Japan
166-678: [REDACTED] China [REDACTED] 21st Army : [REDACTED] 5th Fleet : [REDACTED] 12th Army Group: [REDACTED] Imperial Japanese Army : Army aircraft: Total aircraft: 55 [REDACTED] Imperial Japanese Navy : Navy aircraft: Total aircraft: 142 Transports: Official Japanese war records claim: Total casualties: 1,930 1,069 horses killed, wounded or sick Chinese claim: Total casualties: 11,242 Official Japanese war records claim 1,340 captured. Official Japanese war records claim: Taishō period Shōwa period The Canton Operation ( Chinese : 廣州戰役 ; pinyin: Guǎngzhōu Zhànyì)
332-664: A puppet state controlling limited amounts of territory. The United Front between the Kuomintang and the CCP had salutary effects for the beleaguered CCP, despite Japan's steady territorial gains in northern China, the coastal regions and the rich Yangtze River valley in central China. After 1940, conflicts between the Kuomintang and Communists became more frequent in the areas not under Japanese control . The Communists expanded their influence wherever opportunities presented themselves through mass organizations, administrative reforms and
498-647: A Chinese flag. While those factions were active, the Japanese 6th Division breached the defensive lines of Chinese 31st and 68th Army on 24 July and captured Taihu, Susong, and Huangmei Counties on 3 August. As the Japanese continued to move westward, the Chinese 4th Army of the Fifth War Zone deployed its main force in Guangji, Hubei and Tianjia Town to intercept the Japanese offensive. The 11th Army Group and
664-480: A Japanese submarine. Although the Japanese were able to blockade Chinese shipping and ports, foreign shipping could still enter and depart from Hong Kong. The central government had set up Hong Kong as a warehouse for munitions and supplies to pass through. Aerial interdictions directed bombers against Chinese railway bridges and trains in Guangdong. Starting from October 1937, the Japanese launched air raids against
830-606: A Royal Navy aircraft from HMS Eagle encountered Japanese naval anti-aircraft fire off the coast of Hong Kong. In December 1937, fifteen Japanese bombers overflew Lantau Island and the Taikoo docks . In August 1938 Japanese naval aircraft shot down a China National Aviation Corporation passenger plane and another two passenger planes from the Eurasia Aviation Corporation were shot down the following month. In addition to airstrikes against military targets,
996-542: A major transportation hub in the interior of China was further established. The city also served as an important transit point for foreign aid moving inland from the southern ports. After the Japanese capture of Nanjing , the bulk of the Nationalist government agencies and the military command headquarters were in Wuhan although the capital had been moved to Chongqing . Wuhan thus became the de facto wartime capital at
1162-409: A month until the Japanese finally captured it on September 29th. To overcome the Chinese defenders, the Japanese resorted to deploying large amounts of poison gas, which proved to be their only their only decisive means of achieving victory. Following the fall of Tianjizhen, the Japanese continued to attack westwards by capturing Huangpo on 24 October and rapidly approaching Hankou. In the north of
1328-715: A program of massive military and financial aid to the hard-pressed Nationalist Government . In January 1943, both the United States and the United Kingdom led the way in revising their unequal treaties with China from the past. Within a few months a new agreement was signed between the United States and the Republic of China for the stationing of American troops in China as part of the common war effort against Japan. The United States sought unsuccessfully to reconcile
1494-410: A protracted war were staggering. The economy deteriorated, sapped by the military demands of foreign war and internal strife, by spiraling inflation, and by Nationalist profiteering, speculation, and hoarding. Starvation came in the wake of the war, and millions were rendered homeless by floods and unsettled conditions in many parts of the country. On 25 October 1945, following the surrender of Japan ,
1660-413: A republic was established to replace the monarchy . The Qing dynasty that preceded the republic had experienced instability throughout the 19th century and suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism. A program of institutional reform proved too little and too late. Only the lack of an alternative regime prolonged the monarchy's existence until 1912. The Chinese Republic grew out of
1826-652: A sovereign state in mainland China on 1 January 1912 following the 1911 Revolution , which overthrew the Manchu -led Qing dynasty and ended China's imperial history . From 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) reunified the country and ruled it as a one-party state (" Dang Guo ") and made Nanjing the national capital. In 1949, the KMT-led government was defeated in the Chinese Civil War and lost control of
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#17327768317641992-409: A three day battle. Chiang Kai-Shek had Madang's overseeing general Xie Weiying executed. The defeat at Madang opened up the route to Jiujiang. It took almost three weeks for the Japanese to clear the waterway around Madang of mines, costing them five minesweepers, two warships and a landing craft full of marines . After the fall of Madang, there were some two hundred thousand Chinese troops under
2158-670: A variety of entities for the international community including the League of Nations along with its successor the United Nations and the Olympic Games . It was hoped by the government that participating in the Olympic Games this could give more legitimacy to the country in the eyes of the international community and "sports could also cultivate modern citizens and a strong nation". The Republic of China sent athletes to
2324-626: The 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris , 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles , 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and the 1948 Summer Olympics but no athletes won any medals. For 1928 a single athlete was sent. Although athletes were sent to the 1924 games they did not participate in the games. The Republic of China was a member of the League of Nations and participated until it was dissolved. Those in
2490-531: The Central Plains War . In 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria . They continued a series of smaller territorial encroachments until 1937, when they launched a full-scale invasion of China. World War II devastated China, leading to enormous loss of life and material destruction. The war between China and Japan continued until the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945, which led to Taiwan being placed under Chinese administration. In
2656-864: The Colonial Office and the Foreign Office approved a Chinese request to construct and operate a locomotive repair yard within the New Territories to keep the railway operational. Airstrikes conducted against rail facilities in Guangzhou were designed to interrupt rail supplies from Hong Kong so that Japan would not be required to commit to land operations in south China. However, the air raids had failed to severely impede railway operations or stop supplies moving through Hunan or Guangxi. The blockade in south China also included attacks against aircraft flying out of Hong Kong. In November 1937,
2822-751: The Dabie Mountains , the Chinese 3rd Army Group of the Fifth War Zone stationed the 19th and 51st Army Groups and the 77th Army in the Liuan and Huoshan regions in Anqing . The 71st Army was tasked with the defense of Fujin Mountain and Gushi County in Henan. The Chinese 2nd Group Army was stationed in Shangcheng , Henan and Macheng , Hubei. The Chinese 27th Army Group and the 59th Army were stationed in
2988-636: The Diet of Japan passed the National Mobilization Law, which authorized unlimited war funding. As part of the law, the National Service Draft Ordinance also allowed the conscription of civilians. On 29 April, the Japanese air force launched major air strikes on Wuhan to celebrate Emperor Shōwa's birthday. The Chinese, with prior intelligence, were well prepared. The battle was known as the "4.29 Air Battle" and
3154-682: The Kumul Rebellion , the Sino-Tibetan War , and the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang . Large areas of China proper remained under the semi-autonomous rule of local warlords such as Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan , provincial military leaders, or warlord coalitions. Nationalist rule was strongest in the eastern regions around the capital Nanjing. The Central Plains War in 1930, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and
3320-522: The Nanjing decade . Sun Yat-sen envisioned three phases for the KMT rebuilding of China – military rule and violent reunification; political tutelage [ zh ] ; and finally a constitutional democracy. In 1930, after seizing power and reunifying China by force, the "tutelage" phase started with the promulgation of a provisional constitution. In an attempt to distant themselves from
3486-627: The Poyang Lake from Hukou County to reinforce the 106th Division, which breached the Chinese 25th Army's defensive line and captured Xinzhi. They attempted to occupy De'an County and Nanchang , together with the 106th Division, to protect the southern flank of the Japanese Army, which was advancing westward. Xue Yue , the commander-in-chief of the Chinese First Corps, used the 4th, 29th, 66th, and 74th Armies to link with
