The battle in which the volunteers annihilated the most American troops, a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, left a serious psychological shadow on the US military, and even American General Li Qiwei was reluctant to mention it again for the rest of his life, and even said: "This is the shame of my life." ”
So, what kind of battle is it that makes the US military change color and tremble in such a conversation?In this battle, how did the volunteer army deal a severe blow to the enemy's arrogance?
This battle is the famous Hengcheng counterattack in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and the volunteers annihilated 120,000 U.S. troops and more than 7,800 prisoners forced the U.S. troops to retreat 26 kilometers, almost annihilating the U.S. military.
After the outbreak of the Korean War, the U.S. military was defeated on the battlefield because of MacArthur's blind conceit and a series of erroneous commands. Even Wharton, the commander of their Eighth Army, died in a car accident.
It was during this period that Ridgway was appointed to Korea to take over the post of commander of the Eighth Army.
But when he arrived at the Korean battlefield, he was stunned by the scene in front of him:
The American soldiers, who were originally confident, arrogant, and vigorous, are now all like lost dogs.
The generals of the US army have also completely lost confidence in the situation of the war. Their greatest wish at this time is to be able to evacuate North Korea as soon as possible and "hear the whistle of the returning ship."
I have to say that this is the first time that Li Qiwei has seen the US military so discouraged and unmotivated, and what he has accepted is undoubtedly a mess that is so bad that it can't be worse, which makes him headache How to show his skills, but also makes him more and more curious about the volunteers who are fighting.
I have to say that as an ace general who commanded the Normandy landings, Ridgway does still have two brushes.
As soon as he came up, he resolutely abandoned Seoul and took the initiative to retreat, and at the moment when China and North Korea thought that they had won victory and repaired, they suddenly launched a large-scale counterattack, which caught us by surprise and successfully regained the strategic initiative.
Later, Li Qiwei was even more full of tricks, and what magnetic tactics and strangulation battles caused a lot of losses to the volunteers.
Therefore, our volunteers also feel quite tricky about Li Qiwei, and even Mr. Peng is very jealous of Li Qiwei, so he has to pay attention to him, and he has a spirit of 12 points to see Li Qiwei's moves.
After all, among the U.S. military, which has taken advantage of equipment and technology, there are not many strategic military generals like Li Qiwei, and he is a more respectable opponent than the arrogant MacArthur.
Ridgway could have sat in the headquarters like MacArthur and strategized, but he chose to go to the front line and command in person, and his combat style was very pragmatic and cautious.
Therefore, the volunteers have a high opinion of this strong opponent. And Li Qiwei also feels quite admiration and praise for the volunteers, heroes cherish heroes, he once commented on the volunteers in his memoirs:
"The most ** and most civilized enemy. ”
So, how much the Volunteer Army "Hengcheng counterattack" gave Li Qiwei a hard lesson.
Before the Hengcheng counterattack, Li Qiwei had been vigorously analyzing the tactics of the volunteers, and soon figured out that the volunteers liked to attack at night, and an attack would generally only last about seven days.
Li Qiwei gave this offensive tactic of the Volunteers a figurative name, which was called the "Worship Offensive."
Speaking of which, the reason why the volunteers would take such a worship offensive was indeed a helpless move.
This is mainly due to the fact that under the wanton and indiscriminate bombing of the US Air Force, it is quite difficult for the volunteers to supply logistics, and dozens of material transport vehicles often go on the road, but in the end, almost none of them can be transported to the hands of the volunteers, and all of them are blown up by the US military halfway, and sometimes it is difficult to even send a bag of fried noodles and a basket of apples to the hands of the volunteers.
Coupled with the ammunition and food that the volunteers carried at one time, it could only last for a week at most.
Therefore, whenever the supplies are exhausted and there is no way to renew them in time, the volunteers have no choice but to choose to defend and rest, or even retreat directly.
However, even after the "worship offensive" had been adopted, many of the volunteers were still exhausted by night blindness, sepsis, and other diseases because of long-term starvation, cold and malnutrition, and in addition to the long hours of high-intensity fighting.
After Mr. Peng noticed this point, he decisively decided to let the volunteers retreat for two to three months to recuperate, and then attack before preserving their strength, after all, sharpening knives is not wrong for chopping wood.
However, Li Qiwei naturally would not let go of this great opportunity, and he decided to directly grasp the sore spot of our army's lack of logistics, and chased and attacked the tired volunteer army to save the defeat.
