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Text: Zhao Jinjian
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introduction
Do you know how many rounds of ammunition were used by the Chinese military and civilians in the 14-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression?
In the course of the Anti-Japanese War, the number of Chinese soldiers remained below 4 million to 5 million in most cases, and even if these soldiers only fired one bullet a day, the consumption was close to astronomical.
According to many calculations, more than 2 billion rounds of various bullets were used by soldiers on the mainland during the Anti-Japanese War. So the question is, where did these bullets come from when they were extremely nervous because of the Japanese invasion everywhere? In particular, the Eighth Route Army, which had a hard time filling its stomach, could it afford to support the bullets consumed in the great plan to save the country? Is it all by seizure?
(Image of the Eighth Route Army)
1. You can only rely on yourself
After the start of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army quickly advanced into Shanxi and established an anti-Japanese base behind enemy lines. At that time, the greatest pressure on the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army did not come from food and daily necessities, but from ammunition.
Every battle is the most important thing, and the slightest mistake will be taken by the Japanese to devour a large area of our territory and kill innocent people. In this case, the pressure and consequences of insufficient ammunition are magnified many times over.
(Sino-Japanese War)
In 1939, General Peng Dehuai described the ammunition problem in this way: "The shortage of ammunition has become extremely serious, and the lack of ammunition has become the biggest difficulty in our current and even in the course of the War of Resistance Against Japan. ”
On the other hand, Japan has been investing in the military since the Meiji Restoration, and has also borrowed money from the United States to purchase ammunition and other war materials.
At that time, the bullets of the Eighth Route Army mainly came from three sources. The first is provided by the Nationalist Government, in order to promote the formation of the anti-Japanese national united front, the Eighth Route Army is still under the National Revolutionary Army, but that's all. It is not surprising that the National Government provides ammunition.
(Sino-Japanese War)
The second source was captured from the enemy. As the saying goes, "There are no guns and no cannons, the enemy makes them for us." In those difficult times, the act of capturing enemy weapons made an unimaginable contribution to the war of resistance.
The third source of bullets for the Eighth Route Army is to buy them from some special channels. For example, foreign arms dealers, some civilian armed forces in the hands of stocks, and so on.
But this still could not solve the problem of the shortage of ammunition in the Eighth Route Army at that time. Especially later, Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly attacked the New Fourth Army at the most critical moments, directly interrupting the supply of ammunition to the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army.
(Southern Anhui Incident)
Moreover, capturing from the enemy, or buying from special sources, is not a stable and conventional method, and sometimes it will pay a huge price that is much more than the value of ammunition.
Therefore, a practical problem is placed in front of the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army - the Eighth Route Army, must find a way to make its own bullets, and also do it, fast processing, less materials, and considerable power.
The Party Central Committee understood this matter very quickly and acted very quickly. From the very beginning, Chairman Mao and other leaders never thought of counting on others.
(Chairman Mao)
In November 1938, when the ammunition problem was at its most difficult, Chairman Mao made an important instruction at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of our Party on the shortage of ammunition: "Each of our guerrilla base areas must try by all means to set up its own small arsenal to the extent that it can make its own ammunition, rifles, and grenades. ”
This was also the only way for the Eighth Route Army to break through the fog of ammunition shortage at that time.
At that meeting, Chairman Mao also decided to build a large-scale military factory as the most important work of the Eighth Route Army to resist Japan at that time. I have to say that Chairman Mao's reaction was too fast. Because the problem of ammunition will be more serious in the future, if it is one step later at that time, the buffer period for ammunition and military construction may become a "vacuum period".
(Eighth Route Army Weapons)
In this way, only 4 months later, the military industry section of the Eighth Route Army was established. In June, the Ministry of Military Industry of Licheng, Shanxi Province was established. Next, the Eighth Route Army's own military factory and bullets will be born!
2. Turn waste into treasure
In August 1939, the Huangyadong Arsenal of the Eighth Route Army was established, and in March 1940, the Ministry of Military Industry of Licheng built the first bullet factory of the Eighth Route Army in the Guandi Temple in a subordinate village.
In order to build this heart that continues to pump blood to the front line, the Eighth Route Army selected talents and technicians from various units to devote themselves to the work of the Guandimiao Bullet Factory.
(Eighth Route Army Bullet Factory)
The conditions at the beginning of the bullet factory were quite difficult, and it was really starting from scratch. The factory has to build bricks one by one, the various machinery used to produce bullets has to be studied and assembled by itself, and all kinds of tools are polished by hand. Molds and boilers are basically not ready-made.
Moreover, there is still a battle ahead, and the comrades-in-arms are still blocking the enemy's bullets and footsteps with flesh and blood. Under such unimaginable hardware and software pressures, it took only one month for the Eighth Route Army to "transform" a bullet factory in the Guandi Temple.
