CHAPTER III
BIRTH OF AN ARMY
刘伯承还是选择了最后这条路。
我想把这一点再强调一下。刘伯承违背了军事常规，并没有把他的军队集中起来，而是将他们分而散之。刘将军自毁一二九师（不是自毁又是什么呢？）正是揭示了共产党兵法的奇特之处。不仅是刘将军，而且共产党其他军事指挥员也都是这样做的。历史上有无数人民起义和游击战争的先例，然而，本来是一支完整的军队的司令员，竟故意拆散自己的军队，这在历史上倒是罕见的。倘若刘伯承将军，或者共军其他将领，因此打了败仗，他们的这种策略就很可能被视为是疯狂的行为。但刘伯承将军的这一决策，却是经过深思熟虑和反复权衡利弊之后才作出的。他将他的军队的成败，抗战的前途，乃至个人的生命，都系于分兵以发动群众这一决策之上。他深知必须用这种办法把抗战散播开去，生死存亡，在此一举。他所采取的策略大大增加了胜利的机会。在当时的情况下，直接从正面迎战日军，完全是不切实际的幻想；而将部队分散开来，就使敌人根本找不着大的目标打。
如果换一支别的军队，也像这样分散于敌后，就根可能会丧失士气，归于瓦解。但刘伯承的部下却不是一般的兵。多年以前，当他们在各自的家乡举行暴动，反抗地主的压迫之时，这些以往的贫雇农便为当时的社会所不容。从此，他们逐渐习惯于自己决定如何行动。他们虽然容貌粗陋，却具有钢铁般的意志。当抗日战争爆发时，他们已是久经沙场的英雄好汉；在那内战的艰苦岁月里，在敌我力量悬殊的极不利的形势下，他们曾身经百战。现在，又把他们撒出去，远离上级的指导，让他们独立工作。
We wish to emphasize this point. Contrary to customary military procedure, Liu did not concentrate his army, but immediately dispersed it. General Liu's destruction (what else was it) of his 129th Division reveals, perhaps, the most remarkable fact about Communist tactics -
tactics practiced not only by Liu but by all other Communist commanders. History, indeed affords numerous examples of people's risings and of guerrilla warfare, but few examples of a commander of a cohesive armed force deliberately destroying its unity. Had Liu - or other Communist commanders - failed, their tactics might well have seemed acts of madness. Yet Liu's move was the fruit of deliberate calculation. He had set the fortunes of his army, the future of resistance, life itself, on his plan to get his troops among the people. There was no alternative in his mind, but to spread the war or perish. The measure he adopted greatly increased the chance of success. The idea of direct head-on resistance to the Japanese at this moment would have been chimerical. As it was, by scattering his troops, he deprived the Japanese of any large target.
Perhaps another army, split apart like this behind the enemy's lines, would have become demoralized and disintegrated. But these were no ordinary soldiers. Many years before when they had revolted against the landlords in their own villages, these former tenants had disinherited themselves from the protection of established society. They were used to acting on their own. Under their coarse covering they bore hearts as hard as ever beat in human bosoms. For they were already heroes, when the Japanese war started, veterans of many a hard-fought campaign in the civil war where the odds had been incalculably against them. Now, dispersed and far from their commander's watchful eye, they began to operate on their own.
队伍行进缓慢，沿途困难重重，多次被迫改变方向。内心的焦虑使他们无暇顾及外界的干扰，好在他们在当地老百姓那里并没有遇到什么麻烦。村里的老百姓看到愿意打日本的中国军队都很惊讶，他们过去所见到的中国军队每每一遇日本侵略军就逃之夭夭。
穿过遍地沙尘的河北原野，途经山东人口稠密的村庄和青翠的山峦，刘伯承部队的指战员们继续向前挺进。行军多日，来到了太平洋之滨，这里离开他们出发的地点，已有千里之遥。
沿途各处，他们留下了部分连、排、班的战土在当地组织游击战。每一个班都抽出一、二名战士，加入由农民、教员甚至爱国的地主组成的地方抗日武装。
Their march was slow and troublesome and many times they had to change direction. The anxiety of their minds, however, made them indifferent to outward annoyances; and they had none, fortunately, to encounter from the local population, for the villagers were amazed to see Chinese soldiers who wanted to fight the Japanese when all they had seen before were soldiers anxious to flee the invader.
