In March 1979, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) crushed the main Vietnamese forces in less than a month and achieved its stated goal. The self-defense counterattack against Vietnam entered the final stage, and under the order of **, the participating troops began to withdraw from Vietnam in an orderly manner.
Subsequently, the two sides began to negotiate the exchange of prisoners of war. Due to the collapse on the battlefield, the Vietnamese side only captured more than 200 prisoners, which is a huge gap compared to the thousands of Vietnamese prisoners of war in China's hands.
However, in the process of exchanging prisoners of war, there was still an embarrassing situation for the Chinese side, and the vast majority of these prisoners of war in Vietnam's possession were from the same army.
Defeat and surrender on the battlefield is not uncommon, and the PLA has never been so extreme that it cannot tolerate anyone's surrender. It's just that in the history of our army, it is too rare to surrender as a formation on the battlefield, and this is undoubtedly a great shame for the whole army.
What's more, this surrender incident occurred during the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, and the Vietnamese side seized on it, and they went around publicizing it in order to save some face. This unit, which surrendered in formation, was subordinate to the 50th Regiment of the 150th Division of the 448th Army, so what happened back then? Why did our troops surrender in formation under the condition of absolute superiority?
The 50th Army was originally a heroic unit in the Korean War, and played a great role in battles such as the Han River Blockade. Later, the troops returned to China for rest and reorganization, and since there was no major war in the country, many troops were engaged in local production and construction.
After the 50th Army rested, it was responsible for engineering construction and other work for a long time. Before the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, ** wanted to use this battle to give the main force a chance to exercise. At that time, many units had not fought for a long time, and many soldiers were temporary recruits who lacked combat experience.
The 50th Army is a typical example, the 50th Army, which was not originally part of the main force, carried out emergency mobilization before the war, and a large number of recruits poured into the troops. Originally, the unit had been in charge of engineering construction for a long time, but it already lacked combat experience, but now it has suddenly expanded its strength, and there are more new recruits in the army.
Taking into account their situation, at first the superiors did not assign them the task of entering Vietnam to fight, but only acted as a border reserve. The soldiers of the 50th Army watched their brother troops enter Vietnam and made many achievements, and they wanted to participate in the war and make meritorious contributions, so they took the initiative to fight many times.
At this time, the war had entered the final stage, and the Vietnamese army was no longer able to confront the PLA. Considering that there was no longer any hard battle to be fought in front of them, the Guangxi command agreed to the request of the 50th Army and arranged for them to enter Vietnam to cover the retreat of the main force.
The 50th Army, which received the task, was very happy, and the subordinate 448 Regiment entered Vietnam as the vanguard and began to carry out cover tasks. Everything went well at first, but when it was time to evacuate, the guidance team sent by the military headquarters had a different opinion, and they changed the original retreat route, asking the 448th Regiment to abandon the road and take the small road to carry out the task of searching for the remnants of the enemy.
This decision led to the incident, when the remnants of the Vietnamese army received information and immediately mobilized all the forces they could mobilize to set up an ambush on the path that the regiment must pass. The 2nd Battalion of the 448th Regiment was not familiar with the local environment, and as a result, it entered the enemy's ambush circle, and most of the troops were recruits, which made the troops panic. The Vietnamese army seized the opportunity to seize many dangerous points and took advantage of the superiority in strength to form a joint encirclement of the second battalion.
When the regimental headquarters learned the news, they immediately sent reinforcements, but the Vietnamese army had already prepared and successfully surrounded the reinforcements sent by the regimental headquarters. Subsequently, the Vietnamese army launched a more fierce attack, scattering the forces of the 2nd Battalion, and the 1st and 8th companies of the 2nd Battalion were blocked by the enemy on a small hill in the chaotic battle.
After several days of fighting, the troops suffered considerable losses and had no supplies. The enemy is shrinking the encirclement, their situation is even more difficult, and external reinforcements are not available.
Seeing that the troops were cornered, Feng Zengmin, the instructor of the Eighth Company, made an unexpected decision, he presided over the branch committee and put forward a proposal for surrender to everyone. Everyone was shocked to learn that the troops were still fighting at that time, and most of them did not think of surrendering.
Li Heping, the commander of the first company, was reluctant to surrender at first, but Feng Zengmin persuaded him not to let everyone die here in vain, and he finally wavered. In this way, in the discussion of the branch committee, Feng Zengmin's opinion was passed, and he led more than 200 people to surrender to the Vietnamese army.
This incident became the biggest defeat of the People's Liberation Army in the Vietnam War, and General Xu Shiyou was very angry when he learned of this, and the 50th Army was severely punished for it. The military headquarters, deputy commanders, and other high-ranking military officials who made erroneous plans were demoted. The most serious is undoubtedly Feng Zengmin, who led the surrender, and others, Feng Zengmin was tried after returning to China, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Later, Feng Zengmin was released after completing his sentence, he still couldn't avoid this matter, many people often asked him why he led his troops to surrender, Feng Zengmin couldn't refute it, and could only prevaricate with words like "helpless".
In fact, the main responsibility for this matter lies with the military department that formulated the wrong plan, and their guidance group made a wrong judgment, which led to this series of events, but Feng Zengmin, who led the surrender of the troops, still has to bear the main responsibility for this incident, after all, this kind of surrender of the formation is really too shameful.