China at War

by Hans van de Ven

  The Japanese would not get their decisive victory, but, with Ichigo, they came close. They could not have known that the Allies were serious about unconditional surrender. And, in truth, Japan’s surrender was not entirely unconditional: only after it was made clear that Emperor Hirohito would not necessarily have to vacate his throne did the Japanese lay down their arms.

  The Battle of Henan (25 April–25 May)

  Ichigo caught the Nationalists wholly unprepared. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese wound down their operations in China. Faced with growing shortages of everything, but especially food, cotton and salt, Chiang Kaishek instructed his war zone commanders to become self-sufficient. At a military conference in Xi’an in September 1942, he told them that it would be impossible to mount a general counter-offensive in the foreseeable future and that they should grow their own grain and raise their own livestock.15 They did more than that, smuggling goods to and from Japanese-controlled areas, managing their own businesses and even operating their own mines and industries.16

  The Nationalist commanders also deliberately kept their units under strength so that they could claim payment for many more soldiers than they actually had. General Tang Enbo, the hero of the Battle of Taierzhuang and vice commander-in-chief of the First War Zone, admitted publicly that his divisions had only 6–7,000 troops, meaning that they were 30–40 per cent under strength. In good Chinese fashion, he listed ‘six excesses’ undermining the combat capacity of his forces. These were ‘excesses in vacancies, of inferior soldiers, of hangers-on, of outside businesses and of family dependents’. He also mentioned ‘three shortcomings and three confusions’, that is, ‘shortcomings in training, discipline and spirit’ and ‘confusion in the personnel department, in management and in issuing rewards and punishment’.17 General Tang was referring here not to local but to supposedly elite Nationalist forces.

  With their transport networks having broken down and inflation skyrocketing, it was understandable that the Nationalists forces became entrepreneurial, but abuse was inevitable. A Henan Provincial Consultative Council charged General Tang with having provoked popular anger because, in addition to running a large smuggling operation, he had established monopolies for coal mines, cigarette factories and tanneries.18 The armed forces even took over the collection of the land tax after the Nationalists, forced by inflation, switched to collecting it in grain rather than in money. Only households with surplus grains were supposed to pay the tax, but inevitably they passed on the cost to their tenants and the powerless poor.19

  Henan’s population turned against local Nationalist forces. General Jiang Dingwen, commander-in-chief of the First War Zone, noted in a post-battle report that ‘people in the hills of west Henan attacked our units, taking our guns and ammo, and even mortars and telephone poles. They surrounded and killed our troops. Village heads disappeared wherever we went. They sacked our barracks and cleared the fields so some units went without food for days.’20 Henan was the area which Chiang Kaishek had flooded in 1938 after the Battle of Xuzhou.

  From 1942, China was in the throes of a horrendous famine. ‘About 20,000,000 are affected. More than a third are near death from hunger. Those remaining are subsisting on grass, roots, leaves, and bark’, so The New York Times reported in October 1942.21 It was after the main newspaper in Chongqing reported on the famine in February 1943 that Time magazine reporter Theodore White travelled to Henan to investigate. On 22 March, Time published his angry report, which, although toned down on the insistence of the censors, laid the facts in front of the US public,22 for whom the dustbowls of the 1930s were a fresh memory. To position large numbers of armed forces in Henan was madness. Claire Chennault wrote in his memoirs that General Tang Enbo’s forces had ‘decayed during four years of inactivity into a poorly disciplined mob, hated by the Chinese peasants whose food they confiscated’.23 Unsurprisingly, they crumbled in the face of the Japanese tanks and aeroplanes and their well-equipped, hard-hitting infantry.

  The Chinese economy had held up well until 1941. But then it imploded, as a result, to a degree, of adverse weather conditions, but also – and more importantly – because the Nationalists continued to maintain a high level of military recruitment of about 1.5 million men per year. China had for centuries been a food-importing country. Following 1941, a strengthened Japanese embargo cut it off from what remained of the international grain markets. The Japanese also drove Nationalist currency from the areas they occupied, leading to an oversupply that accelerated an inflationary spiral whose fundamental origin lay in the Nationalists reliance on the printing press to finance their war.24 And so, Ichigo made manifest the consequences of a decline that had begun much earlier. In other words, while China could absorb the Nationalists’ strategy of attrition for a long time, it could not do so indefinitely, and by 1942 its limits had been reached.

