Chapter 16: The Great War Begins
In the 21st century, China has risen to become the world's second largest economy.
International political and military struggles require strategy, struggles, balances, and long-term strategies. China has never been weak in the "jungle" world of the jungle where the weak eat the strong, and under the watchful eye of the Western powers, even if there is a little weakness and concessions, it is impossible for China to rise from the poorest and weakest country to a political, economic, and military power in the world!
Understanding the difficult course that China has gone through after the founding of the People's Republic of China, we must be able to strengthen a belief, that is, since the day of its birth, China has always been a party that works hard and keeps pace with the times. Since the founding of New China, we have always stood proudly among the nations of the world, and we have never been truly weak!
Let us turn our gaze from the lofty emotion back to the southern Xinjiang of the motherland, where the smoke is rising.
In the early 70s, when the Vietnam War was in full swing, Zhu Guoying and others were ordered to enter the Indochina Peninsula. With the skillful use of international capital, they registered a company in the name of the Mekong mythical beast Naga, and quickly gained a firm foothold. This time, the border situation was severe, and Zhu Guoying personally entered the Anbei Plain to collect relevant information about the offensive operations of the Annan army.
But in the process of carrying out the mission, the Anbei team was targeted by the 821 special task force and paid a heavy sacrifice.
The so-called house leak was rained overnight, and at the same time as the failure of the Anbei group, an earth-shattering event also occurred in Junthee City, the capital of Siam, on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. The headquarters of the Naga Group in the city of our army was attacked by two unknown dark forces, and the Naga Company and our Naga Group suffered heavy losses.
The two incidents, which are geographically distant, are clearly interconnected. In order to clean up the mess as soon as possible, stabilize the situation of our covert struggle on the Indochina Peninsula, and at the same time seek a situation for our border struggle, the Second Bureau of the Second Department of the General Staff Department ordered Unit 186 to quickly dispatch a powerful tactical squad into the Indochina Peninsula.
It was in this situation that the brother squad set out to conquer the Indochina Peninsula in a chaotic situation, and unveiled another battle legend of iron and blood, life and death!
It's just that this is also an afterword, a story that is about to happen.
When the Anbei group went deep into the tiger's den, and while fighting alone in the Red River Delta in Anbei, our intelligence personnel also spent a lot of money to buy another copy of the Annan army's combat plan, "Grass Essentials," from the South Asian intelligence market. These two pieces of information corroborate each other's accuracy. The heavy sacrifices made by the intelligence front have won our army valuable time to prepare for the battle on the frontal battlefield.
At this point, although the former commander of our army still did not grasp all the details of the enemy's plan, he had roughly grasped the outline of the enemy's plan for the upcoming Laoshan Campaign, that is, the outline of the "Beiguang Campaign Plan" codenamed "MB-84."
In order to thoroughly smash the enemy's "MB-84" campaign plan, the forward command of the 14 th Army of our army conscientiously summed up the lessons and lessons of the 11 June defensive operation, comprehensively analyzed the characteristics of the enemy's offensive operations, and accurately judged the deployment of troops and the direction of the enemy's main attack on key offensives.
That is, the 1072 heights, 142 heights, and the east mountains of the Bali River under my control protrude from the enemy, and the flanks are exposed, and the enemy is attacked on three sides, east, west, and south, so that the enemy can be besieged in many directions. The distance between the 1072 heights and the enemy's No. 74 position, and the 411, 251, and 156 heights of the enemy in the direction of Nala was only 100-300 meters, making it impossible for us to establish a preface warning position and facilitate the enemy's sudden attack on us by relying on the position.
The 662.6 heights and the Nala area controlled by our side are the centers of our outer defensive positions. The enemy is bound to storm these key points, and once the enemy succeeds in attacking, he will seize the initiative in attacking. It can directly threaten the main position of our Laoshan from both sides, and it can also control the Dongshan area of our Bali River to the east. Therefore, these points must be the main direction of the enemy's offensive.
According to this analysis, the forward command of our 14 th Army quickly adjusted the deployment of troops, accelerated the improvement of the defense system, and comprehensively deployed the depth of defense. Beginning on June 20, the headquarters of the 41st Division led the main force of the 123rd Regiment, the first part of the 121st Regiment, the main force of the divisional artillery regiment, as well as the 1st Company of the 14th Army Tank Regiment, the 122nd Cannon Battalion of the 11th Army, the 1st Frontier Defense Regiment, and the 100th Mortar Company of the 17th Regiment to quickly enter the theater and join the defensive operation.
By early July, the distribution of enemy forces in the Laoshan area was that the 14th Army had 6 infantry regiments and 18 infantry battalions in its subordinate units, while the enemy had 34 infantry battalions, and the ratio of strength between our army and the Annan army was 1:1.8. We have 14 artillery battalions above the division level, and the enemy has 14, and the ratio of artillery firepower between our army and the enemy is 1:1.
The enemy's firepower is equal, and the disparity in strength is huge, but our army is on the defensive side, and the mountainous and jungle area is easy to defend and difficult to attack. The whole army of the 14th Army was full of the belief that it would win. In particular, the Laoshan area is like a sleeping beauty, with continuous mountain peaks and dense jungles, which cannot accommodate more troops, which limits the follow-up strength of the 14th Army.
After more than one month of careful planning and preparation, the July 12 War finally kicked off.
Beginning on the night of July 11, 1984, the Annan army dispatched the 141st Regiment, 149th Regiment, 174th Regiment, 226th Regiment, 876th Regiment, 198th Special Regiment, and 821st Special Regiment, with the strength of seven regiments, to the outer positions of our Laoshan battlefield in five routes to start the campaign.
By the early morning of 12 July, the enemy's offensive forces had been deployed one by one in the direction of the bow controlled by the Chinese army. A fierce offensive to strengthen the size of the division is about to begin.
