a huge population, and an important strategic  and commercial position. This made it a desirable  

objective for expansion to European colonial  powers, but also, to the rising Japanese Empire.  

Within China itself, revolutions, civil wars  and warlordism plagued the nation as different  

factions fought to become the ultimate ruler of  the country. So today, we return to East Asia to  

cover the divided state of the Chinese people  and the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

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By the end of the 18th Century, the powerful Qing  Empire that controlled the vast lands of China  

was at its zenith, expanding into Central  Asia , increasing in population and becoming  

the largest economy in the world.  But when the 19th Century ended,  

the golden years of the Qing were long gone.  Suffering from military weakness, social unrest,  

foreign interventions and economic problems, the  Chinese Empire had become a sick state in Asia.  

At the start of the 20th Century, as young  officers and scholars debated the overthrow  

of the failing dynasty, a military uprising ended  with the proclamation of the Republic of China on  

January 1, 1912. Dictatorially led by Yuan Shikai,  who controlled the modernized Beiyang Army,  

the new Chinese Republic was held in a  fragile balance between the Nationalists  

and the Republicans . With an iron fist, Yuan  managed to keep the country together, but his  

methods severely antagonized the Kuomintang  revolutionaries, eventually dissolving the  

Nationalist party and declaring himself Emperor  of China in 1915. This attempt caused widespread  

rebellions in numerous provinces, leading to the  establishment of Warlord states throughout China  

after the death of Yuan. Meanwhile, Kuomintang  loyalists retreated to the south and established  

a government led by Sun Yat-sen with the  objective of reuniting the fragmented nation. 

After the end of the Great War, massive popular  demonstrations and manifestations occurred against  

Japanese interests in the country and against the  government of the Beiyang Warlords , ushering in  

the creation of the Chinese Communist Party and  its alliance with the Kuomintang. As the Warlords  

continued to fight among themselves  for the ultimate control of Beijing,  

Chiang Kai-Shek would succeed Sun Yat-sen  as leader of the Kuomintang after his death,  

quickly setting out to prepare for a military  campaign against the northern Warlords.  

With the success of the Northern Expedition,  half of China would be under the control of the  

Nationalists by 1927; but Chiang's own purging  of communists within the Kuomintang would  

unexpectedly lead to the creation of the Red Army  and the start of the civil war between Communists  

and Nationalists. By the end of 1928, Chiang's  Northern Expedition ended in complete success,  

finally conquering Beijing and bringing the  whole of China under the nominal control of the  

Kuomintang. Although some Warlords still ruled  in semi-autonomous states, Chiang's government  

in Nanking received international recognition  and legitimately reformed the Chinese Republic.  

Meanwhile, the Communists continued to resist  against Nationalist encirclement campaigns  

and, in the north, the Mukden Incident sparked  a full-blown Japanese Invasion of Manchuria  

against which Chiang simply couldn't resist. Nonetheless, the Nanking Decade was a time of  

consolidation for the Nationalists. Thus, Chiang's  regime would embark on a modernization effort,  

successfully improving its economy and  renegotiating some of the foreign concessions,  

and also starting the training of loyal and  elite divisions with the aid of German advisors.  

Eventually, the Communists would be finally routed  at Jiangxi in 1934, but the Red Army would manage  

to break through the Kuomintang encirclement,  starting the Long March to the northwest. Led  

by Mao Zedong, the main column would successfully  avoid the pursuit of Kuomintang forces and would  

march for an entire year through more than 9000  km until arriving at Shaanxi, where Mao became  

the undisputed leader of the Party. From their new  base at Yan'an, the Communists would continue to  

resist Chiang's attacks for the next few years.  This period would also see increased Japanese  

aggression in the north, rapidly expanding their  puppet states into the Chahar and Jehol provinces,  

and threatening the important city of Beijing .  But Chiang took a passive position against Japan  

and considered the Communists to be a greater  danger to the Chinese Republic, stating that  

“communism was cancer while the Japanese only  represented a superficial wound”. This policy  

of compromise was very unpopular in China and  within the Kuomintang itself, which prompted  

some disgruntled Nationalist generals to conspire  with the Communists to capture Chiang and force  

him into a truce with the CCP. Meanwhile, the  Suiyuan Campaign of Prince Demchugdongrub failed  

miserably and General Fu Zuoyi managed to inflict  heavy casualties on the Inner Mongolian army,  

alerting the conspirators that this was the time  to act while morale was high against the Japanese. 

