Chapter 38: Hero (Part One)

  Ouyang Yuanye gazed at the raindrops on the window, behind him in the office, files were neatly placed on the desk, and a faint smell of smoke wafted through the room.

  "What's wrong? Aren't you happy? Didn't you fight hard for this opportunity?" asked Quan.

  "What a commander fears most is not losing battles, but seeing his troops disintegrate bit by bit in peacetime until there's nothing left to command." said Ouyang Yuanye.

  "You're still missing the 3rd Instructor, right? Back then you were at the 3rd Instructor and every day you would say it's just a reserve unit, every day you would say you want to go to a field combat unit. Now isn't that what you wanted? And yet you're starting to miss them again?"

  "Sometimes I still miss them a lot. Old Su, what do you think of AC Travel?"

  "An AC brigade? That's the ace of our military district, a full information mixed brigade, rapid reaction force, best equipped, and most military elites. "Xun said: "I'm saying, Ouyang, you can't be thinking of going to an AC brigade, right?"

  "No, this time the military district gave me a chance to defeat them?"

  "Have you practiced?"

  "Uh, we played as the blue team, no plan. In terms of numbers, we were three times larger than them, but they also had a powerful foreign aid this time."

  "Who?" Zhuang Dao said, "The famous AC Corps will also want external support? Don't they always say that one of their corps can defeat three divisions? Will they also look for external support?"

  Their foreign aid is T5.

  "It's those bird people again." Upon hearing these two words, Jing's expression was filled with some anger.

  "Do you know them?"

  "Of course, the so-called special forces are all ruthless people who can kill without spilling blood. Losing is not an option for them, and after T5, nothing will be left standing."

  "It seems you know them well."

  "Yes, because last time we fell into their hands. One thousand three hundred meters away, they sniped our division commander. Guerrilla warfare and beheading operations are their specialties."

  "Heh heh, with just an AC and a special forces team, they think they can take down Ou Yang Yuan Ye's head? That's quite an overestimation of me. Hmph, who knows whose hands the deer will die in? Old Su, do you know the significance of this exercise?"

  After hearing Ouyang Yuanye's words, **Qian nodded: "Elite troops and simple government, this is what we must face. However, for soldiers, it is also a very difficult thing to do, yet something that cannot be avoided."**

  "Now is also the time to test the results of our efforts over the years."

  Regarding the four words "streamline the military and simplify administration", anyone who understands China's modern military history about the People's Liberation Army's downsizing, from 6 million troops to 2 million troops, has gone through ten times. In the history of changes in the Chinese army, the army endured twenty years for the country's economic construction, and the Gulf War stimulated the modernization of the Chinese army.

  Since the trial began in the early 1980s, the construction of synthetic branches based on group armies has become a key focus of land construction. This modernization attempt was made in an extremely difficult and arduous environment. The Chinese military's attempt to build group armies, apart from pursuing modernization, is also a response to the challenges brought about by troop reductions.

  On June 4, 1985, Deng Xiaoping pointed out at the Military Commission's enlarged meeting: "The four modernizations must have a sequence. The true modernization of military equipment is only possible when the national economy has established a relatively good foundation. Therefore, we need to be patient for several years." This is what people later often referred to as "the army needs to be patient".

  This was also a period of development full of contradictions and conflicts. Soon, when China's group army construction had just achieved initial results, the Gulf War broke out, greatly stimulating the nerves of the Chinese people, increasing investment and promoting military modernization, which is recognized as the only way out. At the same time, the scale of personnel and military expenditure still needs to be further compressed, so that a large amount of funds can be used for economic construction. By 1996, China's military expenditure accounted for 1.01% of GDP, almost the lowest in history.

  Starting from 1999, military spending has been increasing year by year, and by 2005, it had maintained a certain growth rate. Deng Xiaoping once said that when the overall situation improves and national strength greatly increases, "we can develop some atomic bombs, missiles, update some equipment, in the air, at sea, on land, it will be easier then". Now, with the appearance of advanced fighter jets and aircraft carriers, the modernization of China's military has finally entered a new stage.

  By 1989, the size and expenditure of the PLA had apparently bottomed out. Following a historic downsizing, the total number of personnel in the PLA decreased to 3.23 million, second only to the 2.37 million after the Great Leap Forward in 1958. If the military expenditure index for 1978 was taken as 100, that for 1988 was merely 75.2.

  To ensure supplies, troops all along the Yangtze River began to grow their own vegetables and raise pigs. Military enterprises, due to a lack of military orders, converted to produce civilian goods.

