Why Does the PLA Daily Use the Term "Big Mouse"?

**On February 6, an expression in the front page of the "PLA Daily" caught my attention—"Big Rat."**

This ancient metaphor, derived from the "Book of Songs," last appeared prominently in military discourse during the rectification movement of the 1980s. This time, it appeared in reports related to the investigations of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, directly pointing to the "Big Rat" that "erodes military funding and weakens combat effectiveness." Compared to conventional terms like "corruption" and "violations," the emotional weight of the term "Big Rat" is unusually pronounced.

The downfall of Zhang Youxia is already shocking enough—he is the first vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and one of the highest-ranking active-duty generals in the Chinese military. However, what is more concerning is the official accusation against him: it is not merely economic corruption, but "seriously damaging the construction of the troops' combat effectiveness." This characterization is consistent with the generals investigated in the Rocket Force system over the past two years, but Zhang Youxia's rank is significantly higher.

**From the perspective of the industrial chain, this purge has exposed a long-ignored issue: the "inflation rate" of the training and exercise system.**

The "PLA Daily" mentioned the need to strictly investigate "false training exercises" and crack down on "falsification." In simple terms, this refers to the fabrication of training data, inflating exercise effectiveness, and misreporting combat readiness levels. This issue has long been evident in the upstream military-industrial supply chain—last year, a detail mentioned in the annual report of a certain military industrial listed company indicated that the actual usage rate of a certain type of simulation training system was less than 40% of what was stipulated in the contract, yet the acceptance report stated that the "training tasks were successfully completed."

I have heard a saying in the industry: some units, in order to cope with inspections from higher-ups, will temporarily organize "crash training" before exercises, with key equipment usually stored away and urgently activated during exercises, leading to a high failure rate. More seriously, the joint combat training duration of some combined battalions has been severely overestimated—on paper, it shows 60 hours per month, but the actual time may only be 20 hours, with the remaining time filled with various forms of "theoretical study."

The root of this phenomenon in the industrial chain lies in the fact that the three links of training equipment procurement, training implementation, and effectiveness evaluation are managed by different departments, lacking an effective cross-validation mechanism. Military industrial enterprises that undertake training site construction often prioritize meeting "seemingly advanced" rather than "truly practical" indicators after obtaining contracts. For a certain large-scale combined training base construction project, just the electronic countermeasure simulation system cost 800 million yuan, but due to its complexity and maintenance difficulties, the actual annual usage does not exceed 15 times.

**Zhang Youxia has been in charge of training for many years; if the issue of falsifying training data is systematically present, it is hard for him as the responsible leader to claim ignorance.**

More subtly, the strategic support force was disbanded and reorganized into the aerospace force, cyber space force, and information support force in April 2024, a major adjustment in which Zhang Youxia was deeply involved. According to public reports, he conducted intensive inspections of several newly formed units from May to July 2024. However, less than a year later, several mid-level and senior officers in the information support force were investigated at the end of last year, which may be related to the interests involved in the formation process at that time.

There is speculation in the industry: the corruption case in the Rocket Force involves missile fuel procurement (rumored to have liquid fuel diluted with water), while Zhang Youxia's case may involve kickback issues in training equipment procurement and site construction. The commonality between the two is that they both directly affect combat capability—one concerns the weapon systems themselves, and the other concerns the personnel using the weapon systems.

From the perspective of supply chain management, this exposes a long-standing structural flaw in the Chinese military-industrial system: **acceptance standards overly rely on paper data, lacking realistic pressure testing.** A typical case is a certain type of domestically produced military engine, which met all indicators in laboratory tests, but its reliability under the "three high" conditions of high altitude, high temperature, and high humidity was far below expectations, because the acceptance tests did not fully simulate real combat environments.

This time, the "PLA Daily" explicitly stated the need to "strengthen supervision over combat effectiveness construction," particularly emphasizing the issue of "falsifying training exercises." This suggests that a third-party audit mechanism may be introduced in the future—such as involving an independent evaluation team from the General Staff in exercise assessments or introducing more realistic assessment standards.

**But the truly concerning question is: if senior generals are all "acting," what is the real combat readiness level of the grassroots troops?**

2027 is the deadline for the PLA to achieve its "centenary goal of building the military," which is less than a year away. If the training system has systematic falsifications, then the degree to which this goal can be achieved is likely to be called into question. More critically, if there is indeed a situation in the Taiwan Strait, can the troops reach the expected combat level without "rehearsals"?

There is also an unresolved mystery regarding the timing of Zhang Youxia's investigation. The announcement of the investigation on January 23 was just a few days before the Spring Festival, which is rarely seen in practice—major personnel changes usually avoid sensitive periods. This "unconventional" operation itself may indicate that the severity of the problem exceeds external expectations, or that some matters have reached a point of "no longer waiting."

Ultimately, the "Big Rat" has consumed not only military funding but also the credibility of the entire system. When junior officers discover that their superiors are falsifying exercise data and taking kickbacks in equipment procurement, how can they possibly maintain trust in the system? This crisis of trust may damage combat effectiveness more severely than any act of corruption itself.