Some of the key battles in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (IV) were serialized

10. The Battle of Shangganling

　　Even today, seventy years later, authoritative figures at home and abroad still unquestionably recognize that the Battle of Shangganling was one of the most important and famous battles in the entire War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. The following two examples should be able to demonstrate this in a concentrated way:

　　In 1961, during the troubled autumn of that republic, when the Central Military Commission decided to form the first airborne army as the strategic reserve of our army and proposed three army corps for the then commander of the air force to choose, Liu Yalou did not hesitate to choose the 15th Army, which was then subordinate to the Wuhan Military Region (commander Chen Zaidao and political commissar Zhong Hanhua). The reason is that General Liu firmly believes that this army has played a prestige in Shangganling that shocked the whole world. Because, "the Fifteenth Army is a unit that can fight wars, and they have played a national prestige in Shangganling, not only in China, but also in the whole world know that there is a fifteenth army", the new name of the unit is "Air Force Airborne 15th Army".

　　At the beginning of its formation, this airborne army had three airborne divisions, the 43rd, 44th and 45th. Among them, the 43rd Airborne Division was transferred from the former Air Force Parachute Division, and the 44th and 45th Airborne Divisions were reorganized from the former 44th and 45th Divisions of the Army, with a total of 18,810 people. In addition, in April 1962, "the Air Force assigned the 13th Air Division (Transport Aviation) to the Airborne Corps (the leading organ of the arms), and on the basis of the 13th Air Division's former Y-5 Independent Brigade, it expanded a Y-5 Independent 6th Regiment, directly under the 15th Army structure." Zhao Lantian, then commander of the 15th Army, and Liao Guanxian, political commissar, served as the first commander and political commissar of the airborne 15th Army, respectively.

General Qin Jiwei, the first commander of the 15th Army, who experienced the "most brutal battle of his life," mentioned in his memoirs that "the Battle of Shangganling was a special battle, which was not only a contest of military strength between the enemy and us, but also a contest between two world outlooks, two values, and two ideological systems. The Battle of Shangganling not only militarily crushed the enemy's offensive, but also played out our army's command art, fighting style, and spirit of unity. Played out the national prestige of the military. Later, some people said that the real understanding of Chinese by Americans began in Shangganling."

　　In this regard, dr. Kissinger, former SECRETARy of State of the United States, wrote in "On China": "The Korean War is not just a draw for China. It established the nascent People's Republic of China as a military power and the center of asian revolutions, and it also established China's military prestige as an awesome adversary. In the decades that followed, this prestige never fell! ” 。

　　The heroes of Shangganling and their heroic deeds have also spread all over China with the film "Shangganling" made by Changying Film Studio in the 1950s, especially the film interlude "My Motherland".

By the summer and autumn of 1952, after the brutal war and gradually changing its Soviet-style equipment, our volunteer army had basically stabilized its front on the Korean Peninsula in the north and south areas of the 38th Parallel. At this time, the center of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was also gradually shifted to two parallel aspects of military struggle and political struggle with armistice negotiations as the main form.

　　Such a strategic posture made the Yankees, who were the boss of the "free world" at that time, very uncomfortable and unwilling. In order to save face in the international community, gain a favorable position in the armistice negotiations and reap further benefits, they hope to continue to break the deadlock at the Panmunjom negotiating table through war. At the same time, it also changed the unfavorable battlefield situation that "we are all taking defensive actions in response to the enemy's offensive, resulting in heavy casualties on all the personnel in the fighting since October and November 1951".

On October 8, 1952, the US side announced that it would "withdraw from the negotiations indefinitely", and six days later, the US military launched the Jinhua Offensive and then launched the "Showdown Operation". This day is also the opening day of the seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly – the international political background at that time.

　　As we all know now, the battle plan, formulated by the US 9th Army (Commander Lieutenant General Jenkins), commanded by The Commander of the US Eighth Army at the time, and approved by the new Commander-in-Chief of the "United Nations Army," General Clarke, was initially only "the 8th Army was prepared to use two battalions of troops, (of which) 1 battalion was from the 7th Infantry Division of the 9th Army, 1 battalion from the 2nd Division of the 9th Army, and 1 battalion from the 2nd Division of the Rok. 2nd Division, supported by 16 artillery battalions of 280 guns and more than 200 aircraft, at a cost of 200 casualties in 5 days." , occupation of Triangle Ridge and Sniper Ridge" was a military operation of extremely limited size.

However, the battle on these two company-level positions south of the main peak of the Five Holy Mountains eventually developed into a campaign scale that was not dominated by the will of the Americans.

　　"According to the volunteer combat regulations, operations of sub-military scale are called battles." Deputy Commander Deng Hua was keenly aware that at this time, "the enemy's attack on our position in groups and battalions was a mistake in the use of troops. It is necessary to take advantage of the mistakes of the enemy and cause a large number of casualties in the US army."

　　The volunteer troops participating in the battle successively reached "3 divisions and 1 regiment, 133 artillery and engineering battalions, stretcher battalions, etc., with a total strength of more than 40,000 people", including five regiments of the 15th Army, four regiments of the 12th Army, a total of nine regiments (135th Regiment, 134th Regiment, 133rd Regiment of the 45th Division, 86th Regiment and 87th Regiment of the 29th Division, 91st Regiment, 92nd Regiment, 93rd Regiment and 106th Regiment of the 34th Division of the 12th Army), plus more than 2,000 new recruits in the campaign, a total of more than 43,000 people.

