could resist the Japa nese, but defeating them was another issue. Surrender
required negotiation, and the Chinese had learned long ago that Japa nese
ambassadors and diplomats were not authorized to negotiate, nor were gen-
erals and admirals. In the Japa nese system, the only person who could pos-
sibly negotiate or surrender for Japan was the emperor, and he had chosen
not to exercise that power.
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china and japan
The Eve of War
During the Meiji period, a small Japa nese oligarchy working with the em-
peror had a broad perspective and the power to make decisions. The Japa-
nese leaders who had traveled on the Iwakura Mission from December 1871
until September 1873 had been able to visit diff er ent countries and study
their national systems as a whole, without worrying about the details of
daily po liti cal management. When the mission returned to Japan, it brought
home a core group of leaders who had gained a broad understanding of what
it took to make national systems work. They shared a consensus about
overall national policy, and after their return they provided long- term, stable
leadership. In 1894–1895 Japa nese leaders had started planning for peace ne-
gotiations even before going to war with China; because they understood
their own limitations, they planned their exit before they entered into the
First Sino- Japanese War.
In contrast, by the 1930s the Japa nese government had grown much
larger, its power centers were widely dispersed, and diff er ent groups were
struggling for control. During the 1930s the Japa nese collected massive
amounts of information on regional geography, on the names of Chinese
military leaders and their backgrounds, and on supply- line logistics. But no
single group had the authority to make decisions for the country as a whole.
Leaders changed so rapidly, with so many assassinations, that those in power
were unable to carry out comprehensive long- term analy sis or to provide
stable leadership. Based on Japan’s past military victories, military officers
had dreams of glory that exceeded what the nation was now capable of re-
alizing. Japan was drifting toward war; it was not planning for war, and
even less was it planning for peace after the end of war.
Before the Sino- Japanese War of 1894–1895, Chinese leaders had taken
so little interest in Japan that they had scant information about the country
and lacked an understanding of the enemy they faced. By the 1930s there
were tens of thousands of people in China who had studied in Japan. Some
had close Japa nese friends and knew Japan extremely well. Not only did the
Chinese have detailed information about Japan but they also had a deep
understanding of Japa nese psy chol ogy. They could undertake excellent anal-
yses of what to expect from the Japa nese. But the Chinese did not have the
unified national structure to build on what they knew.
. 246 .
Po liti cal Disorder and the Road to War, 1911–1937
Japan’s tragedy was that it had the ability to mobilize military forces
without a clear strategy or mission, without a central authority capable of
creating and implementing a strategy. China’s tragedy was that while it could
brilliantly analyze the overall strategic picture, it lacked the unified govern-
ment, the industrial base, the weapons, and the disciplined soldiers to stop
the advancing Japa nese troops. The result was a war that not only brought
devastation to both China and Japan but also created difficulties for coming
generations that hoped to build a peaceful future.
. 247 .
chapter eight
The Sino- Japanese War, 1937–1945
Late at night on July 7, 1937, a Japa nese soldier stationed near the
Marco Polo Bridge on the outskirts of Beiping became separated from his
unit.1 A small group of Japa nese soldiers, assuming the missing soldier had
been taken into the nearby walled village of Wanping, crossed the bridge
and demanded entry into the village to carry out a search. Ordinarily, when
Japa nese garrison forces in the region made such demands, local people
would yield to their requests rather than starting a fight with well- armed
Japa nese troops. This time, however, Chinese troops guarding the village
refused to allow the Japa nese soldiers to enter, and before dawn a small skir-
mish broke out between the Chinese and Japa nese soldiers. Who fired first
was a matter of dispute among those on the scene and others who later tried
to piece together the story. As tensions grew over the next several days,
troops on the two sides engaged in several other small skirmishes near
Beiping.
To the Chinese, the action at Marco Polo Bridge was clearly a planned
aggression, the first step in Japan’s plan to launch a total war with China.
The speed with which the Japa nese sent in more troops revealed that the
Japa nese were prepared for a large- scale war. When the confrontation, which
became known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, broke out, there were
5,600 Japa nese soldiers in the Beiping and Tianjin area and an additional
16,400 soldiers in North China. By July 18 the Japa nese had brought in two
brigades from their Kwantung Army in Manchuria, plus a division from
Korea, to reinforce their garrison near Beiping. When fighting expanded
in late July, the Japa nese quickly sent in three more divisions. By then, some
210,000 Japa nese soldiers were in North China, south of the Great Wall.