Li Yuxian, deputy chief of the general staff of the Annam Army, and Wu Li, commander of the Second Military Region, sat in the command post of the Ha Giang Military Region and commanded all units to fight. Deputy Commander Li Weimi and Deputy Chief of Staff Pei Wensheng led the forward command post to supervise and direct the attack. The two deputy commanders of the 356th and 316th Divisions and the deputy commander of the 313th Division, Pei Nile, directly commanded the main forces to attack in the directions of Nanga, Qingshui, and Balihe Dongshan respectively.
Such a high-standard command system configuration has never been seen since the end of the Vietnam War. It can also be seen from the configuration of this command system that the entire army of Annam is desperate and determined to win this campaign.
Li Yuxian and Wu Li's determination to fight was to quickly open up a defensive breakthrough of the Chinese army in the Nala area by means of a frontal breakthrough, a flank containment, and a centripetal attack, and by means of sneak attack and strong attack. Later, relying on the vested positions, they seized point by point, and occupied the Laoshan area that was recovered and controlled by the Chinese army one by one.
Beginning after the 11 June War, the 14th Army of the Chinese Army organized various reconnaissance detachments to carry out full and uninterrupted battlefield reconnaissance and reconnaissance behind enemy lines.
In the early morning of July 12, the war zone was again filled with thick fog, which seemed to be able to reach out and grab a handful, and no people or animals could be seen in the jungle a few meters away.
With the help of dense fog, the Annan special forces infiltrated the gaps between the positions of our front line in separate units. Our forward garrison has repeatedly detected the sound of mine explosions, as well as the sound of cutting down trees and the movement of personnel.
The commander of the army judged that the enemy was tactically unfolding, and the offensive would soon begin. The front commander immediately ordered our artillery group, with three artillery battalions and some regimental and battalion mortar batteries, to carry out intensive artillery counter-preparations at 3 o'clock in the morning to the areas where the enemy might deploy and the enemy's possible offensive routes that had been reconnoitred in advance.
In an instant, the air was torn apart by flying shells, and the rumbling explosion quickly completely covered the area where the enemy might be deployed. This was an extremely shrewd move by our army's front commander, which completely disrupted the enemy's offensive deployment, so that before the enemy's attack could start, he was killed and wounded by heavy artillery and suffered heavy casualties.
The enemy's artillery also quickly responded by shelling our heights No. 146, No. 169, No. 142, and No. 1072 at 3:10 a.m., and the defensive positions on the front line of our Laoshan area were also quickly and completely covered by the sound of the enemy's rumbling artillery fire.
Just when our artillery group was completely covering the area where the enemy might be deploying with intensive artillery fire, three red signal flares were raised over the Qingshui River, and the Annan army braved the artillery fire and began to launch a large-scale ground attack on our 662.6 heights and the Nala area.
At 3:30 a.m., the artillery group of our 40th Division began to carry out the second round of rapid fire attacks, firmly suppressing the enemy's artillery in depth. The artillery group of our 41st Division carried out uninterrupted surveillance fire on the front of Heights 34. The intensive artillery fire gave the enemy a tremendous spiritual shock, forcing his formation to be chaotic, and some troops had to be completely out of control and their organization was disrupted.
At 30:50, the enemy's artillery group again launched an even more intense artillery bombardment on our positions on heights No. 100, No. 116, No. 150, and No. 634, Nanlang, and the bow of the ship.
From 3 a.m. to dawn on 12 July, the rumbling of artillery rang out for several hours, and we engaged in a continuous artillery battle with the enemy. The entire Laoshan area was full of artillery fire, which shocked people's hearts.
Due to the fog-locked jungle mountains and poor visibility, the forward troops of our position have not found the enemy infantry. It was only at 5:05 a.m. that the enemy's artillery fire began to extend, and the infantry attack clusters began to launch attacks one after another on the auxiliary positions of the main peak of our old mountain, the 662.6 heights, and the east mountain of the Bali River.
Heights No. 149 in the Nala area are the focus of the enemy's attack, and the situation is the most severe.
At 5:05, the 174th Regiment of the 316th Division, under the guidance of the 1st Battalion of the 198th Special Service Regiment, took advantage of the opportunity of the dark fog lock at night to sneak to the front of our highland guard positions on the 150th and 169th heights, and was discovered by the 7th Company and 2nd Platoon of our 119th Regiment. Platoon commander Wang Shangrong commanded the soldiers to throw grenades at the enemy while calling for artillery strikes. One salvo fired by one rocket artillery battalion of our artillery group, completely covering the enemy, and the enemy's offensive after only 10 minutes of sneak attack was completely disrupted.
The enemy immediately turned to a strong attack, using light and heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft machine guns accompanied by field artillery to suppress our position by direct fire. At the same time, a reinforced battalion was divided into several routes, shouting slogans, and continuously carrying out wave attacks. The 7th Company of our 119th Regiment was not afraid of the strong enemy, responded to the battle heavily, and repelled the charges of the enemy group one after another.
After a short adjustment of the deployment, the enemy quickly launched an all-round attack with the strength of two battalions, and attacked at the same time in eight directions.
The artillery roared on the position, the sound of machine-gun fire was like water, and the sound of "bang-la-la-la" rang out, and the dense rain of bullets completely covered our defensive position. With the enemy several times our outnumber, the 7th and 8th companies suffered heavy casualties, and the battalion headquarters quickly ordered the mortar company to carry out suppressive fire on the enemy, covering the remaining forces of the 7th and 8th companies to withdraw to high ground No. 149 while fighting.
Protruding from the 150th and 169th heights at the front, they were unfortunately lost. Defensive point No. 149 high ground, under the threat of direct enemy attack.