1939–1940 Winter Offensive

• 1. Introduction

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  The 1939-1940 Winter Offensive pitted the National Revolutionary Army against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War. It marked the first time Chinese forces struck back on multiple fronts at once. The attack fell short of its original objectives. Later studies, though, describe it as a real blow to the Japanese. Japanese commanders never expected an offensive of that scale from a Chinese army they thought was spent. By April 1940 the Japanese army had ground the operation to a halt. Even so, the fighting revealed how thin Japan's occupying forces had become across several separate fronts at once. What made Chinese commanders confident enough to attack on so many fronts at once, and which front actually delivered the surprise Tokyo hadn't planned for?

• 2. A Weakening Enemy

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  At the Battle of Suixian-Zaoyang that summer, and again that fall at the 1st Battle of Changsha, Chinese forces had already stopped two Japanese offensives. Commanders concluded the Japanese army was now too stretched to seize and hold new ground without fresh reinforcements. Japan could still lean on its interior lines and control of communication routes to shift troops for smaller local strikes. It could also use those forces to clear guerrillas from rear areas.

  During 1939, Japan began swapping its large four-regiment square Divisions for smaller three-regiment triangular Divisions and thinner Independent Mixed Brigades. That shrinking of Japanese units was exactly the opening Chinese planners wanted. A plan built to exploit that weakness was about to spread across war areas from the northern frontier to the southern coast.

• 3. Four War Areas, One Plan

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  The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 9th War Areas were positioned in China's northeast, closest to Japan. They carried the main effort and received every newly trained and reorganized unit available. Their job was to launch attacks on several fronts at once and pin down Japanese forces before Tokyo could concentrate them elsewhere. Holding the advantage of exterior lines meant Chinese armies could block Japan from regrouping. It also kept Japan from shifting its own troops to build a new large-scale offensive.

  Supporting or diversionary attacks fell to the 1st, 4th, 8th, Shandong-Jiangsu, and Hebei-Chahar War Areas, spread further south and west from Japan. These secondary fronts fought with whatever units they already had rather than the fresh reinforcements sent north. That assignment of fresh troops to the north and old ones to the south would shape how each front performed. The fighting would start in Shanxi province.

• 4. Stalemate In The North

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  Long-hsuen's History of The Sino-Japanese War notes that Communist raids behind Chinese lines caused serious supply problems during the campaign. Guerrillas seized food supplies and blocked them from reaching government forces. Despite that, the 40th Corps and 27th Corps accomplished what they set out to do, pinning down Japanese forces in the Zhangzi and Changzhi area.

  In southwestern Shanxi, though, the main effort of the 2nd War Area, and of the whole North China offensive, fell short. Chinese forces failed to seize the major railroad towns or Japanese strongpoints that were their targets. They cut the Tongpu railway only in the stretch between Wenxi and Anyi.

  The 2nd War Area claimed 13,770 Japanese killed or wounded by the end of the campaign. The 1st War Area reported 5,130 Japanese killed and appears to have succeeded in tying down Japanese troops within its own zone.

  The 8th War Area fought a see-saw campaign before finally rolling the Japanese back to Baotou at the Battle of Wuyuan. Guerrilla forces in the Hebei-Chahar and Shandong-Jiangsu War Areas kept up their attacks without reaching any decisive result. In the Shandong peninsula they ran into a serious Japanese counterattack.

  That same push toward Baotou sat on the edge of a region where Japan was chasing a very different prize. It wanted a puppet state built on Muslim territory.

• 5. The Muslim Front

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  As early as 1937, Chinese intelligence learned that Japan planned to install a puppet Hui Muslim regime around Suiyuan and Ningxia. The government sent agents into the region to track the plan. The following year, the Middlesboro Daily News ran an article by the writer Owen Lattimore on Japan's planned offensive into the Muslim region. It predicted the Japanese would suffer a crushing defeat.

  Japan did move to invade Ningxia from Suiyuan in 1939, aiming to install that Hui Muslim puppet state. In 1940 the Kuomintang Muslim general Ma Hongbin defeated the Japanese instead, and the plan collapsed. His Hui Muslim troops then carried the fight further in the Battle of West Suiyuan.

  At the Battle of Wulan Obo in April, 300 Mongol collaborators serving the Japanese in Suiyuan were fought off by a single Muslim officer. He held the rank of major.

  Generals Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin defended western Suiyuan through 1940, especially around Wuyuan. Ma Hongbin's own 81st Corps took heavy casualties in the fighting but ultimately repulsed and defeated the Japanese.

