The Mukden Incident; stage by stage

[Lawrence]

Too often, we breeze past the Mukden incident with a short description; "The Japanese planted an explosive, blamed it on the Chinese and invaded Manchuria". However, the intrigue behind the Mukden incident is fascinating and complex. I've tried, using various sources, to reconstruct the essentials of the Mukden incident.

If I've made any mistakes, please feel free to correct me, or if I've left anything out, feel free to add. I'm trying to build the most complete account of the Mukden incident and have a way to go.

-----------

As we all know, the Mukden incident was preceded by several incidents, which culminated in the events of September 18th 1931. The first major one was the assassination of Chang Tso-Lin, the Mukden Tiger and warlord of Manchuria, in June 1928.

The main plotter was Colonel Daisaku Komoto, who hoped the incident would create enough chaos in Manchuria and would allow the Kwantung Army to expand its influence in the region. However, Chang's son, Chang Hsueh-liang, concluded an armistice with Chiang Kai-Shek and ordered the Kuomintang flag flown over Manchruia. A huge setback to the Japanese.

The Kwantung Army had long flirted with the idea of openly colonizing Manchuria. The Far Eastern Conference of 1927, where the so called 'Tanaka Memorial' was supposedly penned, discussed the idea. However, it seems serious planning did not begin until 1929, when Kanji Ishiwara and Seishiro Itagaki began working together in Manchuria.

Itagaki and Ishiwara complimented each other well, although they had their differences. They were by no means the only conspirators, but were among the most important. Ishiwara had an apocalyptic view of the world and that the world was headed toward one last great war, in which Japan would battle the United States. Allegedly, he claimed he would only visit America in an army of occupation. Interestingly enough, he would butt heads with Prime Minister Hideki Tojo for his bungling of the Pacific War.

Itagaki differed with Ishiwara in his view that the Soviet Union was Japan's greatest threat, and would preside as War Minister over the crushing Nomonhon defeat, command the Chosun Army and surrender the Japanese forces in Singapore in 1945.

Yet, both men viewed Manchuria as a critical tool in strengthening Japan to fight their supposed arch enemies. In the summer of 1931, the Wanbaoshan incident occurred. It was a dispute over irrigation rights of 200 Korean immigrants in Manchuria. Chinese police told the Koreans to leave however the Japanese told them to stay put. Chinese farmers attacked the Koreans but were fired upon by Japanese police.

Meanwhile, a Japanese intelligence officer, Captain Shintaro Nakamura was captured and executed by the Chinese. I've seen one source claimed he was captured on the border of Inner Mongolia, and another that he was captured in Mukden.

These incidents helped Itagaki and Ishiwara draw up a battle plan which detailed the invasion of all of Manchuria. Ishiwara went to Tokyo and presented it as a contingency plan and were approved by the General Staff. He returned to Manchuria and showed them to the Kwantung Army commander, General Shigeru Honjo, who also approved them, so long as it was precipitated by a major incident by the Chinese.

Itagaki and Ishiwara called upon the services of Colonel Kenji Doihara, chief of the Mukden Special Service Organ for help. Doihara was acting as a negotiator between Chang Hsueh-liang and the Kwantung Army over the Nakamura incident. Doihara was hoping for an insulting reply from Chang, which would allow Itagaki and Ishiwara to order their battle plan into action.

However, the government in Tokyo recalled Doihara and ordered him to handle the Nakamura incident more diplomatically. Worse for the conspirators, the General Staff sent General Yoshitsugu Tatekawa to meet with General Honjo and advise the negotiations over the Nakamura incident. Tatekawa leaked this information to a Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto, who sent telegrams to Itagaki, giving the conspirators 48 hours notice of Tatekawa's arrival.

Tatekawa arrived in Mukden at 1900 hours on September 18th, 1931 and was welcomed by Itagaki, who took him to a teahouse in the Japanese quarter, the Literary Chrysanthemum and was entertained by a geisha. At 2220 hours, an officer of the Special Service Organ, Lieutenant Suemori Komoto (apparently related to the same Colonel Komoto who assassinated Chang Tso-lin) wired an explosive on the South Manchurian Railway line at Liutiaokuo, a little north of Mukden.

