Chapter 7
Ruijin, Ganzhou
Spring 1943
Homecoming of the Communist Party
Ruijin was once, before the Long March, a center of Communist activity. It had been the Soviet’s first capital. I had come to Ruijin from Nanking when I was a young idealist fresh out of university. I had been filled with many ideas, inspired by stories of the May 5th Movement of 1919 – I was resentful of the capitalist system and the imposition of foreign powers on China. It had seemed to me that in the chaos created by the failures of Nationalist government, they had allowed the emergence of the warlords, and had done little to deal with them besides becoming warlords themselves. All the while they continued to bow to foreign powers.
There is peasant blood that runs through my veins. Chairman Mao speaks a great deal about “Class Consciousness,” that is the awareness of what it means to be a proletarian peasant, oppressed but fighting back for the socialist paradise – a paradise where there is no slavery, no demeaning of the laborer or the farmer, no sweeping famines that can kill millions. My father worked the fields of Jiangsu Province not too far from the palatial city that became the Nationalist capital – Nanking. Somehow, he had managed to scrap enough money together to send me to university. I was the only person in my family to do so. I was being cut out for a bureaucratic job once I got out of university that was meant to pay well – no more hard labor. Yet I was not satisfied with this, so I ventured off westward from the coast to Ruijin. When I arrived, I found myself learning how to use a rifle and marching, and I had instantly become a soldier.
It was 1935 when I heard artillery fire in the distance – Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was moving in on one of his counter-encirclement campaigns. The day was crisp and the leaves were turning red and brown and starting to fall off the trees: Red October. I was dressed in full marching kit and I moved with the column of Ruijin to the northwest, somewhere we could only wonder where we were going.
It was in the freezing mountains of Gansu where many of our men had died from the cold and attacks by the Ma Clique’s soldiers…I had shed most of my equipment, for it was either broken or weighed too heavily on my starved body. My rucksack had torn apart. I gripped my journal in one freezing left hand and a rifle in the other arm. But my left arm had failed and I dropped the book in the snow along the narrow trail. I stopped for a moment, men were still advancing behind me. An officer stepped beside me and picked up the book. He flipped through, ran a cold-hardened finger over the characters on the page. He turned to me and asked, “Is this your book?”
I replied, “Yes.”
“Good. I need a man to help me document the story of our Revolution,” he answered back. It was Mao.
Now we were back in Ruijin. It had been nearly eight years after we left. Our capital would remain in Yan’an. It was a symbolic statement until Beijing could be liberated from the Japanese. We could not go home and rest until all of China was restored. Small-town Yan’an may have become over bloated with soldiers and Party bureaucrats administrating the newly-unified provinces, but Mao liked to be close to the peasantry, and Yan’an was close to good, honest peasant land. The people were his most valuable asset, so keeping in close contact with them was important.
Mao Zedong and several generals had spoken at a public rally and parade proclaiming the creation of the “People’s Liberation Army.” Well, it was more about renaming from the Chinese Soviet Red Army, but the new name appeared to be popular, especially considering our imminent mission of liberating China from Japan as we had liberated most of the country from the tyranny of the warlords and Nationalists previously. But it did come with plans to dramatically increase the size of the army and setting the entire nation out on preparations for war against the Japanese occupation.
The mighty People's Liberation Army.
Mao also proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, striving to move away from the old Republic of China. It was clear now that China was now a new state. A new age was cemented, just as Sun Yat-Sen had proclaimed the Republic of China in 1911.
Of course the Republic came with a new flag. The large star symbolizes the Communist Party and the four smaller stars represent the Peasantry, the Workers, the Petite Bourgeoisie, and the National Bourgeoisie. An alternative interpretation also sees the small stars as representative of the Five Races of China like the old republican "Five Races" flag. Those races are the Han Chinese, the Manchu, the Zhuangs, the Hui, and the Ugyhurs.
After the festivities had died down, Mao reconvened the war council with his generals in the old Ruijin city hall once used by the Party before the Long March.
“We have met to plan the future war with Japan. Already we are building our military forces, with several infantry divisions in training for preparation as we speak. The factories of central China and Guangxi province are working to build up our forces. We must radically increase the size of our army in order to fight Japan,” Mao stated.
Soldiers in rifle training.
“Comrade Chairman,” spoke up Zhu De, “As we are building our armies, we have run into problems finding recruits. Our current reserves of manpower are very low, and so is our pool of officers to command the men.”
“How pressing is this issue?” Mao asked.
“Not pressing as of now, but once fighting begins, we may run into problems. Our armies will be less effective if short on enlisted men and without sufficient number of officers to guide them.”
“We have a large country. Why is this an issue?” asked Deng Xiaoping.
“Administration,” Zhou Enlai said, “We have a solid base to build our manpower on over time, but right now it is very difficult to get a recruitment initiative started when we are trying to recruit men from places we have just gained control over. Essentially, they don’t know us, and we don’t know them.”
“It’s as if we need the Imperial bureaucracy back!” one captain in back exclaimed.
