During the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, although there were also large-scale battles in Zhejiang Province, such as the Battle of Zhejiang. However, guerrilla warfare is still one of the important characteristics of the 3rd Theater. The Japanese army mainly occupies the strategic points or key points of communication, while the other vast areas are controlled by the guerrillas of the Chinese army, who constantly harass the Japanese army in the rear, sabotage communications, pose a great threat to the Japanese army, often force the Japanese army to hold the dot line, and break the Japanese army's conspiracy of "using China to control China" and "using war to feed the war," and played an extremely important role.
Guerrilla warfare in Zhejiang was waged jointly by the regular army and local guerrillas. In the autumn of 1940, the Nationalist guerrillas organized 6 commandos to attack Madang at night, eliminating more than 150 Japanese troops, turning the cannons inside the fortress and firing at the Japanese ships in the river, sinking and wounding many enemy ships, and burning the ammunition depot. In this night raid, none of the guerrillas were killed or injured, which became a major miracle in the history of the War of Resistance. On the anti-Japanese battlefield behind enemy lines, there were many generals whose blood stained the battlefield.
On July 1, 1941, Chen Zhongzhu, commander of the Fourth Guerrilla Column of the Lusu-Anhui Border Region of the Nationalist Army, was martyred with several bullets, and the murderous Japanese army cut off the head of the general, and Chen Zhongzhu's wife, with sorrow and pain, found the Japanese army to return her husband's head. For example, Fan Zhuxian, member of the Shandong Provincial Government Committee, Wu Shimin, commander of the 98th Army, Tang Huaiyuan, commander of the 3rd Army, Liu Zhendong, commander of the Yishui guerrilla army, Cun Zhiqi, commander of the 24th Division, and Tang Juwu, commander of the Northeast Guerrilla Army, were all martyred in guerrilla warfare. The exploits of these heroic martyrs in the War of Resistance behind enemy lines are indelible.
Local guerrilla units were mainly reorganized from the provincial capital police, the inland water police, and local units such as Shaoxing and Yuyao. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in full swing, in 1932, the Existing Red Army and guerrillas in Anhui, Zhejiang, and Gansu negotiated with the local Kuomintang authorities and reached an agreement to stop the civil war and jointly resist Japan. In January 1938, the Red Army and guerrillas were reorganized into the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Detachment of the New Fourth Army and rushed to the anti-Japanese front. By 1941, it had grown to more than 20,000 people.
After the establishment of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, a large number of Communist Party members and revolutionary masses who had been arrested and imprisoned were released from prison. After Shen Ziqiu, the former secretary of the Lin'an branch, was released from prison, he contacted some of the more than 50 fellow prisoners who had also been in prison, and set up a guerrilla group in the border area, which gradually expanded to more than 200 people. In March 1938, the Japanese army invaded Lin'an Shanchuan Township and killed people and set fires everywhere. The guerrillas in the border area counterattacked, killing 9 Japanese soldiers and capturing a batch of booty.
There was an active guerrilla force in western Zhejiang, the 5th Detachment of the National Self-Defense. In 1938, the commander of the detachment, Zheng Qiguang, led a team to cross the Qiantang River from Shaoxing to carry out guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines, engaging the Japanese army more than 20 times in a year, killing and wounding more than 300 enemy troops. After the 5th detachment crossed the Qiantang River, Commander Xu Zhiyu led the 6th detachment, and Commander Huang Quan led the 3rd detachment, and also entered western Zhejiang. The 5th detachment took the opportunity of the Japanese army in Haiyan to retake the county seat of Haiyan and annihilate more than 100 enemy troops. In October 1938, the 5th detachment recaptured Xinfeng Town in Wuxing County, repelling more than 400 Japanese troops and killing and wounding more than 100 people. Thanks to these detachments, the county governments of the 7 counties have been able to carry out the county work smoothly.
From December 1937 to February 1938, 54 guerrilla groups were established in the counties of western Zhejiang. Its names include "guerrilla", "security brigade", "anti-Japanese volunteer army", "loyal national salvation army", etc., and the number of each team ranges from thousands to dozens of people, controlling the vast countryside. The guerrillas in western Zhejiang were active in Hangjiahu Lake, the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway, the Beijing-Hangzhou National Highway, and the north and south of Tianmu Mountain, attacking Japanese strongholds and attacking puppet organizations. In 1938 alone, various guerrilla groups in western Zhejiang participated in more than 200 battles and annihilated tens of thousands of enemy soldiers.
In the spring of 1941, an armed force of more than 800 people in Pudong, Shanghai, came to eastern Zhejiang, and the Central China Bureau sent a group of backbone cadres to open up the anti-Japanese base area in eastern Zhejiang. In the past few years, the base area has reached more than 20,000 square kilometers, and the armed contingent of the New Fourth Army has reached more than 15,000 people, including the 1st Brigade, the 2nd Brigade, and the Coastal Defense Brigade, which is one of the 19 anti-Japanese base areas in the country. Southern Zhejiang was reorganized into 41 detachments by more than 400 red army guerrillas, which were divided into 3 detachments to carry out guerrilla activities. He became a pawn in the occupied areas and supported the long-term war of resistance.
There were more than 200 large and small battles in northern Zhejiang, and the strongest guerrilla group was formed by Zhu Xi, commander of the second battalion of the 77th Regiment of the 13th Division of the Kuomintang Army, who took in more than 200 scattered soldiers and expanded to more than 4,000 people in one year, with five regiments and 9 brigades under its jurisdiction. On November 11, 1938, that is, Double 11, the Japanese army mobilized 10,000 people to attack Wuzhen, and the guerrillas retreated. The Japanese army blocked layer by layer, and fought another bloody battle at Zhongjiadun, except for a small number of fighters who broke through, most of them were martyred. The wounded Zhu Xi was rescued by the villagers, and 39 years later Zhu Xi came to Wuzhen again to organize a guerrilla resistance.
Under difficult conditions, in the face of the iron wall of the Japanese army, the guerrillas behind the enemy lines in Zhejiang pulled a large number of Japanese main forces. These guerrilla zones all have an important strategic position, forming guerrilla battlefields behind enemy lines and making great contributions to the frontal battlefield.