The Second Sino-Japanese War

At about 23:00 on 7 July 1937 Japanese troops from Fengtai, holding a night exercise near the walled town of Wanping, west of Peking, exchanged fire with Chinese soldiers. A Japanese private, Shimura Kikujirō, was reported missing, and the Japanese commander demanded entry to Wanping to search for him. Shimura had lost his way and was found soon afterwards, but the Chinese authorities were told of the demand only at about 02:00 on 8 July.

On 11 July 1937 General Song Zheyuan agreed a local ceasefire. The Chinese side expressed regret, the defence of Wanping passed to a civilian corps, and anti-Japanese organisations were to be suppressed. On the same day the Japanese army authorised the despatch of an infantry division from Korea, two combined brigades from the Kwantung Army and an air regiment of eighteen squadrons, and Prime Minister Konoe, in office since 4 June, supported the reinforcement.

After clashes at Langfang and at the Guanganmen Gate of Peking on 25 and 26 July, and an ultimatum on 27 July, the Japanese army launched a full-scale offensive on Peking and Tianjin on 28 July. Peking fell on 29 July and the Taku Forts at Tianjin on 30 July. Japan held the old capital and the rail hub of north China without a declaration of war.

On 9 August two Japanese naval marines, Sub-Lieutenant Ōyama Isao and a seaman, were found dead at the gate of Hongqiao Airport, and on 10 August Japan demanded the withdrawal of the Chinese Peace Preservation Corps from the city. At about 09:00 on 13 August the Peace Preservation Corps and Japanese troops exchanged small-arms fire, and the fighting spread through the Chinese districts of Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek had chosen the ground and committed his German-trained divisions under Zhang Zhizhong, Chen Cheng and Zhang Fakui.

On 15 August Japan formed the Shanghai Expeditionary Army from the 3rd and 11th Divisions under General Matsui Iwane. On 23 August these divisions landed from the sea at Chuanshakou, Shizilin and Baoshan, north of the city, to attack the Chinese line from the flank. The fighting moved from the streets of Shanghai to the villages, creeks and fields of the delta, where the Chinese divisions held ground under Japanese naval gunfire and air attack.

A new Japanese army, the 10th Army under Lieutenant General Yanagawa Heisuke, formed on 20 October as an emergency reinforcement, landed at Hangzhou Bay, south of Shanghai, in the first days of November. Its arrival turned the Chinese position, and the Chinese armies withdrew from the city. On 12 November the Japanese forces at Shanghai were ordered to pursue them, and units advanced up to forty kilometres a day and raced each other toward Nanking, ahead of the original plans.

On 24 November Deputy Chief of Staff Tada Hayao lifted the line that restricted the army's advance, and on 1 December he flew to Shanghai to deliver in person the order to take Nanking. The Japanese columns were marching well ahead of most of their supply lines and usually looted from Chinese civilians along the way, almost always with extreme violence. Matsui Iwane, now commanding the Central China Area Army, was bedridden with tuberculosis for much of the period between 5 and 15 December.

On 11 December Chiang Kai-shek ordered Tang Shengzhi to abandon Nanking. On 12 December Japanese naval aircraft bombed and sank the American gunboat Panay, which had been evacuating American citizens and escorting three Standard Oil tankers, about 28 miles upstream of the city; three Americans were killed and 48 wounded. The Japanese apology reached Washington on Christmas Eve, and an indemnity of $2,214,007.36 was paid on 22 April 1938. President Roosevelt considered other responses and accepted the apology and compensation.

On 5 November 1937 Japan had proposed, through the German ambassador Oskar Trautmann, terms that included autonomy for Inner Mongolia, demilitarised zones, an end to anti-Japanese policies and cooperation against communism. Chiang Kai-shek decided on 2 December to accept them as a basis for negotiation, having concluded that no foreign aid was coming. On 22 December Japan presented stricter terms, with recognition of Manchukuo, reparations and trade agreements, and set 5 January 1938 as the deadline. Chiang refused them and gave no official reply.

The Japanese army wanted to link its separated forces in north and central China by capturing Xuzhou, the junction of the Tianjin–Pukou railway, with the 10th Division under Isogai Rensuke advancing south along the line and the 13th Division pushing north. The Chinese forces under Li Zongren, with Bai Chongxi, Tang Enbo and Sun Lianzhong, defended the area, and Japanese units including the 5th Division under Itagaki Seishirō became encircled at Taierzhuang. The Japanese line collapsed on 7 April and its forces retreated.

The Japanese plan for Xuzhou was a pincer: one army from the north along the railway and another from Nanking, to join the Eleventh Army and then advance on Jiujiang and Wuhan. About 300,000 Chinese troops in 64 divisions stood in the region. On 15 May Li Zongren, with Bai Chongxi and Tang Enbo, began to evacuate the military and civilian population, and by 21 May some 200,000 to 300,000 troops in 40 divisions had escaped from the encirclement.

