After the Lugou Bridge Incident in 1937, China and Japan entered a state of full-scale war.
Since the end of the 19th century, China and Japan have been at war; Before and after the Northern Expedition, the Japanese became even more rampant, launched the "918", manipulated the independence of Manchukuo, occupied Qingdao and Jinan, instigated the autonomy of North China, and agitated for the establishment of the Inner ,。。 Provocations continue. The government and the opposition have long been vigilant against the outbreak of a full-scale war between China and Japan, and have taken some measures to delay the outbreak of war, so as to gain time for improving national strength and filling up military readiness. Until the outbreak of war, it was still impossible to change its absolute disadvantage in national strength.
1) The Northern Expedition drove out old warlords such as Sun Chuanfang and Wu Peifu, and new warlords also emerged, such as the Gui Army, the Guangdong Army, the Northeast Army, the Northwest Army, the Jin Army, the Sichuan Army, the Hunan Army, the Dian Army, etc., who were superficially obedient and secretly wanted to support the army and self-respect, and cut off the king.
2) In order to oppose the cut, the anti-Chiang activities that broke out at different times invariably raised the banner of anti-Japanese resistance. Li Zongren's memoirs recorded: When the Liangguang Incident was launched, after discussion, he felt that anti-Chiang did not have the broad support of the people, and anti-Japanese resistance was the most appropriate banner; With the funding of the Japanese, the famous anti-Japanese generals Jiang Guangnai and Cai Tingkai launched the Fujian Incident, established the "China Nation", and raised the banner of resistance against Japan. In order to counter the encirclement and suppression, the Red Seventh Army Corps was changed to an "anti-Japanese advance team" and drove from Jiangxi to Fujian to resist the Japanese. **After the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, it formed an "anti-Japanese vanguard army" and "went to Shanxi to resist the Japanese". Zhang Xueliang did not resist Japan in the Northeast, and went to Xi'an to shout anti-Japanese. Everyone in the whole country shouted anti-Japanese resistance, and the people were indignant, and most of them relied on their mouths to resist Japan, with different purposes. Only the people must seriously prepare to resist Japan.
3) Most of the warlords in various places secretly maintained contact with the Japanese, and were infiltrated by the Japanese to varying degrees. Yan Xishan secretly contacted his old classmate Seishiro Itagaki in the hope that Shanxi would protect itself when the Japanese invaded China; Zhang Zizhong, an anti-Japanese national hero, also had a warm relationship with the Japanese, and went to Japan to visit and "meet the emperor."
4) At that time, China, the puppet state of Manchukuo was entrenched, ** became independent under the influence of the British, Outer Mongolia became independent under the intervention of the Soviet Union, and the Japanese encouraged the princes and nobles of Inner Mongolia to make an independent effort; North China was instigated by the Japanese to make a fuss about self-government. Tianjin, Qingdao, Hankow, and Shanghai are full of concessions; The regions controlled by the Yue Army, the Gui Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty, and the Jiangxi Dynasty all had their own monetary systems.
5) The people need time to develop the economy, accumulate national strength, win foreign aid, and straighten out military affairs.
1. Comparison of the national strength of China and Japan before the Anti-Japanese War.
The people** actively prepared for the possible outbreak of war; However, due to the urgency of time, lack of financial resources, and constant civil strife, the unfavorable situation between China and Japan in which the enemy is strong and we are weak has not been reversed. Chiang Kai-shek said at the Fifth Plenum in 1935: "Peace has not reached a period of despair, we will never give up peace, sacrifice will not be made lightly until the last moment." - He Zhilin, ed., Memoirs of Chen Cheng. The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (Part I), National History Museum, Taipei, 2004, p. 15.
This is not a compromise to avoid war, but a helpless decision made based on a deep understanding of one's own national strength. It is precisely on the basis of its superiority in its own national strength that Japan dares to gain an inch and constantly provoke trouble.
1. Comparison of the comprehensive national strength of China and Japan.
Before the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there was a huge gap between China and Japan in terms of comprehensive national strength. The comparison of the data shows that although China far surpasses Japan in terms of population and land area, Japan has huge advantages in terms of population quality, economic aggregate, industrial level and scientific and technological level. If China wants to defeat the strong with the weak, there will inevitably be a bitter struggle.
