Chapter 6: Fierce Battle on the Nameless Heights

"At two o'clock in the morning on August 13, 1969, all of us border guards gathered on the basketball court under the night sky after dinner. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Carrying a semi-automatic rifle with 200 rounds of ammunition, a grenade launcher and 4 grenades, I stood shoulder to shoulder with my classmates, ready to go. I was in high spirits and in high spirits, feeling that the opportunity to kill the enemy and make meritorious contributions had finally arrived. Comrades, like me, have an irrepressible excitement.

After the squad leader asked everyone to count, he checked the weapons and equipment equipped by each of us, and helped us sort out our clothes and discipline buttons. Then, shaking hands with each of us, patting us on the shoulder, and making eye contact with us, we felt a kind of brotherly affection for life and death.

The squad leaders of each squad reported to the company commander the number and preparation of their squads, after which the political commissar of the Tacheng Military Sub-district began to speak in a very heavy and solemn tone, "Comrades, today is an extraordinary day in each of our lives, and it is also a day that each of us will always remember. We are going to carry out a glorious and great mission, to recover the territory occupied by the Soviet Union. In order to accomplish this glorious and arduous task, let us inspire and spur us on with the teachings of the great leader Chairman Mao. Please take out the red book and read it aloud. So, all the officers and soldiers took out Chairman Mao's quotations from their pockets and recited them together: "Make up your mind, not be afraid of sacrifice, overcome all difficulties, and strive for victory." After we finished reciting Chairman Mao's quotations, the chief waved his hand in the direction of the south and said loudly, 'Comrades, I am waiting for your victorious return and departure!' ’

About 100 of us, divided into various combat groups and detachments, marched with high spirits and high morale towards the forward position 10 kilometers away. At this time, the night is deep, the sky is full of stars, the wind is urgent, and the cool air is seeping people. It is known as 'wearing a cotton jacket in the morning, wearing yarn in the afternoon, and eating watermelon with a stove', although it is the midsummer season in August, but the temperature at night is very low. So, we all wore four pieces of thick clothing.

In this mission, we were divided into the third cover group, a total of 14 people, led by the squad leader Li Jian, equipped with a light machine gun and a gun grenade. The main thing is to cover the patrol group from the middle flank to complete the patrol mission. In the event of an armed provocation by the Soviet troops, we cover and protect the patrol group. If the Soviets don't provoke the incident, we will help the patrol group to move the freestanding stones that were moved by the Soviets back to their original positions.

According to the national border line advocated by the Soviet Union at that time, the three positions of our central flank cover group and the left and right flank cover groups were lined up from north to south, and they were all located within the boundaries of the Soviet side. However, the command group and reserve unit under the unified command of Kang Youfu, commander of the border battalion, and Pu Qiwu, political commissar, were located within our border line. The distance from the positions of the right flank cover group in the north to the positions of the left flank cover group in the south was about two or three kilometers. This is because the purpose of this patrol is to inform the Soviet side with actions that we do not recognize the 'Line of Actual Control' that they have demarcated. Therefore, the patrol group had to wait until after dawn before setting off. And all of us were to provide cover for the patrols that were about to enter the disputed area between China and the Soviet Union.

In order to lurk to the predetermined location without being discovered by the Soviet troops, our center-wing cover group made a detour from the border station to the east, making a big detour, and only then did it reach the lurking place not far from the unnamed heights. At this time, it was only four o'clock, and after walking more than ten kilometers of mountain roads with heavy weapons, we were all a little tired and wanted to have a good rest. However, we are lurking on a rocky mountain that is not too high. The mountains are full of rocks and grass, and there is no natural terrain to use or dig bunkers. The gravel on the rocky mountain is as sharp as a sharp knife, and if you are not careful, your knees and fingers will be cut by sharp stones, and blood will flow.

At dawn, the stars in the sky were getting thinner and thinner, but the night wind was getting colder and colder, and the stone mountain below us was like an ice storehouse, which soon absorbed the little heat we had, so our whole body was as cold as ice. However, in order to occupy the favorable terrain, the soldiers carried forward the spirit of not being afraid of hardship and death, and did not care about their knees and fingers being cut, and did not care about the cold and piercing, they simply lay motionless on the ground, carefully observing the movements of the Soviet troops.

According to the pre-arrangement, the patrol did not start patrolling until 9:30 a.m. on the line occupied by the Soviets, so we had to wait for a long time. From four o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock, what a long and difficult period it must be! But when I remembered that Qiu Shaoyun endured the severe pain of being burned by the enemy on the Korean battlefield, he could lurk motionless until he was burned alive. When I think of this, I feel that this kind of difficulty in front of me is nothing at all.

Although we occupy a relatively high terrain, only three kilometers away from the Soviet border post of Zalanashkol in the west, there seems to be no movement on the Soviet side on the opposite side, and it is very quiet and peaceful. It seems that the Soviet army has been sleeping all the time, but they don't know that they have already laid a killing machine.