At a military meeting on 1 June 1938 Chiang Kai-shek sanctioned the opening of the Yellow River dykes near Zhengzhou, a policy described as using water in place of soldiers. The dykes were broken between 5 and 9 June, and the first flood wave reached Zhongmu County on 13 June. The Japanese could use neither of the two railways to send troops and supplies, and their divisions were swamped and delayed.

Japanese troops took Guangzhou on 21 October 1938, which closed the main foreign supply route to central China. They captured Wuchang and Hankou on 26 October and Hanyang on 27 October, after the Chinese forces had abandoned the city to preserve their armies.

On 3 November 1938 Prime Minister Konoe announced a new order in East Asia and said that Japan would negotiate if China abandoned its anti-Japanese policy. In December Wang Jingwei, the second-ranking leader of the Kuomintang after Chiang, left Chongqing for Hanoi and called publicly for a peace settlement. On 22 December Konoe stated that Japan had no intention of occupying Chinese territory and would respect China's sovereignty, and asked China to share in building the new order.

Japanese aircraft had begun exploratory raids on Chongqing on 18 February 1938, and on 3 May 1939 the army and navy air forces began a sustained campaign, Operation 100. Fifty-four bombers attacked on 3 May and 27 on 4 May. The first raid killed about 700 people and injured 350, and the second killed more than 3,000, injured almost 2,000 and left about 200,000 homeless.

The Japanese 11th Army under Okamura Yasuji, about 120,000 men in six divisions, attacked toward Changsha from 17 September 1939. The Chinese forces, about 240,000 men in 30 divisions under Xue Yue and Chen Cheng, fought a flexible defence in depth. Chen Cheng's orders were to lure the enemy into the vicinity of Changsha for a decisive battle, and the Chinese carried out a scorched-earth policy and evacuated civilians into the hills.

On 15 November 1939 about 100,000 Japanese troops, including the 5th Division and units of the Imperial Guard, landed on the coast of Guangxi with air and naval support. Nanning fell on 24 November. The Japanese aim was to cut China's supply lines, and the operation cut Chongqing off from the sea, which left Indochina and the Burma Road as the remaining routes.

The Reorganized National Government under Wang Jingwei was formally established at Nanking on 30 March 1940, and Japan recognised it on 20 November 1940 in the Sino-Japanese Basic Treaty. Its army was estimated at 300,000 to 500,000 men on paper, though Wang could count on the loyalty of only about 10 to 15 per cent of them.

Japanese forces attacked in the Zaoyang–Yichang area from 1 May 1940, and Yichang fell on 12 June. The town lay at the edge of Sichuan and connected the Fifth and Ninth War Zones, and the Japanese navy had pressed for its capture as a forward base for air attacks on Chongqing. General Zhang Zizhong, who refused to retreat, was killed on the front line, and he was the most senior Chinese commander to die in combat during the war.

The Burma Road, 717 miles long, had been built by 200,000 Burmese and Chinese labourers and became operational in October 1938. In July 1940 Britain yielded to Japanese diplomatic pressure and closed it for three months.

From 20 August 1940 about 200,000 Communist troops in 105 regiments, under Zhu De and Peng Dehuai with Nie Rongzhen, attacked the Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan railway and other lines in north China. The plan was to use the tall summer millet and the rainy season to carry out a large sabotage operation and to cut the railway for a long time. The Japanese forces in the area numbered about 270,000, with 150,000 Chinese collaborators, under Tada Hayao.

On 5 January 1941 the Communist New Fourth Army, about 9,000 strong, was surrounded at Maolin in southern Anhui by about 80,000 Nationalist troops under Shangguan Yunxiang, and fighting lasted from 7 to 13 January. About 2,000 people broke out. On 17 January Chiang Kai-shek ordered the New Fourth Army disbanded.

On 28 July 1941 about 140,000 Japanese troops entered southern French Indochina to prepare for operations against the Dutch East Indies. The United States, in the same month, froze Japanese assets, which created an effective embargo on oil exports to Japan.

On 26 November 1941 the American government delivered a note that demanded the complete withdrawal of Japanese troops from French Indochina and China. The earlier plan to offer Japan a temporary modus vivendi had been strongly opposed by China and Britain and was dropped. Prime Minister Tojo told his cabinet that the note was an ultimatum, although it was marked tentative.

On 9 December 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President of the Chinese Republic, Lin Sen, issued a declaration of war. Japan had waged an undeclared war on China from 7 July 1937, and China had resisted without announcing a state of war until that day. The declaration treated the Japanese attack on the United States and Britain as aggression that extended Japan's conquest, and it declared all treaties and agreements between China and Japan null and void.