　　In the case of the "United Nations Army", "8 regiments of 3 infantry divisions and 2 independent battalions and 1 regiment of airborne troops were successively invested, with 324 artillery pieces, 181 tanks, about 100 aircraft, and a total strength of more than 60,000 troops." These included three regiments of the U.S. 7th Division (31st, 32nd, and 17th), three regiments of the 2nd Division of the South Korean Army (17th, 31st, and 32nd), and 37th Regiment of the 9th Division, as well as the Ethiopian and Colombian battalions, with a total of seven regiments and two other battalions.

"The US military has successively deployed 16 artillery battalions, 3 artillery companies, 8 tank companies, a total of 310 artillery and more than 30 tanks, and more than 3,000 aircraft bombardments on the Shangganling front, pouring more than 1.9 million shells and more than 5,000 aerial bombs on the 3.7 square kilometer position." "The intensity of the fighting is rare before, especially the density of artillery fire, which has exceeded the highest level of World War II. On average, there were 6 rounds per second, and 76 shells exploded per square meter of land. The hill of our position was cut down by two meters, the soil and stones of the highlands were blown loose by 1 to 2 meters, becoming a scorched earth, and many rock tunnels were also blown short by three or four meters."

The final result of the battle was that the U.S. army, which had been successively distributed with M-1951 bulletproof vests, under the strong artillery fire supported by all conventional weapons except the atomic bomb and the extraordinary "Van Vleet ammunition volume" (five times or even no upper limit of its ammunition base), the volunteers not only defended these two forward positions in the ground "people are like a flat boat in the sea" and in the tunnel battle underground "almost like a boat on the waves". At the same time, it also caused the enemy to suffer an unbearable casualty rate of soldiers and made it pay a huge material consumption.

　　"The volunteer troops participating in the battle relied on the tunnel to repeatedly fight with the enemy 29 times, repelled 25 charge at the scale of the enemy above the battalion, and 653 times below the battalion. The volunteers suffered 11,529 casualties, with a casualty rate of more than 20%. The 'Un Army' suffered 25,498 casualties, with a casualty rate of more than 40 percent." In the memorial hall of the United States Military Academy at West Point, there are still sand table models of the 537.7 and 597.9 highlands, and the Battle of Upper Ganling is still a classic example of its teaching.

Located in the middle of the Gihwa, Chewon, and Binh Kang triangles, Gosan Mountain is the absolute commanding height of central Korea, about 30 kilometers south of the 38th Line. Chinese the control of the People's Volunteer Army, it can overlook the Jinhua defense line of the "United Nations Army" and stabilize the front line at the 38th line; on the contrary, if the US army occupies the Five Holy Mountains, it will break through the volunteer defense line from the middle, thus endangering the entire front of our army.

　　Before the war, the 15th Army (commander Qin Jiwei), commanded by the 3rd Corps, was tasked with defending the Area of Wushengshan North of Jinhua, with its headquarters located in Daodedong, more than twenty kilometers north of Shangganling. It is said that when General Peng confessed his task to Commander Qin in person at the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, he said to him with great seriousness, "Whoever loses the Five Holy Mountains will be responsible for the history of Korea." Because the Five Holy Mountains stretched north to Pyongyang, almost a plain of the Pingchuan River, the enemy's mechanized troops could drive straight in, while our army had no danger to defend, so it had to retreat two hundred kilometers to establish a new front.

Shangganling Village, located in the low-lying area between the main peak of Wusheng Mountain (1061.7m above sea level) in Jinhua County, Gangwon Province, and the forward positions of the Volunteer Army. The Fifth Enlarged Meeting of the Party Committee of the Volunteer Army to study the operational arrangements for the Fifth Campaign was held here. Before the war, Shangganling was full of green mountains and green trees, and in the bushes not far to the left, there was a stream flowing down from the Five Holy Mountains, and when the sun rose in the morning, there was also a poetic feeling. However, this is a ruin. To the south of our army's position, 1,000 meters away, there is a village of Lower Ganling, but that is the enemy's territory.

This battle mainly revolved around the tactical area of about 3.7 square kilometers of 597.9 highlands and 537.7 north mountain highlands, which were defended by the volunteer army before the war, 4 km southeast of the main peak of the Five Holy Mountains.

　　Highland 597.9, consisting of two mountain beams facing northeast and northwest, is divided into twelve positions numbered 0 to 11. Among them, the main peak of the highland is position 3, and the intersection of the two mountain beams is position 9, which is located south of position 3, which is the gateway to the main peak and a focus of the death struggle between the two sides in the stage of surface position warfare. Position 11 at the forefront was located on the outside of the northeast-facing mountain beam. Defending the 597.9 heights was a platoon of the 9th and 8th Companies of the 135th Regiment (Regiment Commander Zhang Xinyuan) of the 45th Division of the Volunteer Army.

