The Eighth Route Army is frequently featured in current film and television productions, and soldiers usually wear battle caps, which are often decorated with two buttons. Some people believe that the shape of these two buttons is similar to the number "8", which fits the name of the Eighth Route Army, thus making the image of the Eighth Route Army more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
The drama of the Eighth Route Army**.
However, to show the shape of the number "8", you can try other ways entirely. And this is not the original intention of designing two buttons in front of the hat of the Eighth Route Army, so why did the Eighth Route Army design the military hat like this?
1. Remove the blue sky and white sun badge on your body.
In the early days, the Red Army lacked supplies, so there was no uniform of uniforms, and many troops wore Whampoa uniforms in the style of 1924. To distinguish themselves from the Northern Expeditionary Army, Red Army soldiers usually wore white cloth or other markings around their arms. In addition, many fighters were usually only able to wear civilian clothes.
Until 1928, the Red Army seized more than 100 quintals of homespun cloth near Suichuan, Jiangxi. Subsequently, under the instructions of ***, they established a professional clothing factory in Pingliao Village, Jinggangshan, so that the Red Army could have its own standard military uniforms.
The prototype is a military uniform of the 1924 type)
The design of this military uniform is inspired by the military uniform style of the Soviet Red Army, and the hat is ** embellished with a five-pointed star.
In 1930, the Red Army's uniforms underwent a number of detailed adjustments, among which the cockade was changed from cloth to metal, showing a red and white-edged five-pointed star design, and adding a sickle and hammer cross in the middle.
During the Long March, due to the extreme shortage of materials, the military uniforms of the Red Army became disorganized, different units wore military uniforms of different colors, and hats also had various styles such as octagonal hats, hexagonal hats and student hats, and most of them did not have cockades.
The military hat of the Eighth Route Army taken in the early days**.
In August 1937, the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, and the soldiers needed to wear the best military uniforms, and the cockade became blue and white. The need for our soldiers, who had been fighting with Chiang Kai-shek's troops for ten years, to suddenly change into the military uniforms of the other side was difficult for many soldiers to accept, so the cadres had to carry out a lot of ideological work.
With the passage of time, the Eighth Route Army as a whole was put on a new military hat. However, this has brought a new problem, that is, when our army tried to expand the scale of the anti-Japanese army, it was difficult to distinguish between the Eighth Route Army and the national army uniform, which made it difficult for the people to distinguish between them. This led to a sharp decrease in the number of civilians who voluntarily joined the Eighth Route Army, so our soldiers had to patiently explain to the people the difference between themselves and ** in order to expand the anti-Japanese forces.
*He was a member of the Eighth Route Army.
The Kuomintang and the Communist Party continued to cooperate after the Xi'an Incident, but cooperation between the two parties was often interfered with due to the interference of reactionaries within the Kuomintang. Therefore, in this case, the Kuomintang later became less strict with the military uniform requirements of the Eighth Route Army.
Many soldiers of the Eighth Route Army themselves felt very disgusted with **, so they chose to take off the blue sky and white sun emblem on their military hats. Then, the familiar military hat buttons began to slowly appear there.
The early military uniform of the Red Army).
Second, the button is on the top of the head.
Before the Eighth Route Army took off the blue sky and white sun cockade on the military cap, in fact, many military hats already had two buttons.
During the anti-Japanese war, the ranks of the Eighth Route Army continued to grow, and many people voluntarily joined it, although the agreement signed by the Kuomintang and the Communist Party limited the expansion of the Eighth Route Army, but it was imperative to expand the army during the Anti-Japanese War.
At that time, the materials provided by the Kuomintang were far from sufficient to meet the needs of such a large army, and their lack of equipment was already obvious, so the Eighth Route Army had to produce it on its own. Due to the Eighth Route Army's inability to obtain the enamel materials needed for the Blue Sky and White Sun Emblem, coupled with the lack of materials, the design of the military hat had to be streamlined, leaving only two buttons.
The Prime Minister *** wears a military cap**.
For the first time, a button appeared on the front of the hat on my cap, so many people thought that this button was a unique design of the Eighth Route Army military cap. In reality, however, there were already two buttons on the military caps originally issued by the Kuomintang.
The military caps issued by the Kuomintang also had two buttons on them, which were located at both ends of the cap and were mainly used to fix the hat circumference. At that time, the hat circumference was designed on the top of the cap, and the buttons would also be placed on the top of the military cap after the cap was retracted, which was not easy to find, so it was often ignored by us.
