In 1957, the Burmese Border Guard Army repeatedly proposed to the leaders of our Kunming Military Region:
Faced with the remnants of the Kuomintang entrenched in the "Golden Triangle" region, the Burmese army was helpless. Chinese border troops were requested to enter Burma to assist in the operation.
At that time, leading the remnants of the army in the northern Region of Burma was Li Mi, the former commander of the 13th Corps of the Kuomintang Army.
In an interview with reporters in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1953, he was unceremoniously asked by a Burmese reporter:
"Mr. Li, I heard that you are the king of Yunnan, when do you plan to return to Kunming?"
Li Mi was very angry when he heard this, and shouted arrogantly: "To tell you the truth, it is not easy for me Li Mi to be the king of Yunnan, but it is easy to be the king of Burma!" The key depends on whether I want to do it or not! ”
At the request of the Burmese government, in late November 1960, the Party Central Committee decided to send troops to the "Golden Triangle" to eliminate the remnants of the Kuomintang.
When issuing operational deployments, the Central Military Commission specially marked the depth of the attack with a red line of 20 kilometers. Mao Zedong gave a straightforward instruction: "Whoever crosses the red line will kill his head!" ”
Before sending troops, why did Mao Zedong deliberately emphasize that it was not allowed to cross the 20-kilometer red line?
What little-known stories happened during the China-Myanmar joint operation?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" > First, the remnants of the Kuomintang occupy the "Golden Triangle"</h1>
At the beginning of the founding of New China, the land of China ushered in a long-lost peace.
However, China's southwest region is still restless, and a large number of remnants of the Kuomintang and armed rebels are entrenched in the mountainous areas, constantly harassing local public order and exerting many bad influences on the construction of new China.
In order to give the people of the southwest region a stable living environment, in the 1950s, China dispatched an army for several years to eliminate the bandits.
By 1953, the bandits who were entrenched in China's Sichuan, Xikang, Yunnan, and Guizhou regions had all been suppressed.
Just as the southwest banditry was coming to an end, another great war was being fought, and it was still a mountain jungle war that our army was unfamiliar with.
Fast forward to 1957, the Burmese Border Guard Army, which was fighting in the jungles of northern Burma, first repeatedly hinted to the Chinese side, asking our army to enter Burma to attack the remnants of the Kuomintang forces entrenched in the "Golden Triangle" region.
Seeing that our army has always been "indifferent", we later bluntly pointed out our own request: we hoped that our army would assist it in combat.
However, the Kunming Military Region and the Chinese border defense forces have no right to make such cross-border military operations, and can only report to the Central Military Commission for decision.
Zhou Enlai led a Chinese delegation that visited Burma, Nepal and other countries in April 1960. The next trip is to Cambodia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.
While waiting, Zhou Enlai returned to China and made a short stay in Kunming.
During this period, Premier Zhou and Chen Yi, who was then vice premier of the State Council, received Lu Ruilin, deputy commander of the Kunming Military Region.
For Zhou Enlai and others, Lu Ruilin gave a detailed account of the remnants of the Kuomintang who had absconded in Burma.
Premier Zhou is so concerned about this Kuomintang army, which is not a threat to China for the time being, because during a previous visit to Burma, the Burmese government planned to carry out a border demarcation plan.
The basic principles of this plan are the Sino-Myanmar Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression and the Sino-Myanmar Agreement on the Border Issue Between the Two Countries.
At the same time, they also expressed concern about the implementation of the plan: in the process of demarcating the national border, they may be attacked by the remnants of the Kuomintang army.
In fact, as early as a year ago, Chairman Mao instructed the Kunming Military Region to be highly vigilant at all times.
At the same time, our side has sent competent personnel to investigate the details of this Kuomintang army, and then study the corresponding countermeasures based on the information we have, and pointed out that the Central Military Commission will send people to the Yunnan region to implement this matter in detail.
After investigation, it was learned that this remnant of the Kuomintang army originally belonged to Li Mi's 93rd Division of the Eighth Army.
During the Battle of Huaihai, Li Mi's thirteenth corps was completely annihilated by the People's Liberation Army, and Li Mi escaped alone.
Later, he "regrouped" and reorganized the Thirteenth Corps and the Eighth Army.
However, Lu Han, the "King of Yunnan" at that time, had always been separated from Chiang Kai-shek and could not tolerate Li Mibu at all.
Therefore, after his electrified uprising, he led his troops to completely annihilate the Eighth Army, and Li Mi escaped again and went to Taiwan.