　　Because the entire height resembles a V-shape, it is called "Triangle Hill" (Triangle Ridge) by the U.S. Army, and it is the U.S. 7th Division (division commander Major General Smith, who has jurisdiction over the 17th, 31st, and 32nd Regiments) that attacked this height. After the Americans withdrew from the battle, the 2nd Division of the South Korean Army (division commander Ding Yiquan, 30th, 31st, and 32nd Regiments) continued to attack.

　　Highland 537.7 consists of two hump-like mountains facing north and south, with the main peak located in Nanshan. Among them, the North Hill Highland was controlled by the Volunteer Army, while the South Mountain was occupied by the South Korean Army. Therefore, the 537.7 highland often mentioned in military history is actually only the 537.7 North Hill highland controlled by the volunteer army. The North Hill Heights are like an "irregular cross" with nine positions numbered 1 to 9 on the operational map, "Positions 9, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from west to east; Positions 1, 2, 7 and 8 from north to south". Among them, the no. 8 position at the forefront was only 50 meters away from the enemy army occupying the main peak of the South Mountain, which was "just stuck in the throat of (the US army)." The North Hill Heights were defended by the 1st Company of the 135th Regiment of the Volunteer Army.

　　Because of the "cold gun and cold artillery campaign" carried out by the volunteers before the war, which caused the enemy to suffer and inflict heavy casualties, the US military called it "Sniper Ridge". Attacking here was the 2nd Division of the South Korean Army (17th, 31st, 32nd, 37th).

At the beginning of the Battle of Shangganling, two companies and one platoon of the 135th Regiment (regimental commander Zhang Xinyuan) of the 45th Division of the 15th Army of the Volunteer Army were on defensive tasks, and the enemy threw seven battalions.

　　The campaign "lasted 43 days from 14 October to 25 November 1952, with the battlefield mainly focused on the vicinity of two highlands with an area of only 3.7 square kilometers. The number of troops and weapons invested by both sides has gradually increased, from combat to campaign, from battalion and regimental size to division and army size." The Encyclopedia of China and the Military Volume wrote: "The characteristics of this operation were the development from the scale of the battle to the scale of the battle, the duration of which was long, and the intensity of the battle was rare since the Second World War."

　　The entire campaign can be roughly divided into three phases. That is, the 45th Division of the 15th Army of the Volunteer Army (division commander Cui Jiangong and political commissar Nie Jifeng) insisted on and repeatedly competed for these two superficial positions, and the troops of the 15th Army moved to the underground tunnels to continue fighting, and four regiments of the army under the command of Deputy Commander Li Desheng of the 12th Army participated in the battle, carried out a comprehensive counteroffensive, and finally recovered these two positions. The time dividing line of these three stages is roughly seven days from October 14 to 20, 1952, ten days from October 21 to October 30, and 26 days from October 31 to November 25, 1952.

On October, "on the 15th, 16th, and 17th, the two warring sides sawed each other in Shangganling, and the surface positions of Shangganling were gained and lost, lost and regained, swords and swords were shadowed, and flesh and blood flew everywhere, and its fierceness was unheard of in the history of modern warfare." "In the first stage of the Battle of Shangganling, after seven days and seven nights of repeated scrambling, the Forty-fifth Division withstood the enemy's indiscriminate bombardment and repeated attacks, held its position, and killed and wounded more than 7,100 enemy people at the cost of more than 3,200 casualties." A few days later, when Zhang Yunyu, chief of staff of the army, rushed to the headquarters of the 45th Division, "Cui Jiangong reported (to him) that the casualties of the troops had exceeded 3,500, that there were only 2,300 people left in the 134th Regiment and the 135th Regiment, and that the whole division had no complete formed battalion." In the time of these seven days, "more than half of the casualties of each company were exceeded, and only a few people were left in individual companies." Therefore, the military department decided to transfer the troops who were fighting with the enemy for ground positions into the tunnel fortifications below the surface and continue to fight the enemy.

　　On the 20th, the US and ROK troops occupied all the surface positions. At this point, the enemy's greatest gain was probably that a lieutenant colonel intelligence staff officer of the South Korean Army finally discovered the fact that the volunteers had built underground tunnel fortifications under those anti-slope positions! - They figured out, "How can anyone survive under such heavy artillery fire?" "The mystery!

In the subsequent tunnel battle, although the entrance to the tunnel of the Volunteer Army was constructed on the counter-slope of the surface position and was able to obtain a certain cover for the firepower of our rear, under the strict blockade of the US army's ground-to-air fire, the supply of personnel and materials was extremely difficult, and hunger and thirst threatened the lives of officers and men at any time. Throughout the campaign, the casualty rate of the Line of Fire transporters even exceeded that of the tunnel troops, at a height of 90 percent. The mountain road leading to the two highlands of Shangganling was sprinkled with the blood of these officers and men, and a large amount of material losses were lost on the road, and very little was sent into the tunnel. Sometimes the rear transporter has to pay for several lives to send a bag of compressed biscuits into the tunnel. The moving story of "An Apple" takes place in the harsh pit war stage.

Because the 15th Army was also required to defend against possible U.S. attacks from the direction of Simian Mountain, the 44th Division (division commander Xiang Shouzhi) remained unmoved throughout the campaign. I wonder if the similar storyline in "The Sky of History" comes from this?

