Pacification of Manchukuo
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| Pacification of Manchukuo | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Second Sino-Japanese War | |||||||
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| Combatants | |||||||
| Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies, Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, Republic of China | Imperial Japanese Army, Empire of Japan, Manchukuo Imperial Army, Manchukuo | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Ma Zhanshan, Ting Chao, Feng Zhanhai, Tang Juwu, Wang Fengge, Wang Delin, Su Bingwen, Zhao Shangzhi, Yang Jingyu, Zhou Baozhong, Li Zhaolin | Shigeru Honjo, Nobuyoshi Muto, Takashi Hishikari, Jiro Minami, Kenkichi Ueda, Yoshijiro Umezu, Seishiro Itagaki | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 300,000 Chinese | 84,000 Japanese, 111,000 Manchukuoans | ||||||
| Casualties | |||||||
| ? | ? | ||||||
| Second Sino-Japanese War |
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| Major engagements in bold Mukden - Manchuria -(Jiangqiao - Nenjiang Bridge - Chinchow - Harbin) -Shanghai (1932) -Pacification of Manchukuo - Operation Nekka - ( Rehe - Great Wall) - Suiyuan - Marco Polo Bridge - Beiping-Tianjin - Chahar - Shanghai (1937) (Sihang Warehouse) - Beiping-Hankou Railway - Tianjin-Pukou Railway - Taiyuan - (Pingxingguan) - Xinkou - Nanjing - Xuzhou- Taierzhuang - N.-E.Henan - (Lanfeng) - Amoy - Wuhan-(Wanjialing)- Canton - (Hainan) - (Xiushui River) - Nanchang - Suixian-Zaoyang - (Swatow) - 1st Changsha - S.Guangxi- (Kunlun Pass) - Winter Offensive -(Wuyuan) - Zaoyang-Yichang - Hundred Regiments - French Indochina - C. Hupei - S.Henan - W. Hopei - Shanggao - S.Shanxi - 2nd Changsha - 3rd Changsha - Yunnan-Burma Road-(Yenangyaung)- Zhejiang-Jiangxi - W.Hubei - N.Burma-W.Yunnan - Changde - C.Henan - 4th Changsha - Guilin-Liuzhou - W.Henan-N.Hubei - W.Hunan- 2nd Guangxi edit |
The Pacification of Manchukuo, was a campaign to pacify the resistance to the newly established puppet state of Manchukuo between the volunteer armies of Manchuria and later the Communist Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army and the Imperial Japanese Army and the forces of Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War which took place from March 1932 until 1941, which resulted in a Japanese victory.
[edit] Japan seizes control
The earliest formation of large Anti Japanese partisan groups occurred in the Manchurian provinces of Liaoning and Jilin due to the poor performance of the Fengtien Army in the first month of the Japanese invasion and to Japan's rapid success in removing and replacing the provincial authority in Fengtien and Kirin.
The organization of a provincial government for Liaoning Province had fled west to Chinchow where they were continuing to carry on the provincial administration. Chinese General Tsang Shih-yi, who was Governor of the Province and had remained in Mukden, refusing to cooperate with the Japanese in the organization of a new provincial government. For this, he was arrested and confined in prison. Being hindered by lack of cooperation from the Chinese officials, the Japanese Army issued a proclamation on 21 September 1931 installing Colonel Kenji Doihara as Mayor of Mukden; he proceeded to rule the city with the aid of a so-called "Emergency Committee" composed mostly of Japanese.
On 23 September 1931, Lt. General Hsi Hsia of the Kirin Army, was invited to form a provisional government for Kirin Province, and the next day, a provisional government had been formed for Fengtien (the new name of the former Liaoning) Province with Yuan Chin-hai as Chairman of the "Committee for the Maintenance of Peace and Order".
In Jilin province the Japanese succeeded in achieving a bloodless occupation of the capital. General Hsi Hsia accepted the Japanese invitation, called a meeting of government organizations and Japanese advisors, and on 30 September issued a proclamation establishing a provisional government for Kirin Province under protection of the Japanese Army and independent of the Republic of China.
In Harbin, General Chang Ching-hui Administrator of the Special District, also called a conference in his office on 27 September 1931 to discuss the organization of an "Emergency Committee of the Special District", formed to achieve the secession of Manchuria from China. However they were not able to act because the city and much of the North of Kirin was still held by anti-Japanese army units under Ting Chao, Li Du, Feng Zhanhai and others.
Meanwhile in Mukden, the North Eastern Administrative Committee or Self-Government Guiding Board was set up on November 10th, under the leadership of Yu Chung-han, a prominent elder statesman of Zhang Xueliang's Government, who favored the autonomy of Manchuria. After the Japanese defeated General Ma Zhanshan and occupied Tsitsihar on 19 November 1931, driving Ma's forces north toward Hailun, a local Self-Government Association was established in Heilungkiang Province; and General Chang Ching-hui was inaugurated as Governor of the Province on 1 January 1932.
After the fall of Chinchow, the independence movement made progress in North Manchuria, where Colonel Doihara was Chief of Special Services in Harbin. General Chang Ching-hui, upon learning of the defeat of Marshal Zhang Xueliang at Chinchow, agreed to the request of the Self-Government Guiding Board at Mukden and declared the independence of Heilungkiang Province. The declaration was issued on 7 January 1932.
