Establishing a Historical Narrative of the Eastern Main Battlefield Cannot Afford to Delay

To destroy a state, one must first annihilate its history. The importance of historical narrative has long been valued by politicians and historians, and the Western world is particularly adept at it. Herodotus, hailed as the "Father of History" in the West, shaped through his *Histories* (on the Greco-Persian Wars) a narrative of the victory of democratic, humane, and self-respecting Greeks over despotic, ignorant, and brutal Persians. This became the foundational text of an "Orientalist" historical narrative, revered by generations of Western historians. Its influence extended into modern times, even affecting the way we narrate the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.

欲亡其国，必先灭其史。历史叙事的重要性，久为政治家和史学家重视，西方世界尤擅其事。被誉为西方“历史之父”的希罗多德，通过《希波战争史》塑造了民主、人文、自尊的希腊人对专制、愚昧、残暴的波斯人的胜利，成为“东方主义”历史叙事的原典，为西方历代史家推崇。流风所及，达于近代，甚至影响到中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争的叙事方式。

On 7 December 1941, Japan—bogged down in its war of aggression against China—decided to take a desperate gamble, seeking to resolve the so-called "China Incident" by expanding the war. It launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor and advanced into Southeast Asia. Japanese forces successively occupied Malaya, the Philippines, Singapore, and other areas, with British and American troops surrendering in a panic wherever they went. Facing the raging flames of Japanese aggression, China, which had already been fighting the Japanese invaders alone for ten years, set aside its own difficulties to support its beleaguered allies. Not only did it inflict a crushing defeat on the Japanese 11th Army under Anami Korechika at the city of Changsha, but it also organized the Chinese Expeditionary Force, which penetrated deep into Burma to rescue the retreating British forces.

1941年12月7日，在侵华战争中深陷泥潭的日本，决定铤而走险，企图通过扩大战争来解决所谓的“中国事变”，乃偷袭美国珍珠港基地，并向东南亚各地进军。日军接连侵占马来亚、菲律宾、新加坡等地，英美军队望风披靡，纷纷投降。面对日军甚嚣尘上的侵略烈焰，已经独力抗击日本侵略者10年之久的中国，不顾自身困难，力挺困境中的盟友，不仅在长沙城下痛歼日军第11军阿南惟几所部，而且组织中国远征军，深入缅甸，解救节节败退的英军。

In March 1942, Stilwell issued the *Operational Order of the Chinese Expeditionary Force*. China's 5th, 6th, and 66th Armies were ready and eager to enter the battlefield to turn the tide. But the British, who had colonized Burma for many years, were deeply suspicious of the Chinese forces, leaving tens of thousands of elite troops stranded at the Yunnan–Burma border. "Only after the enemy had taken Rangoon and approached Toungoo, when the situation had become critical," were the Chinese forces finally allowed to enter the country. Chinese troops rescued several thousand surrounded British soldiers and civilians at Yenangyaung and elsewhere, but the Japanese, fighting at their ease, inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese. Meanwhile, the British "used the bloody battles of the 5th and 6th Armies as cover for their own secret withdrawal." Though caught in a dilemma, the Chinese forces still defeated the Japanese at Toungoo, Yenangyaung, Taunggyi, and other places, before being forced to retreat through the wild mountains (the Hump region). On 23 May, the commander of the 200th Division, Dai Anlan, was severely wounded in a battle on the Ximo Road and died soon afterwards. The Chinese Communist Party highly praised the patriotic officers and soldiers who sacrificed their lives. In March 1943, Mao Zedong composed a poem for General Dai Anlan, "The Seagull General Lives Forever": "To resist foreign aggression, the general gathered the fern. / His division was mechanized and brave as tigers and bears. / Bloody battles held Toungoo, drove the Japanese from Taunggyi. / He fell on the battlefield, his lofty ambition unfulfilled." In 1943, China once again organized the Expeditionary Force, which, together with the Chinese Army in India (which had been withdrawn into India for reorganization the year before), launched a counteroffensive against the Japanese. They crushed the Japanese plan to invade India in the Battle of Imphal, and then, together with British and American allied forces, liberated Burma and western Yunnan.

