Chinese resistance forces regroup during war with Japan
May 27, 1938 - Chinese Resistance Forces Regroup During War With Japan
On May 27, 1938, you're looking at one of China's most remarkable military recoveries. After Japan seized Xuzhou — a critical rail junction connecting China's entire transportation network — Chinese forces didn't collapse. Instead, Li Zongren evacuated roughly 200,000–300,000 troops across four columns, using night movements and a sandstorm to slip through Japanese lines. Those survivors regrouped in the Dabie Mountains and became the backbone of Wuhan's defense. There's much more to this story than a simple retreat.
Key Takeaways
- After Xuzhou's fall, roughly 200,000–300,000 Chinese troops evacuated successfully across approximately 40 divisions, preserving combat strength for future operations.
- Retreating forces split into four columns, moving west toward the Dabie Mountains using night movements, wheat field concealment, and sandstorm cover.
- By May 21, most forces had escaped Japanese encirclement, though approximately 30,000 troops were captured during the withdrawal.
- Survivors regrouped in the Dabie Mountains under generals Sun Lien-chung, Tang En-bo, and Liao Lei, preparing for Wuhan's defense.
- Xuzhou survivors were integrated into the Fifth and Ninth War Zones, contributing roughly half of Wuhan's eventual 800,000-strong defensive force.
China's Strategic Exposure When Xuzhou Fell
When Xuzhou fell to Japanese forces in May 1938, China's entire central rail network collapsed like a pulled thread. You'd understand why once you saw the map. Xuzhou sat at the midpoint of the JinPu railway, connecting north and south through central China. It also intersected the Longhai line running east to west from Lanzhou to Lianyungang.
Japan's seizure created an immediate rail vulnerability that Chiang Kai-shek couldn't ignore. Controlling both lines meant Japan now dictated troop movement across the country's heartland. The resulting logistics collapse severed China's ability to transport soldiers through the central region efficiently.
What looked like one city's loss was actually the unraveling of China's entire strategic transportation backbone. Despite the fall of Xuzhou, Li Zongren successfully extracted approximately 200,000–300,000 troops through night movements and concealment, preserving the bulk of Chinese forces for the coming Defense of Wuhan. This withdrawal was made possible in part because Li Zongren's earlier victory at Taierzhuang had demonstrated the value of concentrated defensive resistance, buying critical time against Japanese advances along the same rail corridors. Much like Canada's rapid mobilization of the First Contingent within six weeks demonstrated how speed and logistical coordination could determine a military force's long-term viability, China's ability to preserve its forces through organized withdrawal reflected the same principle of prioritizing manpower over territory.
The Taierzhuang Victory That Set Up the Withdrawal
Before Japan could fully exploit Xuzhou's fall, China delivered a stunning blow that briefly reversed the war's momentum. At Taierzhuang, over 100,000 Chinese troops met roughly 70,000 Japanese soldiers in brutal urban combat where cramped city streets neutralized Japan's artillery and tank advantages.
You'd see Chinese defenders exploit every tactical edge available. They maintained supply lines while systematically disrupting Japanese resupply, cut off reinforcements, and infiltrated enemy rear areas. By April 7, Japan's 5th and 10th Divisions were bled dry. Much like the Halifax Explosion inquiry of 1918, which assigned sole blame to one party amid public controversy, the question of accountability for wartime atrocities sparked intense legal and social debate.
The victory delivered an incalculable morale boost to both military and civilian populations. Li Zongren called it "the first happy occasion since the war of resistance had started." Yet despite this triumph, Xuzhou's strategic position remained ultimately untenable. In desperation, Japanese forces even deployed poison gas in a final attempt to dislodge the stubborn Chinese defenders from their positions.
Taierzhuang sat on the eastern bank of the Grand Canal and served as a critical frontier garrison northeast of Xuzhou, which itself functioned as the vital junction of the Jinpu and Longhai railways.
How Li Zongren Executed the Xuzhou Evacuation?
Despite the Taierzhuang victory, Chiang Kai-shek recognized Xuzhou's position had become untenable once Japanese forces cut off the Long-Hai railway and threatened to complete a full encirclement via amphibious landings at Lianyungang. He authorized Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, and Tang Enbo to execute an immediate withdrawal prioritizing the preservation of 200,000-300,000 troops across 40 divisions.