So, on December 12, 1936, Chiang was detained  in the Xi'an Incident and had to negotiate  

with the Communists for two weeks, finally  deciding to cease hostilities against them,  

to prepare for an impending war with Japan and to  form a Second United Front against the Japanese.  

By 1937, the Chinese had assembled  a large army of 1,700,000 regulars  

and 557,000 reservists in preparation for the war,  but the loyalty of great sections of the army was  

questionable, it had a low supply of guns  and artillery, and it only counted with two  

armoured units . Unlike China, the Japanese were  prepared for total war, with the IJA counting with  

1015000 regulars destined to fight in China and  around 78000 soldiers from their puppet states.  

The 28 divisions assigned for the war were fully  trained, equipped and experienced, giving them a  

clear advantage in fighting strength against the  Chinese. During the year 1937, a series of border  

clashes occurred between Chinese and Japanese  forces, usually ending with the Chinese writing  

a humiliating apology. But on July 7, the Marco  Polo Bridge Incident to the west of Beijing would  

ignite a full-scale war between the two countries,  as a fire exchange quickly escalated into the  

Japanese occupation of Tientsin and Beijing by  August 8. Tokyo was very happy with the outcome  

of the campaign, but it was reluctant to declare  war on the Chinese, as the Japanese didn't want  

to divert forces from the Manchurian border with  the Soviet Union, where several border conflicts  

had been happening in the last few years. But  Chiang had had enough, and he consequently  

mobilized his entire forces to fight against  Japan's aggression. The war had thus begun. 

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, fighting broke out  between Chinese troops , under Zhang Zhizhong,  

and the 4000-strong Japanese marines that defended  30000 Japanese civilians. Tokyo quickly reinforced  

the Shanghai defenders with 20000 more marines  , commanded by General Matsui Iwane, and also  

ordered the Third Fleet to open fire on Chinese  positions. Shanghai was of utmost importance for  

Chiang's regime, so he sent his most loyal men  to have numerical superiority in the struggle.  

Chinese air operations also managed to  inflict severe damage over the Third Fleet  

with their advanced biplane and monoplane designs  . The Battle of Shanghai was brutal, with heavy  

losses on each side but to no effect, as in the  urban center, the fighting reached a stalemate.  

Furthermore, Japanese naval landings to the north  forced the Chinese to disperse their forces along  

a frontline that spanned from the Huangpu River  to the coast north of Shanghai. At the same time,  

an Expeditionary Force of the Kwantung Army  advanced southwards through Inner Mongolia,  

crushing the Chinese at the Battles of Nankou,  Huailai and Kalgan with the superior firepower  

of their tanks. These forces would  then advance to Shanxi, taking Taiyuan  

and completing the conquest of  Inner Mongolia by November 7,  

while from Beijing, the Japanese would advance  to occupy the North China Plain. On the seas,  

the IJN would also start a naval blockade all  around China, hoping to prevent foreign aid from  

reaching the nation, as the Western powers  strongly condemned the Japanese invasion. 

In September and October, as Matsui's forces  managed to capture Luodian and Liuhang, more  

Japanese reinforcements arrived that successfully  wrestled control of the critical position at  

Dachang. With Dachang lost, the Chinese forces  started to withdraw from Shanghai on November 7,  

but the retreat quickly turned into a rout and  Chiang lost most of his loyal and elite men.  

Overall, the Chinese suffered more  than 250000 casualties in the struggle,  

while the Japanese only suffered around 90000  casualties. Weakened by the defeat at Shanghai,  

disparate Chinese units established defenses  around their capital, led by Commander Tang  

Shenzhi. At the same time, Matsui started a pincer  movement directed towards Nanking, defeating the  

already battered Chinese soldiers and reaching  the Chinese capital with haste by December 9.  

