final warning to MacArthur not to test Chi-
nese resolve. The general responded by
launching his “Home by Christmas” offen-
sive, intending to place United Nations ban-
ners on the banks of the Yalu. “The enemy
has learned nothing,” Peng observed. “They
continue to advance recklessly.” At this junc-
ture, the Chinese leadership felt it had no re-
course but to launch an all-out offensive to
drive the Americans from the Korean Penin-
sula. Not surprisingly, their efforts were abet-
ted by MacArthur’s towering arrogance.
On November 25, 1950, elements of the
Ninth, 13th, and 38th Army Groups attacked
in midwinter, overrunning the American
Eighth Army under Gen. Walton H. Walker
and the X Corps under Gen. Edward Almond.
On the western side of the peninsula, Walker,
with great difficulty, managed to extricate the
bulk of his forces behind the Chongchon
River after fierce fighting and heavy losses.
Farther east, Almond also managed to fight
his way southward, but the First Marine Divi-
sion under Gen. Oliver P. Smith was sur-
rounded and trapped. Peng ordered the
marines destroyed, but Smith conducted a
magnificent fighting withdrawal throughout a
howling blizzard and reached the port of
Hungnam. The Chinese forces also suffered
heavy losses during this successful offensive,
but on December 1, 1950, United Nations
forces were ordered below the 38th Parallel
in South Korea. Peng scored a major propa-
ganda victory when Chinese forces, in hot
pursuit, recaptured the North Korean capital
of Pyongyang. The surprising swiftness of
Peng’s offensive stunned the world, for it
seemed unimaginable that his ill-equipped
peasant soldiers could fight, let alone defeat,
modern mechanized armies. By January 1951,
Chinese forces had recaptured the South Ko-
rean capital of Seoul, but Peng’s mighty offen-
sive ground to a halt. His extended supply
lines were being ravaged by United Nations
airpower, and a new commander, Gen.
Matthew B. Ridgway, managed to consolidate
his defenses. Pressing forward, the Ameri-
cans recaptured Seoul from the exhausted
Chinese on March 15, 1951, and readvanced
to the 38th Parallel, where the war began.
Peng then launched several massive and
costly counteroffensives to dislodge them but
failed, and the front stabilized by June 1951.
Both sides then dug in where they were.
For the next two years, communist and
United Nations forces staged a bloody, see-
saw war of attrition from trenches and defen-
sive lines not unlike that of World War I.
Peng’s soldiers fought magnificently but,
being poorly equipped for close, static war-
fare, sustained heavy losses. Following the
death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Febru-
ary 1953, the communist side softened its
stance toward peace negotiations, and on July
19, 1953, Peng signed an armistice agreement
with Gen. Mark W. Clark. The Korean War,
which cost the lives of 33,000 Americans, 1
million Chinese, and 4 million Koreans, had
ground to its inconclusive ending. However,
the war was viewed as a great moral victory
in China, for it had stood up to a hated, more
modern adversary, fought to a draw, and re-
stored North Korean independence. For his
role, Peng was highly decorated by Kim Il
Sung and received a hero’s welcome in Bei-
jing. As a consequence of his good perform-
ance, Peng was also made minister of national
defense the following year.
The war in Korea had highlighted how un-
dersupplied and ill-equipped the People’s Lib-
eration Army was for conducting modern war-
fare. Peng therefore set about reorganizing
and reequipping it along Soviet lines. To ac-
complish this, he was also willing to dispense
with the romantic notions of guerrilla warfare
that so dramatically carried the communists
to power. Ranks and uniforms, previously for-
bidden by Mao, were introduced to raise
morale and unit esprit de corps, and profes-
sional instruction was stressed. Peng himself
was elevated to the rank of field marshal.
However, his efforts at modernization were
criticized by Gen. Lin Biao, a high-ranking
party official who felt that weaponry was irrel-
evant—what counted in war was correct ide-
ology. Against this widening political chasm,PENGDEHUAI