Battle of Nanking

• 1. Origins And Strategic Context

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  In July 1937, a skirmish at Marco Polo Bridge ignited the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan dispatched the Shanghai Expeditionary Army under General Iwane Matsui to drive Chinese forces from Shanghai. The fighting lasted three months and ended with a Japanese victory in early November. This success allowed Matsui to push his army toward Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of China, decided to defend the city despite strong opposition from his own generals. He believed holding Nanjing would prove China's resolve to Western powers attending the Nine Power Treaty Conference. Chiang also hoped it would strengthen his position for peace talks mediated by German ambassador Oskar Trautmann. However, many officers argued that Nanjing was topographically indefensible. They pointed out that the gently sloping terrain favored attackers while the Yangtze River behind the city blocked retreat routes. Despite these warnings, Chiang appointed Tang Shengzhi to command the hastily assembled Nanjing Garrison Force on November 25.

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• 2. Defensive Preparations And Forces

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  By December 6, all gates into Nanjing were closed and barricaded with sandbags and concrete layers thick enough to stop heavy artillery. The city walls themselves rose up to ten meters high and had been studded with machine gun emplacements since the Ming Dynasty. Outside the walls, defenders constructed semicircular defense lines including the Fukuo Line which stretched about five kilometers from the city. Key positions included Zijinshan to the northeast and Yuhuatai plateau to the south where fortifications were especially dense. On December 7, Tang Shengzhi ordered scorched earth tactics burning homes within one kilometer of the city to deny Japanese forces shelter or supplies. The defending army numbered between 73,000 and 81,500 men according to most reliable estimates. These troops included three elite German-trained divisions plus a super-elite Training Brigade but nearly all units had suffered severe casualties in Shanghai. To replenish losses, 40,200 men from supplementary battalions were sent toward the frontlines while another 16,000 fresh soldiers arrived from Hankou. Most new recruits received only rudimentary training before being thrown into battle.

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• 3. Japanese Advance And Atrocities

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  General Matsui's subordinates raced toward Nanjing at breakneck speeds averaging twenty kilometers per day instead of following his planned slow advance. By December 2, the Shanghai Expeditionary Army captured Danyang more than five days ahead of schedule. This rapid movement left supply lines far behind forcing Japanese soldiers to loot civilians along the route. A journalist in the 10th Army recorded that officers tacitly consented to looting and rape as necessary for speed. The 170 miles between Shanghai and Nanjing became a nightmarish zone of death where unarmed farmers were strafed by aircraft for fun. In the Nanqiantou hamlet, soldiers locked inhabitants inside burning houses then cut open the belly of a pregnant woman to gouge out her fetus. Two women were raped repeatedly before being murdered while a crying two-year-old boy was wrestled from his mother and thrown into flames. Many Chinese civilians committed suicide including two girls who deliberately drowned themselves near Pinghu. Japanese newspapers reported on a killing contest between two officers who competed to behead one hundred Chinese captives each.

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• 4. The Final Siege And Breach

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  On December 9, Japanese forces reached the Fukuo Line behind which lay Nanjing's fortified walls. At dawn the next day, soldiers from the 36th Infantry Regiment engaged a battalion of the elite Training Division outside Guanghua Gate. After half the defenders became casualties, the rest withdrew into the wall but exposed their positions with electrical lights to attack with small arms fire. Japanese engineers attempted three times to blow holes in the gate without success. By noon on December 12, Yuhuatai plateau had been overrun and virtually every man of the 88th division defending it had been killed including three regimental commanders. The Japanese suffered heavy casualties of some 2,240 losses including 566 dead according to their own records. At Zhonghua Gate, Japanese artillery fired so many rounds that part of the city wall finally crumbled allowing troops to seize the gate by nightfall. Meanwhile, other units punched through lines south of Shuixi Gate launching a violent drive supported by tanks. Over the course of the battle roughly 1,000 Chinese soldiers were shot dead by members of their own army for attempting retreat.

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• 5. International Incidents And Diplomacy

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  In the morning of December 12, American gunboat USS Panay escorted three Standard Oil river tankers away from the battle zone. The ship was clearly marked by two large American flags painted on canvas awnings yet Japanese naval aircraft led by Lieutenant Shigeharu Murata attacked and bombed the vessel. After twenty minutes of continuous bombing, the Panay caught fire and listed to starboard before sinking at 3:54 pm. Two crewmen and one civilian died while another forty-three crew members and five civilians were wounded. Survivors hid in reeds of a nearby island where they witnessed a passing Japanese motorboat machine-gun the sinking ship. An Imperial Army officer named Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto ordered firing on the Panay as it sank and also targeted several British vessels including SS Scarab and HMS Cricket. When complaints arose that these ships clearly displayed the British flag, Hashimoto replied he did not recognize any flag but his own. He issued orders for troops to fire on all ships regardless of nationality.

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• 6. The Massacre And Aftermath

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  By December 13, Nanjing had fallen to the Japanese after Tang Shengzhi escaped across the Yangtze River leaving most units disintegrating in open retreat. Following the capture of the city, Japanese forces massacred Chinese prisoners of war murdered civilians and committed acts of looting torture and rape known collectively as the Nanjing Massacre. Though Japan's victory excited and emboldened them, the subsequent massacre tarnished their reputation globally. Contrary to General Matsui's expectations China did not surrender and the Second Sino-Japanese War continued for another eight years leading eventually to Japan's surrender. The scale of violence remained shrouded in controversy with estimates varying widely among historians regarding total death tolls. Some scholars argue figures reach hundreds of thousands while others maintain lower numbers based on unit-by-unit analysis. Regardless of exact statistics the event left deep scars on Sino-Japanese relations that persist into modern times.

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