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Armies - History

The army was a relatively large and commonly used combat unit in the past. It was generally composed of three infantry divisions with a maximum of 30,000 people. On the Soviet and German battlefields, the 6th Army of the German Army, headed by General Admiral Paulus, was full of up to 330,000 people. It was a very large German battle unit, but in the end it was defeated. In Stalingrad.

After World War II, the Soviet Standard Combined Army had 3 infantry divisions and 1 tank division with a total of 70,000 people; the French Army had 3 armies with a total of 10 divisions with a total of 128,000 people. And the US Army had worked according to the standards of the 1980s. It had three Armies and 12 divisions, plus more than 920 units of various support forces, with a total strength of nearly 500,000.

During the Republic of China, there was an army combat establishment. At the time of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek served as the commander-in-chief of the Northern Expedition. He had 8 Armies with full capacity, namely the 1st Army, 2nd Army, 3rd Army, and 4th Army, 5th Army, 6th Army, 7th Army, and 8th Army, a total of more than 100,000 people.

In April 1928, Zhu De and Chen Yi led the troops retained by the Nanchang Uprising and the Xiangnan Uprising Agricultural Army to Jinggangshan, and joined with the Mao Zedong's Autumn Harvest Uprising Army on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi to co-edit the Fourth Army of the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army (later renamed the Red Army Fourth Army), this is the first time the army uses the designation of "army".

During the Agrarian Revolutionary War, because the Red Army did not have a unified establishment, the designations were also chaotic and often repeated. There have been 2 Red 1 Army (Red 1 Army in the border area of ??Hubei, Henan and Anhui and Red 1 Army of the Central Red Army), 3 Red 3 Army (Red 3 Army in the Central Soviet Area, Red 3 Army in the Western Jiangsu, Hubei and Hubei Province, Central The Red 3rd Army of the Red Army), 3 Red 8th Army (Red 8th Army in Zuojiang Region, Red 8th Army in Southeast Hubei, Red 8th Army in Xianggan Region), etc. According to the statistics of the "Military History of the Chinese People's Liberation Army" in the "Chinese Military Encyclopedia", the Red Army in each base and the Soviet Union has successively formed 66 troops of varying sizes.

Thus the Chinese built their Army up by dividing each successive higher echelon by three — three regiments to a division, three divisions to an army, and three armies to a group army. China had about 3,819,000 men under arms. Of these, 2,919,000 were formed into 246 divisions classed by the Chinese as "front-line" troops, plus 44 "brigades" (a term loosely applied to men organized on military lines). In rear areas were another 70 divisions plus 3 brigades, or 900,000 more. Except for the Generalissimo's personal troops, estimated at about 30 divisions, the loyalties of China's troops lay with their war area commanders.

During the War of Resistance Against Japan, the group army had two different forms, and their strengths were different. One was a group army composed of several divisions, such as the 18th Army during the War of Resistance Against Japan, with the 115th Division, the 120th Division, and the 129th Division. Commander General Zhu De (awarded by the Military Commission), with an initial strength of 45,000. The second was a group army composed of several military forces. The Communist's 33rd Army under the command of the Fifth Theater, the commander-in-chief was Zhang Zizhong, the general of the Army, and the 55th, 59th, and 77th Army. Each army had about 100,000 troops.

During World War II, the nomenclature of units in the Chinese Army resembled the Japanese system rather than the American. The Chinese used the now familiar triangular (three-regiment) division, but had no army corps. Instead, they had armies, each consisting of three divisions plus army troops. Three Chinese "armies" in turn made a "group army," which was analogous to the American army.

In 1948, the overall situation of national-scale strategic offensives in the Liberation War had been formed. In order to meet the needs of large-scale operations across strategic areas, the entire army implemented unified reorganization.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held an enlarged meeting of the Politburo (also known as the "September Meeting") in Xibaipo, Pingshan County, Hebei Province, from September 8 to 13, 1948. According to Chairman Mao Zedong ’s general goal of “transition from guerrilla warfare to regular warfare, build 5 million troops, annihilate the enemy ’s 500 brigades, and fundamentally defeat the KMT in about five years”, the meeting discussed and adopted The "Military Plan for the Third Year of the Liberation War" drafted by Zhou Enlai, deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission and acting chief of general staff, proposed: "With the goal of building an army of 5 million, we will use three infantry columns and 168 brigades in three years' time." 'Increase to '70 infantry columns, 210 infantry divisions or brigades' instructions. "

On October 29, 1948, Wu Huawen of the Kuomintang Army of the Jinan Uprising and the Lu Zhongnan Column of the East China Field Army were named the 35th Army of the People's Liberation Army. This was the earliest army established by our army. The first batch of Group Armies to be integrated according to the Central Military Commission ’s command for the unification of the whole army and the army ’s command were the 1st to 12th columns of the Northeast Field Army, which were renamed the 38th to 49th Army of the Chinese People ’s Liberation Army in sequence on November 13, 1948.

