History UsefulNotes / SecondSinoJapaneseWar

* ''Film/TheEightHundred'' is a 2020 mainland Chinese film about the defense of Sihang Warehouse at the Battle of Shanghai.

China has two basic advantages in wartime -- its an enormous country, with the world's largest population. From the very beginning of the war, the Japanese occupation forces were drowning in a sea of hostile humanity which they could barely interact with due to Japanese xenophobia and ultra-nationalism. Very few Japanese learned a foreign language - not even French or English - because it was a sign of possible 'unpatriotic tendencies'. China's interior is also quite rocky and mountainous, with rolling hillsides, vast deserts, winding rivers, marshes and dense forests, giving any defenders plenty of good ground to dig trenches in or set up booby traps. The Japanese had taken the coast and ports with relative ease, but now they had to navigate the rough terrain of China's east without local guides and in danger of ambushes.\\\

The guerrillas were usually farmers armed with a wide variety of weapons, from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiang_(spear) spears]] to .38 revolvers and bolt-action rifles. Periodically, the guerrillas would launch surprise attacks on Japanese patrols or sabotage railway lines, then hide their weapons and go back to working on their fields, secretly reporting to the KMT or Communists when they could. Despite the Kuomintang's total inability to break Japanese military codes, or even intercept their wireless messages at all in many cases (due to a lack of powerful radio transmitters and receivers), they usually knew pretty much everything the Japanese were up to anyway, as the situation was just that bad.\\\

The Japanese military also knew the KMT's every move, but with the secret service busy being criminals, it was hard to obtain sufficient intel for military operations.[[note]]It should be noted that this was mainly around the China front. Otherwise the Japanese secret service work elsewhere was still effective. The Japanese suffered in terms of technology-based coding, but they were excellent at convincing people to become LesCollaborateurs and work for them as scouts or guides. This was integral to the Japanese victories in Indonesia and Malaya.[[/note]] Additionally, the KMT's secret police under the sadistic [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Li Dai Li]][[note]]Back when he was first recruited into the KMT, Dai Li enjoyed burning suspected communists alive in railway cars during the [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Shanghai Massacre]][[/note]], the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Investigation_and_Statistics Bureau of Investigation and Statistics]], assassinated Chinese collaborators and performed resistance operations in occupied urban areas, especially in Shanghai.\\\

The civilian government in Tokyo under [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumimaro_Konoe Prime Minister Konoe]] was not consulted at all in this matter, but [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito Emperor Hirohito]] quickly gave up on the idea of punishing the offenders, since at this point the civilian government was just a puppet of the [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Imperial Japanese Army]], although the invasion of Manchuria was ''also'' precisely contrary to direct orders given to the Kwantung Army by the IJA high command in Tokyo.\\\

On the other hand, [[PetTheDog Stilwell had plenty of good traits]]. He was excellent at training NRA troops, genuinely wanted to modernize and improve the Chinese army, very fluent in Mandarin, was the guy who demanded American lend-lease to China in the first place and had great respect for the Chinese soldiers he commanded[[note]]Although Stilwell was pretty prejudiced too, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stilwell#Political_and_personal_views as his biographer notes]], particularly to the Japanese and had a bad case of Anglophobia, although the latter didn't extend to William Slim and his men[[/note]], plus maintaining a good friendship with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Slim,_1st_Viscount_Slim William Slim]], the brilliant British commander in Burma and Sun Li-jen as well. All three men trusted each other greatly and got along very nicely. Perhaps due to this, Chiang renamed the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledo_Road Ledo Road]] (a supply route running through Burma to Yunnan) the Stilwell road in early 1945. Furthermore, Stilwell had spent time in China before 1937 and toured the country, and thus actually had more familiarity with the country than most American personnel.\\\

But Stilwell's worsening relations with Chiang[[note]]Complete with Stilwell writing a five-verse 'poem' to his wife about him beating and stabbing the shit out of Chiang and attempting to persuade the OSS to assassinate the Generalissimo[[/note]] lead to his recall in 1944, leaving to America in disgrace. Stilwell was replaced by General [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Coady_Wedemeyer Albert Wedemeyer]], who was far more willing to cooperate with Chiang, and had also spent time in China before, in the port city of Tianjin. He continued Stilwell's programs to modernize the Chinese army, as well as securing more transport aircraft and helping improve supply airlift operations over the Hump.\\\

