With the Japanese army still occupying an absolute advantage in the Kwantung region, it is normal for the two veterans not to want to take this risk. In the Northeast, although the current situation between the Kwantung Army and the Anti-Japanese Alliance is relatively delicate, no matter from that aspect, the Kwantung Army The army still firmly had the upper hand.
The advancing army, which now concentrates the best of the two major base areas behind enemy lines, and the troops of the Western Manchuria Theater, which has concentrated most of the modern equipment of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, are the best of both armies, and they are also the capital for their future fights. Once the losses of the troops are too large, they will It is impossible to recover without a long period of rest.
But will the Japanese army, whose sustained combat capability is far superior to its own, give itself time to rest and breathe? Even if it achieves its strategic goals, once the troops suffer huge losses and their successors are weak, the opened lines of communication will ultimately belong to others. The Japanese army can When necessary, mobilize reinforcements from other places.
However, whether it is the advancing army or the various base areas within the pass, there is a big gap with the Japanese army in terms of follow-up mobilization. Although the Anti-Japanese Alliance has established a modern military service system and mobilization system, the potential of the soldiers in the entire base area has basically been tapped, and it is no longer able to mobilize More troops.
There is no modern military service system or mobilization system in either the advancing army or the various base areas within the Pass. The recruitment of additional troops within the Pass relies more on the voluntariness and political mobilization of the people, and in the case of competition with the puppet army for soldiers. Under the circumstances, the replenishment of troops within the customs was not as easy as later generations publicized.
It’s not just the soldiers who need to eat, but also the families of the soldiers. Compared with the internal troops who don’t even have uniforms, the puppet troops are paid, and they can make a lot of extra money when they cooperate with the Japanese army in their raids. , although most of it was taken away by the officials, I still have a little bit left.
If they are sent to defend places like checkpoints, they will be richer and richer. At this point, the puppet army is much more attractive to a large part of the people than the troops inside the pass who are not even fed. .
Moreover, although most of the puppet troops' firearms are relatively old except for some elites, they have sufficient ammunition and can maintain supplies. On the battlefield, they always have more guns than ammunition, and they have to wield big blades at every turn to fight against the desperate troops inside the pass. With a little more life protection, and a strong Japanese army behind them to rely on, the owner of the dog still had to come forward if he was beaten.
Compared with the internal troops who have no enough food and are killed by the Japanese, the puppet troops, and sometimes even the national troops, they have military pay and uniforms to wear. Although the food is not necessarily that good, they are always Those who can eat well, and the more puppet troops are directly controlled by the Japanese troops, the better the supply conditions will be.
Although being labeled a traitor does not look good, let alone sounds bad, for the Chinese people in the war-torn era, they can have enough food to feed their families and no matter what looks good or bad. For those puppet soldiers, themselves and their families Being able to survive is the most important thing.
In terms of competing for soldiers with the puppet army, the Kannai army is far less attractive than others, and the Chinese have always insisted that good men should not be soldiers. Even if the Japanese bayonet is pressed to the chest, ordinary people are forced to risk their lives at any time to become soldiers. , it’s not that easy either.
It is not as easy as imagined to mobilize new soldiers and replenish troops within the customs. Moreover, under the influence of China's deep-rooted rural concept, local troops who stay away from home are far easier to replenish than the main force. For those who For peasants who cannot read a word, defending their land and resisting the war is far less useful than direct benefits.
In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese burned, killed, and looted, forcing a large part of the people to join the army. However, now, in order to consolidate the occupied areas and speed up the plunder of the resources in the Japanese-occupied areas, the Japanese are more adopting the policy of using China to control China and being gentle. Some policies made the masses less motivated to serve as soldiers than in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War.
Even in the eyes of many people, it's all about paying food anyway, and it doesn't matter who you give it to. As long as you can save your life, it's better than anything else. And it's not some people who have this idea, but a considerable part of the people, plus the Japanese puppets. When the army was raiding, in order to weaken the troops' will to resist, they consciously massacred their subordinates, and the production in the base area itself also required a lot of manpower, making it not easy to recruit troops in the base area.
Even if they join the army, their first choice is the troops operating in their hometowns. Compared with the main force for mobile operations, the district squads, county brigades, divisional independent regiments and other local armed forces operating in their hometowns are supplementary troops. It's a little easier than the main force.
But it is also this problem of having a strong sense of locality and being unwilling to leave home that causes many problems to occur more or less after these local armed forces are upgraded to the main force, and the most common among them is that it is easy to fight away from home. There were deserters, and after the advancing army gave the order to leave the border and fight, more deserters ran away.
And not just one or two, they often run in groups. Unlike Shandong, which has the custom of crossing the Guandong, people in Hebei, Henan, and Shanxi have never thought of crossing the Guandong. Although it is not absolute, it is different from what constitutes Northeast China. Compared with Shandong Province, which has the main foreign population, except for the Jidong region, there are not many people from the other provinces entering Guandong.
Among the people who entered Guandong in the past dynasties, people from Shandong accounted for 80%. The proportion of the population in the remaining provinces was much smaller, especially Shanxi people. Apart from Shanxi merchants, there were very few people. Although in the administrative planning of later generations, Although Rehe is not really the Northeast yet, in the eyes of many people, since it is north of Shanhaiguan, it is the Northeast, and going there means crossing the Guandong.