　　At the most critical juncture, 96 men of the 15th Army's directly subordinate guard company were sent to reinforce The 597.9 Heights Tunnel No. 1, the first time since the formation of the army that the special unit had been used in combat. The company suffered heavy casualties as it passed through the U.S. artillery blockade at the foot of the hill, and only 25 men entered the tunnel under the leadership of deputy platoon commander Shi Jichun. Wang Yu, the company instructor who had been following Qin Jiwei as a guard, died in the course of the movement, and the military commander gave him his own pen before leaving!

On November 5, the 3rd Corps (acting commander and acting political commissar Wang Jinshan) decided to set up the Wushengshan Combat Command Post (under the direct command of Qin Jiwei) and the Artillery Command Post, with Li Desheng, deputy commander of the 12th Army, and Yan Fu, commander of the 7th Artillery Division, respectively, under the unified command of the participating troops of the 29th Division, the 31st Division and the 34th Division of the 15th Army and all the artillery of our army fighting in this direction.

　　On October 30, 1952, when "the South Korean Army once again captured 537.7 North Hill, at the most intense and arduous moment of the Battle of Sangganling", the troops of the 12th Army began to participate in the battle. They "came to the battle when the battle was the most intense and arduous, and the second echelon of the (15th) Army was no longer able to fight." At that time, the 45th Division of the 15th Army "16 of the 27 infantry companies of the whole division were rebuilt after hitting twice, and the 8th Company of the 134th Regiment (the 8th Company of Shangganling Tegong) was rebuilt after hitting the light three times, and the number of casualties reached more than 5600. The two regimental units of the 29th Division also suffered heavy casualties", "more than 65% of the company cadres suffered casualties, 89% of the platoon-level cadres suffered casualties, and the squad leader casualties reached 100%."

　　Therefore, in the great victory of the Battle of Shangganling, the glory of the 12th Army was flashed at the same time.

Li Changsheng, commander of the 91st Regiment of the 31st Division, invented a "wheel" tactic during the battle, that is, the nine infantry companies of the whole regiment were put into battle one after another in company units, regardless of casualties, and the company commander was left as the combat adviser to the next company commander. This not only maintained the durability of the troops' operations and the order of the battlefield, but also effectively preserved a batch of "seeds" of reconstruction for the various participating companies.

In the battle from November 18 to 20, the three battalions of the 106th Regiment followed the operational principle of "releasing troops everywhere, resolutely holding firm, annihilating the enemy in front of the front, and not letting the enemy seize our land", and fought a war of attrition for three days.

After that, with the approval of the military chief, Wu Xiaoxian decided to change his tactics. The core points of the new tactic are:

　　A. Make up your mind to build surface fortifications on the positions that have been completely destroyed by enemy artillery fire and improve the underground tunnels (single-soldier bunkers "cat ear holes", tun pits and large and small tunnels) that have been completely destroyed by enemy artillery fire, so as to effectively preserve the strength of the troops in movement and combat under the enemy's artillery superiority ten times that of our volunteer army. In the case of "fighting and digging, the soldiers fought hard for a week, and basically completed the fortifications combining the tunnels with trenches and cat ear holes on the No. 6 and No. 1 and No. 3 positions." At this time, the tunnel of Position No. 6 could already be tuned by a company, and the no. 3 height could also be fortified by a reinforced platoon of tun troops, which completely solved the problem of the difficulty of relying on the tun troops and combat."

　　B. Adhere to the principle of flexible use of troops, under the premise of effectively killing and injuring the enemy and preserving the core positions (Positions No. 2 and No. 6, etc.), adopt the principle of "concentrating forces to control the main points, not dividing the troops into mouths, and not fighting hard and fighting hard," "combining large and small counterattacks, combining sneak attacks with strong attacks, attacking when it is advantageous, and returning if it is not profitable," and no longer adhering to the previous tactical guiding ideology of "every mistake must be reversed."

　　C. Operate flexibly so as not to let the enemy understand the law of our army's operations, so as to turn passive into active.

　　D. Carry out effective infantry and artillery coordination, and further improve the solidity and stability of defensive positions with the direct support of military artillery and regimental artillery.

From the day the tactics were changed, Du Nianhu, a cadre unit of the Political Department of the 106th Regiment, who was "in charge of the roster of all regiment personnel and the registration of the sacrifices of cadres above the deputy platoon level, and wrote the notice of the death of revolutionary soldiers," and the pregnant wife of the newly married commander of the Wu Xiaoxian Regiment, found that "there are fewer and fewer comrades who have sacrificed on the list of dead and died every day."

　　After eight days and nights of fierce fighting, the 106th Regiment finally "ended" the battle perfectly, and on November 25, 1952, the 537.7 Heights were completely handed over to the 29th Division of the 15th Army (division commander Zhang Xianyang and political commissar Wang Xin). After returning to China, Wu Xiaoxian was promoted to deputy commander of the 34th Division. And after Wang Keqin, he cultivated a typical heroic model of the famous whole army such as Guo Xingfu.

For the victory of the battle, the troops also paid a huge price. The 106th Regiment of the Volunteer Army "had more than 700 people before the 1st Battalion was put into battle, but after continuous replenishment, the actual number of people who participated in the battle reached more than 2,100 people" "When the 1st Battalion and 1 Company were named after the war, only 2 people were left in the first batch of the whole company, one was the soldier Feng Xikong, and the other was the deputy platoon commander who broke his leg."

