Chapter 10 Jinzhou and Harbin were occupied, and the Northeast fell

After the "September 18th" Incident, the Nanjing government asked the people to be patient, in order to wait for the resolution of the League of Nations to be respected by Japan, and to wait for justice to prevail over power.But two weeks have passed, and the crisis in the Northeast is getting worse every day.The provincial governments of Liaoning and Jilin have collapsed, and the provincial government of Heilongjiang is also in a state of paralysis.The Liaoning provincial government could not return to Shenyang to work, so it had to temporarily move to Jinzhou.Zhang Xueliang also set up the office of the commander-in-chief of the Northeast Frontier Defense Force there, and Zhang Zuoxiang acted as his commander-in-chief.This city not far from Shanhaiguan is the last political symbol of China's exercise of sovereignty in the Northeast.

The geography books at that time described Jinzhou as follows: When the Beining Railway was the center, the inner barrier was Youyan, and the Kanto was controlled externally, it was a place of military contention.The city is close to the north bank of the Xiaoling River, densely populated and prosperous in commerce. It is the center for the distribution of Manchurian and Mongolian products. It is second only to the giant cities of Shenyang, Andong, and Liaoyang in this province. On October 8, 1931, the Japanese Air Force attacked Jinzhou.It was the first air raid on a peaceful city since the end of World War I, killing many of its inhabitants.The development of the situation clearly shows that the Japanese army and government have decided to occupy the Northeast by force, and it is fighting without declaration.

On November 27, Shigeru Honjo, commander of the Kwantung Army, ordered the Japanese troops of one division and two brigades to launch an offensive to western Liaoning and Jinzhou.This military action by the Japanese army drew strong condemnation from the mainstream international community. On the 28th, at night, the Japanese General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo suddenly ordered the Kwantung Army to return to its original station. In mid-December, political turmoil occurred in both China and Japan at the same time. On the 11th, Japan's Reijiro Wakaki cabinet resigned due to the financial crisis and being accused of being weak in diplomacy by public opinion. On the 13th, Inuyang Takeshi formed a cabinet.As soon as he came to power, he said: "With regard to the issue of Manchuria and Mongolia, the cabinet should coordinate with the military to actively resolve it." attitude, but itself impotent.

On December 26, the Japanese Kwantung Army was ready to attack Jinzhou again, concentrating 1 division, 4 mixed brigades and 6 garrison brigades.The next day, the Japanese government issued a statement accusing the Chinese government of supporting the "bandits" in activities around the Manchuria Railway and Zhang Xueliang's Northeast Army did not voluntarily withdraw into the pass but built fortifications along Beining Road, announcing that it would continue to take military action to protect Japanese nationals . On December 28, the Japanese army launched an attack on the Northeast Army in Jinzhou.

The Sun Ke government that replaced Chiang Kai-shek ordered Zhang Xueliang to defend Jinzhou to the death.Zhang Xueliang asked the central government for reinforcements due to lack of strength.Sun Ke convened a meeting, but could not come up with a specific plan.The demoralized Northeast Army withdrew from Jinzhou almost without a fight, and the entire army retreated within Shanhaiguan. On January 3, 1932, the Japanese army occupied Jinzhou without much resistance.The entire western Liaoning area fell into the hands of the Japanese army. When Zhang Xueliang explained why the Northeast Army did not implement the central government's order to stick to Jinzhou, he criticized the central government, saying that the central government verbally asked the Northeast Army to stick to Jinzhou, but in fact did not give any support, and wanted the Northeast Army to exhaust its strength in the resistance against Japan.At this time, Sun Ke's government realized that "it is easy to resist Japan in words, but it is difficult to resist Japan in action".

After the Japanese army occupied Jinzhou, in late January 1932, they attacked the Special Administrative Region of the Three Eastern Provinces centered on Harbin.Because the Soviet Union had adopted a neutral attitude on the Northeast issue at that time, the Japanese army decided to occupy Harbin and the northern part of Northeast China.The Second Division of the Japanese Army occupied Harbin on the afternoon of February 5.Subsequently, it took control of the entire North Manchuria area. China, whose population is 7 times larger than Japan and whose land is 17 times larger than Japan, has no organized and decent resistance to the banditry of this small island country.Both the Nanjing government and Zhang Xueliang realized that resistance must be carried out, but why did they not perform well in action?

This is closely related to the rapid increase of Japan's military power after the Meiji Restoration and Japan's elimination of private troops and the establishment of a real national army.After the late Qing Dynasty, the private army system was a cancer in China's military system, and it was one of the biggest reasons why China was unable to resist foreign aggression.A country that is frequently divided by civil wars has to swallow the bitter fruit of being weak when foreign enemies invade. It was an unbearable history. "Manchuria and Mongolia are Japan's lifeline" and "Building a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Under the alluring name, the Japanese Empire engaged in the ugliest 14-year war of aggression against China in history. .When the Japanese army had started a large-scale war of conquest on Chinese territory, the Chinese government cowardly imagined that words and treaties would replace the iron and blood on the battlefield in the meeting place of the League of Nations.For more than two months after the "September 18th" Incident, China did not organize a decent resistance.The total strength of the Kwantung Army is only 10,000 or a few hundred people, including the armed rural soldiers, about 26,882 people.There are no aircraft and tanks, artillery and engineers are minimal, and there is little mobility.The Northeast Army has more than 200,000 troops, with aircraft, artillery, tanks, mortar factories and arsenals.But an army without the will to fight is ineffective.In just three and a half months, the Northeast has become Japan's pocket.The weapons lost in vain in Shenyang included 260 aircraft, 250 heavy artillery and field guns, 100,000 shells, and 150,000 rifles.China lost 1.2 million square kilometers of land, and 34 million Northeast people had to live under the bayonet of the Japanese army for 14 years.The sorrow it brought to the Chinese people is not only the easy loss of the Northeast, but also a huge trauma in spirit and reputation.