What followed was a bloody struggle on the  outskirts of Nanking ; one in which superior  

Japanese firepower would win the day yet again,  even despite the fierce resistance of Tang's men.  

As the Chinese defenses were collapsing  and the Japanese encircled the city,  

Chiang ordered the abandonment of Nanking on  December 11, but only a small force led by  

Tang himself could break out of the Japanese  encirclement on December 13. The rest of the  

defenders, along with some 200000 civilians,  were slaughtered during the Nanking Massacre.  

The Nanking population was also subjected to  rape, looting and arson by the Japanese soldiers,  

in what the West came to describe as the Rape  of Nanking. By the end of the year, Japanese  

successes thus far would allow them to establish  collaborationist governments in Beijing , Shanghai  

and Nanking , and to reform its Inner Mongolian  puppet into the new Mengjiang government. 

At this point, Tokyo was expecting that the  Chinese would capitulate after the fall of  

their capital, as they were eager to end the war  and to further prepare for a confrontation with  

the Soviet Union. But Chiang would continue  to reject the harsh demands of the invaders,  

thus moving the capital to the industrial  center of Hankow. Moreover, the Japanese forces,  

encouraged by the many victories achieved,  continued to escalate the war in China and  

tried to establish a connection between Beijing  and Nanking. Already in the early months of 1938,  

naval landings in Tsingtao culminated with  the occupation of northern Shandong by March,  

although the Japanese advance would be stopped for  the first time in the Battle of Taierzhuang . This  

was a huge morale booster for the Chinese and, as  the leader of the battle was Warlord Li Zongren,  

there would be much more unity among the  Warlord and Kuomintang forces after this battle.  

Nonetheless, the Japanese would manage to encircle  the major crossroads of Hsuchow, which protected  

the new capital at Hankow. Chiang recognized  that the defense of the town was futile, so he  

ordered his forces to withdraw and to demolish  the dykes holding back the Yellow River, trying  

to slow down the Japanese advance. The resulting  Yellow River flood inflicted heavy casualties  

on the Japanese and forced them to move up the  Yangtze River, but it also caused incalculable  

destruction on the area and killed almost 500000  civilians. Most of the Chinese soldiers, however,  

managed to retreat and establish solid defenses  around Hankow. At the same time, the Japanese  

successfully invaded Amoy Island to prepare for  more naval invasions and they also started bombing  

operations over Hankow and the Sichuan region. But the main objective of the Japanese advance was  

now the city of Hankow, and Tokyo finally destined  most of their resources for this campaign.  

On June 15, the battle for Hankow started  with the Japanese naval invasion of Anqing,  

followed by a string of successful naval  invasions along the coast, an attack along  

the southern shore of the Yangtze River, and a  two-pronged assault through the Dabie Mountains.  

The success of these operations meant that, by  October, the Chinese defenses on the provinces  

of Henan, Jiangxi and Hubei were in a difficult  position , leaving the way open to attack Hankow.  

Yet the Chinese would also succeed at stopping  the Japanese advance through Wanjialing  

and managed to mount a counterattack north of the  Yangtze towards Taihu and Susong. But despite the  

fierce resistance of the Chinese, on October  21, the Japanese naval invasion of Guangzhou  

ended in complete success, occupying the main  port on which foreign aid was flowing and  

completing the encirclement of Hankow. With  the fall of Guangzhou, the Chinese had no  

other alternative but to abandon their second  capital on October 25, but the 4 month-long  

resistance had at least gained much time for  Chiang to prepare a new wartime capital at  

Chongqing and to prepare his forces to wage  a war of attrition against the Japanese.  

Yet again, Tokyo hoped to end the war with the  fall of Hankow, but to no avail, as the Chinese  

were determined to continue their resistance.  Moreover, the Japanese forces had suffered many  

losses during the Hankow campaign and were very  exhausted as well. In the last months of the year,  

the Japanese would continue to consolidate  their control over the Wuhan and Canton regions,  

but they could already see that the  war would prolong longer than they had  

anticipated. Next week, we'll cover the  continuation of the Sino-Japanese War,  

as well as the outbreak of hostilities in  Europe and its impact in the Pacific, so  

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