Japanese armies have consistently defeated larger Chinese forces, often outnumbering the Japanese by as much as 10 times. One Japanese Battalion (around 500-1,500) often defeats an entire division in the Nationalist army(over 10,000). One single Japanese company(100-200) could often occupy an entire town. The Japanese military strategists used this disparity(1 battalion defeating 1 division) as a standard measurement of the military strength of both sides.

The 8th route army of the Communists on the other hand, had a far more impressive display of fighting, utilizing the terrain and its mobility as an advantage. The 8th route army is organized under the San San Zhi (三三制）, a system based on a ternary division. Three squad made up a platoon, 3 platoon made up a company, 3 companies made a battalion, 3 battalion made up a regiment, 3 regiment made ,ade up a brigade, 3 brigade made up 1 division, 3 divisions made up 1 army. Because of its poor equipment, the 8th route lacked firepower, but also gained mobility because of its lack of heavy equipment, especially in mountain warfare, where tanks cannot reach. The 8th route were also often fed by the local people, so their logistical were also often less problematic than their opponents. The 8th route often conducted sparrow warfare, where 1 or several soldiers harrass and take out individual Japanese soldiers before they quickly retreat. When Japanese soldiers decides to pursue these handful of men, they were often surrounded by a much larger force in the thousands and annihilated there. After the encirclement, these soldiers would immediately dissemble again.

In the March of 1939, the 115th division of the eighth route army attacked Shan Dong, annihilating a battalion of Collaborationist Chinese Army. In May, the same army crushed an encircling Japanese attack, killing over 1300. The Japanese quickly dispatched a battalion of over 600 men along with a detachment of Collaborationist Chinese army to stop the 8th route army's advance. The majority of the 115 division already left for Lu zhong Nan, leaving behind less than 600 soldiers at Lu Xi. When the Japanese reached Lian mountain, several Chinese soldiers were dressed up as villagers who led the Japanese into their village, but when the Japanese found that the village was empty, the villagers who brought them their disappeared. At this moment, a small communist force attacked with rapidness and took out a company commander and over 10 soldiers. The Japanese immediately returned fire, with their artillery and bombarded the mountain. After a while, the army sent its cavalry and Collaborationist Chinese armies forward and advanced again, when they reached the west side of the mountain when firing began again and a few dozen soldiers were killed again. But the battalion commander could not find where the fire came from. Irritated, the commander ordered the artillery to fire in all directions, and to advance to a village nearby. Search squads were sent out but could not find any trace of the 8th route army(all of whom retreated). The village was exactly where the 8th route army wanted to lead the Japanese. After midnight, the 8th route army suddenly made an attack, the Japanese tried to break out and occupy the top of the hill with 2 companies, this was blocked by the 10th company of the 115 division, and the Japanese were held there by hand grenades and human bodies after 6 attempts at charging. By the 7th attempt, the 10th company only had around 30 men left, at this moment the 11th company appeared behind the enemy and pincer attacked the Japanese forces. The Japanese company commander started to fire the artillery and attempt to break out of the encirclement, but were beaten back by a machine gun and rifles. One last assault by the 8th route army broke the Japanese line and the remaining Japanese soldiers surrendered. This is the first battle where a Chinese force defeated a Japanese force of roughly equal numbers in WW2.

As shown in the battle, the 8th route army used guerilla tactics, and often fought hand to hand combat. They use sparrow warfare and capture enemy weapons. The ability for the 8th route army to recover is also amazing; right after their strength were reduced, they often gather an even larger force from the populace. The morality is also very high in the 8th route army. Soldiers often fought to the very last man, with everyone dying, something even the IJA rarely achieves.

Towards the end of the war, when Japanese forces were weakened, the 8th route army often beat back Japanese assaults and recaptured many Japanese held towns on the country sides, even with forces that are not much larger. In fact by 1945, much of the Japanese position in the north were precarious and under the threat of the 8th route army attack. Chinese Collaborationist armies has outnumbered the Japanese forces in China by this point and often fought the communists. The communist forces were continuing to grow in strength and after the Japanese surrendered, they continued to capture Japanese held towns by force(the US informed many Japanese garrisons to surrender only when nationalist forces arrived).

If the war continued until 1950, its very likely that the Communist forces would have drove the IJA completely forces out of China the way they did to the Nationalists later in the civil war.

Is there an advantage to the San San Zhi all the way up the army-level or army-group level and if so what is it in the China context?

According to one U.S. report, the Nationalist divisions in 1941 were also organized on the triangular system:

The Chinese used the triangular system, with
3 Regiments to a division
3 Divisions and support to an Army
3 Armies to an Army Group
3 Army Groups to an Area
12 Areas in the country.
246 Front Line Divisions and 44 Independent Brigades on battle line
70 Divisions and 3 Brigades in rear areas.

But elsewhere I read that following the German-based divisions had 2 brigades of 2 regiments each while the lower echelons remained triangular all the way down. But all this probably quite a bit esp. given the many different divisions, many of which were seriously under strength. The 200th (Armoured) Division for instance had 5 (albeit weak) regiments at one point.