* The war looms large over the plot of ''Literature/TheWindUpBirdChronicle'', despite the main story taking place in TheEighties. Several characters have {{Dark and Troubled Past}}s relating to it; Lieutenant Mamiya served in the Kwantung Army and was captured by the Soviets during the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, serving over 10 years in a gulag, while Nutmeg was born to a family of Japanese colonists in Manchuria and one of her earliest memories is of being forced to flee on a rickety wooden boat to avoid being massacred by the Soviets only to almost get sunk by an American submarine. There's also a MindScrew section written from the perspective of an anonymous Japanese soldier who is forced to execute several Chinese [=POWs=] near the end of the war to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, [[SurpriseCreepy only for one of them to seemingly come back to life and try to choke him to death]]. Another shows Japanese troops exterminating the surviving animals in the Beijing Zoo due to lack of resources to take care of them.

At the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East Tokyo War Crimes tribunal]] on April 29th, 1946, many high-ranking Japanese officials were executed for war crimes. One exception were the leaders of Unit 731 -- while some were executed by the Soviets, the rest, including Ishii, [[KarmaHoudini were spared by the Americans and went to the USA to assist in bioweapons research]].[[note]]It should be noted the Americans ''had no idea'' how the unit tested their experiments, just that they made bioweapons. Eager to get any advantage over the Soviets, the unit was promptly given war crimes immunity. Some members returned to Japan, others went to America. When the actual data was found, along with the unit's unethical methods, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the Americans were so horrified that they recalled the unit's members from bioweapons projects]], handing them over to the Soviets instead, who imprisoned or executed them.[[/note]] Three doctors went back to Japan and set up a pharmaceutical corporation, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Cross_(Japan) Green Cross]], to sell artificial blood and became rich.[[note]]That said, Masaji Kitano, second-in-command of Unit 731 and one of the founders of Green Cross, later explained that setting up the company [[TheAtoner was his way of atoning for the horrors the Unit had performed]].[[/note]] Most collaborators, such as those involved in the Reorganized government, were declared ''hanjian'', or traitors to the Han Chinese by the KMT and executed, [[KarmaHoudini although some were spared and even given positions in the KMT government]]. \\\

[[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors After three more years of hell and another half a dozen million people killed]], the Communist Party of China under UsefulNotes/MaoZedong trumped over the Kuomintang under UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek, proclaiming the establishment of a People's Republic of China on October 1st, 1949. The Kuomintang fled to Taiwan, where an embittered Chiang took out his frustrations on the local Taiwanese and locked the island under the second longest period of martial law in history.\\\

[[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors After three more years of hell and another half a dozen million people killed]], the Communist Party of China under UsefulNotes/MaoZedong trumped over the Kuomintang under UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek, proclaiming the establishment of a People's Republic of China on October 1st, 1949. The People's Republic soon reached a level of cultural understanding and reconciliation with Japan despite the differences in their ideologies[[note]]Communist China was ''[[SeriousBusiness very big]]'' on ideology, such that it was a major cause in itself for the Sino-Soviet Split[[/note]] and economic systems. \\\

This broad agreement on the "facts" of the matter changed in the '70s, when Japan became the world's No. 2 economy and China -- which had broken rather messily with the Soviets -- normalised diplomatic and later economic and cultural relations with America. Japanese public opinion began dodging the uncomfortable aspects of the past by fudging some details and missing others, whilst playing up the suffering of the Japanese people as a result of the American firebombings, atomic bombings and ensuing occupation. \\\

At roughly the same time, the Chinese Communists suddenly started to play up the foreign invasion angle of the war, demonising not just the Japanese military junta, but Japanese troops and the Japanese people generally. They also stopped portraying the Kuomintang as American puppets (though they continued to assert that they were American puppets at-present), but continued to neglect their foes' critical contribution to the war effort whilst playing up their own part in resisting the "savage dwarf-pirates" -- to use a traditional racial slur. \\\

Today, the war is still within living memory in East Asia, and what successive generations have been taught about it is the subject of (fierce) controversy. Generally speaking, nations best deal with shared negative experiences like war and imperialism when they treat the whole thing fairly impersonally, reach broad agreements on the rough facts of the matter without trying to demonize anyone, and do their best to move on. For example, Germany and Poland: whilst many Poles still don't ''forgive'' aspects of the conduct of Nazi Germany, most of today's Germans are sorry about what happened, and the great majority of Poles and Germans mutually regret the whole business and don't want that sort of thing to happen ever again between anyone, and like to leave it at that. That's probably not going to happen any time soon with this, [[EnforcedTrope not least because certain nationalist groups and even national governments aren't actually interested in reconciliation]]. Xenophobic hatred suits these people's interests because it fosters national unity and keeps their people's resentment focused outward.\\\