Table 1: Comparison of the national strength of China and Japan before the "77 Incident".
After the "September 18 Incident" in 1931, Japan occupied the three eastern provinces, making its economic advantage over China more prominent. The comprehensive occupation of Northeast China by the Japanese not only brought the resources of Northeast China into the hands of the enemy and greatly alleviated the situation of lack of resources on the Japanese side, but also basically blocked the possibility of independent development of China's heavy industry, causing very serious consequences to China's economic development, especially the development of military industry. As a result, the already huge gap between China and Japan has been widened.
In addition to the economic field, Japan also has a great advantage over China in terms of social education and organization. Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has attached great importance to education, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, its education has begun to take shape, and both quality and quantity are far from being comparable to China's. The gap in education is particularly evident in the quality of soldiers in China and Japan: a fairly high proportion of soldiers in the Japanese army have received basic education, and most of its officers come from specialized military academies; On the Chinese side, on the other hand, the number of educated privates is almost very small, and even among the middle and senior officers, the number of professionally educated is very small. In addition to the normal education system, Japan also pays special attention to the organization and training of the whole country: youth leagues between the ages of 15 and 25, various patriotic organizations in the middle class, and the organization and guidance of trade unions and peasant associations throughout the country are all disguised military organizations aimed at national defense. The degree of organization and control over the people in Japan is much stronger than that in China, which has not yet established a modern social management mechanism.
2. Comparison of the military strength of China and Japan.
In the military aspect, which was directly related to the war, Japan also had a clear advantage. It can be found that in addition to having an advantage over Japan in the total number of active-duty soldiers, the Chinese side is far inferior to Japan in terms of navy and air force. In particular, in the navy and air force, China is not only far ahead of Japan in terms of the number of air force planes and the tonnage of its navy, but also in terms of equipment quality, training level, and military support system.
It should be noted that in the comparison of the overall military strength of China and Japan, Japan not only has an advantage in terms of quality but also has a relatively large advantage in troop mobilization and troop projection. Although the number of active soldiers is only 380,000, it has 738,000 reserve personnel, 879,000 reserve personnel, 1,579,000 first supplementary soldiers, and 905,000 second supplementary soldiers, for a total of 8.86 million mobilized soldiers. In addition to reservists, Japan could also recruit soldiers from the general population through conscription orders, and during World War II, more than 27.1 million people were mobilized with a population of more than 90 million. The huge gap between the mobilization capabilities of China and Japan can be seen. - He Zhilin, ed., Memoirs of Chen Cheng. The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (Part I), Taipei, National History Museum, 2004, p. 17.
China's apparent numerical superiority could not be effectively brought into play in the actual course of operations. **Before the war, although there were nearly 200 divisions, but China's territory is vast, and the loyalty and obedience of local forces to the people are huge, at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, China can put into the front-line combat is very limited, can be put into the battlefield for the infantry 80 divisions, brigades, cavalry divisions, artillery brigades, 16 artillery regiments, a total of less than one million people, in comparison, the Japanese army in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, concentrated on the Chinese battlefield, in the front-line forces even have an advantage over China. - He Zhilin, ed., Memoirs of Chen Cheng. The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (Part I), Taipei, National History Museum, 2004, p. 17.
3. Comparison of the establishment and configuration of combat units.
There is a huge gap in the establishment of divisional-level combat units of the Chinese and Japanese armies.
A division and regiment of the Japanese army is fully equipped, fully armed, and has a huge establishment, and it is a composite combat unit with the coordination of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and armor. On the Chinese side, it is a single-arm combat unit dominated by light infantry.
Compared with the Japanese divisions and regiments, they not only have obvious advantages in terms of soldiers, firepower, and mechanization, but also have a high degree of training and specialization. The national ** originally planned to reorganize the army before the Anti-Japanese War, and planned to reorganize the whole ** team into a 60-division national defense force armed with German weapons, but because of the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the army reorganization plan was only completed by more than one-third and was forced to interrupt, and the effect of the completion of the reorganization was not particularly ideal. There are still obvious differences in the establishment, equipment, and training of the local forces to which the local forces belong compared with the first army, and they are even more vulnerable to the Japanese army.
