Siheyuan: Back to 50 years ago, Shazhu joined the army

After the commander of the 38th Army, Liang Xingchu, looked at the terrain through a telescope, he froze in his tracks. He was a little scared now, so he asked the commander of the 113th Division, Jiang Chao, who was standing beside him.

"Xiao Jiang, you said that the Imjin River is defenseless. If our 38th Army rushes forward like this, it will probably cause a large number of casualties, just like their 65th and 64th Armies. This is completely a pocket opening, and it is not suitable for developing human wave tactics."

Jiang Chao naturally saw the awkwardness of the Imjin River's position and understood that what his commander said was true.

But asking the 38th Army to come to support was an order from the headquarters. If they did not take any action, they would be disobeying military orders, which could lead to disaster.

Just when he was at a loss, he suddenly thought of someone.

"Captain, I don't have any good ideas, but I know someone who should have a good idea."

Liang Xingchu was obviously stunned when he heard Jiang Chao's words.

"Who? Xiao Jiang, don't keep us in suspense, time is urgent!"

Jiang Chao didn't reply, but directly slipped into the army and called He Yuzhu who was in the center of the guard company.

He Yuzhu was also confused when he saw his teacher coming to find him.

When he knew the purpose of Jiang Chao's visit, he followed him to the commander Liang Xingchu.

He saluted first, then asked, "Commander, are you looking for me?"

Liang Xingchu looked at Jiang Chao who was standing beside him. After the other party gave him a look that said it was okay, he directly asked He Yuzhu,

"He Yuzhu, after listening to what your Commander Jiang said about the Imjin River operation, you have better ideas. Tell us about it."

When He Yuzhu heard what Liang Xingchu said, he immediately took the telescope handed to him by Jiang Chao and carefully examined the terrain on the other side of the river. He immediately had a plan for how to deal with the situation.

"Commander, in my humble opinion, it would be a very bad idea for us to cross the river and offer our help.

Without any bunkers or fortifications, it was difficult to launch a positional counterattack, and it was even more difficult for our troops to spread out and take advantage of numbers.

This is completely using our army's weaknesses to confront the enemy's strengths.

In my opinion, I think we can choose not to cross the river here, but to arrange a temporary floating bridge downstream, then quickly land, go around the rear of the enemy's position, and strike the US troops on the Imjin River. With the front and back attacks, we can definitely pull out this nail and open this gap for friendly forces. "

After hearing He Yuzhu's suggestion, Liang Xingchu, commander of the 38th Army, fell into deep thought. He had to say that He Yuzhu's method was very effective, but the key was that it would waste a lot of time. After weighing the pros and cons, he decided to split his troops into two groups, letting the 113th Division and an artillery regiment go directly downstream to cross the river and fight behind the enemy.

He took the 112th and 114th Divisions to support the troubled 64th and 65th Armies.

After finalizing the battle plan, the 38th Army immediately split into two groups. One group, led by Jiang Chao, commander of the 113th Division, went directly to 3 kilometers downstream to build a pontoon bridge.

The main force of the 38th Army directly crossed the Imjin River to support the frustrated 64th and 65th Armies.

This time, the 38th Army also brought two anti-aircraft artillery battalions, which slightly curbed the attack momentum of US fighter jets.

However, the situation on the entire battlefield of the Imjin River was extremely unfavorable to us. The US military's frontline positions on the opposite bank were like a meat grinder, and volunteer soldiers were constantly dying every minute and every second.

After the 113th Division arrived at the designated location, the division commander Jiang Chao immediately ordered the pontoon company to start building a pontoon bridge. Due to time constraints, the pontoon company only took half an hour to build a simple pontoon bridge.

All officers and soldiers of the 113th Division immediately equipped themselves and crossed the river at high speed. At this time, the US fighter planes hovering in the sky discovered the movement of the 113th Division downstream. However, with the firepower of the two anti-aircraft machine gun companies deployed on the shore, the firepower of the US fighter planes was effectively contained, and the opponent was prevented from blowing up the pontoon bridge.

Upon seeing this, Division Commander Jiang Chao ordered all troops of the 113th Division to cross the river quickly. He knew clearly that in 15 minutes, this pontoon bridge would be attacked by US warplanes, and they did not have much time left.

In about 5 minutes, almost all of the 113th Division, except the artillery regiment, had crossed the river.

They then immediately adopted a roundabout tactic and forced their way directly to the rear of the US military's frontline positions on the Imjin River.

At that time, the US 8th Army stationed on the front line of the Imjin River did not expect that a volunteer army unit would suddenly attack from behind.

This resulted in the artillery camp in their rear being instantly wiped out by the 113th Division. Without the artillery fire support, the US military's firepower dropped sharply, which also greatly reduced the resistance of the 64th and 65th Armies at the forefront of the battlefield.

With the 38th Division of the 113th Army cooperating with the three armies on the front line to attack.

The US commander Van Fleet was deeply aware that the front line of the Imjin River could not be defended, and immediately issued an order to retreat.

In order to preserve his manpower, he immediately commanded the tank armored regiment to rush towards the location of the 113th Division as the vanguard.

Since the 113th Division was lightly equipped and the temporarily captured artillery positions were too close, it could not effectively suppress the impact of the enemy's tank and armored regiment.

They could only watch as the US 8th Army tore a hole in their defense line and fled directly to the south.

With the escape of the US 8th Army, the Volunteer Army finally won the Battle of Imjin River.

However, this victory was a pyrrhic one. After inventory and statistics, less than 64% of the nearly 65 volunteer soldiers of the originally fully-strength 10th and th Armies survived.

Nearly 3 volunteer soldiers died on this land. If there had been no support from the 38th Army, the casualty ratio of the two armies would have been even higher.

As for the US 8th Army, which had already fled, its losses were not serious. It is estimated that there were only about a thousand casualties, most of whom were killed by the 113th Division.

After taking the Imjin River, the three armies entered a brief adjustment period and then began to attack at full speed towards the Seoul area.

Although the timely arrival of the 38th Army prevented the 64th and 65th Armies from suffering large-scale casualties, the tenacious resistance of the US Eighth Army in the past two days greatly slowed down the progress of the 64th and 65th Armies, preventing them from entering the encirclement point at the scheduled time and thus missing the opportunity.

Although the 63rd Army had penetrated into the enemy's rear, it was unable to further expand its victory results due to many problems such as its limited manpower and restricted mobility.

In addition, the Third Corps and the Ninth Corps also achieved mediocre results. Although they achieved certain results to some extent, they did not make much progress in the face of the resistance of the US Joint Forces led by Li Qiwei.