Notes on WWII: Asia, 1937-1939

The Second World War in Asia began in July 1937, when fighting broke out between Japan and China at the Lugou Bridge near Beijing. Japan did not, however, expect the conflict to become as large as it did. Accordingly, we will start by looking at Japanese and Chinese intentions at the time of the Lugou Bridge incident and follow their development from that time. As, again, I am not a military historian, information on actual battles or tactics will be limited. This course will instead focus on the strategies pursued by both sides, how and why those strategies were selected, and how the war aims of each side changed over time.

 

 

What is going on with China?

As part of the concessions that ended that Xi’an incident, Jiang agreed to begin negotiations with the Communist Party. These negotiations, handled by Communist representative Zhou Enlai, were ongoing when the Second World War broke out in July 1937. China officially relegalized the CCP on 15 July 1937, in the midst of the crisis. The reconciliation between the Guomindang and the Communists was greatly assisted by the outbreak of hostilities with Japan. The Guomindang’s reason for reconciliation was that Japan posed a greater threat than Communism and the Lugou Bridge incident really highlighted that.

 

In Summer 1937, Japan had, for roughly two years, secured the Ho-Umezu and Qin-Doihara agreements, which prohibited Guomindang activities in Hebei and Chahar provinces. These agreements also established the East Hebei Anti-Communist Autonomous Government and the Hebei-Chahar Political Council. Japan had intended to use these entities to establish an independent pro-Japanese buffer zone between itself and China proper, thus securing its rear for an attack on the USSR. However, the Japanese were unhappy about their lack of progress in this goal and sought to force another change in the status of these entities by progressively expanding the Japanese area of control, as in the Fengtai incident.

 

In June 1937, the Japanese General Staff decided that prior to the invasion of the USSR, Japan needed to secure an independent buffer state in northern China. Although war was a possibility, the preferred method was by increasing the pressure on the two autonomous governments through limited aggression. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities at the Lugou Bridge, Japan had adopted the strategy of slowly encircling Beijing and Tianjin, hoping to use this as leverage to force greater concessions from the autonomous governments. The Fengtai incident had been part of this strategy.

 

There was not, in July 1937, any Japanese plan for provoking a large-scale conflict against China. This is reflected by the only Japanese forces in the area being 5k soldiers attached to the Japanese Consulates in Beijing and Tianjin.

 

 

The Lugou Bridge Incident

On the evening of 7 July 1937, a Japanese soldier, Shimura Kikujiro, briefly went missing after his unit was shot at from an unknown source. Although he returned within an hour, his absence was reported; his return was not. That night, Japan demanded access to Wanping to search for Shimura, but was refused by the Chinese garrison commander. In response, Japan attacked Chinese troops at Wanping on 8 July and took control of the city. This initiated a period of low scale conflict across the Beijing and Tianjin areas. By demanding to search Wanping, Japan likely intended to seize control of the strategic city, which was on the only railroad out of Beijing not controlled by Japan.

 

After the conflict began at Wanping, Japan changed its objectives. It saw an opportunity to escalate the incident, while still keeping it a local conflict. Japan now demanded that China evacuate all soldiers from the north bank of the Yongding river. The Hebei-Chahar Political Council, led by General Song Zheyuan, was willing to accept this demand, but the multiple truces concluded in the days after 8 July kept falling apart due to poor communication on the Chinese side.

 

The situation was complicated by the decision of the Chinese government to, on 10 July, station 4 divisions (~56k) in Baoding, a territory under the jurisdiction of the Hebei-Chahar Political Council. In response to the report of Chinese troops in Baoding, on 11 July, the Japanese government decided that Japan would prosecute a war against China to punish it for violating the Qin-Doihara agreement. All attempts to reach a peaceful resolution with the Hebei-Chahar Political Council should be abandoned.

 

China moved soldiers into Baoding because, since the Xi’an Incident, Jiang Jieshi has been under immense pressure to stand up to Japan and this is a great opportunity to do exactly that. Additionally, Jiang believed that the incident at Wanping was a prelude to Japan either splitting off northern China or seizing Beijing and Tianjin, both of which were unacceptable situations to which China had to respond. Zhou Enlai and other Communists were influential in hardening Jiang’s attitude toward Japanese encroachment and convincing him that this incident was the prelude to losing northern China.

 

The new military goal of Japan was now to seize control of the north bank of the Yongding river, including Beijing and Tianjin, either by force or negotiation with the Political Council. Once this goal was accomplished, Japan would demand further concessions in northern China. The North China Army Group requested and received additional soldiers from the Kwantung and Joseon armies, and from the Home Islands to prosecute this larger war. By the middle of July, Japan had gathered upward of 20k soldiers around Beijing.

 

The next two weeks saw skirmishes throughout the Beijing and Tianjin area and a political stalemate between China, Japan, and Song Zheyuan’s Political Council. Japan refused to accept any peace agreement that did not involve all Chinese forces retreating to the south bank of the Yongding river and Guomindang soldiers leaving Hebei province. Song Zheyuan, whose 29th Route Army were the one’s stationed north of the Yongding river, was willing to move south of that river, and, on 18 July, agreed to accept Japanese peace terms. However, Jiang refused to withdraw Guomindang soldiers from Baoding, scuttling the agreement.

 

Why did China do this? Jiang Jieshi was already adverse to any agreement that left Beijing demilitarized, but he also didn’t trust Song. Many Chinese officials thought that Song had been flipped by Japan and that his peace agreement was a ploy to turn Hebei and Chahar over to Japan, presumably in exchange for leadership of the new Japanese client state. So, not trusting Song, Jiang refused to remove Guomindang soldiers from Baoding.

 

The impasse continued until 25 July 1937, when large skirmishes broke out at Langfang. The next day, on 26 July, Japanese soldiers tried to enter Beijing to protect Japanese nationals and were repulsed at the Guang’an gate. In response to these two incidents, Japan issued an ultimatum on 27 July that China must withdraw all soldiers from Beijing within 24 hours or Japan would attack Chinese positions throughout northern China.

 

Song Zheyuan, on identical orders from Jiang Jieshi, refused to withdraw his force from Beijing and rejected the Japanese ultimatum. In response, Japan initiated a coordinated attack on all Chinese forces north of the Yongding river. Song did this both because he likely would have been court martialed and executed for disobeying an order to remain and because he understood that unless Guomindang forces withdrew from Baoding, which they didn’t, there was going to be war regardless of whether he abandoned Beijing or not.

 

 

Battle of Beijing-Tianjin

With the beginning of full scale warfare in northern China on 27 July, Chinese positions in Beijing, Langfang, and Tianjin were subjected to assault by Japanese forces, now increased to around 160k soldiers. Chinese forces north of Baoding, organized under the 29th Route Army, numbered around 100k men. Japan possessed advanced aircraft and artillery and used both to bombard Chinese defensive positions. China possessed almost no heavy artillery and a miniscule and outdated air force that could not be effectively deployed against Japan. Japan was thus able to bombard and destroy Chinese positions, allowing them to be easily captured with few Japanese casualties.

 

Song Zheyuan, who commanded the 29th Route Army stationed in the Beijing and Tianjin area, had spent all of July trying to negotiate a peace, not preparing for war. It showed, as his forces were scattered throughout the area and able to be individually picked off by the Japanese. The Chinese army in Baoding was also a mess at the end of July. It was supposed to be led by Song Zheyuan, as he was the only person with enough skill and status to force the other generals in Baoding to cooperate, but he kept ignoring orders to go to Baoding, opting instead to continue peace negotiations in Beijing. So the forces in Baoding were leaderless and without orders when the conflict broke out.

 

Most of the outposts of the 29th Route Army were captured on 27 or 28 July. Under heavy artillery and aerial bombardment, Song ordered the majority of his forces to retreat to Baoding on 28 July. Without Song and the other senior military leadership, the remaining forces of the 29th Route Army were in confusion. Chinese forces were driven south of the Yongding river, with Japan capturing Tianjin on 30 July and Beijing on 8 August.

 

 

Tongzhou Mutiny

On 28 July, the soldiers of the East Hebei Autonomous Government mutinied and joined the fight against Japan, first murdering around 260 Japanese and Korean civilians in Tongzhou. In retaliation, the Japanese burned down the city and killed many of its residents.

 

This reprisal against civilians typifies Japanese conduct in WW2, which was characterized by extreme brutality against civilians and POWs. Atrocities against civilians, including massacres, are common and become more so as the war progresses. Moreover, throughout the conflict, Japan refused to respect the Geneva Convention regarding POWs, often killing captured soldiers.

 

 

Stalemate on the Yongding

Chinese forces were under orders to gather at Baoding, essentially abandoning all territory north of that city. Japanese forces were under orders to stop at the Yongding river. As a result, Japanese and Chinese lines were separated by around 100km.

 

The Chinese soldiers retreated to Baoding because they are not told otherwise. The decision to focus only on Beijing and Baoding is because Jiang Jieshi believed that northern was essentially indefensible and northern soldiers were worthless. If he could, he would have abandoned everything north of the Yellow river, but he has to put up a fight for Beijing and Baoding for political reasons. 

Japan decided to stop at the Yongding river because, by capturing Beijing and Tianjin, Japan had already achieved its military goals. The Japanese leadership believed they were now in a strong enough position to force China to accept their demands. Those demands are: that the Beijing and Tianjin area be demilitarized, that China recognize Manchukuo, that Chinese suppress all Communist and anti-Japanese organizations and activities, and that northern China should be administered by men selected by and sympathetic to Japan.

 

Japan never got a chance to hear China’s response to the peace terms it proposed after capturing the area north of the Yongding river because, beginning on 9 August, a new crisis arose in Shanghai that distracted both China and Japan.

 

 

Oyama Incident

Tensions were already high in Shanghai before the outbreak of war in northern China, as China had been moving soldiers into the 20km demilitarized zone established in 1932. By August 1937, China had stationed around 120k soldiers in lower Yangtze, including at least 50k within the demilitarized zone.

 

On 9 August 1937, Isao Oyama, a Japanese Marine lieutenant, and his driver, Yozo Saito, were shot dead by Chinese police outside of Shanghai’s Hongqiao airfield. Oyama had allegedly tried to enter the airfield, although other accounts indicate that he was murdered by the Chinese without cause. Japan had just achieved all of its military objectives in northern China and had no desire to expand its war against China, so it tried to suppress the incident and avoid a new conflict in Shanghai.

 

In the aftermath of the Oyama incident, Chinese soldiers became more aggressive in their violation of the demilitarized zone and moved more soldiers into Shanghai. In response, Japan sent another 30 warships to Shanghai and increased its troop presence from 2,500 to 4k soldiers. By 12 August, Chinese troop movements had become increasingly aggressive and Japan predicted that war would soon break out in Shanghai. Japan ordered that all Japanese nationals be evacuated from southern China. On 13 August 1937, Chinese soldiers fired on the headquarters of the Japanese Marines, initiating the Battle of Shanghai.

