In the famous Anti-Japanese War drama "Bright Sword", it was mentioned that the 358th Regiment of the Jin Sui Army in the play was a reinforced regiment, with 5,000 people.
However, this is actually an adaptation of novels and film and television dramas, because the Jin Sui Army was famous at that time for "many establishments and small strength"; even before the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when the strength of the Jin Sui Army was still full, one of its infantry regiments was only 1,500 people in a full state, and even if it was a temporary reinforcement of artillery battalions and cavalry companies, it was only about 2,000 people.
In the middle and late stages of the Anti-Japanese War, due to the lack of soldiers in the Jin Sui army, it was good to have about 1,000 people in a regiment, and a division was usually only three or four thousand people, and the scale of 5,000 people could be called a reinforced division.
Under the background at that time, the Kuomintang army usually had an infantry regiment of more than 2,000 people, but because of the lack of strength, the actual strength of the army may be only 2,000 or less than 2,000 people, and the infantry regiment of the army stationed in India can be enriched to more than 3,000 people.
At that time, our Eighth Route Army implemented the "large and small regiments" system, and the strength of large regiments was generally less than 2,000 people, and small regiments often only had six or seven hundred people, which was equivalent to the level of a reinforced battalion.
However, in the early days of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, some infantry regiments of the Eighth Route Army had a period of rapid expansion in strength in a short period of time, not only in the case of four or five thousand people, but also in the scale of six or seven thousand people.
But this situation is not finalized, and generally when it develops to this scale, it will be diverted out to expand a new team.
For example, the famous Yang Chengwu Independent Regiment, after growing from more than 1,700 to more than 7,000 in just a few months, was upgraded to a division-level unit and expanded into three new regiments.
So in the context of the Anti-Japanese War, did there really exist an infantry regiment with a fixed establishment and a strength of 5,000 people?
- It really existed.
Of course, this real "oversized" infantry regiment is not an ordinary combat unit, and its nature is very special, because it is an infantry regiment under the establishment of the Tax Police Corps.
The so-called Tax Police Corps was obviously not a regular army, but a special armed force organized within the system of the Ministry of Finance at that time.
The backbone of this armed force was the 1st and 2nd Corps of the Anti-Smuggling Division of the Ministry of Finance in 1930, and then it was officially renamed the Tax Police Corps in 1931.
Although it is nominally called a "tax policeman", its real purpose is not to do this, but to be an armed "private soldier" directly commanded by Song Ziwen.
Because of this, the senior commanders of this unit mostly choose officers with study experience, and the selection of soldiers is relatively strict, and of course the salary is relatively high.
In addition, in terms of weapons and equipment, most of them are purchased from European countries, and the configuration is quite strong.
Even the elite troops of the Central Army at that time were slightly inferior in strength and equipment compared to this tax police regiment.
By 1932, the Tax Police Corps also participated in the Songhu War of Resistance as an independent brigade of the 88th Division.
According to Mo Xiong, who was the head of the tax police regiment at the time, later recalled, the total strength of the tax police regiment was more than 30,000 people (which is basically the strength of an army), and although there were only five regiments in name, each regiment had more than 5,000 people.
In the context of the general infantry regiment at that time only more than 2,000 people, how could the infantry regiment of the tax police regiment be able to support 5,000 soldiers?
In his memoirs, Mo Xiong also revealed the mysteries.
The basic combat detachment of the Tax Police Corps was still an infantry squad, but each squad could have a strength of 14 men; then six infantry squads formed a platoon (at that time it was usually three squads in one platoon), and the number of combatants in one platoon was 84, while the number of combat soldiers under the jurisdiction of three platoons in a company was 252.
The strength of this infantry company alone was equivalent to two companies of the Class A regular army at that time.
Moreover, what is mentioned here is the number of combat soldiers, and there are still company headquarters and platoon personnel in an infantry company, especially the number of troops in the company headquarters is not a lot, and the total number of people in the entire company is more than 300 people.
It can be said that this infantry company of the Tax Police Corps is actually equivalent to a simple battalion.
According to Mo Xiong's recollection, at that time, an infantry battalion of the Tax Police Corps had four companies, and if the whole regiment had three battalions, it would be 12 companies.
In this case, just counting the strength of the infantry company, its strength number is towards almost 4,000 people.
In addition, the infantry battalion of the Tax Police Corps is equipped with two additional mortars, which also occupy troops.
At the infantry regiment level, there are also troops directly under the regiment (in terms of the situation when participating in the Songhu Anti-Japanese War, it is the regiment headquarters, communication company, infantry artillery company, sniper/anti-aircraft artillery company) and a large number of transport troops, so the total number of troops in the whole regiment is very large.
It is also worth mentioning that there must have been heavy machine gun companies in the infantry battalions of the Tax Police Corps, and it is not clear whether this company is one of the four companies mentioned by Mo Xiong, or it may be the fourth company among them, or it may be a separate company.
However, in general, an infantry regiment of the Tax Police Corps can indeed make up 5,000 people.
In terms of armament, there is a clear establishment table that says that a regiment is equipped with 90 automatic rifles as standard, and the automatic rifles here actually refer to the Belgian-made Browning and the Swiss-made Chellali, which are used as light machine guns; while the standard heavy machine guns of a regiment are 18, which is obviously configured according to one heavy machine gun with six units.
It is also worth noting that one of its infantry regiments also had 8 submachine guns and 178 barge guns, which was a very high level of melee firepower for the time.
You know, this was in 1932.
It was not until three years later that Chiang's Central Army underwent German-style reorganization, and the armament could be configured to this level, and many of its weapons were still national weapons.
However, the tax police corps was basically overstaffed in 1932, and it is no wonder that Lao Chiang later attacked this unit and brought it under his own control.