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#17327768317643652-566: The Republic of China ( 中華民國 ) and Republic of Korea ( 大韓民國 ) are unique in the choice of the term 民國 ('people's country') as an equivalent to "republic" in other languages. The country was in English known at the time as "the Republic of China" or simply "China". In China today, the period from 1912 to 1949 is often called the "Republican Era" ( simplified Chinese : 民国时期 ; traditional Chinese : 民國時期 ), because from
3818-695: The Soviet Union , Spain , the United Kingdom , the United States , and the Holy See . The Republic of China was able to maintain most of these diplomatic ties, at least initially following the retreat to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek had vowed to quickly return and "liberate" the mainland, an assurance that became a cornerstone of the ROC's post 1949 foreign policy. The ROC did try to participate in
3984-645: The Soviet Volunteer Group . The 4th Group fighters would claim at least 4 of the A5Ms, and the Soviet group claimed no less than 3 of the A5Ms shot down. Both the Japanese fighter group commander, Lieutenant Kaneko, and the Chinese fighter group commander, Captain Li, were Killed in action in the battle. A largely-intact A5M fighter plane that was downed in the battle was recovered with a damaged engine, and it
4150-597: The Sunning railway . The attacks targeted government facilities and bridges in Jiangmen (Kongmoon) and towns along the railway. By 1938, airstrikes against the Kowloon-Canton railway became a common occurrence with damaged trains found periodically along the railway. An air defense early warning system was established to shunt trains during air raids into forested areas that provided overhead concealment. In May 1938
4316-944: The Supreme Court , Control Yuan , and the General Academy. With the promulgation of the Organic Law of the Nationalist Government in October 1928, the government was reorganized into five different branches, or yuan , namely the Executive Yuan , Legislative Yuan , Judicial Yuan , Examination Yuan as well as the Control Yuan. The Chairman of the National Government was to be the head-of-state and commander-in-chief of
4482-1135: The United Nations (including its Security Council seat) where it maintained until 1971, when the PRC took over its membership in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 . It was also a member of the Universal Postal Union and the International Olympic Committee . With a population of 541 million in 1949, it was the world's most populous country . Covering 11.4 million square kilometres (4.4 million square miles) of claimed territory, it de jure consisted of 35 provinces , 1 special administrative region , 2 regions, 12 special municipalities , 14 leagues, and 4 special banners. The Republic of China's first president, Sun Yat-sen , chose Zhōnghuá Mínguó ( 中華民國 ; 'Chinese People's State') as
4648-707: The Versailles Peace Treaty . According to another memorandum discovered by the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi , Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni authorized the use of poison gas against the Chinese on 16 August 1938. A resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May condemned the use of toxic gas by the Imperial Japanese Army . Japan made heavy use of chemical weapons against China to make up for its lack of numbers in combat and because China did not have any poison gas stockpiles of its own to retaliate. Japan used poison gas at Hankou in
4814-596: The Wuchang Uprising against the Qing government, on 10 October 1911, which is now celebrated annually as the ROC's national day , also known as " Double Ten Day ". Sun Yat-sen had been actively promoting revolution from his bases in exile. He then returned and on 29 December, Sun Yat-sen was elected president by the Nanjing assembly, which consisted of representatives from seventeen provinces. On 1 January 1912, he
4980-756: The Yalta Conference in February 1945—dismantled and removed more than half the industrial equipment left there by the Japanese. Although the Chinese had not been present at Yalta, they had been consulted and had agreed to have the Soviets enter the war, in the belief that the Soviet Union would deal only with the Kuomintang government. However, the Soviet presence in northeast China enabled the Communists to arm themselves with equipment surrendered by
5146-607: The Yangtze River , was the second-largest city in China, with a population of 1.5 million in late 1938. The Yangtze River and the Hanshui River divide the city into three regions, which include Wuchang , Hankou and Hanyang . Wuchang was the political center, Hankou was the commercial district, and Hanyang was the industrial area. After the completion of the Yuehan Railway , the importance of Wuhan as
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5312-515: The Yellow River region, and the 17th Army was deployed in the Xinyang region to organize the defensive works. The Japanese attacked in late August with the 2nd Army Group marching from Hefei by two different routes. The 13th Division, on the southern route, breached the Chinese 77th Army's defensive line and captured Huoshan, when it turned towards Yejiaji. The nearby Chinese 71st Army and
5478-679: The Yuehan Railway . After the Japanese occupied Xuzhou in May 1938, they sought actively to expand the scale of the invasion. The IJA decided to send a vanguard to occupy Anqing for use as a forward base for an attack on Wuhan, for its main force then to attack the area north of the Dabie Mountains moving along the Huai River , and to occupy Wuhan eventually by the way of the Wusheng Pass. Later, another detachment would move west along
5644-517: The Zhili and Fengtian cliques , at times used their control of Beijing to assert claims to govern the entire Republic. Meanwhile, the nationalist KMT under Sun's leadership attempted multiple times to establish a rival national government in Guangzhou . Sun was finally able to take Guangzhou with the help of weapons, funding, and advisors from the Soviet Union . As a condition of Soviet support,
5810-560: The loss of Xuzhou , approximately 1.1 million men or 120 divisions of the National Revolutionary Army were redeployed. The commission decided to organize the defense around the Dabie Mountains , Poyang Lake , and the Yangtze River against the 200,000 Japanese in 20 divisions of the Imperial Japanese Army. Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi of the Fifth War Zone were assigned to defend the north of
5976-503: The seaplane tenders Notoro Maru and Kinugasa Maru ; unfortunately the Chinese pilots efforts were severely thwarted in the ensuing battle, as most of the machine guns on the Gladiators jammed, yet despite the greatly reduced firepower from the Gladiators, five of the E8N were still shot-up enough to go down as confirmed kills by Capt. Huang and the other pilots hitting the Japanese planes with only one, two or three working guns (out of four) per Gladiator. Arthur Chin revealed later that
6142-422: The 11th Division, the Formosa Mixed Brigade and the 4th Air Brigade were activated in Formosa under the command Lt. Gen. Motoo Furusho to accomplish this objective. Due to the proximity of Daya Bay to Hongkong, the Japanese Government feared that trouble might break out between Britain and Japan. The operation was subsequently suspended and the 5th Army was deactivated. By June 1938, the Battle of Wuhan caused
6308-451: The 12th and 13th Kōkūtais , led by Lieutenant Takashi Kaneko, and 15 G3M bombers of the Kanoya Kokutai, led by Lieutenant Commander Sugahisa Tuneru, on a raid against Wuhan engaged in battle with 19 Chinese Air Force I-15 fighters of the 22nd and 23rd Pursuit Squadrons and 10 I-16 fighters of the 21st PS, all under the overall command of the 4th Pursuit Group CO Captain Li Guidan , as well as several more mix of Polikarpov fighters of
6474-429: The 12th, the Japanese 2nd Army captured Xinyang and moved south of the Pinghan Railway to attack Wuhan, together with the 11th Army. The continuing stalemate around Wuhan and the continued influx of foreign aid to Chinese forces from ports in the south made the IJA decide to deploy three reserve divisions to pressure the naval shipping lines. It thus decided to occupy the Guangdong port by an amphibious landing. Because of
6640-403: The 25th Army and engaged the Japanese in a fierce battle at Madang and north of De'an, which brought the battle to a stalemate. Towards the end of September, four regiments of the Japanese 106th Division circled into the Wanjialing region, west of De'an. Xue Yue commanded the Chinese 4th, 66th, and 77th Armies to flank the Japanese. The 27th Division of the Japanese Army attempted to reinforce
6806-425: The 2nd Army Group made use of their existing positions to resist, which halted the Japanese 13th Division. The 16th Division was thus called in to reinforce the attack. On 16 September, the Japanese captured Shangcheng. The defenders retreated southwards out of the city and used their strategic strongholds in the Dabie Mountains to continue the resistance. On 24 October, the Japanese occupied Macheng. The 10th Division