 

Why did China just attack Japan in Shanghai? Jiang Jieshi and the rest of the Chinese leadership were convinced that the present war would result in the loss of northern China if Japan won. Accordingly, China had to fight with everything it had. Jiang thought that northern China was a bad place to fight; he disliked and distrusted Northerners and there were no natural barriers north of the Yellow river. So, instead of fighting Japan in northern China, Jiang decided to fight Japan in Shanghai.Jiang preferred Shanghai as a site for combat because the military commanders there were politically reliable, supply lines were easy to maintain, and the fighting would be happening close to the foreign concessions. Jiang hoped that fighting near the foreign concessions would trigger foreign intervention in the conflict, particularly that of Britain and the USA. He hoped that America and the Europeans would embargo Japan, which was still largely dependent upon foreign imports, and force a peace settlement.

 

 

Foreign Powers

After losing the Battle of Beijing-Tianjin, China’s strategy was based on switching the focus of the war to Shanghai and provoking a foreign intervention on their behalf. The Chinese cause attracted a lot of sympathy, but no intervention.

 

Britain supported China, but felt that its position was too weak to stand up to Japan. Britain’s main focus was on German and Italian aggression and it could not afford to get involved in China. British influence in East Asia was limited, and British leadership felt that any action, even embargo, would be useless without the support of the USA.

 

The USA, especially its large Chinese community, was sympathetic to China, but totally unwilling to get involved. Isolationism was dominant in the US and Americans didn’t want to get entangled in the problems of Europe or Asia. Trade with Japan was also too lucrative to consider an embargo.

 

Germany had been China’s most consistent European partner, providing equipment, advisors, and training for the Guomindang army. One of Jiang’s most important advisors was a retired German general, Alexander von Falkenhausen. Jiang Jieshi admired fascism and the Chinese government included many prominent fascists. Germany continued to be China’s main arms supplier during the initial conflict. Ultimately, however, Germany was unwilling to sacrifice its anti-Soviet alliance with Japan and even less willing to intervene in the conflict, and, in April 1938, bent to Japanese diplomatic pressure and cancelled all arms contracts with China and ordered all German nationals serving as advisors to China to return to Germany.

 

The only power that actively supported China did not even have a concession in Shanghai: the Soviet Union. The Soviets recognized that Japan intended to invade at some point and could not do so if it was bogged down fighting China, so the Soviets gave China the materiel it needed to keep fighting, beginning in August 1937. The USSR provided war materiel to China throughout the war with Japan, as well as over $250 million in loans, military advisors, and aircraft and pilots. Soviet aircraft and pilots, numbering 450 men upon deployment in October 1937, were instrumental in protecting Wuhan and Chongqing from aerial bombardment. The USSR was China’s main supply of war material and, after 1942, its only source.

 

 

The Battle of Shanghai

When fighting broke out on 13 August, the Japanese were vastly outnumbered, with roughly 50k Chinese soldiers in Shanghai compared to 4k Japanese. However, China lacked the artillery needed to drive the Japanese out of their entrenched defensive positions.

 

At the start of fighting in Shanghai, the vast majority of the civilian population of Chinese Shanghai fled the city. Some went into the country, but the majority of the 2 million refugees fled into the foreign concessions, where hundreds of thousands of them starved to death.

 

The urban combat within Shanghai was bloody, with high casualties on both sides. Neither the Chinese nor the Japanese were able to gain a decisive advantage in the fighting. Japan’s overwhelming advantage in firepower made Chinese offensives very difficult to carry out, even with a massive numerical advantage, as significant Chinese troop concentrations could be targeted for bombardment by Japanese aircraft or battleships. On the other side, the close-quarters nature of urban warfare limited the usefulness of Japanese artillery, aircraft, and naval guns. The proximity of fighting to the foreign concessions, which both sides tried to avoid, also often made it politically unfeasible to use heavy bombardment or chemical weapons.

 

Japan understood that it was disadvantaged by combat within Shanghai, as urban warfare limited the advantages of Japan’s overwhelming superiority in armaments. So, Japan attempted to maintain a stalemate within the city and refocus the fighting elsewhere. To this end, Japanese airplanes bombed Chinese cities and villages inland and along the coast, including Nanjing, and sunk Chinese ships. Civilian areas were often deliberately targeted.

 

When Japanese reinforcements arrived in Shanghai on 23 August, many of them landed at Chuanshakou, in the rural area north of Wusong creek. These reinforcements included 2 additional divisions (40k) and 200 tanks, as well as another 100 aircraft. Japan actively tried to shift combat to this front and away from Shanghai because it could better spot and bombard Chinese positions. Japan was relatively free to reinforce its position because of its unchallenged supremacy along the coast and because, as a Treaty power, it had access to the International Settlement.

 

China now faced a more difficult challenge, as Japanese forces had been greatly increased and fighting had moved to a location where Japan had a clear tactical advantage. Jiang decided that he could not afford to lose the Battle of Shanghai and further reinforced Chinese positions in the area. Over the course of fighting, China would send 700k soldiers into the Battle of Shanghai, including nearly all his elite German-trained divisions. Jiang concentrated all of his best forces in Shanghai, despite the high casualties. The new Chinese objectives were now to trigger foreign intervention and, failing that, to exhaust the Japanese in bloody urban fighting and force them to come to a favorable peace with China.

 

In addition to his reasons for selecting Shanghai as a preferable site of battle to northern China, Jiang Jieshi also understood that the loss of Shanghai would be devastating and poured everything he had into the city. The lower Yangtze valley was the heart of Guomindang power and Jiang’s personal power in China. It also contained much of China’s limited industry, so losing it would cripple China’s already limited ability to produce war materiel. The government was also dependent upon loans sourced from Shanghai’s financial community, which would be cut off if the city was taken by Japan.

 

Fighting continued in Shanghai, both within the city and in the rural area to the north, without major changes throughout September and October 1937. Both sides concentrated large forces in the area. China engaged around 700k soldiers, including its best divisions, while Japan deployed an additional 200k soldiers from northern China and the Home Islands over the course of September and October.

 

 

The War Expands

The outbreaking of intense fighting in Shanghai in August 1937 changed Japan’s overall strategic thinking. By the end of August, Japan decided that its hopes of containing conflict to northern China had failed and that a wider war against China, in both the north and the Yangtze Valley, would be necessary.  In northern China, Japan decided to push south across all three major railway lines: Beijing to Hankou, Tianjin to Pukou, and Datong to Tongguan.

 

The high casualties in the Battle of Shanghai and the new Japanese offensive in northern China accelerated the progress of talks between the Communists and the Guomindang. Now facing a serious military threat, on 22 September 1937, the Guomindang and Communists signed a peace deal, by which the Communists would become a part of the Guomindang government and the Communist military forces would fight Japan as the 8th Route Army. This agreement created the Second Popular Front and the Communists and the Guomindang will officially remain allies throughout the Second World War.

 

 

Operation Chahar

Although most fighting in northern China had stopped with the retreat of Chinese forces south of the Yongding river, there was still one Japanese offensive ongoing prior to the outbreak of fighting in Shanghai: Operation Chahar, intended to capture Kalgan.

 

The capture of Beijing and Tianjin secured Japan’s southern front, but southern Chahar province was still controlled by China and, thus, could threaten Japanese lines from north of Beijing. Chahar had also been earmarked for control by Prince De’s Mengjiang forces and Japan wanted to establish their client state in that province. Mengjiang forces played a significant role in the campaign. In the longer term, Japan also wanted to control Shanxi province, which contained ⅓ of China’s coal reserves. The best way into Shanxi was to capture the railroad from Datong and getting there meant breaking through the Xi Mountains west of Beijing and onto the Inner Mongolian Plateau.

 

Beijing and Kalgan were separated by the Xi Mountains, with a railway passing through the Guangou valley. The valley was guarded from three fortifications: Nankou, Juyong, and Badaling. China recognized the strategic value of the Guangou valley and sent the 7th Army Group under Tang Enbo, a trusted general, to reinforce the defenses, currently held by a local warlord, Liu Ruming. Liu, however, distrusted the central government and was worried that Tang Enbo was actually being sent to replace him as military governor of Chahar. So, Liu deliberately held up the 7th Army Group for several days, leaving Chinese forces unprepared and disorganized when fighting broke out.

 

The Japanese assaulted Chinese defenses at Nankou on 8 August 1937, arraying 70k soldiers against 59k Chinese defenders. Liu Ruming’s forces, garrisoning Nankou, quickly broke, but Japan faced stiff resistance from the better-trained 7th Army Group at Juyong. Chinese forces faced heavy casualties throughout the battle due to Japan’s overwhelming advantage in armaments. Japan bombarded Chinese positions with artillery and airplanes, as well as chemical weapons. Moreover, Chinese forces had no anti-tank rifles to combat Japanese armor. Chinese lines to the west of the Guangou valley were also harassed from the north by Mengjiang and Manchukuo forces, who attempted to cut off the Chinese rear.

 

After several attempts, on 25 August, Japan succeeded in finding a poorly defended spot on the Great Wall and crossed into the Guishui river valley. This made the defense of the Guangou valley pointless and, on 26 August, Chinese forces retreated to Yu county, Hebei. During the general retreat to Yu county, China also abandoned Kalgan, which was captured by Mengjiang forces on 27 August 1937. Prince De, with Japanese permission, established his government in Kalgan on 4 September 1937. By the time that Operation Chahar had succeeded in capturing Kalgan, the Battle of Shanghai had convinced the Japanese government to restart operations in northern China, so the Japanese and allied forces in Kalgan were told to press on to capture the Datong-Tongguan railway.

 

The Battle of Baoding

At the beginning of September 1937, the North China Group Army received orders to begin advancing south of the Yongding river along the Beijing-Hankou and Tianjin-Pukou railways. Both advancing Japanese armies contained around 75k men.

 

Chinese resistance along both lines was limited, as Chinese forces had mostly retreated to Baoding. The first major confrontation was at Zhuozhou, where Japanese troops used their greater maneuverability to flank the city’s 50k defenders and force a retreat to Baoding. Most battles along the railroads followed a similar pattern. China lacked the equipment to attack Japanese positions and its ability to redeploy soldiers was crippled by continuous Japanese bombardment. Japan was able to bombard and pin down Chinese positions and position its men to flank Chinese forces, forcing China to withdraw or be encircled and destroyed.

 

Japan used the same strategy on Baoding and captured the city on 21 September 1937. Japan, like China, recognized the political importance of the city. Japan temporarily suspended its advance south and issued new peace terms to China on 1 October 1937.  The new terms of peace required that China demilitarize Shanghai and all of northern China, in which Japan would be allowed to station soldiers for observations; recognized Manchukuo; and joined the Anti–Comintern Pact. Japan figured that its capture of Beijing, Tianjin, Baoding, and the high Chinese casualties inflicted in fighting around Wusong creek would have convinced China of the hopelessness of resisting Japan. This proposal represents the Japanese endgame for China in 1937.

