Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937–45

Preface

The National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of China was one of the largest of World War II and its longevity in combat was equaled only by its foe, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). For over eight years bloody war raged over a land theater approached in size only by the more famous Eastern Front in Europe. Nevertheless, the activities and characteristics of the NRA during Kangzhan, the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945 have received scant attention from Western researchers and historians.

In part this is almost certainly due to the mistaken belief in the West that the Chinese military refused to engage the Japanese seriously, instead waiting for the USA and Britain to win the war for them. This is not new. Rather it was fed by a clique of malcontented American officers and politicians during the war and spread from there. It is certainly true that Chiang was content to define the minimum portion of his country that he needed for survival and then wait out and wear down the Japanese in much of the rest of it. But fighting was heavy for the first two years of the war, resulting in the loss of much equipment and casualties to elite formations. Thereafter the NRA moved to the defensive, but it was not a passive defense, as shown by the fierce counter-punching of Xue Yue in four battles around Changsha.

A second problem is the paucity of documentation. Although all are agreed that the war was a central, pivotal point in modern Chinese history there is no consensus on what actually happened. The two governments of China and Taiwan have long engaged in dueling histories of the war, each highlighting its own predecessors’ contributions to the war against Japan while minimizing those of the other side. In an environment like that both parties, of course, will guard their archival resources jealously and only parcel out materials that clearly favor their own narrative, and even in those cases they tend to paraphrase or edit the texts.

Contributing to the relative lack of documentation is the fact that what is available is inaccessible to most Western historians due to the language barrier. Movement between English, German, French and Italian, for instance, is not terribly difficult. Using Russian is a bit more of a challenge, but alphabet-based languages lend themselves well to dictionaries. Chinese and Japanese, however, are an obstacle for most Westerners, and one that few take up.

For these reasons I decided to incorporate a chapter that provides a brief overview of the war in China. The definitive history of this conflict has yet to be written, and the brief chapter dedicated to the subject does not pretend to be that. Instead, it is intended merely as a very general guide to the ebb and flow of events in the China theater to complement the discussion of the evolution of the NRA.

Some aspects of the NRA have been left to others with more specialized knowledge of those areas. In particular, medical care, conscription practices, logistics, and the roles of personal loyalty and corruption are all ripe for in-depth examination.

*

This book has been about twenty years in the making for me. On the one hand that has proven invaluable, giving me time to delve into obscure corners for information and to rethink and refine my positions. The downside came in 2005 when I was hit with a catastrophic computer crash before I learned the true value of backing up. Almost all the source material could be found again or re-created; the tragedy was that the names and contact information of some of those who had been so helpful were wiped out. I did not fully realize that at the time and they are now lost in the mists of my memory. To those who expended time and effort on my behalf many years ago only to find themselves not mentioned here, my sincere apologies. Those who can be thanked here are Louis Capdeboscq and Nowfel Leulliot in France, Joan Hansen in Denmark, David Pazdera in the Czech Republic, Benny Tsang in Hong Kong, Stig Fransson in Sweden, Arthur Volz in Germany, and Akira Takizawa in Japan.

A final note: I have used the Hanyu Pinyin system of transliteration as that is the modern standard. For readers attempting to follow along with older maps or cross-reference with pre-1982 books, I apologise. Two exceptions have been made, where readers are likely to be far more familiar with the old Wade-Giles system, those being Chiang Kai-Shek (in Pinyin Jiang Jieshi) and the Kuomintang (KMT; or, in Pinyin, Guomindang/GMD). I have also supplied Wade-Giles names in parentheses in some cases where this may be helpful.

L. S. N.

1

The War in China

Following the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925 Chiang Kai-shek emerged as the Kuomintang’s new leader. In March 1926 he began his so-called Northern Expedition to consolidate his power and, at least nominally, unify China, aims which he had achieved to some extent by mid-1928. He had accomplished this with a relatively small national army that answered to his KMT government by entering into alliances with various provincial warlords that left each of them with varying levels of independence. Chiang may thus have been weak, but he was clearly working tirelessly to cement central power.

Each of the remaining semi-autonomous warlords had to be cajoled, bribed, and bullied into line, clearly a long-term effort, but this did not assuage Tokyo’s alarm. A weak China was part of Japan’s overall strategy in Asia. Zhang Zuolin, the warlord of Manchuria (to the Chinese the Three Eastern Provinces) had failed to stop Chiang’s drive and he was assassinated by the Japanese Kwantung Army in June 1928, to be replaced by his son. In September 1931 the Kwantung Army staged an explosion that they blamed on the locals and used as a pretext for aggression. Within six months the Japanese had pushed Zhang’s troops, who were under orders not to resist, out of their garrisons and finally south of the Great Wall. The Japanese then established the puppet state of Manchukuo in the region.

