New Fourth Army
신4군
The National Revolutionary Army formation created during the war with Japan, under the second united front, from the Red Army guerrillas left behind in eight southern provinces after the Long March. Founded at Hankou on 25 December 1937 with Ye Ting as commander and Xiang Ying as deputy, it operated on the lower Yangtze and the Huai. Nominally under the Nationalist government, it was commanded by the Communist Party. After its headquarters was destroyed in the Wannan incident of 1941 it was rebuilt under Chen Yi as acting commander, and in January 1947 it was merged into the East China Field Army.
In depth
In April 1938 it had 10,329 direct troops in four detachments. At first it concentrated on moving into southern Anhui and southern Jiangsu, building bases and recruiting; in 1940 it pushed into northern Jiangsu and defeated Nationalist forces at Huangqiao, sharpening friction with the Kuomintang. In the Wannan incident of January 1941 it lost most of its headquarters column of some nine thousand men, its commander Ye Ting was detained and Chiang cancelled its designation.
On 20 January the Communists re-established its headquarters in Jiangsu with Chen Yi as acting commander and Liu Shaoqi as political commissar, and the army was reorganised into seven divisions of over 90,000 men. By July 1945 it had grown to some 215,000 direct troops, 97,000 local forces and 960,000 militia. When civil war resumed in 1946 Su Yu’s troops won a string of victories in central Jiangsu, and in January 1947 the New Fourth Army and the Shandong Military Region were merged into the East China Field Army.