1942年3月，史迪威发布《中国远征军作战命令》，中国第5军、第6军、第66军枕戈待旦，欲直冲战场，挽救时局。但殖民缅甸多年的英国，对中国军队甚为猜忌，使得数万精锐坐困于滇西国门。“直至敌陷仰光，近东瓜，局势阽危”，才允许中国军队进入。中国军队在仁安羌等地解救了数千名被围的英军和侨民，但日军以逸待劳，使中国军队造成重大伤亡，而英军“借5A、6A血战之际，掩护其秘密撤退”。中国军队进退维谷，仍于同古、仁安羌、棠吉等地大败日军，然后被迫转进野人山等地。5月23日，第200师师长戴安澜在细摩公路战斗中负重伤，不久后牺牲。对牺牲的爱国官兵，中国共产党给予高度评价，1943年3月，毛泽东为戴安澜将军赋诗《海鸥将军千古》：“外侮需人御，将军赋采薇。师称机械化，勇夺虎罴威。浴血东瓜守，驱倭棠吉归。沙场竟殒命，壮志也无违。”1943年，中国再次组织远征军，与当年退入印度整编的驻印军一起反攻日军，在英帕尔会战中粉碎了日军侵占印度的计划，随后与英美盟军一起解放缅甸和滇西。

The operations in India, Burma, and western Yunnan were the largest international war China had fought during the War of Resistance and a model of Allied combined operations in the Second World War. Yet in the writings of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the picture was entirely different.

印缅滇西作战，是抗战时期中国进行的最大规模的国际性战争，是第二次世界大战中盟国协同作战的范例。然而，在英国首相丘吉尔的笔下，却是另外一番景象。

In 1948, Churchill began publishing his six-volume *The Second World War*. At a time when Chinese forces were making immense sacrifices, Churchill wrote in his memoirs: "The loss of two fine Chinese divisions would not have been as serious an inconvenience as the loss of a squadron of air transports." In his account, the China theatre was insignificant, and many far-reaching historical events were simply omitted. For instance, the Lugouqiao Incident, the Zhanggufeng Incident initiated by Japan, and the Battle of Nomonhan were all pivotal turning points in East Asian international relations, yet Churchill only briefly mentioned: "During August 1939, Japan was not only engaged in the war against China begun in July 1937, but had also become involved in localised hostilities with Russia over the border question between the newly-created Manchoukuo and Outer Mongolia." The main Allied political leaders of the war—Roosevelt was already dead, and Stalin left no memoirs—so Churchill held the power of discourse. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953, his version of history shaped the Western narrative of the Second World War for many years. China, as the Eastern Main Battlefield of the war, was deliberately rendered "invisible."

1948年，丘吉尔开始出版6卷本《第二次世界大战回忆录》。当中国军队付出巨大牺牲时，丘吉尔在回忆录中却说：“失去两个精锐的中国师并不会像失去空军运输中队那样造成严重不便。”在其笔下，中国战场无足轻重，许多影响深远的历史事件被人为地忽略。比如，从卢沟桥事变到日军挑起的张鼓峰事件、诺门坎战役，都是东亚国际关系发生重大变化的关键，丘吉尔却只简略地提道：“在1939年8月间，日本不但从事于在1937年7月间开始的对中国的战争，而且也卷入了新成立的满洲国和外蒙古之间的边界问题的地方性的和俄国的敌对行动。”战时盟国的主要政治人物罗斯福已经作古，斯大林未留回忆录，丘吉尔掌握了话语权，并在1953年获得诺贝尔文学奖，影响了西方世界二战历史叙事多年，中国作为第二次世界大战的东方主战场被人为地“隐身”了。

Was Churchill's narrative in line with historical facts? Let us see how the Japanese, the "principals" in the India–Burma–western Yunnan theatre, viewed the Chinese forces. After the war, the War History Office of the Japanese Defense Ministry compiled *The Imperial General Headquarters Army Department*. This work covers the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War deployment to China's Shandong, the Twenty-One Demands, the Washington Conference and the Nine-Power Treaty, the September 18th Incident, the North China Incident, the Lugouqiao Incident, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Pacific War, the Burma campaign, all the way to Japan's defeat and surrender. It clearly shows that Japan saw the Pacific War and the Burma campaign as a continuation and expansion of its war of aggression against China. As for the Chinese forces in the India–Burma–western Yunnan theatre, they appear exactly as we know them: shedding blood, fighting to defend their homes and nation, and upholding world peace and human civilization. *The Imperial General Headquarters Army Department* states: "On the Hukawng front in northern Burma, the main force of our 18th Division, under heavy pressure from the Chinese New 1st Army commanded by Lieutenant General Stilwell, was forced back to the southern end of the Hukawng Valley; the division's combat effectiveness had reached its lowest point." Then the Chinese forces launched a surprise attack on Myitkyina, and "the Japanese Yunnan front also inevitably began to collapse." The commander of the Japanese 31st Division, Lieutenant General Sato Kotoku, retreated in haste to avoid total annihilation and was judged to have "acted under mental derangement in the heat of battle" and placed on the reserve list. As for the planned Imphal operation, which aimed to open a land link between India and Central Asia, from the very beginning the Japanese high command was locked in disputes because of the counteroffensive by the Chinese and Allied forces. By May 1944, all hope was completely lost. It can be said that, just as in other parts of the China theatre, the fearless fighting of the Chinese forces on the battlefields of India, Burma, and western Yunnan left an indelible impression on their adversaries.