The explosion did little damage, a train passed over the tracks some twenty minutes later. Komoto phoned Itagaki at the Special Service Organ office in Mukden, who ordered the Independent Garrison Force of the Twenty-ninth Infantry Regiment to attack the Chinese barracks some 300 yards away in Mukden. Afterward, staff officers connected Itagaki to garrison commanders up and down the South Manchurian railway. Itagaki told them, "This is Itagaki; proceed at once according to plan."

Major-General Tatekawa was informed of the incident around 2230 hours, and according to some accounts, donned his uniform and joined in the fighting. The Japanese began shelling the walled Chinese barracks. Seeing the battle as futile, the Chinese began a withdrawl to the back wall and retreated. Some 500 Japanese soldiers occupied the Chinese barracks without any casualties.

Meanwhile, at Ryojun (Port Arthur), General Honjo was informed (apparently while taking a bath) that Itagaki activated garrisons without his permission. Ishiwara convinced Honjo to go along with the plot and eventually Honjo phoned Itagaki and told him to proceed with the invasion of downtown Mukden and to active the battle plans Ishiwara and he had drawn up earlier.

Honjo ordered the Kwantung Army headquarters relocated to Mukden and called the commander of the Chosun Army, General Senjuro Hayashi, and asked for reinforcements. By 0330 hours, Honjo caught a train to Mukden and by 0400 hours, Mukden was declared secure. By daylight, airplanes from the Chosun Army landed at the Mukden airport.

The Mukden incident was over. The conquest of Manchuria had just begun.

[Peter H]

Captain Nakamura

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=103455


Some photos here

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=103457

[Kim Sung]

I've found a detailed documentary on the Mukden Incident. This documentary seems to have a balanced view, which is rare among the Japanese media. This documentary insists that the main reason of Japan's invasion to Manchuria was an economic one: protecting the Japanese interests in Manchuria and thus saving the Japanese economy from the Depression.

http://www.pandora.tv/my.yjk316/4599514

One interesting analysis in this documentary is that, contrary to the view that the Japanese army started the war to prevent Soviet expansion to Manchuria, masterminders of Mukden incident thought that the Soviets had no ability to expand to Manchuria because they were very busy in building their internal system.

Therefore, the fear for possible Soviet expansion to Manchuria was excluded from Kwantung army commanders' mindset or was just a collateral consideration.

[Peter H]

This documentary seems to have a balanced view, which is rare among the Japanese media

Any further opinion comments like this and they will be deleted.

[Lawrence]

I've found a detailed documentary on the Mukden Incident. This documentary seems to have a balanced view, which is rare among the Japanese media. This documentary insists that the main reason of Japan's invasion to Manchuria was an economic one: protecting the Japanese interests in Manchuria and thus saving the Japanese economy from the Depression.

This sounds likely. If the Chinese or Soviets took over all Manchuria and took away Japanese interests, namely the South Manchurian Railway, Japan's economy would be devastated.

However, the Kwantung Army had long wanted Manchuria, as they proved in their 1928 attempt. However, I think the Depression along with the twin 1931 incidents hastened their desire to invade .

http://www.pandora.tv/my.yjk316/4599514

Hmmm..doesn't seem to work.

One interesting analysis in this documentary is that, contrary to the view that the Japanese army started the war to prevent Soviet expansion to Manchuria, masterminders of Mukden incident thought that the Soviets had no ability to expand to Manchuria because they were very busy in building their internal system.

Therefore, the fear for possible Soviet expansion to Manchuria was excluded from Kwantung army commanders' mindset or was just a collateral consideration.

I don't know if I buy this. Itagaki and most of the Kwantung Army were anti-Soviet to a man and viewed Soviet expansion as their greatest threat.

[Kim Sung]

This sounds likely. If the Chinese or Soviets took over all Manchuria and took away Japanese interests, namely the South Manchurian Railway, Japan's economy would be devastated.

