The volunteer army in the Songhu War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression

At midnight on January 28, 1932, the Japanese Marines raided Zhabei in Shanghai in three ways, and the January 28 Incident broke out. At a time when the Nineteenth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army rose up to resist, in addition to giving spiritual solidarity and material assistance to the Nineteenth Route Army, the people of all walks of life throughout the country also spontaneously organized a large number of anti-Japanese volunteers to assist the army in the war of resistance at the front and rear, so that the 1928 Songhu War of Resistance became a vigorous mass anti-Japanese movement.

Volunteer armies rose up everywhere

After the September 18 Incident, the anti-Japanese armed forces such as the Volunteer Army, the National Salvation Army, and the Self-Defense Army spontaneously formed by the masses of all strata in the Northeast and some officers and men of the Northeast Army and the Police Force were collectively known as the Northeast Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army. In Guannei, young students were the first to organize volunteer troops, and after organizing and training volunteers at Tsinghua University, the schools in Peiping followed suit, and the Shanghai schools also quickly organized volunteers and women's ambulance teams. Subsequently, the masses in various places organized volunteer armies one after another and carried out military training.

After the Japanese invasion was ignited in Shanghai, volunteers from all over the world organized themselves to come to Shanghai, the most famous of which was the Volunteer Army of Feng Yong University. Feng Yong University was originally in Shenyang, and was forced to move inland to Beiping after the September 18 Incident. Hearing of the outbreak of war in Shanghai, The Principal Feng Yong decided to lead the team south. They first arrived in Nanjing, unsuccessfully applied to the military and political authorities for guns, heard that the Japanese reinforcements arrived in Shanghai, and the great war was in front of them, so they hurriedly took a train to Shanghai. When they arrived at Shanghai Zhenru Station in the afternoon of February 13, hundreds of teachers and students armed with long sticks and short knives, including 16 girls, dressed in uniform with boys, "although there is no sharp weapon in hand, the spirit of hardship has been given a strong stimulant to the people of the battlefield."

Before the January 28 Incident, various circles in Shanghai had organized a large number of volunteer troops to support the northeast. After the anti-Japanese guns of the Nineteenth Route Army sounded, the volunteer armies quickly mobilized. For example, at 4 p.m. on February 1, the Shanghai Citizens' Federation Volunteer Army Committee issued an emergency mobilization order, ordering the volunteer troops of the branches to concentrate on the front at 9 a.m. the next day. At 7 p.m. on the same day, more than 30 people, including Wang Boyan and Ding Shufan, students of the Law and Politics College, went to Zhenru to fight under the leadership of Zhang Cheng, an instructor at the school.

In order to unify their command, the Nineteenth Route Army first appointed Xu Minghong, secretary of the Seventy-eighth Division, to handle this matter, and then specially sent senior staff officer Hua Zhenzhong and brigade commander Weng Zhaoyuan as the chief and deputy commanders of the volunteer army. According to the post-war statistics of the Nineteenth Route Army, a total of 59 volunteer troops were willing to accept command, and each volunteer army numbered more than a thousand people and a small number of one or two. Unfortunately, the measures of unified command had not yet been implemented, and the Nineteenth Route Army was able to retreat in its entirety in early March, so the participants of the various volunteer armies were scattered among the various units from beginning to end and failed to play their greatest role.

Go to the front line to coordinate operations

Although the various volunteer armies were not regular troops, did not have enough equipment, and lacked the necessary training, in the Songhu War of Resistance, many volunteer army teams bravely went to the front line of battle because of the needs of the war.

On January 29, when the 19th Route Army fought at Qiujiang Road, Baoshan Road, Fusheng Road, and Tiantong'an Station, more than a thousand Shanghai Volunteers joined the battle. When attacking the Shanghai headquarters of the Japanese Marine Corps, the volunteers surrounded some of the Japanese troops and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, eliminating a large number of Japanese troops and capturing more than 40 guns. The first team of the Third Brigade of the Anti-Japanese Death Squad, reorganized by the Shanghai Inspirational Society Volunteer Army, was organized into a grenade team under the orders of the Nineteenth Route Army and went to the front line at noon on February 2 to take charge.

Among the many volunteer soldiers, the veterans of the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Volunteer Army are quite distinctive, and their members are all local veterans of Shanghai, "since the battle, they are quite brave." For example, on January 29, Sheng Guilin, deputy commander of the Fourth Division of the Veteran Volunteer Army, led more than 30 plainclothes ambulance teams, and encountered 4 Japanese soldiers on the road to beat and tease the Chinese people, although they were only equipped with knives and axes, they still bravely came forward to rescue them, hacked 1 and slashed 2 Japanese soldiers; at 10:00 p.m. on January 31, a unit of the retired volunteer army met the Japanese plainclothes team on Qingyun Road, and a battle occurred, and the soldier Wang Ziqing was injured. The Japanese army saw that the Chinese army was on guard and had to retreat.

