I kind of know about all that. But having advisors on the ground, and providing 10,000 tons of ordnance a day are two different things.
No artillery? I didn't know that.
So, was the material support China received before 1941 significant enough to even contribute to the defeats Japan suffered prior to Pearl Harbor?
Potski covered it basically. There was basically no artillery at all in China, and the few artillery batteries that existed had been bought (not given), from foreign powers, these artillery units were used as special attachments by the Central Army, like independent brigades, meaning they only got sent to the front when something big was going to happen. Chinese troops had plenty of small arms, but a severe shortage of everything else. For example, when the German trained divisions attacked the Japanese in Shanghai and almost drove them into the sea, they did not have weapons strong enough to destroy Japanese pillboxes, which meant that Chinese infantry had to storm and overrun those positions costing valuable time and a lot of casualties. China did not have enough factories to meet its small arms requirements, and it had no factories capable of producing artillery. It should be said though, few Chinese soldiers understood in-direct fire. So artillery pieces would more often be used like field artillery. Also by the end of 1937 China lost 90% of its industrial capacity, and the German trained divisions had been almost all destroyed, meaning the Nationalists had to rely on provincial armies with questionable loyalties, resources and leadership.
With that said, the supplies that were sent over the Burma Road, I believe Chiang Kai Shek said was enough to supply one division for a several weeks. China had hundreds of divisions. These supplies also were seized by theBritish as well at one time, after China bought them, for the "war effort". For the massive work that was required on the behalf of the Chinese people to build the burma road by hand, it really wasn't worth the effort, as the supplies that came through were rather lackluster. China still managed to send a large force into Burma through Yunnan to aid the British in defending the Burma Road, when the British retreated from Burma they did not tell the Chinese, resulting in the Chinese force losing 50% of its soldiers that tried to retreat back to Yunnan. The most significant aid China recieved in the war was American pilots, but they were mercenaries up until 1941.
During 1937 by the way, the Soviets and the Chinese fought a war over Xinjiang province. The governor of Xinjiang was pro-soviet. It was Hui Muslims from the territory in hoi3 called Xi Bei San Ma (3 Ma's family), that fought these xinjiang troops, they also fought the Soviet troops as well, and performed rather well for only possessing small arms. Soviet Aid was even less than Allied Aid through the Burma road. Though again, Soviet pilots were important. Chiang's Central Army did not fight the Soviets because he was also recieving aid from them at the same time, so he got the Mas to attack the Soviets and try and remove them from Xinjiang, and pretended it to be a rebellious warlord, though the Mas were very pro KMT. They were unsuccessful though in removing the soviets from Xinjiang, although later during the war the governor would switch allegiances and join the KMT.
What China really needed was another nation's army to do the dying for it on the Chinese mainland.
