Kai-shek also considered that Tang Enbo had suffered consecutive defeats from the defense line of the Yangtze River and the defense of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou to the defense of Xiamen.On the way Hu Lian's 12th Corps was transferred from Shantou to the coast of Fujian and Zhejiang, Chiang Kai-shek called Hu Lian to Taipei, announcing that Hu Lian, in the name of the commander of the 12th Corps, would replace Tang Enbo as the chairman of Fujian Province and that Hu Lian would stick to Jinmen.Hu Lian didn't dare to neglect, braved the wind and waves on the night of the 24th, boarded a supply ship and sailed to the main gate.The fleet of the 19th Army of the Hu Lian Corps diverted to Kinmen on the 23rd and approached the sea outside Kinmen Island. Due to the hurricane warning, it was inconvenient to disembark due to strong winds, so it was delayed until the 24th, and the ship was transferred between Kinmen and Kinmen Sheltered from the wind while landing by barge.

The Tenth Corps of the People's Liberation Army had already known about the sudden increase in the garrison forces of the Kuomintang Army on Kinmen Island.On October 13, when the 28th Army captured Da and Xiaodeng Islands north of Kinmen, they captured prisoners of the 11th Division, the main force of the 18th Army of the Kuomintang, including the commander of the 31st Regiment.After interrogation, it was known that the two divisions of the 18th Army of the Hu Lian Corps had all arrived in Kinmen.This important information should have attracted great attention, but some leaders subjectively believed that the Kuomintang army was going to escape, but did not pay attention to this objective information that did not conform to subjective intentions, and suspected that the prisoners' confessions were unreliable.

Deputy Commander Xiao Feng of the 28th Army, who was in charge of commanding operations, had new considerations about the original combat intention after hearing the prisoners' confessions, and some other leaders also raised doubts.The problem was reported to Deputy Commander Su Yu of the East China Field Army in charge of operations.Su Yu immediately felt that the Kinmen battle should not be underestimated, and he gave special instructions: (1) Calculated on the basis of the 12,000 men of the 108th Division of the 25th Army of the original enemy, as long as the enemy is increased by one regiment, they will not fight; (2) There is no ship carrying six regiments at a time; Or select 6,000 well-tested boatmen along the coast of Shandong.It is a pity that these instructions of Su Yu were not implemented afterwards.When the troops boarded the ship, Xiao Feng, the deputy commander who had already boarded with the team, received a call from the leader of the Corps, informing him that two regiments had been added to the Kinmen Guard and asked Xiao Feng to stay in command.Because Xiao Feng had new considerations about the original combat intention, he immediately raised doubts about acting according to the original gold attack plan.The answer Xiao Feng got was: the determination remains unchanged.Ye Fei also insisted: As long as he goes up to two battalions and Xiao Feng controls the second echelon, there is hope for victory in the battle.

At nine o'clock that night, the three main regiments of the first echelon attacking Kinmen completed boarding in the northeast bay of Aotou, Dadeng Island, and the canal area, and under the cover of night, they secretly moved towards Kinmen.The Battle of Kinmen, in which the People's Liberation Army infantry used light weapons on wooden boats to attack islands with superior forces of the Kuomintang and modern three-dimensional defenses of sea, land, and air, began. In hindsight, it was too late to board and set sail.Neither has the command of the sea and the air, nor can it seize the time to get the troops to set sail earlier, so as to gain more night time to consolidate and expand the beachhead, and strive to return the ships to transport the second echelon that night.The three regiments set sail from three places, the organization was poor, and the crossing area was narrow. Most of the ships set sail at midnight. After setting sail, they had to meet up at the sea of ​​Dadeng, and then proceed to Jinmen together, which delayed the time.Although there was a favorable northeasterly wind of magnitude three or four after sailing, it was already dawn within four hours after the troops landed.Not only did the ships not have time to return to transport the second echelon, but the troops that had landed did not have enough time to reorganize, consolidate and expand the beachhead, and faced a desperate struggle with the counterattack of the Kuomintang army's combined arms.

