After the establishment of India in 1947, its aggressive ambitions gradually became apparent, and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru openly declared: "The watershed formed by the Himalayas is the natural border between China and India." "Since then, India has continued to invade and encroach on the territory surrounding our country.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the situation at home and abroad was still very tense, first of all, there were millions of remnants of the Kuomintang in China, bandits, and spies that had not been cleaned up, and they were still carrying out sabotage operations. In the southeastern coastal areas, Chiang Kai-shek, with the help of the Americans, built up a powerful naval and air force to constantly attack and harass the large cities along the southeast coast. In October 1950, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea also broke out, and China had to concentrate all its forces on the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Taking advantage of our internal and external troubles, India stepped up its aggression against our territory, and by 1953 India had taken complete control of 90,000 square kilometers of land in the eastern sector. In 1954, India set up the so-called Northeast Frontier Special Zone here in an attempt to legitimize the illegally occupied territory of our country.
For the sake of the hard-won peace between the two countries, China has been working hard to communicate and coordinate with the Indian side. In 1960, the foreign minister personally rushed to New Delhi to hold talks with Jawaharlal Nehru to seek a peaceful solution to the dispute, but the Indian side had a very bad attitude and rejected our reasonable demands, without any intention of negotiating at all.
At that time, there was another person who followed *** to visit India, and that was Zhou Jiading, the military secretary of his office. In 1950, when Zhang Guohua led the 18th Army into Tibet, Zhou Jiading served as the director of the Political Department of the 52nd Division of the 18th Army, and he knew the troops of the ** Military Region very well. At that time, *** asked Zhou Jiading: "After the troops entered Tibet, they were busy with survival and engaged in production, construction, and military training tasks, right?" ”
Zhou Jiading replied confidently: ".They have been engaged in military training all along, and at present large units are still participating in counterinsurgency battles, and the places they go to are cold and oxygen-deficient places, the climate is harsh, and they do not possess a strong body and excellent military qualities, so they are not up to such tasks. ”
Both *** and *** are very cautious about this operation. On the third day after returning to China, he asked Zhou Jiading again: "Jiading, tell me the truth, can the troops of the military region fight?" Zhou Jiading replied: ".Prime Minister, the troops of the ** Military Region have fought vicious battles in Hubei, Henan and Anhui, as well as the Qamdo Campaign, counterinsurgency operations, and have strong combat effectiveness. Besides, Commander Zhang Guohua is a commander who is very capable of fighting a war, and he is calm and calm. Zhou Jiading guessed from this series of problems at that time, and it was really to the extent that he had to fight.
At that time, the reason why we were so nervous was mainly because we didn't know what the strength of the Indian army was, take the seventh brigade, which was the most rampant in the Indian army at that time, this unit belonged to the 4th division of the ace of the Indian army, which had a very long history, the department was originally a British colonial unit, and most of the battalions were established in the 18th and 19th centuries and have a history of more than 100 years.
During World War II, the 7th Brigade of the Indian Army was under the command of Marshal Montgomery, a famous British general, and fought against the troops of Rommel, the German "Desert Fox". In the Battle of Cassino in 1944, this Indian army unit and the German 1st Paratrooper Division fought a repeated tug-of-war. Before the self-defense counterattack against India, we felt that since the Indian army could fight the German army, its combat effectiveness would certainly not be bad, so we attached great importance to this battle.
In 1962, after Zhang Guohua attended the Thousand People Conference in Beijing, he asked him: ".I heard that the Indian army still has some combat effectiveness, and we can't win it. Zhang Guohua replied affirmatively".If we win, please rest assured that we will win。At that time, *** also took into account the consequences of not being able to win the Indian army, and many other marshals also personally told Zhang Guohua to help him solve the problems he was facing.
On October 13, 1962, on the day Zhang Guohua returned to Lhasa, he urgently convened an operational meeting, although Zhang Guohua despised the enemy strategically, but he did not dare to underestimate the enemy at all in tactics, and he ordered the troops to take out the strength to fight the five main forces and fight the Battle of Pingxingguan.
