There are many local army in modern Chinese history, including the famous Sichuan Army, Gui Army , Yunnan Army , Northeast Army , and Northwest Army. There is also Jinsui Army in the north.
The so-called Jin refers to Shanxi, while Sui refers to Suiyuan . Of course, there is no such province now, but it still existed at that time. The general scope is the current central area of in Inner Mongolia.
The so-called Jinsui Army was originally just Jinsui Army controlled by Yan Xishan . After it controlled Suiyuan, it became the Jinsui Army. Until later, after Fu Zuoyi left Yan Xishan and controlled Suiyuan independently, he was generally called Yan Xishan's troops as the Jinsui Army, although at this time he was already "with Jin but not Sui".
Among all local armies at that time, the Jin (Sui) army was relatively special. It has been under the control of Yan Xishan since its birth, so its development history is relatively unified. Moreover, it has always been based on Shanxi and has existed for more than 30 years, which was relatively rare among local armies at that time.
In terms of weapons and equipment, the Jinsui Army took a more special approach. It was a few armies with a deep understanding of firepower war and put into practice at that time, especially in artillery construction.
Yan Xishan was admitted to Shanxi Military Preparation School in his early years, and was later sent to Japan by the Qing court to study military affairs. Therefore, he attached great importance to weapons and equipment.
After the Xinhai Revolution, Yan Xishan became the governor of Shanxi, and then defected to Yuan Shikai, becoming a real power faction in North China who was not from Beiyang . However, Yuan Shikai was not at ease with Yan Xishan. The Jin army under the latter did not develop greatly during the Yuan Shikai period. He had many restrictions on purchasing foreign weapons. At the same time, the machine bureaus and repair facilities in Shanxi at that time were difficult to meet the manufacturing of a large amount of arms.
1917, Yan Xishan also served as the governor of Shanxi , and the military and political power was captured. That year, it began the first round of military expansion, which expanded the scale of the Jin army to 4 Mixed Brigade and 2 garrison envoys in southern and northern Shanxi. In addition, its direct troops also included engineering battalions, military police battalions, guard battalions, health battalions, and machine gun battalions.
In order to enhance the firepower of the Jin army, Yan Xishan also purchased 12 mountain field cannons from Japan and 23,000 Type 38 rifles, which greatly increased its strength.
However, purchasing weapons from outside is limited and extremely expensive. Yan Xishan hopes to use Shanxi's rich resources to achieve self-sufficiency in weapons and equipment.
In 1917, when Yan Xishan attended the Army Governor's General Meeting in Beijing, he visited the test-fire competition of the domestic weapons of the Army Department. He saw that the guns and cannons in the Hanyang Arsenal were very good, so he met the general office of the factory, Liu Qingen, and told the Jin army that the weapons were used for a long time and were to be repaired. He invited guidance to the Shanxi Machinery Repair Institute. So he returned to Taiyuan and accompanied him to visit the repair shop to work. Liu took out the measuring gauge with him, carefully examined it, and pointed out the shortcomings, Yan Shu praised him.
After that, Yan Xishan sent people to study at the Hanyang Arsenal to carry out talent reserves, and set up the Tongyuan Bureau to raise funds.
By 1920, Yan Xishan merged Shanxi Machinery Repair Institute and Tongyuan Bureau to establish the Shanxi Military Crafts Internship Factory. In addition to continuing to undertake the repair work, the factory also purchases equipment to produce bullets, grenades and imitates heavy machine gun .
Since then, the arsenal's business scope has been continuously expanded, gradually expanding to the production of rifles, submachine guns, and various artillery. Their scale and output have increased rapidly, laying the material foundation for the second expansion of the Jinsui Army.
In 1925, the Shanxi Sui Army expanded its troops for the second time, expanding its troops to 11 brigades, including the Artillery Regiment under the 11th Brigade and Gendarmerie /guard mixed regiments, as well as the grenade brigade and mortar regiment.
At this time, Shanxi's arsenal had already copied the Jin-made Type 12 mountain cannon and the Jin-made Type 13 mountain cannon, and the output gradually increased, and the scale of the artillery of the Jin-Sui Army quickly increased.
By the third time the Shanxi Sui Army expanded its army in 1927, Yan Xishan's artillery troops had rapidly developed to 8 artillery regiments.These artillery regiments were mainly equipped with the Jin-made Type 13 75mm mountain cannon. Although its imitation performance was difficult to compliment, at least such a large-scale artillery was still rare at that time.
Moreover, Yan Xishan’s arsenal can produce a large number of shells, which is very important to maintain the consumption of shells.
At the same time, Yan Xishan's infantry troops had developed to 17 divisions at this time, and they were also relatively abundant in terms of machine gunners and mortars and equipment.
At this time, the Shanxi Military Craft Internship Factory was changed to Taiyuan Arsenal , with as many as 3,800 various equipment, and a total of tens of thousands of employees.
From 1928 to 1930, it produced 35 light and heavy artillery pieces, 3,000 rifles, machine guns, 215 submachine guns, 900 artillery shells, 15,000 rounds of mortar shells, 29,000 rounds of bullets, and 4.2 million rounds of bullets.
