Chapter 9: The War of Resistance, Gains and Losses
From the Xiantong period, when Zeng, Hu, Li, Zuo and other famous ministers of the Restoration organized militia to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, to the nearly seventy or eighty years after the establishment of the Nanjing National Government, whether it was the initial Hunan Army, Huai Army and other trained militias, or the later modernized land forces such as the Wuwei Army, the Standing Army, and the New Army, as well as the Beiyang Army after the Republic of China and the southwestern local powerful factions, all Chinese military forces basically adopted the system of recruiting soldiers to expand their strength.
Except for the short-lived strict requirements on the cultural quality and technical and tactical knowledge of officers and soldiers in the New Army in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Beiyang period, the requirements for soldiers at other times were only a few indicators such as being strong and obedient to commands.
Under such one-sided indicator requirements, landless farmers, bankrupt small handicraftsmen, and small businessmen flocked into the army. What's worse, even ruffians, lumpen proletarians, bandits and bullies mixed in with them, so that the combat capabilities of various factions of the army and their external image plummeted . The army thus became a synonym for a dirty dye vat and a place where knowledgeable people strayed into.
It was precisely out of considerations of reversing social perceptions, improving the quality of soldiers, and more conveniently expanding one's own strength to eliminate local separatist forces, as well as the prediction that Japan was about to launch a full-scale war of aggression against China, that the Nanjing National Government and the Northwest simultaneously promulgated the "Military Service Law" with conscription as its core content. However, the Nanjing government had extremely limited direct control over the area, lack of political orders outside the control area, and insufficient government financial resources to cope with frequent civil wars.
Ultimately, this progressive decree was not implemented. In the northwest, due to three years of severe drought and the dispatch of troops to Mongolia and Xinjiang, the conscription system was not officially implemented until the mid-1930s. As a result, after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the replenishment of China's reserve troops could not keep up with the pace of casualties at the front.
In order to solve this fatal manpower gap, the Kuomintang government, which led the anti-Japanese war in the south, was forced to widely adopt the extreme method of "conscripting men" to solve it.
Although the policy of "conscription" has caused public outrage, the problem is not simply that the policy is unreasonable and has been distorted and abused by local governments, but whether the recruits are trained after conscription.
With the troops on the front lines crying out for food, the Southern Nationalist Government had no time to train the new recruits before sending them to the battlefield. When these new recruits, who had not received even the necessary military training, appeared on the battlefield in a hurry, the combat effectiveness of the troops composed of these new recruits can naturally be imagined.
As a result, there was a myth that a Japanese battalion could defeat a Chinese division, and a Japanese regiment could destroy a Chinese army. As a result, the National Army in the South formed a vicious cycle of replenishment, defeat, replenishment, and defeat again, further aggravating the heavy pressure on their own weapons and ammunition reserves, as well as manpower replenishment.
Faced with the same problem of troop replenishment not keeping up with losses, the Northwest adopted an institutionalized plan of conscription in stages and batches, and set up recruit camps under the provincial and municipal reserve commands to carry out conversion training for recruits, so as to avoid the recruits becoming cannon fodder and consumables after going to the battlefield.
However, in this way, the time for new recruits to join the service was obviously prolonged. In addition, the early expansion of the army in the Northwest had already caused the available troops in the Northwestern provinces to be exhausted in the short term. And it was not as convenient to obtain soldiers in the newly controlled areas such as Sichuan, Henan, and Anhui as in the Northwest where the "Military Service Law" had been implemented for several years. As a result, the replenishment speed of the front-line troops was exceptionally slow.
This also caused considerable dissatisfaction and suspicion among the Northeast Army, Shandong Army, Sichuan Army, Yang Hucheng's Henan Army and other affiliated armed forces in the Northwest. It also led to the loss of these affiliated forces by secretly using the "conscripted men" method in the South to supplement their troops in areas beyond the reach of the Northwest, and the resulting weakening of their combat effectiveness.