 

China recognizes that the Japanese peace terms translate into the transformation of northern China into a Japanese colony and the permanent subordination of China to Japanese foreign policy. Jiang is unwilling to dismember his country and rejects these terms; also, he still hopes to exhaust Japan in Shanghai. When China rejected the peace terms, Japan restarted combat operations in northern China. The goal of these campaigns was to teach China a lesson: that Japan is strong, China is weak, and resistance is futile.

 

 

Inner Mongolian Campaign

The Mengjiang forces at Kalgan and Datong were given permission to resume their own operations to capture Inner Mongolia, progressing up the railway to Baotou with support from Japanese tanks and aircraft. They succeeded in capturing Hohhot on 14 October and Baotou on 16 October, facing little resistance from a Chinese army that had largely retreated into Shanxi. The Mengjiang capture of the Beijing-Baotou railway was also important to protecting the rear of Japanese lines in Shanxi, as they were now secure against any attack from the north.

 

 

The Tianjin-Pukou and Beijing-Hankou Railway Campaigns

The Japanese army progressing down the Tianjin-Pukou railway faced very little resistance, reaching Dezhou on 3 October 1937. This column then halted their advance on the border of Shandong province, as they believed they might be able to convince Han Fuju, the province’s military governor, to defect and thus avoid fighting. Han Fuju had betrayed a major warlord, Feng Yuxiang, twice, in 1926 and 1929, giving him a reputation for disloyalty. He was known to be actively contemptuous of Jiang’s government and disliked the Guomindang. All this meant that both China and Japan believed him a probable defector.  

 

Japanese progress down the Beijing-Hankou railway was challenged again at Shijiazhuang, which the Japanese captured on 10 October 1937. At Shijiazhuang, the Japanese force split, with one section continuing south to Anyang, which was captured on 20 October 1937, and another heading west along the Dezhou-Taiyuan railway to assist in the capture of Shanxi.

 

 

Shanxi Campaign

The Japanese invasion of Shanxi was planned to involve two armies: one progressing south along the railroad from Datong, and another coming west along the railway from Shijiazhuang, with the armies converging at Taiyuan, the provincial capital.

 

The main portion of the Datong-Taiyuan railway passes through the Hutuo river valley, passing through the narrow Yanmen Pass in the Heng Mountains. To seize the railway, the Japanese intended to capture Datong and then enter the Hutuo river valley from the east to secure the Yanmen Pass. To this end, on 11 September 1937, Japanese forces in Kalgan moved south and captured Guangling county, the entrance to the Hutuo river valley.

 

On 13 September, Japan captured Datong without a fight. The garrison commander, Li Fuying, had abandoned his position and had his 61st Corps retreat to the Yanmen Pass. Li Fuying was court martialed and executed by the regional military commander, Yan Xishan, as punishment for abandoning his position. His execution was intended to strengthen the resolve of Yan Xishan’s forces, who were largely untrained remnants of his time as a warlord.

 

Japanese forces then moved to enter the Hutuo river valley itself, but faced resistance from the Communist 8th Route Army at Pingxing Pass, at the intersection of the Heng and Wutai Mountains. Communist forces inflicted the first defeat on Japanese forces on 25 September 1937, driving back a Japanese assault on Pingxing Pass and capturing Japanese supplies. The victory and the fact that Communists were the first to defeat Japan were heavily deployed in propaganda. On 30 September, the Communists were forced to abandon Pingxing Pass and retreat to the area around Yanmen Pass’s entrance after Japanese forces moved south through the Heng Mountains in Fanshi county and threatened to cut off their lines.

 

On 2 October 1937, Japan began its combined attack on Chinese positions around Yanmen Pass, with troops in Datong attacking south and troops in the Hutuo river valley attacking west. Chinese forces were quickly pushed back as they retreated south into the valley; on 12 October, Japan captured Yuanping.

 

Chinese forces recollected themselves at Xinzhou to defend the last mountain pass before Taiyuan. China gathered 80k men, including the Communist 8th Route Army, for the defense of the passes. On 13 October, Japan initiated its attack on Xinzhou with 30k men positioned in Yuanping.

 

Coordinated with the Japanese assault on Xinzhou, the other Japanese army at Shijiazhuang started its own attack along the railway at Niangzi Pass, a strategic pass in the Taihang Mountains, on 13 October. Japan attacked Chinese positions with 60k soldiers, facing around 200k Chinese defenders. Japan took heavy casualties in the fighting at Niangzi Pass, around 20k men, while Chinese losses were devastating, numbering over 100k. Japan’s ability to destroy Chinese defensive positions through artillery and aerial bombardment eventually shattered Chinese lines and, on 26 October, China was forced to retreat to the mountains immediately east of Taiyuan.

 

On 2 November 1937, the Chinese army defending Xinzhou had to retreat in the face of mounting casualties (around 30k or almost 40% of the total) and low morale. The Chinese military leadership considered the defense of Taiyuan hopeless and ordered both armies, the one retreating from Xinzhou and the one retreating from Niangzi Pass, to abandon Taiyuan and retreat to Linfen. A smaller military force was left in Taiyuan to hold the city against Japanese assault. After losing the high ground surrounding the city and being subjected to direct artillery and aerial bombardment, they were finally forced to surrender Taiyuan on 9 November 1937. The direct bombardment of Taiyuan is estimated to have killed around 10k soldiers and another 10k civilians.

 

With the capture of Taiyuan, Japan now controlled all of the major rail networks in northern China. Japan now had great maneuverability of its forces across the theater and was positioned to continue progressing south of the Yellow river.

 

 

Japanese Victory in Shanghai

As Japanese armies advanced across northern China, fighting continued around Shanghai. Japan succeeded in refocusing the fighting into the rural areas north of the city and fighting was particularly intense around Wusong creek. China suffered massive casualties defending this line, but Japan succeeded in crossing on 7 October 1937. By the end of October, China had to abandon the area north of Shanghai.

 

On 5 November 1937, Japan landed 1 division (~20k) at Fushan along the Yangtze river and 3 divisions (~60k) at Zhapu along Hangzhou Bay. These forces faced little local resistance and moved to encircle and cut off Chinese lines. Recognizing the threat posed by the Japanese armies at Fushan and Zhapu, China ordered most of its forces to withdraw from the Shanghai area on 5 November. Shanghai fell to Japan on 12 November 1937. The Chinese retreat was rapid, panicked, and disorganized. The lack of organization among retreating units meant that the alternative defensive line to be established at Suzhou and along the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway was abandoned, as Chinese forces instead retreated to Nanjing and Wuhu.

 

The fighting in Shanghai had been incredibly costly to both sides, Japan took 40k casualties in the fighting and China, with many of its forces in rural areas exposed to Japanese bombardment, had somewhere between 180k and 300k killed. Chinese losses were concentrated in elite German-trained units, with over 60% of trained soldiers and officers dying in Shanghai. The core of German-trained soldiers and professional officers most capable and loyal to Jiang Jieshi were essentially destroyed at the Battle of Shanghai. Only these elite divisions could be relied upon as competent enough to conduct major offensive operations or complex tactics. The near destruction of these forces severely limits China’s military capabilities for the rest of the war, especially in terms of being able to conduct offensive operations.

 

Both of China’s plans for the Battle of Shanghai failed: no foreign intervention ever happened and Japan had not been exhausted by the fighting. Moreover, losing the Battle of Shanghai was devastating to China. It cut off the Chinese government from most banks and, thus, access to financing. It also deprived China of a large portion of its limited industrial capacity. After losing Shanghai, Jiang now had to fight a war while broke and unable to borrow money, almost entirely dependent upon the Soviets for supplies, and militarily dependent upon the untrained soldiers and officers given to him by regional warlords of questionable loyalty.

 

 

The League of Nations and the Nine Powers

In the background to the Second World War in Asia, China repeatedly tried to enlist the support of foreign powers in its conflict with Japan, first through the League of Nations and then through the Nine Powers Treaty. From the very beginning, the success of these efforts was doubtful, a fact recognized by the Chinese diplomatic corps. Japan had left the League in 1933 and ignored the Nine Powers Treaty for years. However, despite the pessimism of both the Chinese diplomatic corps and the European diplomats with whom they discussed intervention, one of China’s main strategies was to trigger foreign intervention, so this avenue was also pursued.

 

On 30 August 1937, China made an official complaint to the League of Nations regarding Japanese behavior. On 12 September 1937, China made another complaint, this one officially recognizing that a state of war existed between Japan and China and accusing Japan of being the aggressor. The League discussed the complaint at length and decided, on 5 October, that Japan indeed violated the Nine Powers Treaty and the Kellogg–Briand Pact. It then promptly fobbed the issue off onto the Nine Powers. The League did nothing because, at this point, the primary goal of the League powers was to avoid confrontation that would further embarrass and discredit the League. Additionally, the USA was not a member and everyone recognized that it was the only power in the Pacific that rivaled Japan.

 

One of the reasons that China continued to send so many soldiers into the Battle of Shanghai, despite the high casualties, was the hope that foreign intervention was more likely if the battle was still raging when the Nine Powers met.

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The Nine Powers, with the exception of Japan, who refused invitation on the grounds that Japanese-Chinese issues needed to be solved bilaterally, met in Brussels on 7 November 1937. On 15 November, the Brussels Conference issued a statement that it considered Japan to be the aggressor in a war against China and wrote a letter urging an end to the fighting. The Conference did nothing else of importance and dismissed itself on 24 November. The statement issued on 15 November was important only in that, signed by the Nine Powers as well as a number of other countries in Europe and the Americas, it conveyed global opinion at the time, which was strongly against Japan.

 

The Nine Powers did nothing because most of the countries at the Brussels Conference had a very weak position in East Asia, the exceptions being the USA and the USSR. Most of the Europeans were afraid of Japanese reprisals against their economic interests or colonial empires if they spoke out against it – Netherlands and France refused to even host the conference for this reason. The two countries that had enough weight to pressure Japan refused to intervene. The USSR wanted to delay war with Japan, not trigger it, and the USA was firmly isolationist, a position that had just been cemented in law through the Neutrality Act, first passed in 1935 and renewed, prohibiting giving loans to or any trade with belligerents.

 

 

The Battle of Nanjing

Japan pursued retreating Chinese forces during their disorganized and rapid flight from the Battle of Shanghai. Japanese forces advanced inland as three columns: one along the Yangtze river, one along the Nanjing-Shanghai railway, and one south of Chinese lines. Japan captured the alternative defensive line at Suzhou and the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway on 19 November; it had been almost entirely abandoned as Chinese forces retreated to defend the capital, Nanjing. The middle and southern columns took Wuxi and Huzhou, respectively, on 24 November. The middle column captured Danyang on 3 December. Japanese forces reached the outskirts of Nanjing on 6 December 1937.

 

Japan aimed to capture Nanjing, the Chinese capital. Japanese military leadership, particularly Iwane Matsui, the commander of the Central China Area Army, believed that the fall of their capital would force the Chinese to come to terms with the reality of Japan’s strength and sue for peace.