Zhang Zuo-Lin's recalcitrant attitude against the Japanese was the most annoying factor to the Kwantung army and so they decided to eliminate him. And the Chinese unification movement which started in 1928 was a more threatening and more realistic threat to Japanese interests in Manchuria than Soviet threat.

I don't know if I buy this. Itagaki and most of the Kwantung Army were anti-Soviet to a man and viewed Soviet expansion as their greatest threat.

That Itagaki and most of the Kwantung Army were anti-Soviet doesn't mean that this Soviet factor desicively affected their decision to invade Manchuria.

[Peter H]

The leftist historian Stephen R. Shalom's view:

http://www.bcasnet.org/articlesandresou ... le11_1.htm

Colonialism is unjustifiable. Many Japanese believed, however, that they had as good a claim to it as the western powers. The Depression hit Japan with great severity. The major powers had responded to the economic crisis of the world capitalist system by imposing high protective tariffs around their colonial empires. The huge U.S. market was placed behind the Smoot-Hawley tariff in 1930. Between 1929 and 1931 Japanese foreign trade was cut in half. As a State Department official noted, "all over the world various obstacles to the free and natural flow of Japanese exports"* had been raised. Among these obstacles were special preferences that the United States maintained for its own business interests in the Philippines and Cuba.

Given this situation, it is not surprising that Japan sought to emulate the other colonial powers and establish a self-sufficient economic empire of its own....

*Footnote:

In 1941, the State Department's chief of commercial policy and agreements summarized the situation:

The British have set up an Empire preferential system which makes it difficult for Japanese goods to obtain access to markets comprising a large part of the world's area and population. The British have used their import position to negotiate clearing and payment agreements which affect Japanese trade adversely in other markets. The French obtained preferences for themselves at Japanese expense whenever possible, including French colonies which are neighbors of Japan in the Far Eastern area. Other countries have pursued similar policies at Japanese expense. The United States itself has obtained preferences to the disadvantage of Japan in the Philippines, a Far Eastern neighbor of Japan's. We have obtained preferences for our trade in Cuba, to the detriment of Japanese exporters of textiles and other products. Most countries which negotiate commercial agreements involving reductions and tariff and other trade barriers have either discriminated overtly against Japan by not extending the reductions to Japanese products or covertly through thinly-disguised discriminations in the form of highly specialized tariff classifications. (FR 1941, pp. IV:577-78)

Shalom alludes that Western Imperialism was copied by the Japanese.A controversial point of view though.

Sometimes American leftists promote the same arguments as Japanese rightists.

[asiaticus]

From:
中国抗日战争正面战场作战记
• 作者：郭汝瑰，黄玉章 主编
• 出版社：江苏人民出版社
• 出版日期：2005-7-1
• ISBN：7214030349


China's Anti-Japanese War Combat Operations
• Author : Guo Rugui, editor-in-chief Huang Yuzhang
• Press : Jiangsu People's Publishing House
• Date published : 2005-7-1
• ISBN:7214030349

This is transcribed at
http://www.wehoo.net/book/wlwh/a30012/A0170.htm


Japanese forces on the Eve of the Mukden Incident.
http://www.wehoo.net/book/wlwh/a30012/04531.htm

Here is how I have been able to tranlate it:

September 17, 1932 the Japanese army in northeast China had more than 15,000 regular army troops. The 2nd Division with a peacetime downsizied force, where each infantry Regiment lacked and infantry battalion, each battalion an Infantry Company, the entire division had about 10,400 men. They also had six independent garrison units, each unit four infantry companies, each company had 160 men, for a total of about 4,000 men. There Lushun fortress troops and heavy fortress artillery unit, etc., and a rural military and police auxiliary force of about a 10,000 men. Total strength of about 27,000 people. Japanese troops were deployed in the center of Shenyang and along the southern Manchuria Railway, in order to maneuver.