  It did not help that the Nationalists misjudged their intelligence information. Already in early February they knew that the Japanese had begun to repair a key bridge over the Yellow river and that Wang Jingwei government troops had begun to clear air fields along the Yangzi. The Nationalists assumed that the bridge would not be functional until late May. The Military Operations Ministry judged that Japanese moves in north China were a feint to distract attention from a much larger operation in the south.25

  Ichigo’s forces began to move on 17 April. By the end of the next day, they had destroyed a Nationalist defensive position fortified with tank traps, trenches and bunkers. Descending along the Beijing–Wuhan railway line they took Xuchang, an important rail and waterway junction, a week later. The key battle was for Loyang, where General Tang Enbo’s headquarters were located. Prepared defences exploited the hills, cliffs and ravines of the area surrounding the city. Sufficient food and ammunition had been stored for a defence lasting several weeks. Chiang Kaishek’s plan was to use Loyang to trap the Japanese. He intended to throw his reserves against the Japanese flanks once their forces tired and their supplies were running down.26 That tactic had worked in the past, including during three successful operations to defeat Japanese attempts to take Changsha, the capital of Hunan province.

  Not this time. On 14 May, the Japanese completed their encirclement of Loyang and, via the Buddhist monks of the famous White Horse Temple, asked General Tang to surrender. Chiang Kaishek refused to give his assent to such a surrender, insisting that Loyang could be defended for at least ten days. Before pushing home their advantage on 23 May, which just about gave Chiang Kaishek his wish, the Japanese made sure to block any escape routes so that they could ‘destroy the forces of the First War Zone and then take Loyang’.27 Japanese artillery pulverised the city walls and their tanks piled in. Two days later, all resistance had been overcome and the Japanese were in possession of the city.28 Chen Kewen’s reaction to the news that Loyang had fallen was to say that ‘the situation in the War of Resistance will now become even worse and inevitably victory will be yet further postponed’.29 Together with their forces from Wuhan, Japanese forces descending from the north cleared the Beijing– Wuhan railway, thus potentially giving their logistical capacity a major boost, and ensuring that later operations to the south of the Yangzi river could be conducted without any fear of an attack on their rear echelons.30

  Following the fall of Loyang, the Japanese pursued General Tang Enbo into western Henan. For a while, it appeared as if the Japanese might be planning to break through the Tongguan Pass and enter Shaanxi province, important for its cotton and food production, and drive all the way to Xi’an. They could then have attacked General Hu Zongnan’s forces blockading the Communists, while also threatening Sichuan from the north. Generals Hu Zongnan and Tang Enbo dug in east of the Tongguan Pass to stem the Japanese surge. But the Japanese did not break through the pass – probably not because they could not do so but because that was not the aim of Ichigo.31 Destroying meaningful Nationalist resistance in the First War Zone was.

  By the end of May, slightly more than a month after it had all
begun, the first phase of Ichigo was over. Chiang Kaishek was furious, fuming in his diary that General Tang Enbo was ‘courageous but unthinking’ and had ‘failed to concentrate single-mindedly on military affairs because he is preoccupied with smuggling’.32 General Jiang Dingwen was an ‘incompetent idiot’.33 Chiang believed that Jiang had avoided battle and had been lying in his reports.34 The reality was, as the Ministry of Operations acknowledged, that the quality of Nationalist forces had plummeted. This was not only because they were living off the land in a famine region. Chiang Kaishek insisted on having around 5 million men under arms, a level of mobilisation that was simply unsustainable.35

  The Battle for Hunan Province (27 May–8 August)

  Ichigo’s next target was Changsha, 350 kilometres south of Wuhan, along the Xiang river and the Wuhan–Canton railway. The Yuelu Academy, located on hills that rise above the western shore of the Xiang, was one of the most famous in China, promoting a version of Confucianism that combined meditation and self-cultivation with a strong commitment to efficient and honest government in the public interest. Hunan province had produced more than its fair share of political, intellectual and military leaders – not just Mao Zedong, whose years in Changsha were formative, but also the leading reformers of the late nineteenth century and the Confucian generals who had led the fight against the Taiping Rebellion.36

