The Chinese Order of Battle presented wholly different problems from the Japanese Order of Battle. The fractured nature of the Chinese military was itself a significant obstacle. The Nationalist Government wished to appear as a unified nation to the outside world. Thus, allusions to the various factions are difficult to come by and I can find no definitive list of which units pledged allegiance to which faction. Therefore, my factional assignments are largely the result of careful guesswork based on scouring narrative accounts by non-partisan historians. For example, I often assigned a unit to a faction based on a remote reference to it, or its commander, being from a particular province or political clique.

On occasion, I was able to dig up specific notations regarding a unit's affiliation. The communist units, for example, are so well documented that I am confident these assignments are correct. The "Generalissmo's Own" (rated 4-6* Inf XX), elite central army units are well documented. Some of the warlord factions have, by chance, been documented while others are difficult to verify even the existence of. For example, the Yunnanese army of warlord Lung Yun has been referenced in a number of works and I am relatively confident of the Yunnan unit assignments. On the other hand, I have only found the sketchiest of information regarding the Hunanese army and I assume its existence based only on indirect references.

Regardless of the specific unit assignments, I believe that I have captured the overall effect of Chinese factionalism from a military gaming point of view. I have good data regarding the size of the various major factions, and I have made special effort to shoehorn unit assignments to fit the overall known size of the factions. Truly a Chinese puzzle…

The Chinese divisions, like their early war Japanese counterparts, were also "square", but were only supposed to contain about 11,000 men. However, rarely did a Chinese division contain its full complement of men or equipment. Typically, in the field, a Chinese division ran from 3000 to 5000 men. This is particularly true of the provincial warlord divisions.

The following table outlines the allocated composition of a Chinese division.

Chinese Divisional Composition
Element	Square
men	10,923
rifles & carbines	3821
light MG	274
heavy MG	54
pack howitzers	16
light artillery guns	30
mortars/grenade launchers	243
trucks	see note
horse drawn vehicles	see note
horses	see note

Note: The Chinese, and particularly the provincial units, largely conscripted their transportation vehicles from whatever civilian equipment was at hand in the area. Hence, most Chinese provincial units have a movement rating of four and central army units five.

The typical Chinese divisions was organized around two infantry brigades of two regiments each, plus an artillery battalion, an engineering battalion, and a quartermaster's battalion. The regional Chinese armies tended to be the poorest units, lacking equipment, supplies, training, leadership, and morale. As such, they are rated as 1-4° Inf XX. The KMT Central Army units were somewhat better off, being first in line to get materials and resources and therefore rate 3-5* Inf XX.

The Communist Army

Chinese Communist divisions were among the best-disciplined units fighting the Japanese. At the onset of the conflict, the CCP fielded three divisions of roughly 20,000 men each. The Communist Army, in contrast to Chinese military tradition, enjoyed the favor of the peasantry, particularly in the north. To reflect this, CCP divisions are highly rated (7-5° Inf XX) as compared to other Chinese units. Moreover, they are always considered in supply for movement purposes reflecting the fact that they had to spend less time foraging for food since local farmers were inclined to feed them voluntarily. They are given cadre sides to reflect the superior training, discipline, and ideological motivation displayed by these units. As described above in the guerrilla rules section, the Communists expanded their army via a grass roots guerrilla base system. The following table shows the total strength of the two principle Communist armies and the equivalent combat strength in game terms. Note that the indicated game strength includes both regular Communist and guerrilla unit strengths.

Expansion of the CCP Red Army
Year	8th Route Army N. China	New 4th Army C. China
1937	80 (16)	12 (2)
1938	157 (31)	25 (5)
1939	270 (54)	50 (10)
1940	400 (80)	100 (20)
1941	305 (61)	135 (27)
1942	340 (68)	111 (22)

Note: Table is in thousands of men at start of year, approximate game strength is in parenthesis.

Note the dips in manpower in 1941 in the North China and in 1942 in Central China. The North China reduction is a result of aggressive Japanese guerrilla suppression campaigns that followed the Hundred Regiments Offensive (See the Battle Scenarios Booklet for a scenario on this offensive). The reduction in Central China is due to the New 4th Army incident whereby Communist and Nationalist elements clashed in a major dispute that ended any slim hope of continued mutual cooperation against the Japanese.

Kwangsi and Kweichow. On several occasions I have come across narrative accounts that make reference to the fact that the Kwangsi and Kweichow provincial armies were the best of the warlord armies. To reflect this I have boosted their defense and movement ratings making them 1-2-5° Inf XX. These provinces were led by the coalition of Pai Chung-hsi and Li Tsung-jen, two "enlightened" warlords who placed an emphasis on domestic prosperity in their provinces. Their government included such progressive policies as elementary public education. The Kwangsi and Kweichow armies were well paid and equipped (by provincial Chinese standards) making them more loyal and effective than the typical provincial army.