So on January 25, 1951, under Li Qiwei's order, 230,000 American soldiers launched a large-scale attack on the positions of the volunteers who were resting in the east and west.
Among them, the Western Front was the main direction of attack, mainly to carry out assaults on Seoul, and large-scale firepower was hit on the Western Front. The eastern front, on the other hand, was an auxiliary attack, mainly advancing north in the area of Hoengseong Toheong-ri.
In order to ensure that the encirclement and suppression of the volunteers could be won in one fell swoop, the "magnetic tactics" and "strangulation tactics" invented by Li Qiwei also began to take turns.
The so-called magnetic tactics are specially designed to target our army's night battles.
The volunteers are the best at night fighting, because the night is dark and the vision is not good, which can not only avoid the bombardment of aircraft and artillery, but also take the enemy by surprise.
However, as soon as the "joint **" used "magnetic tactics", it always kept a distance of more than 10 kilometers from the Sino-North Korean coalition forces, and fought while withdrawing, so as to avoid direct contact with the volunteers.
When the volunteers fight at night, the field of vision will also be affected, resulting in a small combat radius, at most a distance of 20 kilometers, so whenever night falls, the combined army will deliberately stretch the distance to 20 kilometers away, so that even if our volunteers take advantage of the night battle, it is difficult to successfully divide and encircle the joint **.
As for the "strangulation tactic," it was to use large aircraft formations to attack the transportation roads in the rear of the volunteers, which made the volunteers' originally poor logistical supply even worse.
In addition, Li Qiwei also sent tanks and motorized infantry to form an "advance team" and used the cover of aircraft to penetrate the rear of the volunteers, so as to form a front and rear flanking attack with the main force in front and "strangle" the volunteers.
Of course, Li Qiwei's vision is very full, but he doesn't know that there are people outside the sky, and if his opponent is someone else, he may win this game, but the opponent he met is the famous Mr. Peng.
Seeing that the united ** army was pressuring the border, Mr. Peng took the opportunity to make a counterattack, and formulated the operational policy of "west top and east anti".
When the enemy hits the main force on the Western Front, we will implement a defensive defense and contain the main force of the "United **". Then lure the enemy deep on the relatively weak Eastern Front, hit the main forces for a counterattack, and thus tear a hole in the enemy's front.
Commander Deng Hua, who was responsible for defending the Western Front, although the pressure was very great, but fortunately, the Eastern Front United ** quickly "took the bait", and the Eastern Front Volunteer Army lured the enemy all the way in, and the advance speed of the front was quite fast, and soon exceeded the advance speed of the Western Front, thus forming a folded angle of the overall front of the United **.
As soon as the corner comes out, it means that the seemingly unbreakable union ** has exposed its weakness.
Because from the perspective of strategic defense, once the battle line is prominent, then this prominent part will undoubtedly be exposed to the enemy's field of vision in a lone battle, and it will be easily dumpled.
Seeing that the joint ** of the Eastern Front had formed a prominent position in the area from Topingli to Hengcheng, Mr. Peng hurriedly seized this fleeting fighter and ordered the Deng Hua Group Army, which was responsible for defending the main force of the enemy on the Western Front, to move eastward, looking for an opportunity to outflank the joint ** of the Eastern Front with the 42nd Army.
But the question is, considering that the Volunteer Army has limited strength and cannot attack the enemy forces in Toheong-ri and Hoengseong at the same time, which place will it be more beneficial for us to attack first?
Let's analyze the pros and cons of both sides: First of all, the enemy's firepower in Toheiri is concentrated, the fortifications are strong, and the combat effectiveness is stronger.
If the Volunteers want to divide and annihilate the enemy, it will not be so easy, and the risk will be even greater, and if the battle cannot be resolved quickly, as soon as reinforcements from the US and South Korean armies on the east, west, and south sides arrive, it is very likely that the volunteers will make dumplings.
However, the advantage of fighting Pingli first is that it is closer to the 39th and 40th armies, which is more convenient for marching, and it can also relieve the pressure on the volunteers responsible for the defense on the Western Front, so as to divert firepower.
However, it would have been much easier to strike at the enemy forces in Hoengseong first, because most of the enemy forces in Hoetseong were the South Korean troops that had been used as cannon fodder by the US military, and their combat effectiveness was weaker, and their posture was more prominent, their flanks were more exposed, and they had a greater certainty of taking it quickly.