Escalating violence in Shanghai led to Japanese bombing on 28 January 1932 and 3,000 Japanese troops fanned out to take parts of the city. The 19th Route Army put up stout resistance. In mid-February the Japanese increased their strength to 90,000, while Chiang sent his German-trained 5th Army (87th and 88th Divisions) to Shanghai. In early March the 19th Route and 5th Armies pulled back, ending the fighting. The Japanese eventually largely withdrew, but insisted that Shanghai be demilitarized, including decommissioning of the arsenal facilities there.

In the meantime the Kwantung Army’s leaders had come to believe that they needed both a buffer zone between China and their new Manchurian holdings and the mineral resources of North China. In February 1933 they invaded Jehol province and routed Zhang’s troops there, with Chiang too concerned with the communists to send aid. In May the Kwantung Army pushed south on a broad front, forcing China to agree to a 13,000 square kilometer demilitarized zone that was, in fact, garrisoned by the Japanese. In mid-1935 bellicose posturing on the borders gave the Japanese the rest of Hebei province and forced the governor of Chahar, once again lacking support from Nanjing, to capitulate to the Kwantung Army.

In the meantime Chiang’s full attention had been focused on his internal enemies, primarily the communists. When the latter set up a soviet in the province of Jiangsu he launched five successive campaigns against them. The First Campaign ran from the fall of 1930 to April 1931; the Second Campaign, from February to May 1931; the Third Campaign, from July to September 1931; the Fourth Campaign, from January to April 1933; and the Fifth Campaign, from October 1933 to October 1934. The first four, commanded by generals of indifferent talent and questionable loyalty, all failed. Chiang took command of the Fifth Campaign himself and, by improving the training of the army units involved and emphasizing civil affairs, won the day, at least temporarily. The communists fled the field on the Long March.

If Chiang thought he would now have several years to finish off the communists, build up his army, and prepare for what most Chinese considered the inevitable Japanese aggression, he was mistaken. Public hostility to Japan had risen to new heights, spinning far our of his control. He was now a passenger rather than the pilot. In December 1936 he was kidnapped by senior generals and forced to form a coalition with the communists against the Japanese. The era of Chinese concessions to Japan had ended.

Ironically, this came about just as more moderate and realistic elements started to exert substantive influence over Japanese policy. Nevertheless, there were still hawks within the military, and they completely misread the new Chinese political environment. The opinion on the ground among Japanese forces in China was that they could continue to provoke minor clashes and use them as excuses to seize bite-size portions of China at a time or, failing that, they could launch a short, powerful, aggressive campaign that would thoroughly demoralize the Nanjing government.

Opening Drives South and West (July–December 1937)

One of the provocations used by the Japanese began with a clash near Beijing in July 1937. That the Japanese were prepared to act following this Marco Polo Bridge incident was clear; their troops poured into Tianjin (Tientsin), where they had treaty rights, and then fanned out unopposed into the Beijing Plain. Defending Beijing was the 29th Army under the warlord Song Zheyuan with its headquarters at Nanyuan 16km south of the great city. Its 38th Division was near Tianjin, the 132nd just south of Nanyuan, and the bulk of the 143rd Division at Zhangjiakou (Kalgan), 190km away. On 25 July the Japanese 20th Division moved northwest along the Tianjin–Beijing railroad and encountered Chinese troops at Langfang and defeated them after a pitched battle the next day. Meanwhile, two Japanese brigades moved south from Rehe (Jehol) province (which had been annexed into Manchukuo in 1933) and occupied the area northeast of Beijing. On the 28th the Japanese attacked Nanyuan, catching the 29th Army and its 132nd Division by surprise, scattering the headquarters. On 29 July the Japanese 5th Division, still in Tianjin, attacked and routed the 38th Division, driving it 80km south. At that same time Song took the remainder of his 29th Army on a retreat from Beijing, finally settling down at Baoding, about 110km south on the Beijing–Hankou railway and well out of harm’s way for the time being. On 3 August Japanese troops marched into an undefended Beijing.

A soldier of the 29th Army shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge incident.

Chinese soldiers on guard duty near Tianjin in July 1937. Note the short swords carried on their backs.

From Beijing the Japanese planned a drive west into Inner Mongolia, cutting about 130km northwest to Zhangjiakou via the southern Juyong pass, thence southwest to Datong in Yan Xishan’s Shanxi province, defended by Yan’s troops (nominally part of the National army) plus the communist 115th Division. Holding Juyong was the 13th Army, which inexplicably chose to mount its defense around the city itself rather than the narrow pass to the west, while the 17th Army was stationed to the north of the city. On 8 August advance elements of the Japanese 5th Division and 11th Independent Mixed Brigade (IMB) ran into the Juyong garrison, halted briefly before the main force arrived, but then took the city on 11 August. Three Chinese divisions were rushed up and fought at the Juyongguan pass, but abandoned it when the Japanese 5th Division entered the parallel Chenpien pass to the south, opening the way to Zhangjiakou from the east. That was not the only concern, for three Japanese IMBs were marching south on that city from southern Chahar, brushing aside the 143rd Division on 18 August. The 17th Army was rushed up to meet the threat, then retreated just as quickly. On 3 September the Japanese entered Zhangjiakou, turned somewhat southward and continued their advance towards Datong.