On the same day, in Mukden the Self-Government Guiding Board issued a Proclamation, which appealed to the people to overthrow Marshal Zhang Xueliang and join the Self-Government Association. Mr. Yu Chung-han, the Chief of the Board, and the reinstated Governor Tsang Shih-yi, of the renamed Fengtien Province were making plans for a new State of Manchukuo to be established in February.
After General Ma Zhanshan had been driven from Tsitsihar by the Japanese in the Jiangqiao Campaign he had retreated northeastward with his beaten and depleted forces and had set up his capital at Hailun. There he attempted to continue to govern Heilongjiang province. Colonel Kenji Doihara began negotiations with General Ma from his Special Service Office at Harbin, hoping to get him to join the new state of Manchukuo Japan was organizing. Ma continued negotiating with Doihara, while he continued to support General Ting Chao.
[edit] Early Resistance, Militias, Brotherhoods and Bandits
The emergence of Chinese resistance to Japan in the form of citizen militias, peasant brotherhoods and bandit gangs was facilitated by Japan's success in rapidly destroying Zhang Xueliang's government of the region. Most of the Kwantung Army's strength during November 1931 was concentrated against General Ma Zhanshan in north-central Heilungkiang, and in December and early January against Zhang Xueliang's remaining army in Chinchow in southwestern Liaoning. Away from the Japanese garrisons in cities and other places along the railroads resistance units were free to muster openly and un-molested in Liaoning, Jilin and Heilungkiang provinces.
[edit] Militias
During previous eras of collapse in effective governance in Chinese history leading citizens and village authorities often formed private peace protection militias and with the hostility of Sino-Japanese relations at this time, this method for the local gentry for prevention of anarchy took on an additional character of patriotism and nationalism.
These partisan bands were known as "plain-clothes" men from their lack of uniform. They were common citizens who took up arms in units called "Self-Protection Militia", "Anti-Japanese Militia" or "Chinese Volunteers". These were traditional "peace protection" militias raised by leading local citizens. They operated principally in the southern province of Fengtien where half of Manchuria's population lived. It had come almost immediately under Japanese control when Japanese soldiers seized the most populous centers and its capital of Mukden that all lay along the tracks of the South Manchuria Railway in the so-called S.M.R. Zone. These had then been garrisoned by Kwantung Army troops early in the conflict.
One of the first such forces to form, called the Courageous Citizens Militia, had been established by November 1931 near the estuary port of Chinchow in Fengtien's southwest a narrow strip of coast between the Liaoning Gulf to the east and the mountains of Jehol province to the west and bounded at the south at Shanhaiguan where the Great Wall meets the sea.
[edit] Peasant brotherhoods
Peasant brotherhoods for mutual protection were as traditional a resort of Chinese small-holders and tenants in troubled times as the "peace protection" militias were for the gentry. Recent waves of immigrants from China to Manchuria, coming since 1926 at the rate of one million a year, fled from the wars of the Warlord era that ravaged north and central China. These included many belonging to the two predominant brotherhoods, the Red Spear Society and the Big Sword Society. Both had grown in renewed strength below the Great Wall because of the misrule and chaos of warlordism.
Red Spear Society members were common throughout the hinterlands of Fengtien and countryside around Harbin. Big Sword Society adherents was established in southeastern Kirin and adjoining parts of Fengtien. In 1927 the Big Swords had spearheaded an uprising triggered by the collapse of the prevailing Feng-Piao paper currency. During the rebellion the Big Swords were respected by the peasants because they did not harm or plunder the common people, but resisted the officials of the Warlord Zhang Zuolin.
After the Japanese invasion, the Big Sword Society disturbed the Chientao District in southeast Fengtien along the Korean border, and rose en masse in response to the declaration of Manchukuo on March 9, 1932. They would be the principal component of partisan resistance in this region, accepting loose ties with the commanders of the Anti Japanese Volunteer Armies. The bandit leader Lao Pie-fang would command several bands of Big swords in western Fengtien. The Big Swords in southeast Kirin kept in touch with Wang Delin. General Feng Zhanhai organized and trained a Big Sword Corps of 4,000 men.
The Red Spear Society groups were more widespread. Members formed important centers of resistance as the war spread out through the countryside. They were very strong round Harbin, and in Fengtien. Red Spears gathered frequently to attack the "S. M. R. Zone" from the Hsinlintun and Tungfeng districts, close to Mukden and the Fushun coal mines. They were led by a young officer of the Fengtien Army, Tang Juwu. Red Spear Society units displayed extraordinary staying power in this area; almost two years after the Mukden Incident, a group of 1,000 Crimson Spear members stormed the Tungfeng prefecture near Mukden on June 3, 1933, after the large voluteer armies had been defeated.
Large numbers of men from the countryside were inspired to take up the fight against the Japanese invader under the traditionalist, quasi-religious auspices of the Red Spear Society or the Big Sword Society forming forces of a unique character. Inhabitants of market towns round Mukden described the units of Red Spear braves who periodically flooded into the area as "primitive-minded people". Members of the brotherhoods placed their faith in rustic magic and belief in the righteous character's Heavenly reward. Big Sword braves were described as claiming they lead charmed lives and were immune from bullets. Red Spear bodies formed in the countryside round Harbin, were in many cases led by Buddhist monks as they went into battle, with themselves and their weapons decorated with magic inscriptions similar to the earlier Boxer rebels.