  Changsha had a rough war. Besides enduring the Great Changsha Fire of 1938, the city and its surrounding area had suffered the effects of three previous Japanese attempts to take it. General Xue Yue, commander-in-chief of the Ninth War Zone, defending, had adopted tactics that were as ruthless as they were effective. Each time, he cleared the countryside of anything that might be useful to the Japanese, conducted a fighting withdrawal until the Japanese were at Changsha, and then hit back. He adopted the same strategy this time.

  At a meeting of the Military Affairs Council of 29 May, two days after 200,000 Japanese troops had begun to move south from Wuhan, the majority opinion was that Changsha could not be defended. General Bai Chongxi, the deputy chief of general staff, argued that the Nationalists should abandon the Wuhan–Canton railway and instead focus on protecting the city of Guilin in the north-east of Guangxi province, the home base of General Bai’s Guangxi Clique. General Xu Yongchang, the head of the Military Operations Ministry, angrily tore into General Bai, arguing that abandoning US air bases in Hunan without a fight endangered China’s relations with the USA, which had become strained, and that further retreat might trigger a total collapse.37 Chiang Kaishek agreed.38 The defence of Changsha was on.

  This time, the Japanese advanced with three columns on a 150-kilometre-wide front, rather than with just a single column. They reached Changsha in ten days, with plentiful supplies,39 and assaulted the city with two divisions, one of which was practised in street fighting. Changsha fell after just three days of fighting. Only three, woefully understrength Nationalist divisions defended Changsha, two of which were deployed in the city and one on the heights of Yuelu Mountain, where the artillery had been concentrated. Japanese bombers and artillery pounded Yuelu Mountain, while their infantry circled around the city to attack it from the south. The defence of Changsha, led by General Zhang Deneng, descended into chaos when General Zhang ordered re-enforcements to be brought up from the city to Yuelu Mountain. Nationalist staff officers were unable to organise the crossing of these units over the Xiang river, which lay between the city and the mountain. Many units were left stranded, thus becoming easy targets for the Japanese. Instructions had been unclear, with the result that many troops assumed that the order to retreat had been given. On 18 June, the Nationalists withdrew from Yuelu Mountain. Only two companies were left in the city for yet another of Chiang Kaishek’s defences to the death.40

  In contrast, the Battle of Hengyang lasted no less than forty-seven days, from 22 June to 8 August. Hengyang was a city 190 kilometres south of Chang-sha, on the Wuhan–Canton railway. A major US air base was located nearby, two tributaries of the Xiang river joined it there, and a railway ran from the city to Guangxi province. Hengyang was a key node in south China’s transport network. Rivers to the east and north, hills to the south, and flooded paddy fields and canals to the west nullified Japanese armour. The 18,000 defenders, including a US-trained and armed regiment, were holed up in concrete fortifications. They were well armed with field and mountain artillery and anti-tank guns, and had ample supplies of food, salt and ammunition. Two large forces lay in reserve to pounce on the Japanese flanks, while a relief force from Guangdong province was also on its way. Afterwards the Japanese evaluated Hengyang’s defences as the best they had encountered in China during the entire war.41 Chiang Kaishek was optimistic: ‘We will hold Hengyang.’42

  After taking the US air base on 25 June, the Imperial Japanese Army’s 68th and 116th Divisions assaulted the city from the south and the west. Losses on both sides were heavy, but the defenders held their lines. Because their supplies were running low, the Japanese temporarily stopped ground operations. However, they were able to resupply their forces at the front once they had brought in more air power to establish air superiority and, on 11 July, following five days of heavy fighting, a new Japanese offensive was able to drive the Nationalists back to a second defensive line. Once more, though, the Japanese advance stalled. Both Chiang Kaishek and General Bai Chongxi believed that they would now withdraw. General Bai Chongxi even prepared a victory parade.43