　　At the same time, under the blow of the "extremely cunning" martial arts new tactics, the nerves of the US military finally collapsed, and it was no longer able to withstand the battlefield casualties caused by this "meat grinder". On November 28, 1952, the U.S. 8th Army ordered the Han 2nd Division to stop fighting for the Volunteer Army's Position on The North Hill on Hill 537.7, and the U.S. Army ended the "showdown operation."

　　"The battle ended almost at the same time as the U.S. announced the results of its presidential campaign."

After that, until the armistice was signed, the U.S. military never launched any battalion-sized or large-scale offensive against the volunteers.

　　The 15th Army produced "a total of 12,347 combat heroes of the third class or above, represented by the special hero Huang Jiguang, accounting for 27.5% of the total number of the army, and more than 200 heroic collectives represented by the 8th Company of the 134th Regiment of the 45th Division" in Shangganling. Among them were qiu Shaoyun (a warrior), a first-class combat hero, Sun Zhanyuan (platoon leader), a first-class combat hero, Hu Xiudao (a warrior), a first-class combat hero, Chai Zhenyun (a warrior), a first-class combat hero, and Niu Baocai (a warrior), a second-level combat hero who used his body to connect to a interrupted line during the battle.

During the 43-day battle of Shangganling, "it became common for grenades, grenades, explosive canisters, and explosive packs to be fired at critical moments with the enemy, and sacrificing oneself to blow up enemy bunkers and block enemy gun holes" became a common phenomenon." Among them, thirty-eight people left their names in the history of the war, and Sun Ziming was the first of the 38 martyrs who died with the enemy.

　　The "lone hero" Hu Xiudao is a new soldier of the 91st Regiment of the 31st Division. In a battle at Position 3 of Highland 597.9, from dawn to dusk, Hu Xiudao and his comrades repelled a total of 41 attacks by the ROK army from one platoon to two battalions, and finally hit only the wounded Hu Xiudao on the position. Undaunted, he heroically repelled many attacks by the ROK army, killing and wounding more than 280 ROK troops in one person, creating a brilliant example of a lonely battle.

　　There are also 9 companies and 1 squad of soldiers "lone hero" Gao Shouyu is also like this, relying on "three candies brought by the motherland condolence group in his pocket" to hold the vital No. 6 position alone.

On the Shangganling hero position, "with a grasp of the soil, you can count 32 pieces of shrapnel, there are 381 bullet holes on a red flag, and more than 100 warheads and shrapnel are embedded in a tree pole less than one meter." This 3.7 square kilometer hill has been soaked with blood." "The position was as if it had been repeatedly ploughed by a bulldozer, and it was black and bald. The black loose soil was littered with charred and mutilated corpses and fragments of human bodies, as well as fragments of broken guns.".

　　The volunteer army counted 4,838 casualties, 6,691 wounded, and annihilated 25,498 enemy. The self-statistics of the US military are 365 dead, 1174 wounded, and 1 captured; the ROK army is 1096 dead, 3496 wounded, and 96 missing.

The three magic weapons for the final victory in the Battle of Shangganling were tunnels, artillery and grenades.

　　In the nearly half a year before the war, the 15th Army built more than 300 tunnels on its positions that could not only defend but also store grain and bombs, with a total length of nearly 9,000 meters. "Not strong, one foot three" is the minimum requirement of the military department to cover the soil layer of these anti-artillery bunkers, and most of the soil on the main tunnel of the volunteer army is more than 4m. Highland 597.9 "has three large tunnels, eight small tunnels and more than thirty improvised artillery holes". One of the tunnels is the main tunnel and the largest. Built below the surface of Position 1, topped by limestone up to 35 meters thick, it is nearly 80 meters long, 1.5 meters high and 1.2 meters wide. There is also a "fork hole" on the left and right, in the shape of an F, and the two openings of the tunnel are facing north in the direction of the Five Holy Mountains.

Tunnel warfare became an effective tactic for the Volunteers to eliminate the U.S. army. In the most arduous stage of the campaign, the troops withdrew into the tunnel to save themselves, and at the same time took the initiative to attack the enemy inside and outside the tunnel, and built the "underground Great Wall" of Shangganling with a strong will to fight.

　　For example, the 8th Company of the 134th Regiment of the Volunteer Army (regimental commander Liu Zhanhua) held firm in Tunnel No. 1 of Highland 597.9, repeatedly fighting with the enemy for 14 days and nights, and the 8 companies counterattacked more than 80 times, annihilating more than 1,000 enemy people, capturing more than 50 machine guns, automatic rifles, and 606 carbines, causing huge attrition to the enemy and playing a huge role in the subsequent large counterattack.

The longest persistence in the 597.9 highland tunnel was the 4th class of the 5th company of the 134th Regiment led by Ding Hongjun. In the first two days of the battle, this squad repelled many Attacks by the American Army, killing and wounding more than 150 enemy casualties without any casualties. On the afternoon of 15 October, due to the exhaustion of ammunition, a small tunnel only 15 meters deep was lost in the retreat position No. 2. Relying on ammunition collected from the positions at night, two boxes of biscuits and two buckets of water stored in the tunnel, they persevered in the tunnel, and a company of American troops was unable to do anything about it, and finally had to build three barbed wire fences and two bunkers at the mouth of the tunnel to besiege it. Persisting until the tenth day, under the condition of hunger and thirst, the party group decided to break through to the No. 2 tunnel more than 100 meters away by Ding Hongjun to report to the superiors, and with the approval of Zhao Maochen, the instructor of the 4th Company, all of them were transferred to the No. 2 tunnel on the evening of the 27th to continue the fighting, and the battle was insisted on for twenty days and nights.

