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The Battle of The Hundred Regiments: Problems of Coordination and Control during the Sino-Japanese War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Lyman P. Van Slyke
Lyman P. Van Slyke
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

Communist sources record that between 20 August and 5 December 1940, the Eighth Route Army (8RA) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fought 1,824 large and small engagements with Japanese and puppet troops from the plains of Hebei to the mountains of Shanxi. These engagements are known collectively as ‘the Battle of the Hundred Regiments’ and they are the subject of this essay.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 979 - 1005
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Jie, Jiang, ‘Guanyu Baituan dazhan wenti di tantao,’ Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 1 (1979), p. 169.Google Scholar Similar figures appear in several sources.

2 See Garver, John W., Chinese–Soviet Relations, 1937–1945: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

3 Van Slyke, Lyman P., Enemies and Friends: The United Front in Chinese Communist History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), pp. 197–8.Google Scholar

4 United States War Department, The Chinese Movement: A Report of the U.S. War Department, July 1945, ed. by Van Slyke, Lyman P. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), Ch. 4.Google Scholar

5 Van Slyke, Enemies and Friends, pp. 130–42.Google Scholar

6 Quoted in Da, Li, KangRi zhanzheng zhong di Balujun yierijiushi (Beijing, 1985), p. 186.Google Scholar

7 Quoted in Tetsuya, Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 206.Google Scholar

8 Hartford, Kathleen, ‘Repression and Communist Success: the Case of Jin-Cha-Ji,’ in Hartford, and Goldstein, Steven (eds), Single Sparks: China's Rural Revolutions (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1989), pp. 103–7.Google Scholar

9 Dehuai, Peng, Peng Dehuai zishu (Beijing, 1981), p. 235.Google Scholar

10 Rongzhen, Nie, Nie Rongzhen huiyilu (Beijing, 1984), 3 vol; vol. 2, pp. 293–4.Google Scholar

11 Da, Li, p. 184Google Scholar; see also Zhikuan, Li and Zhaoqian, Wang, Balujun zongbu dashi jilue (Beijing, 1985), p. 75.Google Scholar

12 Many have seen in this campaign an effort by Peng Dehuai, and perhaps others, to carry out a more conventional military strategy which was at odds with Mao's guerrilla approach. These differences are traced back to disputes over strategy and tactics that surfaced in meetings shortly after the outbreak of the war and in the Sixth Plenum (late 1938). Some believe that the dispute also involved the so-called Wang Ming line. These byzantine subjects are mostly beyond the scope of the present paper. My current opinion is that although disputes certainly took place early in the war, by 1940 these were, at most, differences of emphasis and degree, not of fundamental line.

13 Domes, Jurgen, Peng Te-huai: The Man and the Myth (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), p. 135.Google Scholar

14 Full text in Zhongguo renmin kemingjunshi bowuguan, Baituan dazhan lishi wenxian ziliao xuanbian (Beijing, 1990), pp. 11–13.Google Scholar This source is hereafter cited as BTDZ ziliao.

15 Two days later (24 July) he is delivering an address on propaganda and the arts during the three years of the war in North China, at the Lu Xun Academy of the Arts in Yenan (De, Zhu, Zhu De xuanji (Beijing, 1983), pp. 72–5).Google Scholar

16 Peng Dehuai zishu, pp. 236–7.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 234.

18 Domes, pp. 132–5.Google Scholar

19 Hongyun, Wei, Huabei kangRi genjudi jishi (Tianjin, 1986), pp. 184–5.Google Scholar

20 fangweitin, Riben zhanshi shi, Huabei zhi'anzhan (Tianjin, 1982), 2 vols; vol. 1, p. 297.Google Scholar This is the Chinese translation of Boeicho boei kensujo senshi shitsu, Hokushi no Chiansen (Tokyo: 1968), 2 vols.Google Scholar

21 Peng Dehuai zishu, p. 237.Google Scholar

22 Li, He et al. (eds), Baituan dazhan shiliao (Historical Materials on the Battle of the Hundred Regiments) (Beijing, 1982), p. 26.Google Scholar

23 ‘Baituan dazhan diyi jieduan Zheng-Tai xiduan zhanshi zhengzhi gongzuo zongjie (15 Feb. 1941),’ in Li, Heet al. (eds), Baituan dazhan shiliao, pp. 279–93.Google Scholar

24 These figures are puzzling. It is hard to see how twenty railway workers could accomplish more than an entire battalion. Perhaps Lu was contrasting the thorough demolition described below with a more superficial dismantling. He also stressed the importance of experienced railway workers, who knew exactly what to do.

25 Steel rail was not the only desirable salvage sought in such operations. All manner of booty was collected; particularly prized were communications equipment and copper wire from the lines strung along the tracks. A significant portion of the armament of Chinese Communist forces was captured in battle. Since base area armories could not produce machine guns or light artillery, these weapons were particularly prized. Stores of coal, food, and other appropriate commodities were distributed to the peasants participating in the demolition, and this was one of the incentives held out to them.

26 Report from Nie Rongzhen to 8RA and the Military Affairs Commission in Yenan, reprinted in Baituan dazhan, pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

27 BTDZ ziliao, p. 37.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., p. 34.

29 Ibid., p. 13.

30 Ibid., p. 14.

31 Yet, paradoxically, in many areas for considerable stretches of time, daily life was fairly normal. During most of 1942, Michael Lindsay lived in a village near Nie Rongzhen's headquarters. He writes, ‘1942 was relatively peaceful. There had been a big Japanese offensive in 1941 but during 1942 they concentrated on other areas. We had to move out for a few days during a minor raid, and once a Japanese plane strafed the valley killing several civilians but this was an isolated episode.’ Earlier in 1942, he had described life in Xiao Ke's headquarters area (central Hebei) as ‘relatively easy… Food there was good, and we certainly lived in far greater comfort than the foreigners later interned at Weihsien.’ Lindsay, Michael, The Unknown War, 1937–1945 (London, 1975), not paged.Google Scholar

32 So Shihhui, , ‘Baituan dazhan ying chongfen kending,’ Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 3 (1980), p. 120.Google Scholar

33 Huabei zhi'anzhan, vol. 1, pp. 309–10.Google Scholar

34 BTDZ ziliao, p. 229.Google Scholar

35 Zhongguo renmin geming junshi bowuguan, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi ditu (Beijing, 1987), pp. 97–8.Google Scholar

36 BTDZ ziliao.

37 HuaiSu junmin qingzhu Balujun baituan dazhan shengli dahui choubeihui, Balujun baituan dazhan shengli xuanchuan dagang (n.p., 1940), 6 pp., mimeo.

38 Dingyi, Lu, ‘Baituan dazhan diyi jieduan ZhengTai xiduan zhanshi zhengzhi gongzuo zongjie’ (15 Feb. 1941), in He Li (see footnote 22), pp. 279–93.Google Scholar

39 Cited in Li, He, KangRi zhanzheng shi (Shanghai, 1985), pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

40 Zhongmei, Yang, Zunyi huiyiu yu Yanan zhengfeng (Hong Kong, 1989), pp. 301–21.Google Scholar

41 Peng Dehuai zishu, p. 228.Google Scholar

42 Statements denouncing Peng may be found in The Case of Peng Teh-huai, 1959–1968 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968).Google Scholar Hundred Regiments is one of the charges in the vilification of Peng's entire career.