The Japanese drive to the southwest into Inner Mongolia actually had two arms. The western arm, towards Datong, was formed from the force that had advanced from Chahar. The eastern arm, based on the IJA 5th Division, marched parallel but about 50km to the east. Yan’s 61st Army (one division and two brigades) from II War Zone conducted a widely spaced weak delaying action against the western arm, falling back about 30km at a time and on 13 September the Japanese occupied Datong. Chiang was bitterly disappointed, as this cut a main communication route with the Soviets, but there was little he could do. The eastern arm, headed by the 21st Brigade of the IJA 5th Division, moving down from Juyong Pass, was to meet an entirely different enemy.

At Pingxinguan Pass they met Yan’s 73rd Division, later reinforced by the 71st, that stopped them in a see-saw battle for the heights. Needing resupply, the Japanese called on their supply train of 70 carts and 80 trucks to move up the sunken road with ammunition, food, and winter clothing.

The 115th Division of the Communist 8th Route Army had marched 500km from Shaanxi Province, arriving at Mount Wutai in front of the 21st Brigade on 20 September. For a day the commander, Lin Biao, made his preparations. Near the village of Pingxinguan the soldiers of the 115th Division moved in on the head and tail of the Japanese resupply column on the morning of 21 September. Chinese soldiers went the length of the column, throwing grenades down into the road while the Japanese, largely unarmed and unable to scale the 5–10 meter walls of the sunken road, flailed helplessly about. Longer sections of the road were raked from the ends by machine-gun fire. Central Army troops continued to attack the 21st Brigade, now running low on supplies, and losses were heavy on both sides. Relief forces finally reached the Japanese on 28 September and the Chinese withdrew. There are considerable discrepancies in the casualty reports,* but it is clear that the IJA should have learned not to take Chinese passivity for granted. Further, the battle was widely publicized and provided a much-needed morale boost to the Chinese forces and population.

The western arm of the Japanese advance, however, proceeded apace. Having taken Datong, the Japanese force of one division and nine Mongolian/Manchurian cavalry units turned west again, headed for Guisui, the Suiyuan capital. Chiang ordered the 35th Army and the 1st Cavalry Army south to avoid being cut off north of the Japanese drive, leaving four cavalry divisions and three brigades to hold back the Japanese advance. Their efforts were half-hearted at best and on 14 October the Japanese occupied Guisui unopposed.

With the exception of Pingxingguan and some of the smaller clashes with Yan’s troops, the Japanese had outmaneuvered and outfought the Chinese decisively in every engagement. Wei Li-huang’s 14th Army Group from the central government had performed fairly well, but with a few exceptions Yan’s troops had given way quite easily. On the other hand the Japanese had failed to engage the Chinese decisively, resulting in the conquest of huge swatches of land that their numbers were insufficient to garrison.

The Japanese were not only interested in driving west from Beijing. The provinces of Shandong, Hebei and Anhui to the south were tempting targets that were both rich and blessed with good transportation routes that would ease any invasion. To guard against this, the Chinese had deployed the 1st Army Group on the Tianjin–Nanjing railway, with the 3rd Route Army in Shandong as a reserve. Further west, defending the Beijing–Hankou railway was I War Zone, commanded directly by Chiang.

Bloodletting on the Central Coast

Meanwhile, far to the south and east, things were beginning to spiral out of control. The large foreign populations in their enclaves in Shanghai had not been known for their humility, usually treating the local Chinese as little more than a labor pool for servants. Even within this crowd, however, the Japanese stood out for their particular arrogance. The 5,000 Japanese troops stationed there under treaty rights had been a source of irritation for some time before 9 August, when a Japanese lieutenant, enraged that a Chinese sentry tried to stop him in his car, shot and killed the sentry before being killed himself by another sentry. It seems likely that the Japanese had not planned adventures in central China, at least not yet, but Chiang had decided this was the place to make his stand.

Chiang hoped to draw off Japanese troops from their depredations in north China that threatened supply routes from the USSR, but Shanghai was a strange place to chose for such an endeavor. True, it was the commercial center of China and putting on a good show there guaranteed favorable press coverage for China’s plight around the world due to the large foreign population, but it had serious tactical drawbacks. The Japanese owned the seas, and the city’s location on the sea at the mouth of a deep, navigable river gave the enemy flexibility and the availability of naval gunfire support over most of the front. The well developed port facilities allowed them to reinforce and supply almost at will. The level ground, combined with the ability to bring engineering equipment in, would allow the Japanese to create landing fields for their vastly superior air force. Nevertheless, Shanghai it would be.