Across dusty Hopei, into the crowded villages and green hills of Shantung, the soldiers of Liu and other Communist commanders continued on, marching for many days until they reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean several hundred miles from their starting point. Everywhere :behind them had been left companies, squads and platoons to organize guerrilla warfare. And out of every squad had come one or two soldiers to join the various bands that farmers, teachers and even patriotic landlords had raised to fight the Japanese.
通过分兵以扩大抗日战线，刘伯承获得的战果，远比直接击败日军一支劲旅要可观得多。因为即使他在正面交战中击败了日军，削弱了对方的战斗力，自己的队伍难免也会减员。而由于采取了上述策略，刘伯承的力量才能扩充到如此巨大的规模，这恐怕连他自己也料想不到吧。
这样的扩充之所以成为可能，首先，是由于日军总司令冈村将军的错误所致。他仅以共产党正规部队的兵力来衡量中国的抗日力量，他藐视游击战，认为那些小股地方武装，在既无外援又无根据地的情况下，在他的后方成不了什么大气候。然而在此期间，刘伯承将军的正规部队扩大了十五到二十倍，从区区六千人发展成为十万野战军。同时，地方武装也保持在十万人左右。用共产党的话来说，正规部队好比是骨干，游击队如同筋络，民兵就像是皮肉。三者结合起来，组成他们军事力量的整体。
Cordially embracing these professional companions in arms, the people
soon elevated Liu's erstwhile soldiers to staff positions in their various
bands. Even cooks and donkeymen from the old Red Army became company commanders
among people's units. The students of Po Yi-po followed where the soldiers
had led and before long became political directors in guerrilla organs.
By dispersing his forces and spreading the war Liu had gained a much
greater victory than if he had directly attacked and defeated a large
Japanese force. For even if he had defeated the Japanese in battle and
diminished their forces, he would at the same time have diminished his
own. But by adopting the strategy he did, Liu was able to expand to an
extent that even he had not thought likely.
Such an expansion was possible in the first place only because General Nakamura, Japanese commander in chief, made the mistake of estimating the strength of Chinese resistance on the number of Communist regulars, because he despised guerrilla warfare and because he did not believe the small people's bands could grow into a large force in his rear without supplies and a supply base. During this period the regular force under Liu multiplied fifteen to twenty times from six thousand men to a mobile force of one hundred thousand men. At the same time, local forces were maintained at one hundred thousand men. In Com munist terminology, the regulars were compared to bones, the guerrillas to tissue and the militia to flesh. All combined together to form the body of military force.
