The Latest Development

Just as Wang Ming's slogan, "defense of Wuhan," came at an inopportune time in late 1938, so Mao's New Democracy was premature in early 1940. Mao's opponents clashed with him until they overruled him, in mid-year, on some major issues. They differed with his judgment, stated in the January 28 directive on the general situation, that since the Kuomintang was committed to the policy of unification cum resistance, armed friction with it was only of limited and local significance.^[19]

Two of the issues that had divided the Party since 1939 were outstanding. One was the last major effort by Japan to woo Chiang Kai-shek into a negotiated settlement of the war. The other was the Kuomintang's efforts to regain lost ground in north China, and its alarm over the latest Communist expansion into north Kiangsu and north Anhwei. A third issue was added in the spring of 1940, as the Japanese forces, which had been on the defensive since late 1938, once again turned to the offensive and struck toward the interior.

Nineteen forty was the most agonizing year for Tokyo in the whole China war. Impelled by the imminent threat of a world-wide conflagration, Japan tried to withdraw its strategic combat units from China to regain flexibility in troop deployment. Yet there was always the hope that one more push with the Chungking operation might end the war. Through November, 1940, therefore, Japan proceeded indecisively along three tracks: protracted occupation with Wang Ching-wei's regime; direct contact for peace with Chungking; and strategic sallies toward Chungking. Japan was disappointed by the apparent inability of the Wang Ching-wei faction to draw support for itself. There was still considerable pressure in Tokyo against committing itself to Wang Ching-wei, a step regarded as irrevocable by many. In January, 1940, another moderate cabinet was formed in Tokyo under Admiral Yonai, and he too sent a personal message to Chiang Kai-shek urging peaceful settlement.^[20]

In early December, 1939, Lieutenant Colonel Suzuki Takuji, a

[18] Ibid. , p. 336.

[19] Ibid. , pp. 386–387.

[20] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 255.

Japanese Army attache in Hong Kong, had gotten in touch with a man who claimed to be Sung Tzu-liang through the introduction of a Hong Kong University professor. Sung Tzu-liang was the younger brother of T. V. Soong and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Peace exploration through this channel was code-named Kiri kosaku^[*] (Kiri Operation), and the Japanese high command showed a great deal of interest in it. Both sides agreed to a preliminary conference in Hong Kong in early March, which held up the inauguration of Wang Ching-wei's government.^[21] In this meeting, March 7–10, the Chungking side was represented by Chang Yu-san, the secretary of the Supreme National Defense Council, and Lieutenant General Ch'en Ch'ao-lin, the vice chief of staff of the Chungking Headquarters, in addition to Sung Tzu-liang. The Japanese side was represented by Colonel Imai Takeo (of the China Expeditionary Forces), Colonel Usui Shigeki (of the Army General Staff), and Lieutenant Colonel Suzuki. A memorandum of preliminary agreement was drawn up.^[22]

According to Colonel Imai, "Just before the signing [of the memorandum], the Chungking delegation received an instruction and began to show disapproval."^[23] A Chinese negotiator related an allegory. Manchuria, according to him, was an unfaithful wife who left her husband for Japan. For Japan to demand Chinese recognition of Manchukuo was tantamount to asking for a formal approval of illicit relationship. Why cannot Japan, he asked, let time solve the problem by contenting itself with actual control of Manchuria? In addition to the question of Manchukuo, the Chinese side objected to regarding the Wang Ching-wei question as an international issue; and it demanded immediate and total withdrawal of the Japanese forces upon return of peace.^[24] The Japanese delegation was bound by the strong opinion in the Army, which demanded Chinese recognition of Manchukuo and which objected to total withdrawal of the Japanese forces from China. The negotiation deadlocked, and both sides agreed to return home for further deliberation pending a second meeting.

