Chapter 4 4. After taking over from Peng Dehuai as the commander of the Volunteer Army more than 30 years ago, Yang Dezhi went to Yunnan to serve as the frontline commander again

Jiji News Agency, Tokyo, February 8th: Westerners in Beijing speculate that within a few days China may determine its strategy for Vietnam.Western analysts say that there are 100,000 Chinese troops on the Sino-Vietnamese border.Wang Bicheng, commander of the Kunming Military Region, was transferred to be the commander of the Wuhan Military Region.Yang Dezhi, commander of the Wuhan Military Region, was transferred to be the commander of the Kunming Military Region.This change is related to the Vietnam strategy. Kyodo News, Beijing, February 17th: It has been learned that China has equipped Yang Dezhi, the commander of the Chinese Volunteer Army during the Korean War, as the commander of the frontline troops against Vietnam.The reason why he was conveyed as the commander of the Kunming army was due to the urgent measures taken to adapt to the changes in the military situation on the southern border.

Battle of Menglianggu.The sixth column of the East China Field Army rushed for more than 200 miles to seize Duozhuang by force, cut off the enemy's retreat, and completed the final encirclement of the reorganized 70th Car Division, known as the "Imperial Forest Army" and ranked first among the five main forces of the National Standing Army.Column commander Wang Bicheng immediately reported to Chen Yi and Su Yu. The heroic feat and spirit of crossing the Dadu River is a glorious page in the history of China's revolutionary war.Whenever Yang Dezhi recites the heroic line in Mao Zedong's "Long March" poem "The golden sand water beats the clouds and cliffs to warm, the Dadu Bridge crosses the iron cables to be cold, and even more likes the thousand miles of snow in the Minshan Mountains, and the three armies are all happy after passing", it is like hearing the shocking shore of the Dadu River back then. Voice.

Yang Dezhi and Wang Bicheng, the two generals, are very ambitious.Wang Bicheng is more familiar with the troops of the Kunming Military Region and knows himself; Yang Dezhi is more familiar with the combat characteristics of the Vietnamese army and knows the enemy. The Central Military Commission was afraid of the heavy balance and decided that Yang Dezhi would fly to the front line immediately to take over the pre-war deployment and command. I won't talk about the first half of my military career.In the second half of his life, his position moved south step by step.Following Peng Dehuai, he served as the commander of the Chinese People's Volunteers; he returned to China and served as the commander of the Jinan Military Region; in early 1974, he was called to Beijing by Chairman Mao Zedong and sang two songs, "The Internationale" and "Three Great Disciplines and Eight Points of Attention". The personnel were transferred, and Yang Dezhi was appointed as the commander of the Wuhan Military Region.For more than 20 years, it has traversed the whole of China from the icy and snowy North Korea through the Yellow River and the Yangtze River to the southern border of the subtropical mountains and jungles.This time, Yang Dezhi felt a great responsibility to take charge of hundreds of thousands of troops mobilized by several major military regions, and to compete against small bullies in areas with rich combat experience under the eyes of the world.

Yang Dezhi is no stranger to Vietnam.In 1967, when he resisted U.S. aggression and aided Vietnam, he visited North Vietnam as the head of a friendly delegation and inspected the military situation in detail.He would never have imagined that this neighbor, whom he had worked so hard to help in accordance with the instructions of the Party Central Committee, would push the "comrades plus brothers" friendship between the two countries to the brink of war two years later. He fulfilled a mission completely opposite to that of the previous Year of the Goat, which he couldn't help but sigh with emotion.The foreign news agency put it lightly: "It seems that Commander Yang Dezhi has considerable knowledge of Vietnam's combat forms and 'tricks'."

The flat land in the lower part of the mountains is called Bazi by Yunnan frontier people.There is a not-so-small dam where paddy fields have been reclaimed by border residents of the two countries.There is a vigorous old tree in the dam, which belongs to neither China nor Vietnam.That is to say, the border between the two countries is centered on the trunk.Boundary monuments are far apart, and the delineation of national borders between boundary monuments often follows the direction of mountains and rivers and obvious features, such as this ancient tree.Both sides of the old tree are fertile and moist, and the branches and leaves are luxuriant. The working border residents rest under the tree when they are tired, and take shelter under the tree when it rains. The friendship between the two sides has been baptized and tested by many years of ups and downs.

One day in the late 1970s, the Vietnamese set fire to an old tree.After a few months, the dead tree was cut down by the Vietnamese.A few more months passed, and the Vietnamese dug up the roots, filled in the pits, and removed the border markers.Since then, the ridges of the Vietnamese paddy fields have gradually moved towards the Chinese territory, as if they had grown legs. It is obvious that the land on both sides of the dam is changing.With such a solid boundary and so, other areas can be imagined.Hundreds of such incidents occur on the Sino-Vietnamese border every year, and no less than a hundred Zhenbao Islands are encroached on.Of course, my border residents refused to agree, and wanted to move the ridge back to the place where the old trees had grown. The Vietnamese police officers on standby rushed over with knives and beat me with sticks. Several people were injured while I was there.