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6972-448: The 68th Army were ordered to form a line of defense in Huangmei county, and the 21st and 29th Army Group, as well as the 26th Army, moved south to flank the Japanese. The Chinese recaptured Taihu on 27 August and Susong on 28 August. However, with Japanese reinforcements arriving on 30 August, the Chinese 11th Army Group and the 68th Army were unsuccessful in their counteroffensives. They retreated to Guangji County to continue resisting
7138-479: The Battle of Wanjialing, which multiplied the number of war dead honoured in Japanese shrines. They also said that the damages had not been admitted during the war to maintain public morale and confidence in the war effort. In Shandong, 1,000 soldiers under Shi Yousan , who had defected multiple times to rivaling warlord cliques and was then independent, occupied Jinan and held it for a few days. Guerrillas also briefly held Yantai . The area east of Changzhou all
7304-545: The Battle of Wuhan to break Chinese resistance after conventional Japanese assaults had been repelled by Chinese defenders. Rana Mitter wrote, "Under General Xue Yue, some 100,000 Chinese troops pushed back Japanese forces at Huangmei. At the fortress of Tianjiazhen, thousands of men fought until the end of September, with Japanese victory assured only with the use of poison gas. Yet even now, top Chinese generals seemed unable to work with each other at Xinyang, Li Zongren's Guangxi troops were battered to exhaustion. They expected that
7470-461: The Battle of Wuhan. In addition to regular army troops, two militia divisions were deployed in the vicinity of Guangzhou and the Guanxi militia consisted of five militia divisions in Guangxi province. The militia divisions would generally be recruited from the local civilian population and disbanded as the army moved through new areas. These divisions were generally employed for security, supply transportation and reconnaissance. The main strength of
7636-420: The CCP established the People's Republic of China . Remnants of the ROC government would hang on in mainland China until late 1951. The KMT dominated ROC politics for 72 years and ruled the island of Taiwan for around 54 years until they lost the presidential election in 2000 to the Taiwanese nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The ROC was a founding member of the League of Nations and later
7802-423: The Canton Operation, the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted an aerial and naval interdiction campaign against China's communication lines to neighbouring regions. Japan believed that the blockade would hasten the end of the war. Disruption of the Chinese logistics network was the primary Japanese objective in Guangdong province from August 1937 until October 1938. The 5th Fleet's 10th Division blockaded and patrolled
7968-449: The Canton-Hankow railway infrastructure; the two flights of Hawks attacked the Japanese bombers over Canton, claiming at least two kills, with one G3M streaming fuel, where it ditched off the coast of Swatow , and the crew rescued by a British freighter, with one of the gunners dying of his battle wounds. In October of 1937, the Chinese government ordered 36 Gloster Gladiator Mk.I fighters whose performance and firepower well-exceeds that of
8134-403: The Central Army, including experienced veterans from the Battle of Shanghai . The army commanders and division commanders were all graduates from the Whampoa Military Academy . The Japanese attacked Tianjiazhen primarily by land, but suffered from poor supply lines and attacks by Chinese guerrillas. The resulting struggle was one of the bloodiest of the entire Wuhan campaign, lasting for over
8300-399: The Central China Area Army to guard the areas in and around Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and other important cities, which would protect the back of the Japanese forces and complete the preparation for the battle. The Battle of Wuhan was preceded by a Japanese air strike on 18 February 1938 that was known as the "2.18 Air Battle" and ended by Chinese forces repelling the attack. On 24 March,
8466-417: The Chinese 17th Group Army and 45th Army and captured Lushan. The 10th Division then continued to move westward but met a Chinese counterattack east of Xinyang and was forced to withdraw back to Lushan. The Japanese 2nd Army Group ordered the 3rd Division to assist the 10th Division in taking Xinyang. On 6 October, the 3rd Division circled back to Xintang and captured the Liulin station of Pinghan Railway . On
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#17327768317648632-440: The Chinese Civil War, revolts by the KMT's warlord allies, and steady territorial encroachments by Japan. Although heavily damaged by the purge, the CCP gradually rebuilt its strength by focusing on organizing peasants in the countryside. Warlords who resented Chiang's attempts to take away their autonomy and incorporate their military units into the National Revolutionary Army repeatedly led devastating uprisings, most significantly
8798-460: The Chinese forces in Guangdong were concentrated in Guangzhou and to the immediate east of the city. Other elements defended Chaozhou and western Guangdong. Chinese defensive installations included the Humen fortress overlooking the mouth of the Pearl River and three defensive lines near Daya Bay. Three batteries of four three-inch guns, a battery of three 120mm guns and Soviet 37mm guns were stationed in Guangzhou for anti-air defense. Prior to
8964-497: The Chinese government's perspective the ROC ceased to exist in 1949. In Taiwan, these years are called the "Mainland period" ( 大陸時期 ; 大陆时期 ), since it was when the ROC was based on the mainland. A republic was formally established on 1 January 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution, which itself began with the Wuchang uprising on 10 October 1911, successfully overthrowing the Qing dynasty and ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. From its founding until 1949,
9130-437: The Chinese-American fighter pilots Arthur Chin and Louie Yim-qun , all flying the Gladiators, would claim at least four of the A5Ms to be shot down that day. On 15 June, the Japanese made a naval landing and captured Anqing , which signaled the onset of the Battle of Wuhan. The capture Anqing's airbase enabled Japanese aircraft to assault Jiujiang, a major riverine port and railroad junction one hundred miles upstream. On
9296-430: The Chinese. During the Battle of Wuhan, Prince Kan'in Kotohito transmitted the emperor's orders to use toxic gas 375 times, from August to October 1938, despite the 1899 Hague Declaration IV, 2 - Declaration on the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases , Article 23 (a) of the 1907 Hague Convention IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land , and Article 171 of
9462-405: The Constitution. This Constitution was promulgated on 25 December 1946 and came into effect on 25 December 1947. Under it, the Central Government was divided into the presidency and the five yuans, each responsible for a part of the government. None was responsible to the other except for certain obligations such as the president appointing the head of the Executive Yuan. Ultimately, the president and
9628-463: The Eleventh Army along both banks of the Yangtze in the main assault on Wuhan, and Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni commanded four-and-a-half divisions of the Second Army along the northern foot of the Dabie Mountains to assist the assault. The forces were augmented by 120 ships of the Third Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Koshirō Oikawa , more than 500 planes of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service , and five divisions of Japanese forces from
9794-564: The Fourth Plenary Session of the 2nd Kuomintang National Congress, held in Nanjing, passed the Reorganization of the Nationalist Government Act. This act stipulated that the Nationalist Government was to be directed and regulated under the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, with the Committee of the Nationalist Government being elected by the KMT Central Committee. Under the Nationalist Government were seven ministries—Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Transport, Justice, Agriculture and Mines, and Commerce, in addition to institutions such as
9960-648: The Hawk IIs and IIIs; most of these became the frontline fighter aircraft of the Chinese Air Force in the Canton defense sector as the war raged into 1938. On 23 February 1938 (some sources date 24 February), Capt. John Huang Xinrui (like Arthur Chin, a Chinese-American volunteer pilot for the Chinese Air Force) commanded the renewed 29th PS now equipped with the new Gloster Gladiator fighters, led nine of his squadron's British-made Gladiators out of Nanxiong Airbase to its first-ever aerial-combat baptism of fire over Canton, along with three 28th PS Gladiators, they intercepted thirteen Nakajima E8N fighter-attack seaplanes from
10126-431: The IJA was significantly weakened. The Battle of Wuhan bought more time for Chinese forces and equipment in Central China to move farther inland to the mountainous fortress of Chongqing and lay the foundation for an extended war of resistance. Wuhan and Hubei Province now provided the Japanese with new airbases and logistics to support the massive "joint-strike force" terror-bombing campaign against Chongqing and Chengdu under