The 8th route army, in contrast to the much larger KMT forces, consisted of only 3 divisions (albeit ones of greater size it seems than the typical Nationalist ones) and boasted several unique advantages, notably the one that you mentioned: its ability to conduct mobile guerilla warfare as well as going toe-to-toe when the opportunity arose. It's also, even given the peasant base, somewhat of a veteran if not elite force with strong ideological drive and skill learned through experience.

But I wonder about the basis for comparison. The Japanese offensives that were met by the Nationalist armies from 1937 on were spearheaded by the best units that the Japanese had with commensurate planning and application of war materials. In such warfare, fighting head on against Japanese strength, the best German trained and equipped divisions were destroyed in the campaign from Shanghai to Wuhan. In contrast, the 8th Route army did not seem to have faced the best Japanese units but rather garrison troops who (I am guessing so I stand to be corrected here) were considered second-rate by the Japanese themselves. Moreover, they met them under terms of their own choosing, which was a luxury that an army that had to defend populations, cities and strategic areas could not afford to have.

Also I am not sure that the successes of the 3 divisions of the 8th Route army can be easily scaled up to predict what would happen if (1) the 8th route army/Communist forces began to encompass close to as many divisions as had fought against the Japanese for the KMT and (2) when it had to start defending key, recaptured areas from the Japanese (which the KMT armies had to do) and therefore give up some of its ability to remain partly a guerilla army. The 8th route army was very good at disrupting rear areas and tying down large numbers of Japanese and collaborationist troops but it rarely fought the Japanese under the same conditions in which the KMT had to fight them in the major campaigns of 1937 to Operation Ichigo in 1944.

In any event, by 1945 the Japanese army in China was somewhat of a spent force with the demands of the broader Pacific theater having sucked up precious units and equipment. It was no longer capable of large scale offensive campaigns (last one was Ichigo?). In that state, attrition, which the 8th route army was so good at meting out, would alone bleed the Japanese dry even if no major battles were to be fought. So yes, on the trends that go from 1944 to 1945 esp., even if the Japanese did not surrender after the bombs, they would be driven out from China proper in time. The question would be whether without the surrender and the USSR charging in could the Japanese have retreated back to the coast and held a good slice of it or at any rate held on to bits of NE China, Manchuria and Korea, which were all that some Japanese imperialists originally wanted anyway.

Cheers, Richard

The article posted by the poster of this thread was a propaganda piece which intentionally debased the Chinese nationalist army for sake of elevating the communist forces to the invincible par.

We don't deny that Japanese troops were better trained and better equipped, and fought well against the Chinese army. However, if you really believed that Chinese army was a crap, then Japan should have conquered China in three months. The Americans or the British, who were Comintern spies working inside of the China during the war, often praised Chinese Army's tenacity and bravery in resisting the Japanese invasion in the initial years of the war. Only after Moscow had changed its stance versus China/Japan in 1940 and later did you see the same Comintern agents begin to bash China and the Chinese Army. -You would need to read McKinnon's CHINA REPORTING to know how many Comintern agents were involved in the Wuhan Gang and Chungking Gang.

Now about the communist forces. The myth was made up around 1944 when the Comintern agents, with Stilwell included, managed to send the Dixie Mission to Yenan. American field officers, visiting the blockade lines behind the enemy lines, already figured out that Chinese communists lived in peace with Japanese and the puppets. Major biographies of communist generals touted the concept of DOUBLE DEALING with Japanese and puppets as a CCP party policy.

The major communist fightings during the war were directed against the government troops, not Japanese or puppets. In China, there was a BBS discussing the death of resistance war hero Zhao Tong. You want to google Zhao Tong to know how the communist forces ambushed the column of Zhao Tong and killed them all, about 100-150 entourage, who were on their way to Hebei-Jehol border from wartime capital Chungking, around 1940. Zhao Tong was the son of legendary DOUBLE-GUN GRANDMA (shuang qiang lao tai po) whose family was engaged in fighting Japanese in Jehol from 1933 to 1940. You want to read the book THE ENEMY FROM WITHIN to know how the communists grabbed a total of 160,000 guns by the time Japan surrendered in 1945. Communist army, in Aug 1945, was no more than 300,000-400,000, with 160,000 guns - Mark My Words Here. I read over a dozen references to 300,000+ army by perusing the records of 1940s. Then I added up the headcounts of each and every communist general to derive the same number. And, Mao Tse-tung, in October 1945, was issuing commands to his generals as to how to fight the civil war. The soldiers and generals matched up to be exactly 300,000 to 400,000 in total. Got my point?

