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There is such an unforgettable detail in the Chinese Expeditionary Force that the battle to defend the bronze drums entered a stalemate stage. Dai Anlan, the commander of the 200 th Division, ordered Han Shaogong to lead the Ninth Company to infiltrate the enemy's rear and kill the enemy to the maximum extent. Han Shaogong demanded that soldiers be equipped with leather shoes, because soldiers wearing straw sandals are easily assassinated by sharp weapons such as iron thistles, causing unnecessary casualties. Dai Anlan's face is reluctant, because the supply of two hundred divisions has been cut off, and he is on the verge of running out of ammunition and food, not to mention providing shoes for the soldiers. However, the general agreed to Han Shaogong's request and mobilized all officers of 200 divisions, including Dai Anlan himself, to take off their shoes and put on sandals for the soldiers. The soldiers, wearing officers' shoes, rushed into the enemy's rear and started hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. In the bloody battlefield, many soldiers who put on leather shoes for the first time fell under the enemy's bullets and never had a chance to return the borrowed leather shoes to their officers.

Seeing this, I can't help wondering. The 200 Division claims to be the only mechanic in China. How can soldiers fight in sandals? For those of us who grew up on the mainland, soldiers wearing straw sandals are no strangers. But in my mind, it should be another group of people who wear sandals, the Red Army of Workers and Peasants who turned over the snowy mountains and grasslands, and the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army who insisted on guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. The 200 Division was the trump card of Huangpu Department and the darling of China Army at that time. How can it go abroad to fight in sandals? Could it be that the directors are replacing each other and deliberately grandstanding?

So I paid special attention to the shoes worn by soldiers in two documentaries of Chinese expeditionary force, Phoenix Vision and CCTV Exploration and Discovery. To my shock, whether it was the first expeditionary force or the second expeditionary force, China soldiers walking on that long road actually wore straw sandals. Xu, a professor at Yunnan University, also recorded in The History of Yunnan, Myanmar, India and War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression that after the Chinese Expeditionary Force first entered Myanmar, it was looked down upon by the British army. "The British army jokingly called us the straw sandals army." Straw sandals, this dazzling symbol, is precisely a profound reflection of the reality of poverty and weakness in China at that time. Even the 200th Division, the only mechanic in China, can't supply a pair of leather shoes to soldiers. It was these soldiers wearing straw sandals who fought fiercely with the enemy under the command of General Dai Anlan for 12 days, annihilated 5,000 enemy troops, dealt a heavy blow to the arrogant aggression of Japanese imperialism and greatly increased the anti-Japanese ambition of the Chinese nation. General Stilwell, chief of staff of China Theater, praised: "General Dai Anlan was the first person who made meritorious service in a foreign country in modern times, which enhanced the prestige of great men."

The expeditionary soldiers wearing sandals were not only laughed at by the British, but also greatly restricted the fighting capacity of China's army. CCTV found that the documentary "China Expeditionary Force" recorded that after entering April and May, the climate in Myanmar was extremely hot, and the asphalt pavement on the highway was often melted by the sun. China's army wearing sandals can't March on this road, because the sandals will be firmly stuck in asphalt. General Sun Liren's new 38th Division, after receiving the task of rescuing the besieged British army in yenangyaung, in order to enable the soldiers to March to yenangyaung in the shortest time, the British army specially equipped the China soldiers who participated in the rescue mission with leather shoes. Many soldiers don't wear this brand-new hard leather shoes, but after all, these shoes helped them reach the battle site within the specified time and rescued the besieged 7 thousand British troops.

During the second expedition from 65438 to 0944, China's poverty and weakness did not improve, but worsened. China's economy has been on the verge of collapse due to the seven-year hard war of resistance and the Japanese blockade of China. The material support provided by hump route to China is far from meeting the domestic demand, which leads to the extreme shortage of all kinds of materials, soaring prices and distracted people. According to historical records, "in the case of shrinking territory and population, it is difficult for the national government to increase its income, but the cost of war has been increasing by leaps and bounds." In order to cope with War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's huge war costs, we have to expand the circulation of legal tender. Before the Lugouqiao Incident, the total balance of legal tender issued by the National Government was only1400 million yuan, but by 19441February, the total balance of legal tender issued had soared to 1894 million yuan, an increase of/kloc-. At that time, the United States printed legal tender. Just to print French currency, one-tenth of American aid loans were used, totaling as high as $55 million. In order to transport these legal tender back to China every month, it takes up hump air transport 150 tons and consumes 4500 gallons of gasoline. As the issue of legal tender is almost unrestricted, the prices in the areas ruled by the National Government rose sharply, from 194 1 year to 100 to 19441February. 1944, prices rose almost every day, and paid soldiers and religious figures suffered the most; At the same time, the frontline troops are generally short of food and clothing, medicine and equipment. As Stilwell and his fellow travelers tried to divide and alienate each other, the disappointment of the people in the rear was close to the state of dissatisfaction and boiling, so people from various political factions began to use this topic, and a political wave began to appear within the National Government, while the unity and anti-Japanese spirit of the whole country began to dissipate. "

