Ming-yang Gap and the weather

1981September 14, a shocking scene appeared on a great plain north of Zhangjiajie, Hebei Province:

Arranged artillery vehicles took the lead in launching, firing a round of artillery shells at the established targets in the distance, and then the tank troops were dispatched against the diffuse smoke on the position.

Behind the tank, the helicopter gunships took off in an orderly manner. Higher in the sky, bombers and fighters lined up in order, and they also fired artillery at the ground.

After the mechanical troops were dispatched, the infantry followed closely, and the soldiers braved heavy artillery fire and marched forward bravely. ...

This is the largest military exercise organized by the Central Military Commission since the founding of New China. In this exercise, the troops invested * * * 1 10000 troops, with a total cost of 25 million.

Before this exercise, some people objected on the grounds that the cost was too high, but Comrade Deng Xiaoping made a decision, and the results he received later proved Comrade Xiaoping's cleverness and foresight.

"Great North China Exercise" was an action to show China's strength at that time.

Since the reform and opening up in China, the domestic political economy has developed rapidly, but the external environment is still not optimistic.

Since the 1970s, the former Soviet Union, a superpower, has always wanted to compete with the United States for world hegemony. In order to gain a dominant position in the competition, they all "divide the site" around the world.

During this period, although Sino-US relations entered a rare "honeymoon period" with Nixon's visit to China, they were only superficial harmony.

On the other hand, Sino-Soviet relations are deteriorating at this time, and there are millions of soldiers in the border areas and even in both countries, which is a great pressure on China.

Although China was not afraid of war, China, which wanted to stabilize and develop its domestic economy at that time, must have a suitable opportunity to show China's military strength and let the United States and the Soviet Union keep their own.

At this time, large-scale military exercises are the best way to show China's military strength.

Another important role of military exercises is to test the combat effectiveness of the army and see if the army can adapt to the current operational requirements.

Adapting to the current operational requirements is also a problem exposed in the counterattack against Vietnam in 1979.

Although the counterattack in self-defense was successful, the casualties of the PLA in this battle were also pessimistic.

What has been exposed in actual combat is that grass-roots officers and soldiers have obvious shortcomings in the use of advanced weapons in addition to the weak command ability of cadres and the weak cooperative combat ability of troops.

It is also the purpose of organizing this actual combat exercise to let officers and men get exercise in the exercise by simulating actual combat.

1955, 1959, 1973, the PLA also organized large-scale actual combat exercises, but only 50,000 people participated in the largest one at that time.

At that time, the actual combat exercises also had their own emphases. In the year of 198 1, the internal and external environment changed, which was also conducive to the whole army to conduct another large-scale targeted exercise.

Therefore, at the seminar on the strategy of senior cadres of the whole army held by the Central Military Commission, everyone decided to organize a large-scale North China exercise. At that time, in order to keep secret, the Central Military Commission called this secret meeting "80 1 meeting".

Before the "80 1" meeting, the General Staff Department put forward the strategic policy of "active defense" according to the situation at that time, which was also recognized by three founding marshals, Nie, Ye Jianying and Xu.

On September 30th, 1980, when General Staff Yang Dezhi, Yong Yang and Zhang zhen reported to Comrade Deng Xiaoping, they reported this strategic policy and the opinions of three teachers to Comrade Deng Xiaoping.

Comrade Deng Xiaoping not only clearly affirmed their views, but also said on the spot that he would speak at the "80 1" meeting.

In his subsequent speech, Comrade Deng Xiaoping clearly agreed with the policy of "active defense" and said that we would continue to fight. Marshal Ye Jianying also made a speech.

Ye Shuai pointed out in his speech that under this policy, the whole army should do a good job in training, especially the combat training of the synthetic army.

In order to implement the spirit of the "80 1" meeting, the General Staff suggested that a large-scale military exercise could be organized, which could be divided into several different directions and each had its own pertinence.

