The East River Column or Dongjiang Column () was a unit of anti-Japanese
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
guerrillas that operated in
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
during the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
. They played a major role in Chinese resistance against Japanese occupation, and remain an important part of local historical traditions about the war and the subsequent
Communist Revolution
A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution often, but not necessarily, inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism. Depending on the type of government, socialism can be used as an intermediate stage ...
. They are also notable outside of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
for being the only Chinese Communist unit transported on
US Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
vessels, done as part of the peace negotiations led by the
Marshall Mission
The Marshall Mission (; 20 December 1945 – January 1947) was a failed diplomatic mission undertaken by United States Army General George C. Marshall to China in an attempt to negotiate between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist ...
.
History
The East River Column had its origins in two separate units, the
Dongguan
Dongguan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the s ...
Model Able-bodied Young Men Guerrilla Team and the
Huiyang
Huiyang District ( postal: Waiyeung; is a district of Huizhou, Guangdong province, People's Republic of China. It was renamed in 2003 amid the restructuring of districts and counties in Huizhou. Formerly named Huiyang city (county level), its si ...
Bao’an People’s Anti-Japanese Guerrillas. The former was founded in October 1938 by around thirty men led by
Wang Zuorao. Wang was a Communist and
National Revolutionary Army
The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...
defector who had been organizing in Dongguan since January. The latter was created in November when CCP Southern Bureau Chief
Liao Chengzhi
Liao Chengzhi (; 25 September 1908 – 10 June 1983) was a Chinese politician. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1928, and rose to the position of director of the Xinhua News Agency; after 1949, he worked in various positions related to ...
ordered 60 men under Commander
Zeng Sheng
Zeng Sheng ( zh, 曾生, 19 December 1910 – 20 November 1995), born Zeng Zhensheng (), was a Chinese military officer and politician. His name is also spelt as Tsang Sang, Tsang Shang, Jung Sung and Chung Sung in various sources. Tsang is best ...
(Secretary-General of the
Hong Kong Seamen’s Union) and Political Commissar
Zhou Boming (Hong Kong Propaganda Chief and former
Northeastern Army
The Northeastern Army (), was the Chinese army of the Fengtien clique until the unification of China in 1928. From 1931 to 1933 it faced the Japanese forces in northeast China, Jehol and Hebei, in the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War. ...
officer) to begin guerrilla operations north of
Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...
. The People's Guerrillas included the future war hero
Yuan Geng
Yuan Geng (; 23 April 1917 – 31 January 2016), born Ouyang Rushan, was a Chinese guerrilla fighter, war hero, spy, policy visionary, and serial entrepreneur on behalf of the Chinese state. He was an early proponent of China's reform and openin ...
. Both groups started with a core of educated radicals and militant members of the Seaman's Union but successfully focused their recruitment efforts on the peasantry. The two forces were merged in 1939. As part of the
Second United Front
The Second United Front ( zh, t=第二次國共合作 , s=第二次国共合作 , first=t ) was the alliance between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to resist the Japanese invasion of China during the Seco ...
policy, the guerrillas nominally served under the KMT's 4th War Area until March 1940, when local KMT General Xiang Hanping launched an attack on them for refusing to disband. The 108 survivors fled to
Shishan.
The decision to flee eastward and away from the front lines against Japan was strongly criticized by CCP party leadership in
Yan'an
Yan'an (; ), alternatively spelled as Yenan is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi province, China, bordering Shanxi to the east and Gansu to the west. It administers several counties, including Zhidan (formerly Bao'an ...
. In a message sent on May 8th but not received until June,
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...
ordered Zeng and Wang to return to the
Pearl River Delta
The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD; ; pt, Delta do Rio das Pérolas (DRP)) is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Referred to as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Mac ...
and resume operations against the Japanese. He also formally designated the unit as “the Guangdong People’s Anti-Japanese Guerrillas East River Column". The guerrillas followed orders and returned westwards. When
the war reached Hong Kong in 1941, the East River Column grew from a few hundred to more than 6,000 soldiers. New recruits were motivated by anger at KMT desertions in the lead-up to the battle, and often armed themselves with abandoned KMT weapons. For the next four years the East River Column mounted the only fortified resistance against the
Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong
The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the Governor of Hong Kong, Mark Aitchison Young, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of British Hong Kong, Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. The surr ...