  On November 12, 1989, the Military Commission held an enlarged meeting. ***Regarding the highly concerned treatment of the military, it was stated that through governance and rectification, China's economy will gradually move onto a track of sustained, stable and coordinated development. "When the economy is doing well, many things in the military will be easier to handle. However, at present, the national finance is still very difficult, and the economic situation is extremely severe, so many problems in the military cannot be solved for the time being."

  He told everyone that the central government's opinion on the relationship between economic construction and national defense construction is to take care of both ends. "On the one hand, the military must obey the overall situation of economic construction, continue to implement the policy of endurance, carry forward the spirit of hard work and plain living, and sympathize with the country's difficulties. On the other hand, national defense expenditure should also increase year by year on the basis of the development of the national economy, so that the troops' weapons equipment and living conditions can be gradually improved."

  "He specially pointed out that he had always been opposed to the military engaging in "self-development" and "self-improvement". Of course, it is completely necessary to engage in some production to make up for the lack of funds, but the military cannot take the road of self-sufficiency. If all efforts are put into doing business and making money, this will be extremely dangerous. To solve the difficulties of the military, the central government must allocate certain financial resources, while also calling on the whole party and governments at all levels to strengthen their national defense concept and actively care for and support military construction."

  October 6, 1998, the Central Military Commission, State Council and Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting in Beijing to stop the military, armed police forces and organs of political power and law from engaging in business activities.

  In the speech, the Party Central Committee attaches great importance to this work and has repeatedly emphasized its major strategic significance. It clearly stated that the military, armed police forces, and political and legal organs must stop all business activities and immediately disengage from all operating companies affiliated with their respective units. The military and armed police forces should be fully funded by the state, and the political and legal organs should also be fully funded by the state.

  The large-scale infrastructure construction since the early 1980s has reached a peak. Due to too many and overly large fixed asset investment projects under construction nationwide, as well as excessive state fiscal expenditure and overly large credit scales, obvious inflationary phenomena still occurred in 1987 and 1988.

  The then Premier *** made a government work report at the Second Session of the 7th National People's Congress in 1989, requiring that fiscal expenditure for 1990 and 1991 be maintained at the level of 1989.

  In this case, whether to strengthen equipment construction or increase living expenses, both will go against the overall economic trend. In fact, after the past 10 years of super-large-scale infrastructure construction, the central government's finances are strained. This has put the "Eighth Five-Year Plan" which started in 1991 in a situation where it has to borrow money to get things done from the very beginning.

  In the early and mid-1990s, the military continued to "endure", especially at the grassroots level. According to the China Statistical Yearbook, from 1990 to 1996, China's GDP increased from 176.95 billion yuan to 675.59 billion yuan, while military spending only increased from 29 billion yuan to 72 billion yuan. In 1997, the Fifteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China announced that another 500,000 troops would be cut within three years. After the downsizing was completed in March 2000, the total number of People's Liberation Army personnel was reduced to 2.5 million. That year, the proportion of national defense expenditure in state financial expenditure decreased to 7.6%, the lowest value since the founding of New China.

  According to "China's Military Control and Disarmament (1995)", from 1979 to 1994, a period of 16 years, if the actual purchasing power of defense expenditure in 1979 was maintained, it would have required 581.2 billion yuan, but only 416.4 billion yuan was actually allocated, with a shortfall of over 28%. Even if this level had been reached, it would have meant that there had been no growth at all during the 16-year period.

  If calculated at an actual growth rate of over 5%, the military should have increased by more than 3 trillion yuan in 16 years. In other words, in 16 years, the military reduced its spending by nearly 5 trillion yuan. This money was all used for economic construction and social public expenditure. In addition, according to the 1998 National Defense White Paper, by then, the military had opened up and vacated 101 airports, 29 ports, more than 300 railway special lines, more than 1,000 warehouses, and more than 30 million square meters of land during the reform and opening-up period. Most of these were transferred to local governments free of charge.

  Noted economists Hu Angang et al.'s calculations show that the proportion of national defense capital stock to total national capital stock rose from 21.0% in 1953 to 25.4% in 1955, and then remained above 10%. It fell to 5.6% in 1989 and further down to 2.3% in 2001. This means that the Chinese military holds only 2.3% of social wealth.