The Overseas Chinese Volunteer Army and the Shanghai Citizens' Federation Volunteer Army were praised by the 19th Route Army as "the best among the volunteer armies and the bravest among the bravest warriors.". The Overseas Chinese Volunteer Army fought together with the officers and men of the Nineteenth Route Army in the line of fire, and some of them built reserve positions in the rear. The total number of volunteers in the Shanghai Citizens' Federation reached more than 2,000, which was the largest number. On February 2, more than 300 members of the vanguard of the Volunteer Army of the Citizens' Federation, led by the commander-in-chief Wang Pingnan, marched to the Pingjiang Office of the Sun Temple in Zhabei to listen to the 19th Route Army and join the battle; the next day, 200 more went to the front.

The student volunteer army has a high enthusiasm for participating in the war, especially the Fudan University volunteer army is the most prominent. At the beginning of the war, with the permission of Weng Zhaoyuan, the brigade commander of the 156th Brigade, the Volunteer Army of Fudan University went to the front line to participate in the battle, and they fought very bravely, with several casualties. Soon after, the headquarters of the 156th Brigade was transferred to the Sun Temple in Zhabei, and they were ordered to form a special service to work with the brigade headquarters, and the secret agents were divided into five units, which were respectively responsible for espionage, automobile transportation work, sorting out the people's consolation goods, receiving journalists and consolation representatives from all walks of life, interrogating traitors and enemy detectives, and conducting propaganda in the battlefield. After the 156th Brigade moved to Defend Wusong, the Fudan University Volunteer Army also moved to Dachang to participate in the construction of fortifications. On February 11, they were ordered to Jiading, Nanxiang, Kunshan, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Danyang, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou and other places to engage in propaganda work.

In addition, during the nineteenth route army, especially in the Battle of Zhabei Lane, many volunteer troops composed of local workers, students and freelancers rushed to join the battle, "fighting with the Japanese Marines and plainclothes teams with flesh and blood to assist our army in combat", but due to the lack of organization, they paid a lot of sacrifices, and the casualties could not be counted.

The rear serves the army and the people

Most of the volunteer armies of all walks of life have no formal military training and lack of combat ability, so only a few participate in front-line battles, and most of them serve in the rear, engaged in the work of rescuing wounded soldiers, relieving refugees, garrisoning the rear, and maintaining order in the rear.

Among the various volunteer armies serving in the rear, the role of the Various Boy Scouts in Shanghai was the most prominent, and the Activities of the Boy Scouts of Muertang were particularly active. When the January 28 Incident broke out suddenly, many refugees in the war zone fled into the concession, "the night was cold and extremely painful", and the Boy Scouts of the Multang in the British Concession rushed to Jinrong Primary School overnight to borrow blankets to protect the refugees from the cold. On 31 January, the Boy Scout Council of Murtang announced the recruitment of more than 600 people to form the Scout Field Service Corps, which is mainly engaged in delivering supplies to the army and rescuing refugees. Since February 2, the Boy Scouts have transported relief items donated by the people to Zhenru, Nanxiang headquarters and transportation offices, hundreds of pieces per day, "defying danger and always being consistent". Ambulance efforts also paid off, with the Boy Scouts running 13 refugee shelters in the rear by 28 February, and "rescuing more than 700 dying compatriots on the Zhabei front." In addition, they also carried out reconnaissance, hospitality, delivery of official letters, maintenance of order, etc., erected electric poles and power lines from Kunshan to Changshu, and cooperated with the Hunan Iron Blood Regiment to dig trenches around the city of Suzhou.

The Shanghai Huashang Yarn and Flower Industry Volunteer Army is another team that serves in the rear and plays an important role. They were organized four months before the January 28 Incident, received standard training, and a total of 250 people were organized into a squadron. After the battle began, the Zhoupu, YangSiqiao, and Zhoujiadu defense regiments asked the volunteer army to jointly assist in defense on the grounds that the defense was important and there were arsenals and ammunition depots around them. Beginning on January 29, the volunteer army, led by squadron leader Yang Xixian, dug trenches at Zhoujiadu and other places, "day and night to defend, do their best", for more than 30 days. After that, they sent one unit to serve at the Shanghai Military Station of the Nineteenth Route Army, responsible for transporting military supplies to Suzhou, Kunshan, Taicang, and other places; and sent one unit to the Kunshan Traffic Department and formed it into a guardianship team to supervise ship transportation, protect railways, and reserve positions.

The emergence of the volunteer army in Songhu promoted the awakening of the people and boosted morale, and Jiang Guangnai, commander-in-chief of the Nineteenth Route Army, fully affirmed this: "Shanghai workers, students, and women have set up anti-Japanese volunteer troops, field service groups, and ambulance teams, and they have gone deep into the front line and coordinated with the troops to fight, so that the Songhu War of Resistance will become a vigorous mass anti-Japanese movement, and the Nineteenth Route Army can fight with the Japanese troops with inferior equipment for a month and two days." ”