Battle of Guan Jia'an
In 1940, the Battle of Guanjia'an occurred in Guanjia'an, Shanxi Province. At that time, the Okazaki detachment, which had only more than 500 Japanese troops, mistakenly broke into the rear of our army, and if these Japanese troops were allowed to leave, the Japanese army's future sweeping would inevitably be more unscrupulous, so our army must completely annihilate these more than 500 Japanese troops in Guanjia'an.
To this end, our army mobilized 8 regiments with a total of more than 10,000 people and surrounded and annihilated the Okazaki detachment that had broken into Guanjia'an. But the resistance of the Okazaki detachment was extremely stubborn, and this unit fought its own battle against our army's attack with the death of its commander. The two sides fought fiercely for several hours, our army could not be attacked for a long time, and the Japanese reinforcements were close at hand, and finally they could only let the dozens of Japanese troops who were still alive leave. So how could the Okazaki detachment of more than 500 Japanese troops withstand the siege of tens of thousands of people of the Eighth Route Army during the War of Resistance?
The terrain of Guanjia'an
There were three main reasons why the Okazaki detachment was able to withstand our army's attack, the first being that the Japanese army occupied favorable terrain from the beginning. The northern slope of Guanjia'an is a cliff, and the east and west sides are also relatively steep, and it is impossible to attack at all, only the south side is more gentle and can march. However, there is also a willow tree embankment south of Guanjia'an, and these two places are at each other's horns, which can support each other, which can be said to be easy to defend and difficult to attack.
The Japanese quickly occupied both sites before the battle began, and then built some temporary fortifications at Willow Hill. Such terrain coupled with fortifications made it possible for the Japanese to withstand the attack of thousands of troops and horses with only a few machine guns. Therefore, in this battle, our army still did not completely annihilate the Okazaki detachment despite two thousand casualties.
The development of our army
The second is the lack of heavy firepower in our army. In fact, in the battle of Guanjia'an, as long as our army had two or three grenadiers, it would not be so difficult to fight. However, at that time, the firepower of our army was extremely weak, let alone the grenadier, that is, the two light machine guns were difficult to find.
The okazaki detachment's entry into the rear of our army aroused such a big reaction from our army, in addition to the consideration of political influence, there was also the problem of logistics and production of our army. Before reaching Guanjia'an, the Okazaki detachment passed by our army's Huangyadong Arsenal. At that time, the Huangyadong Arsenal was the headquarters of our army's arsenal, which could produce 400 guns a month. At this level, even the small civilian workshops in Afghanistan are inferior to today, but at that time our army regarded it as a pearl in the palm of its hand, which shows how weak our army's firepower was at that time.
The last reason is the weakness of our army's combat effectiveness. In fact, in the early stage of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japan, there was a huge gap between the combat effectiveness of our army and the Japanese army. In the early days of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, our army still focused on establishing base areas and supplemented by military training. According to the game terminology, our army is a "farming stream" game, in the early stage of the pile of technology and productivity, to the later stage relying on the advantages of these two aspects to push each other flat. Therefore, in 1940, the combat effectiveness of our soldiers was obviously inferior to that of the Japanese army.
In fact, at that time, our army had only just established some base areas, and it had little experience in how to make the base areas face the war, and it was too late to train troops. For example, after the Hundred Regiments War, our army did not make the people realize the horror of the Japanese army because of insufficient propaganda to the base areas, which led to the people being very unactive in withdrawing in the face of the Japanese army's sweep, thus bearing great losses. Therefore, in 1940, our army was basically some recruits who were collected from the base areas and had no combat experience, and it was natural to suffer heavy losses when the new recruits were allowed to deal with the elite Japanese soldiers.