The battle of the hundred regiments: Problems of coordination and control during the Sino-Japanese War

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 979-1005

  Van Slyke, Lyman P ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 5844354449     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0026749x00016863     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Jiang Jie,'Guanyu Baituan dazhan wenti di tantao,' Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 1 (1979), p. 169. Similar figures appear in several sources.
2. See John W. Garver, Chinese-Soviet Relations, 1937-1945: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
3. Lyman P. Van Slyke, Enemies and Friends: The United Front in Chinese Communist History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), pp. 197-8.
4. United States War Department, The Chinese Movement: A Report of the U.S. War Department, July 1945, ed. by Lyman P. Van Slyke (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), Ch. 4.
5. Van Slyke, Enemies and Friends, pp. 130-42.
6. Quoted in Li Da, KangRi zhanzheng zhong di Balujun yierjiushi (Beijing, 1985), p. 186.
7. Quoted in Kataoka Tetsuya, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 206.
8. Kathleen Hartford, 'Repression and Communist Success: the Case of Jin-Cha-Ji,' in Hartford and Steven Goldstein (eds), Single Sparks: China's Rural Revolutions (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1989), pp. 103-7.
9. Peng Dehuai, Peng Dehuai zishu (Beijing, 1981), p. 235.
10. Nie Rongzhen, Nie Rongzhen huiyilu (Beijing, 1984), 3 vols; vol. 2, pp. 293-4.
11. Li Da, p. 184; see also Li Zhikuan and Wang Zhaoqian, Balujun zongbu dashi jilue (Beijing, 1985), p. 75.
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. Jurgen Domes, Peng Te-huai: The Man and the Myth (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), p. 135.
14. Full text in Zhongguo renmin kemingjunshi bowuguan, Baituan dazhan lishi wenxian ziliao xuanbian (Beijing, 1990), pp. 11-13. 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 (Zhu De, Zhu De xuanji (Beijing, 1983), pp. 72-5).
16. Peng Dehuai zishu, pp. 236-7.
17. Ibid., p. 234.
18. Domes, pp. 132-5.
19. Wei Hongyun, Huabei kangRi genjudi jishi (Tianjin, 1986), pp. 184-5.
20. Riben fangweitin zhanshi shi, Huabei zhi'anzhan (Tianjin, 1982), 2 vols; vol. 1, p. 297. This is the Chinese translation of Boeicho boei kensujo senshi shitsu, Hokushi no Chiansen (Tokyo: 1968), 2 vols.
21. Riben fangweitin zhanshi shi, Huabei zhi'anzhan (Tianjin, 1982), 2 vols; vol. 1, p. 297. This is the Chinese translation of Boeicho boei kensujo senshi shitsu, Hokushi no Chiansen (Tokyo: 1968), 2 vols.
22. Peng Dehuai zishu, p. 237.
23. He Li et al. (eds), Baituan dazhan shiliao (Historical Materials on the Battle the Hundred Regiments) (Beijing, 1982), p. 26.
24. 'Baituan dazhan diyi jieduan Zheng-Tai xiduan zhanshi zhengzhi gongzuo zongjie (15 Feb. 1941),' in He Li et al. (eds), Baituan dazhan shiliao, pp. 279-93.
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. Report from Nie Rongzhen to 8RA and the Military Affairs Commission in Yenan, reprinted in Baituan dazhan, pp. 72-3.
28. BTDZ ziliao, p. 37.
29. Ibid., p. 34.
30. Ibid., p. 13.
31. Ibid., p. 14.
32. 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.' Michael Lindsay, The Unknown War, 1937-1945 (London, 1975), not paged.
33. So Shihhui, 'Baituan dazhan ying chongfen kending,' Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 3 (1980), p. 120.
34. Huabei zhi'anzhan, vol. 1, pp. 309-10.
35. BTDZ ziliao, p. 229.
36. Zhongguo renmin geming junshi bowuguan, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi ditu (Beijing, 1987), pp. 97-8.
37. BTDZ ziliao.
38. HuaiSu junmin qingzhu Balujun baituan dazhan shengli dahui choubeihui, Balujun baituan dazhan shengli xuanchuan dagang (n.p., 1940), 6 pp., mimeo.
39. Lu Dingyi, 'Baituan dazhan diyi jieduan ZhengTai xiduan zhanshi zhengzhi gongzuo zongjie' (15 Feb. 1941), in He Li (see footnote 22), pp. 279-93.
40. Cited in He Li, KangRi zhanzheng shi (Shanghai, 1985), pp. 200-1.
41. Yang Zhongmei, Zunyi huiyi yu Yanan zhengfeng (Hong Kong, 1989), pp. 301-21.
42. Peng Dehuai zishu, p. 228.
43. Statements denouncing Peng may be found in The Case of Peng Teh-huai, 1959-1968 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968). Hundred Regiments is one of the charges in the vilification of Peng's entire career.