[edit] Bandits
Northeast China was a poorly governed frontier area at the turn of the century and banditry was endemic. Some were hardened criminals who pillaged for a living; others were part-time bandits -- who robbed only to survive when they could not make a living on the land. As the population of the Northeast Provinces increased through the 1920s, some newcomers became squatters, then wanderers, and then outlaws. Banditry became deeply rooted in the regions frontier, and a common occurrence in Manchuria. Even the settled Fengtien province, bandits known as hun-hutze (red beards) were common in the area of Mukden along the Peiping-Mukden railway and in the wooded southeast of the province along the Mukden-Antung railway near Korea. There were powerful bandit gangs operating within a day's match of such cities as Mukden and Harbin. The term shanlin was often used to describe the bandits because they knew the local terrain very well. Most operated in a fairly small district and maintained the goodwill of local peasants. Government troops had great difficulty in suppressing them as would the Japanese and Manchukuoans in later years.
There was also a tradition of nationalistic banditry, dating back to the Russian invasion in July 1900 when Tsarist forces were sent to Northeast China, ostensibly to protect the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway(CER). One of the most successful volunteer armies was led by such a bandit. He was Wang Delin who declared his opposition to both the Russians and China's Qing dynasty, and became an outlaw to drive out the Russians. His career as an outlaw continued until 1917, when he agreed to become part of the Jilin provincial forces. Becoming part of the regular army quite common among bandits in the Warlord Era. It benefitted the government because a continuing threat to public order was removed and new soldiers recruited.
When Fengtien provincial authorities withdrew or were deposed by the Japanese after the Mukden Incident, bandits of Western Liaoning took advantage, coolly robbing trains on the Mukden-Peiping railway within 50 miles of Mukden. Attempts by Fengtien Army soldiers to obey their last orders to retire towards Chinchow or deserting, brought upon the countryside thousands of soldiers that had no means of getting a living except by their guns.
It was not until December 1931 that Japanese soldiers made their first operations "for the clearance of undesirable Chinese" into the Fengtien countryside beyond the South Manchuria Railway zone in counties west of Mukden. Fighting supported by aircraft reportedly broke up several of the bandit gangs. In consequence bandits now resented the Japanese invasion, and began some of the early resistance in western Fengtien, towards the end of December in southeastern Fengtien with attacks against isolated Japanese communities along the Mukden-Antung railway.
Hun-hutze chieftain Lao Pie-fang, lead several thousand followers to attack the southern portion of the S.M.R. mainline. The Japanese garrison of Newchwangchen was encircled and attacked by "1500 Chinese bandits under Lao Pie-fang," while other troops under his orders attacked in the Haicheng area. Japanese reinforcements quickly dispatched from Mukden forced Lao's retirement, but Lao Pie-fang emerged as a Volunteer force general and was acclaimed as commander by the local bands of the brotherhoods and citizen militias.
Additionally there were many bandits admitted into the Volunteer armies as the Japanese conquest advanced and the partisan resistance became an increasingly popular cause. Some professional bandits such as 'Old North Wind' Zhang Haitian, led their followers against Japan. However there was not much change in their behavior, as the bandits among the volunteers often looted villages along the railway.
[edit] The formation of the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies
[edit] Resistance in Harbin
When General Hsi Hsia of the Kirin Army, declared the province independent of China, Military and civil authorities in the province fractured into "New Kirin" adherents of his regime and loyalist "Old Kirin" elements in opposition to it; the former predominated near the capital and the latter predominating in Harbin and the rugged hinterland to the north and east.
Hostilities did not commence in the Harbin area until the end of January 1932, at about the same time as the January 28 Incident. General Ting Chao decided to defend the city, a key hub of rail and river communications in the north, against the approach of first General Hsi Hsia's "New Kirin" Army and then Japanese troops. He appealed to Harbin's Chinese residents to join his railway garrison regulars and hundreds of volunteers, joined General Ting's Jilin Self-Defence Army. The fighting in Harbin at the start of February, that rallied Harbin in the way that had already formed militias in Fengtien, convinced local authorities and leading citizens in the hinterlands of Kirin that they should resist Japan's occupation of the province and form their own bands and militia units.
General Ting Chao's beaten Jilin Self-Defence Army retired from Harbin to the northeast down the Sungari River, to join the Lower Sungari garrison of General Li Du to form the nucleus of armed opposition in north Kirin. Meanwhile in southeast Kirin Wang Delin, a battalion commander and former bandit chieftain in the region established the Chinese People's National Salvation Army or NSA, on February 8th, 1932. Numbering over 1,000 men at the time, within a few months this army became a rallying point for resistance and one of the most successful of the volunteer armies.
[edit] Foundation of Manchukuo
After General Ting Chao's defeat, General Ma resumed negotiations with Colonel Doihara, while his army escaped to Russian territory and then returned to China. With his army safe, General Ma, is said to have accepted one million dollars in gold offered by Doihara. He agreed on 14 February 1932 to retain his post as Governor of Heilungkiang Province and cooperate with the Japanese. On February 27, 1932, General Ting Chao, offered to cease hostilities, seemingly ending official Chinese resistance in Manchuria.
