The Yunyang Rally: The Red Army’s Reorganization into the Eighth Route Army and Its March to the Anti-Japanese Front

One day in late August 1937, a humble little town on the Loess Plateau in the northwest, north of the surging Jing River and south of towering Mount Cu'e, suddenly came alive. The newly reorganized Eighth Route Army was about to hold its swearing-in ceremony there. A temporary wooden platform had already been erected on the Yunyang parade ground. Large banners hung from its pillars, bearing slogans such as "We resolutely support the Red Army's reorganization into the National Revolutionary Army's Eighth Route Army" and "We will shed our last drop of blood to defend our homeland." Once the ceremony began, all the officers and soldiers loudly repeated the Eighth Route Army's Oath to Fight Japan after Commander-in-Chief Zhu De: "Japanese imperialism is the mortal enemy of the Chinese nation. It seeks to destroy our country and annihilate..."