Many people are reluctant to leave the country to fight. One of the reasons is that they are too far away from home. In the past, only those who could not make it through the country had a tradition of entering the country. There are also terrifying legends about the Northeast that also occupy a large space. This is also an important reason for the wave of desertions in the advancing army.
Compared with the main forces from all over the world, the situation is the most serious for the troops upgraded from local armed forces, especially those troops who will be reorganized and headed north after being upgraded. This is even more important. Most local armed forces are relatively simple in composition, mostly Made up of people from a place.
In such a unit, except for a few senior commanders, all the fellow villagers from top to bottom, and even the battalion and company cadres came from the same place. The people around them are fellow villagers, so it is easier to run. Occasionally, they can capture one or two They were deserters, and even the people guarding them ran away the next day, and the leading cadres appeared and took them with them.
Others see fellow villagers with tears in their eyes. In the current advancing army, fellow villagers meet fellow villagers and run together. In the end, the advancing army even stipulated that sentries be kept at night, requiring party members and backbones to lead the troops, and no single sentries were allowed to be released. Various helpers and teachers were also formed. The group, however, couldn't control it. Sometimes the sentry and sentry ran away together, and the helpers and educators disappeared together.
When forming the advancing army, deserters appeared in almost every unit, whether on the way to the north of Shanxi or on the way out of the customs, and there was even a battalion upgraded from the local armed forces. From the time when the main force was replenished to the time it was not completely out of the border, when it was assembled in northern Shanxi, only less than one and a half companies were left.
There was even a case where all the company commanders, instructors and ordinary soldiers down below ran back to their old base areas. People simply said that since it was all about the war of resistance and fighting against Japanese invaders there, then it was the same for them to go home and defend their hometown. During the war of resistance, I promise not to be a traitor or a traitor to the country.
When the advancing army came out of the customs, the phenomenon of deserters became more serious the further north it went. Even old troops and old bones were deserting. When the troops crossed the Great Wall in the eastern Hebei region, a regiment once The battalion instructor, the groom, the correspondent, six local cadres who were transferred to the Northeast, and a squad of soldiers all ran back.
When the advancing army was about to set off, the six new regiments specially formed for the Anti-Japanese Alliance were waiting to leave the front line of the Great Wall. Of the tens of thousands of recruits, only more than 6,000 were left. The recruits ran away, veterans also ran away, soldiers ran away, and cadres ran away. The issue of deserters and deserters became the biggest headache for cadres at all levels on the way to Rehe.
For quite a long period of time, every night when marching and resting, the first thing cadres at all levels said when they met was how many people you have run today. Some newly upgraded troops even asked how many people you have left today. , how many cadres are left, how many soldiers are left.
The troops were marching forcibly through the high mountains. They had no energy or time to catch these deserters, so they could only take some extreme measures to deal with them. In order to curb this wave of deserters, the political commissar, who had always been easy-going and did not kill people, ordered that the policy towards deserters be changed. Adjustment.
Instead of being shot on the spot after dragging a gun and escaping, deserters will be shot on the spot as soon as they are caught. Soldiers will be sent to the logistics department to do hard labor for the first time, and will be shot on the spot for the second time. Running away with a gun means defecting. There is nothing much to say, but it is probably the first time in the history of the customs army to punish ordinary deserters like this. This shows how bad the situation has deteriorated.
In order to curb the tide of deserters, when they left the Great Wall, they even shot an old deputy battalion commander from the Red Army who had encouraged the soldiers to escape, as well as three company-level cadres and more than a dozen platoon-level cadres who were captured. The ancient threat method of first showing the body to the public and placing the corpse on the marching route for all cadres to fight has largely stopped this trend.
There is no other way. The wave of deserters caused by the reluctance to go out to fight among the newly upgraded local armed forces has spread to the old troops and cadres. Some people even shouted that they would rather die in the Taihang Mountains. , and are unwilling to go to the Northeast. If we don't make up our minds to stop this situation, how many people will be left in the entire army by the time we reach Rehe?
The newly upgraded troops are just that, but most of the people who ran away from the old troops are old bones who have experienced countless wars and fierce battles. There are even many veterans who have joined the army in 38 years. Such people have also run away. It can be seen that the situation at that time was deteriorating, but although the murderous political commissars were somewhat soft-hearted, the trend of desertion was still not completely eliminated.
After the troops entered Rehe, because the enemy situation was too complicated and serious, leaving the troops was almost a death. Let alone acting alone, it was difficult for even small troops to survive. In addition, the Japanese and puppet troops had tightly blocked the inner and outer Great Wall. Even if you leave the army, it is difficult to run back. Only then did the desertion trend completely subside.
You can take off your military uniform and throw away your gun, but your accent can be changed, and the calluses on your hands and the marks from the military cap on your head can be removed. If you are caught by the Japanese, you will either be sent to the Northeast to work as a laborer, or Rather than die like this, it is better to stay in the army.
In the words of the gentle political commissar of the advancing army, this is really a test. When the two veterans talked about this matter with Yang Zhen, Yang Zhen could hardly believe his ears, given his psychological quality. It's so good, but it's also jaw-dropping. It can be said that it is completely different from the history that later generations know.