Almost no one in China knows the two words "Eight Roads," and it is clear that these two words refer to the names of our army's troops during the anti-Japanese period. However, friends who do not understand the origin of the committee, no matter how to deliberate on the two words "eight roads", may not be able to see its complete origin, which seems a bit abrupt. So how did the name Eight Roads come about?
Specifically, the Eighth Route was the name of the later main force of the People's Liberation Army from August 1937 to September 1946, and if it is strictly considered according to the official establishment number, it should be said that this title only existed from August 22, 1937 to September 11, 1937. Yes, the eight roads, as the official number, only lasted less than 1 month. Of course, the use of the eight-way title lasted for a long time, and even until the end of the 40s, that is, the late stage of the Liberation War, the people often habitually called our army the Eighth Route Army. So what is the historical process before and after and continuing the emergence of this title?
Before the 37-year All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, our army and the nationalist army were two fiercely opposing military forces, and our army was called the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army before the Eighth Road. After the Japanese army, the common enemy of the two armies, launched an all-out war operation in 37 years, the two main combat forces of China chose to fight hand in hand. At that time, the Red Army, which had relatively small military strength, took into account the overall situation and integrated into the national army in terms of organization. The top brass of the Nationalist army granted the name of the "Eighth Route Army" to the Red Army to confirm its legitimate status. Let's take a closer look at the name.
The Eighth Route is the abbreviation of the Eighth Route Army of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, "Eighth" is the number, "Lujun" is a military unit, in the 30s the Nationalist Army also had such a unit as the Lu Army. It should be noted that the "road army" is not an "army," but is greater than or equal to the army, and is only slightly lower than the unit of the "group army" that was widely used later. It is precisely for this reason that the establishment of our "Eighth Route Army" is also greater than that of the ordinary 3rd Division, although the Eighth Route Army is also 3 divisions, but each division has a full strength of about 15,000 people, which is 5,000 more than the normal division level, and the number of the main force of the Eighth Route Army is theoretically 45,000 people, which is equivalent to the strength of 2-3 armies of the Nationalist Army (the Nationalist Army has many 2-division troops). Why is the name "Eight Roads" instead of the other "Roads"? Because the name "eight" originally belonged to the Cantonese warlords in the local faction, they had just been withdrawn in 36 years, and at this time they just happened to be vacant.
The reason why the official title of the Eighth Route Army really existed for less than 1 month is because in light of the needs of the unified national operation against Japan, the state government reorganized the national troops in September 37, and the basic units were the "group army", not only the troops of the central department, but also the local factions were organized into several group armies, such as the 22 group army of Deng Xihou of the Sichuan Army and the 23 group army of Liu Xiang. The Eighth Route Army was no exception, and was soon organized into the 18th Group Army, which was less than a month after the Eighth Route Army was acquired. However, because the Eighth Route Army was very sensational in the country when it obtained the title, the two characters of the Eighth Route were also quickly deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the name of the 18th Group Army also had the word "Eight", so on many occasions it still used the title of the Eighth Route Army for 8 years. It was not until September 46, after the start of the civil war, that the term "People's Liberation Army" as we know it was officially proposed and used by our army.