The battalion platoons of the military divisions, brigades, regiments, and regiments are well known to us. However, when looking back at the history of our army, we often see columns and corps such formations. So what are the formations of columns and corps, and how many are there?
To answer this question, we must start with the Nanchang Uprising. After the Nanchang Uprising, our Party began to have its own army. Because it has won the hearts and minds of the people, the size of the army has been continuously expanded. By the time of the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance, the army had expanded to a certain number. Finally, in order to adapt to the battlefield, the army was reorganized into three divisions. There were three divisions, 115, 120 and 129, and two brigades under each division.
Later, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression became more and more fierce, and the ferocious Japanese aggressors aroused the anger of the people of the whole country, and more and more people joined the people's army. Once the number of this force is large, it will be difficult to manage.
In order to enhance the management efficiency and combat effectiveness of the troops, the meeting decided to adjust the army's organizational structure. After the adjustment, a column formation appeared, and the column formation was one level larger than the division.
By 1948, a large number of field forces in various regions had been integrated and eventually reorganized into 5 field armies. At the beginning of 49, the 5 major field armies were adjusted to 4. At that time, in order to quickly encircle the enemy army, multiple columns were needed to fight jointly.
According to the organization at that time, multiple columns were often subordinate to different field armies. The situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly, and many times the enemy has exploited loopholes due to the mistakes of the field army's command of the column's coordinated operations. In order to make up for this command deficiency, the troops are more flexible and cooperative. It was finally decided to add a formation between the field army and the column, which was the corps we mentioned earlier.
Therefore, the most reasonable set of troop establishment structures at that time appeared, that is, the four major field armies, the lower level was the corps, the lower level of the corps was the column, and the lower level of the column was the division.
So how many people are in a corps? In fact, the number of corps is not fixed, and it has always been in a state of change.
On average, smaller corps do not exceed 100,000. The larger corps would have more than 200,000 men. The Fourth Field Army has a total strength of more than 1 million, and there are 4 corps under it. On average, the number of each corps would exceed 200,000. The Size of the Third Field Army is slightly smaller, its total strength is more than 800,000, and there are also 4 corps below. In this way, the strength of each corps is around 150,000 to 200,000. The strength of the First Field Army is 350,000, and there are 5 corps below, each corps will not exceed 100,000. The total strength of the Second Field Army is only about 300,000, and there are 4 corps below. On average, the number of people per corps will not exceed 100,000.
These 17 corps were created to cope with the war environment of the time. The establishment of 17 corps to fight flexible mobile warfare is beneficial to our army.
When the war was over, the layout of the 17 corps seemed unreasonable. For the integration of the army, it was proposed to abolish the 17 corps, but the proposal was not adopted, and the first thing that was adopted was the reorganization of the column. The column was eventually reorganized into an army, and after the reorganization, about 70 armies appeared. The dismantling and change of the column was rapid, but the dismantling of the corps took a long time. It was proposed in the 1950s that the Corps was not officially abolished until the late 1980s. After about 30 years of time, it belongs to a smooth transition.
At that time, there were also a few places where the corps establishment had not been abolished, such as Xinjiang. In order to support the development of Xinjiang, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps was retained. But this corps was reserved not for combat, but for construction.
Now, decades have passed since the end of the war, and many people have long forgotten the original corps. But these 17 corps did play a decisive role in the victory of the war. The establishment of these 17 corps also shows that our army is not only brave and good at fighting, but also has a flexible mind. It is possible to flexibly change the organization according to the form of the battlefield, accurately grasp the opportunity to win, and respond to the old saying that the opportunity must not be lost, and the loss will not come again.