At that time, only the Fourth Field Army of the People's Liberation Army was equipped with more long-range artillery, and the Third Field Army lacked long-range artillery. During the landing operations, only more than 80 American-made 105mm howitzers and 70 American-made 105mm howitzers and 70 The 5mm mountain cannon barely reaches the beachhead on the north shore of Kinmen, and its accuracy is already very low.The three regiments of the first echelon came from three different organic divisions, and none of the division commanders accompanied them to the unified command. There was a phenomenon that the various ministries were not under the same control. The particularly serious problem was that the troops landed at 2 o'clock on the 25th. At that time, it was high tide, and the barbed wire fence and many underwater obstacles set up by the Kuomintang army on the beach were covered by the tide. Many landing ships were hung on the bottom, and the ships could not move for a while. possible.However, the first echelon did not have a unified command, and only one cadre and soldier escorted each ship.Seeing that the ships in front had not returned, these cadres and soldiers waited hesitantly by the sea.Seeing the fierce artillery fire, some new boatmen abandoned the ship and jumped into the sea.No one organized the ships to return, and missed the high tide peak, and the ebb tide caused the ships that had already rushed to the beach and other ships on the beach to return because they did not return in time, all stranded on the beach.At dawn on the twenty-fifth, all the wooden boats were exposed on the unsheltered beach.Gao Kuiyuan, the commander of the 18th Army commanded by the Kuomintang army to counterattack, in addition to bombarding the ships with artillery fire, also sent two regiments to carry out the task of burning the ships.After a fierce battle, the Kuomintang army approached the boats. They dumped gasoline and peanut oil on the wooden boats, and set fire to all the wooden boats.What you can see across the sea are wooden boats lined up on the beach catching fire in the sea breeze.Without the fleet, the four regiments of the second echelon on standby on the shore cannot be reinforced!The original combat deployment has been impossible to achieve.This caused the first echelon that had landed to fight alone on Kinmen Island.Zhu Yunqian, the commander and political commissar of the 85th Division who was commanding on the coast of the mainland at that time, could never forget what he saw for the rest of his life.Zhu Yunqian later recalled——

We watched the ship burn and the second echelon was unable to cross the sea. The anxiety and pain in our hearts cannot be described in words.The old saying "watching the fire from the other side" means that the matter has nothing to do with you, and you stand by and watch, but we see it in our eyes, hurt in our hearts, are extremely anxious and have nothing to do!I have never felt such a mood since I participated in the revolution. The assault troops of the three regiments of the first echelon, under the disadvantage of having no way of retreat and no backup and only armed with light infantry weapons, have defensive positions and heavy weapons, as well as tanks, aircraft and warships to assist in the battle, and their strength is more than five times In front of the Kuomintang army, he was tenacious and unyielding. After two days and nights of fierce fighting, he finally failed.This battle is an unprecedented tragic page in the history of PLA warfare.