When the exercise plan was reported to the Central Military Commission, Comrade Deng Xiaoping, that is, Comrade chairman of the Central Military Commission, made a decision: Do great things if you want!

After the "80 1" meeting decided to hold actual military exercises, the exercise plan was made immediately.

The General Staff Department initially formulated three exercise directions: organizing defensive combat exercises in North China, and organizing "three wars" exercises in position defense, mobile warfare and guerrilla warfare in Northwest China.

In Bohai Bay area, according to geographical conditions, defense landing exercises can be organized.

After repeated research and discussion, the General Staff finally decided to conduct military exercises in North China first, and the main direction of the exercises was defensive operations.

The specific location of the exercise is set in the area north of Zhangjiakou, which is organized and implemented by the Beijing Military Region. Because this exercise was put forward at the "80 1" meeting, and the exercise code was "802".

After the decision of the General Staff Department, the Beijing Military Region quickly formulated a specific exercise plan. As the person in charge of the exercise, Qin Jiwei, commander of the Beijing Military Region, gave a report at the office meeting of the Central Military Commission held at the end of February with 198 1.

The meeting agreed in principle to the exercise plan of the Beijing Military Region, but some comrades still have concerns. They are worried that such a large-scale exercise will have a bad influence on the international community.

Moreover, the exercise plan formulated by the Beijing Military Region is the largest since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and comrades of the Military Commission are also worried that this will cause financial pressure.

So some comrades at the meeting also asked if the scale of the exercise could be smaller.

However, Qin Jiwei carried out the spirit of the "80 1" meeting and reiterated the significance of large-scale exercises. The two sides did not reach an agreement at the meeting.

The final result of the meeting was to let the General Staff and the Beijing Military Region discuss again and prepare three plans, namely, large, medium and small, which were finally approved by the Military Commission.

In the final three plans, the scale of the exercise is positioned as the size of the army, the size of the group army and the size of the division.

According to different scales, the number of soldiers participating in the exercise was 6.5438+10,000 and 50,000 respectively, and finally the soldiers at the division level only engaged in drawing operations.

The latter two small-scale plans were drawn up by the General Staff Department, and the first plan was drawn up by the Beijing Military Region. In addition to its large scale and large number of participants, the training subjects of this program are also the most comprehensive, with four * * *.

These four training subjects are: simulating enemy tank cluster attack, airborne and anti-airborne, position defense and anti-assault training.

After these three exercise plans were worked out, they were reported to Comrade Deng Xiaoping, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, who made the final decision.

After listening to the report, Comrade Deng Xiaoping said that our army has not conducted large-scale exercises for a long time, and it can also boost morale through exercises. If we want to build a synthetic army, we should have it on the ground and in the sky. If we want to do it, we must do it big!

Comrade Deng Xiaoping also said that large-scale exercises are conducive to improving the actual combat level of the army, so we should hold them according to the first plan. Since we are going to conduct exercises, we must achieve the goal of training.

For things that are too expensive, Deng Xiaoping waved: Money still needs to be spent, just save a little!

Apart from actual combat training, Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out that military parades and processions have not been held for a long time. These are not formalism, which is of great significance to the cultivation of military style.

Therefore, Comrade Deng Xiaoping also specifically proposed that after actual combat training, a military parade should be held to show the prestige of the army.

After Deng Xiaoping decided on the scale of the exercise, all the troops involved in the exercise were boiling. Such a large-scale exercise is unprecedented in the history of our army, and everyone is very excited to participate in this work.

Then the work of the exercise went on in an orderly way.

With the approval of the Military Commission, the whole army set up a campaign training group for senior cadres headed by General Yang Dezhi, chief of staff, with Zhou, chief of staff of the Beijing Military Region, as the director of the exercise.

On May 20th, the General Staff Department issued a notice to the whole army, specifying the participants, contents and time of the exercise in detail.

The exercise was conceived in the form of red-blue confrontation, and the blue side was an imaginary enemy, launching a full-scale attack by surprise attack.