That is ironic for someone who make the outrageous claim that the Communists were collaborationist of the Japanese throughout the entire second world war. Double dealing was present in both the communist and nationalist forces, its not restricted to the Communists alone. Communists have their own records of Nationalist treachery. Self preservation and double crossing is simple human nature. The communists weren't invinsible by a long shot, but their performance was a lot better than the Nationalists and this is recorded in Japanese reports themselves. Among these sources was 白田钦太郎's book "春二回忆文献" 《トツ？トツ？で半年くらす－一兵士の体？した春兵？の？い》. this was published in the 10th issue of the Japanese magazine 日本战史刊物 in 2002 called 《历史群像》.
According to the Japanese source: "After the Pacific war began, the Japanese army needed to reinforce its southern theatre, and left the smallest possible force for control in the Chinese theatre. At the same time, the Chinese forces at Chongqing not only gained American weapons, but the Communist forces were rapidly growing in strength, even building weapon factories in mountain areas." "Since the 8th brigade was formed in 1939, they were always centered around He Bei and fought the Chinese communists constantly. As for the 8th route army, if our side was superior in strength, they will never engage us, but if our side has inferior force, they will instantly sent large numbers to annihilate our force. In another word, they either don't fight at all or fight with everything with the objective of completely destroying our force." "I estimate that on the average, we fight the 8th route army over 40 times a month."


"Our force and the nationalist army has fought, and we also fought the eighth route army, if we talk about weapons, the nationalists are much better, but the 8th route army has mobility, they have a firm control over the initiatives of war, attacking whenever and whereever they choose. When we fight with them, we are always alert. As soldiers, we don't want to fight the 8th route army...When we fight the Nationalist forces, when they were beaten, they flee, we would pursue with no reservation, but when we fight the 8th route, even if they retreat, they will set many traps, we could never be careless."

Here are records of the strength of the communist forces under the press of Chinese puppet regimes:
北平伪《新民报》1943年12月4日伪中华社讯： “吾人对解决大东亚战争之关键之中国事迹之终局，乃在解决中国共产党军，此当再加确认者也。”

　　　　敌上海《朝日新闻》文友半月刊1卷6期《中共军内幕分析》：“共军的境遇是极其艰苦的，要克服物质上的缺乏，对抗恶劣的环境，必须有超乎常人之外的坚强意志与严密组织。”“共军在这方面的运用可算登峰造极，发挥无遗。……共军善于运用它的兵力和坚强政治力量所造成的非常高涨的战斗情绪，因而……视之为神通广大，莫测高深…

伪山西《新民报》1943年载该报随军记者张文心《癸末春太行作战纪评》： “一向即以狡黠著称之共党军，彼等确有不可漠视之独特战法……共产军其所以几年仍未全灭者，实不能不归功于其特有战法，即彼等得意之游击战。……以上所述，皆为狡黠共产党军所用之战法……如中央军者，集则易乱，散则无力，其溃灭尚较为容易，而共产党军集则为整，化则为零，其每个散在之小组皆为有机体……”


As for Communist and Japanese wars, there are so many documents around in both Chinese and Japanese that I find it hard to believe how anyone with common sense could denounce them as none-existent. Among these sources we have Japanese sources such as 《北支战线》 by 伊藤桂一 and 《春二回忆文件》 by 白田钦太郎.
Because a lot of the communist-Japanese wars were conducted in small scale, often only involving a handful to hundreds of men, most were either not recorded, or only briefly mentioned in first hand accounts.
These are documented in many sources by both the CCP and Japanese. One such battle took place in Bangzi town in 1943 and characterized many of the later engagements between Japanese and 8th route armies. In this battle the CCP sources mentioned over 100 Japanese killed, but the Japanese source 《晋察冀边区西边肃正作战》 showed that the Chinese exaggerated their victory and that only 58 Japanese were killed and over 100 injured. Because the machine gun company in the Japanese army were crushed, the Japanese could only retreat out of the region and abandon the town to the CCP to develop their strength. The CCP indeed tried to reserve their strength towards the end of the war and did not mount any serious attacks like the Hundred Regiments Offensive, but local fighting was numerous, and had the war dragged on, the Japanese would probably not be able to out compete the CCP in the struggle for northern China.





lol, half of china was conquered in just three month, the Nationalists merely used the topographic advantage of western China to hold off the remainder of the Japanese forces at bay. One Japanese battalion (大隊) has consistently beaten an entire division(师） of the Nationalist army. Examples of this are numerous and were actually the standard means of measuring Chinese resistance that the Japanese go by.

After fighting three to four months, July to November 1937, Japanese, with enormous naval power, barely took over Shanghai. Japanese did not take over Wuhan the Chinese heartland till October 1938. Japanese did not take control of the Peiping-Wuhan Railway till 1944 Ichigo Campaign. Where is the truth that Japan had conquered half of China in three months?

Communists, Russian, Chinese and Japanese communists, as well as Japanese militarists were so-called LANG (wolves) and BEI (Chinese hyenas) colluding together for the same objective, i.e., war against China. There is no doubt that the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 was provoked by Chinese G.R.U. agents under Moscow's order.

During the war, there was a few Chinese communist battles against Japanese in 1937-1938, some defensive engagements in 1939 and mostly civil wars from 1939 to 1940, and after the Russian neutrality treaty with Japan, almost no battes against Japanese other than the Hundred Regiment (22-Regiments) Campaign which was defensive in nature since Japanese had taken control of railways and highways of northern CHina after communists wiped out the bulk of governmen troops and guerrilla units of northern China.

Other than the killing of Zhao Tong, let me give you one more example of communist treachery. The death of General Wu Shimin, 武士敏.