——"On the Issue of Troop Supplementation in the Early Stage of the War of Resistance" 6.1 Lanzhou Army Staff College 6.1 12/08/1957 Although the special envoy from the Northwest had already arrived in Guiyang, the two sides showed no sign of reaching an agreement.
On February 1, 1939, the Guiyang National Government started with the illegal establishment of a new province of East Sichuan with Chongqing as its capital and Deng Xihou, former commander-in-chief of the Ninth Army, as the provincial chairman by dividing more than 60 counties in East Sichuan, West Hubei, West Hunan, and Northern Guizhou from the northwest. In five days, it issued four consecutive national government decrees, successively depriving the units of Shang Zhen, Sun Lianzhong, and Liu Heding who had defected to the northwest, and declared them to be rebels.
It also reiterated that the Northwest Front had appointed Geng Bozhao and Geng Jinwen, former senior adviser of the National Revolutionary Army Headquarters, Hubei Provincial Telecommunications Supervisor, Senator of the National Government Military Senate, Lieutenant General of the Military Affairs Department, member of the Party and Government Committee of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui "Suppression Headquarters", and a native of Anlu, Hubei, as Chairman of Hubei Province.
The two personnel cases of appointing Zhu Tinghu, a professor at Central University who had served as a member of the Anhui Provincial Government and Minister of Education of Anhui Province, and a member of the Guizhou Provincial Government and Director of the Guizhou Provincial Geological Survey, as acting governor of Anhui Province were illegal.
Immediately afterwards, Guiyang instructed its three subordinate war zones, the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth, which were adjacent to the Northwest Control Zone, to send troops to the counties under Northwest control in order to use force to expel county defense government officials sent by the Northwest, destroy military facilities such as conscription stations, and arrest Northwest military officers, which led to a further escalation of the confrontation between the two sides.
On February 6, the Northwest announced the detention of 25,000 tons of Soviet Russian aid to China that had entered through the Tianshan Mountains and was mainly supplied to Chiang Kai-shek's army.
The next day, Guiyang retaliated by detaining 20 carloads of chemical raw materials and related machinery urgently needed in the northwest that were imported from the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway.
On February 10, after careful deployment, the Hunan-Hubei-Bashu-Kang war zone and the Hebei-Shandong-Henan war zone instigated about seven divisions of troops under Leng Yindong, Shang Zhen, Liu Heding and others to forcibly annex more than 30,000 remnants of Jiang Gui’s army who had retreated from Wuhan to Zhongxiang, Yicheng, Sui-Zao and other places.
On February 11, four regiments of Chiang Kai-shek's army deployed in western Hunan retaliated by entering the territory of East Sichuan Province designated as the Northwest, killing and wounding hundreds of Northwest military and political personnel, resulting in the sensational Sangzhi Massacre.
To this end, the next day, Northwest China announced in a high-profile manner that eight divisions would be mobilized to enter the Yunnan-Shu border.
Seeing that the conflict between the two sides was intensifying and a civil war was about to break out, the frustrated military personnel such as Feng Yuxiang and Song Zheyuan, who had ulterior motives, and undercover members of the Wang faction who advocated compromise with Japan all jumped to the front to make comments, add fuel to the flames, and try to confuse the situation.
However, those staunch anti-Japanese war faction members and patriots such as Soong Ching Ling and Zhang Nai-qi who did not want to see the overall situation of the War of Resistance against Japan collapse, as well as the embassies and consulates of Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries who were determined to block the turbid current of the Japanese army in China, all stepped forward to mediate.
Under strong outside mediation, the two sides had to sit down for negotiations again. After a round of deceitful bargaining, countless lies and promises, and sincere and insincere concessions, Lanzhou and Guiyang, which actually had no intention of fighting a real civil war under this crisis, finally stopped and made peace as the Japanese army, which had occupied most of the country, was still eyeing them covetously.
According to the result of the compromise between the two sides, Guiyang withdrew the accusation that Shang Zhen and other troops were rebels and restored their numbers. It tacitly accepted the status quo of Northwest's leadership and compensated the Northwest's casualties with 150,000 yuan in pensions, returned the Northwest's seized materials, recognized the division of the Northwest to establish Yuzhou (Eastern Sichuan) Province, and incorporated the northern Yunnan area occupied by the Northwest into the Yizhou (Western Sichuan) Province.