More simply, Pu Nianling, the Chinese territory on the right front of Friendship Pass, was occupied by the Vietnamese army in August 1978.They shouted: Not only is this place ours, but Guangdong and Guangxi are also ours, and all places with kapok trees are ours. Since the Vietnamese government didn't say that, let's just ignore it as the wild words of a few people.As for the Vietnamese government's public statement that China's Nansha Islands are their Hoang Sa Islands, our government certainly cannot back down. The problem is that border cannibalization has intensified without a public declaration from the Vietnamese government.And we still abide by the principle of "comrades plus brothers".

In the dam with the old trees mentioned above, my border inspection station saw that the land was occupied and the border residents were beaten. The instructor was overwhelmed and led more than a hundred militiamen to go there with sticks.Even if this matter is over, Yue Fang is guilty and dare not shout.But our side didn't stop, thinking that the instructor snored improperly, transferred him away from the border inspection station, and reported criticism to the border inspection system as a typical violation of the border defense policy.Endure again and again, give in again, until it is unbearable, and there is no room for surrender. This case is regarded as a positive example of our side and a crime of the Vietnamese side, and is used to educate the troops participating in the war.

And the Vietnamese side built dams to change the river to change the national border, and plundered and killed our border residents, and took away the cattle, and shot at the villages and schools, and attacked our border guards, and there are still ...to enrich perceptual knowledge. In fact, this kind of mobilization is far less powerful than the Vietnamese speaking out.The officers and soldiers of Yuezhu reached the height of rational understanding before our army commanders and fighters. On July 8, 1978, the General Political Bureau of the Vietnam People's Army issued the "Education Outline on the New Situation and Tasks", using the self-evident "× country" as the "enemy country", and emphasizing that the combat policy should adopt a long-established offensive strategy and surprise , take the initiative to attack the enemy "beyond the borders", we must prepare for a protracted war, and we must win the greatest sympathy, support and help from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.To speed up the invasion of Cambodia at present, the Vietnamese army must first concentrate its forces to complete urgent military tasks and strive for victory in the war to defend the southwest border. The sooner the better.

The implication is, and then concentrate on dealing with China. If China is also as big as Cambodia, it must be merged into Vietnam's "Indochina Federation" first.Vietnam does not dare to invade China on a large scale with its current strength. This is the reality of power, and Vietnam vows to be an enemy of China regardless of all consequences. This is also a political reality. Hoang Tung, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and editor-in-chief of the Party Central Committee's newspaper "North People's Daily", made it clear in a conversation with Swedish journalist Eric Pierre.The original quote is as follows:

——During the (Vietnam) War, it was most important for Vietnam to have China and the Soviet Union try their best to help North Vietnam.Now, Vietnam no longer needs to implement this policy.It is true that Vietnam shares a border with China, a large country to the south, and this relationship between neighbors has both positive and negative aspects.In any case, the political and cultural pressure from the north must be eliminated, therefore, the rapprochement with the Soviet Union plays a very important role for Vietnam today.The Soviet Union's strong desire to reduce China's influence in this part of the world coincided with Vietnam's interests. — It is on these issues that we begin to lean more and more towards the Soviet Union. When did you say that? 1976. As early as one year after Vietnam won the War of Resistance against the United States, the Vietnamese authorities began to trample on the friendship between the two countries that Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Ho Chi Minh jointly created.When Huang Song said this, Chairman Mao Zedong was still alive.On July 13 of that year, this talk was published in the US "Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily". The decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China became a powerful mobilization order for all soldiers participating in the war. It is impossible for the Soviet Union to be unresponsive to China's war against Vietnam.World public opinion is very concerned about this. An expert from the U.S. State Department said: China’s concentration of troops has exceeded the strength it needs just to show its strength. China’s invasion of Vietnam is likely to cause retaliation from Hanoi’s protectors in Moscow. Moscow has 44 divisions stationed on the Chinese border. Well, while China has hundreds of nuclear bombs and missiles, its armed forces - despite their sheer numbers - are too poorly equipped to stop the Russians from invading. The New York Times published Delton's article "The Soviet Union Has Multiple Choices in Transiting China". The most attractive route for the Soviet Union to attack China is the Junggar Basin in the northwest, but it is also the least beneficial route because there is no industry. goals and political goals.And Manchuria is a region that has always attracted the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has 44 elite divisions in the east of Siberia. Manchuria, like the Ruhr in Germany, is such a valuable target for competition. There are important steel factories, aircraft factories, And Daqing Oilfield.If they enter this area, the Russians will fight on familiar terrain because they wiped out the Japanese Kwantung Army. The theory of the ranks of the world is mostly based on pure military strength, but it also objectively reflects the current situation of the power balance between China and the Soviet Union. According to authoritative sources, the attitude of the Soviet Union is nothing more than three types: (1) curse; (2) intimidation; (3) partial invasion.The policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is to fully expose and refute based on the development of the situation; to stand up firmly and never show weakness; Be fully prepared for possible scenarios. Accordingly, the "Three North" frontier troops in the Northeast, North China, and Northwest have entered a state of high-level combat readiness to prevent accidents. According to general estimates, it would take 14 days or even longer for the Soviet troops to complete their war preparations in transit between China and the Soviet Union.What's more, the Soviet Union and Vietnam signed a new treaty of friendship and cooperation, and the Sino-Soviet treaty was approaching its expiration date but was not abolished. China's determination remains unchanged. The frontline command issued the attack order as scheduled.