  Today, all cadres at the team level and above have experienced the era of "one set of military uniforms". In military uniforms, they are divided into daily wear, training wear, dress wear, etc. The so-called daily wear is general military uniform; training wear refers to camouflage clothing. In the 80s and 90s, until the new century, most Chinese soldiers, including officers, had only one set of daily wear. In seasons other than summer, there were no other clothes to change into. They could only wash this uniform on weekends. If they washed it too late, it wouldn't be dry by Monday, so they had to put on wet clothes for roll call. At that time, a set of daily wear cost less than 100 yuan, and equipping 2.5 million soldiers would cost around 200 million yuan. This system lasted for 20 years.

  The economic downturn has led to a change in the social status of soldiers. In contrast, during the most economically tense period of the 1960s and 1970s, the military was one of the most secure groups in China. At that time, defense spending accounted for around 20% of national fiscal expenditure. As a result, by the mid-1990s, although the military no longer recruited soldiers with only primary school education, it could only attract young people from poor and remote areas. The trend of military science and technology personnel leaving to work in business also became popular. In 1998, *** again emphasized at the plenary meeting of the People's Liberation Army delegation: "The whole army must strengthen its sense of overall situation, correctly treat the adjustment of interests, and consciously obey and serve the country's overall situation."

  Compared with building a high-tech army, the PLA first established an elite emergency mobile combat force. This is also a key measure to reduce the scale of troops while increasing combat effectiveness. In December 1990, the All-Army Military Work Conference determined that accelerating the formation of emergency mobile combat forces was necessary. "Our country has a vast territory and long borders. Simply relying on the number of troops, one step at a time, using human wave tactics, no matter how many soldiers are raised, it's not enough. In future high-tech local wars, preparation time is short, progress is fast, and initial battles have decisive significance. Therefore, our army must have a strong rapid reaction force."

  The Gulf War that shook the Chinese military in 1991 broke out. In June of that year, the high-level military held three symposiums specifically on the Gulf War, thus opening the prelude to the transformation of the new era of the Chinese military. However, under the background of concentrating power to carry out economic construction, the pace of change was even more slow.

  He made a speech at the three meetings. He started by saying: "Today we are discussing electronic technology issues. Electronic technology is leading, whether it's aviation or missiles and other related weapons, all have something to do with electronic technology. In terms of electronic technology, the gap between us and the world's advanced level is not getting smaller, but rather bigger."

  His several speeches covered aspects such as system reform, national defense science and technology, increase in military expenditure, self-reliance and hard work.

  He said: "We are indeed lagging behind in terms of weaponry and equipment, and some existing gaps have been further widened", "We cannot be complacent and narrow-minded, we must take a pragmatic attitude, and work hard to develop our national defense technology, so that we can cope with possible situations in the future."

  But for defense spending, he also said: "We must properly handle the issue of defense spending. For national defense construction, we should appropriately increase investment intensity, but we cannot invest too much at once. The growth of defense spending must be adapted to the growth of the national economy. With the development of the national economy, the input of defense spending will also increase year by year."

  That was the only choice for Chinese leaders at that time.

  In 1993, a new military strategic guideline was established, with winning a modern technological war, especially under high-tech conditions, as the basis for future military struggle. In 1996, the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission made a comprehensive analysis of the world's new military revolution on the basis of research throughout the army and required the whole army to meet the challenge of the world's new military revolution with the spirit of reform and innovation. In 2002, the 16th National Congress established "coordinating national defense construction and economic construction" as a guiding principle. Prior to this, at the Central Military Commission enlarged meeting in 2000, it was proposed that mechanization and informatization were the dual historical tasks for the development of the People's Liberation Army. This actually put forward higher requirements for the army which was then transitioning towards mechanization.

  The situation facing the Chinese military and the entire nation at this time is vastly different from 13 years ago. Starting in 1998, the declining trend of defense spending as a percentage of GDP was fundamentally reversed. In 2001, defense spending increased by 17.7% over the previous year, the highest growth rate in nearly 30 years. The following year also maintained an increase of 17.6%.

  Typical is that the J-10 fighter, which was initiated during Deng Xiaoping's era, has finally started to be equipped with troops after 20 years.

  In May 2011, General Chen Bingde, Chief of the General Staff Department of the People's Liberation Army, said at a press conference in Washington that over the past 20 years, China's rapid economic growth has mainly been used to improve people's living standards rather than purchase advanced weapons. The late Chinese leader had asked the military to "endure", so for 20 years, China's military spending was very small and is now completely compensatory. He believes there is a 20-year gap between the military strength of China and the US.

  "Win the fight, don't degenerate", this is the fundamental requirement that Chinese leaders have put forward to the army from the 80s endurance period to the turning point of the 90s. And after going through those difficult years, the PLA has finally ushered in a new opportunity for modernization.

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