Sino-Japanese Conflict, Second
A minor clash between troops of a Chinese army and Japanese units at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing on 7 July 1937 led quickly to the undeclared 1937–1945 Sino-Japanese war, referred to here as the second Sino-Japanese conflict to avoid confusion with the brief but significant Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Ever since the Japanese victory in this first war, the Japanese government had advanced a variety of schemes to help China emerge from the deep political and social disorder into which it was falling. The Chinese vigorously rejected most of these Japanese schemes. In many ways, by the mid-1930s a second war between Japan and China seemed inevitable because Chinese public opinion was growing increasingly anti-Japanese while the Japanese had used military force to create the puppet state of Manchuko in China's northeast and continued to press their control of other parts of China through military means.
Aggressive Phase, 1937–1939
In the initial aggressive phase of the war from July 1937 through February 1939, the Japanese armies established control over all of north China and the most important parts of east China, including the great port city of Shanghai, along with all the important cities in the Chang (Yangtze) River Valley region and along China's long coastline.
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