  They were wrong. The Japanese prime minister, General Tojo Hideki, who had fired the starting gun on Nanshin, needed a victory to prevent the fall of his cabinet. He reinforced the Hengyang front with one full division and several brigades. While the Japanese air force continued to pummel Hengyang, ground forces away from the city attacked Nationalist reserves, hoping that their destruction would demoralise the defenders of Hengyang. By the end of July, thousands lay dead, disease was rampant in Hengyang and rations were running low.44 The commander of the Hengyang defence forces, General Fang Xianjue, reported to Chiang Kaishek that ‘most houses in Hengyang have been destroyed … our troops have nothing to eat’.45

  On 3 August, five Japanese divisions, supported by 100 artillery pieces and Japanese air units, launched their third offensive. General Fang’s messages were becoming desperate, but Chiang told him to hang on; a relief force was just days away.46 On 7 August, the Japanese breached the northern city wall and by early the next morning they were in control of the city.47 The Nationalists had hoped that Hengyang would be China’s Stalingrad; it was not even China’s Dunkirk.

  After this moral-sapping defeat, Chiang ordered the publication of what was supposed to have been General Fang’s final message to his leader: ‘this will be my last telegram; we will meet again in the afterlife.’48 In truth, Fang had surrendered.49 The Japanese treated General Fang with courtesy, imprisoning him in a Catholic church outside Hengyang, but, unsurprisingly, lampooned his supposed last message in their propaganda. Unconvinced, Chiang ordered the compilation of a biographical sketch meant to illustrate his heroism. However, General Fang turned up alive and well in Chongqing at the end of the year. Some argued that he should be punished, but Chiang ruled that he had shown greater courage and determination than anyone else; he was treated to a hero’s welcome and restored to his command.50

  The loss of Hunan, known as the land of the hibiscus, denied the Nationalists a crucial source of resources. They failed in Hunan for many of the same reasons that they failed in Henan. But, in addition, they were distracted by Soviet bombing of Nationalist forces in Xinjiang and Outer Mongolia, ‘the first step in asserting Soviet influence in East Asia’, as General Chennault wrote to President Roosevelt.51 There was also the fighting in Burma, which meant that the best Nationalist divisions were not where they were most needed. Japan’s control of the air allowed them to resupply their forces and pound Nationalist positions.52 Most units of General Chennault’s 14th Air Force had been assigned to protect the air fields of 20th Bomber Command and assist G
eneral Stilwell in Burma.53 According to Chennault, that and the denial to him of supplies such as kerosene, was the reason for his inability to support the Nationalist forces at Hengyang.

  The Battle for Guangxi and Guizhou Provinces (August–December)

  The Hengyang defeat caused demoralisation, panic, protest and paralysis among the Nationalists. As in the first two years of the war, the sad sight of columns of refugees retreating in front of advancing Japanese forces reappeared. In September, Chen Kewen worried about tens of thousands of refugees;54 in early October he learned that no fewer than 300,000 were making their way to the rear along the railway line from Hunan to Guangxi.55 Hundreds of thousands of others were fleeing elsewhere. Chen Kewen was present at deeply depressing meetings, which had been tasked to find ways of helping the refugees, but which concluded that they could do nothing.56

  Not just refugees faced difficult conditions. One of Chen Kewen’s responsibilities was to improve the welfare of civil servants. He attended a meeting where the desperate situation in Henan was discussed. ‘Because of the crop failure last year, no grains could be issued to provincial civil servants, so they were issued money. However, doing so just this one time required 1.7 to 1.8 billion, roughly the same as half of the province’s entire annual budget. But, Fabi [the Nationalist currency] cannot be exchanged for rice so how are they to get rice? The problem is impossible to solve.’57 Not just Henan province was affected. The Times reported in February 1944 that ‘since last summer 1,000,000 Chinese have died in the province of Kuangtung [Guangdong] in one of the worst famines in the history of China, according to Mr George Adams, acting chairman of the Kwangtung International Relief Committee’.58 Chen concluded that ‘the government has become marooned in a harbour without an outlet. The domestic, international and military situations are all hopeless. Inflation is especially bad. Nothing seems to work.’ He personally was depending on dwindling financial reserves to make ends meet. He could treat his own children to just one watermelon per year.59