New Fourth Army incident
New Fourth Army Incident | |||||||
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Part of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Gu Zhutong Shangguan Yunxiang Huang Baitao |
Ye Ting (POW) Xiang Ying † Yuan Guoping † | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
New 4th Army | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
80,000 | 9,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
minimal | 7,000 dead, captured, or missing |
The New Fourth Army Incident (
Causes
ROC viewpoint
In the fall of 1940, the Communist New Fourth Army attacked Nationalist forces under Han Deqin. Also, Benton's book New Fourth Army argues the Communists first attacked the Nationalists and the Nationalists fought back against the Communists. [2]
PRC viewpoint
For PRC historians the incident began in December 1940, when
Ambush
On January 5, the Communist forces were surrounded in Maolin Township by a Nationalist force of 80,000 led by Shangguan Yunxiang and attacked days later. After days of fighting, heavy losses – including many civilian workers who staffed the army's political headquarters – were inflicted on the New Fourth Army due to the overwhelming numbers of Nationalist troops. On January 13, Ye Ting, wanting to save his men, went to Shangguan Yunxiang's headquarters to negotiate terms. Upon arrival, Ye was detained. The New Fourth Army's political commissar Xiang Ying was killed, and only 2,000 people, led by Huang Huoxing and Fu Qiutao, were able to break out.
Aftermath
Chiang Kai-shek ordered the New Fourth Army disbanded on January 17, and sent Ye Ting to a military tribunal. However, on January 20, the Chinese Communist Party in
Because of this incident, according to the Chinese Communist Party, the Nationalist Party of China was criticized for creating internal strife when the Chinese were supposed to be united against the Japanese; the Chinese Communist Party, on the other hand, was seen as heroes at the vanguard of the fight against the Japanese and Nationalist treachery. Although as a result of this incident, the Communist Party lost possession of the lands south of
According to the Nationalist Party, this incident was retribution to numerous occasions of treachery and harassment by the New Fourth Army.
The novelist Mao Dun's story Fushi is about this incident.
Notes
Further reading
- Benton, Gregor. New Fourth Army: Communist Resistance along the Yangtze and the Huai, 1938–1941. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 949 pages. ISBN 0-520-21992-9.
- This articles uses the translation of the corresponding Chinese-language article, retrieved on August 24, 2006.