Within days Henry Pu-yi, Manchurian former emperor of China, deposed in 1911, was made provisional president of the independent state of Manchukuo by the resolution of an All-Manchuria convention at Mukden, that included General Ma flown in from the north. The next day on March 1 the Manchukuo Government established with Ma as its Minister of War in addition to his post as governor. On March 9, the State of Manchukuo was inaugurated at the new capital Changchun under the regency of Pu-yi. The Chinese Government announced that not only did it not recognize Henry VIII but that asserted that Pu-yi been kidnapped by the Japanese. On March 11th the League of Nations Assembly passed resolution supporting the Stimson doctrine of non-recognition which the United States Government announced on the 15th of March.
Yet all was not calm in Manchuria, in Late February, General Wang Delin with 1,000 Chinese soldiers and some Koreans had wrecked or burned 18 bridges on the Kirin-Tunhua Railway. Wang also recaptured the town of Dunhua on February 20th. In March 1932, a Japanese and Manchukuoan expeditionary force sent against Wang was defeated in a series of battles with around the shore of Lake Jingbo losing hundreds of casualties. These battles were small in scale, the volunteers using their knowledge of the local terrain to set ambushes, eventually compelling the Japanese to retreat to Harbin.
The Japanese authorities suffered the shame of a military defeat by a motley collection of volunteers combined with political embarrassment. The new state of Manchukuo had been proclaimed on March 9th and they were anxious to present it to the world as a peaceful nation, especially as a delegation of the League of Nations was now investigating the situation in Northeast China. When the news of the victories of Wang's NSA spread around eastern Jilin, troops who had been reluctant members of the new puppet state's forces, joined the NSA and estimates of its total strength in April rose from 4,500 to above 10,000 and, possibly nearer 15,000 organised in five brigades.
[edit] War of the Volunteer Armies and "Anti Bandit Operations" 1932 - 1933
[edit] The conflict begins
In Manchuria following the establishment of Manchukuo fires were set in the Japanese quarter of Mukden. General Honjo's special train suffered an attack which was repulsed, and minor revolts were starting in the remoter parts of Manchuria.
With the end of winter in 1932, the Japanese launched expeditions from Harbin into the interior of Kirin province, striking northeast down the Sungari River and east along the Chinese Eastern Railway mainline against General Ting's Jilin Self-Defence Army, (called the Anti Kirin Army by the Japanese). This was the Subjugation of the Anti Kirin Army campaign in Kirin province that lasted from March to June 1932. The campaign pushed the Nationalist Forces into the north and east of the Kirin province and secured control of the Sungari River. Following the Japanese Subjugation campaign they continued to resist, sometimes occupying towns along the eastern section of the Chinese Eastern Railway, between Harbin and the Soviet border.
To the southwest another force under General Li Hai-ching headquartered at Fuyu was in control of the territory round about and southward as far as Nungan. This force was called the Anti-Japanese Army For The Salvation Of The Country and equipped with light artillery and numerous machine guns. In March 29, 1932 Li Hai-ching's forces defeated regular troops of the Manchukuoan Governor Hsi Hsia outside the town of Nungan, only 35 miles from the Manchukuoan capital of Changchun. On previous day, a party of 100 policemen was surrounded by volunteer troops in the afternoon as they were proceeding to Nungan in a truck convoy carrying 200,000 rounds of rifle ammunition and 50,000 trench mortar shells from the Kirin City Arsenal. All of them were either taken prisoner or surrendered. Deprived of their supply of ammunition the resistance of Manchukuo forces in Nungan dissolved next day. Nungan was soon reported on the verge of surrender.
Small Japanese detachments sent from Changchun radioed for help, after suffering heavy casualties in the fighting. Japanese forces from the east at Yao-men, tried to fight their way through to Nungan with the support of bombers but the defenders radio ceased broadcasting, Li's Anti-Japanese Army having captured the town. Finally the next day, the Japanese succeeded in driving Li's forces out of the town mainly as a result of airplane bombing, against which they had no defense, except the volley fire of their rifles.
[edit] The Revolt of Ma
Dispite being their Manchukoan minister of War and provincial governor, the Japanese put very strict control on Ma Zhanshan. He had to ask approval from his Japanese advisor about all matters of the province before implementating them. Dispite this Ma proceded with his intent to rebel after secretly using the Japanese money to raise and reequip his new volunteer force. When he was appointed as the Governor of Heilongjiang, he secretly transported weapons and ammunition out of the arsenals and evacuated the wives and families of his troops to safety. He then led his troops from Qiqihar on April 1 with the excuse of an army inspection.
At Heihe on April 7th Ma announced the reestablishment of the Heilongjiang Provincial Government and continued to resist the Japanese with former puppet troops reorganized into 9 brigades at the beginning of May. Ma also established another eleven troops of volunteers at Buxi, Gannan, Keshan, Kedong and other places and thus established the Northeast Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army. Ma was also appointed as Commander-in-chief, at least nominally, over all the other volunteer armies that were forming, commanding a total fighting force of about 300,000 men at its peak strength according to Japanese estimates.