丘吉尔的叙事符合历史事实吗？看看印缅滇西战场上的“当事人”日军是怎么看待中国军队的。战后，日本防卫厅战史室编写了《大本营陆军部》，它从甲午战争、日俄战争、第一次世界大战出兵中国山东、“二十一条”、华盛顿会议和“九国公约”写到九一八事变、华北事变、卢沟桥事变、偷袭珍珠港、太平洋战争、印缅作战，直至战败投降，可以很清晰地看出，日军把太平洋战争和印缅作战看成侵华战争的延续和扩大。至于印缅滇西作战中的中国军队，是我们熟悉的浴血奋战、保家卫国、捍卫世界和平和人类文明的模样，《大本营陆军部》写道：“在北缅的胡康战线，我第18师团主力受到史迪威中将指挥的中国新编第1军的强大压力，被迫退到胡康谷地南端，师团的战力已达到了最低限度。”然后，中国军队奇袭密支那，日军的“云南战线也难免开始崩溃”。日军第31师团长佐藤幸德为避免被全歼仓皇撤退，被判定为“在激烈的战场上精神错乱行为”，编入预备役。而拟议中企图打通印度与中亚的英帕尔作战，一开始日军高层就因为中国军队和盟军的反攻而争执不断，到1944年5月希望完全破灭。可以说，就像在中国战场其他地方一样，印缅滇西战场上中国军队舍生忘死的奋勇作战，令他们的对手永生难忘。

What Churchill claimed was indeed a "fiction"—one designed to belittle the role and significance of the Chinese People's War of Resistance and the Eastern Main Battlefield. Cambridge professor Hans van de Ven has criticized this blatant "Western-centric" view. He argues that the alliance between Britain, the United States, and China ensured the victory over Japan; the cream of the Chinese forces that fought in the Burma theatre "was used by the British to recover Burma," while China paid the price of allowing Japan to open a "continental transportation line."

丘吉尔所妄言的确实是一种“虚构”——旨在矮化中国人民抗日战争和东方主战场的作用和地位。剑桥大学教授方德万批判了这种赤裸裸的“西方中心论”，他提出，英美与中国结盟，确保了对日战争的胜利；加入印缅作战的中国军队的精华，“被英国人用来收复缅甸”，中国却付出了被日军打通“大陆交通线”的代价。

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that "the Lugouqiao Incident marked the beginning of China's nationwide war of resistance, and thus opened the Eastern Main Battlefield of the World Anti-Fascist War." This main battlefield, "from the very beginning, had the great significance of saving human civilization and defending world peace." "The Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was the earliest and longest in duration. The China theatre long pinned down and fought against the main forces of Japanese militarism, and played a decisive role in the complete destruction of the Japanese aggressors." On the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, establishing our own independent historical narrative of the Eastern Main Battlefield is already an arrow that must be placed on the bowstring.

习近平总书记指出，“七七事变成为中国全民族抗战的开端，由此开辟了世界反法西斯战争的东方主战场”。这个主战场，“从一开始就具有拯救人类文明、保卫世界和平的重大意义”，“中国人民抗日战争开展时间最早、持续时间最长，中国战场长期牵制和抗击了日本军国主义的主要兵力，对日本侵略者的彻底覆灭起到了决定性作用”。在中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争胜利80周年之际，建立我们自主的东方主战场的历史叙事，已经箭在弦上。

(The author is a professor at the Research Center for the History of the Republic of China and the Research Institute of the History of the New Fourth Army, Nanjing University.)

（作者系南京大学中华民国史研究中心暨新四军历史研究院教授）

(Web editor: Tongxin)

网络编辑：同心