When did the Chinese Volunteer Army enter North Korea?

At dusk on October 19, 1950, four armies of the Thirteenth Corps of the Chinese People’s Volunteers began to cross the Yalu River from Andong, Changdiankou, and Manpu.

The officers and soldiers took off their cap badges and chest badges, wore khaki singles and cotton coats, tied white towels on their left arms, and walked quickly in the cold wind and rain with branches and leaves on their heads.

There were no salutes or gongs and drums to send off. The army of tens of thousands moved in covertly, and only the sound of footsteps and the sound of waves could be heard.

The first to cross the border between China and North Korea was the 370th Regiment of the 124th Division of the 42nd Army as an advance reconnaissance force. They crossed the river three days ahead of the rest of the army.

A team of more than 50,000 people from the 42nd Army crossed the river from the Manpo Iron Bridge and a temporary pontoon bridge. Their goal was the Changjin Lake area in North Korea. In the center of the iron bridge, there is a white line on the bridge, which is the dividing line between China and North Korea. Once your feet cross this white line, you step onto a foreign land.

The eyes of the Chinese soldiers were all paying attention to this white line. The moment they crossed the white line, the soldiers' eyes felt a little sore.

Following the 42nd Army across the river was the 38th Army, and their goal of gathering was the Jiang boundary. At this time, it had become the temporary capital of North Korea.

As soon as the Thirty-Eighth Army arrived at the river, it received an order to cross the river immediately due to military emergency. The commanders and soldiers set off immediately regardless of fatigue.

The 115th Division and the 116th Division of the Thirty-ninth Army crossed the river from Andong, and the 117th Division crossed the river from Changdiankou. Their targets were Turtle City and Taizhou.

This night is a night that will go down in history. For the first time, the army of the Republic of China set foot on a foreign country.

Wu Xinquan, commander of the 39th Army, said this when recalling this night: I was sitting in the jeep, and I could reach out and touch the Yalu River Bridge. The bridge was like a pair of arms stretching out from the land of the two countries. Embracing each other in the river...

The team was very quiet, everyone was walking silently, and no one said anything, but I could hear some soldiers counting how long the bridge was. There are only more than 1,500 steps from China to North Korea.

As the car passed through the center of the bridge, which is the dividing line between the two countries, I heard some soldiers excitedly asking cadres: Company commander, what time is it now?

As soon as the volunteers entered North Korea, the first thing they felt was low-altitude reconnaissance and strafing by United Nations aircraft.

After a night of marching in wind and snow, the large army hid in the snow nests in the woods. Commanders and fighters often saw enemy planes flying close to the mountain ridges and skimming the treetops. During the day, some troops' hidden vehicles were blown up by enemy planes and burst into flames under the eyes of the soldiers, and the troops also suffered casualties from air raids.

When the Korean People's Army retreating north met the volunteers, the first thing they asked was: Do you have a plane? When they heard no, they all shook their heads.

As the troops advanced, the volunteer soldiers saw the corpses of members of the Korean Workers' Party, members of the Democratic Youth League, and even ordinary villagers scattered all over the fields after being killed by the South Korean army, as well as enemy planes bombing ordinary people. The tragedy caused. Houses were burning, mothers were bombed to death, babies lay crying on their relatives, and cattle died in the rice fields...

The cadres wasted no time in mobilizing: everyone has seen what it means to resist U.S. aggression, aid Korea, and protect the family. Defending the country? Just to avenge these suffering Korean people! That is to say, the disaster caused by the US invading forces will never be allowed to happen again on our sacred land!

The soldiers were no longer nervous. They took long strides, followed the team, and marched firmly towards the war zone.

Two days after the volunteers entered North Korea, the battlefield situation changed dramatically.

The Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Divisions of the South Korean Second Corps on the Western Front have advanced to the Osunchon and Seongcheon lines, and are only more than 100 kilometers away from the Volunteer Army's original defense line. The Capital Division of the South Korean Army on the eastern front has occupied Wu Laoli, Hongyuan and other places that the 42nd Army was originally preparing to defend.

The five divisions of the Volunteer Army that have crossed the river are still at least 120 to 270 kilometers away from the defense area. It is impossible for them to reach the defense area before the enemy.