Overview of the Vietnamese People's Army

During the periods of anti-Japanese, anti-French and anti-American wars, the Vietnamese Army, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, made great contributions to the liberation of the Vietnamese people. During the initial period of the Vietcong, mainly the anti-Japanese guerrillas were established after the Japanese invasion of Indochina war in September 1940.The first anti-Japanese armed force, the North Mountain Guerrillas, was established in February 1941 with a total of 32 members, and many anti-Japanese guerrillas were subsequently established in different parts of the country.On December 22, 1944, Vuu Won Kha, under the instruction of Ho Chi Minh, set up in a forested area of Won Binh District of Cao Binh Province "Vietnam Liberation Army Propaganda Team", which was later designated as Vietnam Army Day. The Propaganda Corps **** 34 men.In April 1945, Vietnam held its first military conference and decided to unify and merge the National Salvation Army, the Vietnam Liberation Army Propaganda Corps, and other armed organizations into the Vietnam Liberation Army. In May of the same year, the Vietnam Liberation Army was formally established in the area of Zai Chau, Taiyuan Province, with a unified establishment and unified military and political training, and the whole army was organized into 13 companies of about 5,000 people. from August 14 to 25, 1945, the Vietnamese army took part in the August Uprising in the whole country of Vietnam, and achieved the victory in the war of resistance against Japan, and in September of the same year, the Vietnamese Democratic **** and the State was established, and the Vietnam Liberation Army was renamed as the Guardian of the Nation Army, with a total strength of about 50,000 men.

In November 1946, the Vietnamese army was put into the war against France. In 8 years of war against France, especially in the late stage, with the help of China's military advisory mission to aid Vietnam, the Vietnamese army troops developed faster, the organization and command system has been more sound, combat effectiveness improved significantly. in January 1946, the establishment of the Central Military Commission to assist the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party to lead the army. 22 May 1946 the Guardian Army reorganized into a national army, according to the regiment, battalion, company for the unified establishment. On November 9 of the same year, the Military Committee of the National Assembly merged with the Ministry of National Defense to form the Ministry of National Defense, with Vu Won Kha as the minister.The formation of combat units at the division level began after August 1949, with the earliest six infantry divisions and one service division, and communications, engineering, artillery, and antiaircraft artillery were successively formed in this period. On February 11, 1951, it was officially named "Vietnam People's Army". In the 8-year war against France, the Vietnamese Army*** eliminated more than 460,000 French invasion troops. In the famous Dien Bien Phu victory, 16,000 enemy troops were annihilated, achieving a decisive victory in the 8-year war of resistance and the liberation of North Vietnam. At this time, the total strength of the Vietnamese army had grown to 330,000 men, organized into 12 divisions another 11 independent regiments, 4 artillery regiments and 2 engineering regiments.

After the end of the war of resistance to the French, North Vietnam entered a period of peace building, the Vietcong People's Army carried forward the glorious tradition of the People's Army, and actively participated in the construction of the Vietcong army put forward the "construction of a regularized and fairly modernized army, while laying the initial foundation for the construction of other military services, military service," the policy of building the army, and the implementation of the two "five-year army building plan". The Vietcong put forward the policy of "building a regularized and fairly modernized army while laying the initial foundation for the construction of other armies and services", implemented the two Five-Year Army Building Plans, and streamlined and reorganized its forces, so that by 1959, the total strength had been reduced to 170,000, and the army was organized into seven divisions, five brigades, nine independent regiments, and nine border guard battalions. At this time, the navy, chemical defense forces, armed public security and armored forces were successively established.

In 1958, the promulgation of compulsory military service law and officer service orders, the implementation of the rank system and salary system, in 1964 after the "Gulf of Tonkin incident", the United States in March 1965, the United States launched the Vietnam War, has invested in the U.S. troops amounted to 555,000 people, more than 72,000 people of the army of the servants, the South Vietnamese army of more than 1 million people. . Since then, the Vietnamese Army has been engaged in the war against the U.S., and has expanded its forces, and has set up the Air Force, the Defense Air Force, and the Secret Service, and at the same time has set up the combat forces at the military level. Ground combat forces were expanded to 25 divisions, and by the end of the war against the United States the total strength had reached one million men. In the final war for the liberation of the South, more than 1 million South Vietnamese troops and 1.5 million militia groups were annihilated and dismantled. In the war against the United States, which lasted nearly 11 years, the U.S. Army was annihilated 56,600 and wounded more than 300,000 in Vietnam. After the end of the war against the United States, the Vietnamese army continued to maintain its wartime military system.

At the end of 1975, the North and South armies were formally merged, and in April 1976, the General Directorate of Economic Construction was established under the Ministry of National Defense, and the armed public security forces were reorganized into the Border Defense Forces.

In March 1978, the General Mobilization Decree was issued, and Vietnam continued to expand its military force, with a total of 1.2 million troops.

In April 1978, the country adopted the policy of "grasping the class struggle and carrying out land reform". In April 1978, Vietnam began a large-scale exclusion of Chinese on the grounds of "rigorously grasping the class struggle and carrying out land reform", forcing 1.5 million southern Vietnamese to be sent to detention centers or driven into the sea, and 600,000 northern Vietnamese to be forcibly driven back to China, which resulted in the abnormal death of a large number of Chinese. On December 25, 1978, the Vietcong occupied Cambodia and stationed 140,000 troops in Cambodia. At the same time, 50,000-60,000 troops were stationed in Laos. Vietnam deployed 60% (700,000) of its troops in the northern part of Vietnam and the border area between Vietnam and China. From 1973 to 1986, the Vietnamese army provoked trouble on the border of Yunnan and Guangxi of China 10,370,000 times, including divisional and regimental attacks, and fired more than 1,000,000 rounds of various kinds of artillery shells. At the same time, the Vietnamese army sent troops to encroach on 21 islands and reefs in the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, and from February 17, 1979 to February 13, 1990, the Chinese army was forced to fight in self-defense against the Vietcong. After the end of the self-defense operation, the Vietcong army again provoked the border between the two countries and continuously caused bloodshed. Taking advantage of the retreat of the Chinese border troops, the Vietcong took advantage of the situation and occupied many points along the border on the line between the two countries in a big way. Once again, they illegally occupied the Chinese border areas such as Luojiaping Dashan, Phakha Mountain, Keling Mountain, Lao Mountain, and Jieyin Mountain. In the five years since the end of the war of counterattack in self-defense against Vietnam, the Vietcong regular troops and militia have kept firing at farms, villages and schools in China, firing more than 40,000 rounds of various kinds of guns and bullets, and killing and wounding hundreds of soldiers and civilians on the Chinese border. The Chinese border people were forced to leave their homes and live in caves. As a result, 31,793 acres of land were difficult to cultivate and manage, hundreds of thousands of acres of rubber could not be harvested, and 52 schools were forced to suspend classes. In December 1981, a new law on military service and regulations on the service of officers were promulgated, and the Chinese army was once again forced to return fire in self-defense. Later, the Vietnamese army carried out downsizing and reorganization, gradually reducing some of the army posts to build "an appropriate number of high-quality armies", and from 1993 to 1997, Vietnam sent its navy and army troops to occupy eight islands and reefs in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. --In this way, from 1975 to 1997, Vietnam **** occupied 29 islands and reefs in the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, with the ambition of turning the South China Sea into the "Vietnamese South Sea"!