Beginning in April 1984, the 40th Division of the 14th Army of the People's Liberation Army, under the leadership of division commander Liu Changyou, and the Vietnamese army recovered the Malipo area of Laoshan after many days of fierce fighting. However, the Vietnamese army was unwilling to lose, and after many defeats, the commander of the second front army of the Vietnamese army, Wu Li, constantly transferred troops in an attempt to engage in a large-scale decisive battle with our army.
The Vietnamese army was looking for a flaw in the People's Liberation Army on the Lao Son front, and finally they set their sights on the Songmaoling area, trying to catch our army by surprise by surprise. Vu Li, commander of the Second Front Army of the Vietnamese Army, mobilized more than 20,000 troops from three divisions and nine regiments, and also collected 100,000 rounds of large-caliber artillery shells from all over the country, which accounted for more than half of Vietnam's large-caliber artillery ammunition reserves at that time. At that time, in order to respond to the provocation of the Vietnamese army, our army sent more than 200 trucks to the front line to pull artillery shells for a month.
On the night of 11 July, all the Vietnamese army's radio stations stopped using and remained silent, and the Vietnamese army's forward troops also stopped any provocative acts, and our army's electronic interception unit also deciphered the Vietnamese army's telegram and learned that the Vietnamese army was preparing to launch an attack on a forward infantry regiment of the 40th division of the 14th Army in the early morning of July 12. At 2:50 a.m. on July 12, our artillery unit covered the front of the position with artillery fire, and after the first round of artillery fire covering, there was no response in front of the position, but later, according to the confession of the captured prisoners, the first round of artillery fire coverage of the PLA killed two Vietnamese battalion commanders lurking in the front line of our position, but the Vietnamese army did not make a sound.
After the end of the first round of artillery fire, the People's Liberation Army immediately carried out a second round of artillery strikes, and the Vietnamese troops who were ambushed in the front line of our army's position finally couldn't bear it, and the ghost valley wolf howled and launched a crazy attack on our army. However, due to the reserves and logistics units in the rear of the Vietnamese army, the medical team was blown up by our army, and the troops at the front became a lone army and were quickly eliminated. After the Vietnamese commander reacted, he immediately mobilized heavy troops to continue to attack the garrison regiment at the front of our army.
In this battle, our artillery played a huge role, all rocket artillery, cannons, howitzers, heavy mortars, and even tanks were lined up, forming several walls of fire at the front of the position, blocking the passage of the Vietnamese army's attack, and the Vietnamese army would be blown up as long as they approached this wall of fire. The Vietnamese artillery also launched a counterattack against our army, and our artillery scouts quickly found out the location, and 24 heavy howitzers of the Vietnamese army were destroyed by our army, but the losses of our artillery scouts were also very large, and several scouts were killed by Vietnamese anti-aircraft machine guns during reconnaissance and died bravely.
By the time the artillery was fired at noon, there was already a clear shortage of shells, and the commander of the Yunnan Military Region immediately ordered the troops to stop civilian vehicles on the road to pull artillery shells, and all vehicles coming and going dropped their goods and were taken care of by the PLA, and each vehicle was taken by an officer and soldier of the PLA to the ammunition depot to pull shells. Many drivers did not say a word, unloaded the goods and went to pull the shells, and some drivers even disregarded the dissuasion and pulled the shells to the artillery positions at the forefront.
The battle lasted until more than 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and our artillery fired 3,400 tons of shells to the Vietnamese army, and more than 3,800 Vietnamese troops were at the front of our army's position. Due to the fact that the ** was too large, the Vietnamese army was forced to retreat, and the battle ended in the victory of our army.