Li Zongren launched the evacuation on May 15, employing night withdrawals and concealment tactics to protect retreating forces. Soldiers moved south and west after dark, hiding in wheat fields during daylight. A sandstorm on May 18 further masked their movement. Troops reorganized into four groups, regrouping west toward the Dabeishan Mountains. Years later, Li Zongren would again face the burden of leadership when he became acting president of the Nationalist government, though he lacked a real power base and his only practical option was accommodation with the Communists.
The Four-Group Split That Saved Xuzhou's Army
The evacuation's success hinged not just on darkness and sandstorms, but on a deliberate structural decision: splitting the retreating force into four distinct columns. You'd see generals Sun Lien-chung, Tang En-bo, and Liao Lei each commanding separate routes, using terrain deception to exploit gaps in Japan's rear lines.
Night maneuvers kept the columns moving south and west, targeting the Dabeishan Mountains for eventual Wuhan defense. Tang En-bo's 20th Corps, Sun's 2nd Group Army, and supporting cavalry units dispersed into the countryside, making encirclement nearly impossible. The strategy worked. By May 21, most forces had escaped, though Japan captured 30,000 left behind. These four groups ultimately preserved roughly 100,000 men—half of China's future Wuhan defenders. The sick and badly wounded were transported in the march's center on litters carried by donkeys, shielding the most vulnerable from the chaos of the column's edges.
Japanese air power over the region was not idle during this period, as the 13th Kōkūtai, a predominantly land attack unit equipped with Mitsubishi G3M bombers, operated from Shanghai beginning April 1938, posing a sustained aerial threat to withdrawing Chinese columns. The 59th Army, commanded by Chang Tse-chung and assigned to the 1st War Area from January 1938, formed part of the Chinese ground forces entrenched in the broader Xuzhou defense alongside artillery brigades and regiments positioned throughout the theater.
Which Chinese Units Regrouped in the Dabeishan Mountains?
As the four evacuation columns fell back from Xuzhou, they'd converge on the Dabeishan Mountains—a region with deep roots in Chinese resistance. You'd find this area had already forged hardened fighters. The Red Fourth Front Army once expanded here to nearly 30,000 soldiers before Nationalist encirclement campaigns shattered its strength in 1932.
Those who survived didn't disappear. By 1937, remaining forces regrouped as a New Fourth Army detachment, operating under the CPC-KMT agreement to resist Japanese invaders. This arrangement transformed the mountains from a Soviet defense stronghold into a united front operating base.
The retreating Xuzhou columns would now enter terrain that generations of Chinese fighters had already bled for—ground that knew how to shelter resistance and sustain it. The mountains had first proven their value as a resistance sanctuary after the Huangan-Macheng Uprising of November 1927 established the region's earliest revolutionary base. Years later, Communist forces deploying over 30,000 troops would conduct operations across this same rugged terrain to eradicate remaining Nationalist guerrilla holdouts in the Dabie Mountain region.
How Xuzhou's Survivors Shaped the Defense of Wuhan?
Those mountains sheltered more than survivors—they sheltered the seed of China's next stand. You'd see this clearly in how troop reconstitution worked after May 21. Nearly 200,000–300,000 soldiers who'd slipped through Japanese lines became roughly 50% of the force defending Wuhan across five provinces.
Their logistical integration into the Fifth and Ninth War Zones gave Chiang Kai-shek over one million National Revolutionary Army troops, buying four and a half months of resistance. Taierzhuang had already proven these men could win. At Wuhan, that confidence held the line at Tianjiazhen, pushed back Japanese forces at Huangmei, and forced Japan to use poison gas just to advance. The Xuzhou escape didn't end the fight—it relocated it. The Chinese defense was organized around the Dabie Mountains, Poyang Lake, and the Yangtze River, anchoring roughly 120 divisions into a layered defensive structure designed to bleed Japan's momentum at every turn. The campaign that followed would involve roughly 400,000 Japanese and some 800,000 Chinese troops contesting control of one of China's most strategically vital regions.