The attack mode of the blue side is to use nuclear weapons and long-range aviation Ministry to attack the deep targets of the red side, and then dispatch armored vehicles and tank clusters to seize the strategic location of the red side.

Red is the defensive side, representing China. After discovering the blue army's large-scale attack, it quickly organized defense to cover the country's entry into the wartime mechanism and smashed the blue army's attack.

After the detailed plan was worked out, the participating troops devoted themselves to the training of commanders.

Because during the exercise training, it is the hottest time in summer, officers and men overcome difficulties, grope in hot weather during the day and live in simple tents at night.

In the face of such a difficult environment, none of the officers and men who participated in the exercise complained that they were tired, and everyone was in high spirits, waiting for the day of "showing their swords".

1981September 14, the exercise officially started.

At the command, the artillery took the lead in attacking, and the shells rained down on the predetermined target position.

After the artillery bombardment, on the ground, thousands of tanks and armored vehicles of the red and blue sides fought fiercely. In the air, the helicopter gunships and fighter planes of both sides also carried out fierce air combat.

In such a powerful situation, the exercise field was filled with smoke and flames, and explosions sounded from time to time.

Not to be outdone, the red infantry charged forward with fierce artillery fire, watching the wonderful exercise scene and watching the applause from the audience.

During the exercise, Comrade Deng Xiaoping also came. He watched the whole exercise from the observation booth.

On the last day of the exercise, the red and blue sides launched a fierce air battle. The blue plane kept hitting the target, and the Red Army also responded with artillery fire. Seeing the critical moment, Comrade Deng Xiaoping couldn't help standing up and applauding.

When the Red Army representing China, with the support of aviation and artillery, launched an "anti-assault" against the Blue Army, Comrade Deng Xiaoping stood up happily and applauded "well played".

On September 19, the confrontation drill ended, and the participating troops quickly lined up and performed military parades and staged performances.

At 9: 30 in the morning, 53 ground teams, including armored soldiers and engineers, walked past the reviewing platform with neat and mighty steps.

The aviation formed six air echelons, and they also passed the parade ground for review according to the scheduled queue.

After that, Comrade Deng Xiaoping, accompanied by Qin Jiwei, inspected the troops. The 1 1000 officers and men who participated in the inspection lined up neatly and accepted the inspection by the commander-in-chief of the whole army.

After the military parade, Comrade Deng Xiaoping delivered a concluding speech, saying that the exercise tested the achievements of army building, which not only reflected the characteristics of modern warfare, but also improved the overall quality and actual combat level of the troops. The exercise was a great success.

According to statistics afterwards, the exercise cost 25 million yuan, which was much less than the previous budget except that the deployment of troops was the largest since the founding of the People's Republic of China. This is also the concrete implementation of Comrade Deng Xiaoping's requirement of "living within our means and practicing economy".

The North China military exercise is not only an exercise for our army, but also shows the overall strength of our army to the international community, and also achieves the purpose of shocking external forces and winning a peaceful and stable environment for China's economic development.

It is worth mentioning that just as we were preparing for the North China military exercise, the former Soviet Union also held a large-scale military exercise of 198 1 in early September.

This exercise of the former Soviet Union was also conducted in the form of red-blue confrontation.

In this exercise, the Soviet Union invested in mechanized units, chemical defense units, medium and long-range strategic missile units and air force aviation units, and the number of tanks in the exercise was more than all the tanks in China at that time.

Soviet military exercises were conducted with "NATO" as the imaginary enemy, but under the complicated and sensitive situation at that time, there was considerable pressure on China.

If China didn't have this North China exercise at that time, if nothing else, the momentum would have been suppressed by the former Soviet Union, and China's situation in the international environment would have become relatively difficult.

Therefore, the "North China Military Exercise" at that time was of great significance to China, which undoubtedly reflected the far-sighted leadership of Comrade Deng Xiaoping.