More than 700 men of the 709th Regiment of the 237th Division, under the leadership of regimental commander Li Guohui, fled into Burma in March 1950.
Just when the deputy commander Tan Zhong's 278th Regiment of the 26th Army was defeated by more than 600 soldiers, the two groups of the army were entrenched in the "Golden Triangle" area.
(China and Myanmar signed a treaty of friendship)
This area is high and densely forested, many places are not inhabited at all, and the Burmese government is relatively lax in its management of the area and has not fortified it, so this defeated army has taken root in this primeval forest and won a chance to breathe.
Later, the Burmese military discovered the remnants of the Kuomintang and immediately ordered them to withdraw from the Burmese border.
However, as the division of the defeated army, this unit was now cornered and tried to resist stubbornly.
Seeing that this remnant army had no intention of leaving, the Burmese side had no choice but to send an army to clear and expel them by force.
Although this rout division was vulnerable to the People's Liberation Army, it was a mighty force in front of the regular Burmese army.
When this matter reached Chiang Kai-shek, who was in Taiwan and had always been delusional about counterattacking the mainland, he was deeply surprised: he could not imagine that such a "mighty division" still existed in the Sino-Burmese border area.
Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek sent someone to summon Li Mi and ask him to immediately rush to the old headquarters of the "Golden Triangle" region to make meritorious contributions to the crime.
After several years of "painstaking management," Li Mi actually relied on the advantages of the geographical environment and the weakness of the Burmese government to gradually develop the troops that originally had only more than a thousand people to more than 20,000 people, occupying a territory larger than the area of Taiwan Island.
On the side of the bed, let others sleep peacefully!
The Burmese government simply cannot tolerate such a powerful armed force in its own territory for a long time. This keeps them in their throats.
In early 1953, the Burmese government was once again determined to eliminate this armed force.
They spent a lot of money to recruit more than 4,000 mercenaries, and together with kachin soldiers, who had always been known for their bravery and bravery, they launched a strong liquidation of the remnants of the Kuomintang army entrenched in the "Golden Triangle" region.
Unexpectedly, it ended in failure again.
Just as Li Mi was complacent about his military victory in Burma, the Burmese government took the remnants of the Kuomintang to the United Nations on the grounds of violating Burma's sovereignty.
Among them, there is no shortage of photos, physical objects, news reports and other real evidence.
As soon as the news was announced, world public opinion was in an uproar, condemning the Chiang Kai-shek authorities for interfering in the internal affairs of other countries by force. The U.S. government, the supporter behind it, has also been pushed to the cusp of world public opinion.
Under the pressure of international public opinion, the Taiwan authorities finally decided to recall all the remnants of the Kuomintang.
Beginning in mid-November of the same year, the United States successively dispatched military aircraft to transport the remnants of the Kuomintang army to Taiwan.
Most of these soldiers were transported to the island, and only a few remained.
This may be Chiang Kai-shek's left behind hand.
Chiang Kai-shek felt that the Kuomintang troops remaining in the Sino-Burmese border area might be able to take the opportunity to attack the mainland from Yunnan.
He sent Liu Yuanlin, former deputy commander of the Kuomintang Eighth Army, to secretly infiltrate northern Burma in 1955.
This man was very good at guerrilla warfare and was an expert in guerrilla warfare within the Kuomintang.
After entering northern Burma, he immediately gathered the scattered remnants in one place, and soon developed into an armed force of more than 3,000 people.
Chiang Kai-shek instructed Liu Yuanlin in 1959 to try to contact the rebels in Tibet and respond to them.
Under the heavy reward, there will be brave men. In order to motivate the other side, Chiang Kai-shek also promised to increase his funds and supplies to increase his strength.
After Liu Yuanlin returned to northern Burma from Taiwan, he constantly recruited troops and bought horses, and he also said to the outside world: "Not only will the Burmese enemy come to the door to fight, but also they will enter Yunnan to attract violence and cause chaos with violence." ”
He even painstakingly formulated the so-called "assault plan" in a vain attempt to conquer Yunnan in one fell swoop.
The following spring, Chiang Kai-shek sent another military plane to drop a "special force" into Liu Yuanlin's unit in northern Burma.
Although there were only 400 people, this move made Liu Yuanlin, who was weak at the bottom, immediately "double his confidence" and stepped up preparations to attack Yunnan.
In addition, in order to cooperate with the operation, he also specially trained more than two thousand combat backbones.
At this time, the remnants of the Kuomintang army entrenched in northern Burma were already a premeditated and organized armed force, seriously threatening the tranquility of China's southwest border.