While the Hong Kong discussion was in progress, the Japanese side compared Sung Tzu-liang's photograph with the man who had presented himself as Sung, and discovered that they had been dealing with

[21] Taiheiyo^[*] senso^[*] e no michi , IV, 230; Chou Fou-hai jih-chi , p. 52.

[22] Taiheiyo senso e no michi , VI, 232.

[23] Imai, p. 233.

[24] Boyle, p. 291; Taiheiyo senso e no michi , IV, 231. Bunker notes that Chungking was in effect willing to settle for the same terms as those originally worked out by Wang Ching-wei so long as the Wang question could be regarded as a domestic issue of China. That is, upon the restoration of peace, China was willing to enter into a secret agreement to make Manchukuo a joint protectorate of China and Japan, p. 222.

an imposter. They decided that as long as the bogus Sung Tzu-liang was in touch with the Chungking authorities, the question of his identity should not be brought up lest the contact be lost.^[25] But in the meantime Japan could not hold off the Wang Ching-wei faction any longer. On March 30, the "orthodox Kuomin government" returned to Nanking with Wang Ching-wei as the vice-president—a gesture of deference to President Lin Sen in Chungking.^[26]

The Chungking side requested a second meeting, which took place between June 4 and 6.^[27] It also ended without an agreement, but it was decided to arrange a meeting of Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Ching-wei, and General Itagaki Seishiro, the chief of staff of the China Expeditionary Forces. The planning for the meeting proceeded on the Japanese side with the approval of the second Konoe cabinet, which came into being in July. It is against the background of this and other peace discussions that we must view the Kuomintang–CCP negotiation in 1940.

When Wang Ching-wei's lieutenants defected back to Chungking in January, 1940, it seemed as though the tension in the united front might subside. But that was not to be the case. In early January, General Ch'en Ch'eng made a speech in Shaokuan accusing the Communist forces of "roaming without striking"^[28] —a stinging pun, since "roam and strike" means to fight guerrilla war in Chinese. Immediately, Chu Te and P'eng Te-huai wired a protest to Ch'en Ch'eng. They demanded that he come into the areas behind the Japanese line and see for himself that his allegations were not true.^[29] Also in Jaunary, according to Chiang Kai-shek, General Ho Ying-ch'in called in Yeh Chien-ying and ordered him again to stop the CCP's unauthorized expansion.^[30] This meeting was in private—outwardly conforming to the pattern of negotiation established in 1939. The content of Ho's instructions to Yeh is not known; but it seems in retrospect that this was the beginning of negotiations of a very different character.

On March 1, just before the opening of the Fifth Session of the National Political Council, the commander of the T'ienshui Headquarters, Ch'eng Ch'ien, distributed a pamphlet to the right wing members of the Council entitled Summary of facts about illegal activities and sabotage of the war of resistance by the Chinese Communists . The pamphlet pointed out that the Communist bases constituted a state within a state, bent on subverting the resistance. According to Hatano, Chiang Kai-shek was distraught and ordered the pamphlet

[25] Imai, p. 234.

[26] Taiheiyo^[*] senso^[*] e no michi , IV, 232.

[27] Ibid. , p. 235.

[28] Toa^[*] , July 1, 1940, p. 11.

[29] Hsiang-ch'ih chieh-tuan  . . . , p. 79.

[30] Soviet Russia in China , p. 93.

withdrawn.^[31] But the whole affair could very well have been staged with Chiang's knowledge. In April, the Political Department of the 18th Group Army retaliated by issuing a pamphlet of its own entitled From where does friction come? It adhered to the thesis that friction was local.^[32]

