Actions in Inner Mongolia (1933–1936)
The Inner Mongolian campaigns of 1933 to 1936 were Japan's attempt to push into northern China without openly fighting a war of its own. Before the biggest of these clashes, Japanese secret agents in Suiyuan province were already at work. They set up radio stations, and the operators sat at them disguised as Buddhist priests. It was a quiet, deceptive way to prepare an invasion, and it fit the whole effort.
These operations came before the official start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The groundwork had been laid earlier. In 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria and created the puppet state of Manchukuo. In 1933 Operation Nekka tore the province of Jehol, also called Rehe, away from the Republic of China. Then the Tanggu Truce blocked any further advance to the south.
The Imperial Japanese Army turned west instead, toward the Inner Mongolian provinces of Chahar and Suiyuan. Its goal was a buffer state across northern China. To avoid an obvious breach of the truce, Japan sent proxies in its place. These were the Inner Mongolian Army, the Manchukuo Imperial Army and the Grand Han Righteous Army.
Who would stand against them? For a long time the answer was not China's government. Resistance came first from irregular forces in Chahar, and Chinese government troops treated those forces as hostile. Why would a government turn on its own defenders? What did Japan's borrowed armies look like once they took the field? And what happened when Chinese troops were finally ordered to meet them?
In February 1933, with Rehe in Japanese hands, the Kwantung Army left a small Japanese detachment behind. The much larger Manchukuo Imperial Army was given the job of watching the eastern edge of Rehe. The rest of the Japanese force swung south to fight the Chinese along the Great Wall.
In April, General Liu Guitang, a collaborator working under Japanese orders, crossed into southeastern Chahar near the Dolonor region. His move was meant as a diversion, to draw Chinese reinforcements away from the Great Wall. He met little resistance and led his 3,000 troops further east toward Changpei. Reports at the time called it a Japanese operation, though Liu may have pushed on without Japan's explicit approval.
The Kuomintang military committee in Peking had named General Fu Zuoyi commander of the Chinese 7th Army Group. His task was to secure the Rehe border. At the end of April, Japanese forces drew near Miyun, and He Yingqin grew anxious about Peking. He moved Fu Zuoyi's troops east to Changping, which strengthened the capital's defenses but left the Chahar border empty.
The Japanese and Manchukuo armies saw the gap. On the 11th of May 1933 they followed up Liu's advance and seized the Dolonnur region. They then took Guyuan. Guyuan fell only days before the Tanggu Truce was signed on the 31st of May 1933.
Urban China was furious at the terms of the truce. Patriots who opposed Chiang Kai-shek's policies came from inside both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, and overseas Chinese joined them. Together they organized and supported an irregular force known as the Anti-Japanese Allied Army.
The recruits came from many directions. General Feng Yuxiang and his former subordinate Ji Hongchang gathered many units of former Guominjun soldiers. Fang Zhenwu raised volunteers from the rest of the country. Local militias driven out of Rehe by the Japanese came too, along with Manchurian guerrillas under Feng Zhanhai and the Chahar local militia. A Mongol army under Demchugdongrub joined the cause as well.
The list also held some surprises. Liu Guitang, the Japanese collaborator who had led the diversion into Chahar, changed sides and joined the Allied Army. So did Wang Ying, a bandit leader from Suiyuan. Wang Ying would later reappear on the Japanese side, at the head of the Grand Han Righteous Army.
On the 26th of May 1933, after a meeting of the commanding officers, the Chahar People's Anti-Japanese Army was formally proclaimed. Feng Yuxiang became commander-in-chief. Fang Zhenwu was named vice-commander-in-chief, and Ji Hongchang took charge at the front line. Sources estimated its strength at anywhere from 60,000 to 120,000 men, and Feng himself claimed 100,000. Yet most of the volunteers had no guns or other modern weapons.
Its first target would be Dolonnur.
More than 2,000 men of the Japanese 4th Cavalry Brigade, backed by an artillery unit, held the city of Dolonnur. Outside it, the Japanese had built 32 blockhouses joined by trenches, with a wire communications network and several lines of obstacles. Manchukuo troops under Li Shouxin guarded these outer works. Further south, the Japanese 8th Regiment sat at Fengning, close enough to lend support.
