The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was an extremely arduous war of anti-aggression in Chinese history, in which the Chinese paid a terrible price in order to resist the aggression of Japanese imperialism. Throughout the War of Resistance Against Japan, China suffered 35 million casualties, and hundreds of millions of ordinary people were displaced and lost their homes. However, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, many brave and good-fought units also emerged, and the New Fourth Army was one of the representatives.
Compared with the Eighth Route Army, the environment of the New Fourth Army may be more difficult, but after three years of guerrilla warfare in the south, the New Fourth Army has rich experience in combat behind enemy lines. Many people think that the New Fourth Army is deep behind the enemy lines, it should all be in the mountains, in fact, it is not, the development of the New Fourth Army behind the enemy is indeed very difficult, but the New Fourth Army also occupies a number of large cities, before the victory of the War of Resistance, the Second Division of the New Fourth Army has already surrounded Nanjing, Zhang Yunyi's Second Division headquarters is only a few tens of kilometers away from Nanjing City.
In 1939, Su Yu once led the troops into southern Jiangsu, Ye Fei led people all the way to the outskirts of Shanghai, blew up four Japanese fighters at Hongqiao Airport, which caused a great sensation at that time, and many ordinary people in Shanghai exclaimed: "The fourth master is coming." After the Anhui Incident, Chiang Kai-shek cut off the salaries of the New Fourth Army, and as a result, the New Fourth Army not only did not decline, but gradually developed and grew, and the First Division of the New Fourth Army led by Su Yu was in central Jiangsu, and southern Jiangsu was turned upside down, and the Japanese army had no way to do anything with him. Officers and men of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army also drove Japanese motorboats to collect taxes from Japanese merchants on various rivers, and the name of the tax was "Anti-Japanese Donation."
Among the many units of the New Fourth Army, the richest is probably the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army led by Tan Xilin. After the Anhui Incident, although the Seventh Division of the Newly Established Fourth Army had a brigade, a regiment, and several independent battalions, the whole division had a total of only 1,900 people. Initially, the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army developed in chaohu and Tongling counties, operating in narrow guerrilla areas with a population of less than one million, but in the end it developed to the anti-Japanese base areas that spanned the north and south sides of the Yangtze River in Anhui, from Jiangpu and Dangtu in the east to Huaining and Pengze in the west, to the Chu River and Hefei in the north, to Xuancheng and Huangshan in the south, and to the anti-Japanese base areas in 31 counties.
When the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army was first established, the officers and men could not even eat enough to eat, and under such circumstances, division commander Zeng Xisheng went to the military headquarters and the Central China Bureau to recruit people everywhere, mainly in the fields of finance, economics and military industry. At that time, the Central China Bureau set up a financial and economic committee led by Zeng Shan, and Zeng Xisheng transferred Cai Hui, a major general under Zeng Shan and a financial expert of the Sixth Division, to the Seventh Division through various routines. After Cai Hui arrived at the Seventh Division, he took advantage of the environment in which the Seventh Division was located and the rich products in the south to formulate a series of practical and feasible economic development strategies. At that time, the Anhui River base area also built the largest water conservancy project since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression - the Huangsitan River Embankment Project.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the main source of finance for the New Fourth Army was the Seventh Division, and in the year from January 1944 to January 1945 alone, the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army handed over 44 million yuan in cash, which was converted into more than 200,000 taels of gold at the price at that time. According to the supply standards of the Kuomintang army, these were enough to support 20 well-equipped armor divisions. Therefore, at that time, the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army was also known as the "Rich Seventh Division, the Whole Army".
The officers and men of the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army can be said to be the New Fourth Army, the eighth route army with the most abundant sources of military funds, ordinary soldiers ten yuan a month, in addition to pocket money, a toothpaste, three cigarettes, food is rice. The uniforms of the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army were also the most neat, the weapons and equipment were also all-Japanese armaments, and the Central Army troops of the Nationalist Army at that time were not so rich, coupled with the harsh salaries in the Nationalist Army, corruption was very serious, and many troops could eat enough to eat was a luxury, not to mention some miscellaneous troops.
By the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the unit had 30,000 regular troops, 7,000 local troops, and more than 150,000 militia self-defense units of various types. In fact, at that time, the Kuomintang army also sent a large number of guerrillas behind the enemy's back, the scale was not small, but these troops could not survive as soon as they arrived behind the enemy's back, fled, scattered, and many became puppet troops.