There was not enough place in Guandi Temple, and the staff also received the support of the local people, and some of the people directly asked the Eighth Route Army to open a bullet factory in their own homes and make it a "small branch factory".
(Eighth Route Army Bullet Factory)
On the day the bullet factory was built, this "hematopoietic heart" of 50 people began to beat.
Briefly talk about the structure of the bullet at that time. From front to back, there are brass warheads and cartridge casings, which are filled with gunpowder and then primer with "thundermercury" as the main raw material.
The bullet factory has just been built, and there are only 2 lathes, 2 drilling machines, 4 stamping machines, and 3 professional bullet making machines. What makes people feel even more stressed is the scarcity of raw materials, especially brass for shells.
(Eighth Route Army Bullet Factory)
There was no way, and in the end they chose to use copper-clad lead cores to make bullet warheads. This kind of warhead has a poor flight attitude and low power, and more importantly, it is not capable of long-range combat strikes.
So the question is, where do these metals come from? Basically, they come from the support of the masses. The Eighth Route Army would melt the candlesticks, wine jugs, incense burners and other metal products sent by the masses into the original embryos of the warheads.
It is said that "it is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice", but the "smart woman" of the Eighth Route Army has achieved the miracle of "cooking" without rice.
(Bullets used by the Eighth Route Army)
It was not over, under the situation at that time, and the extreme demand for ammunition, the Eighth Route Army had to choose the cheapest means of making bullets - reloading.
To put it simply, it is to recycle all the used bullets, especially the cartridge shells, and reassemble these waste products that are useless in the eyes of others into usable bullets. Many modern foreign enthusiasts also have the Xi of reloading bullets in order to save design costs.
But did you know that in World War II, the Eighth Route Army was the only army that used reloading bullets on a large scale. One can imagine how severe and arduous the situation of the Anti-Japanese War in China was at that time. When the Eighth Route Army was cleaning up the battlefield, it was not only the enemy's guns, bullets, and supplies, but sometimes even scrap items had to be taken away.
(Homemade Weapons)
This is the most likely picture of the real anti-Japanese battlefield.
There is no need to think about it, the power of the reloaded bullets is uneven, and the quality of most of the reloaded bullets is significantly lower than that in the hands of the national army and the Japanese army. But even so, it can hit with considerable power under normal circumstances, and can accurately hit targets at a certain distance.
There is also an important issue of the primer of the bullet, which is difficult to buy. Thundermercury itself is unstable, and the slightest collision of thundermercury with high purity will cause an explosion, and the preparation process is extremely dangerous.
(Mercury Lyrate)
If you can't buy it, then make it yourself, even if it's dangerous. Finally, the high-level technical personnel of the bullet factory reduced silver nitrate with alcohol to produce thundermercury that could be used in the primer of bullets.
In the end, the bullet factory made warheads by pouring, made thundermercury from alcohol, and took gunpowder from the logistics department under the unit, and more than 50 people reloaded 500 rounds of 79 rifle ammunition from scratch in 20 days.
(Eighth Route Army Bullet Factory)
3. Progress in the midst of artillery fire
After the first batch of bullets were reloaded at the Guandimiao Bullet Factory, the staff also gained experience and the relevant technologies were relatively mature. Since then, the bullet factory has gradually become faster and more refined in the production of ammunition.
By August 1940, less than three months after the opening of the bullet factory, the Eighth Route Army had produced and reloaded more than 100,000 rounds of various types of bullets.
Some of the bullets used by our side in the Hundred Regiments War came from the Guandi Temple Bullet Factory, which worked day and night.
(Battle of the Hundred Regiments)
This is not a small progress, but it is inevitable that mass production and research and exploration are different, and new problems are born.
During the Battle of the Hundred Regiments, many of the soldiers who used our own reloading bullets reacted one after another, and these bullets were loud, tenacious, and inaccurate. After hundreds of experiments, some bullet technicians found that this was due to too many impurities and too much hardness in the mass-produced warheads.
(Arsenal)
In such difficult conditions, this is almost inevitable, what can be done to make a relatively perfect bullet with the fastest speed and the cheapest consumables?
The Eighth Route Army took a different approach and turned the disadvantages of these reloading bullet warheads into advantages.
That is, the copper skin on the surface of the warhead was sanded a little thinner, but I didn't expect that just such a simple action caused a qualitative change. This kind of polished bullet has poor flight action in the air, and is prone to transverse bullet (tan) phenomenon, and the warhead is easy to break when it enters the human body, which increases the lethality.
(Dummy Bullet)
This was the most feared by the Japanese invaders back then, commonly known as the "flowering bomb" that "went in one eye, and half of the ass came out", or the earliest and simplest "dummy bomb". There must be many people who have heard of the famous name of this bullet.
In addition, the Eighth Route Army Bullet Factory also optimized the original problems, adjusted the metal composition ratio of the warhead, and developed a bullet with a better feel.