Sending some of his Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army troops to aid the forces of Ting Chao in the lower Sungari River his personal command struck out toward Harbin with an estimated six regiments of infantry and cavalry, and 20 field artillery pieces and a small air squadron of seven planes. The units under Ma undertook ambushes along the major roads and badly mauled Manchukuoan and Japanese troops. When he was blocked from reaching Harbin, he turned southwest towards Tsitsihar.
At the same time northwest of Harbin, irregular war began to flare up in the countryside of Heilungkiang province. Manchukuo troops mutinied, holding centers of the Tsitsihar-Keshan and Harbin-Hailun railways, or departed to join the now revived forces of General Ma. Mounted bandits appeared by the hundreds to loot towns on the Chinese Eastern Railway mainline west of Harbin. Other partisans rose up in the Taonan region, disrupting service on the Taonan-Tsitsihar railway.
Angry at being deceived, the Japanese sent many Japanese forces northward and launched the Ma Chan-shan Subjugation from April through July of 1932. The Japanese struck northwards up the Harbin-Hailun and Tsitsihar-Keshan railways in reply to Gen. Ma Zhanshan's attacks, driving back his forces and setting out from the railheads in powerful pincers of Japanese and Manchukuoan forces to besiege, chase and block Ma's troops. Gen. Ma Zhanshan reported on June 8 that he had decided that guerrilla tactics will be adopted by his army, only one detachment of 1,000 soldiers, commanded by Gen. Ma in person, remained as a regular force, all the other units broke up and scattered about the country, each dispersed fragment became a nucleus for a similar or smaller sized group of partisans, roving countryside on horseback. In July, and Ma Zhanshan's regular troops were seriously depleted in the resulting battles, until there were only small numbers of men able to break through the tight Japanese encirclement.
[edit] Revolts of the Volunteer Armies south of Harbin
In late April, the Chinese Eastern Railway, was cut 65 miles south of Harbin, by an estimated 3,000 Chinese soldiers under General Li Hai-ching. Li's troops ripped up the railway tracks, tore down telegraph wires and captured a train from Harbin. They looted the train and dispersed before Japanese troops arrived on the scene. In eastern Manchukuo, Wang Delin's troops set three minor railway stations afire and gutted the city of Suifenho near the Russian border. Drawing more troops from the seemingly quiet southern Fengtien province, the Japanese launched the Li Hai-ching Subjugation in May 1932. A mixed force of Japanese and Manchukuoan's attacked Li Hai-ching's guerrillas in southern Heilongjiang province from three directions, rapidly dispersing them and secured control of the region.
However in May 1932, with the Liaoning in the south stripped of Japanese troops and sent to the north, Tang Juwu in eastern Liaoning judged that the time was ripe for his army to go on the offensive. Tang's army, now 20,000 men surrounded the Japanese Tunghua garrison. In reaction the Japanese police and detachments of the Manchukuoan Army attempted to relieve the siege in the First Tungpientao Clearance. The Japanese were unable to defeat Tang but did relieve the siege. However his force contined as a threat in the region to the east of Mukden and communications with Korea. Based in the Tungpientao area, his army fought, with the Japanese Kwantung Army stationed in Shenyang and and the Manchukuo's Fengian Army. Although all major cities had been lost, the volunteer armies gained a new lease of life during the summer of 1932 and reached their greatest strength.
Also in May Feng Zhanhai and a sizeable detachment of the Jilin Self-Defence Army of 15,000 men in western Jilin province cut communications to the south and east of Harbin. In response the Japanese and Manchukoans launched two campaigns to clear Feng's force out of the countryside. From June to July 1932 the Feng Chan-hai Subjugation Operation cleared the Shuangcheng, Acheng, Yushu, Wuchang, and Shulan districts south of Harbin, of Feng's Anti-Japanese forces. This resulted in forcing Feng to retreat to the west.
Massive floods along the Nonni and Sungari Rivers inundated some 10,000 square miles round Harbin throughout August, providing a crucial breathing spell to volunteer army bands in the plains and lower Sungari, Japanese operations in the area had to halt until the waters subsided. The Japanese concentration northwest of Harbin against General Ma in spring and summer of 1932 permitted an escalation of partisan activity in Kirin and Fengtien provinces, which culminated in simultaneous attacks on cities throughout the "S. M. R. Zone" when the August floods both halted Japanese operations based on Harbin, and isolated the troops engaged on them. The floods would also have the unfortuate effect of ruining crops not already destroyed in the war, putting preasure on the volunteer armies, that foraged for their sustanance in the countryside.
[edit] Defeat of the Volunteer Armies
Mongolian bandit forces were able to attack the Ssutao (Siping - Taonan) Railway where it was isolated by the flooding in August, and took the small town of Tongyu. On August 20th a Manchukuoan releiving force was sent on the Mongolian Bandit Subjugation Operation and after a short battle Tonyu was recovered and the bandits retreated on August 31, 1932.
On September 2, 1932 during the Second Feng Chan-hai Subjugation operation a force of the Manchukuoan Kirin Guard Army cornered Feng Zhanhai's Volunteer force retreating from the previous subjugation operation. Although surrounded, over half the guerrillas were able to slip through the encirclement and make good their escape to Jehol.
