What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
Our army was called the Red Army differently in different periods, the Red Army during the Agrarian Revolution, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the People's Liberation Army during the War of Liberation.
After the founding of our Party in 1921, it adopted the method of cooperating with the Kuomintang Party and did not develop its own army, but after Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei launched the April 12 counter-revolutionary coup and the July 15 counter-revolutionary coup in 1927, our Party suffered the loss of not having an army and was openly betrayed by the Kuomintang reactionaries.
Under such circumstances, on August 1, 1927, our Party launched an armed uprising in Nanchang, officially firing the first shot of armed resistance against the Kuomintang reactionaries.
From then on, our Party began the prelude to the independent leadership of the workers' and peasants' armed forces in carrying out the revolution, and on May 25, 1928, it was precisely on May 25, 1928, that the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in various places was named the Red Army.
After that, many anti-encirclement and suppression wars continued to grow and develop, and by the time of the failure of the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign in 1934, the Red Army had developed into the Red First Front, the Red Second Front, and the Red Fourth Front, totaling more than 300,000 troops.
After the failure of the Fifth Anti-Encirclement and Suppression Campaign, in view of the harsh environment of the War of Resistance in the North, the Red Army began the Long March under the banner of going north to resist Japan. The Red Army reached northern Shaanxi in October 1935, and the Red Second and Fourth Fronts arrived in Huining, Gansu province in October 1936 to complete the division.
In order to speed up the encirclement and suppression of the Red Army, Chiang Kai-shek set up the General Headquarters for the Suppression of Bandits in the Northwest in Xi'an and transferred the Northeast Army to Shaanxi to encircle and suppress the Red Army.
The Northeast Army was well-equipped, but it was not willing to fight a civil war, so its fighting spirit was not high, and its combat effectiveness was naturally not high; several battles to encircle and suppress the Red Army were fought, the Northeast Army lost soldiers and suffered casualties, and three divisions were destroyed. When Zhang Xueliang asked Chiang Kai-shek for supplementary establishment, Chiang Kai-shek not only did not give supplements, but directly revoked the establishment.
This move completely angered Zhang Xueliang, and laid the groundwork for the Xi'an Incident, which shocked China and foreign countries, after the Xi'an Incident was successfully resolved, Zhang Xueliang was also detained by Chiang Kai-shek, and immediately began the work of dividing and disintegrating the Northeast Army, and the Northeast Army was reorganized from the original 17 divisions to 10, of which three divisions were abolished, that is, the 115th Division, the 120th Division, and the 129th Division.
In fact, when Chiang Kai-shek was committed to encircling and suppressing the Red Army, the domestic warlords at that time also had calls to oppose Chiang Kai-shek and resist Japan, and in June 1936, Chen Jitang and Li Zongren announced the anti-Japanese struggle to save the country and attack the Nationalist government.
However, Chiang Kai-shek bought and divided the two Guangdong factions, and the Liangguang Incident ended immediately, when the Eighth Route Army of the Guangdong warlord Chen Jitang's unit, the National Revolutionary Army, was abolished.
After the second cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists began, the Red Army was reorganized.
Pay attention to the main points, at this time, the Red Army was actually reorganized into the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, in short, the Red Army that participated in the Long March was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, and did not follow the main force in the Long March, and the army that continued guerrilla operations in the southern provinces was reorganized into the New Fourth Army.
Speaking of this, everyone should know the number of the Eighth Route Army and how the three divisions under its jurisdiction came from.
Originally, Chiang Kai-shek was unwilling to give these numbers, and later he was forced by public opinion to be helpless, and He Yingqin, then minister of military affairs of the Nationalist government, proposed to award these three titles to the Eighth Route Army.
On July 15, 1937, the Communist Party of China issued a declaration on the national disaster, declaring: "Cancel the red army and reorganize it into the National Revolutionary Army, which is under the command of the Military Commission of the National Government, and is ready to leave to assume the duties of the anti-Japanese front."
In fact, the official reorganization of the Eighth Route Army was on August 22, 1937, but soon after the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance, in view of the chaotic organization of the Nationalist Army and the inability to adapt to the operation of large corps, the Nationalist Government continued to adjust, at that time the Nationalist Government was planning to organize 100 corps, 200 divisions of the number, and then carried out a major reorganization.
On September 11, 1937, the Military Commission of the National Government decided to reorganize the names of the original warlords' several road routes into group armies, and the Eighth Route Army was renamed the Eighteenth Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army, but the name of the Eighth Route Army was habitually used by the vast number of commanders and fighters and the masses of the people, and was still called the Eighth Route Army.
Why not call it the Eighteenth Army and use the title of the old warlord's Eighth Route Army?
The main reason is that in the sequence of the national army, although the group army looks tall, it is actually a temporary number, which is formed by the merger of the previous two armies, and the recognition at that time was not high.
The Route Army is the official name granted by the Kuomintang to the local warlords of the non-concubine lineage, and relatively speaking, the route army is more "stable".
Therefore, the Party Central Committee has always refused to recognize the "Eighteenth Army" as the official name, and insisted on using the "Eighth Route Army" in propaganda, because the Eighth Route Army is easier to propagate and easier to be remembered by the people.
Of course, in the official documents exchanged between our army and the National Government, we do not shy away from the title of "Eighteenth Army."