But it is naturally farther away from the 39th and 40th armies, and it tests the speed and physical fitness of the march.
Under the comprehensive consideration of the two phases, Mr. Peng finally chose a more secure Hengcheng to open the knife, fight quickly, and be able to fight for more fighters to avoid the volunteers from falling into a disadvantageous situation.
So the Hengcheng counterattack kicked off in such a tight swing.
In terms of specific tactical operations, the Chinese Volunteers made full use of the mountainous jungles of the DPRK to carry out roundabout interspersing and dividing and outflanking the enemy troops; among them, two divisions of the Chinese People's Volunteers were responsible for the outer encirclement, one division and one army were responsible for the inner encirclement, and one division was specifically responsible for dividing the enemy troops, directly encircling the enemy so impenetrable that not even a fly could fly out.
The key to determining the success or failure of this encirclement is, to a large extent, whether or not the best route can be chosen to ensure the smooth advance of the interspersed troops.
Fortunately, everything was proceeding steadily: the 42nd Army, which was responsible for the outer encirclement, quickly captured and annihilated the enemy, and cut off the connection between the 8th Division of the South Korean Army and Hoengseong, thus opening the way for the troops responsible for the outer encirclement and the 117th Division, which was responsible for interspersing, and clearing away the worries.
At the same time, the 117th Division, which was responsible for the task of dividing and interspersing, in order to quickly annihilate the enemy, went into battle lightly, threw away all superfluous baggage, traveled 30 kilometers in one night, arrived at the combat area ahead of schedule, cut off the enemy's northern aid road in Hengseong, and the southward escape road of the 8th Korean Division in Hoengseong, and annihilated more than 1,000 enemy who could not escape.
After the initial division and encirclement is formed, the encircled enemy is gradually divided into a number of small pieces and gradually annihilated, during which the focus is on destroying the fire support of the enemy's artillery positions so that the enemy has no artillery to use.
As a result, in just 35 hours, the Volunteer Army annihilated tens of thousands of enemy troops, reversing the originally unfavorable situation in an instant. It was precisely by taking advantage of this opening in Hengcheng that the Volunteers completely tore open the enemy's battle line and forced the enemy to retreat 26 kilometers in order to protect themselves, thus dealing a heavy blow to the arrogance of the US army's counterattack.
Li Qiwei never imagined that under the condition that the US military has absolute air supremacy and firepower superiority, the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Volunteer Army can still complete a large-scale troop deployment and assembly, and complete a roundabout interspersed encirclement of them, which is simply a miracle.
Seeing the mountains of corpses all over the field, Li Qiwei trembled and described it in his memoirs:
I don't want to talk about that fiasco again in my life. At that time, there were corpses of the United ** everywhere, and they all had a very fearful psychology for the volunteers, and almost regarded these people as heavenly soldiers. Once the volunteers with rubber shoes appear on the position of the United Army, they can always make many United Army soldiers run for their lives without looking back. ”
Later, in his book "The Korean War", Li Qiwei praised the courage and brilliant strategy and tactics of the volunteers, but also did not forget to write: "I have to admit that we lost, this is the shadow and shame of my life. ”
After this battle, Li Qiwei finally realized the "best place" of the Volunteer Army, and he didn't dare to underestimate the ** team. So, why does Li Qiwei not only say that the Volunteer Army, but also the Volunteer Army, is the most civilized army in the world?
If it is said, "* is reflected in combat effectiveness." Then "civilization" is embodied in the art of attacking the heart.
After capturing the American soldiers, the volunteers not only never mistreated them, but also set aside a part of the already small amount of food to open small stoves for them.
Even if some of the captives are injured, we will do our best to ** them, and we will care for them even more on weekdays, and we will meet any conditions as much as possible, so that they can feel at home.
As a result, many American prisoners of war felt that they were much happier to live under communism than under capitalism. Even many US prisoners, after being reformed by the volunteers, were unwilling to fight the volunteers anymore even if they returned to the battlefield, and even offered to leave the battlefield and say good things for the volunteers in the US army.
Foreign ** sharply commented on this: "The humanitarian assistance of the Chinese volunteers is quite clever, which not only demonstrates its great power, but also weakens the fighting spirit of the US military." ”
That's right, it is precisely by integrating "civilization" and "civilization" that our army has been able to win all battles in a hundred battles and always be invincible and defend the security of the motherland and the people again and again when the enemy is strong and we are weak.