Japa nese military leaders expected that a decisive display of force in Beiping
and Tianjin would lead to a quick victory ( sokusen sokketsu). But they had
underestimated the growing willingness of the Chinese to resist, and they
. 248 .
The Sino- Japanese War, 1937–1945
were not prepared for a conflict to last more than three months. The Japa-
nese had to call up their reserves and strain their resources. During the next
two years, they would win all the battles and occupy eastern and central
China, but their victories would exhaust them and lead to a stalemate. In
1944, in desperation, the Japa nese would launch another offensive in a de-
termined but unsuccessful effort to avoid defeat.
Initially, following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, some of Chiang
Kai- shek’s leading officers advised him that China was not sufficiently
prepared to fight Japan. Such a war would devastate China, they said, and
therefore China had no choice but to continue pursuing the path of peace.
Chiang did not accept this advice. On July 16, in a meeting with some 150
Chinese officials at his summer resort in Lushan (in Jiangxi province),
Chiang proclaimed that it was the duty of all Chinese to defend their
country. Four days later, his announcement was publicized in the press.
Japa nese troops marched to Tianjin, where Chinese troops offered some
re sis tance, but on July 31 the Japa nese succeeded in taking over the city. By
July 29, Chinese troops had already left Beiping, and on August 8, when
Japa nese troops marched into Beiping, they met with little re sis tance. Chiang
was convinced that losing
the two great northern cities to Japan would
arouse such anger among the Chinese people that he would lose their sup-
port if he did not respond militarily. He was aware that China’s military
strength did not match that of Japan and that China would face many pro b -
lems in trying to fight a war. Nonetheless, he hoped that if he mobilized
the nation, the Chinese could, as Jiang Baili had predicted, outlast the Japa-
nese. On August 7, when Chiang met with his National Defense Council,
the council agreed that China would resist the Japa nese. Although Japa nese
and Chinese forces had exchanged some gunfire in North China, Chiang
Kai- shek de cided that conditions were more favorable to his forces if the
fighting were centered around Shanghai, where more of his trained officers
were stationed. On August 14 Chiang de cided to clear the Japa nese out of
the city, thus making Shanghai the first major battleground.
When the war broke out in 1937, Japan, as an industrialized nation, was
producing planes, ships, and artillery, as well as enough weapons to arm
every individual in Japan. The entire population was literate, and soldiers
throughout the country also had basic mechanical skills. All Japa nese adults
shared a common culture, for they had all received Japan’s standardized
. 249 .
china and japan
education; soldiers, too, were educated before they received their military
training. There was a national system for recruiting soldiers, and all young
men at the age of twenty were given a physical examination. Military vet-
erans, or ga nized into reservist organ izations in their local communities,
helped provide support for patriotic education and for patriotic organ-
izations of women and youth in the villages. John Embree, an anthropolo-
gist who studied a Japa nese village in the 1930s, reports that when a young
man went off to military ser vice, the patriotic association in the village gave
him a special send- off ceremony, showing that the community was proud
of him. In addition to having been taught re spect for the emperor in their
early schooling, soldiers felt a responsibility to uphold the honor of their
family and their community. They took pride in their country, which had
defeated China and Rus sia in earlier wars.
China was still an impoverished rural country, without enough weapons
even for every soldier. Compared with Japan, China was also short of planes,
ships, and artillery. Many soldiers had not received a patriotic education,
and many were still illiterate. They spoke local dialects that were unintel-
ligible to those soldiers who spoke other dialects. There was no standard
system for recruiting all able- bodied men, and some soldiers had been forced
into ser vice. Only a small number of officers had been trained at military
academies. Many soldiers had originally been recruited into warlord armies
and had not received any additional training. Chiang Kai- shek could not
count on the loyalty of all the diff er ent warlords, and he sometimes had to
make concessions to vari ous warlords so their troops would fight for the
nation. And because China, lacking an effective national tax system, could
not afford to equip all its troops, some soldiers had to requisition food and
supplies from local people, who were not necessarily receptive to such
demands.
The Military Balance on the Eve of the War
Since 1911, Japa nese Army headquarters had made contingency plans in case
conflict should break out between Japan and China. The plans called for
Japa nese troops to remain stationed in Japan. When needed, they would
go to China, quickly quell any disturbances, and then return to Japan. In
1932 the Japa nese had serious concerns about the threat from the Soviet
. 250 .
