Military Art of People's War. Vo Nguyen Giap

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СКАЧАТЬ I hope many others will soon come into being. Its size is small, but its prospects are brilliant. It is the embryo of the Liberation Army, and may have to move throughout the country from north to south.”

      Two days after the founding of the unit, we started our activities and won the first victories at Phai Khat and Na Ngan.

      These two sudden attacks against the Phai Khat and Na Ngan posts, which resulted in their being annihilated, were swift and victorious operations. As they took place in a border region between Cao Bang, Bac Can, and Lang Son provinces, the news of victory spread rapidly and stirred the three provinces.

      After the victory, we went to the Thien Thuat base to expand the unit into a company. Reinforcements came from various localities. To see our new company standing in neat rows and armed with new rifles and shining bayonets filled us with jubilance and confidence. After our first victories at Phai Khat and Na Ngan, we had seized a large amount of ammunition. At that time, ammunition was much more valued than guns.

      Later we marched northward to Bao Lac district close to the Vietnam-China border. Our troops went through the villages situated high on the mountains and inhabited by the Man people. Everywhere we went, we were welcomed and cheered by the local people, especially by Man mothers who showed high esteem for the revolutionary troops, greeting us most affectionately and feasting us. At Bao Lac, we launched a sudden attack against the Dong Mu post. Our troops sang joyfully while fighting. I was injured in the leg.

      With our presence at Bao Lac, the imperialists might think that all of us were there. To put them off the scent, we moved rapidly and most secretly back to Hoang Hoa Tham district, on the eve of the Lunar New Year’s Day. In Hoang Hoa Tham forest, houses had been built and supplies stored for us by the local people, many of whom, old as they were, left their families to enjoy the New Year’s Day festival with us in the forest.

      Vu Anh, Pham Van Dong, and others of the Cao-Bac-Lang Inter-Provincial Committee also came to visit our troops. We discussed the continuation of the Southward March. Immediately after their departure, we learned that the Japanese coup d’état had just taken place on March 9, 1945.

      The Vietnam Propaganda and Liberation Unit moved out from the jungle to the Kim Ma Plain in broad daylight, unfurling their golden-starred red flag. The population was overjoyed.

      We marched southward, toward the delta. In every locality we passed through, we set up revolutionary power, disarmed the enemy, and called on the French remnant troops to cooperate with us in fighting the Japanese. New units of the revolutionary army were organized. The Cao-Bac-Lang Inter-Provincial Committee ordered the setting-up of people’s power and launched a vast guerrilla movement against the Japanese. Companies of the Liberation Army were formed in the districts of Soc Giang, Cao Bang, Bao Lac, Nguyen Binh, That Khe. Soc Giang and a number of other district towns were attacked by local armed units. At Nuoc Hai, during a drive to enroll the youth into the Liberation Army, more than three thousand volunteered.

      This was an unprecedented, historic scene.

      Continuing our march southward, we reached Cho Chu and then Tan Trao.

      At Tan Trao, we were heartened to find that the Bac Son bases had already been expanded to there. Guerrilla warfare had already been started and revolutionary power established in all the districts of Thai Nguyen province. The Tan Trao region was under Song Hao’s guidance. The Liberation forces and the National Salvation forces had thus joined.

      This time we met each other in a situation different from that of earlier days. The revolution had taken a step forward. The door-die battle against the Japanese had been waged. In their attempts to destroy the revolution, the Japanese from Thai Nguyen and Bac Giang cities launched attack after attack against the liberated area but in vain. The movement in the Cao-Bac-Lang area was not as it had been when the French imperialists unleashed their terror campaign. The population in the liberated area now had revolutionary power and the people throughout the country had heroically risen against the Japanese.

      The Southward March reached Tan Trao, thus enabling the Cao Bang and Bac Son centers to link up, and the door was wide open for us to advance toward the delta.

      On April 15, 1945, the Central Committee convened the Revolutionary Military Conference of North Vietnam at Hiep Hoa district, Bac Giang province. On our way back to Cho Chu after the conference, we stopped to attend a meeting on May Day. At that time the German fascists had already surrendered to the Allies in Europe. It was also reported that Uncle had crossed the border from China and was coming to us, by the road he had himself planned for the Propaganda Unit.

      We hurriedly set out to meet him, our horses galloping, and not thinking of taking a rest. We reached Deo Re, passed Nghia Ta, and met him at Ha Kien where he had just arrived.

      This was the first time I had met him since the day he entrusted me with organizing the Propaganda Unit. How many hardships we had undergone, how many successes won since then! I hastened to report to him, “The liberated area has been expanded….” I told him what had been going on since he ordered the founding of the Vietnam Propaganda and Liberation Unit, about the steady development of the popular movement in the regions we had passed through. He listened attentively and calmly, his face beaming with joy.

      He said that the world situation was also favorable to us. Furthermore, we had to choose in the Cao-Bac-Lang or Tuyen Quang-Thai Nguyen areas a place where the population was reliable, a place dotted with strong revolutionary organizations and favorable geographical conditions; in short, a place that could be used as a center for promoting relations with the outside world on the one hand and with other parts of the country on the other. That should be done immediately. Many urgent tasks demanded it.

      I returned to Kim Quan Thuong and conferred with Song Hao. We suggested Tan Trao, a region with steep mountains and deep forests situated between Tuyen Quang and Thai Nguyen provinces, far from the highway. There in Tan Trao, revolutionary power had been set up, and the people were enthusiastically supporting the revolution. Learning that revolutionary bodies would come to stay in their locality, members of various people’s organizations for national salvation came in great numbers, helping us in many ways, building houses for the leading organs, for the anti-Japanese military and political school, and so on.

      Uncle arrived at Tan Trao. The period from 1941 to 1945 were years of hardship in fighting our way from Pac Bo to Tan Trao during which the population of Cao Bang, Bac Can, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang, and Thai Nguyen provinces, especially in Bac Son and Vu Nhai districts, fought heroically and made of the Viet Bac zone a nucleus of the national anti-Japanese movement.

      After listening to a detailed report on the situation, Uncle reviewed the decision of the North Vietnam Revolutionary Military Conference held in April. He said, “The division of provinces into so many military zones is too cumbersome and unfavorable for achieving a common command.” Now, as the liberated area covered many provinces—Cao Bang, Bac Can, Lang Son, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, and Thai Nguyen—it would be better to include them in one base named the “Liberated Area”; our troops would then be called “Liberation Army.” On June 4, 1945, he suggested that a draft amendment be made with regard to the decision of the North Vietnam Military Conference on the founding of the Liberated Area and that a conference of all cadres in the area be convened to discuss the formation of a unified command. But the war zones in the Liberated Area were practically in a state of emergency; no one could afford to come. I was the only man to assume permanent duty at the Provisional Command Committee of the Liberated Area set up in Tan Trao, maintaining, on the one hand, contact with Cao Bang, Bac Son, and abroad, and on the other, with the zones where Le Thanh Nghi and Tran Dang Ninh were working, with the Central Committee and the other parts of the country. Every day, I came to Uncle’s office to report on the situation and to discuss with him the work to be done. Only after a telephone set had been captured in an attack against Tam Dao post СКАЧАТЬ