The Eighth Route Army proceeded to eliminate the remainder of the Kuomintang's regional forces in Hopei and southeastern Shansi in early 1940. In February, the local forces under Shih Yu-san and Ting Shu-pen, a Kuomintang special district commissioner, were withdrawing from the western part of the Chi-Lu-Yü District. Thereupon, the CCP esablished the Chi-Lu-Yü District Office.^[33] Its power was still confined to the western part of Small Chi-Lu-Yü. With Small Chi-Lu-Yü in hand, it was now possible for the CCP to set up a political structure which comprised Hopei Province and southeastern Shansi. The Unified Administrative Office for the Southern Hopei District, the T'aihang District, and the T'aiyüeh District came into existence in April. Thus a foundation was laid for the latter-day Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü Border Region.^[34] The forces of Chang Yin-wu and Chu Huai-p'ing were also liquidated early in the year.^[35] In March, Governor Lu Chung-lin of Hopei fled into southeastern Shansi, presumably to seek protection under Wei Li-huang's central forces.^[36]

In early 1940, a new phase in the Kuomintang–CCP relationship was emerging. As the Kuomintang's local and regional forces were eliminated one by one, the buffer that separated the two sides was removed; they began to confront each other. On the Kuomintang's side, more prominent leaders began to make public their opposition to communism. The center of conflict was escalating. In March, Wei Li-huang, who commanded the First War Zone and who was also keeping his eye on Yen Hsi-shan's command in Shansi, gathered ten divisions of his forces in the Lingch'uan–Kaop'ing area and threatened to attack the Eighth Route Army in the Chin-Chi-Yü base.^[37]

At this point, one could detect in the CCP's pronouncements and actions signs of a split in its leadership. On the one hand was the voice

[31] Joho^[*] , No. 31, December 1, 1940, p. 24.

[32] Mo-ts'a ts'ung ho erh lai (The Political Department, 18th Group Army, 1940).

[33] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 50; Selected Works , II, 418.

[34] Growth of one revolutionary base , pp. 29, 48, 50.

[35] SW , III, 254. In 1942 P'eng Te-huai stated that the Communist side went a bit too far in dealing with Chu Huai-p'ing, in Kuan-yü hua-pei ken-chü-ti kung-tso ti pao-kao , p. 360.

[36] Yen Chün, ed., Chung-Kung wen-t'i chung-yao wen-hsien [Important documents on Chinese Communist problems] (Ta-kung ch'u-pan-she, 1941) (BI), p. 26. Also driven out were Sun Liang-ch'eng and Kao Shu-hsün. Ibid.

[37] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 258.

of those who showed acute concern over the unabating tension with the Kuomintang—the voice which was moreover translated into temporizing acts. On February 1, the Central Committee passed The Decision concerning the Current Situation and the Party's Task . It amounted to a partial reversal of the January 28 directive, written by Mao. The Decision stated,

The characteristics of the current domestic situation are that, in the stage of strategic stalemate between the enemy and ourselves, the inclinations of the big bourgeoisie to capitulate and the inclinations of the proletariat, petty bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie to remain in resistance have developed into a struggle, more obvious and serious day by day. Because the power of the anti-Japanese progressive forces in the country to overcome capitulation and retrogression is still inadequate , the danger of capitulation and retrogression still remains serious. It is still the main danger in the current situation. . . .^[38]

Oddly enough, however, the Decision added that emergencies that could be expected were "partial and local in character."^[39]

The threatening maneuver of Wei Li-huang's central forces against the Chin-Chi-Yü base resulted in a large concession by the Eighth Route Army, which withdrew, of its own accord, from Lingch'uan, Linhsien, Ch'angchih, Hukuan, Chinch'eng, Yangch'eng, Kaop'ing in southern Shansi, and all of northern Honan. In May, Chu Te formalized the concession in a local boundary accord with the Kuomintang army.^[40]

The Communists' withdrawal from southern Shansi was followed in April by a conference of the Northern Bureau in Lich'eng, northeast of Ch'angchih.^[41] It was reported that "for a very brief period following the 'December Incident' some comrades even felt that the united front has already been split and proposed the Left deviation slogan of 'dictatorship of the workers, peasants, and petty bourgeoisie.'" "The mistake of 'Left' deviation barbarism" committed in southern Hopei and southeastern Shansi was corrected at this conference.^[42] Excessive radicalism was evidently connected with the pace of land revolution, disarming and reorganizing of local armed groups. The conference decided to soft-pedal the program of rent and interest reduction and "mass mobilization" in general, as that term is specifically understood in the CCP's parlance. P'eng Te-huai and Liu Po-ch'eng apparently attended and influenced the conference. They were to con-

[38] Mao Tse-tung-chi , VII, 209. Emphasis added.

