![]() To the Japanese, the rising tide of nationalism in China-directed, as much of it was, against them-had become intolerable. The Japanese came to feel that since Chiang and the Nationalist government would not yield to their wishes they must be eliminated. The conflict quickly ceased to be localized. The opening engagement was a minor clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge, not far from Peiping ( Beijing) on July 7, 1937. What proved to be a life and death struggle soon broke out between China and Japan. Find out who really invented movable type, who Winston Churchill called "Mum," and when the first sonic boom was heard. Get hooked on history as this quiz sorts out the past. Japan soon demonstrated that it was not content with confining its control of China to regions north of the Great Wall, and in the spring of 1934 a pronouncement from Tokyo in effect declared all China to be a Japanese preserve in which no power could take important action without its consent. ![]() Facing little resistance from Nationalist forces, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932 and installed the deposed Qing emperor Puyi as its titular head. On the night of September 18–19, 1931, alleging that Chinese had blown up part of the track of the South Manchuria railway near the city, the Japanese seized Mukden ( Shenyang). Those in control of the main body of Japanese forces in Manchuria believed that the time had passed for temporizing and compromise. In the summer of 1931 the friction expressed itself in minor incidents. Zhang Xueliang, Zhang Zuolin’s son and the ruler of Manchuria after his father’s murder by Japanese officers in 1928, was increasingly disposed to ally himself with the Kuomintang ( Nationalist Party) and its desire to rid China of foreign control. In an attempt to assert their independence, the Chinese began building a series of railroads that would in part encircle the Japanese lines and terminate at Huludao, a port which the Chinese were developing.
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