After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Yan Xishan, who lived in western Shanxi, was anxious to restore control of Shanxi, so on the one hand, he contacted the Japanese puppet army and reorganized the Shanxi puppet army into the so-called "provincial defense army", with more than 50,000 people in five armies.
When relying on these puppet armies to reorganize troops to garrison on the spot, the main force of the Jin Sui army also dispatched from western Jin to seize the town strongholds, of which more than 14,000 people seized the Shangdang area, and incorporated 3,000 local puppet troops to defend it, which triggered the Shangdang Campaign.
At that time, the Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu Military Region concentrated 31,000 people on the main force to fight against it, and the Jinsui Army later reinforced 21,000 people, so the Shangdang Battle became a major battle between the two sides after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.
In this battle, our army first launched a siege and siege battle, and then defeated the reinforcements of the Jin Sui army in the field battle, and annihilated most of them in the process of pursuit;
In total, most of the 13 divisions of the Jin Sui Army were annihilated in this battle, and a large number of weapons and equipment were also captured.
After the defeat in this battle, according to the materials of the Jin Sui army, about 1,800 (1,808) light and heavy machine guns were lost in this battle, and about 900 (893) submachine guns were also lost.
It was very rare for so many weapons and equipment to be lost in a single battle in the context of the battle at that time.
There is also a special reason why the 30,000-strong Jinsui Army can be equipped with so many machine guns and submachine guns, and the number of machine guns is even higher than that of the New 1st Army at that time.
As we mentioned earlier, the strength of the Jin Sui army participating in the war was about 13 divisions, but its strength was only about 38,000 people, and the average number of troops in one of its divisions was less than 3,000 people.
The reason why the number of troops in a division is only these people is related to the establishment of the Jin Sui Army in the middle and late stages of the Anti-Japanese War.
At that time, the number of troops in western Jin was insufficient, and although Yan Xishan had a large number of troops, it was impossible to enrich the troops, so the actual number of troops in a division was only about 4,000 people. In offensive operations, because some units still have to be left behind, and there are also varying degrees of shortages, a division can often only dispatch about 3,000 troops.
However, a division can only dispatch 3,000 people, but it has quite a few infantry regiments, battalions, and companies.
Based on the scale of 13 divisions, it is equivalent to about 40 infantry regiments, and an average of 50 machine guns per regiment can still be done.
Because although Yan Xishan lost the Taiyuan Arsenal, the arsenal he moved to the rear still had the capacity to manufacture machine guns, and those submachine guns were the battlefield stocks of that year, although the equipment rate was not as good as in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, but it was able to make up about 1,000 pieces.
Because most of the troops participating in this battle of the Jin Sui army were wiped out, the loss of 1,800 machine guns and 900 submachine guns is not outrageous.
It is worth mentioning that in the statistics of the results of our army, the number of light and heavy machine guns captured in the battle of Shangdang was 2,200.
This data is interesting because its total number is more than the 1,800 machine guns that the Jin Suijun believes were lost, but less than the 2,700 machine guns + submachine guns of the Jin Suijun.
What's going on here?
We only need to figure out two key points, and we can correspond.
The first key point is the issue of the classification of submachine guns.
It stands to reason that heavy machine guns, light machine guns, submachine guns, and rifles are all different types of weapons and should be counted separately.
However, in the context of that time, because our army was rarely equipped with submachine guns, the name of this kind of repeating automatic weapon was sometimes called "submachine gun".
After being captured in battle, it is often included in the category of light machine guns (in the middle and late stages of the war, it is listed separately).
In the statistics of the post-war seizures of the Shangdang Campaign, machine guns and rifles are included in the firearms category, and there is no separate submachine gun; and submachine guns are absolutely impossible to be included in the rifle category, but it is impossible not to display this capture, so they are actually incorporated into the category of light machine guns.
Therefore, in the Shangdang Campaign, the 2,200 machine guns captured by our army actually included captured submachine guns.
However, the Jin Sui army admitted that it had lost 2,700 machine guns + submachine guns, why did our army capture 2,200 units?
This brings us to the second key point, which is the issue of cleaning up the battlefield.
The bulk of the losses of the Jin Sui army in the Shangdang Campaign were actually not in the defense of the city and the field attack and defense, but in the process of defeat and retreat after the city and position could not be defended.
In the process of the rout of tens of thousands of troops, guns and weapons were often thrown all over the mountains, and in this process, some weapons could not be "cleaned" at the first time because of the special places where they were lost.
In addition, in addition to the main force, there were also a large number of local armed forces who participated in the Shangdang campaign to clean up the battlefield at that time, and after the local armed forces seized weapons, it was difficult to make detailed statistics, so they often retained them themselves.
Therefore, due to the superposition of these factors, the Jin Sui army did lose 2,700 machine guns + submachine guns, but 2,200 of the main forces of our army were captured, and the rest were also captured in the mountains and forests and by the local armed forces and militias of our army.
Despite this, the 2,200 machine guns + submachine guns captured by the main forces can still greatly enrich the armament of the main forces of our army. It can be said that the light machine guns of the grassroots companies were basically equipped after this battle, and the hundreds of submachine guns captured could also be equipped with guards and assault units to strengthen the corresponding capabilities.
In addition, some mountain artillery, mortars, and a large number of bullets were captured in the Shangdang Campaign, and these armaments also provided a material basis for the transformation of our army's main force into a field corps, and these were extremely positive effects brought about by the complete victory of the Shangdang Campaign.