Source:

01-13-2006 17:38

Faced by growing resistance from the Chinese people and their own inability to sustain a protracted war, the Japanese invaders had been forced to change their policy in China. The Japanese realized that, in the short term at least, administering China was beyond their capabilities. In March 1940, they help to set up a puppet government in Nanjing, led by Wang Jingwei. One of his first acts was to enforce a strict blockade against the Communist Army. As for the Chinese people living under Japanese rule, life became utterly miserable. Prices were soaring, looting and plunder were rife, and Japanese had been introduced as the compulsory language at middle schools and colleges.

With the loss of Yichang, the gateway to Chongqing lay open. The approaching danger sent a sense of unease and confusion sweeping through the Chinese people in the rear area. Supplies were difficult to come by, after most of the railways and seaports in the East of the country had fallen into enemy hands. To add to the difficulties, the British, under pressure from the Japanese, had closed the Burma Road in July 1940. China’s sole lifeline had been cut, and the war against Japan entered its most difficult period.

Germany’s successful blitzkrieg operations in Europe and the retreat of the Anglo-French forces from Dunkirk seemed to give the Japanese a boost. They pushed southwards in the Pacific and took control of Southeast Asia. In China, 1940 saw the Japanese attacks become even more ferocious, with an intensified bombing campaign and an expansion of the blockade along the Chinese coastline. The aim was to force the Kuomintang to surrender. But the enemy’s plans were thwarted by the “Hundred Regiments Campaign” launched by the Eighth Route Army in the Shanxi and Hebei area. Japanese outposts were attacked and railways were destroyed, halting their further advance. The Campaign was the biggest attack led by the Chinese Communist Party against the enemy during the war, and proved to be an important morale booster.

 

Editor:Wang Ping