  Japan leaned hard on chemical weapons throughout the war to offset its shortage of manpower. China held no poison gas stockpile of its own to answer with. It used gas specifically against Chinese Muslim armies at the Battle of Wuyuan and the Battle of West Suiyuan.

  Those gas attacks in Suiyuan were part of a larger pattern. Chinese and Japanese reports of the same battles, still to come in the campaign's ledgers, rarely agreed.

• 6. The Central China Standoff

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  The Chinese River North Army gained almost no ground in Central China. By the 23rd of December it had been pushed back behind the river, freeing Japanese 13th Division units to fight elsewhere.

  Japanese forces held the Chinese Right Flank Army in the Zhongxiang area. That was well short of its planned stop line, running from Xinshi through Songhe to Pingba. The Left Flank Army, also called the River East Army, was likewise contained far from its final objectives.

  The Southern Honan Army struck the Japanese 3rd Division north of Yingshan and Xishuanghe. It also sent a strong detachment to cut communication lines near Guangshui and Xinyang. Its main force aimed to seize Xinyang itself. Neither objective was reached, even with the 31st Army Group committed to the fight.

  Eastern Hupei guerrilla forces never advanced to the enemy's rear near Guangshui, Huayuan, and Hankow, as planned. Japan kept a free hand to move troops along the railway to meet other attacks.

  One clear Chinese success came at Kaifeng. After two weeks of fighting, Chinese forces liberated the city on the 16th of December, capturing a substantial amount of Japanese equipment. They were soon pushed out again.

  The regimental history of the Japanese 13th Division's 65th Infantry Regiment records combat deaths as high as 303 during the Winter Offensive. The regiment received 1,558 replacement soldiers between early February and early April of 1940 to cover its losses.

  The next front lay further south in Guangdong, where the fighting would leave behind the offensive's most detailed and most contradictory casualty tallies.

• 7. The Guangdong Push

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  On the 1st of January, the 54th Corps routed a Japanese force coming from Longxian and recaptured the town itself the next day. Guandu fell on the 4th and Qingtang on the 5th. The retreating Japanese fell back to Shatian while the 54th Corps pushed on southwest to Shijiao.

  On the 3rd of January the 2nd Provisional Corps laid siege to Yingde, took it on the 5th, and pressed on toward Lianjiangkou. Fleeing Japanese remnants took Qingcheng, on the north bank of the Lian River. There they linked up with Japanese forces across the water to the south.

  Portions of the 64th Corps and 2nd Provisional Corps recovered Qingcheng on the 10th of January. The next day the 14th Division of the 54th Corps retook Pajiangkou, while Conghua fell to a detachment of the 35th Army Group. Yuantan, on the Guangzhou-Hankou railway, fell the day after that, and Yinzhan'ao fell on the 16th.

  The main force of the 35th Army Group moved along the west bank of the Bei River near Zhaoqing. The 54th Corps and part of the 12th Army Group took up positions at Hengshi, Liangkou, Lutian, and Meikang.

  The 4th War Area reported more than 10,300 enemy killed, along with 100 captured rifles and a large haul of supplies. Chinese forces suffered 6,564 killed, 4,595 wounded, and 2,828 missing in the First Battle of Northern Guangdong. The fighting ran from the 17th of December 1939 to the 10th of January 1940. Chinese troops claimed to have captured just one Japanese officer and one soldier.

  The Japanese 21st Army told a very different story. It reported only 293 killed and 1,281 wounded in what it called the Wengyuan-Yingde operation, fought from mid to late December 1939. At the same time, it claimed to have killed 16,312 Chinese troops and captured 1,196 more.

  The 18th Division, not counting its 56th Infantry Regiment, lost 62 killed, 162 wounded, and 1 missing in the Wengyuan-Yingde operation, Japanese unit reports show. That fighting ran from the 14th of December 1939 to the 10th of January 1940. That 56th Infantry Regiment itself lost 3 killed and 1 wounded between the 23rd and the 31st of December. The 104th Division suffered 302 killed and 735 wounded between the 20th of November 1939 and the 13th of January 1940. The Guards Mixed Brigade lost 106 killed, 221 wounded, and 20 missing between the 16th of December 1939 and the 4th of January 1940.

  Despite the narrow frontage, Japan drew on reinforcements sent from Central China to shift its forces and relieve pressure on its position in South Guangxi.