Against this background, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi took the opportunity of their visits to Southeast Asia and other countries to yunnan to listen to the Yunnan Military Region's relevant situation on this remnant of the Kuomintang army.
(Rurilin)
After listening to the report on Lu Ruilin, Zhou Enlai and others believed:
This armed force is a serious hidden danger to our country and must be annihilated immediately in order to put an end to the troubles.
This idea coincides with the expectations of the Myanmar government.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="72" > second, whoever crosses the red line kills whoever crosses the red line</h1>
The China-Myanmar border is more than 2,000 kilometers long. At the end of 1955, the border outpost forces on both sides had a small misunderstanding that triggered an armed conflict.
The site of the conflict took place near the undefined Huangguoyuan in the southern section of the China-Myanmar border.
In the early morning of the same day, heavy fog shrouded the China-Myanmar border, and the road a meter or two away was no longer clear.
When the border guards in charge of the patrol marched to the vicinity of Huangguoyuan, because they could not see clearly, neither side could understand the situation of the other side, and because there was a continuous plague of bandits in the southwest region at that time, they thought that they were armed bandits who had smuggled the crossing, so they opened fire to stop it.
After this "misunderstanding" occurred, diplomatic relations between China and Myanmar immediately became tense.
At that time, some Burmese news organizations even indiscriminately slandered the Chinese army for invading Burma.
The "National Newspaper" actually put forward the border issue that China and Myanmar are negotiating in a friendly manner to the outside world.
The US Government, which has always been at odds with our country, has also taken the opportunity to make a big fuss.
They claim that China is expanding abroad.
The Treaty State of Manila actually took advantage of this occasion to carry out military exercises with great care. The U.S. government also jumped out to express its support.
This made the situation in Southeast Asia suddenly tense, full of gunpowder.
After the "Huangguoyuan Incident," the Chinese and Burmese governments made up their minds to speed up the demarcation of the national border.
After consultation, the two governments formally sent representatives to form the China-Myanmar Joint Boundary Commission and held a meeting to discuss the details of the boundary survey work.
In the end, the two sides set the schedule.
At that time, the Chinese delegation was led by Yao Zhongming, the Chinese ambassador to Myanmar, and the Burmese side sent a delegation headed by Aung Kyi, deputy chief of the general staff of the Myanmar National Defense Force.
During the meeting, Ambassador Yao Zhongming made clear our attitude to the representatives of Myanmar:
At the beginning of the liberation of Yunnan, more than a thousand remnants of the Kuomintang fled to northern Burma after their defeat.
(Statue of Yao Zhongming)
From time to time, these armed remnants of the army have harassed China's border areas, and the Burmese people have suffered greatly.
At present, this armed force may sabotage the demarcation of the border at the instigation of foreign forces, and in order to ensure the safety of the demarcation personnel of the two countries, it is necessary to severely crack down on this remnant of the Kuomintang army.
At the same time, Yao Zhongming said that this is what Premier Zhou and the Chinese government meant.
Listening to Yao Zhongming's statement, the Burmese representative was very moved.
They believe that Zhou Enlai analyzed the situation very thoroughly. The Burmese government also deeply resents the long-term occupation of this remnant army in northern Myanmar, and is also deeply concerned about their sabotage of the demarcation.
The two sides quickly reached an agreement: to work together to crack down on the remnants of the Kuomintang army that had long been entrenched in northern Myanmar and completely eliminate the troubles.
Subsequently, the Central Military Commission made detailed arrangements for the Sino-Burmese joint operation.
In early November of that year, representatives of the Chinese and Burmese forces held a meeting and finally signed an agreement on the issue of border crossing guards.
According to the relevant agreements, Chinese troops can enter myanmar for 20 kilometers out of actual needs. The clearance operation was tentatively scheduled for November 22, 1960.
The Kunming Military Region, which was responsible for the task of clearing and suppressing the situation, formulated a specific operational plan for relevant security work by analyzing the border situation at that time at the first time the agreement was signed.
This remnant of the Kuomintang army was mainly distributed in 16 strongholds "stationed" in the "Golden Triangle" region.
In response to this situation, all the participating forces were divided into 22 commandos.
Although the Nationalist forces entrenched in northern Burma were only a few thousand, and all of them were scattered soldiers, this was the first time that the Chinese army had entered Burma to fight, and it needed to cooperate with the Burmese army.
In addition, our army lacks experience in mountain jungle warfare, and it is the first time that it has fought in a surprise attack manner.
The Chinese Government attaches great importance to this joint operation.