These three regiments did not have a unified command, and when they landed, their organizational system was disordered. They all mechanically advanced in depth according to the slogan "a few people fight a few people's battle, don't wait, don't hesitate, push in." The regimental commander also lost effective control of the troops.The landing troops were indeed quite brave. Within one or two hours of landing, they tore through the position of the 201st Division of the Kuomintang Youth Army, making the division dizzy, almost lost its combat effectiveness, and abandoned the fortifications and fled south.The landing force also captured many enemy soldiers, which became a burden due to lack of guards.The 244th Regiment also occupied Shuangru Mountain, the commanding height in the west of Kinmen, in one fell swoop.Years later, even Taiwan had to admit that the PLA's offensive in the hours after landing was almost unstoppable.The "advantages" of the People's Liberation Army are: not only "adventurous and difficult, quick action", "strong attack operations", but also "strong control of cadres, so the will to fight is very tenacious under their control, as long as they are under the control of their cadres , can be stubborn to the end."Some records of Taiwan's war history said: "The first line of coastal defense was held by the bandits without fierce fighting. The second was the No. 132 highland, which was condescending and had a wide range of shots. It was an ideal defensive position, but after the bandits landed, it was not as good as In a few hours, the entire surrounding area of ​​the highland (including the southern slope of the highland) was about to be occupied. According to reports, there were only sporadic resistance. So far, one of the "three highs" in Kinmen has gone. Fortunately, the Qionglin pass is guarded by the vehicles of the three-company exercise of chariots, otherwise the victory or defeat Who it belongs to is unknown.” After daybreak, the landing force was severely frustrated by the attack of the Kuomintang tank group, which was an unfortunate beginning of Kinmen's defeat.The landing point of the landing force was poorly chosen.The troops landed on the north shore of the west peninsula of Dajinmen Island. The terrain here is flat, although it is convenient for landing, it is also conducive to the movement of the Kuomintang army's armored troops.The landing troops did not have effective anti-tank weapons, and it was not conducive to establishing a position on this flat beachhead to hold on. Immediately after dawn, they were exposed to the joint counterattack of tank formations and a large number of Kuomintang reinforcement infantry.The open seaside area around the landing point was originally the training ground for the Kinmen Tank Troops, so the tank group is very familiar with fighting here.The People's Liberation Army landing troops were unprepared and immediately fought back in concealment.But there are only some parsnips in the open area by the sea, and there are no other hidden objects.Some people scattered and hid in the parsnips, and many people were exposed and were attacked by tank fire, causing heavy casualties.PLA commanders and fighters carried forward the tradition of anti-tank warfare on the mainland. While shooting concentrated firepower in parsnip grass, they organized blasters to bomb tanks with cluster grenades.Due to the flat terrain, it was very difficult to get close to the tank. Many soldiers died immediately and failed to get close to the tank.The tanks were even more unscrupulous, rushing into the hideouts of the People's Liberation Army and doing serpentine crushing. Many soldiers were shot or crushed to death. At noon, the tank group rushed to the seaside, and the Kuomintang prisoners who were being held at the seaside also took the opportunity to escape.The two divisions of the Eighteenth Army of the Kuomintang defenders all went into counterattack, and the reinforcements of the three divisions of the Nineteenth Army also went into battle as soon as they landed.The landing troops of the People's Liberation Army fought tenaciously, but after defeating a group of Kuomintang troops, a group of new troops soon joined the battle.The Kuomintang army fought more and more, and the situation became more and more serious.Before noon on the 25th, the situation was reversed, and the three regiments of the landing force were forced to retreat from the high ground they seized to the Guningtou position by the sea.Guningtou was the only beachhead that was consolidated by a battalion after the 253rd Regiment landed.Before dusk, the Kuomintang army invested a lot of troops to attack Guningtou in an attempt to wipe out the landing troops of the People's Liberation Army in one fell swoop.As a result the attack was repelled.It was getting dark, and the Kuomintang army suffered heavy casualties, so they had to go to rest. The night from the evening of October 25th to the night before dawn on the 26th was the crucial night that finally determined the fate of the Kinmen Island battle.The Kuomintang army also thought this was their most