The volunteers' position grew worse by the day. Japanese aircraft bombed Dushikou on the 1st of June. Baochang fell on the 4th, and Kangbao on the 5th. On the 21st of June, Feng Yuxiang ordered a counteroffensive in three columns to win the lost ground back. The vanguard approached Kangbao the next day. After several hours of fighting, the Manchukuo force under General Cui Xingwu fled, and Chinese troops retook the town.
In late June, Ji Hongchang drove northeast toward Dolonnur with two corps. His northern corps took Baochang back from Cui Xingwu's demoralized men. The southern corps, under Fang Zhenwu, advanced on Guyuan, which Liu Guitang held for the Japanese. Liu was persuaded to switch sides, and he handed over Guyuan and other places on the Bashang Plateau without a fight.
Before dawn on the 8th of July, Ji launched his assault on Dolonnur. He captured two of the outer defense lines, then was driven back with heavy casualties. Some of his soldiers were next sent into the city in disguise, to gather intelligence for a second attempt. That attack succeeded on the 12th of July and pushed the Japanese and Manchukuo armies out of Chahar.
In late July, Feng Yuxiang and Ji Hongchang set up the Committee For Recovering the Four Provinces of the Northeast at Kalgan. Meanwhile the Kuomintang had been tightening its grip around that very town.
When the Allied Army was proclaimed, the Kuomintang military committee in Peking ordered passenger train service to Kalgan cut off. Later it sent an armored train close to the town. Chiang Kai-shek believed communists dominated the army and saw it as a threat to his own authority. He told Yan Xishan to station troops along the Shanxi border with Chahar, among them the 42nd Division under Feng Qinzai, the Chinese 35th Army under Fu Zuoyi and the Chinese 3rd Army under Pang Bingxun.
In July, the Chinese 17th Army under Xu Tingyao and the 87th Division under Wang Jingjiu took over from the forces of Sun Dianying. They gained control of the Peking-Suiyuan rail line. That choked off any supplies or reinforcements from outside.
Chiang also worked on the volunteers' internal divisions. He sent in spies to gather intelligence, spread rumors and stir up quarrels, and to buy or win over some leaders. Generals Gang Bao, Feng Zhanhai, Li Zhongyi and Tan Zixin eventually defected to him. Deng Wen was assassinated.
Japan used the disunity to invade Chahar again. On the 8th of August its aircraft bombed Guyuan, and its troops attacked Guyuan and Dolonnur. Ji Hongchang briefly halted them. But food, clothing, ammunition and money were running out, and Chahar itself could not feed an army. Feng Yuxiang could not bring in supplies from outside the province.
Feng had already sent a telegram on the 5th of August announcing that he would disband the army. He asked the national government to let Song Zheyuan return to oversee the process. Many officers and men were unpaid, starving and ill, and they were easily persuaded to join the Chinese Army or accept disbanding. Feng resigned on the 18th of August and left Chahar. The Japanese retook Dolonnur immediately afterward.
Song Zheyuan then handed out posts to former commanders. Ruan Xuanwu became the Shandu garrison commander, and Zhang Lingyun took the same role at Baochang. Zhang Lisheng accepted a post as consultant to the provincial government in return for disbanding the Chahar Self-Defense Army. Other units were reduced and reorganized. What remained of the army, under Fang Zhenwu and Ji Hongchang, was now a shadow of itself.
East of Ertaizi, Fu Zuoyi and Zhang Lingyun caught up with some of Ji Hongchang's subordinates. They had tried to slip west toward Ningxia by way of Suiyuan. The blockers forced them back east, where they joined Fang Zhenwu at Dushikou. Fang was now commander-in-chief.
On the 10th of September, Ji went to Yunzhou, north of Chicheng, for a military conference with Fang, Tang Yulin and Liu Guitang. They renamed their force the Resist Japan Thief Punitive Expeditionary Army. Fang took command, Tang became his deputy, Liu led the Right Route and Ji the Left Route. Nationalist forces lay to the south and the Japanese to the north, so they chose to march south toward Peking.
Both forces crossed the Great Wall on the 20th of September. The next day, Ji attacked Huairou and Fang Zhenwu occupied Miyun. Behind them, Liu Guitang talked with Song Zheyuan and went back over to the Japanese. He received the title Bandit Suppression Commander of Eastern Chahar, with three regiments at Chicheng, Dushikou and Yunzhou. His troops blocked Tang's from following, so Fang and Ji went on alone.