This is more or less the status quo today, with the uncomfortable details of the war being glossed over or neglected entirely in Japan in favor of a victim narrative. As an example, in Hiroshima today, the Peace Memorial Museum's historical account begins with something like, "In the springtime of 1945, the U.S. Army Air Corps launched a campaign of firebombing against major cities in Japan..." with no mention of what might have happened beforehand or why. The museum attached to the Yasukuni Shrine (controversial in its own right due to the interning of war criminals there) explicitly lays out the "ABCD Theory" - that the Americans, British, Chinese and Dutch "forced" Japan into a war by monopolizing all the resources which Japan needed (especially oil, which was vital for the IJN), and Japan would have starved if they didn't fight for what was "rightfully theirs." \\\

The governments of the respective countries are not the only forces at work, however. Beginning in the late '70s and blossoming in the late '90s, neo-conservative nationalist groups in Japan have tried to emphasise the importance of giving the Japanese nation a positive, forward-looking outlook under the leadership of a strong centralised state. Of course, there is little room in this forward-looking narrative for dwelling on the past, especially the bad bits of it, and these groups think of the Second Sino-Japanese War as a war of Pan-Asian liberation from Western Imperialism. Likewise, they are quick to claim that Japanese atrocities have been massively exaggerated, and are based mostly on hearsay from anti-Japanese sources or fabricated wholesale, all in the name of shaming the Japanese people into being hesitant to form a strong state or military; with which, the foreigners fear, they might protect their own interests rather than remaining at the mercy of the foreign powers like America and China.[[note]]Of course, cheerfully ignoring the [[http://en.people.cn/200412/13/images/n4.jpg Japanese newspapers]] that actually reported THE NUMBER OF KILLS BY SWORD AS AN ACHIEVEMENT for two officers during the Nanjing Massacre, whether it actually happened or not. (106 and 105 killed between the two of them, and both officers were killed before the war ended).[[/note]] Several textbooks have been written along just these lines, and are often singled out for criticism. \\\

There are also differences in how history is taught in both nations. Japanese schools have a choice of around thirty to fifty textbooks, produced by various private companies, although subject to some editing and license requirements by the department of education. As one would expect, they vary in their portrayal of events; some are fairly objective, and others are ideologically charged. But when taken as a whole they have a readily apparent bias towards sanitising history, (quite a bit) more so than in contemporary Anglo-European textbooks. Schools in the People's Republic of China, on the other hand, use precisely ''one'' periodically-updated textbook written by the Department of Education itself. The Department of Education is not particularly bothered by historical 'objectivism', which they are quick to dismiss as an unattainable and self-contradictory British academic fad. The German-Polish approach is held up as the standard to aspire to with regards to uncomfortable history as the text seeks to inform and explore the issues at work in order to promote some measure of understanding and reconciliation. \\\

Stilwell's response was to send extremely negative reports back to America that exaggerated KMT failures (such as Chiang refusing to send reinforcements in Burma, when Chiang had actually sent 10,000 men and the 200th mechanized division[[note]]The only one of its kind, it was made up of T-26 tanks, Soviet and German armored cars plus American and Soviet trucks[[/note]]), plus ranting in his diary and letters to his wife about besting "the peanut" as he called Chiang[[note]] Chiang's head was rather... small, resulting in Stilwell nicknaming him "Peanut Head". It was also Chiang's codename in Stilwell's radio reports to Washington.[[/note]]. Stilwell also had a bitter rivalry with Chennault-while Chennault was full of confidence for Chiang, Stilwell absolutely loathed the generalissimo. There were tactical disagreements too-Stilwell believed that China could crush Japan via well-trained ground troops, while Chennault believed air support was vital for turning the tide. This resulted in nasty incidents where Chennault pleaded for reinforcements in desperate battles, with Stilwell refusing to send any. Stilwell's cushy relationship with the press didn't help matters either, and the US government's confidence in China began to decrease, although aid still arrived and the American public remained sympathetic to China's plight. \\\