In September 1940, the production speed of the Guandimiao Bullet Factory was further improved, and it could produce 3 to 40,000 rounds of ammunition per month.
(Eighth Route Army bullets)
This is another big step forward in the midst of artillery fire.
However, the good times did not last long, and the large-scale sweep of our military factories and bullet factories by the Japanese invaders began in early October.
In order to save this heart, the organization temporarily disbanded the bullet factory, transferred all production tools and lathes to other places, and asked all the technicians of the bullet factory to form a "reloading team" of about 10 people, and follow the main combat unit with finished warheads, primers and other materials.
("Build one more bullet, kill one more devil")
These squads are like mobile bullet factories, where the troops go and they follow them, and continue to reload and produce bullets to support forward operations. In the case of gunpowder smoke almost everywhere in the world in World War II, this kind of "do on the spot" and "use immediately" bullet supply method is unique to the Eighth Route Army, and it is very mobile.
On the other side, a new ammunition factory has also been built behind enemy lines, called the "First Reloading Ammunition Factory". The task of this bullet factory is twofold, one is to produce reloading bullets, and the other is to improve the production process.
(Eighth Route Army Arsenal)
Later, university students behind enemy lines were involved, and after May 1941, the first reloading plant was able to reload 1 million rounds of ammunition per year.
Isn't that progress? But it's far from over.
Fourth, our bullets
After the process of reloading bullets matured in our army, more and more bullet factories emerged, and many troops also responded to Chairman Mao's call to train technical personnel and establish troop reloading teams to produce their own bullets.
(Eighth Route Army)
In addition, after 1943, the arsenal of our army was able to imitate a variety of rifles and pistols for use every year.
But there is a problem here, that is, the speed of production of bullets is accelerated, which must be established when there are abundant raw materials. Gunpowder became the most precious material needed by the bullet factories of the Eighth Route Army at that time.
The same story played out again, only this time the object of our study changed from bullets to gunpowder.
(Gunpowder for bullets)
In July 1942, our army established a gunpowder factory, and Bai Ying, a technical talent, issued a military order: "Give me two months, and I will definitely make our own smokeless gunpowder." ”
Who would have thought that the gunpowder that really belonged to the Eighth Route Army itself was born in an abandoned house covering an area of only 50 square meters.
Two months came as scheduled, and the smokeless gunpowder developed by our military nitrocellulose came out, although there were only two kilograms of samples, but it gave new hope to the bullet factory.
(Gunpowder)
A gunpowder factory with 500 people was established in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei region. In the beginning, these workers could only produce a maximum of 100 catties of "smokeless cotton gunpowder" per month.
By 1945, with the advancement of technology, the gunpowder factory produced more than 6,700 catties of smokeless propellant, more than 14,000 catties of smokeless gunpowder, and even more than 23,000 catties of ammonium nitrate explosives in that year.
By 1949, this earliest gunpowder factory alone could produce a total of 320,000 kilograms of propellant and 4 million kilograms of gunpowder. This strongly supported the production of the bullet factory, and the front-line fighters had a lot less to worry about.
(nitrocellulose)
In August 1944, the Eighth Route Army established the "Pengzhuang Ammunition Factory" in Licheng County, Shanxi, and from the moment it was born, it was different from other "comrades-in-arms". Because its task is no longer to reload the bullet, but to create our own original bullet!
In February 1945, after a series of researches, Pengzhuang created the first batch of original ammunition in the true sense of the word of the Eighth Route Army, which was red with 20,000 rounds.
According to statistics, just the above-mentioned bullet factories produced 2.23 million rounds of various bullets for the Anti-Japanese War after their establishment, of which 130,000 were original new bullets.
(Eighth Route Army bullets)
It can be seen that even under the grim situation that people may die anytime and anywhere, the Eighth Route Army still relies only on itself and starts from 0 to build our own military industrial force. Such a mighty division is unique even if you look at the entire military history of the world.
We pay more attention to the sassy and heroic posture and tragic and heroic feelings on the battlefield, but in fact, after the battlefield, there are also many stories worth recalling, and there are many behind-the-scenes heroes worthy of our admiration! The War of Resistance does not belong to a certain person or a certain land, but to the entire nation!
(Japan surrender)
Resources
Song Qingwei.Research on the military industry of the Eighth Route Army during the Anti-Japanese War[D].Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China:2021.
Yang Shangjun.The leap from handicraft workshop to mechanized production——Chronicle of the production of bullets by the Taihang military industry of the Eighth Route Army during the Anti-Japanese War[J].Party History Wenhui,2021(06):49-55.
He Yan.Listening to the veterans reminiscing about the past of the Anti-Japanese War——"I still remember the sound of bullets grazing in my ears"[J].Hainan Today,2005(08)
Zhao Daodao, Feng Sheng.Mysterious bullet casings for the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War[J].Children's Music,2015(12):28.)