On the 25th of September, Fang occupied Gaoliying. The next day a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft dropped a warning to withdraw from the demilitarized zone set by the Tanggu Treaty. When he did not, Japanese aircraft bombed his position on the 27th. The two commanders pressed on with about 6,000 men, roughly half of them unarmed, split into three groups.
At Changping in early October, Ji's forces ran into troops under Shang Zhen, Guan Linzheng and Pang Bingxun. Within days the Allied Army was surrounded. Short of food and ammunition, Fang and Ji's men still broke out to the east at Xiaotangshan after several days of heavy fighting. They suffered heavy losses and were trapped again. The remaining 4,500 men had to surrender.
Ji slipped away in the confusion and went to Tianjin to keep up his opposition to Japan. Fang Zhenwu went into exile in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, on the grasslands to the north, a different movement had been gathering around a Mongol prince.
In September 1933, Mongolian princes from Chahar and Suiyuan traveled to Bathahalak, north of Kweihwa. There they met in council with Prince Demchugdongrub, who had spent months trying to found a Pan-Mongolian Self-rule Movement. The princes had a long tradition of mistrusting one another. In mid-October they still agreed to draw up a Confederation of Inner Mongolian States.
They sent a message to Nanking with a warning. If Inner Mongolian autonomy was not formally recognized, they would look to Japan for help. Chiang Kai-shek responded by allowing the Mongol Local Autonomy Political Affairs Committee. In trying to assert its authority, that committee fought two serious clashes with Suiyuan provincial forces over the following year.
Japanese backing for an Inner Mongolian Autonomous Government came from General Jirō Minami, the Kwantung Army commander, and Colonel Seishirō Itagaki. Their first overture stalled. In April 1935, Minami sent Major Ryūkichi Tanaka and another officer to interview the prince, and no agreement was reached.
June 1935 changed the picture. The North Chahar Incident led to the Chin-Doihara Agreement, which forced the Chinese 29th Army out of everything north of Changpei. That amounted to nearly total Chinese evacuation of Chahar. Public order passed to a Peace Preservation Corps, a police body with only light weapons. No Chinese settlers could move into northern Chahar, and the Kuomintang was banned there, along with every other anti-Japanese institution.
In August 1935, Minami met Demchugdongrub. The prince promised close cooperation with Japan, and Minami promised financial assistance. On the 24th of December 1935, Minami sent two battalions of irregular Manchurian cavalry under Li Shouxin, a squadron of aircraft and a few tanks. The six xian of northern Chahar were defended by only a few thousand Peace Preservation Corps men. With Li's help, the Inner Mongolian forces quickly overran them.
In late April 1936, at West Wuchumuhsin, Prince Demchugdongrub and Li Shouxin met the Japanese Special Service Chief, Captain Takayoshi Tanaka. Representatives from Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Outer Mongolia attended what was called the State-Founding Conference. The plan was a new Mongolian Empire covering all of Inner and Outer Mongolia and Qinghai province. Itagaki's promotion to Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army had pushed plans for invading Suiyuan forward.
On the 12th of May 1936, the conference produced the Mongol Military Government. A mutual assistance agreement with Manchukuo followed in July, and Japan agreed to supply military and economic aid. With Japanese advisors, the prince expanded his army from three cavalry divisions to nine. The Japanese handed over weapons captured from the Northeastern Army.
The quality of the new men was another matter. The Japanese officer Tanaka ignored the advice of the Mongolian leaders and recruited poorly armed levies and former bandits from many regions. The result was an irregular force of around 10,000 men with little unity, weak training and low morale. It proved a liability rather than an asset. The Grand Han Righteous Army under Wang Ying, a Chinese force of doubtful loyalty, was attached to it as well.
The Japanese added a Mengjiang Air Force with 28 combat aircraft. Japanese air and ground crews flew and maintained them from Changpei to give the army close air support. Artillery pieces and armoured cars arrived too, along with reportedly as many as thirty tanks or tankettes, also crewed by Japanese. The South Manchurian Railway Company sent 150 trucks to form a transportation regiment, and the Manchukuo government supplied communications equipment.
On paper, it was a modern force. Its target was Suiyuan, and General Fu Zuoyi was waiting.
