Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

The Hundred Regiments Campaign was a large-scale offensive and counter-mopping-up campaign launched by the Eighth Route Army behind enemy lines in North China during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Because 105 regiments[1-2] participated in the campaign, it was thus called the "Hundred Regiments Campaign." The Hundred Regiments Campaign was the largest and longest-running campaign launched by the Eighth Route Army in North China during the stalemate phase of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

百团大战分为3个阶段。1940年8月20日至1940年9月10日为第一阶段，中心任务是摧毁正太路交通。1940年9月22日至1940年10月上旬为第二阶段，主要任务是继续破坏日军的交通线，并摧毁日军深入抗日根据地的主要据点。1940年10月上旬到1941年1月24日为第三阶段，主要任务是反击日军的报复性“扫荡”。

According to statistics from the Eighth Route Army Headquarters on December 10, 1940, during the first three and a half months of the Hundred Regiments Campaign alone, a total of 1824 battles of varying sizes were fought, which dealt a heavy blow to the reactionary arrogance of the Japanese and puppet troops, effectively coordinated with the Kuomintang army's frontal operations, and greatly boosted the confidence of the entire country in the war of resistance.

On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and suddenly attacked Norway. After repelling the Anglo-French expeditionary forces, Germany occupied all of Norway on June 10. On May 10, German forces invaded Western Europe. On May 15, May 28, and June 22, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France surrendered. British forces withdrew from continental Europe, leaving Britain under serious threat of invasion. The war situation in Europe fueled Japan's desire to quickly subjugate China in order to further its struggle for hegemony in Asia and the Pacific. On May 10, the Japanese Army Ministry formulated the "Strategy for Dealing with the Chinese Issue with Targets in Showa 15 and 16," which was formally adopted at a meeting of Army Ministry and Department Heads on May 18. The key points of the document were to further unify and strengthen political, strategic, and tactical strategies by the end of 1940 in order to force the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-shek to surrender.

In accordance with this strategy, the Japanese army focused on politically inducing the Nationalist government to surrender, placing great hopes on the "Tong Operation" then being secretly conducted with the Kuomintang in Hong Kong. To support this, Japan further intensified its blockade and military pressure on China. To sever international transportation routes from southwestern China, Japan capitalized on the weakening of Britain and France in Asia after their severe defeat in the European War, exerting further pressure on them, threatening them with blockades of international transportation routes between China and Burma and China and Vietnam. On June 20, France agreed to a complete blockade of the Sino-Vietnamese border and permitted Japanese military personnel to enter Vietnam to monitor the embargo on China. On July 12, Britain notified Japan of its agreement to close the Burma Road and, on the 16th, officially announced a three-month ban on the transport of arms, ammunition, gasoline, trucks, and railway materials through Burma to China, effective July 18. Hong Kong was also placed under a similar embargo. The appeasement policies of Britain and France reduced China's arms imports by approximately 51%, despite the difficulties faced in the war.

Since the winter of 1939, the Japanese army has implemented a "cage policy" of "using railways as pillars, roads as chains, and bunkers as locks." The Zhengtai Railway was one of the important pillars for the Japanese army to implement this policy. The Japanese army built strong strongholds near towns, stations, bridges, and tunnels along the railway, each with dozens to hundreds of troops guarding it, and sent armored trains for patrol. A line of peripheral strongholds was built at key points 10 to 15 kilometers on both sides of the railway.[8] The Japanese army called the Zhengtai Railway an "inaccessible" area, using it to cut off the connection between the Taihang Anti-Japanese Base Area where the Eighth Route Army Headquarters and the 129th Division were active and the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region, and used it as a support to attack the anti-Japanese base area.

From the end of 1939 to the spring of 1940, the Kuomintang provoked the first anti-communist climax in North China and launched a large-scale military offensive against the Shanxi New Army and the Eighth Route Army[9]. This gave the Japanese army an opportunity to implement its "cage policy", causing serious difficulties for the anti-Japanese base areas.[4]

The Japanese invaders in the Zaoyi Campaign

Against this backdrop, in the spring of 1940, Peng Dehuai, Zuo Quan, Liu Bocheng, and Deng Xiaoping, along with Nie Rongzhen, who had visited the Eighth Route Army headquarters in the Taihang Mountains, discussed and decided to attack the Zhengtai Railway. On May 1, 1940, the Japanese launched the Zaoyi Campaign, the largest since the Battle of Wuhan, and launched the Liangkou Operation in Guangdong, attempting to increase military pressure on the Chinese government. During the Zaoyi Operation, the Japanese army initially intended to occupy Yichang for a long time, but inspired by the German capture of the French capital, Paris, on June 14, they changed their minds and decided to occupy Yichang in order to directly threaten Chongqing and undermine the Nationalist government's resolve to resist the Japanese invasion. Using Yichang as a base, the Japanese air force escalated the strategic bombing campaign against the rear area that had begun on May 18.