On November 1, 1948, the Central Military Commission issued the "Regulations on the Organization and Troop Numbers of the Whole Army", which began to divide the field army into Northwest Field Army, Central Plains Field Army, East China Field Army, Northeast Field Army by geographical name, and a unified system was implemented within the army, and the number of generals (columns) was increased from 55 to 70 at that time, and the vacancies were left for future establishment. The specific order is: the northwestern formed army is numbered 1st to 7th army; the Central Plains formed army is numbered 10th to 17th army; the East China formed army is numbered 20th to 35th army; the northeast formed army is numbered first 38th to 56th Army; the designation of the North China Army is the 60th to 70th Army.

The "Regulations on the Organization and the Number of Armed Forces", which stipulates: the field troops shall be formally established and unified in designation, the column shall be changed to army, and divisions and brigades shall be unified in divisions. The "Regulations" also pointed out: "The number of the number is 70 Group Armies and 210 divisions, with a hollow inside, which will be reserved for the establishment of new Group Armies and divisions in the future."

In January 1949, the Central Military Commission issued the "Orders of the Order of the Orders of the Field Army Numbers", which renamed the Northwest Field Army, the Central Plains Field Army, the East China Field Army, and the Northeast Field Army in sequence as the first, second, third, and fourth field Group Armies, and belonged to each field column Arranged in the unified order of the whole army. From the end of 1948 to the beginning of 1949, the People's Liberation Army was reorganized in accordance with the Central Military Commission's order to unify the establishment of the entire army and the designation of the Group Armies, and a total of 58 Group Armies were organized.

In view of the rapid changes in the battlefields across the country, in January 1949, the Central Military Commission reorganized the army ’s field troops into 4 field troops, 16 regiments, and 51 regiments in order of number. Each army administers three infantry divisions, nine infantry regiments, and varying numbers of artillery, engineering, and communications troops.

The Northwest Field Army was renamed the First Field Army on February 1, 1949, under its jurisdiction of 2 corps and 7 troops: the original 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 columns were renamed to 1, 2, 3, 4 , 6, 7, 8 army. The Central Plains Field Army was renamed the Second Field Army on February 5, 1949. There were 9 troops under 3 regiments: 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th. The East China Field Army changed its name to the Third Field Army on February 9, 1949, and has 15 troops under 4 regiments: 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, and 33th , 34, 35 army.

The Northeast Field Army was renamed the Fourth Field Army on March 11, 1949. It has 12 troops under 2 regiments: 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st, 42, 43th, 44th, 45th, 46th, 47th, 48th, and 49th. The North China Military Region administers 3 armies and 9 armies: 60th, 61st, 62th, 63th, 64th, 65th, 66th, 67th, and 68th. In addition, although the 32nd, 50th, 58th, 69th, and 70th Corps were subsequently awarded the army designation, most of them were not in the field army's establishment sequence and did not exist for long periods except the 50th Army. Since the 8th Army under the jurisdiction of the First Field Army was ordered to reorganize and reorganize into the Suiyuan Military Region during the reorganization process, after this round of reorganization, the field forces of the Chinese People's Liberation Army have 16 troops, 51 troops and 2.18 million people.

In March 1949, the 69th Army under the North China Military Region was withdrawn. This was the first army to be withdrawn in the history of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. With the 8th, 58th and 70th Army also revoked the designation, while the 19th and 51st Army established at the same time was established and placed under the field army sequence. After the reorganization of the 1st and 2nd Army of the Northwest Military Region, which was adapted from the Kuomintang Uprising Force, was placed in the Northwest Military Region, as of October 1, 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was established, there were 61 infantry armies.

On October 1, 1950, the People ’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People ’s Government promulgated the “Provisional Table of Defence Army Army Forces”, which made it clear that the “National Defense Forces take the army as the command unit and implement the “three-three system establishment”; Division, a direct battalion, five direct companies, and a teaching brigade totaling 36,440 people (not including the field howitzer regiment assigned during the operation), including 5,353 cadres, 24,576 combatants, and 6,511 non-combatants.

In the streamlined compilation at this stage, the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19, 25, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 A total of 35 troops of the 44th, 45th, 48th, 49th, 51st, 52th, 53rd, 61st, 62th and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd independent military units of the Northwest Military Region were revoked (in which the 11th and 49th army was revoked twice) , The regiment number was also revoked. The personnel must either be transferred to the sea, air, and public security forces collectively, or be converted into a military area, or they should be transferred collectively to a construction corps and go to the local area for economic construction.

As of the end of 1952, of the 70 army numbers originally planned to be formed by our army, except for the 56th, 57th, and 59th army numbers, which were not officially granted, the rest of the numbers had all appeared. Counting the independent 1st, 2nd and 3rd army of the Northwest Military Region, 70 armies had already appeared in the history of the People's Liberation Army.

The 54th Army under the Jinan Military Region is the oldest army in the history of the People's Liberation Army Army. In October 1952, the 45th Army Headquarters and the 134th Division (owing 1 regiment), 135th Division were combined with the 44th Army 130th Division, 131st Division 391th Regiment as the 54th Army. It is said that the 54th Army has the longest history because it has a Red Army division, and its predecessor can be traced back to the "Iron Army" of the Northern Expedition-Ye Ting Independent Regiment. When the 54th Army was established that year, both the 44th and 45th Army wanted to keep their names, and they could not dispute for a while. In the end, I came up with a solution that bested the best of both worlds, taking a number 4 and 5 from the designations of the two armies and forming a new number-54. So there was the 54th Army.