In order to get through the transfusion line of China's Anti-Japanese War as soon as possible, Chiang Kai-shek made a famous speech of "an inch of mountains and rivers and an inch of blood, and 100,000 young people and 100,000 soldiers", calling on young students to join the army to serve the country, and most of these student soldiers joined the Indian troops stationed in China and the Western Yunnan Expeditionary Force. At the request of General Stilwell, most of the extremely limited aid materials from the hump route were used to equip the Western Yunnan Expeditionary Force. Although Chinese mainland troops are also in urgent need of supplies and equipment updates. It is against this background that the counterattack campaign in western Yunnan began. 200,000 Chinese Expeditionary Force and100,000 Indian troops stationed in China launched a major counterattack against Japanese troops stationed in western Yunnan and Myanmar. Under the leadership of General Sun Liren and General Liao Yaoxiang, well-equipped and well-trained Indian troops stationed in defeated the Japanese troops who occupied Lashio and Myitkyina in northern Myanmar for more than two years. Under the leadership of General Wei and General Song Xilian, the Western Yunnan Expeditionary Force recovered the strategic places such as Gaoligong Mountain, Songshan Mountain, Tengchong and mangshi occupied by the Japanese army after a bloody battle, and successfully joined forces with the Indian troops stationed in at the beginning of 1945, and finally opened the blood transfusion lines of China's anti-Japanese war-China-India and China-Myanmar highways. The Chinese Expeditionary Force in western Yunnan claimed to be the best force in China at that time, equipped with American equipment, and the soldiers wore straw sandals. Memories of veterans show that the first lesson they trained after enlisting was not military training, but how to play straw sandals. When the local villagers who witnessed the fighting helped the dead soldiers bury their bones, they judged whether the dead were China soldiers or Japanese soldiers by wearing sandals and helmets. "China's army wear sandals, and there is no helmet. Those wearing helmets are all Japanese soldiers. "

The Western Yunnan Expeditionary Force, a soldier in an army with the best equipment in the United States, is still a straw sandal soldier and still can't afford to wear a helmet. At that time, it was foreseeable that it was difficult to equip and supply China soldiers who struggled with the Japanese army at home. Therefore, it is reasonable that 1944 frontal battlefield was defeated by Henan, Hunan and Guangxi under the conditions of few soldiers, unstable people, lack of foreign aid and far distance between countries. But even under this background, China soldiers, led by General Fang Xianjue, fought hard with100000 Japanese troops in Hengyang for 47 days, annihilating 70000 enemy troops, which greatly hurt the Japanese invaders' ambition to annex China and directly promoted the collapse of the cabinet in tojo hideki, Japan.

At the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, not only did Japan claim to destroy China within three months, but the international community generally believed that Japan, an industrialized country, had absolute superiority over China, an agricultural country that had not been completely unified. The time unit of the Sino-Japanese War will be calculated in months. Once the Sino-Japanese all-out war breaks out, China will lose all its combat capability and unconditionally surrender to Japan. However, the government of China and the people of China resisted the Japanese aggression with unimaginable courage and sacrifice. As a weak country lagging behind in all directions, China persisted in the war of resistance for eight years, escaped millions of elite Japanese troops and won the final victory of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression with its allies. Every soldier and civilian who has contributed to War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression deserves our future generations' respect and gratitude.

Review of Chinese Expeditionary Force

Cang Lan: On the Soft Injury and Hard Injury of Chinese Expeditionary Force

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Cang Lan: Reflections on the Chinese Expeditionary Force: About awe

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Related historical background:

Stilwell's masterpiece-the fiasco of the battle between Henan, Hunan and Guangxi

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Comparison of National Strength between China and Japan in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression Period

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