October 19, 1950

Chinese People's Volunteer Army

Main Chinese forces begin their secret crossing into North Korea

Mao ordered every column off the Yalu bridges by 4 a.m. and hidden by 5, so that UN reconnaissance aircraft would see nothing at all.

Twelve divisions after dark

Following Mao Zedong's final order, major formations of the newly designated Chinese People's Volunteers began crossing the Yalu after dark on 19 October 1950. Twelve divisions, of about 10,000 men each, started over the bridges at night and initially went undetected by UN forces.

Mao's instructions of 18 October named four armies and three artillery divisions, and required the troops to cross only between dusk and 4:00 a.m. and to be concealed by 5:00 a.m. Only two or three divisions were to move on the first night, subject to adjustment.

The same day Pyongyang fell

That same day the South Korean 1st Division and the US 1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. UN-command forces had crossed the 38th parallel and were driving toward the Yalu despite Chinese warnings.

Peng Dehuai commanded the expeditionary force. The “volunteers” were organised People's Liberation Army formations under Chinese state command, a designation that let Beijing present the intervention as something other than a formal state-to-state war.

Not the first foot across

19 October is the official Chinese commemoration and the best date for the start of the main crossing, but not for the first Chinese movement into Korea. The US Army's official history dates crossings from 13 or 14 October through 20 October, and a contemporary US intelligence summary identified the 370th Regiment — roughly 2,500 troops — crossing on 16 October.

The troops did not attack on arrival. They moved and hid for several days, and Chinese forces first struck South Korean units on 25 October.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

October 19 is the official Chinese commemoration date and the best date for the start of the main crossing.
It was not literally the first Chinese movement into Korea. The U.S. Army's official history dates crossings to October 13 or 14 through October 20, a scholarly reminiscence places soldiers across on the night of October 13–14, and a contemporary U.S. intelligence summary identified a regiment crossing on October 16.
For that reason, a categorical claim that China first entered the war on October 19 is too precise; the date identifies the principal organized entry ordered by Mao.