Specific deployment of troops to :

2nd Division headquarters, the division head Lieutenant General Jiro Tamon 多门二郎, in Liaoyang.

3rd Infantry Brigade - brigade commander Major General Hasebe 长谷部照, Changchun;

4th Infantry Regiment, Changchun;

29th Infantry Regiment, Shenyang (Mukden)

15th Infantry Brigade - brigade commander Major General Amano 天野六郎, in Liaoyang.

16th Infantry Regiment, in Liaoyang. (Colonel Hirata?)

30th Infantry Regiment, in Lushun;

2nd CavalryRegiment, in Gongzhuling;

2nd Feild Artillery Regiment, in Haicheng.

2nd Engineer Battalion, in Tieling;

Independent garrison unit commander, Lieutenant General Sen, in Gongzhuling;

No. 1 Independent Garrison Unit, in Gongzhuling;

No. 2 Independent Garrison Unit, in Shenyang (Mukden) - Lt. Colonel Shoichi Shimamoto 島本正一 (found commanders name elsewhere)

No. 3 Independent Garrison Unit, in Dashiqiao;

No. 4 Independent Garrison Unit, in Lianshanguan;

5th Independent Garrison Unit, in Tieling;

6th Independent Garrison Unit, in Anshan;

Heavy artillery regiment, in Lushun;

Kwantung Army military police unit, in Lushun;

Lushun Fortification headquarters in Lushun;

特务警察队
Special Service Police Force?, stationed in Dalian;

Rural Military Headquarters in Shenyang.



Dongbei (Northeastern) Army on the Eve of the Mukden Incident
http://www.wehoo.net/book/wlwh/a30012/04531.htm

I made out the following from that page. Need a few names translated as noted:

On the eve of the "9/18" Emergency, the Northeast's regular army had 165,000 men and 40,000 irregular troops. Total approximately 200,000 men.

25 infantry brigades, 6 cavalry brigades, and 10 artillery regiments

Deployments:

Tianjin and Hebei, Chahar - 80,000 men
- 9 infantry brigades, 5 cavalry brigades, 6 artillery regiments

Shanhai Pass
- He Zhuguo Brigade


12 infantry brigades, 3 cavalry brigades and Provincial Defense Brigades were left stationed in the Northeastern provinces. Their equipment all compared poorly with the army in the area inside the great wall (above). Due to the northeast military authorities opposition to communism and the Soviet Union, particularly after the Chinese Eastern Railway Incident in 1929, the deployment of troops was mainly to deal with the Soviet Union.

Their specific deployments were:

Liaoning Garrison :
7th Independent Brigade - Wang Yizhe(General Wang I-cheh), in Shenyang (Mukden)

12th Independent Brigade - Zhang Tingshu, in Chinhsien

20th Independent Brigade - 常经武部 (who is this?), in Zhengjiatun

3rd Cavalry brigade - Zhang Shusen, in Tongliao

1st Provincial Defense Brigade - Yu Zhishan, in Shanchengzhen

2nd Provincial Defense Brigade - Zhang Haipeng, in Taonan

公安总队（由原第２０师改编）黄显声部，驻沈阳
Public Security Division (formerly 20th Division before reorganization) - 黄显声部 (Huang ?), in Shenyang

Military baggage training group - Niu Yuanfeng, in Goubangzi

Northeast Air Force, Navy and the Military Police Command, are stationed in Shenyang;


Jilin Garrison :

独立第２１旅 - 赵芷香（后张治邦接任）部　
21st Independent Brigade - Zhao Zhixiang (later Zhang Zhibang takes over?), in Ningan

22nd Independent Brigade - Su Dechen, in Shuangcheng

23rd Independent Brigade - Li Guilin, in Changchun

24th Independent Brigade - Li Du, in Yilan

25th Independent Brigade - Zhang Zuozhou, in Jilin

26th Independent Brigade - Xing Zhanqing, in Harbin

28th Independent Brigade - Ding Chaobu, in Harbin

4th Cavalry Brigade - Chang Yao Chenbu, in Nong'an

1st Provincial Defense Brigade - Sun Hexi, in 方正 (can't translate this)