[39] Ibid. , p. 210.

[40] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 258; Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 44.

[41] Ibid. , p. 47.

[42] Ibid. , p. 48.

duct self-criticisms later for the alleged failure to "mobilize the masses" in southeastern Shansi.^[43]

In contrast to the temporizing inclinations of some CCP leaders, Mao continued to defend his strategic rationale and proceeded to implement it with daring and dispatch. The Lungtung Incident of December apparently failed to intimidate the CCP's resolve to control all of the twenty-three hsien in Shen-Kan-Ning. On March 6, Mao announced that the border region government was being extended to Suite and Lungtung.^[44] Five days later, he gave a report entitled "Current Problems of Tactics in the Anti-Japanese United Front" to a meeting of senior cadres in Yenan. I have already presented my analysis of it in the concluding section of the preceding chapter. The purpose of the report was to assure his critics that the Kuomintang would not surrender if the CCP followed his tactics of piecemeal expansion. The message was Mao's reply to the February 1 Decision of the Central Committee. But this was not all. Mao gave an enormous boost to the CCP's expansion into the Huai River valley in north Kiangsu—areas to the north of the Yangtze River.

The leadership organ for this expansion had been completed when Liu Shao-ch'i arrived in the newly established Central Plains Bureau in September, 1939. It seems that he had some difficulty in securing Hsiang Ying's cooperation. This prompted Mao to write a directive to Hsiang Ying in early 1940. Though I do not have access to this directive, it seems to have been similar to another written by Mao in May:

The Central Committee has pointed out this policy of expansion to you time and again. To expand means to reach out into all enemy-occupied areas and not to be bound by the Kuomintang's restrictions but to go beyond the limits allowed by the Kuomintang, not to expect official appointments from them or depend on the higher-ups for financial support but instead to expand the armed forces freely and independently, set up base areas unhesitatingly, independently arouse the masses in those areas to action and build up united front organs of political power. . . . The Central Committee previously instructed you to enlarge the anti-Japanese armed forces to 100,000 men. . . . Opportunities have been missed before, and if this year they are missed again, things will become still more difficult.^[45]

The Sixth Plenum's decision to redeploy most of the units of the New Fourth Army on the north bank of the Yangtze had been delayed

[43] For P'eng Te-huai's self-criticism, see below, p. 276. Liu Po-ch'eng "Kuan-yü T'aihang chün-ch'ü chien-she yü tso-chan wen-t'i" [Concerning the problems of building the T'aihang Military District and combat operation], Tang ti sheng-huo , No. 31, February, 1941, pp. 8–25. This was written after the Battle of One Hundred Regiments.

[44] Selected Works , II, 418.

[45] Selected Works , II, 431–432.

by nearly one year. Mao's impatience stemmed from two considerations. His scant regard for the Kuomintang notwithstanding, Mao was not deliberately provoking a civil war. On the contrary, his position was that in the face of mounting pressure from the Kuomintang, the New Fourth Army should disengage from exposed areas and get in behind the Japanese lines. If, in addition, the Kuomintang was in danger of capitulation to Japan, that was all the more reason for making haste in building up solid contiguous bases from north to central China. Only by having such bases could the CCP hope to survive the Kuomintang's suppression campaign until some favorable turn in the international situation. Still, Mao was pushing his luck to the limit in early 1940. There was no more of that willingness to carry on the revolution under cover:

It is wrong to make the opposite appraisal or adopt the opposite tactics in the belief that the more our forces expand, the more the die-hards will tend towards capitulation, that the whole country is on the verge of a split and Kuomintang–Communist co-operation is no longer possible.^[46]

In September, 1939, Liu Shao-ch'i had proposed to the Party Center that the New Fourth Army be divided into the North Yangtze Command and the South Yangtze Command; and that the former be subordinated directly to the Central Plains Bureau. He had also requested dispatch of a main force unit of the Eighth Route Army into north Kiangsu to dislodge the forces under the Kiangsu Governor Han Tech'in. The Party Center had agreed.^[47] From this time on, Hsiang Ying seems to have exercised actual command over only those forces south of the Yangtze. What the relationship was between the Party Center and Hsiang Ying in 1940 remains a mystery. Contrary to the later accusations against him, the May directive cited above demanded that he move into Chekiang Province.

In January, an advance unit of the Eighth Route Army from Shantung moved south and linked up with the New Fourth Army in north Kiangsu. The Fourth Detachment of the New Fourth Army, whose insubordination had troubled Liu Shao-ch'i, had been split into two after the execution of its Commander Kao Ching-t'ing. It was reorganized into the Fourth and the Fifth Detachments.^[48] To insure their loyalty and subordination to the Central Plains Bureau, the Fourth Detachment was merged with the Eighth Route Army unit that came down from the north, though the unit designation remained unchanged. The Fifth Detachment absorbed the reliable cadres from the Third

[46] Ibid. , p. 434.

[47] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . ," p. 394.

[48] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . ," p. 380.

Detachment which had been transferred from the South Yangtze Command.^[49] By June, the only unit that remained on the south side of the Yangtze was the headquarters unit. The New Fourth Army's life was very precarious in north Kiangsu. But for the first time, base construction began in earnest. In March the Huaipei Su-Wan (North Huai Kiangsu–Anhwei) base was set up around Lake Hungtze.

It is interesting to speculate on why the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Sixth Detachments were west of the Tientsin–Pukow railway in 1939 and 1940. The area to the west of this railway included western Anhwei and eastern Honan, directly south of Hopei and Shansi Provinces. When the battle line was stabilized at the end of 1938, the Japanese forces took most of Shansi and both banks of the Yangtze up to Wuhan but left the area lying between them unoccupied. This area constituted a great loop of the Kuomintang's forward line inserted between north and central China. Northern Honan and southern Shansi was the First War Zone, the remainder of Honan and Anhwei belonged to the Fifth War Zone commanded by Kwangsi warlord Li Tsung-jen. In Communist documents, the area was referred to as the Yü-Wan-Su (Honan–Anhwei–Kiangsu) Border Region through 1939. The term disappeared after the local truce and boundary agreement between Chu Te and Wei Li-huang in May, 1940, by which the CCP abandoned northern Honan.^[50] The official map of the CCP for the resistance period does not include the area as anti-Japanese bases.^[51] But in 1939, and well into 1940, some leading cadres of the CCP expected the Japanese forces to advance westward from the Tientsin–Pukow railway to occupy the area. During the strategic dispute in 1938, Mao himself predicted that the Japanese forces would occupy the area east of the line connecting Lanchow, Wuhan, and Canton.^[52] P'eng Hsüehfen, an officer of the Eighth Route Army and admirer of P'eng Te-huai, was dispatched south from Shansi into northern Honan to build a base around K'aifeng in 1938.^[53] He disobeyed Liu Shao-ch'i's order to move eastward because of his belief that the Japanese forces would move farther westward. The main force of his unit did not move east until it was seriously mauled by the Kwangsi army in 1941.^[54]

This pointed up a problem which was likely to have been raised among the CCP leadership. The principle that the Communist forces should move in behind the Japanese lines to avoid unnecessary friction with the Kuomintang forces had better applicability in north

[49] Ibid. , pp. 381, 385.

