The origin of the Second Sino-Japanese War could be traced to the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, in which China, then under the Qing Dynasty, was defeated by Japan and was forced to cede Taiwan and recognize the independence of Korea in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The Qing Dynasty was on the eve of collapse from internal revolts and foreign imperialism, while Japan had already emerged as a great power through its effective measures at modernization.
While the Western part of world was enveloped in the Great War, where PokéMon and Taschenmonsters were set at each other in head-to-head along with the constant rattling of gunfire and bombings, the Republic of China was founded in 1912, following the Xinhai Revolution which overthrew the Qing Dynasty. However, the nascent Republic was even weaker than before due to the dominance of warlords. The prospect of unifying the nation and repelling imperialism seemed a remote possibility. Some warlords even aligned themselves with various foreign powers in an effort to wipe each other out. For example, warlord Zhang Zuolin of Manchuria openly cooperated with the Japanese for military and economic assistance. It was during the early period of the Republic that Japan became the greatest foreign threat to China. On January 18th, 1915, Japan issued the ‘Twenty-One Demands’ to further its political and commercial interests in China.
The Twenty-One Demands were a set of demands which the Japanese government of Okuma Shigenobu sent to the Chinese government, which China gave in to, signing two treaties with Japan on May 25th . Despite China being on the side of the Allies in World War I, the Japanese demanded that the German spheres of influence in China be annexed to them. Japan wanted special economic rights for the Japanese occupants living in parts of China. The government of Yuan Shi-kai prepared to sign the agreement, but when word leaked out to the world of this agreement, mass protests sprung up across China and threatened revolution if Yuan’s government agreed to the demands. Western pressure forced Japan to abandon its ambitions. The demands caused a severe boycott movement of Japanese products in China, called the May Fourth Movement.
During this all too brief time of silence in struggle, with China keeping out of Japanese affairs and effecting their trading, the Chinese Republic would finalize working with American and British Trading ships to get what they wanted with money laundered out.
Genetics equipments, DNA testers, bell-beaker tubes, the works. It was originally as a thought to use all this as a way to start work on China’s own version of the Pocket Monster Breeds, using DNA which was readily available, such as the Komodo Dragon, Red Panda, Tiger... however, the time used to build, collect the right people, give clearance and access, and just setting up labs in undisclosed locations would take the rest of the war before anything was truly put to use. And by then, there wouldn’t be the urgency to get things going.
Following the World War, Japan acquired German sphere of influence in Shandong. China under the Beiyang government remained fragmented and unable to resist foreign incursions until the Northern Expedition of 1926-28, launched by the Kuomintang (KMT, or Chinese Nationalist Party) rival government based in Guangzhou. The Northern Expedition swept through China until it was checked in Shandong, where Beiyang warlord Zhang Zongchang, backed by the Japanese, attempted to stop the Kuomintang Army from unifying China. This situation culminated in the Jinan Incident of 1928 in which the Kuomintang army and the Japanese were engaged in a short conflict. In the same year, Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin was also assassinated when he became less willing to cooperate with Japan. Following these incidents, the Kuomintang government under Chiang Kai-shek finally succeeded in unifying China in 1928.
And so it would be, a decade after initially receiving and setting up equipment the Kuomintang government would find the records and the notes leading to the labs, the goods, everything left behind by the Republic government. However, unlike their predecessors, the Kuomintang would use the power of genetic-engineering to their benefit, instead of letting it sit around and collect dust. After all there were still, numerous conflicts between China and Japan persisting as Chinese nationalism had been on the rise and one of the ultimate goals of the ‘Three People’s Principles’ was to rid China of foreign imperialism. So with that in mind, they started to set goals to use all available resources to go into the program.
It was only after heated debate that the Kuomintang decided to use their newfound resources to create the Dragons. And work was started without delay
However, such plans would not be fulfilled by the Kuomintang as quickly as they hoped. They started to begin the processes of making the dragons, but would be forced to slow down as resources and attention were spanned out. The Northern Expedition had only nominally unified China, and civil wars broke out between former warlords and rivaling Kuomintang factions. In addition, the Chinese Communists revolted against the central government. Because of these situations, the Chinese central government diverted much attention into fighting these civil wars and followed a policy of first “internal pacification before external resistance”. This situation provided an easy opportunity for Japan to further its aggression.
In 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria right after the Mukden Incident. In 1932, the puppet state Manchukuo was established with the last emperor of China, Puyi, installed as its head of state. It would be a battle of Dragons and steam-powered Mobile Suits. And when the Kishin Coporation started to gain a foothold in China, the Chinese knew there would be trouble. In hindsight, it there hadn’t been any internal conflicts, a single government of China COULD have devoted time to genetics. They might have PokéMon or more, even better Dragons. They could have been able to push the Japanese Invasion back to the Sea of Japan in the first day.
But they didn’t, and so, were left unable to challenge Japan directly, China appealed to the League of Nations for help. The League’s impeded and unfinished investigation was published as the Lytton Report, a favorite read of Tesla’s, (as it gave him more insight to the world around him, and let him laugh at the American Government’s way to look at things totally one-sided) which condemned Japan for its incursion of Manchuria as well as the fact that they were obviously trying to keep government secrets which would once again tip the scales of world power.