2nd Provincial Defense Brigade - Sun Hexi, in Jiaohe

10th Artillery Regiment - Mu Chunchang, in Changchun

边防军公署卫队团 - 冯占海部
Border Guards Government Office Armed Escort Regiment? - 冯占海部 (name ?), in Jilin

哈尔滨特区公安大队 - 王之佑部
Harbin Special Zone Public Security Battalion ? - 王之佑部(name ?), in Jilin

山林警备队
山林 (translate?) Garrison Battalion - Zhao Weixiang, in Yanshou

Heilongjiang Garrison :

1st Provincial Defense Infantry Brigade - 张殿九部(name ?), in Zhalantun

2nd Provincial Defense Infantry Brigade - Su Bingwen, in Hailar.

1st Provincial Defense Cavalry Brigade -王南屏部(name ?), in Suihua;

2nd Provincial Defense Cavalry Brigade - 吴松林部(name ?), in Keshan, Baiquan

2nd Independent Cavalry Brigade - Chen Zhiyuan, in Manzhouli;

9th Independent Artillery Regiment - 朴炳珊部(name ?), in Taian

边防军公署卫队团
Border Guards Government Office Armed Escort Regiment ? - Xu Baozhen, in Tsitsihar


兴安屯垦军-苑崇谷部，驻索伦
Xing'an Settlement Army - 苑崇谷部(name ?), in Soren (索伦)

Security Battalion - Dou Lianfang, in Tsitsihar (Qiqihar).

[hisashi]

When Ishiwara and his colleagues planned the operation when anything occured in Manchuria and they got any excuse for the seize of this region, Soviet force in the Far East was weak. They provided 'anything', Mukden Incident, by themselves. After the incident, Ishiwara noticed that Soviet forces had been massive in short time. It meant Kwantung Army needed much more forces to compete with the Soviet than he expected. So he was against invading the rest of China because it absorb Japanese troops needed against Soviet, and against the U.S. I'll deal with this topics in my thread, but it will take some more time for my article to reach this period.

[Peter H]

Its said that Stalin's main priority in defence 1932-1936 was the Japanese threat he saw on his eastern borders.

According to Malcolm Mackintosh Juggernaut;

Maxim Litinov 1933-"Japanese policy is now the darkest cloud on the international horizon".

The Soviet Government took the opportunity to reinforce Blukher's Special Far Eastern Army,and between 1932 and 1934 two new rifle corps,the 20th and 21st,were dispatched to the Far East,where a program of frontier fortification building had begun...By 1934 the Special Far Eastern Army numbered eleven rifle and two cavalry divisions with 300 tanks and 350 aircraft.In 1932 the Soviet Government also established a Pacific Fleet based at Vladivostok,Nikolaevsk and Kamchatka...

Blukher to increase the independence of his army...also set up the so called Kolkohz Corps,a formation of trained soldiers organised adminstratively in divisions and regiments but settled in collective farms along the Manchurian frontier--the produce of the farms went to augment the supply reserves of the Far Eastern Army.

[tigre]

Hello to all ; a little complement..............................

Pictures of the military confrontation of Japan and China in Mukden.

Sources: http://www.ebay.com/itm/WWII-CHINA-JAPA ... 423?_ul=AR
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WWII-CHINA-JAPA ... SwkZhWSWIL

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; a little complement..............................

Pictures of the military confrontation of Japan and China in Mukden.

Sources: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/1931-ILLUSTRATE ... 0752.m1982

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; more..............................

Pictures of the military confrontation of Japan and China in Mukden.

Sources: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/1931-ILLUSTRATE ... 0752.m1982

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; more..............................

Pictures of the military confrontation of Japan and China in Mukden.

Sources: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/1931-ILLUSTRATE ... 0752.m1982

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; a little complement..............................

Pictures of the military confrontation of Japan and China in Mukden.

Sources: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/1931-ILLUSTRATE ... 0752.m1982

Cheers. Raúl M .