 

On 20 November, recognizing that Nanjing has few defenses and is likely to fall should Japan attempt to capture the city, the civilian government of China evacuates to Chongqing. The Chinese military command remains in Nanjing for the time being.  There was a debate among the senior military leadership over whether to defend Nanjing, the capital. Most generals said that it was indefensible and that, after months of heavy fighting at Shanghai and low morale, Chinese troops could not be expected to defend the city. The dissenting voice among the military leadership was Tang Shengzhi, who argued that a retreat would dishonor the memory of Sun Yatsen, whose tomb was in the city. Jiang agreed and ordered Tang to organize the defense of Nanjing.

 

On 6 December 1937, Japan called on Nanjing to surrender. When Tang refused, Japan began its attack on the city. Tang had around 80k defenders, while Japan attacked with 50k men split into a northern and a southern column. Simultaneously, another Japanese force, the column that had captured Huzhou, attacked the city of Wuhu, which fell on 10 December, isolating Nanjing. Many of the Chinese defenders were recent recruits, as huge numbers of experienced soldiers had either been killed in the Battle of Shanghai or deserted. Chinese units, overall, had low morale and high desertion.

 

China had built the defensive lines around Nanjing too close to the city itself, so that, even without taking any Chinese positions, Japanese artillery could reach the city. Depending on overwhelming firepower, Japanese forces reached the city walls on 10 December. Chinese defenses along the old city wall began to totally collapse on 12 December, as Japanese forces made multiple breakthroughs. On 13 December, Tang Shengzhi ordered Chinese troops to retreat across the Yangtze.  The Chinese military leadership, including Jiang Jieshi, fled Nanjing to Wuhan and reestablished their command in that city.

 

 

Nanjing Massacre

The capture of Nanjing by Japanese forces on 13 December 1937 began a period of general looting, murder, and other atrocities by Japanese soldiers against the city’s civilian population, known as the Nanjing Massacre. From when they entered Nanjing, bitter and angry at Chinese for the heavy casualties they endured in the Battle of Shanghai, Japanese soldiers began looting the city and murdering or committing atrocities against Chinese civilians. The Nanjing Massacre is notable because of its scale, but looting, massacre of civilians, and other atrocities characterized the conduct Japanese army in all of the cities it captured. Similar events occurred after the capture of Baoding.

 

In December 1937 and January 1938, Japanese soldiers in Nanjing are estimated to have murdered between 150k and 200k Chinese civilians, constituting the majority of the city’s population, in addition to countless other atrocities. They also murdered around 30k POWs. Looting and arson were both widespread and around ⅓ of the city was burned down. Looting and severe human rights violations committed by the Japanese were not directed by senior officers, but Japanese officers did nothing to stop the violence, which continued for roughly 6 weeks after the capture of Nanjing. The Japanese government was concerned that the massacre would be bad press for Japan internationally and ordered Matsui and his senior officers to be recalled in February 1938. But no one was ever punished and Matsui was redeployed in China a month later.

 

Japanese atrocities in Nanjing were widely reported within China, although the event was generally underreported in the foreign press. Most foreign newspapers considered the tales of Japanese atrocities too horrific to be believed and so numbers and descriptions were toned down.

 

The Nanjing Massacre only ended with the end of military law and the creation of a civilian city government in January 1938, which succeeded in pressuring the Japanese military staff into restoring discipline and order to the city.

 

 

Konoe Declaration

Japan paused offensive operations in China after the capture of Nanjing. They had captured all of their strategic goals in northern China and taken the Chinese capital. The assumption was that the strength of Japan would now be sufficiently impressed upon China for the Chinese to accept peace terms. The capture of Nanjing had also hardened the Japanese attitude toward China, as they expected their victory to be so complete that China would accept any terms it was given. The expectation was for China to be so desperate that it would accept anything.

 

On 22 December 1937, Japan transmitted its new peace terms to China through the German diplomatic corps, with China receiving these demands on 27 December. The new demands, drafted by Foreign Minister Koki Hirota, were 1) that China cooperate with Japan and Manchukuo against Communism, 2) that China pursue economic cooperation with Japan and Manchukuo, 3) that China pay reparations to Japan, and 4) that China agree to the establishment of demilitarized zones and autonomous governments in its territory.  

 

The Chinese government certainly desired peace, but there was a lot of confusion over what Japan actually meant by these terms, as they were all extremely vague. So, China asked for clarification.

 

The military also found Hirota’s terms to be extremely vague and worried that unclear terms might lead to an unnecessary prolongation of the war, which they wanted to be concluded so they could focus on invading the USSR. So the army and the civilian government sat down on 11 January 1938 to hash out exactly what they wanted from China. This committee decided that the terms for peace would be 1) the recognition of Manchukuo, 2) an autonomous government in Inner Mongolia, and 3) the transformation of the occupied area of northern and central China into demilitarized zones. It was decided that, if China refused these terms, that Japan would topple Jiang Jieshi’s government and create its own Chinese government that would agree to these terms.

 

Japan never actually sent the clarified peace terms to China, however, before, on 14 January 1938, it received the Chinese request for clarification. The Chinese response infuriated the Japanese Cabinet and it decided that it would interpret the request for clarification as an insult and a refusal of Japanese terms and, accordingly, Japan would now wage a war of regime change in China. The attitude of the Japanese in making this decision appears to be that, being so soundly defeated, China should accept whatever terms Japan dained to give it and that asking for clarification implied that there are some terms that China wouldn’t accept. This was taken as evidence that the Chinese leadership was hopelessly intransigent and needed to be removed.

 

The switch from planning for a limited war in China to a protracted regime change war in China led to changes in Japan. The Japanese army was massively expanded following this decision, growing to 1.7 million soldiers by 1941 and 6 million by 1945. To support the increasingly costly campaign in China, the General Mobilization Act was passed in May 1938, turning Japan into a command economy.

 

On 16 January 1938, PM Fumimaro Konoe issued a declaration reiterating the decision of the Cabinet. From this point on, Japan would be prosecuting a war of regime change in China and would not negotiate with the Jiang government under any terms other than unconditional surrender.

 

 

The Provisional Government and the Reformed Government of China

The decision to pursue a regime change war rather than a more limited goal in northern China transformed the Japanese occupation regime in China. For most of 1937, the territory captured by Japan had been ruled by either military government or local Chinese governments, whose control was limited to their city or county and were subordinated directly to the Japanese military.

 

The exception to this was in northern China, where the Kwantung Army leadership had hoped to establish an independent northern Chinese government. They had recruited Wang Kemin, a high-ranking Guomindang official, to serve as the head of a government in Beijing. This Provisional Government of China was inaugurated on 14 December 1937. The Provisional Government didn’t have that much power outside of Beijing, as the Kwantung Army hadn’t received permission to create a collaborationist government. They had just set this up to prepare if their idea got approved. Now that, after 16 January 1938, Japan was committed to a regime change war, the Kwantung Army’s idea was approved and the Provisional Government was gradually expanded, given control over the Tianjin area and, in June 1938, the territory of the former East Hebei Autonomous Government. Its territorial control was expanded as Japanese frontlines moved south.

 

The Central China Area Army didn’t want the Kwantung Army to end up controlling occupied China, so it rushed to establish its own collaborationist government, the Reformed Government of China, established on 28 March 1938 under Liang Hongzhi, a former warlord and longtime foe of the Guomindang.

 

Both collaborationist governments faced difficulties in recruiting, as most prominent Chinese absolutely refused to betray their country to Japan. This is reflected in the scope of Japanese recruitment activities, with Japan searching Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong for anti-Communist or anti-Guomindang leaders. The situation of the Reformed Government was particularly bad because they had to compete with the Provisional Government and its backer, the Kwantung Army, who had a head start. There was little collaboration or coordination between the Kwantung Army and the Central China Area Army, as both desired their own puppet government to eventually become the Chinese government.

 

The responsibilities of these collaborationist governments was to carry out basic administrative duties, set up the legal basis for a colonial regime similar to what existed in Manchukuo or Mengjiang, suppress anti-Japanese activities or information, and to provide soldiers and police to carry out anti-Communist or anti-Guomindang activities. One of the responsibilities of the collaborationist governments was education. New curriculum included revisionist textbooks and encouraged studying Japanese, and Japanese teachers were sent to Chinese schools. 

 

From the beginning, it was assumed that both the Provisional and Reformed government were temporary and would be turned into a single Chinese government subordinate to Japan. This was the reason for competition between the Kwantung Army and the Central China Area Army, as they both wanted their own puppet government to become the government.

 

 

Shandong Campaign

Most military campaigns were suspended during negotiations in December 1937 and January 1938, with the exception of the campaign to capture Shandong.  Shandong was an exception because it was the last province of northern China to remain outside Japanese control and the Kwantung Army wanted de facto control over all areas it claimed.

 

Shandong was controlled by military governor Han Fuju, a general from the warlord era with an acrimonious relationship with Jiang Jieshi and the Guomindang leadership. His army of around 100k was personally loyal to him, not to the Guomindang, and necessary to any defense of Shandong. Jiang had identified the Yellow river in the north of the province as the only defensible point in northern China and was determined to fight there.

 

Japan had avoided invading Shandong until December 1937 because they believed that Han Fuju was likely to defect. Back in the Warlord Era, Han Fuju had been a follower of the major warlord Feng Yuxiang. He betrayed Feng twice, once to another warlord in 1926, and again, after being forgiven, to the Guomindang in 1929. He had also been plotting with Guangdong’s military governor, Chen Jiteng, to overthrow Jiang Jieshi as recently as 1936. Han Fuju also had a terrible relationship with the Guomindang and often ignored or refused orders. Japan knew all of this and thought he’d be willing to turn coat again, this time for Japan.

 

On 25 December 1937, Han Fuju withdrew his army from the cities of Jinan and Tai’an, both along the railway, and back to Jining, in the southwestern corner of Shandong province. Japanese forces could now capture both towns without fighting across the Yellow river or through the Tai Mountains. Jiang Jieshi was furious when he found out about this because he had wanted to make a stand at the Yellow river. Moreover, his retreat isolated the few Guomindang forces in Shandong, stationed in the east, and forced them to join the retreat to Jining.

 

Why did Han Fuju do this? It depends on whether you think Han Fuju is a traitor. If he is a traitor, then he did this to purposefully weaken the Chinese position and hand over Shandong because Japan promised him the leadership of China. If not, then Han Fuju was responding to a fear that Japan would soon land at Qingdao and then trap his forces within Shandong to be destroyed. He also feared that the Jiang government would sue for peace at some point and, when that point came, he wanted to have an intact army to keep his power.