. They killed Chinese collaborators, protected traders in Kowloon and
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
, attacked the
police station at Tai Po, and bombed
Kai Tak Airport
Kai Tak Airport was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. Officially known as Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to 6 July 1998, it is often referred to as Hong Kong International Airport, Kai Tak, or simply Ka ...
.
The Hong Kong and
Kowloon
Kowloon () is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. With a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of in 2006, it is the most populous area in Hong Kong, compared with Hong Kong Island and t ...
Independent Brigade of the East River Column was established on February 3, 1942, at the
Rosary Mission Centre, a chapel in
Sai Kung
Sai Kung may refer to:
* Sai Kung Town, or just Sai Kung, a town and administrative area in the Sai Kung District, Hong Kong
* Sai Kung Peninsula, a peninsula in Hong Kong
* Sai Kung District, an administrative district in Hong Kong, which does no ...
, Hong Kong.
Antiquities Advisory Board
The Antiquities Advisory Board (AAB) is a statutory body of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region with the responsibility of advising the Antiquities Authority on any matters relating to antiquities and monuments. The AAB was establish ...
. Historic Building Appraisal
Rosary Mission Centre, No. 1 Wong Mo Ying
/ref> Commander Choi Kwok-Leung and Political Commissar Chan Tat-Ming led a force of about 400 men armed with 30 machine guns
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
and several hundred rifles left by defeated British forces. The guerrillas rescued around twenty to twenty-five Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
pilots who parachuted into Kowloon when their planes were shot down by the Japanese, including Sir Lindsay Ride and Sir Douglas Clague
Sir Douglas Clague (13 June 1917 – 11 March 1981) was a British Hong Kong soldier and entrepreneur who spent most of his life in Hong Kong.
Early Years
Born in South Rhodesia, in 1917, Clague arrived in Hong Kong in 1940 as a lieutenant in ...
. In December 1943 the East River guerillas absorbed the HK-Kowloon Brigade into the larger unit. In 1943 the East River Column was engaged in a multi-sided war against the Japanese, the KMT's 187th Division, KMT-aligned bandits, and units of Wang Jingwei
Wang Jingwei (4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), born as Wang Zhaoming and widely known by his pen name Jingwei, was a Chinese politician. He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in oppositi ...
's collaborationist regime. Despite this strong opposition, by 1944 they controlled a significant amount of territory known as the Guangdong Base Area, from Huiyang
Huiyang District ( postal: Waiyeung; is a district of Huizhou, Guangdong province, People's Republic of China. It was renamed in 2003 amid the restructuring of districts and counties in Huizhou. Formerly named Huiyang city (county level), its si ...
in the east to Sanshui
Sanshui District, formerly romanized as Samshui, is an urban district of the prefecture-level city of Foshan in Guangdong province, China. It had a population of 622,645 as of the 2010 census. It is known for the " Samsui women", emigrants who la ...
and Xinhui
Xinhui, alternately romanized as Sunwui and also known as Kuixiang, is an urban district of Jiangmen in Guangdong, China. It grew from a separate city founded at the confluence of the Tan and West Rivers. It has a population of about 735,500, ...
in the west.
When Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, Zhu De
Zhu De (; ; also Chu Teh; 1 December 1886 – 6 July 1976) was a Chinese general, military strategist, politician and revolutionary in the Chinese Communist Party. Born into poverty in 1886 in Sichuan, he was adopted by a wealthy uncle at ...
ordered Commander-in-Chief Yasuji Okamura
was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, and commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army from November 1944 to the end of World War II. He was tried but found not guilty of any war crimes by the Shanghai War Crimes Tribunal after the ...
of the China Expeditionary Army
The was a general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1939 to 1945.