In fact, when we quietly entered the preset position under the starlight, Sergeant Durepov, who was on an observation mission at the Soviet forward post, discovered the "Maoist invasion" by comparing the shadow of the stone mountain in the east with the canopy. Moreover, with the help of helicopters and other means, they have recently discovered some photojournalists from our border station, and they have concluded that our army will definitely have a major military operation. On August 12, the Soviet forward post observed an abnormal movement on the Chinese side, and the Zharanashkol border post and the adjacent Rodnikovaya border post immediately entered a state of alert, and urgently built a bunker at the forward post, quietly deployed two armored vehicles in the flank bunker, mobilized more than a dozen armored vehicles and several military vehicles, and lurked on the west side of the Zharanashkol border post.

After 7:30 a.m., it began to get light. I was lying on my stomach, staring over the Soviet border station. Suddenly, a MiG helicopter flew over our positions. On the small, bare rocky hill full of brown, the grass-green military uniform must have been so striking that we were all exposed at once. The helicopter flew very low, like a fly buzzing slowly over our position, almost planting itself on a hill on unnamed heights. We could even clearly see that the crew was taking pictures of our positions. Because we could not open fire on enemy aircraft without an order from the command.

This is a very bad omen, indicating that the enemy is ready for our actions. But that didn't alarm us. On the contrary, Wen Binglin, a reporter from New Film Studio, who has filmed a documentary film about the Zhenbao Island incident, feels that this is just a good shot that can be used. He made me and another soldier stand up from our positions, armed with steel guns, glaring at enemy planes, and gave us close-ups of the heroic People's Liberation Army protesting against Soviet aggression

The first helicopter flew away after circling and reconnoitring the three forward positions, and the second helicopter also came shortly after, and it went directly into our deep area and clearly saw the arrangement of our command group and reserves.

The sky is getting brighter and brighter, and the whole of the nameless heights is very clearly displayed in front of our eyes. As the sun rose, we felt a hint of warmth. But the sky was unusually quiet at this time, so quiet that it made us feel a little abnormal. The enemy already knows about our actions and arrangements, why is there no reaction at all?

The sun was slowly rising, and there was already some warm golden light in the sky. But my heart was a little uneasy, even a little nervous. I can't tell why I was nervous or nervous, but perhaps I was worried that the enemy had become prepared for our actions.

At about 9 o'clock, I saw Pei Yingzhang, the deputy station chief, appear on the patrol line with our patrol team. They were armed with 1 squad machine gun, two 40 rocket launchers, two gun grenades, a dozen submachine guns, rifles and dozens of grenades, as well as 1 silicon radio. Originally, Deputy Station Chief Pei had been demobilized and did not need to participate in this operation anymore. However, the new company commander Fan Jinzhong was not familiar with the patrol route, so the higher-level leaders decided to let Deputy Station Commander Pei lead the new with the old to complete this glorious and important task together. Therefore, this is also the last shift in his military career.

However, as they were walking in the open field, three Soviet military vehicles drove rapidly from the Zaranashkol border post and stopped at a pre-constructed position just over 200 meters away from our central flank cover group. Then, I saw the Soviet soldiers jumping out of the military vehicles one by one. They counted as they got off the bus, and when they all got out of the car, we counted them as 126 people in total. We can see each other very clearly. By the time all the Soviet soldiers had entered the bunkers of the position, the patrol led by Deputy Station Commander Pei had already walked to a distance of only one or two hundred meters from the position of our central flank cover group.

At this time, the Soviets began to shout loudly at the patrol group, which was loud and very harsh. It probably means that our patrol has entered their borders and wants the patrol to leave immediately, otherwise it will be an invasion and will be retaliated. But my patrol members were not impressed by this reaction of the Soviet troops. As a matter of fact, whether we are watching movies or listening to reports on heroic deeds, we tend to exaggerate the wit and courage of our army, and say that the enemy is more timid and afraid of death. From this tone, it is not difficult to see that our soldiers really did not take the Soviet army seriously. However, we have forgotten that the Soviet army was also a strong army that had defeated Nazi Germany and the Japanese Kwantung Army, and if they were not strong enough, would they dare to invade China, which has 700 million people and 700 million soldiers?

"What we feared has finally happened. When the Soviets saw that our patrol was still moving forward, they immediately opened fire. The first shot pierced Pei Yingzhang's neck, and blood gushed out from his neck like a spring. The second shot hit our platoon commander Li Guozhen, but Li Guozhen's injuries were not very serious. At this time, the patrol had not yet entered the disputed lot of the nameless heights. Seeing that the Soviets were shooting, the patrol immediately lay down and crawled towards our position. We really wanted to shoot to cover Deputy Station Commander Pei and them, but none of us dared to shoot without an order from the headquarters. After a while, Deputy Station Chief Pei and 10 members of the patrol team climbed the unnamed iron brown plateau that was only seventy or eighty meters high.

As soon as they withdrew to our positions, the Soviet infantry swooped down on our nameless heights in a skirmish. What we did not expect was the appearance of armored vehicles on the positions of the Soviet troops. This was already set up in an ambush in the position yesterday afternoon. One of them, inserted directly to the southeast, cut off the connection between the middle wing group and the north wing group, and attacked us right on.