At this time, the arms production of Taiyuan Arsenal had become a major domestic manufacturer at that time. It is precisely because of the large amount of weapons and ammunition provided by the Taiyuan Arsenal that Yan Xishan's Shanxi-Suishan army was able to actively operate from 1927 to 1928 to ensure that Yan Xishan actually controlled the four provinces of Shanxi-Suishan-Chahar-Hebei and the two cities of Ping and Tianjin, and its power reached its peak.
At this time, the so-called national army included Chiang Kai-shek's 2nd unit as the 1st Army, Feng Yuxiang's 2nd Army, Yan Xishan's 3rd Army, and Guangxi's 4th Army. The above-mentioned groups were intrigued and had many conflicts. They were dissatisfied with each other in the subsequent draft meeting, so that Jiang Gui and Jiang Feng met several times.
At this time, Yan Xishan had to guard against Feng Yuxiang to compete for territory, and at the same time he looked down on Chiang Kai-shek, but Chiang Kai-shek's strength was the strongest after all, and in the end, Yan Xishan chose to join forces with Feng Yuxiang to oppose Chiang.
Anti-Chiang requires another expansion of the army. Before the Central Plains War in 1930, based on the weapons produced by the Taiyuan Arsenal, Yan Xishan created 7 artillery brigades and 17 artillery regiments in artillery.
At this time, among Yan Xishan's artillery, in addition to the original Jinhuan 13 mountain cannon, there is also the improved Jinhuan 17 mountain cannon, as well as the Jinhuan 16 mountain cannon with a caliber of 105 mm and the Jinhuan 18 field cannon with a caliber of 88 mm.
In addition to the artillery troops, Yan Xishan also expanded 10 infantry troops and 4 security columns, 4 cavalry divisions, 10 baggage battalions, and 10 engineering battalions.
In Yan Xishan's infantry troops, the weapons and equipment are also relatively good.
One of its infantry companies is equipped with 3 light machine guns, each platoon of 1 machine gun, which was already very well configured at that time.
In addition, with the Thomson submachine gun manufactured by the Taiyuan Arsenal, each infantry squad is equipped with one, so an infantry company has another 9 submachine guns.
In terms of the battalion's machine gun company, it is also equipped with 4 heavy machine guns and 2 mortars.
Therefore, Yan Xishan's Jinsui army had very strong firepower at that time.
In the subsequent Central Plains War, Yan Xishan's Shanxi Sui army gathered a large number of artillery to bombard the Central Army, causing significant losses to the latter. At the same time, the Shanxi Sui Army has a lot of machine guns, submachine guns and grenades, and the firepower of infantry wars is also very strong.
But we also know that the strong firepower of the Jinsui Army does not mean that the combat effectiveness must be strong.
The characteristic of the Jinsui Army is that it has good defensive capabilities but poor offensive capabilities. Moreover, the Jinsui Army prefers to fight locally in Shanxi. When it comes to the province to fight, its combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced.
At the same time, the characteristics of the Shanxi-Suizhou Army's heavy firepower also brought great logistical problems.
This does not mean that the production of Taiyuan Arsenal cannot guarantee combat consumption, but because of the factors of leaving the province to fight, the logistics line has been greatly extended, and it coincides with heavy rains for several days, so many ammunition is difficult to supply to the combat troops as soon as possible.
After all, judging from the organization of the Jinsui Army at that time, there were only 10 baggage battalions, and among Yan Xishan's infantry troops, there were actually more combat troops and there was not too much extra baggage power.
In addition, at that time, the maneuver of artillery relied on mules and horses, and the movement of large-scale artillery troops was not easy. Once coordination is not smooth and supply is not strong, big problems will arise.
or above is just a situation that is reported in the basic elements of combat, so the problem in command is even greater.
The Central Plains War was essentially a joint battle between the Northwest Army and the Shanxi-Sui Army. In fact, due to the disintegration and disintegration of Chiang Kai-shek, there were great problems within the Northwest Army, and the alliance between the Northwest Army and the Shanxi-Sui Army was also extremely conflicted and conflicted.
Even the command of the Jinsui Army itself was extremely different. For example, Fu Zuoyi was more capable, but because of the conflict with Zhang Yinwu , it also led to a big defeat on the Jinpu line.
Therefore, the so-called Central Plains War, on the surface, the Northwest Army and the Shanxi-Sui Army had the advantage in strength, but were disintegrated by Chiang Kai-shek's various means. Since then, the Northwest Army as a unified whole has ceased to exist.
Yan Xishan's Jinsui army retreated to Shanxi after heavy losses, and Yan himself had to hide and wait and see the situation. In the end, although Yan Xishan returned to Taiyuan and the independence of the Jinsui Army was also guaranteed to be certain, its sphere of influence had declined significantly compared with its heyday.
After the Central Plains War, Yan Xishan no longer has the ability to win the Central Plains, and even the possibility of becoming the King of North China does not exist. He can only retreat to Jinsui and continue to be the King of Shanxi. Although the Taiyuan Arsenal was still producing arms after
and the Shanxi-Suizhou Army was also expanding its strength, the development of its strength could not catch up with the situation after the fourth expansion before the Central Plains War.
