Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.5, 2015

 

 

The CPC Leadership’s Strategic Operation and Deployment on the North China Guerrilla Battlefields

(Abstract)

 

Yu Huamin

 

Unlike the front-line battlefields which formed passively under Japanese attack, the opening up of battlegrounds behind enemy lines was a product of the initiative of the CPC and its army. The CPC leadership headed by Mao Zedong adhered to a policy of launching independent mountain guerrilla warfare; carefully planned the strategic layout of guerrilla battlefields in North China; directed the Eighth Route Army’s advance behind the enemy lines; and deployed its army in the vast mountainous areas and plains of North China. On one hand, the CPC army cooperated with the KMT army in front-line defensive warfare by harassing the Japanese army; on the other hand, it extensively mobilized the masses to create anti-Japanese bases in order to establish major strategic pivots to support a long-term war of resistance. The opening up of extensive battlegrounds for guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines directed the fighting toward protracted warfare and laid a solid foundation for the final victory over Japan. The CPC leadership’s planning and implementation of the disposition of guerrilla war in North China offers the best practical illustration of the basic principle guiding warfare: “preserve one’s own forces, eliminate the enemy.”