Cao Xinlong, a telegrapher from the patrol group, squatted next to me and kept calling to the headquarters with a walkie-talkie: 'It's 9:05 a.m., and the Soviets have opened fire on me, wounding Deputy Station Commander Pei and Platoon Commander Li. Please instruct the leader, please instruct the leader. However, a bullet knocked him down, and his walkie-talkie was destroyed by the Soviets. We have only two walkie-talkies at the border station, one carried by Cao Xinlong of the patrol and the other at the headquarters. None of our three cover groups on the left, center, and right had walkie-talkies. As soon as Cao Xinlong died, the walkie-talkie broke down, and we lost contact with the headquarters.

The Soviets, under the cover of armored vehicles, were rushing towards our unnamed high ground position, but because the walkie-talkie was broken, we lost contact with the command, and none of us dared to fire the first shot without the command command's order. Just as we were at a loss, the command group fired two flares at us, ordering us to shoot back.

As soon as we saw the command group's order for us to fight back, we immediately fired bullets at the enemy with the anger of 'defending the motherland and avenging our comrades'. We repelled the attack of dozens of Soviet troops under the cover of 3 armored vehicles. Soon the Soviet armored vehicles covered the infantry from the south to attack the nameless heights, and were again repulsed by us. Then the Soviet army launched a third attack, and the Soviet army dispatched more than 10 armored vehicles and more than 300 infantry. The armored vehicles detoured back to the rear of the unnamed heights from the north and south directions, covering the infantry attacks with heavy artillery fire, but they met with our stubborn resistance and were repulsed by repeated attacks. At this time, we have long put life and death out of the way. Our slogan was 'I'd rather die than take half a step back', because we couldn't get down the hill and the two cover groups on the left and right flanks couldn't get closer to us. There was an open field seven or eight hundred meters wide between us and the two cover groups, and Soviet armored vehicles were stuck in this open field, cutting off the mutual reinforcement of several of our positions, so that we could only hold on desperately.

The battle was fierce, and for the third time we repelled the enemy's rampant attack. Seeing that the Soviet army could not attack, it changed its tactics, moved away from the effective range of our small arms, and used armored vehicles and artillery to shoot and bombard our nameless heights. I wanted to wait for the enemy's armored vehicles to get closer to 50 meters before firing grenades, but the enemy's armored vehicles were just running back and forth on the gentle desert below the nameless heights, constantly firing at our positions with their guns. I saw that the armoured vehicle was moving south from the northeast corner, and that it was within 150 metres of the effective range of the grenade, so I fired a grenade at the armoured vehicle. Because I only had three days from receiving the grenade to starting the mission, I didn't know much about its performance, I was not proficient in using it, and it was the first time I fired a live ammunition, so the first grenade I fired was still far from other people's armored vehicles. I adjusted the muzzle of my gun and aimed it at the armored vehicle to fire grenades again. However, it still missed. Just as I was about to fire a third one, a cannonball suddenly landed beside me, and with a loud bang, I was swept over by a huge wave, and then buried by the rocks that the shell had blown away, and I fainted.

The chaotic battle that followed, I didn't know until forty years later. Although there are only more than 100 people on our side, there are no radio stations in the three preset positions in the front, and the rear and the front can only be contacted by signal flares, that is, using one, two, and three signal flares to issue different orders. However, after the battle began, after the commander fired two signal flares, he was afraid that he would not be able to see from the front, so he hurriedly re-issued two more flares, and the four signal flares made the battle groups unaware of their intentions, thus causing confusion in the information. The chaotic command and the huge disparity in the firepower of the original forces and the various battle groups could only sit back and watch the Soviet army calmly surround the unnamed heights on the center flank with four armored vehicles, and constantly carry out artillery bombardment, making the battle of Tirekti a one-sided massacre. The battle ended at 13:30. All 26 border commanders and fighters and 3 reporters accompanying the army who held the unnamed heights and the small heights on the south side were killed or wounded. And the Soviets lost 12 killed and wounded 22.

Later, I heard that the patrol had been prepared for almost a month, and that the purpose was indeed only patrolling, but due to the complexity of the border defense struggle, in order to ensure the safety of the patrol team, our side also invited representatives of the Soviet border guards to our Baktu for talks on 13 August, so as to transfer their officers from their posts and enable our side to take the opportunity to conduct patrols. As is customary, our meetings take place at 10 a.m. However, when Comrade Wang Xinguang, deputy political commissar of the military sub-district of our border defense army, arrived at the Soviet army border defense station at 10 a.m. on time to set up a door, Soviet border defense representative Bashentyv got out of the car and said to our border defense representative in a fierce manner: 'Wang Xinguang, your troops have opened fire on my troops, and I strongly protest against this.'" With that, he put the purse under his arm, turned his head and left. Before Wang Xinguang's mind turned around, he said: 'Hey! Ay! You said you were going to have a meeting, why did you just leave? The Soviet representative Bashentyv did not pay any attention, got into his car, stepped on the accelerator and drove away. Wang Xinguang had no choice but to return to the military subdivision by car, and when he returned to the military subdivision, he learned that the battle had ended. ”