Iron and Blood China

Author: Wu Xingyong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: Chapter "The September 18th Incident" - The Loss of Northeast Three Provinces and Zhang Xueliang as a Scapegoat Ishihara Kanji, the staff officer of the Kwantung Army, smiled and said, "Let's join hands and pray for the soul of Major Nakamura in heaven. He died at the right time, he died worthily, his death brought the entire Manchuria to Japan."
Urgent dispatches came at midnight, and the music began to play again. Shenyang had fallen, no need to look back, hold dear ones and dance a few more times. In 1931, Chiang Kai-shek did not uphold Manchuria, sowing the seeds of the fall of the Jiang family dynasty in 1949. On September 18th, Japan easily seized Manchuria, which was three times larger than its own homeland. But the September 18th Incident also made China, this declining nation, rise and embark on a path of nationwide resistance. Although China paid a precious price of 35 million lives for this, it finally won the victory in the War of Resistance after 15 years. From the "July 7th Incident" in 1937, China fought a bloody eight-year resistance. And the prelude to the war of resistance was the "September 18th Incident." If history is not viewed from the European perspective, World War II should have begun on September 18, 1931. Many years later, Ruan Xiaoning recalled the "September 18th Incident" and found it utterly absurd. The Japanese used the Manpo River Incident and the Nakamura Incident as excuses to launch the "September 18th Incident," but neither of these incidents was sufficient reason for a country to attack a neighboring one. Take the Manpo River Incident as an example—it was a armed conflict between farmers from China and Korea over land. Having experienced the First Sino-Japanese War, Ruan Xiaoning knew that Korea was originally a vassal state of China and was forcibly taken from China during the war. If there were any conflicts between Chinese and Korean farmers, it would only be a matter between China and Korea. The Japanese' interference in this was already unreasonable, let alone using it to launch a war of annexation of Manchuria. After occupying Korea, the Japanese used Koreans to suppress the Chinese. A secret order from the Kwantung Army stated: "The Korean and Han ethnic groups have both blood ties and long-standing enmities. They can be used, softened, and turned into 'Imperial People,' but they must be kept distant from the Han, not close to them. When conflicts arise between the Korean and Han peoples, both are equally at fault, and the Korean side should be favored over the Han; when the Korean side is in the wrong, the Korean and Han people should share the blame." The Japanese did exactly this—favored the Korean over the Han. For example, after the Manpo River Incident, 1,009 Chinese Koreans were killed and 169 injured. The Japanese' strategy of using Koreans to attack the Chinese was utterly ruthless!
From this, it can be inferred that after occupying Manchuria, the Japanese could use Manchurians to attack people in the interior of China, and after occupying North China, they could use North Chinese people to attack South Chinese people. Using this domino effect, China's land would be gradually eaten away and annexed by Japan piece by piece. "Using the Chinese to conquer China"—this was exactly what the Japanese thought at the time, and later, figures like the Japanese spy Tsuchihara Hiromichi also acted this way. This was the old trick of ancient barbarian tribes invading China, and the Japanese were indeed good students of barbarism. But what the Japanese did not expect was that their aggression would provoke a reaction, turning the Chinese, who were obsessed with mahjong, gambling dens, and brothels, into...