 

Now that Han Fuju was stationed in Jining, the Japanese armies quickly advanced down the railway to fight him there. He wrote to Jiang to tell him that he planned to retreat to Kaifeng. Jiang wrote back with direct orders to not retreat. On 5 January 1938, Han Fuju retreated to Kaifeng in direct opposition to orders, surrendering Jining to Japanese forces. Han Fuju did this either because he was a traitor or because he believed that he would be abandoned by the other Chinese and his army would be destroyed before the Guomindang accepted peace, leaving him out of power.

 

The feared Japanese landing at Qingdao did happen on 9 January 1938, although the city had been abandoned by Chinese forces and the vast majority of the population several days prior when the mayor, Admiral Shen Honglie, fled the city.

 

On 11 January, while attending a staff meeting with Jiang Jieshi in Hankou, Han Fuju was arrested and court martialed for failing to oppose the Japanese and abandoning most of Shandong province; so were 9 of his senior officers. On 24 January, Han Fuju was found guilty of cowardice and disobeying orders and was executed as punishment. The execution of Han Fuju stiffened the resolve of military leaders across China in the same way that Yan Xishan’s execution of Li Fuying strengthened discipline during the Shanxi campaign. Chinese generals now knew that, if they acted out of self-interest to the detriment of the war against Japan, they could be killed, regardless of rank.

 

 

Further Expansion into Shanxi

Similar to their plans in Shandong, Japan also believed that they could convince Yan Xishan, the military governor and longtime ruler of Shanxi, to defect. They believed his strong anti-Communist beliefs would convince him to collaborate with Japan. Instead, he refused.

 

In February 1938, negotiations with Yan finally failed and Japan restarted its offensive in Shanxi. Japan took control of Linfen in February and another force seized Changzhi, Jincheng, and Yuncheng in March, bringing all of the major cities of Shanxi under Japanese control.  Japanese forces did not, however, have the strength to attack across the Yellow river or across the Zhongtiao mountains. Local Communists and Yan Xishan’s remaining forces put up stiff resistance and Japanese troops had to be redirected to participate in the offensive toward Hankou.

 

 

Xuzhou Campaign

Japanese strategy changed as its war aim switched to toppling and replacing the Chinese government. Japan now sought to control the major population centers of China and its rail network. Hankou was key to central China, one of the most important railway hubs in the country, and was the new military capital, so Japan sent out to seize control of it. There were not, however, any railways between Nanjing and Hankou, so if Japan wanted to advance quickly, it had to fight down the Beijing-Hankou railway.

 

Japan wanted to mass its forces to do so, which meant uniting its northern and southern fronts. The plan was to complete its capture of the Tianjin-Pukou railway by seizing its junction with the Lianyungang-Baoji railway at Xuzhou, then move the armies from that railway and Nanjing west to assist in fighting south along the railway to Hankou. Japan dedicated 300k soldiers to capturing the remainder of the Tianjin-Pukou railway.

 

China understood the significance of the rail lines and assumed that Japan was aiming for Xuzhou and Zhengzhou. China concentrated 300k soldiers in the area under the overall command of Li Zongren.

 

The campaign strategy, initiated in February 1938, was for the Central China Area Army to march north and for the armies in Shandong to march south, converging around Xuzhou.  The first part of this plan was for the Central China Area Army to advance to the Huai river, which they did on 9 February 1938, capturing both Bengbu and, on the north bank, Huaiyuan County. Their advance further north was stopped, however, by a Chinese counterattack in Huaiyuan from the north and attacks on their supply lines from Hefei that kept Japanese forces tied down until April.

 

 

Battle of Linyi

Japanese forces also began moving in from the north in February, beginning with the 5th Division marching inland from Qingdao. They faced intense Chinese resistance in the vicinity of Linyi and only managed to push defenders back into that city on 3 March. However, Chinese forces then ambushed the Japanese column on 12 March and forced them to call off the operation for over a week.

 

The Battle of Linyi was the Guomindang’s first definite victory of the war. This was instrumental, at the time, to improving morale and shattering the Japanese Army’s reputation for invincibility. It would have been even more important had not Japan lost another more publicized battle later that month. Like the Battle of Pingxing Pass, the Battle of Linyi only temporarily stopped the Japanese advance. Japan resumed its attack on 23 March and did manage to capture Linyi on 30 March.

 

 

Battle of Taierzhuang

Although the original plan for the North China Army was to meet up around Xuzhou with the 5th Division, the rest of the army continued its portion of the plan despite the 5th Division being held up in Linyi. This portion of the army captured Tengzhou and Zaozhuang in late March and attacked the fortified village of Taierzhuang on 24 March 1938.

 

The Japanese 10th Division captured Taierzhuang on 31 March 1938, but their success had actually been a maneuver by Teng Enbo to deliberately trap the Japanese. Once the 10th Division entered the city, they were attacked on all sides and only relieved when the 5th Division arrived on 9 April 1938 and allowed them to escape.

 

The Chinese victory at the Battle of Taierzhuang was a massive boost to morale since it, unlike the Battle of Linyi, had been widely publicized and is often proclaimed to be the first Guomindang victory against Japan. Their loss at the Battle of Taierzhuang also rattled the Japanese, who stopped combat operations for the rest of April to regroup and reconsider their strategy. Up until this point, the North China Army had had a pretty easy time fighting and had to start taking the Chinese much more seriously now that they weren’t fighting warlord armies any longer.

 

But wait, didn’t all of China’s best armies get destroyed at the Battle of Shanghai? Yes, they did, but the North China Army wasn’t fighting China’s best, they were fighting the factious, poorly trained, poorly equipped, disloyal warlord armies of northern China. To them, the step up to the poorly trained and poorly equipped Guomindang armies was significant.

 

 

Battle of Xuzhou

Japan’s new strategy, put into action in May, actually looks a lot like their old strategy only better executed; Japan would now wait for all three armies to be in position before attacking.

 

It is also at this point that, since they now took the Chinese more seriously as combanents, that Japan authorized the use of nauseating gas, particularly Diphenylchloroarsine, at the discretion of commanders. Prior to this point, unless specifically authorized by high command, only tear gas was used.

 

The southern column managed to break Chinese positions around Hefei on 5 May and seize the city, thereby freeing its supply chain from attack, and continued its advance north to capture Mengcheng County on 9 May 1938. It then advanced to take Baishan and Yongcheng, threatening the railway from the south.

 

Instead of directly attacking Xuzhou, Japan also switched up its tactic to cut off the city. On 11 May, Japanese forces occupied the villages surrounding Heze, capturing the city on 14 May. This meant that, by 15 May, Japanese positions around Heze and Yongcheng threatened to cut off the railway from Xuzhou and trap Chinese forces in the city.

 

Li Zongren recognized this and ordered his forces to focus on breaking through Japanese lines along the railway and at Suzhou to facilitate a retreat to the west. Despite this foresight, Li Zongren’s forces were still almost trapped during the retreat on 18 May when the Chinese garrison in Suzhou retreated without orders in the face of Japanese attack.  On 19 May 1938, Japanese troops moved in to capture Xuzhou, most of the Chinese defenders having been successful in their retreat.

 

 

Destruction of the Yellow River Dikes

Having captured Xuzhou, Japan now proceeded with the next phase of its plan, to travel up the Lianyungang-Baoji railway to the junction at Zhengzhou and then turn south toward Hankou. Travelling along the Lianyungang-Baoji railway, Japanese troops captured Shangqiu on 23 May 1938. They then advanced into Lankao County and managed to capture Kaifeng, the capital of Henan province, on 6 June. Chinese soldiers offered little resistance and retreated from Kaifeng without a fight.

 

Both sides recognized that, having taken Kaifeng, Japan was in a very strong position to capture Zhengzhou and then proceed south along the railway to Hankou. Japan almost certainly would have taken Zhengzhou if the Chinese hadn’t deliberately destroyed the dikes on the Yellow river at Huayuankou on 9 June 1938.

 

The flooding from the dikes was so widespread and severe that Japanese forces were unable to advance anywhere and rail lines became unusable. The Japanese advance on Zhengzhou was decidedly halted. Jiang Jieshi’s government decided to intentionally cause a flood because it was the only idea that had that seemed to have a good chance of stopping the Japanese advance. The loss of Hankou would have been devastating and this action prevented Japan from advancing along the railway.

 

The flooding was devastating for the locals, who had not been warned in advance about the destruction of the dikes. The flood destroyed villages and covered land with silt, making it uncultivable, and causing almost 4 million refugees. It is estimated that over 800k Chinese peasants may have died in the flood. The loss suffered by Chinese peasants due to the flood was so severe that the Guomindang blamed it on the Japanese and refused to admit responsibility. However, Communists did blame it on the Guomindang and the Guomindang was discredited in that area. Jiangsu, Anhui, and Henan later became strong bases of Communist support.

 

Now that the Yellow river flood had stopped their advance on Zhengzhou, Japan had to find a new way to capture Hankou. One advantage of the campaign remained, however, in that Japan had now linked its northern and southern armies.

 

 

Capture of the Fujian Coast

During the same time as the Xuzhou campaign, the Japanese Navy also began its own operations to seize Chinese ports and thus starve the Chinese of the imports they needed to continue fighting. Now that Japan’s goal had shifted to toppling Jiang Jieshi’s government, this meant denying it the supplies it needed to continue fighting. Although China has a massive coast line, it has only a few deep water ports that could be used for large scale shipping. Japan set out to seize these ports.

 

In addition to seizing ports, Japan also stepped up its aerial campaign against Chinese ports and shipping around April 1938, beginning to attack shipping down the entire Chinese coast to prevent supplies from reaching the Guomindang.

 

Part of the motivation for these actions was almost certainly down to the rivalry between the Army and Navy. The Army had been doing all of the fighting in China and had received budget increases and power in government commensurate with that war. This operation could be done by the Navy to win some influence and money for themselves.

 

The first ports to be targeted were Xiamen and Fuzhou, the two major ports of Fujian province. Fujian was an easy target, as it was across from the Japanese colony of Taiwan and Japan had a large presence in the province, control over which had originally been one of the 21 Demands.

 

Japan attacked Xiamen on 10 May 1938, using aircraft to destroy all bridges, roads, and ferries into the city and landing 2k marines. On 11 May, Japanese warships open fire on Xiamen’s coastal defenses; as these guns exceed the range of the guns in the Chinese forts, the defenders abandoned their positions. On 12 May, having discovered their fortifications are useless against the Japanese Navy, Chinese forces retreated from Xiamen and it was occupied by Japan. Fearing that they would be massacred, Xiamen’s civilians fled, with 90k joining the army in the countryside and another 60k seeking refuge in the city’s foreign concessions. Most of these refugees were not readmitted back into Xiamen until 1945.

 

On 31 May, Japanese planes bombed and sunk the Chinese ships guarding the mouth of the Min river on which Fuzhou is located. Japanese warships then move up the river and threaten to bombard the city. Fuzhou is captured by Japanese forces within a few days.

 

 

Wuhan Campaign

Now that the flooding of the Yellow river had prevented them from accessing the Beijing-Hankou railway, Japan needed to find another route to Hankou. The only other railway to Hankou was from Guangzhou, which required fighting through the mountains of southern China, so Japan instead decided to march up along the Yangtze river to Hankou.