On 11 August the 36th Division and two German-trained elite divisions, the 87th and 88th, closed around the Japanese positions north of the city, while the 55th, 56th, and 57th Divisions began moving north along the east bank of the river. On 13 August the Japanese landed two more divisions at Shanghai to bolster their forces. On that same day fighting broke out between the 87th Division and the Japanese in the Zhabei (Chapei) district; Troops attacking near Shanghai, September 1937. The soldier on the left has just been shot. after five days the Japanese had been forced back but their lines remained unbroken. Both sides then began to pour reinforcements into the area. On 22 August the Japanese landed elements of their 3rd and 11th Divisions upriver from the city, where they met the Chinese 15th Army Group, leading to a bitter two-week battle that ended in a stalemate.

Troops attacking near Shanghai, September 1937. The soldier on the left has just been shot.

Over a month of heavy fighting followed all along the front line, with the Japanese force, now known as the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, attempting to break out of the area around the city, and the Chinese III War Zone (commanded by Chiang personally) attempting to hold them in, and counterattacking on a regular basis. By late September the Chinese had thrown over 500,000 troops into the battle formed into Left Wing, Center, and Right Wing commands, and the Japanese over 200,000, including six divisions, four IMBs, the Formosa Brigade, and tank and artillery units.

That the Chinese managed to hold the line, and indeed counterattack successfully on occasion, was unexpected, not only to the Western observers in Shanghai, but also to the Japanese. The Rising Sun planes flew unaccosted above the battlefield, strafing and bombing at will. The old Wusong (Woosung) Fort had been captured early in the battle from the land side, its antique coastal guns no longer able to prevent Japanese warships from sailing up and down the river and pounding the Chinese lines with gunfire. Japanese tanks and artillery outnumbered their Chinese counterparts by a wide margin, both dealing death and destruction to Chiang’s troops. By 20 October the Chinese had sustained over 120,000 casualties on the Shanghai front, and yet they hung on grimly, fighting, and dying in close combat for every meter they gave up. The next day the 21st Army Group of Guangxi troops, with a reputation as brave fighters, arrived and were thrown into battle.

Faced with such determined opposition and suffering horrendous losses themselves, the Japanese gave up on the idea of simply punching through Chinese lines. Instead, they landed their 10th Army of three divisions on the north shore of Hangzhou Bay, 50km south of Shanghai, on 5 November. This was something Chiang had not considered. The new army brushed aside light resistance and began marching north to Shanghai to attack the encircling Chinese from the outside. They quickly smashed through the Right Wing forces and joined up with the Shanghai Expeditionary Force. Emboldened, the Japanese in Shanghai began a massive assault along the whole line, heavily supported by air attacks and naval gunfire. This time, the Chinese line, already outflanked on the right, began to give. On 12 November the Japanese 16th Division made an amphibious landing about 70km upriver from Shanghai. This put them squarely behind the Chinese left flank, and the Chinese force began to crumble. Chiang issued an ambiguous order that could have been, and was, interpreted to mean retreat.

The Chinese troops had proven themselves brave, tough, and enduring soldiers. Western advisers, however, complained bitterly that staff work was abysmal, there was little coordination between adjacent units, the artillery fired most of its missions blind at maximum range, and that defensive positions usually consisted of a single trench line and gave way once that was breached.

If there was a retreat in the military sense, it lasted only one or two days. After three months of unremitting horror, pounded from the air and sea, of vicious hand-to-hand to fighting with no quarter given or asked, half-starved, lacking medical attention, their tactical leaders dead, the Chinese soldiers finally broke. And when they broke, it was total. Soldiers abandoned their weapons and the wounded, units mixed together in the flight to safety, and what had been a tenacious army a few days earlier turned into a panic-stricken rabble fleeing west as fast as they could. Chiang had gambled most of his best units in Shanghai and he had lost. It cost him at least 187,000 of his finest troops killed or wounded, a loss that would extract its toll over the next eight years.

An 82mm mortar crew provides fire support outside Shanghai in early November 1937.

The Japanese troops, as eventual victors, had the opposite reaction. Having lost 11,000 killed and 31,000 wounded, and filled with rage at the humiliation of having been kept in check by an enemy they held in contempt, they now gave vent to an orgy of blood lust. They followed closely behind the Chinese, slaughtering the wounded, sick, and simply exhausted that Chiang’s troops had left behind.

The Chinese attempted to make a stand at Suzhou, about 65km west of Shanghai, but were quickly outflanked and abandoned the city without a fight. Seeing the inevitable, the Chinese government was moved from Nanjing to Chongqing (Chungking) some 1,750km up the Yangtze on 20 November, although the Generalissimo moved to Hankou (Hankow), in between the two.

