The arduous struggle of the army and the people behind the enemy lines against "mopping up" and "clearing the countryside"

After the War of Resistance against Japan entered the stage of strategic stalemate, the situation of the struggle on the battlefield behind enemy lines became increasingly severe. The period from 1941 to 1942 was the most difficult period for China's war of resistance behind enemy lines.

At this time, the aggressive arrogance of the German, Japanese and other fascist forces reached its peak. In June 1941, after occupying several European countries, Germany launched a large-scale attack on the Soviet Union. In December, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base Pearl Harbor, provoking the Pacific War. On January 1, 1942, 26 countries including China, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union signed the "United Nations Declaration", formally forming an international anti-fascist united front. this created favorable international conditions for the chinese people to strive for victory in the war of resistance against japan.

The Japanese aggressors attempted to turn China into its rear base for the Pacific War and were determined to intensify their war against China. By the end of 1941, Japan's total military strength had expanded to more than 240 million, 1.3 million of whom were on the Chinese battlefield. The Chinese battlefield became the main eastern battlefield of the world's anti-fascist war and assumed the task of fighting against the main force of the Japanese army.

The Japanese army repeatedly carried out "public security enhancement campaigns" in North China, and carried out brutal colonial rule, economic plunder and enslavement education on the people in the occupied areas. Launched unprecedentedly cruel and devastating "mopping up" and "clearing the countryside" against the anti-Japanese base areas, implemented a barbaric "three-light" policy of burning, killing and snatching, and used poisonous gas and bacteriological weapons to create no man's land in an attempt to destroy the living conditions of the anti-Japanese army and people behind enemy lines and eliminate the anti-Japanese armed forces behind enemy lines under the leadership of the Communist Party. In late January 1941, when more than 1500 Japanese troops "swept" the rich Panjiayu in eastern Hebei, they drove the whole village, men, women, and children to a large courtyard, shot with machine guns, massacred about 1300 people, and burned more than a thousand houses., Causing the tragic "Panjiayu Massacre".

The anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines under the leadership of the Communist Party of China are facing a very difficult and complex situation. We should not only deal with the "mopping up" and "clearing the countryside" of the Japanese and puppet troops, but also fight against the military encirclement and economic blockade of the stubborn forces of the Kuomintang. Under such circumstances, by 1942, the number of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army was reduced from 500000 to about 400000, the area of the anti-Japanese base area was reduced, and the total population was reduced from 0.1 billion to less than 50 million. The financial economy of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region is extremely difficult. In some places, the anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians have almost no clothes to wear, no vegetables and oil to eat, no shoes and socks for soldiers, no quilts for staff in winter, and even food is very difficult. In order to tide over the difficulties, the party timely adjusted various policies for the construction of the base areas, and led the army and people in the base areas to carry out heroic struggles on the same day and the puppet army to "mop up" and "clear the countryside.

In the struggle against "mopping up" and "clearing the countryside", the army and the people behind the enemy lines have created many extremely effective methods of annihilating the enemy, such as sparrow warfare, tunnel warfare, mine warfare, attack warfare, water guerrilla warfare, etc., as well as the establishment of armed task forces and other forms of struggle, which have developed the strategies and tactics of the people's war. From 1941 to 1942, the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, the guerrillas, and the militia fought more than 42000 times, killing and injuring more than 331000 Japanese and puppet troops. The anti-"mopping-up" struggle of the army and the people behind the enemy lines has contained and eliminated a large number of Japanese troops, which has become the most important factor for China to persist in the long-term war of resistance and a great support for the world anti-fascist war.

In the arduous war of resistance behind enemy lines, countless heroic deeds have emerged among the broad masses of soldiers and civilians. In September 1941, in the Langya Mountain area in western Hebei, Eighth Route Army soldiers Ma Baoyu, Hu Delin, Hu Fucai, Song Xueyi, and Ge Zhenlin, in order to cover the transfer of party and government agencies and the masses, took the initiative to attract the Japanese and puppet troops to their side, step by step Retreated to the cliff and resisted. After the last shot, they resolutely smashed their guns and jumped off the cliff. People call them the "Five Heroes of Langya Mountain". In March 1943, the "Liu Laozhuang Company" of the New Fourth Army all died heroically in the battle with the enemy. Zhao Shangzhi, deputy commander-in-chief of the Second Route Army of the Northeast Anti-Japanese Alliance, Zuo Quan, deputy chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army, and Peng Xuefeng, commander of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army, took the lead and died for the country in the battle. The revolutionary heroism of the army and the people behind the enemy lines under the leadership of the Communist Party is the source of strength for the victory of the struggle against "mopping up" and "clearing the countryside.

Source: A Brief History of the Communist Party of China