Chapter sixteen: Distant guns
Hardly the Kangxi Emperor could imagine that one of his most impressive architectural achievements would be the place for China's biggest nightmare. The Lugou Bridge, also know as the Marco Polo Bridge, is a famous stone bridge located to the southwest of Beijiong, across the Yongding River. Praised by the Venetian traveler Marco Polo as one of the finest bridges of the world, it was there where the Second Sino-Japanese War began.
Since June 1937 the Japanese army had become used to carry out intensive military training maneuvers in the vicinity of the western end of the Marco Polo Bridge. As these were held at night, the Chinese government requested to be noticed in advance. Tokio agreed but, on the night of July 7, 1937, some hotheaded Japanese commander decided to carry out a night exercise without giving the Chinese prior warning. Of course, the local Chinese forces were taken by surprise and, as it uses to happen when dealing with armed men, a shot was fired. The Japanese soldiers, of course, replied to the fire and the Chinese, thinking themselves attacked, fired back. Thus both sides kept shooting at each other for some time after both commanders decided to call it a day. Then, once the troops were back in their barracks, it was found that a Japanese soldier went missing. His company commander, Major Kiyonao Ichiki, thought that the Chinese had captured him, and reported the incident to his regimental commander, Colonel Renya Mutaguchi. Mutaguchi was well know in the Imperial Army for his fanatic belief in the Bushido and for being quite short-tempered (what in any other army you would call a fire-eater and a real pain in the arse). So, when he was told by Ichiki about the incident, he sprung into action at once and sent his whole regiment, plus some mountain guns and machine guns, against the Chinese troops which were protecting the Marco Polo Bridge.The Chinese, once recovered from the nasty surprise, also rushed an extra division to the area and, of course, thus the incident began.
Initially the Japanese forces overran the bridge and its vicinity but the reinforced Chinese soon outnumbered the Japanese (1) and were able to retake the bridge. At this point, the Japanese Foreign Service began negotiations in Beijing with the Chinese Nationalist government and a verbal agreement with General Qin was reached, whereby an apology would be given by the Chinese; punishment would be dealt to those responsible; and the Chinese would recover the control the area. This was agreed upon, though a Japanese commander, General Masakazu Kawabe, rejected the truce and continued to shell Wanping against his superiors' orders for the next three hours until he was told to stop at once.
If the truce had remained in place, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident would have ended as a minor, albeit foolish, skirmish. However, from midnight of July 9, Japanese and Chinese kept reinforcing the area, with four divisions of Chinese troops and three on the Japanese side rushing to the area. Confronted with the threat of another battle, General Kanji Ishiwara requested the Japanese government to make public statements on the matter, and he got surprised when Tokio took a too hard-line approach for the Kwantung Army's taste. Thus, while Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye managed to make a big balls-up of the whole situation, the tension kept rising and some Japanese guns shelled Wanping.
Of course, the Chinese took Konoye's words quite badly and attacked the Japanese lines on the 27 July, but it was a bad ideas, as they discovered when the Japanese soldieres gave them a black eye. Then the Japanese released their tanks and the Japanese tanks began crossing the bridge. The Second Sino-Japanese War had begun. By the end of July, the Imperial Japanese Army captured the Chinese capital, Beijing, and the port city of Tientsin, while the Japanese marines landed in Shangai on August 8. However, a much larger Chinese army was awaiting them, and this resulted in massive fighting from the 13th onwards which included heavy raids of the Japanese Air Force against the city, causing in ten thousands of civilian casualties. In spite of lacking an Air Force worth of that name and having a navy that was a joke, the Chinese held their ground against the incoming Japanese for nearly two weeks.
Then came the death knell for the Republic of China. By early August both London, Paris and Berlin were decided to do something about the "China Incident". Then, August 21 1937, the governments of the Republic of China and the Soviet Union sign a Non-Aggression Pact, resulting in an improvement of the relations between the two nations, and to the secret 'Operation Zet': Moscow was to send aircrafts and resources to help the Kuomintang against the invading Japanese. Of course, as it happens with any "secret operation", someone "leaked" the content of the agreement to the Abwehr, the Deuxième Bureau and the MI5 (2). At once, London and Paris agreed: Beijing had sided with the evil. China was on its own, now (3).
One of the Soviet Polikarpov I-16 fighters sent to reinforce the Chinese Airforce.
(1) Really? Are you kidding me, aren't you?
(2) That 'someone' clearly didn't know how to keep a secret, methinks.
(3) Just exactly as she was BEFORE the "leaking".
@FlyingDutchie: The Panzer II was a clever German plot to keep confused the foreign spies.
Von Papen and von Schleicher are swallowing their pride and rage for Stressmann's success. With a bit of luck von Papen may become the next German ambassador in the Tibet and von Schleicher will end trainning the Chilean army.
@Razgriz 2K9: They had to begin somewhere...
@Nathan Madien: Even the French must protect against themselves
The guy of the second row was an anarchist in disguise, obviously...
@El Pip: Purging the Reichbank and the Ministry of Finance was a tempting idea, I must confess, but I decided to keep things simple: as Britain wasn't in the mood to utter destroy Germany and knowing that she would need a strong German economy to buy their goods, Lloyd George didn't press for a Versailles Treaty too hard, as I mentioned in the GW AAR. Also, someone pay attention to Hjalmar Schacht during the Great War and imposed an income tax to pay for the war instead of funding the war effort entirely by borrowing. They did borrow and thus the Mark fell a bit against the US dollar, but not so much. Also, London didn't issue their ultimatum of May 1921 demanding the reparations to be paid in gold or foreign currency, thus Berlin didn't need to to buy foreign currency with Marks at any price, the Mark didn't sank as fast as it did in OTL, there was no Ruhr occupation, no general strike, no more money printed foolishly and inflation remained inflation and didn't become hyperinflation.
