Wang Delin

Wang Delin or Wang Teh-ling (王德林) (1875－1938) was a bandit, soldier and leader of the National Salvation Army resisting the Japanese pacification of Manchukuo.

Wang Delin was born in October 1875. He became a bandit in Manchuria after the Russian invasion in July 1900 when Tsarist forces were sent to Northeast China, to protect the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway or CER. Wang declared his opposition to both the Russians and China's Qing dynasty, describing himself as "forced to become an outlaw to cast out the Russians and save the nation". His band operated attacking trains along the eastern part of the CER, in the Muleng and Suifen areas. He also attacked Russian shipping on the Songhua and Ussuri rivers and held captives for ransom. Wang was an outlaw for years, even beyond the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911.

In 1917, Wang agreed that he and his followers would become part of the Jilin provincial forces, himself as commander of the Third Battalion of the First Brigade of the Jilin Army. Wang brought with him, two companions who had been with him for many years, Wu Yicheng and Kong Xianrong, each commanding a company. Still a battalion commander at the time of the Mukden Incident in 1931, Wang was stationed near Yanji, a small town in the east of Jilin province, where the Japanese were constructing a new, railway line. After Wang's troops fired on a party of Japanese surveyors, his commander attempted to persuade him to move his battalion with an offer of promotion. Wang refused to submit to the Manchukuo regime and his defiance attracted others to join him. When on February 8, 1932, Wang Delin proclaimed the establishment of the Chinese People's National Salvation Army (NSA), his battalion of 200 men had swollen to a force of over 1,000.

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