Vietnam is China's southern neighbor, and historically, Vietnam has been deeply influenced by Chinese culture, whether it is in writing, education, traditional customs, or in the official system and clothing, Vietnam has copied all of China. In modern times, both China and Vietnam were invaded by foreign powers, and China was reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, while Vietnam was completely reduced to a French colony, and after the outbreak of the Pacific War, it became a Japanese colony.
After the end of World War II, the French, who had failed in World War II, wanted to make a comeback and continue to regard Vietnam as their colony, but the Vietnamese people fiercely resisted. The establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 greatly encouraged Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh went to China many times to ask China to provide assistance to Vietnam, whether it was during the Vietnam War to Resist France or later the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Vietnam, China has made great aid to Vietnam, especially during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Vietnam, China has sent 320,000 people to Vietnam to help Vietnam resist the aggression of the Americans.
In 1975, the United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam, and Vietnam quickly completed its reunification. After the reunification of Vietnam, it tore up the 1958 declaration that Vietnam recognized the Dongsha Islands, Xisha Islands, Zhongsha Islands, and Nansha Islands as belonging to China, and invaded and occupied more than 96% of China's Nansha Islands. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam embarked on the path of foreign expansion, claiming to be the third military power, and frequently invaded Southeast Asian countries.
Vietnam not only invaded small countries in Southeast Asia, but also encroached on China's border territory, and the Vietnamese army toppled boundary monuments, encroached on the border, and created incidents such as Pu Nen Ling and Dinh Hao Mountain, which caused a lot of damage to the Chinese border military and civilians. In addition, Vietnam began to frantically exclude Chinese, suppressed the normal life of overseas Chinese, confiscated the property of overseas Chinese, and drove these overseas Chinese to the Sino-Vietnamese border area.
On February 17, 1979, the 29th infantry division of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) began a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam to counter Vietnam's aggression. The operation lasted only a month, and the PLA advanced 30-50 kilometers deep into northern Vietnam on all fronts from east to west, up to 100 kilometers. It destroyed all industrial facilities and troops in the mountainous areas of northern Vietnam, and seized a large number of supplies that had previously provided assistance to Vietnam.
In this battle, the PLA had absolute superiority in both equipment and troops, so the battle was quickly resolved. However, before this battle, the squadron had not fought for more than ten years, and what was more serious was that during the ten years of turmoil, many troops neglected to train, and their combat capability declined rapidly, resulting in great losses in a small number of troops, and the 150th Division is a very typical example.
The 150th Division belongs to the 50th Army, but this unit is not the old unit of the 50th Army, and the 50th Army, a strong force of the Yunnan Army, has a very strong combat effectiveness and has performed well in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In December 1964, the original 150th Division of the 50th Army was reorganized into the Independent Division of Liaoning Province.
In November 1967, after the 50th Army changed its defense from the northeast to Sichuan, the 150th Division of the Army was reorganized on the basis of the 150th Army based on the Independent Infantry Regiment, the 7th Independent Infantry Battalion, the Independent Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion of the Chengdu Military Region, and the Infantry School Service Company, which was subordinate to the 50th Army.The reorganized 150th Division was a Type B Division, and at that time, the country's comprehensive national strength was not strong, and it did not have the strength to focus on the development of each unit, so the Type B Division like the 150th Division was usually mainly engaged in production activities such as road repair, bridge repair, pig raising, and vegetable planting.
After the outbreak of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam in 1979, the 150th Division was urgently expanded from the B Division to the A Division, and a large number of recruits were replenished, as well as some veterans drawn from the northern troops, and the whole division was expanded from 6,000 to 110,000 people. Although the 150th Division after the expansion seems to be strong and strong, they have just been distributed, but there are many recruits in this unit, there is no actual combat experience, many recruits have only been in the army for a few months, and most of the platoon-level officers have just been promoted, and some veterans have been promoted to squad leaders, deputy squad leaders, many grassroots company commanders, and platoon commanders can't even hand over the names of their own soldiers. In addition, China had not yet restored the military rank system at that time, which made it even more difficult to command the troops.
Beginning on 21 February, the 150th Division marched from its Sichuan garrison along the Sichuan-Guizhou Railway to the Guangxi Theater, and after nearly 3,000 kilometers of railway transportation and motorized marching, it marched to Ningming, Mingjiang, and other areas before 5 March to assemble. In order to strengthen the leadership of the 150th Division, the 50th Army also sent a working group composed of Deputy Commander Guan, Deputy Commander Lin, Deputy Political Commissar Hou and others to advance with the 150th Division.
After the 150th Division arrived in the theater, it served as a reserve, and the superiors did not plan to let this unit go out to fight, because when the 150th Division arrived at the front line, the battle was almost over. However, the higher-level leaders of the 50th Army saw that other units had made meritorious contributions and wanted to make meritorious contributions, so they repeatedly asked for war to push this unit onto the battlefield, and finally the 150th Division won the task of leaving the country to cover the retreat of the main force and clear the remnants of the Vietnamese army near the road.
On March 6, the 150th Division (owed artillery regiment) was ordered by the former commander of the Guangzhou Military Region to leave the direction of Shuikou Pass and carry out tasks in the area west of Gaoping under the command of the 41st Army.