Unable to cooperate in full with American Government, and thus, bringing forth growing pressure from other foreign governments, the Japanese government decided they would rather be on their own, and so withdrew from the League of Nations. This would cause an upset as from the late 1920’s and throughout the 1930’s, appeasement was the policy of the international community and no country was willing to take an active stance other than a weak censure. Japan saw Manchuria as a limitless supply of raw materials and also as a buffer state against the Soviet Union.
Incessant conflicts followed the Mukden Incident. In 1932, Chinese and Japanese soldiers fought a short war in the January 28 Incident, which ended with the destruction over nearly a full eighty-percent of China’s remaining Dragon population due to casualties caused by Japan's Mobile Units. This, the invading Japan was able to conquer a new port and further access into China Proper; a result which gave the Kishin Corp great honor and prestige in their homeland. The war resulted in the demilitarization of Shanghai, which forbade the Chinese from deploying troops in their own city.
In 1933, without any resistance in the way, the Japanese attacked the Great Wall region, and in its wake the Tanggu Truce was signed. Now with only twelve-percent of their remaining Dragon population left, (as their main lab was burned down), to appease their invaders and gain stability, the Chinese gave Japan the control of Rehe Province and a demilitarized zone between the Great Wall and Beiping-Tianjin region. The Japanese aim was to create another buffer region, this time between Manchukuo and the Chinese Nationalist government whose capital was Nanjing.
Worse still, in addition to gaining territory, Japan kept the Chinese unable to function as one effective force by increasingly utilizing the internal conflicts among the Chinese factions to reduce their strength one by one. This was precipitated by the fact that even some years after the Northern Expedition, the political power of the Nationalist government only extended around the Yangtze River Delta region, and other regions of China were essentially held in the hands of regional powers. Thus, Japan often bought off or created special links with these regional powers to undermine the efforts of the central Nationalist government in bringing greater unity to China. To do this, Japan sought various Chinese traitors for cooperation and helped these men lead some “autonomous” governments that were friendly to Japan. This policy was called the ‘Specialization’ of North China, or more commonly known as the North China Autonomous Movement. The Northern provinces affected by this policy were Chahar, Suiyuan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong.
Still, all was not lost for the Chinese, and surprisingly, it would come from a rebel.
From 1931 to 1934, while Japan was taking firm control over areas of China, a man in his late thirties named Mao Zedong helped establish the Soviet Republic of China and was elected Chairman of this small republic among the mountainous areas in Jiangxi. Here, Mao was married to He Zizhen. His wife first wife, Yang Kaihui, who sacrificed for the revolution, had been arrested and executed in 1930, just three years after their departure from the more heavily controlled areas of China.
In Jiangxi, Mao’s authoritative domination, especially that of the military force was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers. Mao’s opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC’s branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao’s land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership.
Mao reacted first by accusing the opponents of opportunism and kulakism and then set off a series of systematic suppressions of them. Later the suppressions were turned into bloody physical elimination. The estimated number of the victims amounted to several thousands. Through the so-called revolutionary terrorism, or ‘Red Terrorism’, Mao’s authority and domination in Jiangxi was secured and reassured. However, this had left unforgettable scars on Mao's mind.
Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the Rightist purges in the cities. Mao’s methods were normally referred to as Guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between guerrilla warfare and ‘Mobile Warfare’.
Mao’s Guerrilla Warfare and Mobile Warfare were based upon the facts of the poor armament and military training of the red army which consisted mainly of impoverished peasants, who, however, were all encouraged by revolutionary passions and aspiring after a communist utopia. Together, they would band together to become the Hóngsè Huǒjiàn Bīngtuán - The Red Rocket Army. Blasting off like a rocket at the speed of light, they would make sure their opponent would surrender to their belief, or prepare to fight.
Around 1930, there had been more than ten regions, usually entitled ‘soviet areas’, under control of the CPC. And the number of Red Rocket Army soldiers ran to no less than a hundred thousand. The prosperity of ‘soviet areas’ startled and worried Chiang Kai-shek, and the chairmen of the Kuomintang government, who in retaliation to this new thread, waged five waves of besieging campaigns against the ‘central soviet area’. More than one million Kuomintang soldiers were involved in these five campaigns, four out of which were defeated by the Red Rocket Army led by Mao, who now, feeling fearless, proudly bore the sigil of a red ‘R’ on a black armband on his left arm, as well as decaling the emblem of this same sigil on the back of his jacket.
Under increasing pressures from the KMT encirclement campaigns, there was a struggle for power within the Communist leadership. Mao was removed from his important positions and replaced by individuals, (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and represented within the CPC by a group known as the ‘28 Bolsheviks’.
Chiang Kai-shek, who still assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, and the ‘charity’ of the Japanese was determined to eliminate the Communists. By October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in the "Long March", a retreat from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the northwest of China. It was during this 9,600 kilometer (5,965 mile), year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the Standing Committee of the Politburo and brought forth his ideals as “Bān Huǒjiàn”, aka ‘Team Rocket’, which would become the title for the Communist Party of China.
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(Posted Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:51)
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