[[caption-width-right:350: A Chinese soldier (and his Type Zhongzheng rifle) guarding American Warhawk fighter planes, 1942.[[note]]Note his straw sandals, which were the footwear of choice for most NRA soldiers as they didn't wear as easily as leather shoes, gave a better grip in mud, were warm in summer and best of all, were cheap.[[/note]]]]\\\

Before Allied aid began in earnest, Chinese soldiers were outgunned by the Japanese, yet they admirably fought one of the most powerful military forces in the world to a stalemate. Typically, NRA soldiers were armed with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek_rifle Type Zhongzheng]] [[CoolGuns/{{Rifles}} rifle]][[note]]Which was used into the civil war and afterwards, until 1953 saw it phased out in favor of the semiautomatic [[CoolGuns/BattleRifles M1 Garand]][[/note]] in 7.92×57mm Mauser[[note]]The standard-issue 7.92mm round had more stopping power than the Japanese 6.5×50mmSR rifle rounds, giving the Chinese an edge in firefights during the early years of the war. This caused the Japanese to create the stronger 7.7×58mm Arisaka round for use in the Type 99 short rifle and Type 99 LMG. However, the Type 99 never completely replaced the 6.5mm Type 38 Arisaka in the IJA, while the IJN continued to use 6.5mm weapons[[/note]], a [=HY1935=] sword bayonet and local copies of German M24 stick grenades. Officers usually carried [[CoolGuns/{{Handguns}} Mauser C96]] pistols or any of its variants, sometimes with a shoulder stock (as seen above) for greater accuracy. Warlord troops often wielded a [[{{BFS}} Dadao sword]], as many had only a literal handful of ammunition for their rifles (with the exception of Guangxi Clique troops, who were sufficiently equipped enough to fight alongside the NRA) or a Mauser pistol. Although most warlord soldiers lacked morale, the fanatical "Big Sword" shock troop brigades armed with [[SwordAndGun swords and Mauser pistols]] were fairly effective in fighting the Japanese hand-to-hand, especially during the street fighting in Taierzhuang. Cavalry was common in the Guominjun army, the majority using traditional spears and swords alongside Mauser pistols. Yet they were fast and strong enough to drive the Japanese away from Henan and scare them enough that Qinghai remained in Guominjun hands until Japan's surrender.[[note]]Part of the reason for this was that the cavalrymen were just as fanatical as many Japanese troops, had a history of regularly [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomping]] the Chinese Communists, and enjoyed executing any prisoners they took.[[/note]]\\\

Automatic weapons were effective against charging Japanese, but Chinese platoons had one light machine gun on average, usually a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB_vz._26 ZB vz.26]] in 7.92×57mm Mauser, and a entire KMT battalion only got ''one'' heavy machine gun for everyone, usually the Type 24 Maxim[[note]]Chinese copy of the German [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_08 [=MG08=]]][[/note]] or the Type 30[[note]]Chinese copy of the [[CoolGuns/MachineGuns Browning M1917]] in 7.92×57mm Mauser[[/note]]. Meanwhile, most warlord battalions had no machine guns at all. This meant that [[ZergRush banzai charges]] often inflicted heavy casualties on Chinese defenders, even if they outnumbered the Japanese attackers (it didn't help that [[BayonetYa Japanese soldiers were heavily trained in bayonet fighting as part of the Japanese military's blade obsession]]).\\\

The Second Sino-Japanese War was one of the biggest and most costly wars in human history.[[note]]There have been two modern wars fought entirely within China with a higher death toll: Transition from Ming to Qing and the Taiping Rebellion. [[TheGreatestHistoryNeverTold However, they remain obscure as foreign powers were not directly involved.]][[/note]] It was fought by UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan against UsefulNotes/{{China}}, beginning in the summer of 1937[[note]]Actual aggression started in 1931, with the Manchurian incident[[/note]] and ending in the summer of 1945. The conflict was eventually eclipsed by UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in 1939 and [[WorldWarII/WarInAsiaAndThePacific became part of the wider war in 1941]], with China and Japan respectively joining the Allies and Axis, and ended with the complete surrender of Japan to the Allied powers. It left some 5-15 million Chinese military and civilian dead[[note]]Frankly, this is just a guess based on the agricultural productivity of the land and the data from the first census (conducted in 1950). It's impossible to separate the 1937-45 dead from those who died in [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors the Chinese Civil War of 1946-49]].[[/note]] -- and anywhere from 460,000 to 1.7 million Japanese military dead, alongside about a million casualties among collaborator forces.

