Tianxue Miscellaneous was founded by Tianxuan, welcome to pay attention.
In the winter of 1950, the Korean battlefield was full of wars, the Chinese Volunteer Army and the United States led by the 16-nation coalition army engaged in a fierce contest, if you add the South Korean army, then count the 17-nation coalition, the result of the simple weapons and equipment of the volunteer army will be the United Nations army to carry out land, navy and air joint operations to defeat the United Nations army, but the British army suffered less damage, they still did not take the Chinese volunteers seriously.
Determined to increase their forces in Korea, the British, in order to show loyalty to their master, ordered the Gloucester Regiment of the 29th Brigade of the British Army stationed in Hong Kong to fight in Korea, and Fare Hawkley was a captain company commander of the Gloucester Regiment.
The Gloucester Regiment was the pride of the British Army. In the colonial war of the British expedition to Egypt in 1801, this regiment was caught in the belly and back of the superior strength of the Egyptian army, and after a tenacious struggle, it turned defeat into victory, so it became famous and was specially praised by the British royal family.
Because of the victory over the enemy under the two-sided attack, the Queen of England chartered that each officer and soldier's military hat was embellished with two hat badges. Exactly a full century and a half later, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Gloucester Regiment, which had inherited the "honor of history" and had modern equipment, was fatally attacked by the 63rd Army of the Yang Dezhi Department of the Chinese Volunteer Army on a new eastern battlefield.
In the first stage of the Fifth Campaign of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the 1st Battalion of the Gloucester Regiment of the 29th Brigade of the British Army was all annihilated by the Volunteer Army, and the whole battalion had more than 600 soldiers, in addition to 129 killed, a total of 459 officers and men laid down their weapons and became prisoners of the Chinese Volunteer Army. In addition to Lieutenant Colonel Kahns, who was the regimental commander and commander of the first battalion, there was Captain Davis, known as the "Messenger of God" chaplain, and Captain Farr Hockley, who later became the commander-in-chief of the NORDIC Army of NATO.
On July 27, 1953, China and the United States signed the Agreement on the Korean Military Armistice at Panmunjom, which meant that the Chinese Volunteer Army defeated the "United Nations Army" led by the US military.
In the Korean battlefield, the Chinese Volunteer Army is mainly the army, while the United Nations army is a joint operation of the three services, which is difficult for many military experts and generals in the West to understand.
After the signing of the Agreement on the Military Armistice in Korea, Captain Farr Hockley of the British Army was released as a prisoner of war, and as an officer who had fought with the Chinese army, he was received by Montgomery, then deputy commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization army.
Captain FarrEr Hockley told Montgomery that the Chinese Army was the most powerful army in the world, and no country's army could defeat the Chinese Army.
Although this conclusion has been confirmed in the Korean War, to know that Montgomery, as a field marshal, believes that he is the most proficient in army combat, let's first understand Montgomery.
Born on 17 November 1887, Montgomery was one of the most prominent Allied generals during the outbreak of World War II and was known for successfully covering the Dunkirk evacuation. He commanded the famous Battle of El Alamein, the Sicily Landings, and the Normandy Landings as the three masterpieces of his military career. In 2002, Montgomery was voted 88th by the BBC as one of the "100 Greatest Britons".
Montgomery is known as a master of position warfare who is good at steady and steady combat, but according to Western military theory, if you want to fight position warfare well, you must have corresponding weapons and equipment. Moreover, in position warfare, the strategic factor is secondary, and without corresponding weapons and equipment, even the best strategy is difficult to play a role.
In actual combat, for example, Montgomery focused on the cover effect of artillery fire. Without strong fire suppression, not only can not destroy the enemy, but also the side will suffer a lot of casualties.
But Montgomery, as Field Marshal of the United Kingdom, had not dealt directly with the Chinese army, so he had two questions:
First, is the Chinese Army really the most powerful in the world?
Second, if the Chinese Army is really the most powerful in the world, then what is the reason?
Of course, in addition to these two questions, Montgomery had other questions, with all kinds of questions, Montgomery began to study China, the study of the Chinese army, in 1958, Montgomery ended 50 years of military service and retired.
After retiring, Montgomery was more liberal, so he made a request to visit China, which was agreed by the Chinese government, and eventually visited China twice in 1960 and 1961.
Montgomery visited China for the first time in May 1960, but this time it was short.
Montgomery was once a British field marshal and was good at sports, so the Chinese side let the founding general Li Da accompany him throughout the whole process, when Li Da was deputy director of the National Sports Commission and director of the National Defense Sports Association, accompanied by another important person Xiong Xianghui.
