Source | CCTV national memory (CCTV guojiajiyi)
“The signing of the armistice must be postponed, and when it is appropriate to postpone it depends on the development of the situation. It is extremely necessary to annihilate more than 10000 puppet troops.” This is an emergency telegram sent by Chairman Mao Zedong when the Korean War armistice was signed.
But it is clear that the two belligerents are going to stop fighting. Who provoked Chairman Mao to send such a secret message?
01
The signing of the armistice must be postponed
From May 27 to June 16, 1953, the volunteer army and the Korean people’s army conducted the second phase of the summer counterattack campaign.
The “United Nations forces”, which could not find a bargain on the battlefield, had to push forward the negotiations. On June 8, an agreement on the repatriation of prisoners of war was reached. So far, all the agendas of the armistice negotiations have been agreed. According to the provisions of the agreement on the military demarcation line reached by the two sides, the revision of the actual line of contact between the two sides was completed by June 15, and the signing of the armistice agreement is imminent.
Just as preparations for the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement were about to be ready, South Korea’s Lee Seung Wan made trouble.
In June 1953, South Korean President Lee Seung Wan refused to accept the armistice agreement and forcibly detained prisoners of war of the Korean people’s army in the name of local release.
Mao Zedong decided to severely punish the sudden attack of Li CHENGWAN group.
On June 21, Mao Zedong sent a telegram instructing: “the signing of the armistice must be postponed. When it is appropriate to postpone it depends on the development of the situation. It is extremely necessary to annihilate more than 10000 puppet troops.”
02
The last battle to resist US aggression and aid Korea
On the evening of July 13, another division of the Fifth Army of the 20th corps of the volunteer army formed three assault groups in the East, the middle and the west, and launched the Jincheng campaign with the 24th army of the 9th corps, launching an attack on the solid position of 25 kilometers in front of Jincheng defended by the four divisions of the South Korean army.
The last battle of the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea has begun!
03
Most intense firepower
After the battle started, more than 1100 artillery pieces of the volunteer army fired more than 1900 tons of shells, and the main fortifications of the enemy were instantly destroyed.
This is a campaign with the largest number of concentrated artillery and the strongest firepower since the volunteers entered the DPRK.
As for the scene at that time, Wang Ying, who was the organizational officer of the 201st regiment of the 21st division of the artillery, recalled, “the positions were red, and the sky was bright.”
Within one hour, the volunteer army completely broke through the defense front positions of the four divisions of the South Korean army.
In less than a day, it pushed southward for the farthest distance of 9.5 kilometers, and leveled the front protruding to our side south of Jincheng.
04
Surprise attack on the White Tiger Group
On July 14, a small unit of the 203rd division of the 68th Army played a classic battle.
At 2:00 p.m., under the leadership of deputy platoon commander Yang Yucai, the advance reconnaissance team disguised as the South Korean army, skillfully passed through several checkpoints of the South Korean army, and entered the first regiment of the South Korean capital division, namely the white tiger regiment headquarters, in the erqingdong area. It destroyed the “white tiger regiment” headquarters at one stroke, and the entire “chemical attack team” suffered no casualties.
After that, under the cover of the night, the interposition detachment of the volunteer army advanced 9 kilometers in more than three hours, carried out 11 large and small battles, took advantage of the opportunity to attack the 555th grenade artillery battalion of the US Army stationed near the regiment headquarters, wiped out most of them, and annihilated most of the 2nd Battalion of the South Korean capital division’s mechanized regiment, which came to be reinforced, killing the head of the mechanized regiment.
05
53000 enemy troops were wiped out
In order to expand the battle results, the main force of the 20th Corps controlled the occupied positions and continued to develop and advance southward with some troops.
Only two days later, the East Group advanced another 9 kilometers to the south.
On the 16th, the enemy launched a counterattack, and the volunteer army turned to the defense. In the following ten days, the troops of one company to two regiments of the enemy launched a counterattack thousands of times, turning the position into an iron and steel defense line.
The Jincheng campaign was the last battle of the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and it was also the largest offensive campaign carried out by the volunteers against the fortified enemy.
Together with operations in other directions, more than 53000 enemy troops were annihilated and more than 160 square kilometers of positions were recovered, which effectively cooperated with the armistice negotiations, deepened the contradictions between the US authorities and the South Korean authorities, and played an important role in maintaining the stability of the Korean situation after the armistice.
Yang feng’an, then Peng Dehuai’s Military Secretary, said: at this moment, Li CHENGWAN was also honest, and he no longer clamored that he would work alone. He agreed to whatever we put forward.
On the morning of July 27, 1953, the delegations of the two sides of the Korean armistice negotiation war held a solemn signing ceremony of the armistice agreement in the newly built convex hall in Panmunjom.
At 10 o’clock sharp, the hall was quiet. The chief representative of the North Korean and Chinese delegations, general Nanri, and lieutenant general Harrison, the chief representative of the “United Nations” delegation, signed the nine armistice agreements respectively. The whole process of signing took only 10 minutes.
At 1:00 p.m., the commander-in-chief of the “United Nations army”, U.S. Army General mark Wayne Clark, signed his name in his tent in Wenshan.
At 10:00 that evening, Marshal Kim Il Sung, supreme commander of the Korean people’s army, signed at the prime minister’s office in Pyongyang. At 9:30 a.m. the next day, Peng Dehuai signed the “agreement on the Korean military armistice” and the “Interim supplementary agreement on the armistice agreement” in Kaesong. The two sides exchanged signed texts in Panmunjom on the afternoon of July 29.
This hard won armistice agreement pressed the stop button for the two-year and nine month war to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and the great struggle of the Chinese people to resist US aggression and aid Korea ended victoriously.
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