Composition materials for the Anti-Japanese War

The Chinese Anti-Japanese War was a national all-out war in which China resisted Japanese aggression from July 7, 1937 to August 15, 1945. The battlefield was mainly in mainland China. On September 18, 1931, Japan invaded and occupied the three northeastern provinces of China; on July 7, 1937, it launched an all-out war of aggression against China; the Chinese people rose up to resist Japan, which kicked off the all-out war of resistance against Japan. In the early days of the war, China invested a large number of troops to contain the Japanese attack; then the two warring parties turned into a stalemate, and the forces behind enemy lines led by China gradually grew stronger. After Japan launched the Pacific War on December 7, 1941, the Roosevelt administration of the United States Officially declared war on Japan, and the Chinese battlefield became one of the main battlefields of World War II. On August 15, 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allies, including China. The Anti-Japanese War caused huge human and property losses to China. During the war, the people's national concept was enhanced. The victory of the war greatly improved China's status on the world stage.

The first stage of the war

From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937 to the fall of Guangzhou and Wuhan in October 1938, it was the strategic defense stage.

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident opened the prelude to the national war of resistance. At that time, the Japanese invaders regarded the Kuomintang as their main target, so the frontal battlefield assumed by the Kuomintang army was the main battlefield to resist the Japanese attack. In the early days of the National Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang showed a certain degree of anti-Japanese enthusiasm and successively fought important battles such as the Battle of Pingjin, Battle of Songhu, Battle of Xinkou, Battle of Xuzhou, Battle of Taiyuan, and Battle of Wuhan, and won the victory in the Battle of Taierzhuang, blocking the The advance of the Japanese army shattered the Japanese army's arrogant attempt. However, because the Kuomintang pursued a one-sided anti-Japanese war line that relied solely on the government and the army politically, and adopted a purely defensive strategic approach militarily, although many officers and soldiers of the Kuomintang army bravely resisted the Japanese attack, the frontal battlefield The war situation was still very unfavorable, and large areas of territory in North and Central China were lost successively, and the Nationalist Government also moved its capital to Chongqing. The Communist Party of China represents the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation and proposes a line of comprehensive resistance that relies on the masses of the people. In late August 1937, the main force of the Red Army under the leadership of the Communist Party was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army and marched to the anti-Japanese front line in North China; in October, the Red Army guerrillas in the southern provinces were also reorganized into the New Fourth Army and marched to the front line in central China. The Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army went deep behind enemy lines and opened up battlefields behind enemy lines, mainly strategically cooperating with the Kuomintang army in operations.

The second stage

From October 1938 to December 1943, it was the stage of strategic stalemate.

With the expansion of the war situation, the extension of the front line and the consumption of the long-term war, the Japanese army's financial, material and military resources were seriously insufficient, and it was no longer able to launch a large-scale strategic attack. The development of guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines and the expansion of anti-Japanese base areas meant that the Japanese army could only control major transportation lines and some large cities in its occupied areas. The vast rural areas were controlled by the Chinese army, dominated by the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. In September 1938, the Communist Party of China held the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee. Mao Zedong raised the issue of the status of the Communist Party of China in the national war, criticized and overcome Wang Ming's right-leaning opportunist line, and insisted on The principle of independence ensured the victory of the Anti-Japanese War. At this stage, Japan's policy of invading China underwent major changes: it gradually used its main forces to attack the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army on the battlefield behind enemy lines, while adopting a policy of political inducement to surrender against the Kuomintang government. The Japanese invading army concentrated most of its troops and almost all the puppet troops and carried out a brutal "big sweep" of the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines led by the Communist Party of China. The soldiers and civilians in the anti-Japanese base areas carried out arduous struggles and resolutely carried out anti-"mopping up" and anti-"encroachment" struggles. The battlefield behind enemy lines gradually became the main battlefield in the anti-Japanese war. Under the inducement of the Japanese government to surrender, Wang Jingwei, the leader of the pro-Japanese faction in the Nationalist Government, publicly surrendered. In March 1940, he established the puppet Nationalist Government in Nanjing, organized the puppet army, and coordinated with the Japanese invaders to attack the anti-Japanese base areas. By December 1943, the Japanese army was forced to shrink its front line due to severe shortage of troops, and the North China Front stopped attacking the anti-Japanese base areas.