The volunteer ground artillery units that participated in the battle included the 2nd Artillery Division, the 7th Artillery Division, the 209th Rocket Artillery Regiment, the 60th Army Artillery Regiment, a total of 11 artillery battalions, 133 Jishan wild howitzers, 24 rocket artillery pieces, and 292 mortars. There are also anti-aircraft artillery units that mainly cover the artillery positions, that is, one unit each of the 601st And 610th Regiment of Anti-Aircraft Artillery, and the Independent 20th and 35th Battalions of Anti-Aircraft Artillery, with a total of 47 anti-aircraft guns.

　　Commander Li Changsheng discovered one day that the US troops were assembling in a forest on the south side of Hill 597.9 at 4 a.m., and immediately contacted the 209th Rocket Artillery Regiment assigned to the 15th Army at headquarters to carry out an artillery raid. At 4:30 a.m., 24 guns and nineteen tubes of 90mm "Katyusha" salvo caused heavy casualties among the American troops, and its attack on the day did not start until noon and the intensity of the attack was significantly weakened. In the Battle of Shangganling, our army "fired a total of more than 400,000 shells."

General Qin Jiwei mentioned in his memoirs that at dusk (November 5), while crushing the enemy's last group charge, a thrilling spectacle appeared over the main peak position. The sky, which had been obscured by the smoke of the flames for several consecutive days, suddenly lit up in the chaotic dusk. At that moment, the heavens and the sky were brilliant, and the orange-red radiance illuminated the entire Shangganling battlefield. Immediately after, a strange explosion broke through the long sky, and a huge ball of fire appeared in the sky, and a burst of burning metal fragments fell like a storm. It turned out to be a low-altitude F-51 type strike aircraft of the US army that supported the infantry impact, but it actually hit the low-ballistic projectile on the ground of our army, and immediately shattered to pieces. The dazzling light, the earth-shattering sound, and the fallen wreckage just fell into the enemy position, which made the AL-Rok soldiers even more terrified.

After this campaign, it has been convincingly proved that our army has been able to hold on to any position we have decided to defend under the objective circumstances of the absolute superiority of the US military's technical equipment. After this battle, the defensive system established by our army with military fortifications as the characteristics of military fortifications and the core of underground tunnel fortifications has been perfected day by day, thus completely solving the strategic problem of "whether it can be defended."

　　By the end of 1952, the focus of the volunteer army's military work was placed on the premise of consolidating our frontal front, to prevent the possible amphibious landing operations of the US army in the rear of our army, especially in the bee waist, which was only 160 km wide in the middle of the peninsula.

　　To this end, Zhiji specially set up two defensive headquarters on the east and west coasts, with the west coast as the main direction of operations, and the commanders of the west coast defense headquarters were General Deng Hua, General Chao Xianchu, and Junior General Liang Xing.

To this end, Zhiji specially set up two defensive headquarters on the east and west coasts at the same time, with the west coast as the main direction of operations, and the commanders of the west coast defense headquarters were General Deng Hua, General Han Xianchu, and Junior General Liang Xing.

11. Battle of Jincheng

　　When we talk about the Battle of Jincheng, we can't help but talk about the counterattack in the summer of 1953.

　　The battle was first and foremost a political one, a military operation launched by the Volunteers to coincide with our armistice negotiations at Panmunjom in Kaesong. As everyone knows, in this negotiation, the Chinese and DPRK sides were formally the chief representative of the People's Army's General Nanri, but in fact they were divided into three fronts and accepted the full leadership of General Li Kenong, vice minister of foreign affairs and director of intelligence of the Central Military Commission.

　　On May 5, 1953, shiji issued a supplementary instruction on the summer counterattack campaign, which emphasized that the purpose of the campaign was "mainly to destroy the enemy, train the troops, and learn from experience in order to cooperate with the negotiations at Panmunjom." At the same time, due attention should be paid to improving my existing positions.". The counterattack was divided into three stages and lasted for more than two consecutive months. The Battle of Jincheng was the third stage of this, and the largest one.

　　The battle played a big role in eventually prompting the so-called "United Nations Forces", led by the United States, to sign and issue relevant political assurances on the Korean armistice agreement.

Before the Battle of Jincheng was launched, the two sides of the negotiations had agreed on the last, longest, and most difficult prisoner of war issue. By June 15, the Korean armistice negotiations had reached a full agreement. The redrawing of the military demarcation line in accordance with the line of actual control between the two sides is also nearing completion, and the signing of an armistice agreement is imminent.

　　However, the Syngman Rhee regime in South Korea refused to accept the armistice, clamoring to "go it alone" and to continue the war. Soon thereafter, about 27,000 KPA PRISONERs of war in four POW camps on Jeju Island were directly "released" and most of them were directly replenished into their armies.