In order to ensure that nothing goes wrong, the Central Military Commission and the General Staff Department have frequent communication, Qin Jiwei, commander of the Kunming Military Region, has personally taken command, and Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other Chinese leaders have given instructions on many occasions.
No matter which country it is, it is bound to encounter many problems in overseas combat, especially the reaction of international public opinion to the attitude of the international community on this matter.
In addition, we must also consider whether this military action will cause panic in Southeast Asian countries, and whether they will slander China for taking advantage of the opportunity to show off its force.
At that time, there were many anti-China forces in the world, and they were eagerly hoping that China would "make mistakes" in order to take advantage of the opportunity to slander China.
Therefore, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai carefully considered the possible impact and adverse consequences of this military operation.
The Central Military Commission then issued clear instructions to the troops participating in specific operations:
Keep the impact strength as low as possible.
In order to remind Qin Jiwei and others who were in command, they also deliberately used a red pen to mark the depth of the 20-kilometer attack on the map.
At the same time, Mao Zedong also stressed loudly: "Whoever dares to cross the red line will kill his head!" ”
According to the distribution of the remnants of the Kuomintang army, the Central Military Commission made four strongholds, including Mengwa, a key target for attack, and also listed a list of officers of the remnant army who needed to be arrested.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="115" >3, cross the red line to rescue the Burmese army</h1>
According to the previously formulated battle plan, the military operation to eliminate the remnants of the Kuomintang army should be carried out on November 22 of the same year.
However, just as the troops participating in the war were preparing to enter Burma for combat, the General Staff Suddenly received instructions from the Central Military Commission.
It pointed out that Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai had some concerns after seeing the deployment of military strength in Burma.
Mao Zedong believed that Chen Bing's Burmese army on the south side of the red line was obviously insufficient, and once the remnants of the Kuomintang army fled south under the attack of the Chinese army, the Burmese army was bound to be difficult to resist.
After receiving the instructions from the central authorities, Qin Jiwei immediately contacted the representatives of the Burmese army to express the above-mentioned concerns of the Chinese leader.
According to the deployment, less than 10 hours before the scheduled start time of the battle, the units of our army participating in the battle began to move to the established attack sites according to the deployment.
According to the information provided by the investigators, five of the enemy officers instructed by the Central Military Commission to focus on arrest were operating near the red line, and the enemy leader Liu Yuanlin was not in the red line area.
(PLA forces fighting in the mountains of Vietnam)
In the face of this sudden situation, Qin Jiwei ordered: "After the battle starts, if the enemy escapes, order the troops to follow and pursue without stopping!"
The original battle plan was to start fighting at 6:30 a.m., but because our army was inexperienced in the mountainous jungle and the communication was not smooth, it was impossible to implement it smoothly.
On that day, some battles began at 4:50 a.m., and at the latest at 7:50 p.m.
At that time, the remnants of the Kuomintang did not expect that China would send troops to clear and suppress, and did not make any effective defenses. Of the 16 strongholds, only two were empty.
Although our army has won victories one after another, the casualties have been very large.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the remnants of the Kuomintang gave up fighting hard with the PLA troops, and as soon as the two sides exchanged fire, they immediately fled deep into the dense forest, and soon withdrew to the red line area delimited by the Central Military Commission.
Because Mao Zedong gave a death order not to cross the red line, the participating troops were forced to stop when they pursued near the red line.
After Qin Jiwei received this news, he immediately ordered that the troops participating in the battle could only be cleared and suppressed within the red line.
At the same time, the Yunnan Military Region applied to the Central Military Commission: if approved in consultation with the Burmese government, the qing and suppression forces were allowed to cross the red line and continue to pursue the enemy.
But in the end, the Central Military Commission did not accede to their request, ordering everyone not to cross the red line.
When Chinese troops entered the red line in northern Myanmar, the Burmese military had not yet taken action.
It was not until the spring of the following year that the Burmese army launched the "Battle of the Mekong River" against the defeated Nationalist army.
At that time, the Burmese government mobilized about 10,000 troops and steadily advanced along the west bank of the Mekong River from southwest to northeast.
Liu Yuanlin claimed to be an "expert in guerrilla warfare" of the Kuomintang and was meticulous.
In order to break the fierce offensive of the Burmese army, he decided to adopt the strategy of "luring the snake out of the hole" and making full use of the terrain in northern Burma to lure the Burmese army to the narrow area of Wang Nankun and wait for the opportunity to annihilate.
After the battle began, Liu Yuanlin's troops were "gradually defeated and retreated", and the Burmese army did not know what the plan was, and decided to take advantage of the victory to pursue.