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#173277683176410292-429: The Imperial General Headquarters to realize that it could not localize the fighting. Imperial General Headquarters reversed policy and began preparations to capture Guangzhou and expedite the settlement of the war. While the full-scale War of Resistance-World War II raged at the Battle of Shanghai and Battle of Nanking , pressing demands for aerial support at the Battle of Taiyuan in the northern front and Canton in
10458-566: The Japanese 106th Division. Jiujiang was captured on the 26th after a five day battle. The decision to retreat by the Chinese forces came too suddenly for the civilian population to be evacuated, leaving many behind at the mercy of the Japanese occupiers. Following Jiujiang's capture, occupying Japanese forces engaged in a "mini- Nanjing Massacre " against the city's civilian population. Male civilians were indiscriminately executed alongside any POWs who had failed to retreat in time, whilst women and children were raped en masse. In addition, many of
10624-404: The Japanese Army attacked Ruichang , the 106th Division moved along the Nanxun Railway, now known as Nanchang-Jiujiang, on the south side. The defending Chinese 4th Army, 8th Army Group, and 29th Army Group relied on the advantageous terrain of Lushan and north of Nanxun Railway to resist. As a result, the Japanese offensive suffered a setback. On 20 August, the Japanese 101st Division crossed
10790-419: The Japanese by 30 July, which exposed the rest of the North China Plain . To disrupt the Japanese invasion plans, the Chinese Nationalists decided to engage the Japanese in Shanghai, which opened a second front . The fighting lasted from 13 August to 12 November, with the Chinese suffering major casualties including "70 percent of Chiang Kai-shek 's young officers." After the fall of Shanghai, Nanjing , which
10956-419: The Japanese conducted politically motivated terror bombing in Guangzhou. Bombing of Guangzhou intensified starting from May to June 1938 with the employment of incendiary munitions and low-level strafing attacks against ships. The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service , operating from bases in Formosa and the aircraft carrier Kaga conducted about 400 airstrikes during this period and continued into July. By
11122-413: The Japanese forces along with the Chinese 26th, 55th, and 86th Armies. The Chinese 4th Army Group ordered the 21st and 29th Army Groups to flank the Japanese from northeast of Huangmei , but they were unable to stop the Japanese advance. Guangji was captured on 6 September. On 8 September, Guangji was recovered by the Chinese 4th Corps, but Wuxue was lost the same day. The Japanese Army then lay siege to
11288-666: The Japanese forces coming from Xuzhou. However, the disparity in Chinese and Japanese troop strength caused that line of defense to collapse quickly. In an attempt to win more time for the preparation of the defense of Wuhan, the Chinese opened up the dikes of the Yellow River in Huayuankou , Zhengzhou on 9 June. The flood, now known as the 1938 Yellow River flood , forced the Japanese to delay their attack on Wuhan. However, it also caused around 500,000 to 900,000 civilian deaths by flooding many cities in northern China. On 18 February 1938, an Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAF) strike-force composed of at least 11 A5M fighters of
11454-480: The Japanese in the Second United Front , an event now known as the Xi'an Incident . Chinese resistance stiffened after 7 July 1937, when a clash occurred between Chinese and Japanese troops outside Beijing near the Marco Polo Bridge . This skirmish led to open, although undeclared, warfare between China and Japan. Shanghai fell after a three-month battle during which Japan suffered extensive casualties in both its army and navy. Nanjing fell in December 1937, which
11620-505: The KMT formed the " First United Front " with the Chinese Communist Party. CCP members joined the KMT and the two parties cooperated to build a revolutionary base in Canton. Sun planned to use this base to launch a military campaign northwards and reunify the rest of China. Sun's death in 1925 precipitated a power struggle that eventually resulted in the rise of General Chiang Kai-shek to KMT chairmanship . Thanks to strategic alliances with warlords and help from Soviet military advisors, Chiang
11786-553: The KMT were offered 1,000 pounds . Yuan maintained power locally by sending generals to be provincial governors or by obtaining the allegiance of those already in power. When Yuan died, the parliament of 1913 was reconvened to give legitimacy to a new government. However, the real power passed to military leaders, leading to the warlord period. The impotent government still had its use; when World War I began, several Western powers and Japan wanted China to declare war on Germany, to liquidate German holdings in China. In February 1928,
11952-546: The KMT. These elections, though praised by at least one US observer, were poorly received by the Communist Party, which would soon start an open, armed insurrection. Before the Nationalist government was ousted from the mainland, the Republic of China had diplomatic relations with 59 countries , including Australia, Canada, Cuba , Czechoslovakia , Estonia , France , Germany , Guatemala , Honduras , Italy , Japan , Latvia , Lithuania , Norway , Panama , Siam ,
12118-554: The League of Nations, China wanted to see the unequal treaties revised. The ROC thought that by being in the League they could improve their international standing. Under the Charter of the United Nations , the Republic of China was entitled to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC). Though multiple objections were raised that the seat belonged to the lawful government of China, which had to many become
12284-583: The Nanjing government nor the earlier Beiyang government succeeded in consolidating governance in rural China. In 1945, at the end of World War II , the Empire of Japan surrendered control of Taiwan and its island groups to the Allies ; and Taiwan was placed under the Republic of China's administrative control. The communist takeover of mainland China in 1949, after the Chinese Civil War, left
12450-405: The National Revolutionary Army. Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as the first chairman, a position he would retain until 1931. The Organic Law also stipulated that the Kuomintang, through its National Congress and Central Executive Committee, would exercise sovereign power during the period of "political tutelage", that the KMT's Political Council would guide and superintend the Nationalist Government in
12616-540: The Northern Expedition ruled the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and subsequently received international recognition as the representative legitimate from China. The Nationalist government can also be referred as the Second Republic of China . While there was relative prosperity during the following ten years under Chiang Kai-shek, the ROC continued to be destabilized by
12782-602: The PRC even arguably prior to the official conclusion of the Chinese Civil War, the ROC retained the permanent seat reserved for China on the UNSC until 1971 when it was supplanted by the PRC. The Republic of China retained hereditary nobility like the Han Chinese nobles Duke Yansheng and Celestial Masters and Tusi chiefdoms like the Chiefdom of Mangshi , Chiefdom of Yongning , who continued possessing their titles in
12948-561: The Red Army's Long March in 1934 led to more power for the central government, but there continued to be foot-dragging and even outright defiance, as in the Fujian Rebellion of 1933–1934. Reformers and critics pushed for democracy and human rights, but the task seemed difficult if not impossible. The nation was at war and divided between Communists and Nationalists. Corruption and lack of direction hindered reforms. Chiang told
13114-528: The Republic of China from the previous dynasties. Battle of Wuhan Taishō period Shōwa period The Battle of Wuhan ( traditional Chinese : 武漢會戰 ; simplified Chinese : 武汉会战 ; Japanese : 武漢作戦 (ぶかんさくせん) ), popularly known to the Chinese as the Defence of Wuhan ( traditional Chinese : 武漢保衛戰 ; simplified Chinese : 武汉保卫战 ), and to the Japanese as the Capture of Wuhan ,
13280-615: The Ruichang-Ruoxi Road and the surrounding area, which resulted in a stalemate for more than a month until the Japanese 27th Division captured Ruoxi on 5 October. The Japanese forces then turned to strike northeast, captured Xintanpu in Hubei on the 18th, and moved towards Dazhi. In the meantime, other Japanese forces and their supporting river fleet continued their advance westwards along the Yangtze, encountering resistance from
13446-527: The Soviets, the Chinese government sought assistance from Germany . According to Lloyd Eastman, Chiang Kai-shek was influenced by European fascist movements, and he launched the Blue shirts and the New Life Movement in imitation of them, in an effort to counter the growth of Mao's communism as well as resist both Western and Japanese imperialism. According to Stanley Payne , however, Chiang's KMT
13612-538: The State Council: "Our organization becomes worse and worse... many staff members just sit at their desks and gaze into space, others read newspapers and still others sleep." Few Chinese had any illusions about Japanese desires on China. Hungry for raw materials and pressed by a growing population, Japan initiated the seizure of Manchuria in September 1931, and established the former emperor Puyi as head of