On September 22nd, 1940, Izeki Mitsuru’s 36th InfDiv attacked from south and east, while Shimizu Tsunenori’s 41st InfDiv pushed over from Hongdong and Linfen to the west. Part of 4th Independent Mixed RyoBrig and 9th Independent Mixed RyoBrig also participated in the campaign. Japanese ran into battles against Wu Shimin’s 98th Corps. While government troops were battling against Japanese, communist Taiyueshan Southern Advance Detachment, under 386th Brigade commander Chen Geng and Duel Army 1st Column leaders Bo Yibo and Sun Dingguo, attacked 98th Corps from the rears. On 30th, Corps Chief Wu Shimin committed suicide in agony after being encircled by Japanese and communists on all sides.

By at least two accounts, massive Japanese campaigns against Chinese troops, in Shanxi and Henan, seemlessly synchronizid with Chinese government's punitive actions against communist forces. The well-known incidents of civil wars would be the Huangqiao Battle and Southern Anhui Incident. It is no strange that Japanese and Chinese communists synched up in actions against Chinese government since communist spymaster Pan Hannian was the top guest of Japanese spy agency and shuttled between HK, Shanghai, Nanking and communist enclaves at will. During the Pacific War, it was Japanese who assisted Pan Hannian in transporting hundreds of communists to Guangdong/Shanghai from occupied Hong Kong.

Now, if you want to know who the highest ranking communist general who died in WWII was, please google Peng Xuefeng. Peng was killed by Chinese government troops while tracing behind Japanese 1944 Ichigo Campaign to take control of the land that was stolen from and lost to government troops three years ago.

Your citing one or two isolated Japanese accounts did not prove anything. Should you know how rampant leftists and communists penetrated the Japanese government, then you could put aside the propaganda. Ozaki, Sorge's pal, was well known spy. What about Saionji? He sought asylum with the People's Republic of China in 1950s. Most notorious would be the Japanese Toubun Academy spy ring. This academy was the school where majority of Japan's China hands, career diplomats to China, as well as newspaper reporters, were graduated. This Toubun (same language) Academy was the cradle of Japanese spies who worked on behalf of Chinese communists and Russian communists. Do some serious research to count how many Japanese newspaper reporters, South Manchu Railway Company agents, were communists before you are to buy into some publications written by some obscure Japanese.

Three month was a figure of speech, 5 month and 3 month wasn't all that different, the fact is, most of China's major cities and its eastern coastal cities were captured by the end of 1937, in a matter of little more than 5 month.



I'm not even going to give a detailed response to this asinine remark. These are just a few samples which I cited(there are 5 not 2 sources), there are literally dozens of such memoirs in the Shang Dong province written by independent Japanese generals that match with each other's account and those of the Chinese accounts as well. Only a m**** could ignore all of them and denounce these as a communist conspiracy report. Just to name a few more:
《反战士兵手记》 by 水野靖夫
(照片和记述来自土门周平《人物战车队物语》和伊东述的《大陆战车队–狮子奋迅的突击》
《解放文登——伏击战》

On the other hand, you have shown me absolutely no first hand accounts which state that the Communists were a lazy force that did nothing but waited to bolster their strength, the later did happen, its a strategic thing to do, and Chiang Kai Shek did the same, only fools would put in all their effort against the Japanese, knowing that they were destined to fall.



Considering that the Japanese communist party was formally outlawed under the Peace Preservation Law and always operated underground and were subject to persecution by the military and the police, I would say they are not a significant force at all. There were indeed Japanese captives who were enlisted into the 8th route army, but they were never large and was never used by the 8th route due to suspicion. Japanese communism is a very weak force in Japan and your naive comments makes me wonder whether you've done any research in Japanese internal politics of the period. Also your accusation of these Japanese generals as communists just shows that you don't know squat about their background. Ito Keiichi has served under the IJA for years, including the communist persecution times and later became a writer and was definitely not communist in his inclinations. Just stop hijacking this thread with your ultra-revisionist political agendas ok? I'm tired of it.

Also this thread is about the 8th route vs. the IJA; its a strategic discussion, so take your historical revisionism elsewhere, they are irrelevant to this thread.

Guerilla tactics might have worked on the Americans in Vietnam, but would it work in Japan? Japan during this time was not a democracy, so popular opinion does not matter as much. Even if it did, from all accounts the Japanese during WW2 were pretty nationalistic toward their war. Plus, Japan itself has more at stake than America when the latter fought Vietnam.

True, the communists were adept at guerilla warfare, but they'll have to take major cities sooner or later if they want to wrestle any of them from the Japanese. I don't think this mode of warfare would be kept should they ever control a significant amount of major economic centers. The one major advantage(and a huge one) I can think of would be attrition, considering the communists are fighting on home ground with massive civilian support.

To be more precise, the 8th route was formally part of the Nationalist force(hence the name 8th route, of the entire ROC army), it consist of 46,000 men initially, divided into 3 divisions; the 115th division under Lin Biao, the 120th division under He Long, and the 129th division under Liu Bocheng. This puny force obviously have little significance compared to the main nationalist forces in the beginning of the war, but by 1940, the 8th route increased to some 400,000, although the hundred regiment offensive and counter Japanese offensives reduced this number to less than 300,000, by the end of the war in 1945, the 8th route had became even larger, standing at some 600,000. The resilience and growth of the 8th route army is one of its greatest strengths.