During this visit, the Chinese side asked him to visit a certain infantry division of the Beijing Military Region, and during the visit on this day, Montgomery watched the various facilities and living conditions of the division's company in great detail, and the Chinese side let Montgomery observe the light and heavy weapons shooting and collective assassination performances of the soldiers.
Both the shooting and assassination performances impressed Montgomery. At that time, the level of weapons and equipment of the Chinese army was not as advanced as that of western countries, but Montgomery believed that the level of weapons and equipment used by the Chinese army was higher than that of the Western army.
Not only that, but by looking at the weapons and equipment of the Chinese infantry, Montgomery came to a different conclusion from the general Western military experts:
The Chinese military is equipped with some of the weapons needed for the type of war waged on Chinese soil. With these weapons, China cannot launch aggression. China has no territorial ambitions for places beyond its legitimate borders.
Montgomery only looked at the situation of the troops, and he thought that the visit was not comprehensive, but the time for the first visit was fixed, and Montgomery put forward a request for a second visit to China.
In September 1961, when Montgomery visited China again, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi were once again sure that li da would still be accompanied by Li Da and, of course, Xiong Xianghui.
This time, Montgomery visited the Museum of the Chinese Revolution and toured the Great Wall. But Montgomery has suggested that in addition to meeting with The Chinese leader, he wants to be allowed to visit several cities that are not open to Westerners.
Montgomery believes that what he is seeing is China's developed cities, all cities he wants to see, he wants to look at poor places in China, and he wants to see places where China is not prepared.
Zhou Enlai agreed to Montgomery's request, because Montgomery was friendly to China, and it was okay for him to see where China was lagging behind, and Zhou Enlai instructed that the specific course of action and schedule be drawn up by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When Zhou Enlai summoned Li Da and others, he said:
"Let Montgomery look at it, the poverty and backwardness left over from old China and the achievements of New China are objectively existent, let him look at it for himself and draw conclusions, and understand New China in essence."
In accordance with Zhou Enlai's instructions and in conjunction with Montgomery's own request, Li Da and Xiong Xianghui accompanied Montgomery on a visit to Baotou, Taiyuan, Xi'an, Yan'an, Sanmenxia, Luoyang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and other places.
During Montgomery's visit to Yan'an, something small and seemingly insignificant happened.
Yan'an City, abbreviated as "Yan", is a prefecture-level city in Shaanxi Province, located in the northern part of Shaanxi Province, in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, in the central and southern region of the Loess Plateau. Although Yan'an is the cradle of the Chinese revolution and once a red holy land, at the same time, Yan'an is also a very backward place in China's economy, so Montgomery believes that Yan'an can better reflect China's actual development.
Montgomery planned to stay in Yan'an for three days, the secretary of the Yan'an Municipal Party Committee found Xiong Xianghui and told him that Yan'an is such a big place, there is not much worth seeing, three days must be long, is it shortened a little, Xiong Xianghui did not agree, the secretary of the Yan'an Municipal Party Committee suggested whether to designate some places for Montgomery to see, but also Xiong Xianghui denied.
Xiong Xianghui knows that wherever there is a designated place, Montgomery does not necessarily go, sometimes there is no designated place he asked to go, in fact, Montgomery wants to see the real situation, so Xiong Xianghui told the secretary of the Yan'an Municipal Party Committee, specifically depending on what place is not designated, montgomery himself decided.
On the first day in Yan'an, Montgomery picked a few cave dwellings of ordinary people's homes, and as a result, there was corn and millet in the family tank, all of which were full, and Montgomery knew that these were all picked by himself, and it was impossible to make targeted preparations, and he concluded that there was no large-scale famine in China.
By the next morning, Montgomery had risen early, and he had gone out for a walk as usual.
It was autumn, and it was already a little cool in Yan'an in the morning, and after Montgomery walked out of the guest house, he walked toward the street of Yan'an, and on the street of Yan'an, Montgomery saw quite a few people going to a house, which made him very strange, so he asked the translator where the house was.