[50] Growth of one revolutionary base , pp. 6–7.

[51] See map 2.

[52] Selected Works , II, 137.

[53] Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao , V, 161.

[54] Central China Bureau First Plenum , pp. 44–45, 95–100.

China than in central China. The Japanese Army had permanent designs in north China and sought to eliminate all opposition. In central China, with the exception of the Nanking–Shanghai–Hangchow delta, the mission of the Japanese forces was strategic deterrence of the Kuomintang's central forces. Most of the areas that lay behind the Japanese forces were combat zones rather than pacification zones. Moreover, north Kiangsu was the boundary of jurisdiction between the North China Area Army and the 13th Army, which was directly under the command of the China Expeditionary Forces. Pacification campaigns in north Kiangsu were sporadic, less intense, and not well coordinated. The first one did not come until September, 1940.^[55] Hence, the central forces of the Fifth War Zone were capable of backing up the regional forces under Han Te-ch'in and Li P'in-hsien, governors of Kiangsu and Anhwei respectively, without much fear of running into Japanese reaction in the areas east of the Tientsin–Pukow railway.^[56]

In addition, the fact that the CCP did not move into north Kiangsu until 1940 added to its difficulty. By then, the Kuomintang side was fully prepared to thwart unauthorized Communist expansion by military means. If north Kiangsu was to be taken, it was certain to be accompanied by outright military confrontation on an unprecedented scale. The tension began to rise in March as the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Sixth Detachments moved eastward against the western border of Kiangsu. Han Te-ch'in and Yü Hsüeh-chung of the Shantung–Kiangsu War Zone had a force numbering 60,000 to 70,000.^[57] In April, a division and a brigade of Han's force besieged the headquarters of a New Fourth Army's "division" and a training unit east of the Tientsin–Pukow railway for two weeks before being driven back by rescue forces.^[58] On the west side of the railway, the Kwangsi forces were pressing against the New Fourth Army units of Chang Yün-i, P'eng Hsüeh-fen, and Li Hsien-nien.^[59] Then in June, landlords of Hsüi, Laian, T'iench'ang, and Liuho—south of Lake Kaoyu—carried out an insurrection against the Communists,^[60] while Han Te-ch'in ordered fourteen regiments to attack the Communist forces in Kaots'un

[55] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . , " p. 395.

[56] This was the reason why Liu Shao-chi asked for the dispatch of the Eighth Route Army's main force unit. Ibid. , p. 394.

[57] Johnson, Peasant Nationalism , p. 133.

[58] Ch'en I, Wan-nan shih-pien ti chen-hsiang [The truth about the Southern Anhwei Incident] (Report to Col. David D. Barrett, U.S. Army Observer Section, August, 1944) (Hoover), p. 9.

[59] Selected Works , II, 453.

[60] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . ," p. 386.

on the border of Chiangtu and T'aihsien.^[61] At the same time, the South Yangtze Command moved across the river to escape the pressure from Ku Chu-t'ung's attack. Shortly thereafter, the remainder of the Eighth Route Army unit, three brigades of the Fifth Column, moved into north Kiangsu. In early fall, Han assembled the largest force totalling 25,000 men against 7,000 Communist troops at Huangch'iao in T'aihsing.^[62]

The deteriorating domestic and international circumstances in the summer were clearly at odds with the foolhardiness implied in Mao's "On New Democracy." The CCP was not in a position to force the Kuomintang to swallow the revolution cum resistance by mobilizing a "joint dictatorship of several revolutionary classes" from below, nor was it as yet strong enough to forego the united front with the Kuomintang by "going up into the hills." It is my inference that the Internationalists and some generals rallied against Mao again. It must have appeared to them far wiser to forego an immediate territorial gain and avoid the seemingly inevitable military confrontation. Chang Went'ien indicated this view when he said in August,

the danger of the Left deviation manifests itself in the wavering of the anti-Japanese united front policy. There are some comrades in the Party who think that the united front is necessary only when the national situation is favorable but unnecessary when the national situation turns unfavorable. In certain areas some comrades have completely forgotten about united front work while carrying out the anti-friction struggle with the die-hards. Some even carry on the struggle so that the united front period will quickly pass away and the days of land revolution will quickly arrive. In this, moreover, they feel elated.^[63]

