Japan invading China, WWII (jan 1, 1931 – jan 1, 1945)

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After the First Sino-Japanese war, Japan had control of Taiwan, Manchuria, and forced China into signing economical and political treaties. The Japanese wanted to annihilate the Kuomintang government, so they invaded China in 1937. This was the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan was doing well the first year of the war. They won victories over and over again. The Japanese occupied the entire Chinese coast. Starting there, they moved inward to the interior of China,. On their move inward, they slaughtered many Chinese civilians. One of these was the Nanjing Massacre. 57,418 Chinese prisoners of war and civilians were killed. 142,000 Chinese died according to the Japanese, when really 340,000 chinese died and 20,000 raped women ._. The Chinese didn't want to fight the Japanese, because they knew they would probably lose to them. This allowed Japan to take over all of South and Eastern China. Japan also had access to China's ports. China relied on the ports to collect weapons from overseas, but they were left hopeless when that was taken away from them. The Japanese faced a consequence though. As they traveled inward, they thought it would be easy to defeat China, but it was a long war. Their money was going down the drain, because wars were expensive. The more the Nationalists gathered in the center of China, the more difficult it would be for the Japanese to defeat them. Also, China didn't have anything modern, so it was hard for the Japanese to get back up military people. And the more troops needed, the more of the cost. China had enough, and the Nationalists and Communists united to try and defeat the Japanese. 1.7 million men were assembled, and the Chinese government was still not defeated. America supported CHina with weapons. Japan then bombed Pearl Harbor in the USA for this, which made the USA support China even more. Britain joined the war when Japan messed with them too. Japan's navy thought the USA was the main thing they should aim to destroy, while the army was concerned about the Soviet Union. 20 million people died by the Japanese during World War II, and about half of those deaths were Chinese.

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