During the extremely arduous period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army came into being and became an important part of the anti-Japanese national united front. These two armies, taking it as their duty to save the country from difficulties and resist aggression, have made outstanding contributions both in the war of the Chinese people against foreign aggression and in the war of the people of the world against fascism.
We know that after the Xi'an Incident, old Chiang Kai-shek was forced to accept the correct proposition of unanimous resistance to Japan, which is why these two units appeared. In the beginning, there were three divisions under the jurisdiction of the Eighth Route Army, and the size of the New Fourth Army was smaller than that of the Eighth Route Army, about the size of a division or so, so why was the unit level of the New Fourth Army relatively higher than that of the eighth route army?
First, let's talk about how these two red army teams, which belong to the same red army, have their own names. In the autumn of 1937, the Red Army accepted orders from the Central Military Commission to reorganize the 1st, 2nd, and 4th fronts into the Eighth Route Army, followed by the 18th Army after the unified battle sequence. This was the result of mutual consultations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. However, in addition to the main Red Army, there were still a large number of guerrilla Red Army units in the southern provinces of the mainland.
Old Chiang Kai-shek ostensibly promised to unite with the Communists to resist Japan, but behind the scenes, in order to weaken our strength, he did whatever it took, and he instructed his troops to carry out a large-scale search for the guerrilla Red Army in the south, which led to an increasingly difficult situation for the soldiers of the Red Army in the south. This situation did not turn around until the aggression intensified. With the Japanese attack on Shanghai, the Nationalist government in Nanjing felt great pressure and had to agree to the formation of a new 4th Army. Old Chiang did not want to give this New Fourth Army a regular unit structure, and under his obstruction, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China divided the New Fourth Army into four detachments, adding up to a total of more than 10,300 people.
From the perspective of the source of the troops, the predecessor of the Eighth Route Army was the main force of the Red Army, and in the early wars, the Soldiers of the Red Army experienced many large-scale battles, and had formed considerable cohesion and combat effectiveness in uninterrupted military activities. Moreover, the Eighth Route Army has three divisions under its jurisdiction, and the number of each division in scale is no less than that of the New Fourth Army. The 119th Division had 15,000 men, the 120th Division had 14,000 men, and the 129th Division had 13,000 men. Together with other units such as the Left Behind Corps in Yan'an, there were a total of 50,000 or 60,000 people.
The predecessor of the New Fourth Army was the Southern Guerrilla Red Army, and before the formation of the New Fourth Army, the southern fighters did not fight together, and even the run-in had not been run-in, and the initial level was indeed worse than that of the Eighth Route Army. However, after this unit was formed alone, its rank was above the main division of the Eighth Route Army, which was related to the domestic situation at that time.
One is the attitude of old Chiang Kai-shek to deliberately suppress our party. For a long time, Chiang Kai-shek regarded our Party as the most important enemy. He did not want the Eighth Route Army to rest and develop due to the formation of the united front, so when the Eighth Route Army was formed, he did not hesitate to use obstructive means. On the issue of the formation of the troops, it can be compressed and desperately compressed, which has led to the Eighth Route Army nominally being three divisions, each of which is larger than the Size of the Kuomintang troops, and in the level of the Eighth Route Army, it is also as close as possible to the general division-level troops.
On the other hand, old Chiang Kai-shek deliberately threw an olive branch at the New Fourth Army. After the plan to destroy the Red Army in the south was aborted, he wanted to win over the troops of the New Fourth Army in the War of Resistance. On the one hand, it can achieve the goal of weakening the communist forces, and on the other hand, it can also create imbalances within the Red Army. Therefore, after the formation of the New Fourth Army, Lao Chiang not only gave great preferential treatment and formed it into an independent army, but also carried out a lot of supplies and weapons transportation to the New Fourth Army in the early stage. In this way, the rank of the New Fourth Army was raised.
After the Formation of the New Fourth Army, it has experienced the baptism of war and become more and more mature. Later, with the change of our party's policy on major strategic arrangements, the influence of the New Fourth Army in central China gradually expanded, and it became the protagonist of our party's policy of "developing central China." It was not until after the Anhui Incident in 1941 that the New Fourth Army was reorganized in Yancheng, and the total number of troops at this time had grown to 90,000 people.