　　The perverse actions of this die-hard anti-communist element caused widespread outrage in the international community, and there was widespread concern about the prospects for an armistice.

　　In order to teach Rhee a lesson and to prevent possible political and military back-ups after the armistice, so as to settle the Korean issue once and for all, the Central Committee decided that "we must have a major expression in action to be able to cooperate with the situation, give the enemy sufficient pressure, make similar incidents dare not happen again, and facilitate our side to grasp the initiative." On June 21, Mao Zedong instructed, "The signing of the armistice must be postponed. It is extremely necessary to strike another blow to the South Korean army." Marshal Peng Dehuai, who had already arrived in Pyongyang at this time to attend the signing ceremony, proposed and personally guided the final battle of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, which was mainly aimed at the South Korean army.

"At this time, after preparing for the anti-landing operation, our army can attack and defend, and the situation on the battlefield is becoming more and more favorable to us, and it is becoming more and more strategically active." The total strength of our volunteer army and the people's army is 1.8 million, of which 1.35 million are volunteers and 450,000 are people in the people's army. Among the ground troops, there are 19 corps of volunteers and 6 corps of the KPA, and the strength and firepower have been greatly strengthened, the positions are more solid, and the supply of combat materials is sufficient.

　　By April 1953, the total enemy strength had reached 1.2 million, and the ground force had 24 infantry divisions. "Among them, the Rokk army has reached 16 infantry divisions, and there is another division that is being expanded, with a total strength of more than 640,000 people, and the equipment firepower has reached the level of the US army."

　Yang Yong, the new commander of the 20th Corps, changed the previous operational guidelines of the Volunteer Army's "zero knocking on the candy" and decided to "strike a big battle" against the South Korean army that was just around the mouth, eliminate the "arc frontal about 25 kilometers, about 9 kilometers deep" of the Central Front defended by the four divisions of the South Korean Army (the Capital Division, the 6th, 8th, and 3rd Divisions), straightened this front from Yashenri to the North Han River, and directly attacked Seoul, knocking on the mountains and shocking the tiger, so as to avoid any trouble.

　　"In order to ensure the victory of the campaign, the Volunteer Army concentrated about 1,100 artillery pieces, more than 700,000 rounds of ammunition, more than 120,000 kilograms of explosives, all kinds of river crossing equipment and sufficient food, and also concentrated about 6 engineering battalions and successively used 13 infantry regiments to repair or widen the road of the depth of the battle." To this end, the Rear Service Command of the Volunteer Army mobilized 10 automobile regiments with a total of more than 2,000 vehicles for support.

　　The volunteer units, including the five corps under the command of the 20th Corps at the time (the 21st, 54th, 60th, 67th, and 68th Armies) and the 24th Army within the 9th Corps, were organized into three groups: East, Central and West. The operational formation of these three groups was in order, from the 60th Army with the 605th Regiment, the two divisions of the 21st Army, and the 33rd Division to the Eastern Group, the two regiments of the 67th Army, the 135th Division of the 54th Army, and the 202nd Division of the 68th Army were organized into the Central Group, and the 203rd, 204th Division, and 130th Division of the 54th Army of the 68th Army were organized into the Western Group. Thus, on the front of the enemy, "an advantage of 3 times the strength of the enemy and 1.7 times the number of artillery was formed" in the front.

　　The corps's campaign attempt was to adopt a combination of frontal assault and flanking roundabout encirclement, to carry out a major assault from multiple directions to the Teo Chuan Dong area, "annihilate 8 regiments and 1 battalion of 4 divisions of the South Korean Army in front of the front, straighten the front south of Kimseong" and "then develop an attack on the front line of Samcheon peak, Chigen Mountain, Heiyun Tuling, and Baekam Mountain as appropriate, and prepare to annihilate a large number of South Korean army forces in the fight against the enemy", and the 24th Army was responsible for ensuring the safety of the right wing of the 20th Corps.

On July 13, at 21:00, the battle officially began.

　　By the 14th, "all the assault units of the Volunteer Army had occupied the defensive positions of the First Line Regiment of the South Korean Army." On the 16th, the volunteer units participating in the battle took the initiative to turn to the defense, adjust the deployment, and build fortifications. By the end of the campaign on 27 July, the Volunteers had repelled more than 1,000 counterattacks by the size of about 8 divisions of the South Korean Army, consolidating the positions they had occupied."

　　After fifteen days of offensive and defensive operations, the volunteer army "straightened the front south of Jincheng" and "in the third offensive operation in the summer, including the Battle of Jincheng, our army killed and wounded more than 78,000 enemy prisoners, captured 45 tanks, 279 cars, one aircraft, 423 guns of various kinds, more than 7,400 guns of various kinds, and recovered 178 square kilometers of land. Our army suffered 33,253 casualties." Jincheng "suffered more than 25,000 casualties of the 20th Corps and the 24th Army of the 9th Corps during the operation."

In this campaign, a famous example of a special operations detachment of our army successfully carrying out "decapitation operations" emerged. More than a decade later, this battle example became the source of real life for the "Modern Revolutionary Peking Opera" "Surprise Attack on the White Tiger Regiment", and after its national release, the response was strong and the impact was great.