[edit] Su Bingwen's revolt
Gen. Su Bingwen commanding the Heilungkiang Manchukuo garrisons of the "Barga District" at the extreme west of Heilungkiang on the Soviet frontier, had kept his isolated command beyond the Hsingan Mountains, free any of the fighting or any Japanese troops, doing nothing in support of either Manchukuo or Ma Zhanshan. As a consequence the farmers settled along the Chinese Eastern Railway mainline west of Tsitsihar had remained undisturbed by warfare and were able to get in their harvests.
Then on September 27th, when the Japanese turned their attentions south to restore the security of the vital facilities in the South of Manchuria endangered by the volunteer forces there, Gen. Su Bingwen's soldiers staged a mutiny seizing hundreds of Japanese civilians and isolated military personnel as hostages. The mutineers, calling themselves the Heilungkiang National Salvation Army moved eastwards aboard trains towards Tsitsihar to join Gen. Ma Zhanshan in recapturing that provincial capital.
Ma Zhanshan had emerged onto the plains again from his shelter in the Little Hsingan range along the Amur River after the Japanese had defeated the forces in the north. He arrived in Longmen County in September and established relationship with Su Bingwen's force and together they launched a campaingn in the region of Qiqihar.
However food shortages were particularly acute in Heilungkiang after the devastation wrought by the August flooding. The Heilungkiang troops and Ma's Volunteers were being supplied with provisions by the people, unwillingly, and soon there was nothing left to seize. Gen. Ma's men were forced to subsist on horse flesh.
In mid-October, Ma's forces captured Antachen west of Harbin on the C. E. R. mainline, forced the merchants of the city to give half a 100,000 dollars to them, and confiscated every horse they could find. On October 26th, Laha a town 70 miles north of Tsitsihar, was attacked by Ma's forces with their remaining artillery in support. The Japanese garrison was subjected to a long intensive and well directed bombardment.
For eight days the Japanese garrison at Taian commanded by a Captain Hayashi at Taian on the Tsitsihar-Koshen railway was encircled by some 4,000 Volunteers, until it succeeded in repulsing them on October 28th following severe fighting, in which twenty eight Japanese (including Capt. Hayashi) were killed or wounded. A cavalry detachment, Kawase detachment of 59 horsemen sent out toward Taian, disappeared on the frosted prairie. On November 8 the sole survivor, a Sgt. Iwakami, arrived in Tsitsihar to tell how the detachment had been annihilated near Taian.
In reaction, the Japanese organized the Su Ping-wei Subjugation from November to December 1932. Nearly 30,000 Japanese and Manchukuoan soldiers including the Japanese 14th Division and the Mongol cavalrymen of the Manchukuoan Hsingan Army directed a fierce campaign at Su and Ma's troops. On November 28th, 1932, Japanese 14th division attacked Ma Zhanshan and Su Bingwen around Tsitsihar. Japanese planes bombed Ma Zhanshan's headquarter in Hailar. By Dec 3rd, the Japanese took Ma Zhanshan's Hailar headquarters. And the following day, after heavy fighting, Ma Zhanshan and Su Bingwen with the remnants of their forces left Hailar for the Soviet border and entered Russian territory on December 5th. Most of their troops were later transferred to Rehe.
[edit] Final Operations in Eastern Manchukuo
Diverted from their preparations for invading Jehol province by the widespread partisan activity in Heilungkiang, by the forces of Ma and Su the Japanese forces concentrated to the west. The forces of Feng Zhanhai and Wang Delin in Fengtian and Kirin, were free attack the railroads and other places in the S. M. R. Zone and managed to briefly occupy the capital of Kirin province.
On September 10, 1932, at Yaomin on the C. E. R. spur-line between Changchun and Harbin, 1,000 "bandits" surprised the Manchukuoan garrison driving out the garrison. They then looted the town for two hours as fighting went on. The garrison were able to rally and counterattack and repulse their opponents.
On a a raid on September 11 Chinese Volunteers on the C. E. R. tracks between Changchun and Harbin derailed the train and robbed the survivors, kidnapping some of them for ransom, including five Japanese.
On September 15th, the Red Spear militia not from the area, but merely passing through Pingdingshan village, fired on Japanese soldiers and later had attacked the Japanese garrison in the nearby industrial city of Fushun. The next day in retaliation Japanese soldiers and police in tracking the rebels as they fled back through the villages, assumed all who were in the vicinity either to be members of the militia or their confederates and punished them, by burning homes and summary execution, bayoneting and machine-gunning village residents and killing some 3,000 men, women, and children, leaving only one survivor in the whole village. This became known as the Pingdingshan Massacre.[1]
Meanwhile in October to the west, a Manchukuoan and Japanese force in the Li Hai-ching Subjugation, confronted the 3,000 man Li Hai-ching guerilla force that had returned to to attack the Manchukuoan and Japanese forces in South Heilungkiang province. They soon retreated into Jehol province.
Finally the Japanese took the initiative in the east. In mid-October the Japanese estimated Tang Juwu's forces in the fourteen counties of south and eastern Fengtien at about 30,000 men. On October 11th, 1932, the Japanese counterattacked in the Second Tungpientao Subjugation. The Fengtian Army of seven brigades supported a Japanese force of two cavalry brigades and one mixed brigade that spearheaded the clearance of guerillas from the Tungpientao distict. They attacked Tang Juwu's forces in the Tonghua and Huanren area. Tang Juwu broke through the Japanese encirclement to the west. On the 16th, the Japanese took over Tonghua, and on the 17th, Huanren, suffering casualties of 500 men while killing 270 and capturing 1,000.