He conceded that struggle within the united front was unavoidable, but it was "only for the purpose of expanding and consolidating the united front, not for the sake of splitting or destroying it."^[64] It was one thing to fight in self-defense but something else to provoke a fight.

To be sure, one also finds Mao warning in March: "At the moment the 'Left' tendency . . . is the most serious danger."^[65] This directive ordered the establishment of the so-called Three-thirds system which marked the turn toward liberalization in the administration of the Communist bases, as will be shown later. But the Three-thirds system was applied only in areas where Communist political power was well

[61] Wan-nan-shih-pien ti chen-hsiang , p. 9.

[62] Ibid. , p. 10.

[63] Lo Fu, "K'ang-Jih min-tsu t'ung-i chan-hsien-chung ti tso-ch'ing wei-hsien" [Left deviation danger in the anti-Japanese national united front] (August 10, 1940), in Kung-fei huo-kuo , III, 452–453.

[64] Ibid. , p. 453.

[65] Selected Works , II, 418.

consolidated and beyond any challenge. It had no application in areas which were militarily contested by the Kuomintang and the CCP—areas which were most likely to give rise to friction.

The residual influence of the Comintern, too, was brought to bear in support of closer cooperation with the Kuomintang. On February 22, according to Japanese sources, the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern met in Tschita again. With twenty-seven Asian members attending, the Bureau directed the CCP to oppose the peace movement and to step up its war efforts in coordination with Chungking's counter-offensive.^[66] The previous directive, reported by the Japanese source, made a similar demand on the Chinese Communists in January of 1939.^[67] A lively debate was no doubt under way among the Communist leaders concerning the desirability of a large-scale offensive against the Japanese. The debate was focused on the impact of the new Japanese offensive on the sagging will of the Kuomintang.

The limited offensive undertaken by the China Expeditionary Forces in 1940 was the direct result of the amazing aggressiveness exhibited by the Chinese forces in the winter offensive of December and January. It indicated that Japan's own protracted war—holding the line and exerting political pressure on Chungking—was producing no result. Contrary to earlier expectations, an equivalent of nine divisions had to be added to the China theater by the end of 1939 to make for a total force of thirty-five divisions.^[68] Clearly the existing policy was not a solution for defense against the Soviet Union nor for the China Incident. Again, the Operations Division of the Army General Staff put forth a proposal for a large-scale withdrawal from China in December, 1939. Field commanders advised an aggressive scheme to go for Chungking once more before the proposed reduction in force level. The Army supported the plan for a last offensive in the fall of 1940, followed by a reduction in early 1941.^[69] In April, the 11th Army, which had borne the brunt of the winter offensive, was ordered to launch the Ich'ang Operation in May and June. There were plans for the Hunan Operation aimed at taking Kweilin and an operation to take the Peiping–Hankow railway in Honan. In addition, a plan was discussed to augment the forces in Nanning with five additional divisions to advance on Kunming, in order to cut the route between Yünan and French Indochina.^[70] Ich'ang was taken on June 12. In order to assist

[66] "Soren no kyokuto^[*] sekika shirei" [Soviet directive on communizing the Far East], Shina , April, 1940, pp. 186–187.

[67] Joho^[*] , No. 9, January 1, 1940, pp. 97–105.

[68] Imperial Army General Staff , No. 1, p. 622.

[69] Ibid. , pp. 626–628.

[70] Taiheiyo^[*] senso^[*] e no michi , IV, 66.

the Kiri Operation which was under way, the 11th Army remained poised against Chungking.