The soldiers and horses did not move the grain and grass first, and then Zhang Guohua found Hou Jie, who was in charge of transportation in the ** Working Committee, Hou Jie was also a veteran cadre of the 18th Army, as soon as they met, Zhang Guohua asked him: "Can you transport 50 trucks of artillery shells to the front line within 24 hours." Hou Jie replied: "Commander, I promise you that no matter how great the difficulty is, you will resolutely complete the task." Although Zhang Guohua is very confident in Hou Jie, he also knows that the road condition of the nearly 200-kilometer highway is very poor, and many sections of the road cannot be passed by vehicles at all, so they can only rely on manpower to transport. As a result, after the battle began, Hou Jie only took 10 hours to complete the pre-war material transportation task.
After that, Zhang Guohua rushed to Shannan, the headquarters of Unit 419 and other places, and worked out combat plans with the troops and inspected the transportation routes. At that time, Zhang Guohua's health was very poor, and after running around on the plateau for many days, he had a high fever and a headache that felt like it was about to crack. When crossing a mountain pass,The soldiers of the guard platoon saw that he couldn't stand up, and wanted to carry him over on a stretcher, but Zhang Guohua refused, he said: "This is a war, what impact will it have if the soldiers see it?" ”As a result, the guards could only help him to move forward, and it can be said that for this battle, Zhang Guohua took out the strength to strike iron and exhausted all his energy.
At half past seven o'clock in the morning of October 20, 1962, just after dawn, the Sino-Indian border artillery was fired, and our army began to launch a counterattack against the invading Indian army. Zhang Guohua was highly nervous, confidently looking at the map on the wall, thinking about whether there were any problems with the battle plan he had made, or any unexpected situations that might be encountered.
Under the cover of artillery fire, our army quickly launched an attack on the invading Indian army, the soldiers in front fell, and the rear continued to rush forward, without a little hesitation, the Indian army was shocked by the offensive momentum of our army, and began to break up one after another. At the beginning, our army also encountered some tough resistance from the Indian army, but after our army took some strongholds, the Indian army was defeated and fled backwards.
The famous Pang Guoxing trio, after being separated from the troops, after pulling out several Indian artillery positions in a row, ran after several battalions of Indian troops, and beat the Indian army very embarrassed, but the Indian army did not dare to destroy the three of them, and caught up with the main force of our army that followed them.
Before the first night, our troops cleared the Indian strongholds of Kronqianjie, Tawang, Galwan Valley, and Hongshantou within the Line of Actual Control of our army, and the troops in the center quickly eliminated the so-called ace 7th Brigade of the Indian army, and captured Brigadier General Darvel. Because the troops moved too quickly, Zhang Guohua felt that he couldn't control the rhythm of the troops, and he thought that the Indian army was deliberately luring the enemy into the depths.
After the end of the first phase of the campaign,The Indian army sent several so-called elite brigades to the south of Tawang, and Lieutenant General Kaul of the Indian army personally took command, and our army began the second phase of the campaign, but just three days after the battle, our army rushed to the traditional customary line of the Sino-Indian borderThe Indian army was once again crushed, and even the commander-in-chief of the Indian army, Lieutenant General Kaul, almost became a prisoner of the army, and our army was only 300 kilometers away from New Delhi at this time, which frightened Nehru into a national mobilization.
The 1962 self-defense counterattack against India lasted only a month, and our army only dispatched a small number of troops, but the results were very brilliant.
Our army annihilated 3 brigades of the Indian Army (the 7th Brigade, the 62nd Brigade, and the 4th Artillery Brigade), basically annihilated 3 brigades of the Indian Army (the 112th Brigade, the 48th Brigade, and the 65th Brigade), and annihilated the 5th, 67th, 114th, and 129th Brigades of the Indian Army, killed and wounded 4,885 people under Brigadier General Hoshir Singh, commander of the 62nd Brigade of the Indian Army, and captured 3,968 people (including 26 colonels and 29 lieutenants) under Brigadier General Ji Pu Dalvi, commander of the 7th Brigade of the Indian Army. The team suffered 722 casualties (including 82 officers and 640 enlisted men) and 697 wounded (including 173 officers and 524 enlisted men).
In mid-December 1962, the squadron wiped down all the captured materials, ammunition, vehicles and other materials, placed them neatly, and asked the Indian army to come and get them. In May 1953, our army released all the captured Indian officers and soldiers.
After the battle, Zhang Guohua said with relief"I've been in the army for 33 years, and I've never fought such an easy battle。Of course, Zhang Guo's sentence is not the most ruthless, after the war, when Pang Guoxing's division commander asked him why the three of them dared to attack the Indian army, Pang Guoxing replied:"Instead of surrendering, the enemy dared to fire back