This was well timed, for now little stood between the rampaging Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Force and Nanjing except disorganized, dispirited troops. The relatively intact 23rd Army Group moved up to stop them, but was hit from the flank and driven back. Chiang ordered Nanjing held to the last man and to that end two defense lines were formed in arcs in front of the city. The 36th and 88th Divisions, along with the Training Division were allocated to the outer line, 12–20km outside the walls of the city. They were shortly reinforced by the 74th Army and the 83rd Army, each of two divisions. The 41st, 48th, 87th, 103rd, 112th, 159th, and 160th Divisions manned the inner line, 2–5km outside the walls.* The Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Force and the 10th Army arrived in front of Nanjing on 6 December and immediately began their assaults, supported by artillery. On 8 December the outer line fell, followed by the inner line on 11 December. The next day the Japanese broke through the ancient city walls at the three main gates. Two days of heavy fighting was followed by a Chinese order to retreat. The only Chinese force to retain its coherence was the 66th Army (159th and 160th Divisions), which managed to fight its way out to the south and east. The rest of the soldiers trapped in Nanjing were hunted down and killed.

That, however, was the least of what would happen in Nanjing. For the next six weeks General Matsui’s Japanese troops went on an orgy of murder, rape, pillage, and mayhem that has rarely been equaled.

Moving South from North China (August–November 1937)

The earlier northern campaign had left the Japanese in command of the three main rail hubs in northern China, Tianjin on the coast in the east, Beijing in the center, and Zhangjiakou in the west. From each of these hubs rail lines and roads ran south into the heart of China and these natural corridors served to channel the Japanese in their upcoming drive southwards. The Japanese had paused about a month after seizing the cities, regrouping and awaiting the expected Chinese negotiations that never came.

To block the Tianjin–Nanjing railway Chiang deployed the 1st Army Group of 27 divisions (including two cavalry) under General Song Zheyuan, an old warlord somewhat better at political intrigue than actual combat, about 65km south of the northern city.

Faced with an obvious threat down a narrow corridor, Song adopted the tactic common to the less competent Chinese generals, the defense in depth. Unwilling to risk his force in a single battle, he placed defensive lines across the railway corridor all along its 250km length, one behind another, presenting his army to the Japanese for defeat in detail. Each of these defensive lines generally consisted of a field army of two or three divisions, with one division in the center to defend the railway and adjacent roads, the other(s) off to the side(s) to fall on the Japanese flanks after they had (inevitably) punched through the center division. In fact, the withdrawal of the center invariably precipitated the hasty departure of the flank divisions as well lest they be cut off.*

On 4 September the Japanese 2nd Army began its drive south from Tianjin. By 10 September it had travelled 60km and reached just north of Cangzhou, smashing the 29th Army with little difficulty en route. Uncharacteristically, Song decided to make at least a half-hearted stand at this city, collecting five divisions from different armies and rushing them to new positions just to the north. The appearance of this force stopped the Japanese temporarily while they brought up reinforcements, then they attacked on 21 September. Surprisingly, the Chinese forces held for two days under heavy air and artillery bombardment before breaking. The Japanese seized Cangzhou on 25 September, and Chiang responded by creating VI War Zone under Feng Yuxiang, the Christian General, to take charge of operations along the Tianjin–Nanjing railway north of Shandong.

Feng’s troops had performed fairly well during the Northern Expedition, but he was at heart another warlord and his days as a general had long since passed. He contributed nothing to the effort. The Japanese advance continued, delayed only a few days by a spirited counterattack by the 49th and 59th Armies under the war zone’s deputy commander, Lu Zhonglin, and on 5 October Teh-Hsien fell, followed by Yuncheng on 15 October. The remaining Chinese units scrambled to safety behind the Yellow River. Thereafter Han Fuju, the governor of Shandong, kept his forces generally idle on the southeast bank of the river, giving lip service to the KMT government while carefully avoiding provoking the Japanese, until he could determine which way the wind was blowing.

The Japanese drive south, September–October 1937.

Things went little better to the west. I War Zone, under the personal command of Chiang, was deployed in depth along the Beijing–Hankou railway corridor with three army group HQs and 22 divisions (including one cavalry). The forwardmost position was held by General Sun Lianzhong’s 1st Army of four divisions at Liuliho, about 35km south of Beijing, with seven more divisions on the flank and in reserve. The Japanese 1st Army outflanked this position on 14 September, brushing aside the 53rd Army that was to have blocked them, and the entire Chinese force decamped 100km south to Baoding, excepting those who kept on going another 100km to Shijiazhuang. The familiar scene was repeated at Baoding, the capital of Hebei province, with a small Japanese frontal attack to fix the defenders, then a flanking movement from the east. Once again, the 53rd Army had been entrusted with security on this flank, but this time it did not even bother to pretend to fight and the line collapsed, with Baoding falling on 24 September. The atrocities of Nanjing were presaged here, on a smaller scale only because the city was significantly smaller, with the deaths of thousands of civilians and the destruction of much of the city.

