Peng Dehuai — leaving guerrilla war behind?

Peng Dehuai, 42, is second-in-command of the 8th Route Army, the Chinese communist forces engaged against Japan since 1937 within the framework of the United Front with Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists. A peasant turned war chief, veteran of the Long March, he leads from Shanxi units skilled in guerrilla warfare.

The summer of 1940 is grim. Japan is conducting in northern China a policy of methodical pacification: it grids the communist zones with fortified railway lines bristling with blockhouses and ditches — the 'cage tactic' which compartmentalises the resistance bases and chokes their mobility. Acts of sabotage collapse. At the same time the United Front is fracturing: the Nationalists are blockading the communist bases, and Chiang has cut off subsidies. A civil war looms, made more credible still by the Sino-Japanese negotiations of the early summer.

Peng faces a weighty decision. The 8th Route Army has always avoided pitched battle, preferring to strike and disappear. Launching a major conventional offensive against the Japanese lines would assert the communist effort in the eyes of Chongqing — but would expose his troops and reveal his strength.