The basis of comparison lies in the strength of the resistance, not in absolute quality（if there is even such a thing). By professional standards, the 8th route army was very weak; its based on Mao's philosophy of people's war, which is a purely defensive strategy. They rely on the terrain and local population to boost their strength and was created that way. Therefore, although the 8th route army is highly effective in China, they have little projection power, especially as an invading force. In that respect, they will loose horribly against the Japanese or even the Nationalists in theaters such as Burma since they will loose the terrain familiarity and people's support advantage and their transportation and weaponry were almost primitive.




That might be the case towards the end of the war, but in battles such as Ping Xing Guan and Liang Shan, the 8th route fought disciplined units and won, the later battle with an equal force on both sides. Also by the war's end, most of the garrisons, towns, railways, and coastal region occupied by the Japanese in the north were already under the encirclement of the PLA.

It should be very tough if not impossible for the communist forces to win the IJA. This is particular true in the first several years of the all out war against japanese. The red army did not have an upper hand in the battles when their numbers was equal to the japanese. And, it is impossible for the Red army, who had almost no logistics, arsenals and scarce human resouce to engage the japanese main forces in the frontal battlefields like what the KMT did. It is smart for them to hide and hit behind the lines.

Despite the "hundreds regiments battle" which was an exception, it was only in the late years of the war that the communist forces began to fight the Japanese in large units. Still, there was no division level fight. THe red army grew into a strategic formidable force in the civil war and reached its height in Korea.

So if the question goes "could the Peoples' volunteer army defeat the IJA?" , i would say yes, they could on land.

Communist 8th Route Army was not purely three divisions. To go around the limitation on three division, they built up units using same numbering everywhere. So you could see same division appearing in 3-5 places. More, you could see from Comintern chief's diaries that CCP had adopted Russian instructions to build out "supplementary regiments". This was how they had attained 300,000-400,000 army by the time Japan surrendered in Aug 1945. The guns however totalled no more than 160,000, mostly from defeating government troops. -Japanese had a tradition to destroy weapons in lieu of having them fall into enemy hands.

You posted a thread asking whether 8th Route Army could win over IJA. My reply was the two forces were most of the time living at peace. Imagine how a single Japanese independent mixed brigade could spread out across the whole Hebei Province for years, with a platoon or half a platoon in one village. If communists wanted to eliminate the Japanese outpost, they could easily do so.

Check out
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:dnH4Y...cd=17&gl=us
where you see 20 Japanese garrison soldiers resucing some ambushed Japanese unit from thousands of communist forces. In purported memoirs of 原春二大队白田钦太郎
春秋网http://bbs.cqzg.cn
　　《概述》---春二回忆文献

And, check out http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:J5ktx...;cd=3&gl=us
to see how the Japanese mixed brigade, maybe 8000 persons around, spread out five Daitai across the province:
第一大队（简称春一）：正定、东长寿-〉沙河-〉罗家屯、迁安、滦县-〉石匣镇

　　第二大队（简称春二）：晋县-〉钜鹿-〉抚宁-〉石匣镇

　　第三大队（简称春三）：石家庄、赵县、定县-〉南宫-〉遵化、丰润-〉攘柔、张家口

　第四大队（简称春四）：磁县、新城、深县-〉威县-〉三女河、青岛

第五大队（简称春五）：井径-〉内邱-〉滦县、通县、彰德、密云

Face the fact. Chinese communists and Japanese lived at peace. Same way as Russians and Japanese at peace.

I read 3 memoirs of Anglo-American escapees from Peiping after the Pacific War. It took those guys close to two years to walk to Yenan. Along the way, I only saw panic-stricken people. The Anglo-Americans only recorded hiding in daytime and walking in nightime, no battles, and mere propaganda parties. That's the situation behind the enemy line in communist territories.

About Japanese communists. I was not saying the generals sweeping against General Wu Shimin were communists. I was saying Japanese and communist forces joined eforts in routing Wu Shimin's 98th Corps. Wu Shimin's son, grandson should remember this. Japanese government in deed passed the preservation act in 1920s, and conducted two manhunts around 1930s. However, Japanese communists never perished. Saionji, the Japanese Prince, was an an example. Sorge's spy ring had close to 20 Doubun Academy spies working in Japan and Manchukuo. And the 50% of Doubun Academy spies, who penetrated into Japan's northern and central China area army command center as well as newspaper organs and S. Manchu RR representative offices, reported directly to Chinese communists acoording to Comintern rule that there could be only one communist authority in any single country or colony. Ledt-wing write Hu Feng, for example, was one of three Chinese enrolled in JCP and worked as reviewer of Japanese communist publication SEKKI in Tokyo.

More about the guerrilla war. Independent and government-controlled guerrilla units were continuing the resistance war against Japan throughout the war. It was unfortunate that people had written off the guerrilla activities of miscellaneous Chinese armies and populace as communist-organized, which was far from truth. The reason the Nationalist Army did not cover much on guerrilla war was that the units engaged in the activities were mostly descended from miscellaneous non-Central-Army lineages, like the Northwestern Army, Northeastern Army, and gentry-organized forces. Around 1945-1946, at George Marshall's order, China disbanded all those guerrilla units as part of disarmament.