Szechwan. The Szechwan faction, on the other hand, is often sited as little more than an unruly rabble. The Szechwan province was a feudal province with no central organization. A plethora of minor warlords ruled fiefdoms throughout Szechwan until the Central Army, while chasing the communists on their long march, entered the province in the 1935-36 timeframe. The KMT used this military presence to nominally unify the province and coalesce the army. By the start of the war with Japan, the Szechwan army was "unified," but far from well trained. Muslims. While the Muslims of far-western China did not lay a full stake in China's conflict, they did send a number of units into the fray and probably would have sent more if their region had been directly threatened. The performance of the Muslim troops was considered top notch as compared to the other regional armies in China.

Manchuria. When the Japanese occupied Manchuria in 1932, the Manchurian army resisted briefly and then escaped to China. Their warlord-governor, Chang Hsueh-liang was regarded as one of the more loyal warlords to the central government. After the communist long march to northern Shensi, the KMT assigned the dislocated Manchurian army to southern Shensi to guard against southward penetrations of communism. Preferring to fight Japanese rather than Chinese, Chang and other officials in Shensi, perpetrated the Sian Incident whereby they kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and demanded a united front, along with the communists, to resist Japanese aggression. Despite Chiang's refusal to submit to his abductor's demands, the ultimate collapse of the coup, and his release, this incident does seem to have stiffened the KMTs opposition to Japanese aggression curtailing their previous appeasement policies. Chang Hsueh-liang was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life, and the Manchurian army was transferred to southern Hopei and Honan, where it was situated at the start of the conflict with Japan.

Miscellaneous Forces. The MNF and MSF represent random groupings of lesser warlord armies in north and central/south China, respectively.

The Central Army. The Central Army was the best trained (with the possible exception of the Communist Army) and equipped Chinese army. It was the official army of the Republic of China, the internationally recognized government of China. At the outset of the war, the bulk of the Central Army was located in the lower Yangtzé River valley. The 4-6* Inf XX represent the "elite, Generalissmo's Own," German-trained divisions. The 3-5* Inf XX represent the typical Central Army division, which was in general substantially better than their provincial counterparts.

The Chinese Central Army had three armored battalions in 1937, two of which operated near Shanghai and the third near Nanking. These units contained small tanks and tankettes such as the machine-gun armed Vickers Carden-Loyd amphibious tankette, the Italian L3/35 light tank and the German PzKpfw IA. The largest tank in the Chinese arsenal was the British built Vickers 6 ton MkE & MkF medium tanks that supported a 47mm gun. In addition to the tanks, the Chinese used a few dozen German armored cars such as the PSW 221 and 222 and a plethora of indigenous "armored cars," cobbled together with whatever materials were at hand. The warlord armies in particular, used makeshift "armored cars."

Chinese artillery consisted of a variety of gun types from a number of nations but largely from Germany and the Soviet Union. The German 3.7 cm PaK 35 was the standard antitank weapon of the nationalist forces.

China had about 7000 trucks in 1937. They appear in this game as SMP since they were used almost exclusively for the transportation of supplies. Many were employed in remote areas, such as the far-western caravan route to the Soviet Union across Sinkiang to Kazakstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The Chinese Navy. At the outset of the conflict, the Chinese navy consisted of 66 ships and 12 torpedo boats totaling 59,000 tons. The bulk of these vessels were small patrol boats and river craft. The two largest ships were the sisters Ping Hai and Ning Hai. Displacing 2,500 tons each, these ships each supported six 5.5 inch guns, six 3.5 inch AA guns, and 8 machine-gun. They were 360 feet in length, capable of 22.25 knots, and had a total crew of 340 men. On September 23, 1937, Japanese aircraft sunk both of these ships near Chiang-yin while they were supporting ground operations along the Yangtzé River bank.

The Chinese Air Force. The Chinese Air Force was relatively new in 1937. The retired American Colonel Chennault (later of AVG fame) who had been hired by the Chinese government for the purpose commanded it. The Chinese Air Force had 305 combat aircraft that had been imported from many different nations. Originally planning to deploy in North China, the eruption of hostilities in the Shanghai area caused the Chinese to keep virtually the entire air force in the Yangtzé River valley. The Mxd-F fighter unit represents an assortment of aircraft such as CR.32s, BA.27s, Boeing P-26s, and Corsair biplanes. The Mxd-B bomber unit contains CA.101s, Br 3s, SM.72s, and He111s. The Mxd-T transport unit represents a variety of transport aircraft both in military and civil service including predominantly DC-3s (the civilian version of the C-47). The Chinese National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) was often pressed into military service as need arose.