The interpreter told Montgomery that it was a public bathhouse, and Montgomery walked in without greeting, which caught the entourage off guard, not knowing what his intentions were, and the entourage ran back to the guest house to report Li Da. Li Da sighed for a moment, and said without hurrying: "Montgomery entered the men's bathhouse, what are you afraid of, let him see!" ”
There were many people in the bathhouse, and everyone saw a foreign old man walk in without greeting, which of course caused a commotion, but soon recovered, and Montgomery carefully examined the naked bathers one by one, very interested. Montgomery watched back and forth for about two minutes. After a while Montgomery returned and said to Lida with satisfaction:
"I've heard many people say that there is a severe famine in China, starving hundreds of thousands of people to death, and I have heard that every Chinese city is starving. I just went into the bathroom to see, people here are very good muscles, can't see that they are hungry. What I have seen with my own eyes proves that the claims of those people are unfounded. ”
Then Montgomery said: The Chinese Army is invincible. Seeing the crowd looking at him, Montgomery gave a further explanation.
He said that whether a country's army is strong or not depends on weapons, personnel, and weapons and equipment.
As far as weapons are concerned, he once looked at the weapons and equipment of the Chinese Army's infantry divisions, and although the weapons and equipment of the Chinese Army are not advanced, they are not particularly backward.
There are two main aspects of human factors, one is the quality of people, and the other is the number of people. As far as the quality of Chinese infantry personnel is concerned, Montgomery has watched the shooting, assassination and other performances of Chinese army units, and he believes that the quality of Chinese army infantry is impeccable, but those soldiers who perform may be specially selected, so the physical quality of the people can better reflect the problem.
In the bathhouse of Yan'an, he saw young people in such remote areas, although they could not say that their faces were full of red light, but they were definitely not the yellow and thin faces advertised by the West, and they could see the muscles on everyone's body, and these young people could become soldiers who went directly to the battlefield with a little training, and counting China's population base, China had the potential of personnel that Western countries did not have.
According to the world's total population statistics in 1960, the world's population is about 3 billion, of which China's population is 660 million, while the United States in the same period has only 180 million people, accounting for 6% of the world's population, while the United Kingdom has only more than 50 million, accounting for 1.7% of the world's population, and Chinese account for 22% of the world's population. China's huge demographic advantage makes the Chinese Army's continuous combat capability unmatched.
It should be said that Montgomery's views are indeed quite unique, and this was also very obvious in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
For example, in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the number of US casualties was about 54,000, the number of casualties of the Chinese Volunteer Army was about 197,000, and the number of casualties of the Volunteer Army was 3.66 times that of the US Army.
At that time, China's total population was 3.7 times that of the United States, so in terms of the proportion of the death toll in the total population, China was lower than the United States, and it was precisely because the military generals of the United States saw this that when the US military was depleted, China could train hundreds of infantry divisions in a short period of time, and the US military in Korea did not have any hope of winning the volunteer army.
Not only that, he also pointed out the misunderstanding of the Western army about the Chinese army, the Western countries have always believed that the Chinese army is a strategic army, and Montgomery believes that even if the Chinese army does not rely on strategy, the infantry of the Western countries cannot defeat the Chinese infantry.
After Montgomery spoke highly of the Chinese Army, this naturally caused Western countries to be jealous of the Chinese Army, and of course some countries did not think so.
It is said that in 1962, the news came out that India was going to invade China, and the British BBC learned about it and interviewed Montgomery, who said that the Indian army was not an opponent of the Chinese army at all, and if the Indian army challenged the Chinese army, it was tantamount to hitting the stone with a pebble and purely looking for death.
Montgomery wrote in his book: "The existence of a new China is a reality that is not subject to the will of the people. It is better for the Western world to establish and maintain friendly relations with China. This country needs to treat each other as equals. It will become a great power no less than any country in the world in a certain period of time. A great nation , the greatest country in the world — is moving forward. ”
After returning to China, Montgomery said: He is right, the Chinese Army is invincible, and it must not fight a land war with China. He was referring to FarrEr Hockley.
Montgomery looked at the public bathhouse in Yan'an and came to the conclusion that there could be no land war with China. On the one hand, this shows Montgomery's extraordinary insight, and on the other hand, it shows that the strength of the Chinese Army has indeed suppressed Montgomery.
Montgomery died on 25 March 1976 in Alton, Hampshire, England, at the age of 89.
Farrer Hockley rose through the ranks, and in 1977, Farrer Hockley was appointed Commander-in-Chief of NATO's Southeast Theater of Operations, promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, and knighted in the same year.
At the peak of Hiscules' life in 1979, Farre Hawkley was sent to Oslo, Norway, where he served as Commander-in-Chief of NATO's Nordic Front and was awarded the rank of General.
In 1982, Farrer Hockley retired as a defence adviser to the British government and devoted much of his time to writing. In 2006, Farler-Hockley died in the village of Mulhouse, south of Oxfordshire, England.
Tianxuan is the author's pen name, who has studied history and philosophy and is welcome to pay attention to it.