To defend Suiyuan, Fu Zuoyi asked for reinforcements from Yan Xishan, the governor of Shanxi, and from Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang's Central Army had moved into Shaanxi province to attack Chinese Red Army units arriving after the Long March. On the 9th of August, Yan sent the Chinese 19th Army under Wang Jingguo. It included the 68th Division, the 7th and 8th Independent Brigades and four artillery regiments. On the 18th of September, the Central Army contributed one anti-aircraft artillery battalion.
On the 14th of October, Chiang telegraphed Yan that he was sending Tang Enbo with the Chinese 13th Army, which had two divisions, and Men Bingyue's 7th Cavalry Division. Yan and Fu met Chiang on the 30th of October. On the 11th of November, Yan organized his forces into three Route Armies, a Cavalry Army and a Reserve Army, to be placed as soon as Tang Enbo's troops arrived.
The invasion came first. It began on the 14th of November 1936, when the Inner Mongolian Army's 7th and 8th Cavalry Divisions attacked the Chinese garrison at Hongort. They were joined by Wang Ying's Grand Han Righteous Army and Mongol mercenaries from Rehe, Chahar and other regions. Thirty Japanese advisors supported them.
After several days of fighting, the attackers still had not taken the town. On the 17th of November a Chinese counterattack caught them by surprise and set off a disorganized retreat. Fu Zuoyi exploited the confusion with a flanking move west of the Mongolian headquarters at Bailingmiao. He attacked, captured it and routed the Mongolian forces. Wang Ying's army was trucked to a point near Bailingmiao and launched a counterattack. It failed dismally on the 19th of December, and most of the attackers were captured or wiped out.
The defeat of Japan's proxies encouraged many Chinese to demand more active resistance. The Xi'an Incident came right after the campaign, and the Suiyuan result may have helped trigger it. Small-scale fighting in Suiyuan continued until open hostilities began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident the following year.
Demchugdongrub, beaten in Suiyuan, had to rebuild. With Japanese help, his army numbered 20,000 men in eight cavalry divisions by the time war broke out in July 1937. Those forces took part in Operation Chahar and in the Battle of Taiyuan, where Japanese regulars and their Inner Mongol allies finally captured eastern Suiyuan.
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Common questions
Why did Japan use proxy armies in Inner Mongolia?
The Tanggu Truce blocked the Imperial Japanese Army from advancing south. To avoid overtly violating it while pursuing a buffer state in northern China, the Japanese government used proxy forces such as the Inner Mongolian Army, the Manchukuo Imperial Army and the Grand Han Righteous Army.
What was the Chahar People's Anti-Japanese Army?
It was an irregular force proclaimed on the 26th of May 1933, with Feng Yuxiang as commander-in-chief, Fang Zhenwu as vice-commander-in-chief and Ji Hongchang as front-line commander. Estimates of its size ranged from 60,000 to 120,000 men, and most volunteers lacked guns or modern weapons.
Why did the Anti-Japanese Allied Army collapse in 1933?
Chiang Kai-shek saw it as a communist-dominated threat to his authority. The Kuomintang cut rail service to Kalgan, took control of the Peking-Suiyuan rail line to block supplies, and worked to divide its leaders. Japan also invaded Chahar again in August. Feng Yuxiang resigned on the 18th of August 1933.
Who was Prince Demchugdongrub?
He was a Mongol prince who pursued a Pan-Mongolian Self-rule Movement. He cooperated with the Kwantung Army, built up an Inner Mongolian army with Japanese help, and led it into the Suiyuan campaign of 1936.
How did the Suiyuan campaign end?
Chinese forces under Fu Zuoyi repelled the invasion that began on the 14th of November 1936. They counterattacked on the 17th of November and captured the Mongolian headquarters at Bailingmiao, and Wang Ying's counterattack failed on the 19th of December. The defeat encouraged calls for stronger resistance to Japan.
All sources
9 references cited across the entry
- 2Guo Rugui, 第二部分：从“九一八”事变到西安事变抗日同盟军的抗日行动
- 4Jowett pg.40
- 5Guo Rugui 第二部分：从“九一八”事变到西安事变察哈尔民众抗日同盟军 1
- 6Guo Rugui, 第二部分：从“九一八”事变到西安事变抗日同盟军的解体和
- 7Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the WestHsiao-ting Lin — Taylor and Francis — 2010
- 8Jowett pg.57
- 9Guo Rugui, 第二部分：从“九一八”事变到西安事变 日本侵绥的战备企图和中日