Before and after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the combat effectiveness of one division of the Japanese army was comparable to that of two integrated divisions of the ** army and one army of the local army, and even the Japanese army had a slight advantage. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the huge and tragic sacrifice of the squadron can be said to be the inevitable result of the disparity between the national strength and military strength of China and Japan to a certain extent.
Chart description: The number of equipment in the table belongs to the establishment of more than 20 integrated divisions of the Kuomintang Army in 1937, and the strength of the remaining divisions is only about 50% of the integrated divisions.
The artillery of the squadron ** was seriously deficient in shells and observation equipment, and its ability to transport supplies was weak.
4. Comparison of military industry.
The strength of the munitions industry is directly related to the strength of a country's war potential. Japan is trapped in the Japanese archipelago, with a small territory and few resources. However, since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has attached great importance to the development of light and heavy industries, and because of its aggressive nature, the national economy has become extremely militarized, and its military industry is known as developed. Before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Japan had more than 6,600 metal industry factories, more than 9,000 machine factories, more than 4,300 chemical industry factories, and 34 military materials manufacturing plants. All the best equipment related to the war, from aircraft carriers, battleships, large-caliber artillery, all kinds of military aircraft, to guns, ammunition, and all kinds of individual equipment, can be produced independently. Coupled with its good industrial base, civilian enterprises can be quickly transformed into military enterprises in wartime.
In addition, the plundered of copper, iron, tin, coal and other strategic materials from the northeast of our country has alleviated the dilemma of lack of domestic resources to a certain extent.
At that time, China's industrial base was very fragile, and the northeast, which had the best industrial base, was controlled by Japan after the "918" period, and the road to the independent development of heavy industry in China had been blocked, and the military industrial base was weak, with insufficient funds, outdated equipment, and a shortage of skilled workers. The domestic arsenals can only produce first-class ammunition, and technical equipment such as aircraft, heavy artillery, and combat vehicles are basically unable to produce independently, and the replenishment of war losses completely depends on foreign aid.
Second, the response and effect of the national **.
Based on an objective understanding of the national strength of China and Japan, and in order to cope with the possible outbreak of war, the people have carried out a series of preparatory work and achieved certain results after stabilizing the domestic political situation. Although these measures did not fundamentally change the huge disparity between China and Japan's national strength, they provided us with a perspective that can be used for reference to fully understand China's preparations and attitudes before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
1. Economic measures.
The economy is the foundation of a country's strength, and it is also the material guarantee for waging war. In order to ensure that economic development meets the needs of the national situation, the people attach great importance to economic construction, and have formulated a series of practical guidelines and policies in light of the domestic and foreign situation. The ten-year national economic construction campaign before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression laid a certain material foundation for the progress of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
The people also made outstanding achievements in the construction of transportation and the reform of the currency system carried out before the war.
In terms of railway transportation: In January 1936, the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway was opened to traffic, which greatly improved the traffic situation in the southeastern provinces. In September 1936, the Zhuzhou Shaoguan section of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway was opened to traffic, connecting the Guangdong-Hanzhou and Pinghan railways into one gas and becoming the main artery connecting the north and south of China. In addition, the Tongpu Railway, Jiangnan Railway, Huainan Railway, and Sujia Railway were all opened to traffic shortly before the Anti-Japanese War. Connecting the three provinces of Hunan, Guizhou and Guizhou, and connecting with the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway and the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway respectively, the Hunan and Guizhou Railways, which play an important role in economic and national defense, were also completed after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War. In addition to the railway trunk line connecting the north and south and the east and west, before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the people also attached great importance to the construction of domestic highways, and by the time of the "77 Incident", China had more than 115,000 kilometers of highways. Before the Anti-Japanese War, the domestic transportation construction led by the people not only strengthened the economic and political ties between the various regions of the country, but also was of great significance to the unified deployment of military forces in various regions of the country and the convenience of receiving foreign aid.
In November 1935, the national government promoted the reform of legal tender: the use of cash was stopped, and the banknotes issued by the three banks of **, China and Communications were used as legal tender. For the sake of the stability of the foreign exchange price of fiat currency, the three banks buy and sell foreign exchange without restrictions. The fiat currency reform put an end to the chaotic situation of China's currency system in modern times. The reform has not only promoted the national financial unification and financial unity, and made a huge contribution to the national economy and people's livelihood, but also greatly improved the prestige of the people and improved the ability of the people to control the economic situation and mobilize the country's economic resources.