And I'm telling you that this is irrelevant to this thread, so stop hijacking it with impertinent and redundant political garbage. One more post of this kind and I'll report you for trolling.



The only facts I see here are 8 first hand accounts provided by me about battles fought between Japanese and communist forces and none from you. You did not even know the existence of these sources I provided, and only googled it after I brought them up, which only showed that whether or not the Communist put in all of their effort, they did fight the Japanese and didn't "peacefully coexist" like the Soviets did as you originally claimed. There were numerous fighting between the communist and Japanese forces, you need to face the facts and provide relevant sources for once.

If one examine the casualties between the 8th route army and the IJA during the hundred regiment campaign and the sweeping counter offensives of the Japanese, one finds that the 8th route army's casualties weren't much greater than those of the Japanese. In 1940, the Japanese had around 470,000 forces at hua bei, while the 8th route had around 400,000. In the hundred regiment offensive, the Japanese casualties were 20,645，while the Chinese collaborationist army's casualties were 5,155 while 287 Japanese were taken hostage and 18408 collaborationist armies were taken hostage. In the Japanese counter offensive in 1942， The 8th route army had a casualty rate of over 10,000, while over 10,000 were taken hostage. The Japanese army also had over 20,000 casualty. Towards the war's end, the 8th route continued to grow in strength, while the Japanese were continuing to weaken.
this hit and hide tactic was precisely what made them efficient. The CCP thought on the strategic level, not on the tactical one. So few of their battles were large scale, but there were countless small scale battles, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy.

You use vulgar words against me, repeatedly. It was you who should be reported.

I had encountered similar posters like you before. To rebut your opinions, I just need to continue to present facts, with names, time, places, and events.

I gave you the names of communist generals who colluded with Japanese in attacking government troops led by General Wu Shimin. This is only one example. I had perused Guo Rugui's book on SIno-Japanese War completely and compared with biographies of communist generals to know what DOUBLE DEALING meant. I never denied communists and Japanese did engage in encounter wars and occasionaly inconvenience-based wars. However, there was no strategy-level antagonism between the two camps.

You are the one who hijacked this thread buddy, with meaningless political garbage. CHF have been mopping up politically driven members with little interest in history like you recently, and I'll see that been done now.



then do so for once, because I've seen none.


Which is completely irrelevant to this thread or your original claims, so start the topic elsewhere, because this thread is about the 8th route vs. IJA not about treachery during world war 2.

You are way way far away from historical facts. Today I have quite some time. So, I will continue to engage with you on what the HUNDRED REGIMENT CAMPAIGN was about.

Communist records claimed that total troops exerted would be numbering about "105 regiments or 300000 people" and that Nie Rongzhen sacked Niangziguan Pass and destroyed Jingxing Coal Mine, and Liu Bocheng destroyed three Japanese airplane. Mao Tse-tung was said to have wired to Peng Dehuai as to whether he could organize this kind of massive campaign 1-2 more times. Thereafter, during the political purge movements, Peng Dehuai was blamed for exposing the communist "real force" of 105 regiments or 300000 people.

Per Xie Youtian research, the actual communist strike regiments exerted to the campaign would total about 22 regiments.

Communists claimed that they had waged 1824 battles, killed or injured 20645 (?) Japanese, killed or injured 5155 (?) puppet forces, captured alive 281(?) Japanese, captured 18400(?) puppet forces, obtained the defection of 46000(?) puppet forces, destroyed 2993 citadels, obtained 5400 guns and 200 heavy machineguns, destroyed 6 planes and 11 tanks, destroyed 470 kilometer long railway lines and 1500 km highway, and sabotaged 260 bridges, tunnels and train stations.

Per Xie Youtian research, the damages assessed by Japanese were far below what communist propaganda claimed: 48 bridges blew up on Zheng-tai Railway, 7 train stations, 40 points of sabotage, 2 water towers, 7 tunnels; Ping-han Railway suffered 19 bridges, 67 spots, 12 stations, 38km phone line; and Tong-pu Railway had destruction of 6 bridges, 7 spots, one station, 3 water towers.

I guess people on chinahistoryforum want to see the facts, not forged claims.

What I presented here was well-researched facts by Professor Xie Youtian after he perused Japanese's BATTLE HISTORY series.

No, you can start the thread elsewhere, we don't need your redundant posts on CCP internal struggle, stop hijacking this thread.


Then show me where he stated that the CCP figures were completely wrong and show me the methodology behind his research.


You are joking right? The two sources don't even conflict, do you even critically examine your sources? All you appear to be doing is twist information for your politically driven agendas and forcibly link them.

Hey guys,

[moderator hat on .... even if this is subforum is now no longer my direct responsibility (thank god)]

Let's try a little harder to have on-point discussions. There are clearly ideological differences at play in even establishing the base-lines for "facts" but let's try to work around them so that we can have a discussion of the interesting question/premise posed at the start. And please don't get too ad hominem here; it's a slippery slope and on present trends we will be hitting the bottom very soon if not already there.