　　At that time, the 203rd Division of the 68th Army sent a penetrating detachment commanded by Zhao Renhu, deputy commander of the 609th Regiment (including a reconnaissance squad of the 2nd Battalion of the 609th Regiment and a reconnaissance squad of the 607th Regiment) to penetrate deep into the enemy's rear positions. Under the leadership of deputy platoon commander Yang Yucai, this 12-man reconnaissance squad disguised as a task force escorting American advisers overcame numerous obstacles in the depths of the enemy, unexpectedly destroyed the regimental headquarters of the 1st Regiment of the South Korean Army's Capital Division located in Erqingdong and captured its regimental flag, thus making the first contribution to the elimination of this "White Tiger Regiment" by the troops. After destroying the "White Tiger Regiment" command post, the interspersed detachment penetrated the enemy's depth of 9 km for more than three hours, engaged in 11 large and small battles, and quickly occupied the highlands north of Lishidong and Beitingling, blocking the retreat route of the "White Tiger Regiment" and creating conditions for the total annihilation of the enemy army. The opportunity was also taken to annihilate most of the U.S. 555th Howitzer Battalion, located near the regimental headquarters.

　　After the war, the reconnaissance class of the 607th Regiment was recorded by the Headquarters of the Volunteer Army as a collective special merit, and Yang Yucai recorded a personal special merit once and awarded the title of first-class combat hero.

In the Battle of Jincheng, our army formed for the first time a 1.7-to-1 superiority in firepower against the enemy, which is an example of the development and growth of the People's Liberation Army in the fires of war. Just as the People's Air Force has developed from a mixed brigade and dozens of fighters before the war into a new service with 23 aviation divisions and more than 3,000 warhawks in the smoke of artillery fire.

　　During the entire War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, our army imported more than 15,000 artillery pieces of various types from the Soviet Union (including the ML20 type 152 mm heavy cannon) through the transfer of formed army divisions to rebuild artillery divisions, and successively formed 17 ground artillery divisions and 8 anti-aircraft artillery divisions.

　　Among them, the most famous is the 21st Rocket Artillery Division (Division Commander Wu Rongzheng, Political Commissar Liu Luchang), that is, the artillery unit with the license plate number "62". This is a five-regiment rocket artillery division made by the 143rd Division of the 48th Army of the People's Liberation Army transferred from Qujiang, Guangdong to the Fuxin area in the northeast, equipped with a total of 120 "slide-rail directionalizers, each gun car equipped with 8 combined launchers" Soviet-made БМ-13 rocket launchers. The three infantry regiments of the 143rd Division were expanded into five rocket artillery regiments of the 201st, 202nd, 20th, 207th, and 208th Regiments of the Reserve Artillery Rocket Artillery Corps, and were organized into two battalions and six companies per regiment, that is, 4 per company, 12 battalions, and a total of 24 regiments. In the early days of entering the DPRK, most of this unit was based on regiments, directly commanded by Shiji, and was called the "Harvester of the United Nations Army" by posterity. After returning to China, it was reorganized into the 11th Artillery Division of the Central Military Commission. In March 1955, he "went to the brigade to receive Soviet equipment and rearmament" in large areas. During the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, our army formed two such rocket artillery units, the other being the 22nd Rocket Artillery Division, and the three regiments under the jurisdiction of the later division (including the two regiments transferred from the 21st Division) successively entered the WAR in Korea as independent units.

　　According to relevant statistics, in the Battle of Jincheng, "the volunteer army prepared 2028644 shells before the war, including 60,500 90 mm rockets and 679,440 60 mm mortar shells." 82 mm mortar shells 665052" "in the 7 to 28 minutes after the Volunteers launched the attack, consumed 1900 tons of ammunition, and in 9 hours consumed 163,000 shells of various shells" (2297 tons).

　　After the war, in the newly promulgated infantry formation table of the Central Military Commission, the number of artillery companies exceeded that of infantry companies for the first time. After the baptism of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, in the process of our army's modernization construction, the "god of war" has finally confirmed its veritable status.

　　In the summer of 1953, the counterattack was the largest offensive campaign of our army since it was transferred to the defensive position, and we successively invested 12 corps (including 10 corps of the Volunteer Army and 2 corps of the People's Army), and the enemy successively invested 18 divisions. The battle lasted for two and a half months, and our army killed and wounded more than 123,000 enemy prisoners, recovered 240 square kilometers of land, and straightened the front south of Jincheng, creating a favorable situation after the armistice.

　　Subsequently, on July 27, 1953, the Chinese and Dprk People's Armies signed armistice agreements with the commanders of the "United Nations Army", Peng Dehuai and Clark, respectively, in Kaesong, Pyongyang, and Wenshan.

　　The fierce military contest between the two sides in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea came to an end.

　　On the third day after the signing ceremony, Mr. Peng made a special trip to the 46th Army of the Volunteer Army, which was now stationed in Kaesong. He climbed on foot to the summit of Daedeok Mountain, which faced the Linjin River, inspected the army's "complete view of the 29-kilometer-wide defensive position on the front" and "drilled into the wet and low tunnels" to learn more about the lives of the soldiers. He told the officers and men accompanying him: "The Korean battlefield is a training ground for our army to compete with the US army. Through this contest of blood and fire, it is wise for the US military to sign an armistice now. Otherwise, we will be driven to the Linjin River to feed Wang Ba! ” 。