On March 7, the 448th Regiment, the avant-garde regiment of the 150th Division, entered Cao Ping, and then cleared the Vietnamese strongholds on both sides of the road near Ban Anh, and performed well. The 450th Regiment on the right flank searched and cleared the north flank, annihilating part of the Vietnamese army and collecting the bodies of friendly soldiers and martyrs who were scattered along the way; The 449th Regiment also completed the task of cooperating with the 121st Division in a roundabout attack on the Nalong area.
On March 10, the 41st Army ordered the 150th Division to stop continuing its offensive to the south, clear and retreat to the north, and asked it to withdraw from the direction of Pingmeng on the 14th. However, on the specific route of retreat, there was a serious disagreement between the deputy commander of the 50th Army Pass and the commander of the 150th Division, Liu Tongsheng. The deputy commander of the 50 th Military Pass believed that the task of clearing out the remnants of the enemy and searching for and suppressing the warehouses and materials of the Vietnamese army had not been completed enough, and that it was still necessary to take the northern road to clear and retreat, go to the mountains to fight an intersperse, and strive for greater results.
Liu Tongsheng, commander of the 150th Division, believed that the troops had completed the tasks assigned by their superiors, and as long as they returned the same way, it would be a victory. Moreover, the interspersed route mentioned by Deputy Army Commander Guan has complex terrain along the way, and there are often remnants of the enemy, and the 121st Division of the 41st Army suffered a lot of losses when it was interspersed in this place, and the 150th Division should not repeat the mistakes of the past.
The dispute between the deputy army commander and the division commander went all the way to the front of the Guangzhou Military Region, which believed that the war was over and that it was okay to return the same way, and did not agree to take any more risks. However, the 150th Division's confidential section was negligent in its work, and the telegram from the front of the Guangzhou Military Region was forgotten, and the confidential officer destroyed it before it could be translated. The working group of the 50 th Army stationed in the division believed that it should obey the orders of Deputy Army Commander Guan without receiving instructions from its superiors, and this was the great mistake.
In this way, without receiving instructions from his superiors, Deputy Army Commander Guan ordered all units of the 150th Division to retract and retreat in the name of the working group of the army stationed in the division, the 450th Regiment, which had previously carried out the task of clearing and suppressing and containing in the north, continued to clear and retreat to the north, the 449th Regiment, which had completed the task of attacking the Nalong area, retreated from the Banjun area to the north, and the 448th Regiment on the westernmost side retreated from the Banying area to the north.
At noon on March 11, when the 2nd Battalion of the 448th Regiment of the 150th Division marched to the west of Ban Anh, it was ambushed by the Vietnamese army, who strafed the 2nd Battalion with machine guns on a mountain. In fact, there were not many Vietnamese troops attacking the second battalion, and there were no heavy machine guns or artillery fire, so they did not dare to rush out and launch an attack on the second battalion. However, the 2nd Battalion and the 448th Regiment Headquarters immediately panicked the first regiment, the 2nd Battalion asked the whole regiment to come back, the 448th Regiment asked the division headquarters for the whole regiment to come back, and asked the other two regiments of the 150th Division to move closer to them, but the division command group did not agree to the whole regiment's return and asked the 2nd Battalion to fight out by itself.
For a long time after the attack on the 2nd Battalion, there were no instructions from the higher-ups, and it was not until 11 p.m. on the evening of the 11th that the 2nd Battalion was ordered to move on. The Vietnamese army did not attack much, and did not dare to attack rashly, so they could only follow behind.
In the early morning of the 12th, when the 2nd Battalion was walking to a valley, it received an order from its superiors to rest and recuperate on the spot. However, this unit did not send capable forces to seize the hills on both sides, and the large Vietnamese army soon arrived and immediately launched an attack on the second battalion, dividing the second battalion into several sections.
After the 2nd Battalion was attacked by the Vietnamese army, the regimental headquarters of the 448th Regiment also quickly heard the gunfire and again asked the whole regiment to return for reinforcements, but it was opposed by the working group of the military headquarters stationed in the division, and asked the 2nd Battalion to break out of the encirclement by itself. The 448th Regiment had no choice but to let the chief of staff take the first company and the eighth company to reinforce, but this company was ambushed by the Vietnamese army on the way to reinforce, and it was quickly dispersed by the Vietnamese army, and the operation to rescue the second battalion ended in failure. On the 13th, the 449th and 450th regiments, which had retreated on the east side, found some of the separated personnel of the 2nd battalion of the 448th regiment. The front commander of the 41st Army also got the news at this time and immediately ordered the nearby troops to return to the rescue, but due to the complex terrain of the besieged area, the rescue mission was very difficult.
After the second battalion and other scattered troops of the 448th regiment were besieged for many days, people began to go down the mountain to surrender, and the commander of the 1st company, Li Heping, and the instructor of the 8th company, Feng Zengmin, led the team to hide and hide for 3 days. Wang Lixin, the deputy company commander of the 8th Company, was unwilling to surrender, and led the 1st platoon to rush down the mountain. In the end, he was seriously wounded, and died with the enemy, and died heroically.
In the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, the PLA had a total of 239 prisoners, one of whom died in the prisoner of war camp, while the 448 Regiment accounted for 202 people, including the deputy political commissar of the 448 Regiment, the chief of staff, the commander of the second battalion and many other middle-level commanders. Later, when the Million Dollar was disarmed, the 50th Army became the first batch of troops to be dismantled, and no one objected.