The Sino- Japanese War, 1937–1945
Union, so they developed contingency plans in case of a conflict with the
Soviet Union. To reduce expenses Japan kept down the size of its standing
army but maintained large numbers of trained reservists. In January 1937
there were approximately 247,000 officers and men in the Imperial Japa-
nese Army, in seventeen infantry divisions, four mixed brigades, and four
tank divisions, and the army had some 549 planes. Two divisions were sta-
tioned in Korea, four in Manchuria, and the remainder were in Japan.2 Japa-
nese Army troops had modern light and heavy artillery. The Japa nese Navy
was the third largest in the world; by the time of the outbreak of the Pa-
cific War in 1941, Japan would have more aircraft carriers than the United
States. Japan also had a sizable air force, and its fighter plane, the “Zero,”
could outmaneuver any U.S. warplane. Since the Manchurian Incident of
1931, the heavy industrial base in Manchuria had been expanding its pro-
duction of military equipment. Although there were rivalries between the
navy and the army, each ser vice had high- quality training programs.
As Japa nese military activities in and around China were increasing in
1936, more Chinese were calling on Chiang Kai- shek to change the target
of his attacks from the Communists to the Japa nese. After the Xi’an Inci-
dent of December 1936, Chiang Kai- shek agreed that the Nationalists would
join the Communists in forming a new United Front to fight against their
common enemy. Although both sides began focusing on resisting the Japa-
nese, they remained aware that they might again fight each other after the
end of the Sino- Japanese War.
Chiang Kai- shek had at his disposal a small number of well- trained of-
ficers who had graduated from Huangpu, Baoding, and other military
academies. He also had a small Nationalist Army, but for larger battles he
had to draw on the troops of the vari ous warlords, some of whom were loyal
to Chiang and some of whom were not eager to send their troops to risk
their lives fighting under Chiang. From his days leading the Northern Ex-
pedition, Chiang was known as a micromanager who did not have confi-
dence in the skill of his lower- level commanders, and he was prepared to
give detailed directions to his local field commanders. He had a knack for
selecting able commanders and visiting his armies to show his appreciation
for their ser vice. But when he was not pre sent, he would make key deci-
sions during battles without having good knowledge of the changing situ-
ation on the battlefield.
. 251 .
china and japan
Chiang’s naval forces were negligible compared with Japan’s. At the be-
ginning of the fighting, China had only about 100 ser viceable planes, pur-
chased from abroad. China’s advantages were its vast size and its huge pop-
ulation of 500 million, seven times that of Japan. But Japan had more
firepower and more well- trained troops. Japa nese forces could occupy cities
and railways, but they did not have enough troops to control all the sur-
rounding countryside. Even in provinces where they could control the cities
and towns, their number of troops was insufficient to penetrate into the
mountainous areas.
Chiang, who had great re spect for German military disci
pline and
strategy, had been inviting German advisers to train his core troops since
1928. He had only thirty- nine German advisers when the war broke out in
1937, and even fewer thereafter, but they had played an impor tant role in
setting up the military system for Chiang’s core troops and advising on mil-
itary strategy.
The Campaigns in North China and Shanghai,
July– November 1937
The Japa nese strategy was to move troops quickly, encircle the enemy’s sol-
diers, and then annihilate them. Rather than aiming to occupy territory, they
sought to destroy the enemy. Because they depended on surprise and speed,
Japa nese troops carried light weapons. They relied on bombing and heavy
artillery to weaken their targets before and sometimes during their attacks.
Japa nese troops moved along the railways to get behind the Chinese
troops, blocking off their retreat. At the outbreak of the war, large num-
bers of Chinese troops were in Baoding, the capital of Hebei province,
southwest of Beijing, which had again become the national capital. Baoding,
a small city, was also the site of a leading Chinese military acad emy. The
Japa nese concentrated aerial bombing and artillery attacks on Baoding, but
the Chinese defenders, by camouflaging their military equipment, misled
the bombers. On the ground, they managed to offer re sis tance and escape,
eluding the Japa nese troops who tried to surround and destroy them.
As Japa nese forces moved west from Beijing toward Chahar in eastern
Mongolia, they encountered re sis tance near Pingxingguan, a small town in
a pass through the Taihang Mountains, across the border from Hebei prov-
. 252 .
The Sino- Japanese War, 1937–1945
ince in Shanxi province. Just as they had done in the Sino- Japanese War of
1894–1895 when they attacked P’yongyang, the Japa nese first seized the high
ground, just west of Pingxingguan. At Pingxingguan, a division of Chiang’s
Central Army launched several counterattacks. The Chinese Communist
115th Division, commanded by Lin Biao, then age twenty- nine, maneuvered
south of the Japa nese forces and then moved north toward the east end of
the pass, hiding close to the road in a location between the Japa nese troops
at Pingxingguan and their supply lines coming from the east. When the
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