Only recently has the [[RedChina People's Republic of China]] begun to admit that the Kuomintang actually did anything at all to fight the Japanese, though it still maintains that the CCP's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army Eighth Route Army]] did the brunt of the fighting, when in reality, being a peasant-based guerrilla army solely consisting of light infantry, the overall contribution of the CCP towards winning the war is rather limited,[[note]]This issue is still hotly debated among Chinese historians. Traditionally, Maoist propaganda depicted the KMT military as more interested in attacking the CCP than fighting the Japanese. With a change of political climate however, the current Chinese government now acknowledges the contributions of KMT generals in an effort to promote Chinese nationalism against supporters of Taiwanese independence. Meanwhile, Taiwanese historians rarely acknowledge the CCP's contributions, such as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pingxingguan Battle of Pingxingguan]].[[/note]] except when Stalin bullied them into committing forces (in the short-lived '[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Regiments_Offensive Hundred Regiments Offensive]]') to save the Kuomintang's hide in 1940, when the latter was on the verge of collapse.\\\

* ''Film/WildRose'' is a 1932 Chinese film made right after the Japanese incursion into Manchuria, in order to encourage Chinese patriotism and resistance to the Japanese. At the end all the main characters join the army.

These atrocities are ''still'' denied by certain Japanese ultra-nationalists, to the understandable [[BerserkButton anger]] of... well, pretty much anyone with a heart, but especially ethnic Chinese. This is despite the mountains of sickening images and letters home from the perpetrators themselves.[[note]]Such as [[http://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=8451 this grinning maniac with a sword]] or the infamous photo of an actual baby impaled on a Japanese bayonet; as well as [[http://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=442 newspaper articles]], e.g. "Hey, mum! Guess how many elderly female subhuman scum I stabbed to death with that knife you sent me for my birthday today?"[[/note]]\\\

Stilwell's response was to send extremely negative reports back to America that exaggerated KMT failures (such as Chiang refusing to send reinforcements in Burma, when Chiang had actually sent 10,000 men and the 200th mechanized division[[note]]The only one of its kind, it was made up of T-26 tanks, Soviet and German armored cars plus American and Soviet trucks[[/note]]), plus ranting in his diary and letters to his wife about besting "the peanut" as he called Chiang [[note]] Chiang's head was rather... small, resulting in Stilwell nicknaming him "Peanut Head". It was also Chiang's codename in Stilwell's radio reports to Washington.[[/note]]. Stilwell also had a bitter rivalry with Chennault-while Chennault was full of confidence for Chiang, Stilwell absolutely loathed the generalissimo. There were tactical disagreements too-Stilwell believed that China could crush Japan via well-trained ground troops, while Chennault believed air support was vital for turning the tide. This resulted in nasty incidents where Chennault pleaded for reinforcements in desperate battles, with Stilwell refusing to send any. Stilwell's cushy relationship with the press didn't help matters either, and the US government's confidence in China began to decrease, although aid still arrived and the American public remained sympathetic to China's plight. \\\

[[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors After three more years of hell and another half a dozen million people killed]], the Communist Party of China under UsefulNotes/MaoZedong trumped over the Kuomintang under UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek, proclaiming the establishment of a People's Republic of China on October 1st, 1949. The People's Republic soon reached a level of cultural understanding and reconciliation with Japan despite the differences in their ideologies [[note]]Communist China was ''[[SeriousBusiness very big]]'' on ideology, such that it was a major cause in itself for the Sino-Soviet Split[[/note]] and economic systems. \\\

At the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East Tokyo War Crimes tribunal]] on April 29th, 1946, many high-ranking Japanese officials were executed for war crimes. One exception were the leaders of Unit 731-while some were executed by the Soviets, the rest, including Ishii, [[KarmaHoudini were spared by the Americans and went to the USA to assist in bioweapons research]].[[note]]It should be noted the Americans ''had no idea'' how the unit tested their experiments, just that they made bioweapons. Eager to get any advantage over the Soviets, the unit was promptly given war crimes immunity. Some members returned to Japan, others went to America. When the actual data was found, along with the unit's unethical methods, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the Americans were so horrified that they recalled the unit's members from bioweapons projects]], handing them over to the Soviets instead, who imprisoned or executed them.[[/note]] Three doctors went back to Japan and set up a pharmaceutical corporation, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Cross_(Japan) Green Cross]], to sell artificial blood and became rich.[[note]]That said, Masaji Kitano, second-in-command of Unit 731 and one of the founders of Green Cross, later explained that setting up the company [[TheAtoner was his way of atoning for the horrors the Unit had performed]].[[/note]] Most collaborators, such as those involved in the Reorganized government, were declared 'hanjian', or traitors to the Han Chinese by the KMT and executed, [[KarmaHoudini although some were spared and even given positions in the KMT government]]. \\\