13778-692: The West. In 1919, a student protest against the government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles , considered unfair by Chinese intellectuals, led to the May Fourth movement , whose demonstrations were against the danger of spreading Western influence replacing Chinese culture. It was in this intellectual climate that Marxist thought began to spread. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in 1921. After Sun's death in March 1925, Chiang Kai-shek became
13944-718: The Yangtze, and Chen Cheng of the Ninth War Zone was tasked with defending the south. The First War Zone, located in the west of the Zhengzhou - Xinyang section of the Pinghan Railway , was given the task of stopping the Japanese forces coming from the North China Plain. Finally, Chinese troops in the Third War Zone, located between Wuhu , Anqing and Nanchang , were given the task to protect
14110-557: The Yangtze. However, the Yellow River flood forced the IJA to abandon its plan of attacking along the Huai, and it decided to attack along both banks of the Yangtze instead. On 4 May, the commander of the IJA forces, Shunroku Hata, organized approximately 350,000 men of the Second and Eleventh Armies to fight in and around Wuhan. Under him, Yasuji Okamura commanded five-and-a-half divisions of
14276-678: The ability to prolong the war. In 1936 the Hankow-Canton (Hankou-Guangzhou) railway was completed. With the Kowloon-Canton (Hong Kong-Guangzhou) railway , this formed a rapid all-rail link from south China to central and northern China. For the first sixteen months of the war about 60,000 tons of goods transited per month through the port of Hong Kong. The central government also reported the import of 1.5 million gallons of gasoline (4,100 tons) through Hong Kong in 1938. More than 700,000 tons of goods would eventually reach Hankou using
14442-405: The administration of Taiwan and Penghu Islands were handed over from Japan to China. After the end of the war, United States Marines were used to hold Beijing and Tianjin against a possible Soviet incursion, and logistic support was given to Kuomintang forces in north and northeast China. To further this end, on 30 September 1945 the 1st Marine Division , charged with maintaining security in
14608-660: The administration, which consequently became known as the " Beiyang government " (or the First Republic of China ). Yuan even attempted to replace the Republic with his own imperial dynasty until popular unrest forced him to back down. When Yuan died in 1916, the country fragmented between the various local commanders of the Beiyang Army. This began the Warlord Era defined by decentralized conflicts between rival cliques. The most powerful of these cliques, notably
14774-562: The aftermath of World War II, civil war resumed between the areas liberated by the KMT and those liberated by the CCP. The CCP's People's Liberation Army began to gain upper hand in 1948 over a larger and better-armed Republic of China Armed Forces due to better military tactics and internal corruption of the ROC leadership. In 1949, the ROC repeatedly moved its capital to avoid the Communist advance—first to Guangzhou, followed by Chongqing , Chengdu , and lastly to Taipei . In October 1949,
14940-478: The allegiance of sections of the population. The United States aided the Nationalists with massive economic loans and weapons but no combat support. Belatedly, the Republic of China government sought to enlist popular support through internal reforms. However, the effort was in vain, because of rampant government corruption and the accompanying political and economic chaos. By late 1948 the Kuomintang position
15106-467: The areas of the Shandong Peninsula and the eastern Hebei , arrived in China. In January 1946, through the mediation of the United States, a military truce between the Kuomintang and the Communists was arranged, but battles soon resumed. Public opinion of the administrative incompetence of the Nationalist government was incited by the Communists during the nationwide student protest against
15272-526: The cause of the jamming of the Gladiator's machine guns were the result of defective Belgian-made ammunition rounds. Tragically, the bad ammunition led to fatal consequences, as the Gladiator pilots Lt. Xie Chuanhe (Hsieh Chuan-ho) and his wingman Lt. Yang Rutong both tailed and targeted the E8Ns, only to be stymied with their Gladiator's inoperable weapons, with Lt. Yang killed in a burst of machine gun fire from
15438-416: The city's urban districts and suburban villages were deliberately razed, including the city's ceramics factories and maritime transportation system. As many as 90,000 civilians were massacred by the Japanese army in and around Jiujiang. The Japanese Namita detachment moved westward along the river, landed northeast of Ruichang on 10 August, and mounted an assault on the city. The defending NRA 2nd Corps
15604-639: The coast from Haimenchen, Zhejiang to Shantou and the 5th Destroyer Squadron patrolled the coast south of Shantou. Occasionally Japanese units from the Marianas were deployed in support of coastal blockade operations in south China. These usually consisted of cruisers accompanied by a flotilla of destroyers. One or two aircraft carriers and fleet auxiliaries would also be on station. Naval interdictions focused on stopping junks ferrying military supplies from Hong Kong to coastal China. The first recorded attack occurred in September 1937 when eleven junks were sunk by
15770-632: The codename Operation 100 . After its fall 1938 victory in the Battle of Wuhan, Japan advanced deep into Communist territory and redeployed 50,000 troops to the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region . Elements of the Communist Eighth Route Army soon attacked the advancing Japanese, inflicting between 3,000 and 5,000 casualties and resulting in a Japanese retreat. The IJA advance in central China
15936-557: The complicated nation-building process in China during his time, especially given the wide range of both domestic and foreign challenges it faced on many different concurrent fronts. Several major government institutions were founded during this period, including the Academia Sinica and the Central Bank of China . In 1932, China sent its first team to the Olympic Games . Campaigns were mounted and laws passed to promote
16102-770: The counter-attacking E8N; Lt. Chen Qiwei (Chen Chi-wei) was lost under similar circumstances. The 4th War Area Army under the command of He Yingqin in 1938 was assigned to the defense of south China. General Yu Hanmou was in command of the 12th Army Group defending Guangdong province. Eight divisions and two brigades of regular army troops were deployed in the vicinity of Guangzhou. Another five divisions of regular army troops were deployed in Fujian province. The 4th War Area Army totalled about 110,000 regular army troops. Most regular army units in Guangxi province and four divisions from Guangdong had been transferred north to participate in
16268-532: The country's foreign relations were among the most stable of those working in the government in terms of composition. The ROC was a non-permanent member of the League Council for the League of Nations being a non-permanent member of the League Council from: 1921–1923, 1926–1928, 1931–1932, 1934, and 1936. Although the ROC lobbied to be a permanent member of the League Council it never became one. At
16434-663: The country's official Chinese name. The name was derived from the language of the Tongmenghui 's 1905 party manifesto, which proclaimed that the four goals of the Chinese revolution were "to expel the Manchu rulers, revive China ( Zhōnghuá ), establish a people's state ( mínguó ), and distribute land equally among the people." On 15 July 1916, in his welcoming speech to the Cantonese delegates in Shanghai, Sun explained why
16600-425: The deal. On 12 February 1912, regent Empress Dowager Longyu signed the abdication decree on behalf of Puyi, ending several millennia of monarchical rule. In 1913, elections were held for provincial assemblies, which would then chose delegates for a new National Assembly. The Kuomintang emerged as the formal political party that replaced the revolutionary organization Tongmenghui , and at the 1913 elections, it won
16766-690: The defending Chinese 31st Army and 32nd Army Group west of Ruichang. When the town of Madang and Fujin Mountain, both in Yangxin County , were captured. The Chinese 2nd Corps deployed the 6th, 56th, 75th and 98th Armies, along with the 30th Army Group, to strengthen the defense of the Jiangxi region. The battle continued until 22 October when the Chinese lost other towns in Yangxin County, Dazhi and Hubei Provinces. The Japanese 9th Division and Namita detachment were now approaching Wuchang. While
16932-591: The direct command of Chiang Kai-shek , defending Wuhan from the Central China Area Army of the Imperial Japanese Army led by Shunroku Hata . Chinese forces were also supported by the Soviet Volunteer Group , a group of volunteer pilots from Soviet Air Forces . Although the battle ended with the eventual capture of Wuhan by the Japanese forces, it resulted in heavy casualties, with China suffering as many as one million casualties, military and civilian. With Japan suffering its heaviest losses of