In the Northwest, the senior and middle-level officers who were detained in the process of annexing Chiang and Gui were returned, the seized arms were delivered, and Guiyang's occupation of Yunnan was tacitly acknowledged.
Although this transaction completely lost the face of the Chiang Kai-shek central government, the Chiang Kai-shek faction secured the new territory of Yunnan and the "new" financial and human resources that sustained its survival through negotiations, and continued to control the lifeline of the northwest's connection with Britain, France, the United States and other countries. More importantly, it successfully diverted the negative effects brought about by Wang Jingwei's surrender to Japan. Therefore, it was believed that it had gained immediate benefits.
As for the northwest, it ensured its dominant position in the three provinces of Yizhou, Yuzhou and Xikang by challenging Guiyang, and further absorbed the areas of western Hunan, northern Yunnan and western Hubei from Guiyang, and its strength increased.
In addition, his successful poaching of miscellaneous troops outside of Chiang's faction with impunity further shook the foundation of Guiyang's rule, and he was therefore considered to have won the future of China.
Both parties got what they wanted, and a big drama with all kinds of people appearing on stage was staged at the end of the year and the beginning of the next year.
Of course, as long as the Northwest still has the idea of replacing Chiang Kai-shek, the relationship between the Northwest and the Chiang faction will inevitably continue to be antagonistic. Therefore, in order to demonstrate its orthodox status, the Guiyang National Government still does not recognize the legitimacy of the Hubei and Anhui provincial governments appointed by the Northwest.
As a result, a situation emerged in Anhui and Hubei where the provincial government appointed by the Northwest, the provincial government appointed by Chiang's National Government, and the puppet government controlled by the Japanese army coexisted.
"Have you heard that the headquarters is going to transfer Commander Li back from Shanxi, and the deputy commander's headquarters may also be abolished?"
Dai Jiliu was leaning against a crooked willow tree, biting a cornmeal bun while chatting with Li Shuqing, who had just been promoted to deputy commander of the guard battalion.
"It can be seen that the headquarters is already very pessimistic about the war situation in Shanxi."
"Let's retreat then."
Li Shuqing responded absentmindedly, his hands covering the rim of the hot enamel tea bowl.
"We only have the 221st Division in Shanxi now, and we don't even have the room to say tough words. Aren't we just trying to hold on to cheer up the old Xi? Now that the old Xi himself has lost his temper, how can we hold on? It's better to withdraw early. If we can defend Fenglingdu, then defend it. If we can't defend it, then blow up the railway bridge. Even if the Japanese are gods, they can't fly across the Yellow River."
"You can't say that."
Dai Jiliu looked up at the white snow in the distance.
"If the Japanese are allowed to break through to the river, our main artery will be under their guns. I think the headquarters cannot fail to take this into consideration. Even if the deputy commander's headquarters is withdrawn, there will always be troops left to hold out in Zhongtiao Mountain and Wangwu Mountain."
"You want to stay?"
Li Shuqing looked at the other person.
"Forget it. Don't even think about how you advised me in the first place."
"Just to satisfy your craving."
Dai Jiliu sighed.
"You are the same."
Li Shuqing curled his lips: "That's right, if the old man is willing to let me go, I will apply to go to Fenglingdu Bridgehead."
Before Li Shuqing finished speaking, a staff officer from the Intelligence Department suddenly rushed out of the room and whispered something to Dai Jiliu. Dai's face changed immediately, so Li Shuqing asked casually, "What happened again?"
According to the Northwest's confidentiality regulations, Dai Jiliu could choose not to answer, but the other party was Li Guo's son and the deputy battalion commander of the deputy commander's office. He would know it sooner or later. So he followed the intelligence staff hurriedly into the house, saying: "The Japanese army has occupied Hongdong, the gates of Linfen are open, and the fall of the entire Shanxi province is imminent."