Most NRA divisions had no support artillery at all-instead, mortars of all calibers (either ones purchased directly from Western nations or local copies of them) were used as substitutes, but these were in short supply. The KMT and warlords also failed to resupply their forces efficiently for the most part, which undermined Chinese defenses. Equipment losses for the warlord armies and militias were high enough that [[TheEnemyWeaponsAreBetter a large amount of equipment in the field was ex-Japanese]], not only weapons but gear such as mortars, gas masks and combat webbing. Meanwhile, the Japanese were not only well-supplied, but tended to back up their attacks with [[NoKillLikeOverkill artillery, poison gas, tanks and airplanes]], which the Chinese defenders had to repel with bullets, stick grenades and mortar fire.\\\

The Allied leaders then issued a final ultimatum that demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan on threat of [[NukeEm "utter destruction"]]. Given the numbers of Japanese civilian dead and the way the Third Reich had just gone down, High Command didn't expect for a moment this would actually work and had been planning an amphibious invasion of the Japanese Home Islands -- [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall Operation Downfall]] -- which was set to begin in October. Naturally, Japan refused to surrender. [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki The USAAF then dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]].\\\

The Soviet Union entered the war [[NoKillLikeOverkill the same week]] and in just two weeks, captured the whole of Manchuria[[note]]They stumbled upon Unit 731, but Ishii had already ordered most of the compound destroyed so the Soviets couldn't get their hands on the Unit's creations. However, they left enough evidence of their crimes behind, including corpses, for the Soviets to arrest and execute several members later on[[/note]], arrested Puyi (who was trying to flee to Tokyo so he could surrender to the Americans later on) and occupied North Korea. More than a million IJA troops were taken prisoner, breaking the back of the Japanese Army. Meanwhile, the Guangxi Clique had managed to take back Guangxi and forward elements of their forces managed to make it to Guangzhou, near Hong Kong - prompting the Commonwealth to send an emergency task-force from Australia to take Hong Kong from the token Japanese force that held it before the KMT got there - and the Kuomintang as a whole were preparing for an all-out offensive down the Yangzi to prevent the Soviets from getting there first... when to everyone's astonishment, [[ImpossibleTask Japan surrendered]].

It's true that unlike [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust Dr. Mengele]], Unit 731 used actual scientific procedures and produced some genuinely useful work, such as water purification for soldiers in the field, malaria treatments, frostbite treatments and artificial blood. But on the whole, almost all the Unit's experiments were simply [[CruelAndUnusualDeath finding new ways to kill people as sadistically as possible]], without any anesthesia whatsoever. These included [[BodyHorror stitching a stomach, esophagus and intestines together to see if the maruta could still perform digestion]], raping then injecting women with syphilis then cutting them open to see the results over time (and killing them on the operating table if they fell pregnant), freezing marutas' limbs in liquid nitrogen before smashing them off, throwing marutas into pressure chambers, locking women and children in gas chambers, exposing groups of maruta to the full effects of bubonic plague, tying marutas to stakes to be killed by flamethrowers, sending off planes to bomb villages with anthrax and most famously of all, [[TheyWouldCutYouUp vivisecting maruta alive]] and removing their vital organs, dumping them in jars of formaldehyde. [[http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?pagewanted=all&mcubz=2 Sometimes whole heads or even bodies sliced in two would be preserved for study]].\\\

[[caption-width-right:350: Poster from the pro-Chinese[[note]][[UsefulNotes/ColdWar It Doesn't Last]], [[RealPolitik At Least Until 1979]][[/note]] (1937-45) phase of US propaganda.[[note]]Note the creators' decision to portray the Chinese soldier with a field cap, rather than a straw hat (too large, civilian-looking, and 'foreign'/'culturally backwards') or a ''Stahlhelm'' (one of several inconvenient relics of inter-war Sino-German cooperation). The field cap was also standard-issue headgear for most soldiers, as China didn't exactly have a helmet-making industry. [[/note]]]]