17098-470: The dual command of Xue Yue and Zhang Fukui in the Jiujiang-Ruichang area. The Japanese first captured the city of Pengze, but were met with resistance at Hukou, for which they deployed poison gas again in a five-day battle. The Japanese reached Jiujiang two weeks after the fall of Hukou. Chinese defenders tried to resist the Japanese advance, but were too disorganized and uncoordinated to repel
17264-542: The encirclement. With Japanese forces in the area losing combat command capabilities, hundreds of officers were airdropped into the area. Of the four Japanese divisions which had gone into the battle, only around 1,500 men made it out of the encirclement. The event was later called the Victory of Wanjialing by the Chinese. In 2000, Japanese military historians admitted the heavy damages that the 9th, 27th, 101st, and 106th Divisions and their subordinate units had suffered during
17430-483: The end of 1937, south China was crucial to the Republic of China as a means of maintaining contact with the outside world. Guangzhou and Hong Kong served as vital centers of transportation and international aid to Chiang Kai-Shek . Approximately 80 percent of supplies from abroad to the Chinese forces in the interior passed through Guangzhou. Imperial General Headquarters believed that a blockade of Guangdong province would deprive China of essential war material and
17596-402: The end of summer only 600,000 of the original 1.3 million residents remained in the city of Guangzhou. From August 1937 to October 1938 casualties in Guangzhou were estimated at 6,000 killed and 8,000 injured. 23°05′N 113°18′E / 23.09°N 113.30°E / 23.09; 113.30 Republic of China (1912%E2%80%931949) The Republic of China ( ROC ) began as
17762-560: The execution of important national affairs, and that the Political Council has the power to interpret or amend the Organic Law. Shortly after the Second Sino-Japanese War, a long-delayed constitutional convention was summoned to meet in Nanjing in May 1946. Amidst heated debate, this convention adopted many constitutional amendments demanded by several parties, including the KMT and the Communist Party, into
17928-408: The fighting in Wuhan, a significant portion of Chinese forces in Guangzhou had been transferred elsewhere. As such, the pace of the occupation was much smoother than expected, and Guangzhou fell to the Japanese on 21 October. The loss of the Guangzhou area meant the loss of the main supply line of foreign aid to central China—the two railways linking Kowloon to Guangzhou and Guangzhou to Wuhan. Thus,
18094-578: The form of a parallelism : an emperor's country is ruled by only one emperor ( 帝國是以皇帝一人為主 ), a people's country is ruled by all four hundred million people ( 民國是以 四萬萬 人為主 ). Both the " Beiyang government " (from 1912 to 1928), and the " Nationalist government " (from 1928 to 1949) used the name "Republic of China" as their official name. In Chinese, the official name was often shortened to Zhōngguó ( 中國 ; 'Middle Country'), Mínguó ( 民國 ; 'People's Country'), or Zhōnghuá ( 中華 ; 'Middle Huaxia '). The choice of
18260-697: The land- and tax-reform measures favoring the peasants and, the spread of their organizational network, while the Kuomintang attempted to neutralize the spread of Communist influence. Meanwhile, northern China was infiltrated politically by Japanese politicians in Manchukuo using facilities such as the Manchukuo Imperial Palace . After its entry into the Pacific War during World War II, the United States became increasingly involved in Chinese affairs. As an ally, it embarked in late 1941 on
18426-523: The large number and the extent of military operations since the beginning of the invasion. Reinforcements were thus dispatched to boost forces in the area, which placed a strain on the Japanese peacetime economy, leading Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe to reassemble his Cabinet in 1938 and to introduce the National Mobilization Law on 5 May that year, which moved Japan into a wartime economic state. Wuhan , located halfway upstream of
18592-547: The largest share of seats in both houses of the National Assembly and in some provincial assemblies. Song Jiaoren led the Kuomintang Party to electoral victories by fashioning his party's program to appeal to the gentry, landowners, and merchants. Song was assassinated on 20 March 1913, at the behest of Yuan Shikai. Yuan was elected president of the ROC in 1913. He ruled by military power and ignored
18758-542: The leader of the Kuomintang . In 1926, Chiang led the Northern Expedition with the intention of defeating the Beiyang warlords and unifying the country. Chiang received the help of the Soviet Union and the CCP. However, he soon dismissed his Soviet advisers, being convinced that they wanted to get rid of the KMT and take control. Chiang decided to purge the Communists, massacring thousands in Shanghai . At
18924-467: The long war with Japan and in-fighting among various generals. They were also losing the propaganda war to the Communists, with a population weary of Kuomintang corruption and yearning for peace. In January 1949, Beiping was taken by the Communists without a fight, and its name changed back to Beijing. Following the capture of Nanjing on 23 April, major cities passed from Kuomintang to Communist control with minimal resistance, through November. In most cases
19090-683: The main force of the Japanese Eleventh Army attacked along the southern shore of the Yangtze River. The Chinese garrison of the Madang river fortress repelled four Japanese assaults, but suffered casualties due to intense bombardment from Japanese ships on the Yangtze, as well as poison gas attacks. Due to a ceremony at a local military school, most of the Chinese officers responsible for Madang's defense were absent. Reinforcements were thus dispatched too late, and Madang fell after
19256-543: The mainland to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP established the People's Republic of China (PRC) while the ROC was forced to retreat to Taiwan and retains control over the " Taiwan Area "; the political status of Taiwan remains in dispute to this day. The Republic of China was officially proclaimed on 1 January 1912 by the revolutionaries and Sun Yat-sen , the first provisional president of
19422-476: The mishandling of the Shen Chong rape case in early 1947 and during another national protest against monetary reforms later that year. The United States—realizing that no American efforts short of large-scale armed intervention could stop the coming war—withdrew Gen. George Marshall's American mission . Thereafter, the Chinese Civil War became more widespread; battles raged not only for territories but also for
19588-619: The new railway. For comparison, the Soviet Union was more willing to provide direct military support to prolong the war. In addition to the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed in August 1937, a barter agreement was negotiated to trade munitions for strategic materials such as tungsten and antimony . Starting in 1937 Soviet war material was transported through Xinjiang (Sinkiang) to Lanzhou (Lanchow) using 20,000 camels. Chinese raw materials would travel back
19754-585: The new republic, following the success of the Xinhai revolution. Puyi , who had reigned as the Xuantong Emperor of the Qing dynasty, abdicated on 12 February 1912. Sun Yat-sen, the ROC's founder and provisional president, served only briefly before handing over the presidency to Yuan Shikai , the leader of the Beiyang Army . Yuan quickly became authoritarian and used his military power to control
19920-583: The onset of the engagements in Wuhan. The Chinese war effort was thus focused on protecting Wuhan from being occupied by the Japanese. The Japanese government and the headquarters of the China Expeditionary Army expected Wuhan to fall, along with the Chinese resistance, "within a month or two." In December 1937, the Military Affairs Commission was created to determine the battle plan for the defense of Wuhan. After
20086-405: The people. Later on 20 October 1923, at a national conference for youths in Guangzhou, to explain the core idea behind mínguó ( 民國 ; 'people's country'), he pithily compared the phrase "Empire of China" ( 中華帝國 ; Zhōnghuá Dìguó ; 'Chinese Emperor's Country') to "Republic of China" ( 中華民國 ; Zhōnghuá Mínguó ; 'Chinese People's Country') in
20252-678: The position but was ambushed and repulsed by the Chinese 32nd Army led by Shang Zhen in Baisui Street, west of Wanjialing. On 7 October, the Chinese Army mounted a final large-scale assault to encircle the Japanese troops. The battle continued for three days, and all of the Japanese counterattacks were repelled by the Chinese. By 10 October, the Japanese 106th Division, as well as the 9th, 27th, and 101st Divisions, which had gone to reinforce it, had suffered heavy casualties. The Aoki, Ikeda, Kijima, and Tsuda Brigades were also destroyed in
20418-476: The provincial system; however, this move angered the gentry along with the provincial governors, who were usually military men. Yuan's changes to government caused many provinces to declare independence and become warlord states. Increasingly unpopular and deserted by his supporters, Yuan abdicated in 1916 and died of natural causes shortly thereafter. China then declined into a period of warlordism. Sun, having been forced into exile, returned to Guangdong in
20584-470: The puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. The loss of Manchuria, and its potential for industrial development and war industries, was a blow to the Kuomintang economy. The League of Nations , established at the end of World War I, was unable to act in the face of Japanese defiance. The Japanese began to push south of the Great Wall into northern China and the coastal provinces. Chinese fury against Japan