 

This plan was also delayed by the flooding, however, as movement to the south became more difficult. Moreover, it took the army several months to come up with new operational plans. The 400k soldiers dedicated to the campaign were not assembled until June 1938 and some did not reach their staging points until late August 1938.

 

The 400k man force assembled for the Battle of Wuhan represented over half of the total Japanese army and sucked in so many troops that most of northern China was severely undergarrisoned. The main beneficiaries of this were the Communists, who organized in rural areas and conducted guerrilla operations that effectively restricted the Japanese to the railways; Communists even recaptured Changzhi from Japan in July 1938. Communist activity in northern China, which blossomed during this period from March 1938 to October 1938, would become one of Japan’s primary concerns and a massive legacy of the conflict, as Communists gained control of rural northern China during this time.

 

Japan planned to advance on Hankou along the Yangtze river, with its main force split between the north and south bank, the southern bank receiving the larger force due to more important cities being located on that side. The Japanese navy provided logistics, support, and ferried man and materiel between the two banks. A third army, gathered at Hefei, would march west along the northern side of the Dabie Mountains to capture Xiyang at the same time that the main force captured Hankou. Because of Xiyang’s lower priority as a target, this force was not actually assembled until late August 1938.

 

China had two objectives in its defense of Hankou: to protect the city and to demoralize and exhaust Japanese forces through a prolonged war of attrition. The hope was that, if the battle was too costly in men and resources, that Japan would give up its hope of turning China into a colony. Consequently, China’s defensive doctrine changed to fit these new goals. Previously, China had fought over strategic points, such as railways and cities of political importance. Now, China ordered its soldiers to defend every inch of soil, not to defend a specific place, but to exhaust the Japanese. The Chinese force was also split along northern and southern banks, totaling over 1 million soldiers. The north bank was commanded by Li Zongren, a warlord from Guangxi, and the south bank was commanded by Chen Cheng, a Guomindang loyalist.

 

Japan launched its offensive in June 1938, capturing the city of Anqing on 12 June. Japanese forces then captured the Madang forts on 24 June in a surprise attack; the fort’s commander, Xue Yuying, was executed for cowardice for abandoning the forts. The capture of the Madang forts opened up the Yangtze river past Lake Poyang. Japan then continued to advance along the river, capturing Hukou County, on the east shore of Lake Poyang, on 4 July. Japanese forces experienced a delay at this point, as they waited for reinforcements from northern China to arrive before attempting to take Jiujiang. Operations did not resume for another two weeks.

 

On 23 July, now reinforced, Japan launched another surprise attack, using small boats to cross the shallow Lake Poyang and capturing the forts overlooking the city. Jiujiang was captured on 26 July and Huangmei County, the opposite bank, on 2 August. The capture of Jiujiang was important because it was a major city and because it was connected by rail to Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province, and from there to the Shanghai–Changsha railway, which itself intersects with the Wuchang–Guangzhou railway. This creates the potential for other routes of advance.

 

Now that it had reached Jiujiang, Japan faced a difficult situation, because the Chinese district military commander, Xue Yue, had heavily fortified the entire mountainous area west and south of Jiujiang, including the southern portion of Lu Mountain. Japanese forces would be largely unable to progress forward for all of August and September. During combat around Jiujiang, Japan would become increasingly dependent upon its superior weaponry, particularly aircraft and chemical weapons. Conventional artillery often could not hit Chinese positions in the mountainous terrain. This restricted the pace of Japanese advances according to the availability of aircraft.

 

Logistics in general hindered the Japanese advance, as all reinforcements, supplies, fuel, and ammunition had to be ferried by the same limited number of boats. Moreover, these vessels were blocked by mines placed in the river, restricting the pace of Japanese advance. Even in cleared sections, ships often came under fire from Chinese forces, further disrupting supply chains. The division of the Japanese army, including its artillery and tanks, between the northern and southern banks of the Yangtze river prevented the concentration of forces that might have allowed Japan to fare better against the numerically superior Chinese force. Both Japanese forces occasionally lacked the manpower or equipment to hold positions or follow through on offensives.

 

 

Battle of Lake Xasan

In July 1938, a border dispute around Lake Xasan escalated between the USSR and Japan, threatening an escalation into warfare before Japan was ready.

 

The border between China and the USSR, now between Manchukuo and the USSR, had long been disputed around the Tumen river. The focus of the dispute is Lake Xasan and the Zaozernaya hills between it and the Tumen river. The Zaozernaya hills are a strategic highground overlooking the Rason-Tumen railway and had been identified as such by the Japanese since at least 1933.

 

On 11 July 1938, Japanese border guards reported that their Soviet counterparts were constructing fortifications on the Zaozernaya hills. This would potentially allow the Soviets to bombard or cut the Rason-Tumen railway.

 

The news that the Soviets had occupied the strategic highground came at a terrible time, as it is in the middle of the Hankou Campaign. Japan was unprepared for a war with the Soviet and moved almost all its forces into China, leaving only 120k soldiers in Manchukuo, compared to 200k Soviet soldiers in the Far East. Accordingly, Japan tried to deescalate the border dispute and prevent actual war from breaking out between itself and the USSR.  The official stance of the Japanese military command was that no military action should be taken against the USSR, as to prevent war, but that defensive action should be taken to prevent the loss of any additional border territory.

 

On 15 July, Japan sent an official complaint over the occupation to the USSR. The Soviets, however, refused to leave the Zaozernaya hills, which they claimed according to their interpretation of the border.

 

The incident flared up again on 29 July, when the Soviets also moved to begin fortifying Bezymyannaya hill, a small high point in the north of the Zaozernaya hills. Seeking to prevent any more loss of territory, Japanese forces attacked the Soviets, drove them off the hill, and then retreated. Based on their success in briefly capturing Bezymyannaya hill, the local commander gave Japanese troops permission to occupy all parts of the Zaozernaya hills not occupied by the Soviets.

 

At this point, the incident escalates because the commander on-the-ground, Kotaku Sato of the 75th Regiment, believed that the Soviets were planned to assault Japanese positions so, as a preemptive maneuver, he attacked Soviet positions on 31 July and seized control of the Zaozernaya hills. The Soviets attempted to regain the hills, but were unsuccessful, despite being reinforced by 30k soldiers backed by tanks, artillery, and aircraft. The Japanese defenders held their positions despite lacking tanks or aircraft themselves, an absence due to a desire by high command to not further escalate the fighting.

 

Diplomatic negotiations to end the fighting at Lake Xasan began on 4 August, with a ceasefire being agreed upon on 11 August, with Japan still controlling the Zaozernaya hills. On 13 August, a peace agreement was made, with Japan withdrawing from the Zaozernaya hills and agreeing to recognize the Soviet definition of the border. Even though they had won so far, to match the USSR, Japan would have had to send larger numbers of soldiers to the Battle of Lake Xasan, which would risk both escalation into war and strain limited Japanese manpower, both situations to be avoided because of the ongoing war in China.

 

Despite lacking tanks or aircraft and fighting against a much larger and more equipped enemy, Japan managed to inflict significant losses on the Soviets, including between 4k and 7k casualties and numerous tank losses. The Battle of Lake Xasan is important because, even though Japan never sought the conflict and extinguished it, the strong performance of the Japanese army, particularly against Soviet tanks, led the Kwantung Army leadership to believe that Japan was capable of easily defeating the Soviets, prompting the Kwantung Army to escalate a later border incident in May 1939 into a more serious battle.

 

 

Stalemate at Jiujiang

Around late August, the Japanese high command realized that Xue Yue was successfully bottling them up around Jiujiang and changed their plan to first cut off Wuhan’s rail connections. The northernmost column was still to capture Xinyang, while the army on the Yangtze river would now capture Nanchang and then progress simultaneously along the Yangtze river and the Shanghai–Changsha railway.

 

Now progressing on three fronts, against De’an in the south, Ruichang on the south bank, and Wuxue on the north bank, Japan made slow progress due to the mountainous terrain and constant Chinese counterattacks on the north bank. They managed to capture Ruichang on 24 August, Wuxue on 6 September, and reached Mahuiling on 3 September, and were then stuck in the same stalemate.

 

The force that had been meant to capture Xinyang finally finished assembling at Hefei by the end of August. It captured Lu’an on 26 August and Huoshan County on 29 August. Able to operate across an open plain and facing a much lower concentration of Chinese troops, this column was able to rapidly advance, crossing the Shiguan river and capturing Gushi County on 7 September. Despite considerable Chinese resistance, they managed to continue advancing and took Huangchuan County on 17 September. At this point, the column broke into multiple parts to surround Xinying, occupying the counties to the east, northeast, and northwest of the city by 21 September.

 

 

Battle of Wanjialing

As the northernmost column besieged Xinyang, however, Japan suffered a major defeat along the Yangtze at the Battle of Wanjialing.

 

Aerial reconnaissance had shown Japan that a gap in the Chinese defenses existed in the mountains between De’an and Ruichang. On 25 September, the 106th Division was sent to sneakily exploit the opening. The 106th Division was not the best of the Japanese army, as it was composed of reservists who had been activated only 4 months prior. It was inexperienced and relatively weak.

 

Xue Yue caught wind of the Japanese plan and decided to use the opportunity to destroy the 106th Division. After being allowed to march into the mountains, on 6 October, 100k Chinese soldiers surrounded and attacked the 106th Division at Wanjialing. The 101st Division, another inexperienced reserve group, moved to relieve it but was itself ambushed around the southern tip of Lu Mountain.

 

Both divisions were relieved only on 11 October and suffered heavy losses, totaling 30k casualties, constituting half or more of all Japanese losses during the entire campaign. The Battle of Wanjialing was another morale–boosting victory for the Chinese and ended the Japanese push toward De’an for several weeks, totally stonewalling Japan at Jiujiang.

 

 

Battle of Guangzhou

The Navy took the opportunity to become involved in the Hankou Campaign, capturing Guangzhou on 20 October to cut off supplies to the city. At this point, 80% of all Chinese supplies passed through Guangzhou and up the railroad to Wuchang. Cutting that rail connection had been seen as strategically important to debilitating the Guomindang’s warfighting capacity.

 

Originally, the Japanese had tried to destroy the Guangzhou–Wuchang railway through aerial bombardment, but they had been largely unsuccessful in this. So, in early October 1938, a plan to capture Guangzhou was approved. Japan had been previously reluctant to target Guangzhou because of its proximity to Hong Kong and, thus, the risk of triggering British intervention. After seeing Britain’s timidity at the Munich Accords, however, Japan believed this was no longer a concern and approved the occupation of the city.

 

China was still operating on the assumption that the proximity of Guangzhou to Hong Kong would deter Japanese attack and made no provisions for its defense. Japanese forces were able to land on 14 October and capture Guangzhou on 20 October.

