Hu Weidong's so-called "people's war" in the "narrow sense" is the concept of "people's war" as originally understood by the majority of comrades, which refers to specific tactics in war; Hu Weidong's understanding is to increase the cost of the invading army's domination through extensive guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines, and to do everything possible to reduce the gains it obtains from the occupied areas (this is the purpose of developing base areas behind enemy lines and seizing territory by the invading army), so that the aggressor's occupation of those lands will outweigh the losses, and the longer the period and the more land they occupy, the greater the losses they will suffer. Moreover, in the process, the main forces, the guerrillas, and the people of the invaded countries have been tempered and become stronger, while the strength of the invading army has been constantly depleted, and the comparison of the strength of the two sides has created conditions for decisive battles and counteroffensives.

On the surface, there is indeed a certain contradiction between this narrow "people's war" and the modernization and regularization of the PLA, because if China's regular army is strong enough, then there will be no large areas of the country's territory at all, and this war strategy based on local defense will naturally be meaningless. However, Hu Weidong believes that with China's weak foundation, no matter how smooth the development is, it will never be possible to build the first industrial country in a generation, and even if China's total industrial output value becomes the first in Shijie, it does not mean that China's national strength is already the first in Shijie (in fact, China's total industrial output value is already Shijie first, and it is much higher than the United States, who thinks that China has surpassed the United States?). Because it will take another generation or two for the overall level of industrialization to catch up with the advanced level of Shijie, plus the war itself is extremely accidental. Even if the national strength is superior, it is very common to lose thousands of miles of land due to setbacks in the early stage, and there are countless examples of this in history. Therefore, the work of the defense of the homeland cannot be relaxed, and the "people's war" is still important, and of course its status will still decline

In the final analysis, the "people's war" is for a poor and weak country like China during the Anti-Japanese War (it is not that the strong country cannot be used, but the value is relatively limited, and it may not be impossible to defeat the invaders without using it. But the defensive war strategy of a large country with a large population (as opposed to the aggressor country) is not a universal truth that "one size fits all", but if it is a small country with a sparse population. Adopting this strategy may lead to the catastrophe of total annihilation. Unless the enemy is pinned down and cannot exert all his strength, or he is afraid of international influence and does not dare to wield the butcher's knife as vigorously as the Japanese and Germans did

Although the Nazi repression achieved certain results, it was impossible to commit such a terrible crime without a price, in addition to a complete mortal enmity with Britain. It also gave the Allies enough reasons to do the same. Originally, there were some countries in the Americas (such as Argentina) that were close to the Axis powers. Hoping to escape American control, the Americans took advantage of the weakness of the German navy to confront them head-on and the air force was too far away to exert its strength, and unceremoniously sent navy and marines to land and sweep the island of Ireland in a thunderous offensive. After arresting, shooting, or imprisoning the Irish president and many other anti-British figures, and at the same time supporting a puppet government, not only was the Republic of Ireland forced to return the hard-to-recover Northern Ireland to the British, and at the same time withdrew from the Axis camp to join the allies, but also played a role of "killing chickens and monkeys" for other countries. At least until Germany demonstrates its ability to protect them, the small anti-American and anti-British countries will not dare to act rashly for the time being

The liberation of Ireland was the result of Roosevelt's efforts to disagree with the public, and was also regarded by later generations as a clever move to stabilize the position of the allies and the European war situation, but the price was also very great, because the main force of the navy has been stranded in the Atlantic waters, the Japanese Combined Fleet and the German Far East Fleet, which have no opponents, naturally became unscrupulous, although the Japanese and German navies did not dare to attack the west coast of the United States, because a limited number of carrier-based air forces to challenge the tens of thousands of land-based aircraft of the United States is no different from seeking death, but Japan still seized the opportunity to seize a large area of territory in the western Pacific

By the end of April 1942, Japan had not only completely occupied and strengthened its control over the Philippines, East Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies, but also captured Timor-Leste, the former Portuguese colony of independence, which had been encouraged by the United States, and the Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, and Palau Islands, which had been ceded by the United States from Japan, and seized Guam, an important U.S. naval base in the Pacific.

In order to remove the obstacles to the advance into Australia, the Japanese army then launched the Solomon Islands Campaign, which was attacked by three infantry brigades of the Marine Corps, with a total strength of nearly 30,000 troops, and the weapons and equipment were not inferior to those of the US army.

At this time, although the U.S. forces in the Solomon Islands seized the time to replenish a large number of troops and supplies, the U.S. Navy Department was worried that the division of troops would be broken by the powerful Japanese Combined Fleet, and did not dare to send support from the four battleships and one aircraft carrier that had completed maintenance ahead of schedule from the mainland (all three available aircraft carriers and five battleships were supporting the Marine Corps' attack on Ireland), and the largest warship sent was only a heavy cruiser, it's not easy to even escape

The U.S. forces in the Solomon Islands, which had lost naval support, could only rely on the land-based air forces urgently stationed on the islands to defend the islands, but the Japanese and German forces had two battleships in this campaign, and there were no large-caliber fortress guns on the Solomon Islands that could threaten them, so there was no need for the carrier-based aircraft units to launch a ground attack against the enemy's powerful ground anti-aircraft artillery fire, they only needed to protect the two Kongo-class battleships and let their huge guns destroy the airfields on the islands one by one.

As a result, the pilots of the US Navy and Army Aviation were forced to take the initiative to attack the Japanese fleet on their own planes, and suffered heavy losses under the fierce anti-aircraft fire of the Japanese and German warships and the Japanese and German carrier-based fighter groups, and during the entire Solomon Islands Campaign, no less than 300 US planes were shot down, while the Japanese only lost 1 Japanese destroyer and 21 fighters, and the German army only had 3 planes shot down by US fighters

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the US Navy Department has been constantly transferring submarines to the Pacific theater of operations since the Pearl Harbor incident (anyway, Germany has no control over the sea now, and American submarines have nothing to do if they stay in the Atlantic). By the beginning of April 1942, the total number had exceeded 60, but because the Panama Canal was interrupted, they had to take a long detour through the Cape Horn route in the southern part of the Americas, and the speed of the submarines was not as fast as that of surface ships, so they were delayed for a long time, and because the islands in the Pacific Ocean were constantly lost and repeatedly shrunk the area of activity, which was really embarrassing. However, due to the low anti-submarine capability of the Japanese army, they still achieved certain results, sinking 11 Japanese transport ships, 18 merchant ships and 3 destroyers at a small cost of only 2 ships, and if it were not for the torpedo fuse problem, less than half of the torpedoes would have successfully detonated after hitting the target (historically worse than this, but the United States solved the problem quickly after discovering it). The results were much better. (To be continued......)