2. Military reform.
In order to improve the situation of a large and complex establishment and low combat effectiveness, in March 1935, under the Wuchang Xingying, chairman of the Military Commission, the National Army Consolidation Office was set up and used as a national army consolidation planning organ to lead the national army reorganization work. The original plan of the national ** was to use the German Wehrmacht as a model, use German equipment to arm, and complete the reorganization of the whole ** team into 60 integrated divisions in three phases. --Liu Fenghan, "Modern Chinese Military History Series", No. 4, Anti-Japanese War (I), Taipei, 2008, p. 411.
However, due to the limited national strength, insufficient funds, and the delay in the development of German weapons, the progress of the entire army reorganization work has been quite slow, and the actual increase in units in each reorganization unit is far from the reorganization plan, especially the technical equipment such as artillery and combat vehicles. In 1936, the military commanders of 17 divisions and brigade-level units made a review because of the slow work of reorganizing the army. - He Zhilin, ed., Memoirs of Chen Cheng. The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (Part I), National History Museum, Taipei, 2004, pp. 11-12.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the army reorganization plan was interrupted, and before the "77 Incident", the second phase of the national army reorganization plan was still in progress, and only 24 integrated divisions were organized in the army directly under the army. --Liu Fenghan, "Modern Chinese Military History Series", No. 4, Anti-Japanese War (I), Taipei, 2008, p. 411. Despite this, these troops became the backbone of the frontal battlefield of the first phase of the War of Resistance against the Japanese army, breaking the arrogant plan of the Japanese army to achieve a quick victory.
The quality and strength of the will of the officer corps are important indicators for judging the strength of the army's combat effectiveness. From 1933 to 1937, when the Anti-Japanese War broke out, the people revolved around the "will system."
First, the "unification of forces" was finally implemented into the theme of "the war of shame and religion", and successively organized the training in Lushan and Emeishan, and carried out profound ideological and political education for the first officer ranks. The Lushan training, which began in July 1933 and ended at the end of that year, was divided into three phases, with middle- and lower-level cadres from divisions and a number of special forces directly under the direct administration of the Jiangxi Suppression of the Communist Party as the training targets, and all the cadets of the military academy summer training school, with a total of more than 3,200 people trained in the three phases. --He Zhilin, ed., Memoirs of Chen Cheng on the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (I), Taipei, National History Museum, 2004, p. 13.
In August 1935, Chiang Kai-shek sat in Chengdu and held the Emei Officer Training Corps in Baoguo Temple on Mount Emei; From the beginning of the year to the end of the month, two sessions were held, with more than 5,000 trainees. The training targets cadres from all walks of life in the military, government, and education sectors of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou provinces, including officers at or above the rank of major in the army, squadron leaders and above in local teams, directors of public security bureaus and county public security sections, chiefs and directors of education sections in counties, principals of secondary schools and above, military instructors of schools, and persons in charge of boy scouts. Important military and political leaders in Sichuan Province led delegations to participate in this training. The summer training in Mount Emei enabled the people to go deep into Sichuan, strengthened the control and contact with Sichuan, and provided conditions for Sichuan to be the rear in the future. In July 1937, the Kuomintang held an unprecedented summer training group of the Military Commission in Lushan. The training was conducted in two phases, with more than 7,000 trainees from all walks of life, including party, government, military and police education.
3. Overview. To sum up, before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the people felt the threat of a full-scale war between China and Japan and actively responded to it. To a certain extent, it has played a precautionary effect, and has played a certain role in motivating and inspiring the people, especially the ideological training of the national ** for the military and political system, which has a positive effect on exercising the will of the military and the people to resist the war and guiding the people to persist in the war of resistance, but these measures will not fundamentally change the balance of strength between China and Japan in the short term.
Faced with a situation in which the enemy is strong and we are weak, and we are not well prepared, China can only win the final victory in the war by continuing to carry out active and thorough all-round mobilization, especially by mobilizing the enthusiasm of the broad masses of the people and winning their support. This understanding should have been self-evident common sense at that time, and at the same time, it was also the only feasible way to win and survive in front of the Chinese people.