 

 

Battle of Hankou

Having surrounded Xinyang, the northernmost column now received permission to take the city and then proceed down the railway to Hankou. Japan succeeded in cutting off the railway on 10 October and captured Xinyang itself on 12 October. This column moving south along the Beijing–Hankou railway had not been part of the Japanese plan, but in light of the success of this column and the stalemate around Jiujiang it made sense.

 

At this point, facing an imminent Japanese breakthrough along the Beijing–Hankou railway, Chinese withdrew troops from the Yangtze to protect the mountain passes through the Dabie mountains. This gave Japan the opportunity to break through Chinese positions along the Yangtze. Japan captured Yangxin County on 18 October and Daye on 21 October.

 

Instead of fighting heavily concentrated Chinese forces along the railway, the Japanese at Xinyang instead divided their force and crossed the Dabie mountains at multiple locations. Once across, they rejoined at the railway and pushed rapidly south to capture Hankou on 25 October.

 

After the capture of Hankou, Chinese rapidly evacuated its forces from the area, with the military HQ joining the civilian government at Chongqing. What supplies and portions of industry that could be transported inland were moved and destroyed everything else. Large portions of Hankou were burned down by the Chinese during the retreat.

 

Japan followed the retreating Chinese army, trying to cut off its retreat and intercept as much of it as possible. Japan progressed rapidly along both banks of the river and cut the Wuchang–Guangzhou railway at Xinning on 27 October. Despite this, the retreat was largely successful.

 

 

Aftermath of the Wuhan Campaign

Like the loss of the Battle of Shanghai, China’s loss of the Battle of Wuhan was devastating. Chinese casualties were enormous, with almost 1 million casualties during the campaign, many as a result of Japanese chemical weapons. These casualties also included over 80% of the greatly reduced professional officer corps that had survived the Battle of Shanghai. China had already faced problems during the Battle of Wuhan regarding the lack of professional officers and disloyalty or rivalries between warlord armies inhibiting effective response to Japan. This would only get worse, as Jiang Jieshi now had to depend almost entirely upon, often unfriendly, regional warlords for both military and political support.

 

The defeat at Hankou was so demoralizing that many members of the Guomindang, although not Jiang Jieshi, became convinced that China could not possibly defeat Japan and argued for unconditional surrender. Some of these figures, most prominently Wang Jingwei and Zhou Fohai, would later defect to Japan’s collaborationist government.

 

The retreat of the Chinese government to Chongqing effectively separated the Communist leadership, based at Yan’an in Shaanxi, from the Guomindang. Although they remained allied in the Second United Front, they operated in different military zones, limited shared objectives, and few chances for communication. This separation strengthened Mao Zedong’s hardline position within the Communists, under which the Communists completed their transformation into a rural-based peasant army conducting independent guerrilla operations against the Japanese.

 

The Battle of Wuhan was also costly for the Japanese, who had taken between 35k and 70k casualties in battle and suffered from over 100k sick from malaria and other diseases contracted in the Yangtze floodplains. Even though Chinese losses were exponentially greater, Japan had fewer men and could not sustain this rate of casualties.

 

After capturing Hankou, Japan effectively ended major operations against the Guomindang government. According to Japan, it had succeeded in its goal of reducing the Guomindang to a ‘local regime’ and set about consolidating their rule in China, with only limited operations against Jiang Jieshi’s forces.

 

Japan had good reasons to stop major operations: For starters, there is a good argument that Japan had effectively defeated the Guomindang. It controlled all of China’s major cities, major railroads, and the majority of its population. On top of that, an attack on Chongqing would have involved fighting through some of China’s most formidable natural barriers: the Daba, Wu, and Dalou mountains. Japan had already suffered casualties during the Hankou Campaign and didn’t want a repeat of that for limited gains. The Communists were causing serious problems in northern China and Japan didn’t have the manpower to both deal with them and launch a major offensive against the Guomindang.

 

Japan spent the next period of the war establishing its puppet government in China, fighting Communist guerrillas, conducting limited campaigns against the Guomindang government, and capturing areas that had been neglected during the main period of the war. Japanese goals in this next phase of the war were articulated in a speech by PM Konoe on the ‘New Order in East Asia’. This envisioned China as a puppet of Japan, similar in status to Manchukuo, with its economy being structured to benefit Japan. In an open repudiation of the Nine Powers Treaty, this ‘New Order’ also saw Japan as the dominant power in China, with other Treaty Powers being tolerated but unequal than Japan. This attitude toward other powers occasionally hardened, as some figures, particularly Itagaki, believed that conflict with Britain, France, and the USSR was inevitable and that Japan must expel them from China.

 

 

Explaining Japanese Military Success

In the 15 months since the beginning of WWII, Japan had rapidly occupied large parts of China and defeated its armies in every major engagement. Chinese victories were so widely celebrated in part because they were so rare. Japan’s success was due to both the advantages in armament enjoyed by Japan and by the weakness of the Chinese army.

 

Japan had, since at least the 1870s, established rigorous training for its army and navy and a professional officer corps. Despite having a volunteer – as opposed to conscript – army prior to 1939, the quality of training for Chinese soldiers and officers was very poor. Officers, including at high levels of command, usually had no formal training. The exception to this rule were elite German trained soldiers and officers and an additional professional officers corps from Whampoa Academy and like institutions. The number of professional officers was always small and most Chinese units were led by untrained officers. Almost all of the former only participated in and were killed during the Battle of Shanghai, while the remaining professional officer corps was killed during the Wuhan Campaign. 

 

Most Chinese soldiers were uneducated peasants attracted to the army because of the relatively high wages. In general, they were poorly equipped, poorly trained, inexperienced, and poorly led. After the loss of Hankou, the Guomindang also had to drastically reduce wages, meaning that after this point, they are also poorly paid. The loss of major Chinese population centers and the wage cuts following the loss of Hankou reduced the number of volunteers and forced China, in 1939, to introduce conscription. The sole advantage enjoyed by China was its massive population, particularly after the introduction of conscription. China was able to conscript more soldiers from Sichuan province alone in a single year than Japan could conscript in total over 5 years! Over the course of the war, even after losing most Chinese territory, the Guomindang were still able to conscript 14 million soldiers.

 

Japan enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in armament over China, particularly in aircraft, artillery, tanks, and chemical weapons. These advantages made it difficult for China to attack Japanese positions, costly to repulse Japanese attacks, and easier for Japan to take Chinese positions.

 

China lacked both tanks and artillery in most battles, making it difficult to advance against entrenched Japanese positions. Without support, Chinese forces often could not take Japanese positions and, if they could, it was at heavy losses.

 

 China also frequently lacked anti-tank weapons, particularly during fighting in northern China. This meant that Japanese tanks could only rarely be destroyed. Japan essentially had a weapon to which China had no effective response.

 

Japan enjoyed such an overwhelming advantage in aircraft that the limited Chinese air force was unable to compete and Japan had total control of the air domain. This facilitated both aerial bombardment and observation, allowing Japan to see Chinese positions for planning operations and better targeting artillery.

 

Japan’s use of chemical weapons was also decisive in many battles with China. From the beginning of the conflict, Japan used tear gas against Chinese forces and, from April 1938 onward, also began using vomiting agents like Diphenylchloroarsine. Chinese troops rarely had appropriate safety gear and, thus, the use of the gas rendered them unable to fight.

 

The defensive doctrine adopted by the Chinese exacerbated the problems caused by Japan’s advantage in armament. China focused on static defense and positional warfare, which was in accordance with Chinese military traditions, but advantaged Japan’s ability to break through enemy lines. This issue was continuously repeated in battles between China and Japan. China would retreat to a strongpoint and then be beaten there by the Japanese and then retreat to another strongpoint where the event will be repeated. Only in specific circumstances -- e.g., Xue Yue near Jiujiang -- was static defense successful.

 

The exception to this doctrine of positional warfare was the Communists, who adopted a mobile warfare doctrine to take advantage of their numerical superiority over the Japanese. This meant sending poorly armed units to more locations than the Japanese could be at, taking objectives even if battles were lost. The Communist use of a mobile warfare doctrine was greatly successful in northern China and succeeded, by late 1938, in reducing effective Japanese control to railroad lines and major cities. However, the Communists, despite their capability, did not seek out major battles with the Japanese nor try to contest control of strategic railways or cities. The Communist goal was to establish zones of Communist control in rural areas and then build up an army that could be used to challenge either the Japanese or the Guomindang, depending on how the war went.

 

Many of the Chinese armies were led by officers who had been enemies during the numerous civil conflicts of the Warlord Era. In addition, even among Guomindang officers, there were regional tensions. Many Chinese officers distrusted each other and refused to coordinate or cooperate. The demonstrated lack of unity or trust in the Chinese army meant that commanders had to assume that other Chinese units would not assist them or would refuse risky orders. This limited the kind of operations that the Chinese army could undertake.

 

Chinese commanders lacked unity and prioritized the wellbeing of their soldiers over the outcome of the battle. This meant that units refused to take risks to support others, resulting in China not using its manpower advantage to reinforce units under attack. Japanese forces were often able to fight Chinese units in engagements where Japan enjoyed equivalency or superiority in numbers, even if Chinese forces vastly outnumbered Japan over all. An example of this behavior was during the Battle of Shanghai, when a commander from Zhejiang province failed to deploy his 50k soldiers to stop a Japanese breakthrough because it would involve imperiling his men to save soldiers from other provinces.

 

These problems of regionalism and personal rivalry among former warlords only became more severe over time, as both the German-trained elite units and the professional officer corps were destroyed by 1939, leaving Jiang Jieshi dependent on the class of officers among whom these problems were more pronounced.

 

 

The View from Chongqing in 1939

The situation for the Guomindang in 1939 was bad. They had been restricted to the poorer and less populous provinces of the interior and had lost almost every major city, railroad, and port to the Japanese. Their army was less capable than at any previous time, the government was poorly supplied, and, in large parts of the north, the war against Japan had been taken over by the rival Communists.

 

Supply for the Guomindang government was a severe issue as, after capturing Guangzhou in October 1938, China had lost its main avenue of trade with the outside world. China was now increasingly dependent on the USSR for all forms of supply. Some supplies continued to come to the Guomindang through the many gaps in the Japanese lines, but this was difficult and the supplies were insufficient. Arms and ammunition were even more difficult considering Japan’s blockade of the coast. The Guomindang had only four remaining major avenues of trade with the outside world: with the USSR through Xinjiang, with France via Indochina, with Britain along the Burma Road, or flown in from Hong Kong.

 

The Guomindang government was almost entirely dependent on the USSR for trade and loans to sustain the war efforts. No other country gave significant support to China and France and Britain were under considerable diplomatic pressure from Japan to cut off their own trade links with China, leaving it totally dependent on the Soviets. The Soviets, however, were unwilling to commit large amounts of supplies that could have allowed the Chinese to actually carry out major operations, as they had their own concerns in Europe. There was a constant struggle over the amount of Soviet aid, which Jiang Jieshi was only able to procure by threatening to make peace with the Japanese.  This relationship with the USSR came at a cost, as the Guomindang worried about possible favoritism toward the Communists (not really) and Soviet influence over Xinjiang’s warlord, Sheng Shicai. It also made Chinese survival contingent on the Soviets not striking a deal with Japan.

