Ridgway, the second commander-in-chief of U.S. forces during the Korean War, likes to be there in person and is neither arrogant like MacArthur nor conformist like Mark Clark, the third commander-in-chief. Li Qiwei was a fierce enemy of our country in the Korean War, and in the back-and-forth battles with our army, he saved some face for the United States in the Korean battlefield. But even Seoul, where this powerful opponent sits, was still conquered by our army in 4 days, and when he escaped from Seoul, Li Qiwei left a message on his combat table: Salute to the commander-in-chief of the squadron.
What kind of battle could make a high-ranking American general with strong military talent so admired our volunteers? Is it a tribute to the commander-in-chief of the squadron?
After the successful landing of the United ** from Inchon in September 1950, the North Korean army advanced all the way to the north, and the North Korean army was unable to resist the US offensive at all, MacArthur believed that North Korea was bound to win, MacArthur's attitude affected Truman's judgment, and he also felt that it should not be difficult to control the north of the 38th parallel, and if the US military troops could be driven into North Korea, it would be able to give New China a disadvantage and facilitate interference in China. At that time, China had repeatedly issued warnings: If the US military crosses the 38th parallel, China will not sit idly by, and if you send troops, we will definitely send troops! However, our warnings fell on deaf ears by Truman.
The U.S. military crossed the 38th parallel, North Korea retreated, and North Korea was in a hurry and turned to China for help. On October 19, 1950, China sent a million volunteers across the Yalu River into North Korea to fight to resist US aggression and aid Korea, the first confrontation between our volunteers and the US army ended in the defeat of the United States, and the US army was driven south of the Qingchuan River.
Li Qiwei took over as commander of the Eighth Army, and the new officer took up three fires, and he threatened to break the Chinese Volunteer Army"The myth of invincibility"and declare themselves to live and die with the army. In fact, Li Qiwei gradually found that what he had taken over was a hot potato, how strong the morale of the US army was at the beginning, how low the morale is now, and suffered the unexpected death of the main general, they did not know when they would die on the battlefield, they had no intention of fighting at all, and the situation of the US Eighth Army was quite bad.
The first fire of Li Qiwei's new official was to correct the morale of the army, but the effect was not optimistic. The second fire is that based on his previous combat experience, he gradually mastered the operational characteristics of the Chinese Volunteers, gradually understood the combat style of the Volunteers, and figured out the way of the Volunteers in a ghostly manner, day and night, and tenacious fighting.
He set up a defensive line from the Imjin River to the 38th parallel, set up two basic defensive lines with a depth of 60 kilometers on the front line running 250 kilometers across the Korean Peninsula, carefully arranged three mobile defense lines, and specially arranged a large number of barbed wire and mines.
The Chinese Volunteers have launched an offensive on the whole line on December 31, 1950 on the occasion of the arrival of the New Year, before the battle began, the commander of the 116th Division, Wang Yang, ordered the cooking class to make a meal of chili beef, the beef was cut into large pieces, after the soldiers ate the beef, at 17 o'clock that night, the volunteers attacked on all fronts, taking advantage of the heat of the chili pepper, desperately charged forward. The soldiers had to cross the Imjin River, so Wang Yang raised a large amount of Vaseline and lard for the soldiers to apply to keep out the cold, and instructed the soldiers to only wear cotton clothes, not cotton pants, if the ice water splashed on the ice surface by artillery fire stained the cotton pants, it would freeze and freeze, and the soldiers' movements would be severely restricted, and they would not be able to fight at all.
The ice on the river was blown up, which caused great trouble for the passage of the soldiers, but this was not a problem in the eyes of the volunteers, when the order to charge was given, the soldiers of the 116th Division who were ambushed by the river rushed towards the river with all their might, although the river was cold and biting, but this did not stop their progress, and the soldiers rushed towards the shore one after another.
After the volunteers arrived at the shore, 70 cannons transferred by Wang Yang bombarded the blockhouses of the ROK army, and the enemy soldiers were blown up into the sky one after another, and the volunteers were like tigers jumping out of the snow-capped mountains and pounced on the enemy's position. The defense set up by Li Qiwei was torn apart by the volunteer army like paper paste. Seeing this situation, the South Korean soldiers forgot to pick up their war guns, but turned around and ran, the enemy's defense line was vulnerable, and the other armies successfully broke through the enemy's defense line.
Li Qiwei could not have imagined that his carefully arranged five lines of defense were destroyed by the Chinese volunteers within a few hours, and then the volunteers quickly went around to the side of the United **, the Seoul defense line was overcome in only 4 days, and by the morning of January 3 of the year, Seoul had been surrounded by the volunteers in an arc, and if the combined army did not retreat at this time, 100,000 troops might be swallowed by the Chinese volunteers.
Li Qiwei was ashamed to break the myth of the undefeated volunteers and coexist with the army, he didn't know that he would be slapped in the face so soon, and Seoul at this time could no longer be defended, so Li Qiwei decided to run away, and before leaving, he wrote on the table:"Hats off to the Commander-in-Chief of China! "
Li Qiwei was frank and frank after the defeat, and did not complain, and sincerely expressed his admiration to the commander-in-chief, who was really much better than MacArthur.