

ENG: Actually, I realised during yesterday's photo shoot that there had already been a few sentences on this site about the communist troops who fought against Japan during the war, but it's time to make up for that and present them individually in a shorter article. We will deal with the two main forces, the Eighth Route Army in the north and the New 4th Army in the south, but there were several other guerrilla groups that also fought the Japanese invaders at the time. Although some people in some places will not like the following sentences, objectivity requires certain facts, and since we don't have to answer to anyone in terms of party politics (if we had to, we also wouldn't care), we'll write it down: not all communist troops wanted to fight the Japanese. There are countless accounts in books of them hiding in forests and mountains rather than attacking smaller Japanese garrisons, but there are also examples of them making non-aggression treaties with the enemy in exchange for the safety of the communist's opium fields. There have also been incidents where the Communists have attacked Nationalist garrisons and vice versa, or have given the Japanese the coordinates of Nationalist garrisons, or have attacked Nationalist army positions together with the Japanese from different directions.
While using a translator into English, check out the link below for a whole series of events from the clashes between the two factions: https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%9C%8B%E5%85%B1%E6%91%A9%E6%93%A6
The truth is that the communists were not necessarily unwilling or often unable to take on division-level conflicts the way the NRA did, so the nationalist approach that the communists didn't fight is not true in many places. They did fight, but it is not true to say that they did the lion's share of the fighting and it was thanks to them that China defeated the Japanese, because it was in practice due to the blood sacrifice that the NRA nationalist soldiers made during the 8 years of the war. Nevertheless, it is important to stress that there were indeed communist units within China that took up the gauntlet and, despite their inferior equipment, did their bit in the skirmish!
FOUNDATION:
The New 4th Army south of the Yangtze River was formed in 1937, as was its "sister group" in the northwest, the Eighth Route Army, and although both were officially under the control of the NRA, in practice Chiang Kai-shek's leadership had little control over what and how the two communist forces would engage in military operations, as both were under the direct control of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). The N4A's main base was in Anhui, a building that can still be seen in China today. Their supply of military equipment was quite difficult due to the nationalist blockade around their territory, so they had to introduce their own currency, which they kept for 'internal' purchases, while the China-wide currency was used for 'external' purchases (arms, ammunition and anything they could not produce themselves at their bases)
I won't go into the uniforms, weapons and insignia separately, I have already done that in a combined article earlier. If you missed it, you can read it here:
https://ghostdivision74h.blogspot.com/2023/08/uniforms-of-chinese-communist-armies.html

New 4th Army Youth Organization
Between 1937 and 1938, the army group headed for Anhui, their main activity being the building of guerrilla bases behind the backs of enemy Japanese forces and the recruitment of recruits.
Between 1939 and 1940 they continued their base and area development work, clashing with various nationalist guerrilla groups in northern Jiangsu and receiving 12,000 reinforcements from the Eighth Route Army.
By 1940, the conflict between the NRA and the N4A had escalated to the point where it culminated in the Anhui Incident of 1941. This was a large-scale skirmish lasting 6 days, which ended with heavy blood casualties (about 7-8,000 casualties) but with the breakout of the encircled communist troops. Nationalist troops also destroyed the N4A headquarters, after which many N4A soldiers tore off their official blue sky, white sun cap badges and refused to wear them ever again.

1941, Anhui. Not long before the skirmish
Between 1941 and 1943, the new N4A base was built in northern Jiangsu, by which time the army group had 7 full divisions, totalling 90,000 troops. During this period they were predominantly fighting the Japanese.
Between 1944 and 1945, the Japanese were so short of men in certain areas that they stopped regular attacks on the N4A. Clashes between the communist army group and the nationalist forces then became more frequent again, and the N4A also tried to establish new bases in eastern Zhejiang, Hunan and Hubei. At the end of World War 2, these base-building activities were suspended and they withdrew from these areas. At that time, the New 4th Army numbered roughly 280,000.
The Chinese Civil War resumed in the summer of 1946, and in 1947 the N4A, like the Eighth Route Army, was absorbed into the newly formed People's Liberation Army, and both army groups ceased to exist under their original names.
It is worth highlighting the following battles in which they participated:
- Battle of Luwu
- Battle of Majiayuan
- Defence of Fanchang
- Battle of Huangqiao
- Incident in Southern Anhui
- Battle against Li Changjiang campaign
- Battle of Yanfu and Suzhong
- Fight against "rural cleansing" in central Jiangsu
- The 1943 Huaihai Campaign
- The 1944 offensive of the New Fourth Army
- Battle of South Henan
- 1945 Central China Summer Campaign

EDITOR'S NOTE: New 4th Army members rescued a lot of 88D soldiers who participated in the siege of the Sihang warehouse against the Japanese. These soldiers, after being detained in the concession area, were attempted by the Japanese to be transported to forced labor camps, but many managed to escape, or were ambushed by N4A soldiers in many of their convoys and assisted in their escape. There were 88D soldiers who escaped back to their own army group, but there were also some who continued their military activities in the ranks of the New 4th Army. Source material: the book Eight Hundred Heroes by Stephen Robinson