 

 

Japan in Occupied China

Having reduced the Guomindang to a ‘local regime’, Japan now focused on setting up its puppet governments as the government of the majority of China. This effort was hindered by two issues: most prominent Chinese political figures were unwilling to collaborate with the Japanese, and the Japanese leadership was divided over what the new puppet government in China should look like.

 

There were essentially three views among the Japanese leadership on how China should be governed. The Kwantung Army and their allies had fought the war to control the five northern provinces and were committed to the earlier plan of turning this into a colony. The rest of the Japanese leadership wanted to keep China united, but disagreed on the utility of a puppet government separate from the Guomindang; one group wanted to create their own rival government, while another saw this as an obstacle to achieving a settlement with the Guomindang. The Kwantung Army lost the initial argument over the governance of China and it was decided that China would get a single government. To lay the groundwork for this transition, a committee for the Provisional and Reformed Governments to cooperate through was created in September 1938.

 

As Japan worked to establish a single client state in China, the military commands worked to consolidate their de facto control over the occupied areas of China. Colonial economic regimes similar to Manchukuo were set up in Mengjiang and in the Provisional and Reformed Governments. In all these territories, the economic relations were similar. Japanese nationals were given extraterritorial rights and the right to own land and businesses. Tariffs were altered to favor Japan and new currencies linked to the yen were issued.

 

The Asian Development Board (Ko-A-In) was created in December 1938 to reorganize occupied China under a planned economy similar to Manchukuo. Like its counterpart in Manchukuo, it was largely under military control. Two companies were created under the Ko-A-In, the North China Development Company in northern China and the Central China Promotion Company in the Yangtze area. They each monopolized all manufacturing and extractive industries in their areas.

 

Kenji Doihara was tasked with finding an appropriate leader for a unified Chinese government that would replace the Reformed and Provisional Governments. This proved to be extremely difficult, as most Chinese were unwilling to become collaborators. Originally, Doihara wanted to recruit a number of prominent anti-Guomindang figures, but was frustrated in this attempt. Duan Qirui and Cao Kun, two prominent opponents of the Guomindang during the Warlord Era, refused to collaborate. Wu Peifu, another anti-Guomindang was willing, but demanded full control over all military forces in China, something the Japanese would absolutely not allow. Tang Shaoyi, the first Premier of the Republic of China and a close friend of Sun Yatsen, was willing to collaborate without these demands, but was assassinated shortly after accepting.

 

 

Courting Wang Jingwei

Doihara got lucky when informed by two Chinese diplomats, Gao Zongwu and Dong Daoning, that Wang Jingwei was unhappy with Jiang’s leadership and was willing to accept Japanese terms for an end to the war. Doihara attempted to recruit Wang and succeeded in achieving his defection from the Guomindang in December 1938.

 

Who is Wang Jingwei? Next to Jiang, Wang was the most senior and respected member of the Guomindang. He had been a member of the Tongmenhui, a close friend of Sun Yatsen, and one of the party’s three leaders alongside Jiang after Sun’s death. He had a tense relationship with Jiang, having led a rival faction of the Guomindang against him in 1927 before rejoining the victorious faction of the party. He remained one of China’s most prominent politicians.

 

Why did Wang Jingwei defect? Wang had been shocked by the scale of killing during the Wuhan Campaign and depressed by Japan having captured the majority of China in only 15 months. Wang believed that the war against Japan was hopeless and that continued resistance, as advocated by Jiang Jieshi, would not prevent Japanese victory and would only result in millions of additional Chinese deaths. He sought peace to prevent pointless slaughter. Wang was not the only Chinese official who felt this way. These defeatist politicians and generals were the ‘peace faction’ and included other prominent defectors as well as the original negotiators, Gao Zongwu and Dong Daoning.

 

Wang’s split with Jiang came in October 1938 after the retreat from Hankou, when he left the Guomindang in protest of Jiang’s promise to continue fighting. He tried to convince Jiang to surrender, but, when Jiang refused, Wang left Chongqing for Hanoi on 18 December 1938.

 

While in Hanoi, Wang was again contacted by Japanese agents and convinced to lead a ‘peace movement’ that supported Chinese surrender and an end to the war. To this end, on 29 December 1938, Wang made a speech declaring his support for a peace with Japan on the basis of recognition of Manchukuo, stationing of Japanese soldiers in China, cooperation against Communism, limited economic concessions, and extraterritorial rights for Japanese citizens.

 

Wang’s peace movement was seen as a threat by the Guomindang and they attempted to assassinate him. An attack in March 1939 failed to kill Wang, but did succeed in killing his secretary and close friend, Zeng Zhongming. The assassination of Zeng was likely a large factor in widening the gap between Wang and the Guomindang and convincing him to first abandon Hanoi for Shanghai in May 1939 and then to head Japan’s client state in China.

 

By June 1939, Wang had been convinced of the necessity of not only a peace movement, but of an independent civilian government in China. He agreed to be its leader, but he had certain demands that needed to be negotiated with the Japanese authorities. Wang met with representatives of the Japanese government, the military commands, and the existing Chinese client governments in June 1939. He demanded considerable autonomy in governing China, eventually resulting in an agreement for the total withdrawal of Japanese troops from China once the government was on stable footing.

 

The Japanese government demanded that Wang recognize Manchukuo, pledge to fight Communism, and give Japan economic concessions and extraterritorial rights to Japanese nationals. Wang accepted all of these demands, although he pushed back against the wholesale monopolization that Japanese firms were currently undertaking in the occupied zones.

 

 

The Reorganized Government of China

The military commands, particularly the Kwantung Army, resisted the creation of a unified Chinese government as this would reduce their own influence in China, currently expressed through the Provisional and Reformed Governments. The Provisional and Reformed Governments were similarly opposed. Wang managed to convince a number of key military figures, including Itagaki Seishiro, that the Chinese would not accept the division of their country and that China would only be stable if it was united. A deal was made that, if Wang Jingwei could convince Wang Kemin and Liang Hongzhi to create one government, then they would approve the plan. In this way, Wang Jingwei managed to get approval for his national government.

 

However, the Japanese government was unwilling to actually enforce many of the agreements made on the military commands. Because of this, the planned economies created by the Ko-A-In remained in place and most of Wang’s plans were ignored. Wang Jingwei never succeeded in establishing himself in the five northern provinces.

 

Wang Jingwei never received the institutional support of the Japanese government or General Staff because those institutions were divided on how to use Wang Jingwei. Some believed that peace could only come through negotiations with the Guomindang and that a separate government under Wang Jingwei would spoil the chances of a deal with Jiang. This division meant that Japan never fully backed Wang Jingwei.  Negotiations with Jiang Jieshi were ongoing throughout this whole time period, although his refusal to personally resign or give up any territory south of the Great Wall meant that no agreement was ever made.

 

Now that he had the approval of the Japanese, Wang Jingwei laid the groundwork for his government. Wang called his own meeting of the Guomindang in Shanghai, held between 28 August and 6 September 1939. He planned to organize a one-party state under the Guomindang, similar to that existing under Jiang Jieshi.

 

Negotiations between Wang Jingwei’s faction of the Guomindang, the Provisional Government, and the Reformed government continued throughout late 1939 and early 1940, culminating in the creation of the Reorganized Government of China, with Wang Jingwei as its head, on 30 March 1940.

 

Many senior Guomindang members defected to Wang Jingwei’s government after the Shanghai Congress and the establishment of the Reorganized Government, including Chen Gongbo and Zhou Fohai. So did 20 members of the Guomindang Central Committee, 58 generals, and almost 500k soldiers. Originally, one of the hopes of the Japanese leadership had been to isolate generals thought to be opposed to Jiang Jieshi, like Long Yun of Yunnan, and get them to defect to the Reorganized Government. However, the military commands distained Wang Jingwei and refused to incorporate this strategy into their planning.

 

The Reorganized Government was given control over civilian affairs in China outside of the five northern provinces, although it continued to be overruled and ignored by the Japanese military commands. It became an important body in Japan’s war against Jiang Jieshi and the Communists, as it provided hundreds of thousands of soldiers and police to fight the Communists and free up Japanese soldiers for other theaters.

 

The creation of the Reorganized Government marks a fundamental change in the type of war being fought in China: from a conflict between two states to a Chinese civil war, with one side being propped by the Japanese.

 

After the establishment of the Reorganized Government, Japan now pursued two alternative military goals: forcing Jiang Jieshi’s government to surrender, with the status of the Reorganized Government being up in the air; or getting Chinese to support the Reorganized Government as an alternative to war.  This second goal was encouraged through the deliberate bombing of civilian areas loyal to Jiang Jieshi, as well as using chemical and biological weapons in these areas. This was done to impress the hardship of war on the Chinese people and get them to support the Reorganized Government, which was at peace with Japan.

 

 

The Yen Bloc

The colonial economic regime established in China, and East Asia more broadly, by the Japanese in the late 1930s had unintended economic effects that increased its dependence on foreign trade during a time when it was becoming internationally isolated.

 

The creation of a ‘yen bloc’ and the establishment of planned economies in Manchukuo, Mengjiang, and China gave Japan access to large amounts of raw materials and privileged access to a market of hundreds of millions. Between 1937 and 1938, Chinese imports from Japan doubled.

 

However, the yen bloc meant that Japan now needed to replace the imports that used to sustain the consumer markets of its yen bloc. The materials needed to supply goods to China put strain on Japanese industry, whose facilities and labor were needed for war industries, and required new imports that China could not supply, especially cotton and oil, both from the USA. If anything, the creation of the yen bloc made Japan more vulnerable to embargo. 

 

 

The Military Situation after the Wuhan Campaign

At the end of 1938, Japanese forces in China were concentrated in the Wuhan region, opposing a large Chinese army to the west and south of those positions. Other Japanese soldiers were transferred back to other areas, with 10 divisions (200k) transferred to Manchukou and Korea, leaving 35 divisions (700k) remaining in China.

 

The remaining Japanese soldiers were ordered to hold defensive lines against the Chinese and conduct counterinsurgency operations in the occupied areas. These operations had different goals in different areas. Along the Yangtze river, the focus was maintaining open lines of communication between Wuhu and Yueyang, the furthest Japanese position. Larger garrisons were placed in the areas in the five northern provinces and in the lower Yangtze to the east of Hofei and Wuhu. These regions were prioritized for pacification and securing the Japanese rear.

 

Besides counterinsurgency operations, Japan also continued strengthening the blockade of the Chinese coast to cut the Guomindang off from supplies. In 1939, Japan captured more Chinese ports to tighten this blockade, including Haikou, Wenchang, Shantou, Nanning, and the Spratly Islands.

  

— Eunice Noh, September 2020