General

After the outbreak of the Pacific war with the Western Allies, the Chinese front cooled from a conventional warfare point of view. The communists shunned direct warfare in favor of guerrilla tactics and the nationalists were simply too worn to mount any sort of military campaign. The Japanese, for their part, were bogged down in a political/geographic quagmire from which it proved impossible to extricate themselves.

With the belief that Japan was doomed at the hands of the Western Allies, and particularly the United States, the various Chinese factions began to look more towards the post war situation than at any serious threat to the Japanese. As the war dragged on, the Japanese became more insignificant in the Chinese thinking and ultimately took on the role of an annoying sideshow to the real politics of China.

But, this was all after Pearl Harbor and one of the principal reasons why I limit the Sino-Japanese Conflict game from 1937 to 1941. The early years are characterized by a Japanese drive into the Chinese interior that the Chinese repeatedly fail to check. At the outset, the communists and nationalists each observe a tenuous "united front" whereby they join forces against the invaders. The communist armies are recognized and authorized for specific sizes by the nationalist government and they even draw salaries from national treasury.

Slowly, the Japanese bog down in the face of a strained logistic system, increasing guerrilla activity, and continued nationalist army opposition. The mere fact that the nationalist army, repeatedly decimated for several years, remained standing is a tribute to Chinese will to resist. Finally, the Japanese met what has been referred to as their Stalingrad, the three battles of Changsha. After these defeats, the last in late 1941, the Japanese never again mounted a serious offensive in China until the desperate Ichigo in late 1944.

The Sino-Japanese conflict begins conventional in nature and then slowly bogs down into a guerrilla war by the early 1940's and ultimately becomes a political chess game with the post-war control of China at stake.

I think the military campaigns of the pre-Pearl Harbor years are very interesting and War of Resistance provides a good military simulation of events that are not common knowledge in the west.

The Defense of Shanghai

It is easy and common to criticize the foolhardiness of Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists for recklessly committing and wasting the bulk of their crème de la crème in the futile defense of Shanghai. But, if one steps away from the world of perfect hindsight and considers the situation presented to these men, their actions become less questionable. In hindsight we know that the decision to defend Shanghai was wrong, but it may not have been irrational.

Consider, first, in August of 1937, the Japanese had not yet conquered vast quantities of Chinese territory sweeping Chinese armies aside and leaving them in the wake. Nor was it yet clear that they were even capable of doing so. They had merely wrested control of Peiping (Peking) and Tientsin from low quality provincial troops who essentially evacuated, rather than defended, those cities.

Second, the military precedent of conflict in Shanghai had been set in 1932. In that skirmish, Chinese troops stood toe-to-toe for two months and slugged it out with the Japanese and only retreated after the Japanese landed troops with superior armament and equipment in an enveloping move. There was no reason to believe that, given additional support in 1932, the Chinese defenders could not have held out indefinitely.

Third, the Japanese garrison in Shanghai was relatively small, and with the war not being officially declared or even sanctioned in Tokyo, there was no reason for Chiang Kai-shek to believe that the Japanese would reinforce the area with huge quantities of men and materials. Incident upon incident had erupted throughout the thirties and there was little indication at this early stage, that this was not simply another.

Fourth, Shanghai was the commercial and industrial heart of the Nationalist controlled region and of China itself. For the Nationalists to simply yield Shanghai following a decade long policy of Japanese appeasement would have been a national disgrace and would risk having broken the Chinese morale and destroyed the credibility of the Nationalist regime, which was already on shaky footing. I would venture the proposition that history would have been even harsher on a Chiang Kai-shek that failed to defend Shanghai.

Fifth, and finally, the Nationalists were hoping to spur western support through a gallant defense of Shanghai. Shanghai was the site of the largest western concessions and a battle there would set the stage for western observers to see the Japanese onslaught first hand. Chiang Kai-shek believed, naively, that the west would actually send substantial support and that an aggressive defense of Shanghai would bolster the Chinese prestige abroad.

The preceding rhetoric is not intended to defend Chiang Kai-shek's blunder, for it was that, a major blunder. It is merely intended to point out that the blunder was not as irrational as narrow hindsight would have us believe.

More War of Resistance

War of Resistance: Introduction
War of Resistance: Japanese Order of Battle
War of Resistance: Chinese Order of Battle
War of Resistance: Japanese and Chinese Equipment
War of Resistance: Bibliography

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