Perhaps most importantly of all, the Japanese intended to use the massacre as a threat. [[SarcasmMode Surprisingly]], all it did was piss off China even more. From ordinary citizens to Chiang himself[[note]]Chiang kept a regular diary throughout his life. Historians have noted that he didn't mention the Nanjing massacre until early 1938. While multiple interpretations have been given, a common view is that Chiang knew of the massacre [[StunnedSilence and had no idea what to say]]. Given that Chiang was a coldly authoritarian military dictator and had no issues with his secret police torturing people to death throughout his career, it really says something about the massacre's impact.[[/note]], people were horrified and angry enough that the KMT, Chinese Communists and the warlords put all their feuds aside to seriously unite against Japan (at least for the time being). The KMT's propaganda department swept into action, churning out anti-Japanese works while public protests against the Japanese began in China's inner regions. In fact, the brutality was so notorious that even ''UsefulNotes/NaziGermany'' voiced its disapproval of the incident.

Chiang relocated the capital first to Wuhan on the mid-Yangzi, where he called a conference with all the major Kuomintang leaders and warlords (who nominally overlapped) of China. In it, against the wishes of Wang Jingwei and others who thought that further war was pointless and would result in even greater suffering, he persuaded them that fighting the war to the end was not only the only politically-acceptable course of action but also the only morally justifiable one. Chiang then publicly stated that China would keep fighting a defensive war, rather than an offensive one[[note]]Chiang had initially aimed for an offensive war, but his constant attacks destroyed a good chunk of his army until he finally decided to stop [[/note]], until Japan was defeated (with the unlikely entry of the USSR/USA into the war) or (inevitable without foreign intervention, though this went unsaid) the Kuomintang was totally destroyed. After the fall of Nanjing, Japanese pressure had lead to von Falkenhausen and his advisors being withdrawn[[note]]At a banquet held before his departure, von Falkenhausen promised to not reveal the NRA's battle plans to Japan, and kept that promise[[/note]], leaving the KMT alone and defenseless against the rapidly advancing Japanese.\\\

Automatic weapons were effective against charging Japanese, but Chinese platoons had one light machine gun on average, usually a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB_vz._26 ZB vz.26]] in 7.92×57mm Mauser, and a entire KMT battalion only got ''one'' heavy machine gun for everyone, usually the Type 24 Maxim[[note]]Chinese copy of the German [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_08 [=MG08=]]] [[/note]] or the Type 30[[note]]Chinese copy of the [[CoolGuns/MachineGuns Browning M1917]] in 7.92×57mm Mauser[[/note]]. Meanwhile, most warlord battalions had no machine guns at all. This meant that [[ZergRush banzai charges]] often inflicted heavy casualties on Chinese defenders, even if they outnumbered the Japanese attackers (it didn't help that [[BayonetYa Japanese soldiers were heavily trained in bayonet fighting as part of the Japanese military's blade obsession]]).\\\

As the main American authority in China, Stilwell had full control of the lend-lease supplies. While a good amount of equipment began to reach NRA troops in China, such as support artillery, mortars, bazookas, machine guns and even a few light tanks, it still wasn't enough to equip all the NRA divisions, which was what Chiang had in mind when requesting foreign aid. Large amounts reached the X and Y Forces, but huge stocks remained in storage that could have been delivered to the NRA. Chiang has often been blamed for stockpiling his best equipment to fight the Chinese Communists instead of Japan. While this is true to some extent (such as how M1 helmets only become widely used in China during the civil war), Stilwell has been found to be largely responsible for withholding the supplies, partially out of concern for the massive corruption within the NRA's logistics corps, partially out of spite towards Chiang. Denied the amounts of Allied equipment they should have gotten, most of the NRA remained terribly under-strength compared to other Allied armies. Influenced by this, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether the British and American governments often criticized the KMT for not having a modern, Westernized army, ignoring the fact China was much poorer and undeveloped compared to them]][[note]]The British were particularly guilty of making such criticisms. As Chiang and the KMT were strongly against colonialism of any form, there was a lot of bad blood between them and UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill's government, plus most of the British military (aside from William Slim and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mountbatten,_1st_Earl_Mountbatten_of_Burma Louis Mountbatten]]). And like FDR, Chiang was a strong supporter of Indian independence, which Churchill ''absolutely'' hated the idea of, even getting into vicious spats with Roosevelt over it. [[/note]].\\\