As a result, the Burmese army fell into the ambush circle of the Kuomintang army step by step.
At the invitation of the Burmese government, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yi and others led a Chinese delegation to Yangon in early January 1961 to participate in the celebration of the independence of the Union of Myanmar.
During this period, there was frequent news of the victory of the Burmese army.
However, within a few days, the Burmese army fell into the trap of the enemy step by step, and finally was trapped in the valley around Wang Nankun.
Although the Burmese army had heavy artillery and aircraft, it was difficult to exert its power in the face of heavy mountains and narrow valleys.
Eventually, the Burmese army was besieged and isolated.
(Officers and men of our army fighting in Burma)
At that time, Zhou Enlai and others had already returned to China first, and only Vice Premier Chen Yi was still in Myanmar.
The Burmese government asked Chen Yi for help, asking Chinese troops to cross the previously established 20-kilometer red line and advance south to 100 kilometers to rescue the besieged Burmese army.
On January 19 of the same year, Zhou Enlai, who was in Beijing, called back to the Burmese government saying that the Chinese side was willing to discuss with the Burmese side about continuing joint operations in the south.
At the same time, many of the problems that may arise from going deep into Myanmar to fight are once again in front of the Central Military Commission.
General Manager He and Nie Shuai held that after the troops participating in the war of our army entered Burma, the battle line was stretched too long and the troops were too dispersed, which would reduce the effective strength of the troops participating in the war.
At that time, China was in the midst of internal and external troubles, and it was difficult to meet Burmese's request to increase its troops and go south.
The war meant enormous attrition, and in terms of China's economic conditions at the time, it was indeed a bit stretched.
However, myanmar has repeatedly asked the Chinese side for help.
On January 21 of the same year, the Burmese army sent representatives to the front line headquarters of the Chinese army and once again asked the PLA troops to cross the red line and continue to attack the stronghold of the remnants of the Kuomintang army to the south to rescue the Burmese army trapped in Wang Nankun.
At that time, Qin Jiwei understood that the stakes were very high, and asked the Central Military Commission to make a decision.
Chief of the General Staff Luo Ruiqing said that since the Myanmar government is not afraid of international public opinion, we must not worry about it, and immediately notify the front-line troops to be ready.
After Luo Ruiqing's proposal was reported to Zhou Enlai, Zhou Enlai immediately approved the Chinese army's plan to cross the red line and rescue the trapped Burmese army.
At the same time, the General Staff Issued Three Orders and Five Requests to the Combat Troops To Pay Attention to Combat Discipline:
Residents must not be harmed, no crosses the Lao border; guns and bullets must not cross the Mekong River, and the motorboats docked on the river can only be fired if it is determined that they are remnants of the Kuomintang army.
The second campaign began on January 25 of the same year.
However, the battle did not go well. The main reason was that the Chinese army was unfamiliar with the lots on the southward route.
The dense forests of the mountains are easy to lose their bearings, resulting in a greatly reduced the speed of the troops participating in the battle.
The remnants of the Kuomintang army, which had long been entrenched here, were much more familiar with the terrain of the area.
After escaping from the red line, as soon as they encountered the PLA attack, they switched to the strategy of fleeing while resisting. Once the PLA was in hot pursuit, it immediately retreated to Laos.
Therefore, when Liu Yuanlin learned that the People's Liberation Army had crossed the red line and continued to advance south, he immediately abandoned the siege of the Burmese army around Wang Nankun.
In a hurry, they crossed the Mekong River and fled to the Lao border.
Subsequently, Liu Yuanlin saw that the general trend had gone, so he hurriedly returned to Taiwan.
Our army's border defense units entered Burma twice to fight, annihilated more than 700 enemy troops, destroyed the old nest where the remnants of the Kuomintang army in the "Golden Triangle" area had been entrenched for many years, and helped the Burmese government recover more than 30,000 square kilometers of land.
The Central Military Commission attached great importance to the operation, and Zhou Enlai personally listened to the report on the operation and also held a summary meeting for the Central Military Commission, the abbot of the campaign.
The Sino-Burmese joint military operation from 1960 to 1961 was the first time that the Chinese army carried out a mountain jungle assault.
This is unprecedented in the history of the People's Liberation Army and has accumulated rare experience.
This military operation not only ensured the smooth progress of the subsequent work of demarcating the border between China and Myanmar, but also guaranteed the stability of China's southwestern border.
This campaign also left a strong mark in the history of the Republic and the People's Liberation Army.
Edit: xixi
Editor-in-Charge: Thalia