20750-480: The republic was based on mainland China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–1928), a Japanese invasion (1937–1945), and a full-scale civil war (1927–1949), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937), when most of China came under the control of the authoritarian, one-party military dictatorship of the nationalist Kuomintang party (KMT). Neither
20916-477: The republican institutions established by his predecessor, threatening to execute Senate members who disagreed with his decisions. He soon dissolved the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party, banned "secret organizations" (which implicitly included the KMT), and ignored the provisional constitution. Ultimately, Yuan declared himself Emperor of China in 1915. The new ruler of China tried to increase centralization by abolishing
21082-485: The rights of women. In the 1931 Civil Code, women were given equal inheritance rights, banned forced marriage and gave women the right to control their own money and initiate divorce. No nationally unified women's movement could organize until China was unified under the Kuomintang Government in Nanjing in 1928; women's suffrage was finally included in the new Constitution of 1936, although the constitution
21248-568: The rival Kuomintang and Communists, to make for a more effective anti-Japanese war effort. In December 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Acts of the 1880s, and subsequent laws, enacted by the United States Congress to restrict Chinese immigration into the United States were repealed. The wartime policy of the United States was meant to help China become a strong ally and a stabilizing force in postwar East Asia. During
21414-426: The river fortress of Tianjiazhen. Tianjiazhen was positioned at a natural choke point in the Yangtze river, with the banks being only 600m wide at its narrowest. To capitalize on this natural defense, the Chinese had built massive battlements and fortifications since the end of 1937, with help provided by Soviet advisors and thousands of local laborers. Manning Tianjiazhen were thousands of China's best troops from
21580-460: The ruling Kuomintang with control over only Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands . With the loss of the mainland, the ROC government retreated to Taiwan and the KMT declared Taipei the provisional capital . Meanwhile, the CCP took over all of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing. In 1912, after over two thousand years of dynastic rule,
21746-559: The same time, other violent conflicts were taking place in China: in the South, where the CCP had superior numbers, Nationalist supporters were being massacred. Chiang Kai-shek pushed the CCP into the interior and established a government, with Nanjing as its capital, in 1927. By 1928, Chiang's army overthrew the Beiyang government and unified the entire nation, at least nominally, beginning
21912-400: The same way or via Hong Kong to Vladivostok . By 1940, 50,000 camels and hundreds of trucks were transporting 2,000-3,000 tons of Soviet war material per month into China. Japanese planning for operations began in early November 1937. The objectives of the blockade could be achieved by seizing a portion of Daya Bay and conducting air operations from there. In December 1937, the 5th Army with
22078-484: The south in 1917 and 1922, with the help of warlords, and set up successive rival governments to the Beiyang government in Beijing, having re-established the KMT in October 1919. Sun's dream was to unify China by launching an expedition against the north. However, he lacked the military support and funding to turn it into a reality. Meanwhile, the Beiyang government struggled to hold onto power, and an open and wide-ranging debate evolved regarding how China should confront
22244-535: The southern bank of the Yangtze River, the Chinese Ninth War Zone had one regiment stationed west of Poyang Lake and another stationed in Jiujiang . To prevent a Japanese assault on Jiujiang, the Chinese had built defensive fortifications at Madang, including artillery emplacements, naval mines and bamboo river booms. On 24 June, the Japanese forces made a surprise landing in Madang, while
22410-574: The southern front, forced the Nationalist Air Force of China to split the 28th PS, 5th PG based at Jurong Airbase in the Nanking defense sector into two smaller squadrons, dispatching them with Lt. Arthur Chin leading half of the squadron towards Canton, and Capt. Chan Kee-Wong leading the other half to Taiyuan . On 27 September 1937, 28th PS commander Lt. Arthur Chin led four Hawk IIs out of Shaoguan Airbase while 29th PS commander Lt. Chen Shun-Nan led three Hawk IIIs out from Tianhe Airbase on an intercept of IJNAF G3M bombers sent to attack
22576-431: The strategic value of Wuhan was greatly diminished. The Chinese Army, hoping to save its remaining forces, thus abandoned the city in October. The Japanese Army captured Wuchang and Hankou on 26 October and captured Hanyang on the 27th, which concluded the campaign in Wuhan. According to Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, Emperor Shōwa authorized by specific orders ( rinsanmei ) the use of chemical weapons against
22742-537: The surrounding countryside and small towns had come under Communist influence long before the cities. Finally, on 1 October 1949, Communists led by Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China . Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law in May 1949, whilst a few hundred thousand Nationalist troops and two million refugees, predominantly from the government and business community, fled from mainland China to Taiwan. There remained in China itself only isolated pockets of resistance. On 7 December 1949, Chiang proclaimed Taipei
22908-470: The temporary capital of the Republic of China. During the Chinese Civil War both the Nationalists and Communists carried out mass atrocities, with millions of non-combatants killed by both sides. Benjamin Valentino has estimated atrocities in the civil war resulted in the death of between 1.8 million and 3.5 million people between 1927 and 1949, including deaths from forced conscription and massacres. The first Republic of China national government
23074-467: The term mínguó ( 民國 ; 'people's country') was chosen over the Japanese-derived gònghéguó ( 共和國 ). He associated the label gònghé ( 共和 ) with the limiting and authoritarianism-prone Euro-American models of representative republicanism. What he strived for was a more grass-roots model, which he termed zhíjiē mínquán ( 直接民權 ; ' direct people's rights '), and which he thought would allow more checks and balances by
23240-472: The term mínguó ( 民國 ; 'people's country'; "republic") in 1912, as well as its similar semantic formation to dìguó ( 帝國 ; 'emperor's country'; "empire"), may have influenced the choice of the Korean term minguk ( 민국/民國 ) by the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (founded in 1919 within the Republic of China), which replaced Daehan Jeguk ( 대한제국/大韓帝國 ) with Daehan Minguk ( 대한민국/大韓民國 ). Today,
23406-412: The transport systems prevented the government from being able to complete the transfer. Wuhan thus became the "de facto wartime capital" of the Republic of China for its strong industrial, economic, and cultural foundations. Assistance from the Soviet Union provided additional military and technical resources, including the Soviet Volunteer Group. On the Japanese side, the IJA forces were drained by
23572-454: The troops of Hu Zongnan, another general close to Chiang Kai-shek, would relieve them, but instead Hu led his troops away from the city." Japan also used poison gas against Chinese Muslim armies at the Battle of Wuyuan and the Battle of West Suiyuan . After four months of fighting, both the Chinese Air Force and the Chinese Navy were decimated since the IJA had captured Wuhan. However, the main Chinese land force remained largely intact, and
23738-435: The war, China was one of the Big Four Allies, and later one of the Four Policemen , which was a precursor to China having a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council . In August 1945, with American help, Nationalist troops moved to take the Japanese surrender in North China. The Soviet Union—encouraged to invade Manchuria to hasten the end of the war and allowed a Soviet sphere of influence there as agreed to at
23904-442: The war, it decided to divert its attention to the north, which would prolong the war until the attack on Pearl Harbor . The end of the battle signaled the beginning of a strategic stalemate in the war, shifting from large pitched battles to localised struggles. On 7 July 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) launched a full-scale invasion of China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident . Both Beijing and Tianjin had fallen to
24070-441: The way to Shanghai was controlled by another non-government Chinese force, led by Dai Li , who used guerrilla tactics in the suburbs of Shanghai and across the Huangpu River . The force was made up of secret society members of the Green Gang and the Tiandihui and killed spies and traitors. It lost more than 100 men during its operations. On 13 August, members of the force sneaked into the Japanese air base at Hongqiao and raised