Following that operation up from October to November 1932 in the Shenyang, Changchun, Jilin Subjugation the Japanese swept through the territory between Shenyang, Changchun and Jilin, and forcing the Chinese guerrilla forces of Wang Delin to retreat towards Huinan and Siping.
From the 6th to the 20th of November 1932 the Manchukoans launched the Ki Feng - Lung District Subjugation clearing the Ki Feng-lung District of guerillas with 5,000 Manchukuoan soldiers consisting of a battalion of the Chingangyuchitui Guard Corps and the 2nd Cavarly Regiment of the Fengtien Army and a Cavalry detachment of the Kirin Army.
The Third Tungpientao Subjugation operation, from 22nd of November to 5th of December 1932, was launched to finally clear the remnants of Tang Juwu's guerrilla forces that had regroupped after the Second Tungpientao Subjugation campaign. The Manchukuoan force was made up of a unit of Chinganyuchitui Guard Corps as well as locally raised militia forces from the Yalu, Central and Shenghai districts totaling 5,000 men. The operation was a success and led to the capture of 1,800 "bandits", some of whom were recruited into the Manchukuoan Army.
On Dec 24th 1932, the Japanese 10th Division attacked guerrilla forces to the north of Mudanjiang River. January 5, 1933, General Kuan Chang-ching was forced to surrender his Volunteers at Suifehno on the Soviet frontier. On Jan 7th 1933, Japanese took over Mishan. On January 9th, 1933, Li Du's guerrilla forces crossed Usuri River into the USSR.
By the end of February 1933, most of the large volunteer armies had dispersed into small guerrilla bands or had fled to the Soviet Union. From there they were eventually repatriated to China.
[edit] Aftermath
This was not the end of the volunteer armies. Some did not flee and fought on as small guerrilla units, frequently called shanlin. The bandit experiences of some of the commanders stood them in good stead for they were adept at surviving in the Manchurian winters and adapted to guerrilla warfare. Survival was difficult and some resorted to banditry on occasion. But most were genuine anti-Japanese forces, and continued to harass the Japanese and Manchukuo forces for many years.
The Japanese were forced to tie up forces to continuously sweep the region with company sized patrols for many years. Occasionally they organized larger operations. After a reasurgence of activity the Japanese were forced to organize the large scale Kirin Province Subjugation operation in October and November of 1933. It involved 35,000 men of the Manchukuoan Army in an attempt to clear the province of Kirin entirely of guerillas. The Manchukuoan force included the whole of the Kirin Army as well as the elements of the Heilungkiang Army, Hsingan Army and the Hsinching Independent Cavalry Detachment. The operation was deemed a success and led to the capture and death of a number of anti Japanese commanders.
Of the forces that fled Manchukuo, Feng Zhanhai and his men went on to serve against the Japanese Operation Nekka in Rehe and later with Feng Yuxiang's Anti-Japanese Allied Army in Chahar 1933. His forces were incorporated into the National Revolutionary Army as a division and fought in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Tang Juwu fought against the Japanese in Rehe,and was made head of the Northeast Anti-Japanese Volunteer 3rd Corps. After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War he was assigned to operate behind the Japanese lines where he was killed on May 18, 1939. After his retreat to the Soviet Union, Su Bingwen served the KMT government as a military board member and military inspection group director during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Out of favor with Jiang Kai Shek, it was not until after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident that Ma Zhanshan was made commander of the Northeastern Advance Force in charge guerilla operations in the four northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and Rehe. Ma led his troops to fight the Japanese in Chahar, Suiyuan, Datong and Shanxi Area and he cooperated with Fu-Zuyi's troops in the defence of Suiyuan. Ma was appointed as Chairman of the government of Heilongjiang in August of 1940 that he held to the end of the war.
Of the Volunteer guerilla leaders remaining in Manchukuo, Wang Fengge was captured in 1937 and executed, along with his wife and child. Wu Yicheng fought on with a small band of followers until 1937. Although Kong Xianrong, Wang Delin's deputy, gave up the struggle, his wife and another of Wang Delin's subordinates, Yao Zhenshan, led a small band which fought on until the spring of 1941 when it was annihilated.
[edit] Communists and the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army 1934-1941
After the Empire of Japan invaded and occupied the Northeast in 1931, the Chinese Communist Party organized a number of small anti-Japanese guerrilla units dedicated to social revolution. However these units were far smaller than the volunteer armies which had been raised by their patriotic appeal against the Japanese and the puppet regime of Manchukuo.
Despite party disapproval, some party members joined or rendered assistance to to the various Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies fighting the Japanese and the forces of Manchukuo. Some Communists held senior positions in the volunteer forces. They were particularly influential in Wang Delin's NSA, where Li Yanlu and Zhou Baozhong were made high-ranking officers. At first the Party severely criticised their conduct.
