The Teaching Brigade and the Instruction Regiment were not originally front-line combat units, but were places dedicated to training new recruits, hence the name. To put it bluntly, it is the Recruit Brigade. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang army had many teaching brigades. Generally speaking, new recruits will only be incorporated into battalion-level units, but they cannot withstand the losses of Chinese troops during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, so the demand for new recruits is very large, so the Nationalist army simply made a teaching brigade, with the brigade as a unit to train new recruits one by one. It is also relatively efficient, but the quality is difficult to guarantee. However, the teaching brigade of the 115th Division is not the same as the traditional teaching brigade, and can be said to be the product of political compromise.
As we all know, after the second cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists, the Red Army in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia was also incorporated into the combat sequence of the National Revolutionary Army, and was initially assigned the Eighth Route Army, and later changed to the Eighteenth Group Army. In the south, the guerrillas led by Xiang Ying and Chen Yi were also reorganized into the New Fourth Army. In fact, the number of the Red Army was quite large, and they knew very well how to develop their strength, but Chiang Kai-shek buckled the rope and was unwilling to give the Red Army too much organization, so in the end only two armies, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, were formed. The Eighth Route Army was allowed to form only three divisions and six brigades. The three divisions were the 115th Division, the 120th Division and the 129th Division.
Obviously, such a small number of personnel is simply not enough, and as our Party continues to develop in the battlefield behind enemy lines, the demand for personnel has become more and more intense. However, if we directly and blatantly expand the number of troops, it is obviously a move to create friction, after all, if a unit number such as the "115Th Army" suddenly appears, Chiang Kai-shek must not jump like a thunderbolt? After that, Chiang Kai-shek is afraid that he will try his best to make a stumbling block, which can be said to be not conducive to the War of Resistance and easy to fall into the hands of the people. Therefore, at that time, our army made a lot of temporary formations, such as independent regiments, columns, and so on.
So what about the Teaching Brigade? This has to mention that the 115th Division moved east into Shandong. As the battlefield behind enemy lines in Shandong grew stronger, the Shandong column alone had more than 25,000 soldiers, which was already an armed force that could not be ignored, so the central government decided to let the main forces of the 115th Division enter Shandong one after another to fight the war. Shandong has a large population, and the people have great enthusiasm for resistance, after the propaganda and mobilization of cadres, many volunteers decided to join the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army.
The 115th Division expanded rapidly in a short period of time, and by 1940 its combat troops alone had reached 70,000 men. However, this also led to great confusion, so Luo Ronghuan began to reorganize the new army. After the reorganization, they got about thirty regiments, but they could not be put on the surface, so the cadres of the 115th Division came up with an idea. That is, to organize these units in the name of the teaching brigade, so that even if the Kuomintang checks it, it can falsely claim that it is a temporary training of new recruits. Thus the 115th Division sprang up seven teaching brigades.
However, this organization did not exist for a long time, and it was soon cancelled, because the Anhui Incident that broke out in 1941 made the CCP extremely disappointed in the Kuomintang, and the two sides were even on the verge of a fight, so the divisions of the Eighth Route Army simply broke the cans and broke, and many of the establishments were formalized, and the seven teaching brigades of the 115th Division also had new names. At the same time, many military regions and military sub-districts were also established in the battlefield behind enemy lines in Shandong, and together with the units and units, they led the War of Resistance Behind enemy lines.