dangerous night.Because after a whole day of fierce fighting, all the control troops of the Kuomintang army, including the reinforcements of the 19th Army of the Hu Lian Corps, were thrown into the counterattack battlefield. In addition to the considerable casualties, they were also extremely fatigued; There were many new recruits. When the 14th Division of the 19th Army of Hu Lian Corps berthed the boat, the newly recruited recruits did not have time to change into military uniforms, so they disembarked and went ashore. Tang Enbo saw him and said, "Why don't you ask the soldiers to disembark first? They shouldn't be let down." The common people disembarked first!" Someone told him: "The Fourteenth Division has not yet issued uniforms." The morale of the Kuomintang army was very low under the general situation of defeat, so the will to attack was not strong.However, Hu Lian's Twelfth Corps was, after all, one of the five main forces of the original Kuomintang army, and had a group of veterans who had experienced battles.At that time, it was fighting on the island, and there was nowhere to retreat.Hu Lian and others carried out deceptive propaganda to the troops in advance, saying that the Communist Party's captive policy for those who had fled to the island had changed, and that the commanders and division commanders of the Kuomintang army had all gone to the front line to supervise the battle.The combination of these factors has increased the tenacity of the Kuomintang army officers and soldiers in combat.Even so, the Kuomintang army has no reserve troops in Kinmen, and the 40,000 troops that have been put into battle have suffered heavy casualties. The battle situation turned defeat into victory.The hundreds of ships conscripted by the 28th Army were all burned to the ground in Kinmen in the morning.On October 25, although the headquarters of the Tenth Corps ordered the emergency mobilization of ships from Xiamen, due to the patrolling and bombing by the Kuomintang navy and air force, a small steamer and several wooden boats were transferred to Aotou and Dadeng Island after nightfall. Enough to transport four companies of troops.The 28th Army had no choice but to decide that Sun Wangxiu, head of the 246th Regiment, who was about to be the deputy commander of the 82nd Division, would lead four companies to reinforce Kinmen, and Sun Yuxiu would be responsible for the unified command of all Kinmen landing troops.Although Sun Yuxiu led his troops to take the risk of crossing, using the cover of night, they escaped the search of the Kuomintang navy and air force, and basically landed safely in Kinmen.Reluctantly, reinforcements with such a small force did not help. From the night of the 25th to the early morning of the 26th, the People's Liberation Army landing force on Kinmen Island, regardless of the fatigue of the whole day's hard work, and the tradition of night battles, launched a counterattack, attacking Kinmen County with a small force, and the main force was in the northwest of the island. Captured part of the positions of the Kuomintang army, and advanced to the front line of Lindun and Putou before dawn. After dawn on the 26th, the rested Kuomintang army concentrated its main force again, and under the cover of the navy, air force and tanks, they violently counterattacked the front lines of Guningtou, Lincuo and Putou.Lincuo and Guningtou are two villages not far from each other in the northwest of the island.In order to prevent typhoons, the residents on the island often build houses with stones, which are relatively strong.The People's Liberation Army used the houses they guarded as blockhouses, which made the Kuomintang army repeatedly hindered in the house-to-house scramble.On the highlands southeast of Putou and Lincuo, the People's Liberation Army repaired many permanent fortifications of the 201st Division of the Kuomintang Youth Army that had been occupied on the first day of the battle into solid positions.Relying on stone houses, positions and high ground, the People's Liberation Army resisted tenaciously.Taiwan's war history also has to admit that in the battle on the morning and afternoon of the 26th, the Kuomintang army suffered heavy casualties almost every time it captured a position or a house.After noon, Lin Cuo fell, and most of the People's Liberation Army troops on the island retreated to Guningtou. On the morning of the 26th, Hu Lian, commander of the 12th Corps of the Kuomintang Army, rushed to Kinmen and went to the front line to supervise the battle with Tang Enbo and Tang's Japanese adviser Nemotohiro (who was a war criminal invading China).At noon that day, Chiang Ching-kuo was ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to fly to Kinmen to supervise the battle by special plane.Chiang Ching-kuo mentioned in his diary that day—— At 11:30, we arrived at the sky above Kinmen, overlooking the whole island, it was bleak.After landing, he took a jeep to the general headquarters of Tang Enbo, and there were wounded soldiers, prisoners and soldiers carrying things along the way.Returning to the front line, condolences to