When the first volunteer armies were organised, the Commmunist Party was completely hostile to them believing that the leaders were bound to capitulate, claiming that the leaders of the volunteer armies were the paid and merely pretending to resist. They feared that in this way, the Japanese Army would have a pretext for bringing its troops up to the Soviet border and attack it. Communists in Northeast China even issued an appeal for the volunteers to kill their officers and join the Communists in social revolution.
However, the Communists eventually had to face the fact that their current propaganda made them almost irrelevant to the anti-Japanese cause. The beifits from the actions of the party members that joined or aided the various Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies evenually persuaded the international Communist movement to move towards its popular front policy of 1935, it came to accept that whole-hearted support for the anti-Japanese movement and the postponement of the revolutionary goals were essential if the Chinese Communists were to be a serious political force in the face of the Japanese invasion.
In 1934, after the defeat of the large Volunteer Armies, there were still resistance forces estimated at 50,000 men still in the field. All the Communist Party units were reorganized into the single Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, with Zhao Shangzhi as its Commander-in-Chief. It was to be open to all who wanted to resist the Japanese invasion and proclaimed its willingness to ally with all other anti-Japanese forces, this army won over some of the shanlin bands, including former NSA units.
In 1935, when the party officially changed policy, and began creating a united front, the army welcomed and absorbing most of the remaining anti-Japanese forces in Manchuria and some Korean resistance fighters including Kim Il-sung. The number of insurgents in 1935 stood at about 40,000 men. The army was organized into Yang Jingyu's 1st Route Army (Fengtien Province), Zhou Baozhong's 2nd Route Army( Kirin Province), and Li Zhaolin's 3rd Route Army (Heilongjiang Province). The army's strategy was to form pockets of resistance in occupied areas, to harrass the Japanese troops and undermine their attempts at administration, and when the Second Sino-Japanese War began in ernest in 1937, to make attacks to keep as many of Japan's troops from being sent into China. It conducted a protracted campaign which threatened the stability of the Manchukuo regime, especially during 1936 and 1937.
The recently reformed Manchukoan Army replied with a major campaign, with 16,000 men from October 1936 to March 1937, against the 1st Route Army in the Tungpientao region. This was the first time it operated against the guerillas without the support of Japanese troops. Dispite heavy casualties the Manchukuoans managed to kill over two thousand guerillas including some of their leaders. Thus the number of insurgents declined to 30,000 in 1936; and 20,000 in 1937.
An even larger and longer campaign from November 1937 to March 1939, was waged by 24,000 Manchukuoan troops against the 2nd Route Army in the area between the Amur, Sungari and Ussuri Rivers. In the latter half of 1938, Japan concentrated troops in eastern Fengtien province, to encircle the remnants of Yang Jingyu's army, the most dangerous of the Anti-Japanese forces, with the most reliable base area. Although they cut off the supply lines to the guerillas they persevered, frequently launching attacks that compelled the Japanese and Manchukuoans to divert their forces into punitive expeditions against them.
As of September, 1938, the number of insurgents was estimated at 10,000 by the Japanese. As a result of these years of fighting and privation, the Chinese army was gradually worn down by these pacification campaigns of the Japanese and Manchukuoan armies to a few thousand in each route army. By 1940, Japan held the cities and most of the settlements in the Northeast, but the remaining Chinese guerrilas fought on. The Kwantung Army then brought reinforcements into the northeast with a plan to mop up anti-Japanese forces in Fengtien. This operation gradually produced a critical lack of supplies, and from January to mid-February 1940 Yang led the struggle until he died on February 23rd 1940 trying to break out of the encirclement when an officer betrayed his detachment.
With its strongest armies dispersed or destroyed and its base areas pacified, the remnant resistance fighters, including Kim Il-sung, were gradually forced to retreat into the USSR between 1940 and 1942. In November of 1941, Li Zhaolin entered the Soviet Union. By July of 1942 Zhou Baozhong followed. Finally on February 12, 1942, Zhao Shangzhi was captured by Japanese military police after being attacked by one of their agents, and later died.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] Sources
- Hsu Long-hsuen and Chang Ming-kai, History of The Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) 2nd Ed. ,1971. Translated by Wen Ha-hsiung , Chung Wu Publishing; 33, 140th Lane, Tung-hwa Street, Taipei, Taiwan Republic of China.
- Jowett, Phillip S. , Rays of The Rising Sun, Armed Forces of Japan’s Asian Allies 1931-45, Volume I: China & Manchuria, 2004. Helion & Co. Ltd., 26 Willow Rd., Solihul, West Midlands, England.
[edit] External links
- IMTFE Judgement, Invasion & Occupation of Manchuria
- The volunteer armies of northeast China by Anthony Coogan
- Notes On A Guerrilla Campaign
- Pacification of Manchukuo 1932-1941
- Jan. 25, 1932 issue of TIME magazine, Explanations
- Pingdingshan massacre
- Modern Manchuria-Political (Inset-Mukden) 现代满洲－政治（放大图－沈阳）Map of Manchuria circa 1935
- Modern Manchuria and Mongolia-Economic (Inset-Foreign Trade of Manchuria for 1930) 现代满洲和蒙古经济（放大图－1930年对外贸易）Geography of Manchuria 1930's
- Noam Chomsky's On the Backgrounds of the Pacific War,Artice 1967.
