Everyone knows that China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression consisted of two parts: a frontal battlefield dominated by the Kuomintang army and a battlefield behind enemy lines led by the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army.
Dominance means whose power is the main body in the two major battlefields. Because the Eighth Route Army will also participate in frontal battlefield battles, and some Kuomintang troops are also fighting behind enemy lines, this must be realized.
However, before discussing this, a considerable number of Chinese people do not know what it means to be a battlefield behind enemy lines.
They believed that the battlefield behind enemy lines was in the rear of the Kuomintang army, that is, the Japanese army fought against the Kuomintang army, and the Eighth Route Army was behind the ass of the Kuomintang army.
If we know a little about common sense, we all know that the rear of the Nationalist army is the Great Southwest, while the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army are fighting in North China and East China, and their fronts are beyond the defense line of the Nationalist Army.
In fact, the combat area of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army was the rear of the Japanese front, so it was called the enemy's rear.
Some people have to say again, you said that it is the rear of the Japanese front, then there are definitely few Japanese. Again, this was a manifestation of lack of common sense, because the rear of the Japanese front was their occupied area.
From 1937 to 1939, the Nationalist army lost millions of people in successive battles. However, it was unable to stop the Japanese attack, and many places in north China, east China, and south China fell, and the front line had advanced to the inland, concentrated in Henan, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan.
After the Japanese occupied a large area, to maintain the occupation, they usually stationed a wing-level force in larger cities, and a squadron-level force in small counties.
In order to maintain the occupation and implement the policy of feeding the war with war, the Japanese army would plunder the labor, food, minerals and other resources of the occupied areas to make up for its war consumption, and put the surplus resources back into the war.
If there is no strong resistance in the areas occupied by the Japanese army, then it will slowly digest the plundered resources, and the Chinese nation's war of resistance will be more difficult.
The Eighth Route Army, on the other hand, penetrated into the areas occupied by the Japanese army and established a base area here to lead the people in the War of Resistance, in other words, it gradually regained the national territory and liberated the people in the Japanese-occupied areas.
The militia is making elm cannons
Many people think that the frontal battlefield is difficult, and the battlefield behind the enemy is leisurely, in fact, they have never understood the reality of the War of Resistance at all.
There are still front-line and rear-line frontal battlefields, and the defenders face the Japanese army in one direction, but at least the big battle will not be sudden, let alone be in combat all the time.
In particular, in the more than four years from 1941 to the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, as long as the Japanese army did not attack the Nationalist army on the frontal battlefield, the Nationalist army rarely attacked and attacked the Japanese army. Launching a counteroffensive in the Burmese battlefield was mainly to open up transportation lines, and the Americans in this theater still had a certain degree of dominance.
A group of pillboxes constructed by the Japanese army in Pingshan County, Hebei Province
In the battlefield behind enemy lines in recent years, the Eighth Route Army was actually surrounded by the Japanese army on all sides. After the Japanese army implemented the cage tactic, it even severed the connection between the base areas with countless bunkers, and regularly launched sweeps with bunkers as the base, and the Eighth Route Army would be in combat at all times even if it was broken into pieces.
Many people think that only the general battle is qualified to be called the War of Resistance, and the Japanese army in the battlefield behind the enemy has invested as many as 10 infantry brigades or more in the sweeping up, which anti-sweeping operation is smaller?
Compared with the sacrifices of the General Assembly Battle, the Eighth Route Army's anti-sweeping operation was also a blood sacrifice, so why is it not called the War of Resistance?
Soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who died
Indeed, in anti-sweep operations, the vast majority of battles are small battles. Three or two soldiers and the Japanese army fought and sacrificed, such a battle is indeed inferior to the vigorous battle, but these martyrs are not anti-Japanese sacrifices? Not to mention the thousands of such small battles, the cumulative number is staggering.
And please note that the national army is much higher than the Eighth Route Army, and can get all the foreign aid; and the Eighth Route Army can only rely on the capture of the enemy to replenish itself, and can not even supply bullets.
When the reasoning is over, let's list the data.
In 1941, the Kuomintang army killed 145788 and 138322 wounded; in 1942, the Kuomintang army lost 88,435 people and 114464 wounded; in 1943, the Kuomintang army lost 43,537 people and wounded 82,337 people; in 1944, the Kuomintang army killed 103385 people and 103929 wounded; in 1945, the Kuomintang army lost 57,762 people and wounded 85,658 people.
The total casualties were 963617, of which more than 100,000 were lost in the Burma battlefield.
In 1941, the total strength of the Kuomintang army was about 5 million people, with a casualty rate of 5.68 percent; in 1942, the total strength of the Kuomintang army was about 5.1 million people, with a casualty rate of 3.98 percent; in 1943, the total strength of the Kuomintang army reached a record high of 6.5 million people, with a casualty rate of 1.93 percent; in 1944, the total strength of the Kuomintang army was 6 million people, with a casualty rate of 3.45 percent; and in 1945, the total strength of the Kuomintang army was 5.7 million, with a casualty rate of 2.51%.
Compared with the three and a half years before the all-out War of Resistance, the Nationalist army lost more than 2 million troops in the main battlefield, and it is known that the intensity and intensity of the frontal battlefield in the middle and late period of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression were comprehensively reduced.
So in some people's mouths, how many people did the Eighth Route Army, which "swim without attacking", lose in the same period?