There were 3 Army from the establishment to the revocation of less than 3 months, becoming the army with the shortest time in the history of the People's Liberation Army (excluding the Red Army during the Land Revolution War). They are: The 8th Army, established in mid-March 1949, merged with the Suimeng Military Region on May 29 into the Suiyuan Military Region, and the number was revoked. The 69th Army, established in January 1949, was revoked in March, and its troops were reorganized into the 205th and 206th Divisions of the North China Military Region in April. The 1st Army of the Northwest Independence Army was established in mid-September 1949, and was revoked in late November. Its troops were downsized into the 1st Division of the Northwest Military Region.

In the Chinese Revolutionary War, troops in various theaters coulc take advantage of combat gaps for rest and replenishment and insist on long-term combat. However, on the North Korean battlefield, there was a disparity between the American and Chinese weapons and equipment. And the weaker supply and support capabilities of the People's Volunteers meant that the combat troops could only carry their own supplies. Generally, the offensive operations can only last for 7 to 10 days. The US military said that the volunteers “ worship the offensive". In response to the weakness of the Volunteers, the US military took advantage of the fast maneuverability of its superior weapons and equipment, and adopted a "magnetic tactic" against the Volunteers. When the Volunteers attacked, the Americans retreated quickly, and when the Volunteers stopped their preparations for relocation, the Americans counterattacked quickly.

In order to solve the problem of recuperation and replenishment of the Volunteer Army and maintain the strength of the battlefield to maintain long-term combat, in early February 1951, Mao Zedong decided to "take turns in combat in North Korea", and entrusted Zhou Enlai to formulate the Central Military Commission response. The plan was for the battle by turns, with 21 armies taking turns, and takign time to recuperate. Every time 9 to 10 battles were fought, the troops would be retired after about two months of combat. They will be replaced by the next combat troops.

The Korean truce negotiations began, and the rotary combat plan was not implemented, but most of the planned third round of combat troops entered the Korean war. Beginning in September 1952, with the approval of Mao Zedong, with the main purpose of training the troops, the Chinese troops were rotated in batches of volunteer troops. Until the truce of North Korea, the two batches of 7 Armies were rotated. Rotating operations were a creation of Mao Zedong's use of troops. The implementation of this policy not only solved the problem of recuperating the battlefield of the Volunteers, but also maintained the superior strength of continuous operations, and also trained the troops.

As Mao Zedong pointed out: "The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea is a big school, and we practice big exercises there. This exercise is better than running a military school."

After continuous adjustments, there have been 70 army designations, of which only three designations 56, 57, 59 were not used. This is the origin of the 70 army names in the history of the PLA. It should be pointed out that the designation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Army has never reached 70 military numbers, and the designation of 70 military forces has never existed at the same time. Actually, there were 67 field army numbers in military history, but according to the number, the last army number was the 70th army.

Since May 1949, many units of the Chinese People's Liberation Army have been reorganized and the designation has been revoked. Due to the needs of war, some military forces were reorganized into military region Group Armies; due to the need for regularization, they were reorganized into air force, navy, and artillery Group Armies; due to the need for peacebuilding, they were reorganized into production and construction corps, railway soldiers, and public security forces. In May 1950, the size of the PLA army was reduced to 60 Group Armies, in September it was reduced to 57 Group Armies, and in November it was already 53 Group Armies.

Between 1952 and 1961, there were three large-scale streamlining and reorganizations of the PLA. Retain 31 army troops and revoke the designations of 35 army troops (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19, 22, 25, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 61, 62 Army, Northwest Independence Army 1, 2, 3), of which the 11th Army and 49th Army Was undone twice. In addition, the 15th Army allocated the Air Force to the 15th Airborne Army. Among these abolished troops, some were transferred to local areas for economic construction, some were transferred to the navy and air force, and some were changed to local military areas.

During the "Cultural Revolution", the People's Liberation Army restored the designation of the five armies, namely the eleventh, seventeenth, nineteenth, twenty-ninth, and forty-third armies, plus the previous 31 armies, for a total of 36 armies. Among them, 6 troops in the Shenyang Military Region (16th, 23rd, 39th, 40th, 46th, and 64th Military), 8 troops in the Beijing Military Region (24th, 27th, 28th, 38th, 63th, 65th, 66th, and 69th Military), and Lanzhou Military Region Army (19th, 21st, 47th Army), Wuhan Military Region 4 Army (1st, 17th, 43th, 54th Army), Jinan Military Region 3 Army (26th, 67th, 68th Army), Nanjing Military Region 3 ( 12th, 20th, 60th Army), 2 Fuzhou Military Region (29th, 31st Army), Guangzhou Military Region 3 Army (41st, 42nd, 55th Army), Kunming Military Region 2 Army (11th, 14th Army), 2 military forces (13th and 50th military forces) in the Chengdu Military Region. In February 1973, the 17th Army withdrew the designation, and the number of Armies was reduced to 35.