This kind of military hat design was very popular in Europe and the United States at that time, and the Kuomintang happened to import a large number of ** equipment from Germany and hired German military consultants, so they chose to borrow this design to make military hats.
The circumference of the hat is designed in this way so that it can be folded to the top of the hat in everyday life without hindering normal activities. In winter, simply unbutton and lower the hat to effectively warm the neck and ears, which is very practical and beautiful.
However, the Kuomintang adopted this design and found that it was not suitable for Chinese soldiers, because the head circumference of the Chinese was usually larger than that of the Europeans, so wearing this hat looked dull.
Therefore, the Kuomintang had to adjust the design of the military hat, changing the original oval shape to a circle, so that the military hat would fit more closely to the soldier's head, and then this military hat also became popular.
Third, the ingenuity of the hat circumference.
The buttons on the military cap appear because of the circumference of the hat. In actual combat, although the hat circumference is inconspicuous, it plays an important role in helping soldiers adapt to the harsh battlefield environment.
* Above is a military hat of the Eighth Route Army.
First of all, the most basic and main function of the hat circumference is to keep warm and cold. In war, soldiers often had to hold their positions in the middle of the night, in which case their ears were susceptible to frostbite.
Simply unbutton the top of the hat and lower the circumference to effectively protect your ears from frostbite. In addition, the cap can also play a certain degree of warmth after being lowered, which is a must-have for soldiers fighting in extremely cold areas.
When fighting in hot areas, the cap can also come into play. Observing film and television works, it can be found that there is a curtain-like structure behind the caps of the Japanese army.
*Above is a Japanese military cap.
In order to cope with the combat environment in hot and humid regions such as Southeast Asia, the Japanese army made improvements to the military cap. Previously, all kinds of small insects caused a lot of trouble to the Japanese army, and in battle, the setting of this curtain can effectively prevent small insects from interfering with the soldiers.
Although the battlefield environment in China is not as harsh as the rainforests of Southeast Asia in most cases, small flying insects can also exist in many areas. If the fighter exposes the target due to the interference of small flying insects during the concealment in the mountains, the consequences will be unimaginable.
The appearance of the hat circumference allows the fighters to cover their ears when they need to act covertly, so that even if there are small flying insects to harass them, it is difficult to enter the ears of the fighters and does not give people an unbearable feeling.
The hat circumference of the Eighth Route Army's military cap**.
Artillery fire is frequent on the battlefield, and the loud ** sound will cause serious damage to the soldiers' hearing. Therefore, the fighters can pull down the brim of their hats in time to cover their ears so as not to be affected by the ** sound and protect their hearing.
At the same time, the ears themselves are very fragile, and a slight scratch can lead to bleeding. Although the hat circumference is only two strips of cloth, it can still effectively protect the ears and prevent facial injuries.
Fourth, the moving buttons.
Although the Eighth Route Army no longer used the military caps provided by the Kuomintang, the caps we designed by ourselves still retained the caps, and in order to fix the caps, buttons were also indispensable, which shows that the caps played an obvious role on the battlefield.
The buttons on the hats of the Eighth Route Army were gradually moved from the top to the front, and the introduction of this design was directly related to the shortage of materials in the Eighth Route Army at that time.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, despite the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the Kuomintang did not provide a large amount of supplies to the Eighth Route Army, so most of the troops of the Eighth Route Army still needed to rely on themselves, and all kinds of materials were very scarce.
In military operations, the consumption of military caps will inevitably be large, which is an unbearable burden for the Eighth Route Army, which is starved of supplies. Therefore, on the premise of ensuring the practicality of military hats, reducing wear and tear has become the primary issue of our army.
Warriors found that they had to lie down and hide when encountering the enemy, which caused the forehead of the hat to wear easily. This kind of friction can easily cause holes in the front of the military cap, which seriously increases the wear and tear of the military cap.
At that time, the Japanese army plundered a large amount of cotton, which led to a serious shortage of cotton and could not meet the needs of people's livelihood. The Eighth Route Army was concerned about the livelihood of the people, so the cotton they could raise was very limited.
*There are two buttons in it).
In order to solve the problem of keeping the fighters warm, it was necessary to first ensure the cotton needed for the production of cotton clothing. Some troops even have only sentries standing guard to be assigned cotton clothes, so the cotton ** is particularly nervous.