In 1941, the Eighth Route Army lost about 22,316 casualties and wounded about 39,775; in 1942, the Eighth Route Army lost about 16,235 people and wounded about 27,568; in 1943, the Eighth Route Army lost about 11,119 people and wounded about 18,031 people; in 1944, the Eighth Route Army lost about 10,416 people and wounded about 22,992 people; in 1945, the Eighth Route Army lost about 12,298 people and wounded about 23,592 people.
The one-armed general Zuo Qi and his comrades in front of the captured heavy machine guns
The total number of casualties above was 204342, which is slightly more than one-fifth of the losses of the Nationalist army in the same period, but we must know that the strength base of the Eighth Route Army has long been only one-fifteenth of the Kuomintang army. In terms of casualty rates, it is much higher than the latter.
In 1941, the total strength of the Eighth Route Army was 305,000 people, with a casualty rate of 20.3 percent; in 1942, the total strength of the Eighth Route Army was 340,000 people, with a casualty rate of 12.83 percent; in 1943, the total strength of the Eighth Route Army was 339,000 people, with a casualty rate of 8.59 percent; in 1944, the total strength of the Eighth Route Army was 500,000 people, with a casualty rate of 6.68 percent; in 1945, the total strength of the Eighth Route Army was 900,000 people, with a casualty rate of 3.99 percent.
Compared with the casualty rate of the Kuomintang army in the same period mentioned above, the casualty rate of the Eighth Route Army in 1941 was 4 times that of the Kuomintang Army, the casualty rate of the Eighth Route Army in 1942 was 3 times that of the Kuomintang Army, the casualty rate of the Eighth Route Army in 1943 was 4.4 times that of the Kuomintang Army, the casualty rate of the Eighth Route Army in 1944 was 2 times that of the Kuomintang Army, and the casualty rate of the Eighth Route Army in 1945 was 1.6 times that of the Kuomintang Army.
The casualty rates are not equal, but multiplied, can you say that the battlefield behind enemy lines is easier?
In fact, after the Japanese army stopped the large-scale offensive in the frontal battlefield, the main forces switched to maintaining the occupied area and absorbing resources to support its Pacific theater direction.
The total number of Japanese troops in the areas of activity of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army was 75% in 1941, 63% in 1942, 58% in 1943, 64% in 1944, and 69% in 1945.
Therefore, it is easy to understand that the casualty ratio of the Eighth Route Army is much higher than that of the Kuomintang army in the same period, and above we have only counted the losses of the regular troops of the Eighth Route Army, and the sacrifices of the guerrillas and militias that are difficult to count are equally huge.
Of course, in war, it is a hooligan to only talk about casualties and sacrifices, but not to talk about achievements. Otherwise, Wang Zhen, who lost half a million troops at Tumu Fort, would be a great hero, and Yu Qian, who led the Beijing military and people to win the defense war, would be "swimming but not attacking."
From the stage of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression to the victory of the War of Resistance, the repeated sieges of the Japanese army caused great losses to the Eighth Route Army, and its implementation of the so-called Three Lights Policy in the base areas caused a sea of corpses and blood. The number of the Eighth Route Army dropped from 400,000 at its peak to 300,000, and the population of the base areas also dropped significantly.
Destroy japanese bunkers
But the purpose of the Japanese army was to eliminate the Eighth Route Army, and they did not achieve it. By 1944, the battlefield behind enemy lines had begun a local counteroffensive; by August 15, 1945, there were 58 counties and towns with names and surnames recovered in the great counteroffensive in the battlefield behind enemy lines. It was precisely because of the recovery of a large area of land in the great counteroffensive that the eighth route army's strength was doubled in this year.
The enemy has not destroyed me and I have annihilated the enemy in large numbers and recovered a large area of the country.
And how did the frontal battlefield perform from 1941 to 1945?
As long as the Japanese army did not attack, the Kuomintang army would not attack either. By 1943 in particular, there were few major battles on the entire frontal battlefield. Many Nationalists waited for the U.S. army to defeat the Japanese army for victory, rather than relying on their own bloody battles to win the victory.
Because of the lack of necessary preparations for a large-scale attack on the Japanese army, the Nationalist army was helpless after being attacked by the Japanese army in the Battle of Yuxianggui in 1944, and caused strategic defeat, losing 4 provincial capitals, 146 cities, and more than 200,000 square kilometers of land in just a few months, making 60 million people fall into the hands of the enemy.
Although in 1944, in order to open up the passage of American aid, the Burma counter-offensive was victorious. But in the minds of the Americans, the possibility of relying on the Kuomintang army to wipe out the Japanese army in China no longer exists. Thus there was a battle plan for the Soviet Union to send troops to northeast China and the direct landing of U.S. troops in China.
At the same time, due to the disappointment of the Kuomintang troops, the actual materials to China were far less than expected, accounting for only 1.8% of the US foreign aid during World War II.
By 1945, the counter-offensive on the frontal battlefield was long overdue, and it was not until the eve of the Japanese surrender that a counter-offensive was launched on the Guiliu battlefield, and it was also a sandwich meal. A month before Japan's surrender, 18 counties were lost on the frontal battlefield.
We do not mean that the Kuomintang army did not resist Japan, but there is no doubt that from 1941 to the victory of the War of Resistance, the cruelty of the frontal battlefield was not as good as that of the battlefield behind the enemy; and the achievements of the Nationalist army in the War of Resistance were indeed difficult to compliment.
Where was there a strategic defeat for the Allied forces by 1944? Where are the Allied battlefields that are still losing their territory a month before the victory?
I hope that this article can let you understand the real situation of the War of Resistance, and only by remembering the real history is the best respect for that war.