八路军和民兵牢牢控制了广大的华北农村。从山西省的同蒲铁路，到山东省的津浦铁路，如果乘马车或者步行，在历时一月之久的长途跋涉中，绕过日军占领的三大城市，只需三个半小时。位于华北的三条南北向的铁路，与两条东西向的铁路相互交织成十字状，而日军只能据守铁路沿线，因此共产党人风趣地说，日本鬼子被钉在十字架上了。日本兵轻易不敢出城下乡，来不及逃跑的国民党军队也不敢出动打日本人。国民党军队大部已撤退到黄河以南，剩下的残部这时都当了伪军。
在抗日武装发展壮大的同时，新的政权机构也在华北地区建立起来。正如许多地方武装产生的情况一样，这些政权机构也都是通过普选，由群众自己组织起来的。这些政权机构曾经一度隶属于蒋介石的国民政府，但有自己的一套税收和财政制度。在这一时期，实行了减租减息，但并未没收地主的土地，故仍然维持一种统一战线形式的政府。随着国民党统治的垮台，人们感到有必要在华北这一带建立一个更为统一集中的政府。一九四一年，从四个省选出的五百名代表，经过几个星期的长途跋涉，穿越日军封锁线，聚会于太行山区，成立了边区政府。边区政府建立了自己的法律、货币、税收制度，还设立了管辖一百多个县的行政机构。边区政府的建立，是根据地发展壮大的高峰。
So well did the regulars and militia control the North China country side that in a month's journey by cart and foot from the Tungpu Railway in Shansi to the Tsinpu Railway in Shantung, only three and a half hours were required to detour around three large cities held by the Japanese. Because the three north-south and two east-west railways of North China form a kind of cross and because the Japanese were confined to the railways, the Communists said the Japanese were nailed to the cross during this period. While the Japanese did not dare move out in the countryside, Kuomintang troops, left behind also, did not dare move out against the Japanese. So they either retreated south of the Yellow River or became puppets in this stage of the war.
Parallel with the development of the military organizations went a development of new government in North China. Like many of the armed bands, these governments had often been organized by the people themselves under conditions of universal election. For a while, they were part of Chiang Kai-shek's national government, but maintained their own special system of taxes and finance. In this period, rents were reduced, but landlords were not driven from the land and a kind of United Front government was maintained. With the disappearance of the Kuomintang governing organizations, however, a need was felt to form a more unified, central government in this part of North China. In 1941, five hundred elected delegates from the four provinces, after many weeks of travel across Japanese lines, met in the Taihang Mountains and established the Border Region government, with its own laws, its own money, its own system of taxation and an organization extending through over one hundred counties. The formation of the government coincided with the highest point of expansion of the base.
上面这些平淡的字句所包含的业绩，足可惊天动地。刘伯承率领为数不多的小部队，居然敢于深入到已经沦陷于民族大敌手中的地区，剿灭了危害乡里的土匪，在没有政府的地方建立了政府。他们非但未被消灭，反而把自己的力量扩大了十至十五倍。最后，他们成功地控制了除城市以外的几乎全部农村。他们的对手并非一些没落的昏庸军阀，而是胜利在握、骄横不可一世、几乎把整个中国踩在脚下的外来侵略者。而他们自身，只不过是靠两条步枪起家的一小股农民和知识分子。这样惊天动地的业绩，实在是历史上前所未闻，然而却是千真万确的。
但是，正由于共产党势力如此惊人地发展起来，由于他们对日军交通线的勇敢袭击，不久就给他们带来了巨大的因难。日军在自己所占领的后方地区，出乎意料地遭到抵抗，大为震惊，于是立即掉过头来，以三十六个师的兵力杀回华北，决心拔除自己后方的心腹之患。
The events covered in these few bare words are certainly extraordinary.
That a small body of men like the troops of Liu Po-cheng should have entered
a region already given over to the national enemy, have seized and eliminated
bandits that were terrorizing the countryside, have established governments
where there were none - that they should have, instead of fighting for
their very existence, increased their forces ten and fifteen fold, and
have crowned the whole effort by gaining control of nearly all the countryside
beyond the cities - that this should have been done, not to a wastrel
warlord in the wane of his fortunes, but to a proud and mighty foreign
invader at the very height of his power, in the very hour of his victory,
when almost all the rest of China was giving way before him - that all
this should have been done by a mere handful of peasants and intellectuals
who had been born from two rifles is a thing almost too extravagant for
the pages of history. It is, nevertheless, literally true.
Yet the very extravagance of the Communist expansion and the very boldness
of their raids on Japanese lines of communication soon brought with them
difficulties as great as the advantages hitherto gained. For the Japanese,
startled at the unlooked-for resistance in areas they bad already conquered,
took fright at the danger, and suddenly returned to North China with thirty-six
divisions, determined to eliminate the threat in their rear.