The surviving Chinese forces joined those deployed in depth in defense of Shijiazhuang, 120km farther south. At this point morale in the area was so bad that even the 32nd Army, a usually reliable unit under General Shang Zhen, an able and intelligent officer, was unable to slow the Japanese drive significantly. And, once again, a Japanese force, here the 109th Division, was able to execute a wide enveloping move from the east against nominal opposition. On 10 October the three Japanese divisions entered Shijiazhuang with little fighting. The Japanese 14th Division continued south, scattering opposition, and finally halted on 19 October when it seized a bridgehead across the Zhang River just north of Anyang. The lack of a Chinese counterattack was fortunate for the Japanese, for the 14th Division was, in fact, all alone. Two Japanese divisions (6th and 16th) had been pulled out to reinforce the grim efforts in Shanghai, while two more (20th and 109th) were swung west out of Shijiazhuang to advance through an opening called Ladies Pass to attack Taiyuan from the east.

The main drive on Taiyuan was to come from the north, following the rail line down from Zhangjiakou. The heart of Shanxi province was a long and fertile valley running north–south, ringed on all sides by mountains. In the middle of this valley sat the ancient city of Taiyuan, the capital. Access from the north was via three easily defended passes, through one of which the Zhangjiakou–Taiyuan railway passed, near the city of Datong. Access from Hebei to the east was via Ladies Pass, through which ran the Shijiazhuang-Taiyan rail line.

Troops in fairly obvious defensive positions outside Tianjin in August 1937.

Militarily, Shanxi was known as II War Zone under the command of General Yan Xishan, who had grown rich in his capacity of governor of Shanxi for the past 25 years. Yan’s force totaled about 225,000 men in 4 army groups with 20 divisions and 13 brigades; 3 independent armies of 5 divisions and 2 brigades; 2 cavalry armies of 3 divisions; and the 18th Army Group, the former 8th Route Army, of communist forces under General Zhu De (Chu Teh).

Unfortunately, the Japanese had already crossed the northern passes and seized Datong in their opening advance, leaving the province vulnerable from that direction. Their Chahar Expeditionary Force began the drive south on 21 September and eight days later had breached the inner Great Wall about 130km north of Taiyuan. The Chinese set up their defenses about 80km north of Taiyuan in an arc and to reinforce the defenses Chiang, as noted earlier, ordered the 14th Army Group from their defense of Shijiazhuang through Ladies Pass into Shanxi. They arrived on 10 October, bringing the strength of this defensive arc up to 14 divisions and 9 brigades under the command of the 14th Army Group commander General Wei Lihuang.

On 13 October the (Japanese) Chahar Expeditionary Force (of three IMBs) and the 5th Division launched a furious attack on the Chinese positions. Infantry assaults, supported by artillery fire and air bombardment failed to dislodge the tenacious defenders. After three days of bitter combat the Japanese paused to reorganize and try again. On 21 October the Japanese unleashed a second assault, including the 20th Division hurriedly marched over from the east, and this time were successful. The Chinese pulled back in relatively good order to Blue Dragon Ridge, 35km north of the city. Once again the Japanese were stalled, this time for five days of bitter fighting, until Japanese engineers tunneled under a key redoubt and blew it up on 2 November. Having lost almost 30,000 men on the Blue Dragon Ridge, the Chinese withdrew again, this time to Taiyuan itself.

This, however, was not the only threat to Taiyuan and Shanxi. On 20 October the Japanese 20th and 109th Divisions had begun their move west from Shijiazhuang towards Ladies Pass. The Chinese 3rd Army was charged with defending this pass, but pulled back when the Japanese threatened to outflank the position via another pass to the south. The two Japanese divisions then marched unopposed from the east all the way to join with their brethren who were laying seige to Taiyuan from the north. A last-ditch stand in the city cost the Chinese about 20,000 men and 80 artillery pieces but lasted only a little more than a day. The Japanese then marched about 90km farther south to Pingyao, to establish their own defensive positions. This Japanese victory over a competent foe, in the back yard of the 8th Route Army, convinced the communist leader Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) that the future for his forces lay in guerrilla warfare, rather than the conventional variety and henceforth they would concentrate their efforts on organization-building and sabotage.

All three Japanese drives to the south had achieved their objectives. Aside from some hard fighting north of Taiyuan, none had taxed their resources unduly. In all cases the Imperial forces were outnumbered and in a few cases they were significantly overextended, but the local Chinese commanders had been irresolute (except in a few instances of defense) and the invading forces had never been seriously threatened.