officers and soldiers under artillery fire, corpses everywhere, bloody and bloody.It was very touching to see them fighting bravely in the extremely difficult environment. When Jiang Jingguo came, the People's Liberation Army was still firmly resisting.Since the Kuomintang infantry was unable to attack Guningtou for a long time, Hu Lian and Tang Enbo asked Taiwan to send more planes to violently bomb the houses in the village, and then used rocket launchers and tank guns to approach and bombard them one by one.After repeated attacks by the troops of the three divisions of the Kuomintang Army and fierce fighting until dark, the small village of Guningtou, which was guarded by only a few hundred people from the People's Liberation Army, has not yet been captured. On the evening of the 26th, after two days and nights of hard work, the People's Liberation Army guarding Guningtou was no longer able to support them.The ammunition carried by the landing has long been exhausted, and the ammunition captured and collected from the corpses of the enemy soldiers on the battlefield has basically been exhausted.The dry food has been eaten, and most people are struggling with hunger.After nightfall, Sun Yuxiu reported to the army command post through the radio that more than 5,000 people had been killed or injured in the ten battalions of the landing force, and they were going to split into several groups to break out of the encirclement and go up the mountain to fight guerrillas. duty.At midnight on the 26th, the remaining troops of the People's Liberation Army in Guningtou took advantage of the night to break out of the encirclement, first to the north to the sea, without finding a boat, and then to the southeast to enter the mountainous area. On the morning of the 27th, the sound of gunfire in the northwest of Kinmen Island was still heard.The few remaining members of the People's Liberation Army who did not break through still stood firm in the bunker north of Guningtou, and some personnel took up residence in Guningtou Village to resist.The Kuomintang army had to search and attack from house to house before resolving the battle.Subsequently, the Kuomintang army launched an attack on the Beishan seaside near Guningtou, and the warship also circled to the sea to the north of Guningtou, bombarding the blind spot that the ground artillery fire could not reach with naval guns.Under the attack by sea and land, some armed wounded soldiers of the People's Liberation Army on the seashore fought until the end and died, and most of the wounded were captured.By 10:00 am on the 27th, the two-and-a-half-day Kinmen battle was basically over. The remaining troops of the People's Liberation Army who broke through from Guningtou to the southeast mountainous area of ​​the island, because the island is small and narrow, it is difficult to maneuver and hide under the search of tens of thousands of Kuomintang troops.According to the information obtained later, Sun Yuxiu, the head of the 246th Regiment, was surrounded near Shatou, determined not to be a prisoner and committed suicide.Xing Yongsheng, head of the 244th regiment, was surrounded in Dongshangou due to serious injuries, and died after being captured.After Liu Tianxiang, head of the 251st Regiment, died, political commissar Tian Zhichun led more than 50 people to fight guerrillas and was captured because he ran out of ammunition and food.Chen Lihua, political commissar of the 253rd Regiment, died in the guerrilla fight.Xu Bo, the head of the 253rd Regiment, hid in a cave on Mount Taiwu for more than a month, earning a living by going out at night to dig sweet potatoes in the farmland.Gao Kuiyuan, commander of the Kuomintang Army's Jinmen battlefield, could not find Xu Bo's living person among the prisoners, nor could he find his dead body on the island.Gao Kuiyuan didn't believe that Xu Bo would escape back to the mainland by swimming, so he sent troops to search the mountain repeatedly before finding him. The East China Field Army was defeated in Kinmen, losing two batches of landing troops, three regiments and four companies.According to the "Chinese People's Liberation Army War History" published in July 1987 (compiled by the Military History Research Department of the Academy of Military Sciences), the PLA lost 9,086 people (including 350 boatmen and civilians). The official report of the KMT in Taiwan on the results of the Kinmen campaign has various versions, which are always the same and contradictory. "Central Daily" began to claim that "five regiments with a total of more than 14,000 people" were wiped out, and even boasted that "division commanders, army commanders and other senior officers" were among the prisoners.Soon, Taiwan's official report added water and heated up, saying that "seven to eight regiments and more than 20,000 people were wiped out."Hu Lian and Gao Kuiyuan, who personally commanded the battle, were a little more objective, saying that the Kinmen campaign only wiped out the opponent's "more than 10,000 elite people", and said that there were no cadres above the division level in the opponent's