A suggestion to ahxiang: If there needs to be a discussion of the extent and role of "alleged" CCP "treachery" in the war etc. please just try starting another thread in the same subforum.

[moderator hat off]

Cheers, Richard

Richard,

My facts were not ideological or political. Facts are facts and could not be twisted.

The poster of this thread was throwing unfounded or forged claims on this board, and then did not allow anyone to rebut the torts and libel.

Let's give an example as to the remainder fallacy in the poster's claims. The poster cited the Japanese officer's claim that they (Japanese) fought against KMT army which was equipped with "American weapons". This was definitely a made-up propaganda. There was no American weapon used by Chinese troops in North China. Amercian military history academy books clearly stated the exact number of American guns supplied to Chinese troops, and they were restricted to Sun Liren's X-force in Burma. Wei Lihuang's Y-force in Yunnan Province was given "big guns", artilleries, howitzer etc, not "rifles". The second source of American weapons would be those supplied to Dai Li's guerrilla units by the American navy. No Chinese regulars in North China had ever used American guns to fight Japanese. China was known to be using German calibre weapons and bullets, and it placed an order with Americans during WWII - but the bullets were withheld and never delivered to China due to the 1946 American arms embargo.

We don't need to argue about his other fallacious claims that Japan conquered half of China within 3 months, or 5 months, or a rough estimate as he revised later. It was simply fallacious that he bashed China and the Chinese army for the agenda of arguing the case of the superiority of communist forces.

Just curious... and sorry for sidetracking.... but did any of the U.S. Lend-lease war materials to the USSR get diverted to China via the USSR? I imagine not tanks/trucks or heavy equipment generally but what about small arms etc.?

Cheers, Richard

Ahxiang,

Richard is right. If you wish to discuss CCP treachery, start a new thread.

EVEN IF you believe that the IJA and 8th Route Army were not often fighting, you may look upon this as a thread like "Can IJA beat the Wehrmacht?". Obviously, in such a thread, loyalties are not of a concern.

So, gentlemen. Back to the discussion of their fighting capabilities.

Prove to me that these memoirs and press I presented are forged, if you don't know their existence, just stop pretending that you know the answer.



Anyway, back to the discussion. On the actual amount of Japanese killed by the CCP, there are only two types of records. The CCP and the Japanese ones. The former records over 20,000 casualties for the Japanese, while the later records a figure of only 2,021 in the hundred regiment campaign. However, when we closely examine the Japanese sources, we find that most aren't first hand accounts or official documents at all, but estimates made by later Japanese historians in sources from the 1970s and 80s such as "支那事变陆军作战", and many of these estimates were later found to be inexhaustive. The communist estimates on the other hand, are recorded in primary sources such as telegram reports. Although the CCP might indeed have exaggerated the number of Japanese killed, they are probably far closer to the truth then the secondary Japanese sources.

One example of the errors in the Japanese sources can be examined from the battle of Ping Xing Guan. After the 8th route victory, Yan Xishan telegramed to Chiang Kaishek reporting that they "annihilated over 5000 enemies." Lin Biao on the other hand, telegramed the CCP central command and reported over 1000 enemies killed. But an estimate made by the Japanese scholar 儿岛襄, published in 1984 only gave 167 Japanese dead and 94 injured. But according to the studies made by 杨奎松 who used both the Chinese and Japanese accounts, he found that the Japanese casualties were probably more around 400-500. At that time, there were 3 separate Japanese forces attacking Ping Xing Guan, while 儿岛襄's estimates only included one of these 3 armies. The 1,000 that Lin Biao reported probably included Korean workers as well.

Good example from Pingxingguan regarding discrepancies in reported numbers. It seems then that the formula (hardly one that could be universalized though) would be politically reported casualties = about 10X actual casualties; field reported casualties by opposite side = about 2x actual casualties.

Having been exposed to so many inflated casualty figures, even ones given by governments and armed forces today, it's hard to know what to make really of the PLA field reports/CCP communiques. As you surmised there must have been some lumping going on: bona fide Japanese soldiers, collaborationist troops, Korean laborers etc. and the rest is probably just pure inflation of numbers.

Given that the greatest proportion of those killed on the Japanese side were rear echelon/supply troops (truck drivers etc.) from the two truck columns, the actual number of fighting troops (from the relief battalion) fought against and killed was 100 (or 1/6 of the battalion) and that, despite the tactical advantage of ambush in a narrow mountain pass and fighting against majority non-combat troops encumbered with materials, the PLA suffered roughly equal number of total casualties (500+ to the Japanese's 500+ total), it made me think. Certainly while a victory it's not one that serves as a good predictor of how the PLA would fare when fighting the Japanese on any semblance of a level playing field. If anything it suggests that the PLA wouldn't have done all that well (or no better than KMT troops) under those conditions.

Cheers, Richard

Russian aid to China was big items, as well. China's armoured unit, which Du YUming took to Burma, was Russian equipment, for example. The Russian flow almost stopped after the 1940 treaty between Japan and Soviet Union. American lend-lease to the Soviet Union was not transferred to the Chinese communists till the civil war time priod of 1946-1948.