Connecting the Enclaves, early 1938

By December 1937 the Japanese had driven into China from two directions. The North China Front Army of 280,000 men held northernmost China, having advanced south from Tianjin to Jinan on the Yellow River, from Beijing to just north of Anyang, and from Zhangjiakou to Taiyuan. The Central China Area Army of 260,000 had driven west from Shanghai up the Yangtze to Nanjing.* The logical next move was to join the two forces by driving north from Nanjing and south from Jinan. At the same time the forces near Anyang would move south to the Yellow River to take the rest of the low ground in north–central China and cover the western flank of the main drive.

A drive south from Jinan would leave most of rich Shandong province cut off, a fact not overlooked by Shandong’s old warlord chief, Han Fuju, concurrently commander of the 3rd Army Group of five divisions and a pistol brigade, all provincial forces loyal to him. Han had spent the war so far sitting on the sidelines, pledging support to Chiang (without actually doing much), while putting out feelers to the Japanese. Also in Shandong was General Yu Xuezhong and his 51st Army of two divisions, a presence that restricted Han’s freedom of action somewhat, much to his annoyance. In fact, the 51st Army had been ordered southward on 18 December, but Han blew the railway bridges, forcing the unit to march. Seeing the writing on the wall, and having received no response from his overtures to the Japanese, Han and his 3rd Army Group (and, of course, his bullion) began their departure from Shandong on 25 December. In early January he was arrested by KMT authorities, tried for treason and cowardice, and shot.

The Japanese North China Front Army drove east from Jinan in early January 1938, while a force of 1,500 Japanese sailors occupied Qingdao (Tsingtao) against no opposition on 10 January and on 17 January the Japanese 5th Division met up with the sailors just west of Qingdao. With the unopposed fall of most of Shandong province, the stage was set for the next great campaign, in which the Japanese would attempt to link their two forces in China. The North China Front Army would try to drive south, parallel to the Jinan– Xuzhou Railway, for which it had the 5th, 10th, 16th, 110th, and 114th Divisions, along with five brigades. The Central China Area Army was to drive north from the Nanjing area with the 9th and Konoye Divisions, plus six brigades. Standing in between them was the Chinese V War Zone under General Le Zongren. V War Zone consisted of 63 divisions plus the pistol brigade, a cavalry brigade, the 1st Regiment of the 1st Artillery Brigade, and the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Artillery Regiments.

On 25 January the Japanese driving northwest from Nanjing attacked the Chinese 11th and 21st Army Groups, driving them back and capturing Bengbu on the Huai River on 9 February.

Things went slower on the northern front. The Japanese 5th Division had moved south down the coast from Qingdao, but the division’s brigade that attempted to move inland was repulsed at Linyi by the 40th Army with heavy losses on 14 March. The entire division was then brought up and resumed the assault on 24 March. By this time the 59th Army had reinforced the defenders and it took the Japanese four days of heavy fighting to occupy the town. Meanwhile the Japanese 10th Division, reinforced by tanks, was moving down the railway from Zoucheng. By 17 March they had captured Tengzhou, just 50km north of Xuzhou, a critical north–south and east–west rail junction.

Since strong Chinese forces still occupied the area east of the railway, the Japanese launched a double-pronged attack on the area, with the 10th Division attacking southeast from the rail line and the 5th Division southwest, converging on the area around Taierzhuang. The Japanese 10th Division was first off the mark, and ran into General Chi Fengcheng’s 31st Division. There the Japanese experienced something new for them, a Chinese general who was not only a tough fighter, but a believer in aggressive maneuver as well. Between 23 and 26 March the two sides attacked and counterattacked in front of and in Taierzhuang in continual bloody fighting. As the Japanese brought up the full strength of their 10th Division, the Chinese reinforced also, with the 27th Division arriving on the 26th and the 30th Division on the 29th, the last accompanied by the first Chinese artillery, ten 75mm guns and two 150mm howitzers. On 31 March General Sun Lianzhong arrived to exercise field command over his 2nd Army Group. Heavy fighting continued within the walls of the old town, with grenades, bayonets, and shovels, over the next few days.

This was to be only the beginning of a period of trial for the Japanese, as on 26 March the 20th Army had launched a determined attack against the Japanese supply lines from east, and the 55th Army attacked from the south and west on 2 April. By 3 April the Japanese 10th Division was essentially cut off and isolated in Taierzhuang. The Japanese 5th Division broke through the Chinese lines south of Linyi and attempted a relief by marching southwest. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the 20th Army’s General Tang Enbo was just as aggressive and tough as General Chi, and he simply wheeled a large part of his force around to face east and attacked, cutting off the advance guard of the 5th Division. The Japanese 10th Division and the bulk of one brigade of the 5th Division were now cut off, surrounded by the troops of two of Chiang’s best generals, General Tang’s 20th Army to the north and and General Sun’s 2nd Army Group to the south.