Nobody dared to say it, but I knew some men in the room were thinking that perhaps leniency should’ve been offered to many of the warlords and Nationalists. We needed their expertise right now. There were still many surrendered soldiers, too, that could’ve been rearmed, taught a thing or two about what it meant to be fighting for the good of China and the Socialist Dream, and sent to war against Japan. Alas, we had decided our course of action now. The blood fury of the Revolution allowed for no mercy to most former enemies.
“Getting back to the task at hand in terms of the impending war,” Zhu De said, “we must keep building our infantry forces. The Kwangtung Army in China is very strong, and we know too that there are Imperial Guard divisions also present.”
Li Kenong added, “The Japanese forces are well-armed, despite recent setbacks in the far Pacific against the United States. Many of the soldiers stationed in China are veterans of the 1937 invasion…to be quite frank, it will be a difficult battle, and none of you should have illusions to the contrary.”
Mao Zedong then spoke, “The equipment and skill in fighting makes this a daunting task. But the Japanese have a weakness…”
The room was absolutely silent.
“The Japanese are fighting in China, and it is a big country. This fact is obvious. The Japanese Army is far from home – they need supplies; guns, ammunition, rations. Without these, even the best of their divisions cannot fight, not even their Imperial Guards.”
“So this is what we do,” Mao started to explain, pointing at a large map on the wall listing military positions of both our side and the enemy’s. “We fight a campaign for the ports. We break through the enemy,” Mao began drawing arrows from our positions in the Center and South towards the sea. “We take Ningbo, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nantong, Lianyungang, Qingdao, Weihai, and Tianjin.” Mao stamped the map on the location of each city with his hand. “Cut these off and the Kwangtung Army in China starves and dies.”
Mao continued, “The Army will be divided up into three groups. First Army will hold around Yan’an and make thrusts northwards to take out the Japanese lapdog of Mengjiang. That will be Shanxi Front. Chen Li will be commanding this front.”
“Second Army Group on the Wuhan Front will push from the center. There are wide stretches of open territory. Encircle and destroy the Japanese as individuals, or at least hold and push east to the sea. Zhu De, you will command that army.”
“Third Army Group on the Shanghai Front will push from the South. This will be the primary force tasked with seizing every port. Zhou Enlai, I trust you to fight this front.”
Zhu De added, “The highest enemy concentrations should be around the Northern and Southern fronts. We know a large stretch of the Central Front border is completely unmanned, but because of our numbers, so will stretches of our line be empty. Advance with caution and be ready for traps. We know the Japanese are dishonorable fighters and will do anything to win.”
“We should also strike down Japanese holdings in Hainan and liberate Guangdong, perhaps even liberating Hong Kong both from the Japanese and the British imperialists,” suggested one general.
“Agreed,” the room resounded.
"Then Operation Red Dragon will be enacted," Mao Zedong said.
“What about Indochina?” asked the Nguyen Ai Quoc. “We should make an effort to liberate it from Japan.”
The Japanese in Saigon.
“We would need to build roads into Indochina through the dense jungle. It would be difficult,” one general said, “Otherwise it is impassable.”
“We don’t know troop concentrations in Indochina either, and we especially don’t know what forces Siam has on-hand,” Li Kenong added.
“And we need troops to liberate China!” one general from way back of the room shouted.
“The workers of Indochina and Siam are oppressed. We must liberate them and create allied states in Southeast Asia.”
Mao then said, “We will have to look into all this, then. But Southeast Asia will be free, don’t you worry.”
Nguyen then said, “If you do it, I would be honored to lead the expedition.”
“Of course, Comrade Nguyen.”
Nguyen Ai Quoc, upon arriving in Vietnam and leading the liberation there later, would come be called Ho Chi Minh.
“Meanwhile, as we prepare for the war against Japan, there is another issue,” Mao announced. “We must bring Tibet back under China’s control.”
“I agree, and if we don’t attack, we risk having Tibet fall under Britain’s zone of influence, and from there they become untouchable,” Wang Jianxiang.
The Tibetan Army.
The primitive Tibetan cavalry forces.
Tibet, now ruled by the child Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso as a monastic Buddhist theocracy, had drifted towards self-autonomy with the collapse of the Qing Empire. The Republic was never able to reclaim Tibet, as there were more pressing matters going on in the heart of China to be concerned with the poor Himalayan country with its imposing mountains and limited resources.
The child Dalai Lama.
Tibet had a small army. It would take only one army corps to bring Tibet back into China. A simple plan was laid out where First Corps under command of General Chen Yi, with Wulanfu and Nguyen Ai Quoc, as commanders of the Mountain Divisions, would play important features to the expedition.
The fighting to Lhasa was not particularly difficult, but hiking the imposing mountains added an element of difficulty to the battle.
Our troops in the Himalayas.
After brief fighting, Lhasa fell and Tibet collapsed.
In the East, industry was being ramped up, pumping out more rifles and uniforms for the troops being sent to the front. Now China was only left to face Japan.
Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR
Reply With Quote