In 1930s, China had a resurrection movement, a new life movement, an economic construction movement, and a national defense industry development movement. China's weapons were then standardized to use German calibre bullets, rifles and machinegun interexchangeable. China did not need small arms, but bullets. That's why they placed an order of bullets with Americans.

As to Pingxiangguan Battle, I had a writeup long ago at www.republicanchina.org/PingxingguanCampaign.pdf

That's only a hypothetical prediction. Mao Zedong CCP's forces cannot defeat the Japanese army alone, without relying on the forces of KMT or the Americans/Russians. In fact, I read that Mao relied mainly on guerrila tactics, that means to say it only engaged to fight the Japanese only when it is necessary or be sure of winning, while leaving most of the fighting to be done by KMT forces. That's why Mao's CCP forces are able to maintain its strength without being greatly weakened through multiple fighting against the Japanese. On the contrary, KMT's forces were greatly exhausted through fighting against Japanese, a key reason why their morale lost, giving way to the CCP.

To be more precise, the 8th route casualties were under heavy discrepancy as well, ranging from 400-1000, but more importantly, they've captured lots of Japanese armaments, supplies, and vehicles, as well as killing many of the Japanese's logistic men and workers. The estimates for the Japanese casualties also range anywhere between 400-1000. Other historians in China estimate the number at around 800. The details can be examined this way: there were 3 Japanese armies destined to meet up that were attacked separated by the 8th route. The first army was mainly the ones carrying the logistics. That army had around 400 men, of which around 85 were fighting men. It is assumed that the entire army was annihilated. The second army was a transport force with numerous vehicles that carried soldiers aboard. This army suffered heavy casualties and probably lost over half of its men. The army numbered around 400 as well of which over 100 are fighting men. The third army was the regular fighting force which came to rescue the encircled Japanese and numbered around 500. They were stopped on their track by the 685th regiment, the 8th route army took the higher ground and had certain advantages in terrain, but their firepower was far inferior. Most of the 8th route army casualties were the result of fighting the third army in an attempt to hold them out for several hours. The Japanese suffered around 100 casualties in this engagement. The total 8th route force put into the battle was around 4,000 men, while the Japanese had around 1,300 men, so the 8th route had a 3:1 numerical superiority. This is another strength of the PLA, they could rapidly deploy forces on the spot, and achieve an absolute numerical superiority in one location, then dissemble the forces after the battle. This is the same way that they annihilated the best of the American armed Nationalist forces in the later civil war.


As a matter of fact, Ping Xing Guan might characterize most of the PLA and Japanese engagements on a bigger scale. This is because the PLA would almost never engage a Japanese force directly, most forces the 8th route sent were sparrow attacks or harassment and hence whenever there is a major battle, it usually involves encirclements of the Japanese of some sort. The PLA fought completely on a strategic level, they do not need to win any major battle to outlast the Japanese in the end. And the key strength in the PLA is not so much its fighting capability, but its ability to recruit new members at a rapid pace. The 8th route already grew 9 folds from 1937-1940, and again by 2-3 folds from 1941-1945. Therefore, roughly equal casualties on both sides, or even twice as much casualties on the 8th route side, would have already put the Japanese at a severe strategic disadvantage.






Mao's strategy is to built up the strength of the army without major engagements initially. By the end of 1945, the Japanese position in northern China is already under serious threat from the 8th route. Many of their towns were under encirclement and striking range of the CCP armies. Its only a matter of time before the CCP outgrow the Japanese forces and engage them in some major battles like they did later with the KMT if the war dragged out longer. The CCP army only grows in size, while the Japanese army is shrinking. In addition, the 8th route was acquiring newer weapons at the same time while the Japanese industries were also getting exhausted. In many earlier 8th route battles with the Japanese, such as the battle of Liang Shan the former only had one machine gun captured from the Nationalist forces in earlier wars, towards the end of the war, more destructive weapons were already in their hands. The major contribution of the CCP during the war was not so much destroying the IJA, but taking out many collaborationist forces. By doing so, they could already limit Japanese military power and take over areas that were patrolled by the collaborationist armies. The Japanese army is too small to control all these territories and the collaborationist forces was a necessity in their control of China. If these forces were destroyed or severely weakened, then their position would have been seriously jeopardized.

Interesting points...

Back to Pingxingguan, it seems that the Japanese side at least would not have been able to deploy any artillery to aid their fight; whether the PLA had any to use themselves remains a question. Even the Japanese relief battalion would be hard put to deploy their organic 70mm battalion mountain gun in a useful way given the nature of the engagement.

Since a liberal use of artillery was how the Japanese typically gained an upperhand in combat against KMT troops in positional combat, the non-apearance of artillery means that this particular engagement can shed only very little light on relative ability of PLA and KMT troops when fighting against the Japanese.

Otherwise I agree with all the points about PLA tactical flexibility and its winning strategy and momentum going into 1945.

Cheers, Richard

I am no expert on the subject. I must say I wonder if some of those collaborationist armies were not actually loyal republic forces. No doubt CCP had to fight against both - why not conveniently relabel them in the Communist manner and make it more palatable and glorious