Heavy fighting continued within the city through 5 April, but the Japanese were running out of food, water, and ammunition. Aerial resupply failed and the Japanese heavy weapons gradually fell silent. Sensing victory, the exhausted Chinese troops launched one bitter assault after another over the next two days. On 7 April the Japanese had had enough. The survivors fought through a narrow corridor to the north, leaving many of their dead comrades and all their heavy equipment behind.* But the Chinese had paid heavily too, a roll-call of the fierce 31st Division after the battle yielded only 2,000 of the original 9,000 men. The Chinese had won a great victory, but failed to follow up. Pursuit of the ragged Japanese survivors went no farther than about 25km and stopped. In particular, Li Zongren refused to launch a follow-on offensive with his Guangxi troops, demonstrating, if such was ever needed, the limits of using warlord armies.

The Japanese paused only briefly to lick their wounds. Although the 10th Division had been severely mauled, the 5th Division was quickly brought back up to strength and on 15 April began attacking again from Linyi. They drove due south, attempting to pass to the east of Taierzhuang. At the same time the 16th Division attempted once again to move down the rail line from Tsoushien. The 5th Division made some initial progress against ineffectual opposition, but on 27 April the 46th Army under the command of the tough General Fan Congbu arrived on the scene after marching 400km from the west. In cooperation with the 59th Army it cut off the Japanese advance guard and destroyed it in hard fighting. The Japanese drive south along the rail line went only a little better. Four days of repeated assaults against the battle-worn but determined 20th Army yielded nothing until Japanese forces from the east threatened their right flank. They withdrew about 20km and made a stand again. Once again the Japanese pounded them with artillery and air strikes but furious assaults brought only more casualties. The Japanese responded by moving two further divisions, the 110th and 114th, down the railway to help out but this achieved little.

The Japanese Central China Expeditionary Force, now reinforced to four divisions (3rd, 11th, 13th, and Konoye) and attacking north from Nanjing, faced a different type of enemy. Their first opponent, the 24th Army Group, simply dissolved in front of them, while the 21st and 26th Army Groups put up only token fights before retreating to safety. The Japanese columns quickly reached about 100km beyond the Yangtze. V War Zone was now caught between two Japanese forces and in danger of becoming surrounded. The forces at the northern end continued to acquit themselves well, but were exhausted and short of ammunition. On 15 May Chiang finally ordered the V War Zone troops to break out to the southwest, although directing the useless 24th Army Group to remain behind and conduct guerrilla warfare. On 18 May the last Chinese troops skillfully withdrew from Xuzhou (Hsuchow/Tongshan), abandoning it to the Japanese, who entered it two days later. The Japanese hopes of trapping a major Chinese force had failed, but they had still inflicted heavy casualties.

In the meantime, things had been going even worse for the Chinese to the west. I War Zone was to defend the central railway corridor, from Beijing through Anyang and Zhengzhou, thence down to Wuhan, but had been weakened by the withdrawal of the excellent 20th Army and the 59th Army to reinforce the efforts around Jinan to the east. I War Zone under General Cheng Qian, had three army groups totaling 47 infantry and 2 cavalry divisions and 4 brigades, supported by the 6th Artillery Brigade, the 5th Regiment of the 1st Artillery Brigade, and the 7th, 9th, and 10th Artillery Regiments for a strength of about 290,000 men. The best of the commanders was the Eastern Henan Army’s General Xue Yue, a tough fighter when he chose to be, but a man who picked his battles carefully. I War Zone’s mission was to prevent the movement to the south of elements of the North China Front Army, mainly the 14th Division, with elements of the 11th and 108th Divisions, plus supporting artillery and armor for a total of about 45,000 men.

Cheng deployed his 1st Army Group in depth, meaning one behind another over 80km of the railway north of Xinxiang. The Japanese simply marched parallel to the railway and threatened Xinxiang and, on 16 February, after putting up practically no resistance, the 1st Army Group fled to the west. The Japanese having seized the battlefield by default, the area became quiet for a while. In early May the Japanese 14th Division moved west and then south to cut the railway between Xuzhou and Kaifeng. Counterattacks by the Eastern Henan Army pushed them back off the railway, but only temporarily. On 31 May Chiang ordered the bulk of the I War Zone troops to pull back to west of the Beijing–Wuhan railway. The 20th Army Group fought a ferocious rearguard action for six days, but on 6 June the Japanese entered Kaifeng. Once again the IJA had been able to march almost anywhere it wanted, but the distances were so great, and the lines so porous, that even major Chinese units had little trouble slipping out of supposed encirclement.

Drastic action would be needed to stop the Japanese, and Chiang had just such a plan. He ordered the dikes of the Yellow River blown up at Huayuankou, east of Zhengzhou. The first dikes are traditionally believed to have been built some 4,000 years ago to hold in the frequently flooding river. Unable to dredge the river of its accumulating silt over the centuries, the Chinese had simply built the walls of the dikes ever higher. In some places the river bed