The third stage

From the local counterattack on the battlefield in the liberated areas in January 1944 to August 1945 when Japan announced its unconditional surrender, it was the strategic counterattack stage.

In 1944, the military and civilians behind enemy lines led by the Communist Party launched widespread local counterattacks against the Japanese and puppet troops in North China, Central China, and South China. At the same time, the Kuomintang suffered a huge defeat on the front battlefield, losing most of Henan, Hunan, Guangxi, Guangdong and other provinces and part of Guizhou Province. In 1945, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army launched large-scale spring and summer offensives against the Japanese army, expanding the liberated areas and opening up connections between many liberated areas. At that time, since the main force of the Kuomintang army was scattered in the rear areas of southwest and northwest China, most of the towns, transportation arteries and coastal areas occupied by the Japanese army were surrounded by soldiers and civilians in the liberated areas. Therefore, the task of comprehensive counterattack was naturally mainly carried out by The people's army in the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines carried out the campaign. In May 1945, the Soviet army captured Berlin, and the German army formally surrendered to the Allies. The war in the European battlefield of World War II came to an end. In August 1945, the U.S. military won a victory against Japan in the Pacific Theater and approached the Japanese mainland. On August 6 and 9, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

On August 8, the Soviet government declared war on Japan and sent troops to Northeast China. On August 9, Mao Zedong issued the statement "The Last Battle against the Japanese Invaders", requiring the Eighth Route Army, New Fourth Army and other people's armies to carry out extensive repression under all possible conditions against all invaders and their lackeys who were unwilling to surrender. attack. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese government sent a note to the governments of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, announcing its acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. On August 15, Japanese Emperor Hirohito officially announced Japan's unconditional surrender in the form of a broadcast of the "End of War Edict". On September 2, the signing ceremony for Japan's surrender was held on the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay, Japan. On September 9, at the surrender ceremony of the Chinese Theater held at the Nanjing Army Headquarters, the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Invading Forces in China, Okamura Neiji, signed the surrender document on behalf of the Japanese base camp and handed over his sword to express his gratitude to the Japanese invaders. Officially surrendered to China. At this point, the Anti-Japanese War ended successfully.

During the entire Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese army conducted 22 large-scale and relatively large-scale battles, more than 200 important battles, and nearly 200,000 large and small battles, annihilating a total of more than 1.5 million Japanese troops. There are 1.18 million puppet troops. At the end of the war, more than 1.28 million surrendered Japanese troops and more than 1.46 million surrendered puppet troops were received. Regarding China's losses during the eight-year Anti-Japanese War, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Anti-Japanese War Compensation Committee issued the "China Orders Japan to Compensate for Losses" stating that the occupied areas had more than 1,500 counties and cities in 26 provinces, covering an area of ??more than 6 million square kilometers, and the people suffered damage from the war. There are at least 200 million people. From July 7, 1937 to the end of the war, our army suffered more than 3.31 million casualties and more than 8.42 million people suffered casualties. Others were killed and injured because they fled the war, were displaced, and died of cold, hunger, and diseases. Direct property losses were US$31.3 billion, and indirect property losses were US$20.4 billion. These figures do not include losses suffered by Northeast China, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese, military losses of US$4.16 billion, and more than 10 million military and civilian casualties. In addition, China's losses before the July 7th Incident were not included in the calculation; nor were the losses suffered by the Chinese Communist Party in fighting the Japanese behind enemy lines. After years of research, verification, and calculations by Chinese historians, it has been concluded that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, China's military and civilian casualties exceeded 35 million, and China's property losses and war costs amounted to more than 560 billion U.S. dollars.