The Source And Evolution Of Weapon Equipment In Northeast China (1945.8-1948.8)

After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, troops of more than a hundred thousand poorly equipped or even bare handed CPC’s soldiers hurried from inland to north-eastern China. Nobody expected that just three years later, the growing northeast army of CPC would have been able to seize Jinzhou in 31 hours with more than 900 canons. What an amazing transform! But where on earth did the army got the guns and canons. And how did the army’s weapons transformed to sophisticated from inferior step by step? As far as sources, former researches either emphasized the assistance from the Soviet Union,or war production and battlefield captures. In fact, all three are major weapons sources for the army and they played different roles during different phases, making significant contribution to the northeast lieberation war, even to the whole liberation war.If we analyze the historical process, we can find that when the army firstly stepped into the northeast the assistance provided by the Soviet Union were critical to the improvement of weapons and equipment, which give the army the basic capability to grow and expand. Later, with the using up of ammunition, war production met the urgent need of ammunition. As for battlefield captures, it has always play an important role especially in the middle and later period in which the army won a series of triumph. That is a vivid description on the shift of the weapons and equipment condition of the northeast army of CPC, and also reflects the fact that the CPC’s armies were becoming stronger while the Kuomintang’s armies were becoming weaker during the northest liberation war.The paper has five parts:The first part is an introduction that introduces the significance of the topic, the current situation of research, relevant materials and research methods.The second part mainly discussed details about the weapons and equipment assistance from the Soviet Union. Firstly, the essay made a textual research, sorting out the real situation of weapons and equipment assistance from the Soviet Union before the northest truce in June 1946. Secondly, the essay also analysed another large scale assistance of weapons and equipment from the Soviet Union since the summer in 1947. In addition, the essay also analyzed some of Yang Kuisong and Liu Tong’s ideas on Soviet Union’s assistance.The third part mainly wrote about the developing situation of CPC’s military industry in north-eastern China. Firstly, the essay introduced how CPC established the northest military industry department that collected equipments and machines, built munition factories and stored ammunition from October 1945 to July 1946. Then, the essay explained how these munition factories started steady production and began to expand from July 1946 to October 1947. After that, the essay disscussed the situation that how CPC gradually integrated the military industry in the area and put them under centuralized management, supplying ammunition and weapons for the army in large quantities from October 1947 to September 1948.In the fourth part of the paper, the situation that how the northeast army of CPC acquired weapons and ammunition by combating was mainly disscussed. Firstly, the essay respectively discussed the situation of wear and tear and capture weapons of the CPC’s armies combated Kuomintang’s armies and bandits before the northeast turce in June 1946. Then, the situation of battlefield capture in the strategic defensive period was introduced. After that, the essay analysed the weapon acquization situation during the three major offensives of CPC’s northeast army from May 1947 to March 1948.The fifth part is the conclusion part. The part integrated the previous parts, analyzing the sources and the evolving process of weapons and equipment of the northeast of CPC, and also revealed that army provided weapons for other CPC’s armies. Which lead to the conclusion that the victory of the liberation war was partly due to the improvement of weapons and equipment.Through sorting out and textual researching historical facts, the essay tried hard to show the evolving process of weapons of the northeast army of CPC, from millet plus rifles to well equipped and armed. Thus having a better understanding of the weapons status of CPC’s armies during the whole liberation war and highlighting the importance of weapons for liberation war. But due to the limitation of the writer’s ability and deficiencies in the historical material, the essay may fail to provide a thorough analysis of the topic, merely showing parts of the entire situation.