8th March Army

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The 8th Marching Army in the capture of Pingxingguan , 1937

The 8th March Army or 8th Field Army ( Chinese  八路軍  /  八路军 , Pinyin Bālù Jūn ) was next to the New 4th Army the largest communist army group as part of the all-China armed forces led by the Kuomintang . According to the agreement of the second united front , the Red Army of Northwest China became part of the united front against Japanese aggression as the 8th Marshal Army . In 1937, when the two parties entered the second united front, the 8th March Army had 30,000 soldiers in three divisions. The commander of the 8th March Army was Zhu De , his deputy was Peng Dehuai . Her chief of staff was Ye Jianying and Ren Bishi was the chairman of her political department. In March 1947, the 8th March Army was merged with the new Fourth Army and the People's Liberation Army was created. In the official organization of the National Revolutionary Army , the 8th March Army was referred to as the 18th Army Group, but the original name remained widely known.

The three divisions that made up the 8th March Army at the beginning of the united front were as follows:

Mao Zedong did not trust the Second United Front and insisted that the 8th March Army should operate independently and autonomously from Chiang's forces. He instructed the commanders to fight 75% against Japan and with 25% of the forces to protect the communist bases from attacks by the National Revolutionary Army. His calculation was that a long war would drain the Japanese troops. Mao argued that the loss of the Red Army would also be the end of the Communist Party and its officials personally. After the Japanese breakthrough in the fall of 1937, the 120th Division received orders to start guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in northwest Shanxi, and the 129th Division operated in the Taihang Mountains with Deng Xiaoping as political commissar. The 8th March Army operated independently of the New 4th Army, which was located in eastern China.

On September 24 and 25, 1937, the 115th Division attacked the 21st Japanese Brigade in the Battle of Pingxingguan ( Shanxi Province ). Around 1000 Japanese soldiers were killed and numerous equipment and ammunition were captured. Although the 115th Division itself suffered many casualties, it marked the first significant victory by Chinese units against the Japanese army and sparked confidence among the Chinese forces.

In October 1937 attacked the 120th Division, a Japanese supply regiment, destroyed numerous trucks and tanks , so that the fighting troops of the Japanese army were cut off from supplies. In November 1937, the 129th Division attacked the Yangmingbao Air Force Base in Dai County (Shanxi Province) and destroyed 20 Japanese aircraft.

Between 1938 and 1939 the 8th March Army spread behind the Japanese lines from the north towards central and eastern China. New communist bases were set up, for example a large base in the border regions of the three provinces of Shanxi , Chahar and Hebei , the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu base in the border area of ​​the provinces of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan , and a base in the border area the two provinces of Shanxi and Suiyuan and a base region in the center of Shandong Province. In infiltrating the Japanese-held hinterland, the 8th Marching Army also disseminated the Chinese Communist Party's political program and recruited soldiers. This has been achieved through strict non-military control of the army by political commissioners at all levels of the hierarchy.

From August to December 1940, the 8th March Army carried out the Hundred Regiments Offensive , in which 105 regiments of communist troops attacked the Japanese bases along the railway line at the same time, destroying many kilometers of railways and roads. 20,000 Japanese soldiers and 17,000 soldiers of the 8th March Army were killed in these operations. These actions were sharply criticized by Mao Zedong because they violated his principle of guerrilla warfare.

In 1941 and 1942, the 8th Marching Army tied up about two-thirds of the Japanese soldiers working in China because the latter had to fight the communist bases behind their own lines. The Japanese used scorched earth tactics , so the communist soldiers and officers had to plant their own food. The soldiers planted fields themselves and made textiles. By 1943 the biggest bottlenecks could be removed, the communist-held bases continued to grow, so that in 1945 the so-called liberated areas had a total of around 95 million inhabitants. The 8th March Army grew from 30,000 men in 1937 to 600,000 men in 1945, or from three to more than 40 divisions. In 1945 the 8th Marching Army had all of northern China under its control, with the exception of Shanxi, which was under the command of the warlord Yan Xishan, and northern Hebei, where the Kuomintang had a strong presence with Fu Zuoyi .

After the surrender of Japan , the second united front collapsed. The Chinese civil war flared up again. The 8th March Army was reorganized, the 115th Division became the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military District, commanded by Nie, the 120th Division became the Shanxi-Shaanxi Military District under He, and the 127th Division became the Shanxi-Hebei Military District, commanded by Liu -Shaanxi-Hubei. Luo Ronghuan commanded the newly created Shandong Military District. The communist armed forces were combined to form the People's Liberation Army in 1947 .

Web links

Commons : 8th March Army  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer: Mao Zedong: "There will be a fight": a biography . Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95757-365-0 , pp. 197 f .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Xiaobing Li: Eighth route army . In: Xiaobing Li (Ed.): China at War - An Encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59884-416-0 , p. 112-114 .
  3. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Deng Xiaoping, a revolutionary life . Oxford University Press, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-062367-8 , pp. 106 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Christopher R. Lew and Edwin Pak-wah Leung: Historical dictionary of the Chinese Civil War . 2nd Edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-7874-7 , pp. 57-58 .
  5. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 314 .
  6. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Deng Xiaoping, a revolutionary life . Oxford University Press, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-062367-8 , pp. 108 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e James Z. Gao: Historical dictionary of modern China (1800–1949) . Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-4930-3 , pp. 104 .