People's Volunteer Army - Early Chinese Involvement

Early Chinese Involvement

The stated historical importance of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army's entering the war was that it marked the beginning of Chinese government involvement. However, this is rather from political propaganda needs and there is debate of the time of the beginning of Chinese involvement. Some scholars in the west had argued that the Chinese involvement was much earlier, and in the North Korean invasion on June 25, 1950, out of the 135,000 North Korean invasion force, more than 38,000 were the former ethnic Korean soldiers of the Chinese Communist Fourth Field Army. An equal number of former ethnic Korean soldiers of Chinese communist IV Field Army who did not participate in the invasion also served in North Korean army in other regions of North Korea. The North Korean invasion force consisted of two corps, the 1st Corps and the 2nd Corps. Jin Xiong (金雄, Kim Woong), the commander-in-chief of the invasion force and the commander of the 1st Corps, was a veteran of Eighth Route Army, and a former member of Communist Party of China. Jin Wuting (金武亭, Kim Mu Jong), also known as Wu Ting (武亭, Mu Jong) the commander of 2nd corps, even had more seniority than Jin Xiong (金雄), in that he participated in Guangzhou Uprising and the Long March. All of these facts are agreed by the Chinese government.

The North Korean invasion force attacked the south on June 25, 1950 consisted of a total of ten divisions, an armored brigade, an armored regiment, and two independent regiments, 150 tanks, over 600 artillery pieces, and 196 aircraft (including 40 fighters and 70 bombers). The North Korean divisions included the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th (later renamed as the 12th), 10th, 13th, and the 15th Divisions. Out of these divisions, three were former Chinese communist Fourth Field Army divisions, each had the following structure: the division headquarter, a political directorate, a supply directorate, a medical directorate, a security battalion, an artillery battalion, a training / military police group, a propaganda /psychological warfare group and three infantry regiments. Each regiment was consisted of three battalions and each battalion was consisted of three infantry companies, a machine gun company, an engineering company, a security company, an artillery company, an antitank gun company, and a mortar company. Kim Il-sung spent over 13.8 million rubles to purchase Soviet weaponry to arm his invasion force, which was paid in the form of 9 tons of gold, 40 tons of silver and over 15,000 tons of minerals, but all former ethnic Korean soldiers of Chinese communist IV Field Army carried their own weapons and additionally, the former units of the Chinese communist Fourth Field Army were also transferred to North Korean with all of the weapons. The three former Chinese divisions were:

• 5th Division (North Korea): former 164th Division of the Chinese communist IV Field Army. The commander, Li Deshan (李德山), a veteran of Eighth Route Army and former member of Communist Party of China, was also the political commissar. When the division reached to North Korea on July 20, 1949, its number totaled 10,821. Weaponry brought with them included 5,279 rifles, 588 handguns, 321 light machine guns, 104 heavy machine guns, 206 submachine guns, 8 anti-tank rifles, 32 grenade launchers, 67 50-mm mortars, 87 60-mm mortars, 26 mortars with calibre of 81-mm or greater, 12 Anti-tank guns, 1 infantry support gun, 3 other artillery pieces, 3,456 bayonets, and 734 horses.
• 6th Division (North Korea): former 166th Division of the Chinese communist IV Field Army. The commander, Fang Fushan (方虎山, Bang Ho San), a veteran of Eighth Route Army and former member of Communist Party of China, was also the political commissar. When the division reached to North Korea on July 20, 1949, its number totaled 10,320. Weaponry brought with them included: 6,046 rifles, 722 handguns, 281 light machine guns, 91 heavy machine guns, 878 submachine guns, 69 grenade launchers, 31 50-mm mortars, 91 60-mm mortars, 33 mortars with calibre of 81-mm or greater, 10 Anti-tank guns, 3 mountain guns, 3 other artillery pieces, 1,833 bayonets, and 945 horses.
• 7th Division (North Korea) (later renamed as the 12th): former 156th Division of the Chinese communist IV Field Army, with additional ethnic Korean soldiers from the 139th, 140th, and 141st Divisions of the Chinese communist IV Field Army. The commander, Cui Ren (崔仁, Chu Yol), a veteran of Eighth Route Army and former member of Communist Party of China, was also the political commissar. When the division reached North Korea on April 18, 1950, its number totaled more than 14,000. The weaponry brought into North Korea was greater than that of the other two divisions due to its larger size.

With the exception of the 2nd and 3rd divisions, which mostly consisted of former-Soviet Union trained North Korean troops, all other North Korean divisions had at least a former regiment of the Chinese communist IV Field Army, and in addition to the three former Chinese divisions, most of commanders were former commanders of the Chinese communist IV Field army, such as:

• Commander of the 2nd Division Ch'oe Hyon (崔贤) and chief-of-staff Xu Bo (许波)
• Commander of the 3rd Division Lee Yong Ho (李英镝) and chief-of-staff Zhang Pingshan (张平山)
• Commander of the 4th Division Lee Kwon Mu (李权武)

Though the Chinese government acknowledged these facts, these early Chinese involvements were kept a secret for more than four decades in China and it was only until late 1990s when such information was finally allowed to be revealed on large scale. The Chinese government, however, argued that these troops were already transferred to North Korean and thus should be strictly considered as the internal affairs of Korea and thus still asserts the Chinese involvement in the Korean War begun when Chinese People's Volunteer Army join the fight.