The 40th Group Army was a military formation of the
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the China, People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five Military branch, service branches: the People's ...
, active in various forms from 1949 to 2017. It was last located in the
Shenyang Military Region
The Shenyang Military Region was one of seven military regions for the Chinese People's Liberation Army. It has command and control of military and armed police forces in the three northeast provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning, w ...
and the
Northern Theater Command
The Northern Theater Command (is) one of the five theater commands of the People's Liberation Army, founded on 1 February 2016. Its predecessor is the Shenyang Military Region and Beijing Military Region. Its headquarters is in the Heping Dis ...
.
History
Korean War
During the Korean War, the 40th Army was part of the
People's Volunteer Army
The People's Volunteer Army (PVA) was the armed expeditionary forces deployed by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the PVA were actually transferred from the People's Liberation Army under the order ...
. It was composed of the
118th,
119th, and
120th Divisions.
In the morning of Oct. 25, the
118th Division of the 40th Army ambushed the 3rd Infantry
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions ...
of
ROK 6th Division, destroying the ROK unit as an organized force.
The 40th Army attacked the
9th and
38th Infantries of the
U.S. 2nd Infantry Division about eighteen miles northeast of
Kunu-ri
Kunu-dong (Kunuri) is a village located in South Pyongan Province, North Korea. A key battle of the Korean War, the Battle of Kunu-ri, took place there in November 1950. Kunu-ri was mainly a communication center and a railroad station at the time ...
along the
Chongchon River
The Ch'ŏngch'ŏn is a river of North Korea having its source in the Rangrim Mountains of Chagang Province and emptying into the Yellow Sea at Sinanju. The river flows past Myohyang-san and through the city of Anju, South P'yŏngan Province. ...
.
Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989
In May 1989, the 40th Army's 118th Infantry Division and Artillery Brigade were deployed to
Beijing
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Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
to
enforce martial law and suppress the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
.
[ (Chinese]
Wu Renhua, "进京的戒严部队和进京路线" 《1989天安门事件二十周年祭》系列之十二
Accessed 2013-06-29
According to reports, the 40th Army was disestablished in mid 2017. ''China Defense Blogspot'' said that its higher-readiness units with modern equipment were '..likely be merged with neighboring GAs.
e 118th Combined Arms 8x8 Light Mechanized Infantry Brigade will likely to be part of the 39th GA moving forward.. Others units such as 119th and 191st Motorized Infantry Brigades with their older TOE will probably be disbanded all together.'
References
{{Corps and Armies of the People's Liberation Army
Field armies of the People's Volunteer Army
Field armies of the People's Liberation Army
Military units and formations established in the 1940s
Military units and formations disestablished in 2017