landing force.As for the number of casualties of the Kuomintang army in the Battle of Kinmen, it has not been announced yet, but some reports admit that the casualties were heavy.However, Jiang Jingguo's diary on October 26 of that year revealed that the Kuomintang army suffered heavy casualties.Later, according to the news obtained by the People's Liberation Army, Hu Lian reported to Chiang Kai-shek: The Kuomintang army had a total of more than 9,000 casualties. After the Kinmen War, the KMT officials in Taipei held a "congratulatory event" for this "brilliant victory" with great fanfare for several days.Since then, there will be a "grand celebration" almost every year in late October.Later, Chiang Kai-shek also asked Chinese film companies to shoot feature films such as "The Storm at Jinmen Bay" and "The Great Victory at Guningtou".For Chiang Kai-shek, who was defeated in the mainland, and for a rare victory in Kinmen, he has made a lot of fuss, which can only give people a glimpse of his mentality.Chiang Kai-shek also asked people to take the Golden Gate Victory and another smaller Demb Island victory to the United States to make a big fuss, hoping that the United States would change its bad perception of his image in order to regain US military aid.However, it can be seen from the records in "Gu Weijun's Memoirs" that during October and November 1949, in the eyes of the U.S. State Department, "the most unfortunate thing was the fall of Guangzhou. The State Department has now resolutely stopped aid to China and complained Mrs. Chiang’s private activities prompted Congress and public opinion to oppose the State Department’s policies.” And recorded that in early November, “Marshall suggested that she (Song Meiling) return to China, saying that her departure from the United States would be good for China.” Jinmen Victory failed Change the policy of "throwing the burden" implemented by the US State Department towards Chiang Kai-shek. The East China Field Army was defeated in Kinmen, and the whole army was shocked.This is the largest battle for the PLA since the Chinese Communist Party's three-year liberation war.The nearly 9,000 troops of the three regiments that went into battle were wiped out as an organization, which is extremely rare in the history of PLA warfare.The battle of the Xiangjiang River during the Long March, the failure of the West Route Army of the Red Army, and the Southern Anhui Incident during the Anti-Japanese War, although the total number of losses were not small, they were not completely wiped out.The defeat of Kinmen made the senior leaders of the People's Liberation Army seriously think and study the particularity and complexity of cross-sea island operations.Although it delayed the PLA's battle to liberate the southeastern coastal islands, it did not affect the overall strategy, and the situation in which the Kuomintang troops were swept out of the mainland did not change. For General Ye Fei, the young commander of the Tenth Corps, the defeat at Jinmen will be the most unforgettable experience in his life. On the night of October 24th, Ye Fei, who was in Xiamen, was always concerned about the situation of troops crossing the sea to attack Jinmen.He was relieved when he received the report of successful landing in the middle of the night.Unexpectedly, a report came out during the day the next day, saying that the fleet did not return, but the fleet stranded on the island was bombarded and burning smoke was seen across the sea.His heart suddenly became heavy. On October 31, the Tenth Corps held an enlarged meeting of the party committee in Laohu Cave, Xiamen. Ye Fei said: "Because I underestimated the enemy, I couldn't listen to (opinions). Before sailing, I insisted on the phone that only two Battalion, Xiao Feng has a good command of the second echelon, and there is hope for victory in the battle. The loss was caused by me. Please punish the front committee and the Party Central Committee severely.” Later, the situation was reported to Mao Zedong.Mao Zedong said: "The defeat of Jinmen is not a matter of punishment, but a matter of learning lessons." The Central Military Commission ordered Ye Fei to prepare to attack Jinmen again. In his later published memoirs, Ye Fei described the lessons and reflections of Kinmen’s defeat at a deeper level: We should not be limited to accepting lessons from experience, and we should not only accept lessons from a micro perspective, but also appreciate the greater significance of this lesson from a macro perspective.That is, under the conditions of modern warfare, without command of the sea and air, it is very difficult to carry out large-scale crossing and landing operations.In the early 1950s, when our navy and air force were still at a disadvantage, if we wanted to cross the Taiwan Strait and liberate Taiwan by wooden sailboats, looking at it now, I am afraid that we will suffer even more than the defeat of Jinmen.After the Golden Gate defeat, he learned his lesson and became clear-headed.Perhaps this is the true meaning of accepting the experience and lessons of the failure to attack Jinmen.