The China Expeditionary Army was established in September 1939 from the merger of the Central China Expeditionary Army and Japanese Northern China Area Army, and was headqu ...
to surrender to Zeng and the East River Column. This was ignored at the behest of the United States and Chiang Kai-Shek, and Japanese troops remained in position until relieved by non-Communist forces. The Nationalists failed to dislodge the 3,000 guerrillas of the East River Column with a encirclement campaign, which included the New 1st Army
The New 1st Army () was reputed to be the most elite military unit of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army. Nicknamed the "First Army Under Heaven" during the Chinese Civil War, it caused the most Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese Army casualties ...
, New Sixth Army, Forty-fifth, Sixty-third, Sixty-fourth, and Sixty-fifth Armies. The Communists continued to successfully harass Nationalist units moving along the Kowloon-Canton and Chaochow-Swatow Railways. The resulting stalemate was resolved when the Americans, who was at the time were hoping to broker a peace in China via the Marshall Mission
The Marshall Mission (; 20 December 1945 – January 1947) was a failed diplomatic mission undertaken by United States Army General George C. Marshall to China in an attempt to negotiate between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist ...
, offered to transport the East River Column to Communist-held Yantai
Yantai, Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of ...
in Shandong
Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region.
Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...
. After lengthy negotiations, both sides agreed, and the Column was loaded onto US Navy vessels and escorted by the USS George to Shandong. This was the only time when the US Navy transported Chinese Communist soldiers. On 1 August 1947 the East River Column was reorganized and designated as the Guangdong-Guangxi Column of Chen Yi Chen Yi may refer to:
* Xuanzang (602–664), born as Chen Yi, Chinese Buddhist monk in Tang Dynasty
* Chen Yi (Kuomintang)
Chen Yi (; courtesy names Gongxia (公俠) and later Gongqia (公洽), sobriquet Tuisu (退素); May 3, 1883 – June ...
's East China Field Army.
Legacy
After the war and the Chinese Communist Revolution
The Chinese Communist Revolution, officially known as the Chinese People's War of Liberation in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and also known as the National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion in the Republic of China (ROC ...
, the East River Column became part of the revolutionary legend in Hong Kong and Guangdong. It was featured in the 1997 adventure novel '' Music on the Bamboo Radio'' by Martin Booth
Martin Booth (7 September 1944 – 12 February 2004) was an English novelist and poet. He also worked as a teacher and screenwriter, and was the founder of the Sceptre Press.
Early life
Martin Booth was born in Lancashire England, the son of ...
, and the award-winning New Wave film '' Our Time Will Come'' directed by Ann Hui
Ann Hui On-wah, (; born 23 May 1947) is a film director, producer, screenwriter and actress from Hong Kong who is one of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers of the Hong Kong New Wave. She is known for her films about social issues in Ho ...
. The Guangdong Memorial Hall of the East River Column was built to preserve the history of the unit, and exhibits of related artefacts feature prominently in other local museums. In 1998, Chief Executive
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
Tung Chee-hwa
Tung Chee-hwa (; born 7 July 1937) is a Hong Kong businessman and politician who served as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong between 1997 and 2005, upon the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July. He is currently a vice-chairman of the Chin ...
added the names of the members of the HK-Kowloon Brigade to the memorial shrine at Hong Kong City Hall
Hong Kong City Hall () is a building located at Edinburgh Place, Central, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong.
Since Hong Kong is a " Special Administrative Region" and not a normal Chinese city, there is no mayor or city council; therefore, the ...
.
See also
* New Fourth Army
The New Fourth Army () was a unit of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China established in 1937. In contrast to most of the National Revolutionary Army, it was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and not by the ruling Ku ...
* Eighth Route Army
The Eighth Route Army (), officially known as the 18th Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, was a group army under the command of the Chinese Communist Party, nominally within the structure of the Chinese ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
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{{commons category, East River Column
Groups of World War II
Guerrilla organizations
Second Sino-Japanese War
Hong Kong in World War II