As a result, there is no surplus cotton that can be used to make military caps, so improving the material of military caps to avoid wear and tear will not work. At that time, the military cap of the Eighth Route Army was mainly made of coarse cloth, and the wear resistance of coarse cloth was very poor, which made the wear and tear of the forehead of the military cap more serious.
After the buttons on the military cap were transferred to the front, the problem of wear and tear was skillfully solved. In this way, when the soldiers were lying down and hidden, the buttons were in direct contact with the ground, avoiding wear and tear, thus greatly extending the service life of the military caps.
The buttons on the hat of the Eighth Route Army were moved to the front, and this design not only met the actual needs, but also provided a backup for the buttons in other parts of the military uniform to achieve the purpose of saving resources.
5. Military caps keep warm in winter and cool in summer.
In order to adapt to the operational needs of different regions and seasons, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, our army usually prepared two sets of military uniforms for soldiers to adapt to the use of summer and winter.
Theoretically, two sets of military uniforms should be equipped with two military caps. However, for the Eighth Route Army, which was short of resources at the time, it was too much luxury to be equipped with two military caps.
Therefore, designing a military hat that can be worn in summer and winter can not only save supplies, but also if a soldier's military cap is damaged or lost, it is very convenient to replace one.
When designing this kind of military hat suitable for different seasons, the first consideration is whether it has enough warmth in the cold winter. Due to the existence of the hat circumference, the military cap of the Eighth Route Army at that time could basically meet the needs of fighting in cold weather.
However, this hat is less suitable for summer battles. Unless it is in an environment where there are a lot of mosquitoes, the brim of the hat is usually tucked away. If the buttons were designed above the top of the cap as before, then in the summer it would become unusually stuffy and not very suitable for soldiers.
In order to solve this problem, the Eighth Route Army made a major decision when designing the military cap - the cap circumference was moved from the top to the side. In this way, the fabric of the top of the hat did not need to be too thick, and the breathability of the military hat was well preserved, and the fighters did not feel unbearable during the hot summer battles.
The ** of the Eighth Route Army, the appearance presented in film and television dramas.
Chiang Kai-shek's military cap also had two buttons on the front.
The design of the first two buttons of this military cap contains the wisdom of countless people, and it is also the product of the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army to summarize the combat experience, and it is the most applicable design for them in battle. This military hat thus became the symbol of the Eighth Route Army.
The two buttons were designed solely for practical reasons, without regard to the resemblance of their appearance to the Arabic numeral "8". However, in the eyes of the people at that time, the two buttons on the hat represented the ranks of the Eighth Route Army.
As long as the people saw that there was no cockade on the cap of the combat unit, but two buttons, they would recognize that it was their own team, and they would enthusiastically provide material support. These buttons have quietly helped our army a lot.
However, as time passed, the materials of the Eighth Route Army were extremely scarce, and they could only barely maintain their military uniforms in the later years. Therefore, despite the important role of the cap circumference in actual operations, the logistics department could only reluctantly make a cut.
Although after 1941, the Eighth Route Army's military cap still retained two buttons, these buttons had changed from live buttons to dead buttons, and could not be unfastened, so the cap could not be put down.
The Kuomintang army also felt very difficult to supply logistics during the Anti-Japanese War, and later they not only learned from the experience of the Eighth Route Army, but also changed the original live buckle to a dead buckle on the military cap.
** wearing a Kuomintang military cap.
The military caps worn by Chiang Kai-shek later also adopted this design. Chiang Kai-shek's attention to detail shows that the Kuomintang began to become unsustainable due to the enormous logistical pressure during the Anti-Japanese War. Even he wore this kind of deadly buttoned military hat, which shows how serious the situation is.
In the early days of the Liberation War, the logistics situation of our army did not improve much, so this classic military hat was used for a long time. It was not until the late stage of the Liberation War that our army began to design its own standard military uniforms, and incorporated many new details into the design of military hats to adapt to the actual combat situation.
With the continuous development of the times, the equipment of our army has become more and more advanced and perfect. There are also endless styles of military hats, which can be used in a variety of different combat environments. In addition, there are some ceremonial military hats, and the traditional "two-button" military hat has completely faded out of the historical stage.
* The soldiers of the Eighth Route Army are shown.
However, it is deeply imprinted in the hearts of many people, because it witnessed those difficult revolutionary years, and through which you can feel the hardships of the martyrs' fighting conditions. This military cap represents the spirit of the older generation of revolutionaries and deserves to be remembered forever. Turn the page in 2023