24236-399: The withdrawing Japanese army. In 1945, after the end of the war, the Nationalist Government moved back to Nanjing. The Republic of China emerged from the war nominally a great military power but actually a nation economically prostrate and on the verge of all-out civil war. The problems of rehabilitating the formerly Japanese-occupied areas and of reconstructing the nation from the ravages of
24402-403: The world, but it is not clear that the group possessed the full qualities of an intrinsic fascist movement....The Blue Shirts probably had some affinity with and for fascism, a common feature of nationalisms in crisis during the 1930s, but it is doubtful that they represented any clear-cut Asian variant of fascism." Still other historians have noted that Chiang and the KMT's exact ideology itself
24568-405: The yuans reported to the National Assembly, which represented the will of the citizens. Under the new constitution the first elections for the National Assembly occurred in January 1948, and the assembly was summoned to meet in March 1948. It elected the president of the republic on 21 March 1948, formally bringing an end to the KMT party rule started in 1928, although the president was a member of
24734-468: Was "normally classified as a multi-class populist or 'nation-building' party but not a fitting candidate for fascism (except by old-line Communists)." He also stated that, "Lloyd Eastman has called the Blue Shirts, whose members admired European fascism and were influenced by it, a Chinese fascist organization. This is probably an exaggeration. The Blue Shirts certainly exhibited some of the characteristics of fascism, as did many nationalist organizations around
24900-415: Was a large-scale battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War . Engagements took place across vast areas of Anhui , Henan , Jiangxi , Zhejiang , and Hubei provinces over a period of four and a half months. It was the single largest, longest, and bloodiest battle of the entire Second Sino-Japanese War. More than one million National Revolutionary Army troops from the Fifth and Ninth War Zone were put under
25066-417: Was able to lead a successful " Northern Expedition " from 1926 to 1928. By 1927, Chiang felt secure enough to end the alliance with the Soviet Union and purged the Communists from the KMT. In 1928, the last major independent warlord pledged allegiance to the KMT's Nationalist government in Nanjing. China was then nominally reunified in 1928 by the Nanking -based government led by Chiang Kai-shek, who after
25232-452: Was bleak. The demoralized and undisciplined National Revolutionary Army proved to be no match for the Communists' motivated and disciplined People's Liberation Army . The Communists were well established in the north and northeast. Although the Kuomintang had an advantage in numbers of men and weapons, controlled a much larger territory and population than their adversaries, and enjoyed considerable international support, they were exhausted by
25398-418: Was established on 1 January 1912, in Nanjing, with a constitution stating Three Principles of the People , which state that "[the ROC] shall be a democratic republic of the people, to be governed by the people and for the people." Sun Yat-sen was the provisional president. Delegates from the provinces sent to confirm the government's authority formed the first parliament in 1913. The power of this government
25564-470: Was followed by mass murders and rapes known as the Nanjing Massacre . The national capital was briefly at Wuhan , then removed in an epic retreat to Chongqing, the seat of government until 1945. In 1940, the Japanese set up the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime , with its capital in Nanjing, which proclaimed itself the legitimate "Republic of China" in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek's government, although its claims were significantly hampered due to its being
25730-444: Was limited, with generals controlling both the central and northern provinces of China , and short-lived. The number of acts passed by the government was few and included the formal abdication of the Qing dynasty and some economic initiatives. The parliament's authority soon became nominal: violations of the Constitution by Yuan were met with half-hearted motions of censure. Kuomintang members of parliament who gave up their membership in
25896-413: Was not implemented until 1947. Addressing social problems, especially in remote villages, was aided by improved communications. The Rural Reconstruction Movement was one of many that took advantage of the new freedom to raise social consciousness. The Nationalist government published a draft constitution on 5 May 1936. Continual wars plagued the government. Those in the western border regions included
26062-414: Was officially inaugurated and pledged "to overthrow the despotic government led by the Manchu, consolidate the Republic of China and plan for the welfare of the people". Sun's new government lacked military strength. As a compromise, he negotiated with Yuan Shikai the commander of the Beiyang Army , promising Yuan the presidency of the republic if he were to remove the Qing emperor by force. Yuan agreed to
26228-431: Was one of the most intense air battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the fall of Xuzhou in May 1938, the Japanese planned an extensive invasion of Hankou and the takeover of Wuhan, and intended to destroy the main force of the National Revolutionary Army. The Chinese, on the other hand, were building up their defensive efforts by massing troops in the Wuhan area. They also set up a defensive line in Henan to delay
26394-426: Was part of a campaign by Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War to blockade China to prevent it from communicating with the outside world and importing needed arms and materials. Control of Guangzhou (Canton) and the Pearl River Delta would provide a base to make the blockade of Guangdong province more effective by seizing southern China's major port and isolate the British port of British Hong Kong . By
26560-421: Was predictable, but anger was also directed against Chiang and the Nanjing government, which at the time was more preoccupied with anti-Communist extermination campaigns than with resisting the Japanese invaders. The importance of "internal unity before external danger" was forcefully brought home in December 1936, when Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang and forced to ally with the Communists against
26726-413: Was reinforced by the 32nd Army Group and initially halted the Japanese attack. However, when the Japanese 9th Division entered the fray, the Chinese defenders were exhausted, and Ruichang was captured on the 24th. The Japanese 9th Division and the Namita detachment continued to move along the river, and the Japanese 27th Division invaded Ruoxi at the same time. The Chinese 30th and 18th Corps resisted along
26892-443: Was slowed down significantly by multiple battles around Changsha in 1939 , 1941 , and 1942 . No more major offensives were launched until Operation Ichi-Go in 1944; between 1942 and 1944, limited Japanese offensives were mounted for the sole purpose of training recruits. The Chinese managed to preserve their strength to continue resisting the weakened IJA, which reduced its capability to respond to rising tensions between Japan and
27058-469: Was the capital of China, was threatened directly by the Japanese forces. The Nationalists were thus forced to declare the capital an open city while they began the process of moving the capital to Chongqing . With the fall of three major Chinese cities (Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai), there was a large number of refugees fleeing the fighting in addition to the government facilities and war supplies that needed to be transferred to Chongqing. Inadequacies in
27224-421: Was the main force in the northern route. It breached the Chinese 51st Army's defensive line and captured Liuan on 28 August. On 6 September, it captured Gushi and continued its advance westwards. The Chinese 27th Army Group and the 59th Army gathered in the Yellow River region to resist. After ten days of fighting, the Japanese crossed the Yellow River on 19 September. On the 21st, the Japanese 10th Division defeated
27390-495: Was the second intact A5M to be recovered, repaired, and flight-tested in the war, the first recovered-intact A5M having been one downed by Colonel Gao Zhihang during an air battle over Nanjing on 12 October 1937. On 3 August 1938, 52 Chinese fighters, with 20 I-15s, 13 I-16s, 11 Gloster Gladiators , and 7 Hawk IIIs intercepted at least 29 A5M fighters and 18 G3M bombers over Hankou. The former Guangxi warlord air force pilot Zhu Jiaxun and his squadron-mate, He Jermin, along with
27556-555: Was very complex and oscillated over time, with different factions of his government cooperating with both the Soviets and Germans as they saw fit, and that Chiang eventually became disillusioned with the Blue Shirts, which officially disbanded by 1938, something Payne also mentions as "possibly because of competition with the KMT itself." Some have also noted that in contrast to older historians from decades ago, Chiang's efforts have been increasingly seen by newer Western and Chinese historians alike as an arguably necessary if austere part of
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