Jinan incident

A map of troop movements in the lead up to the Jinan incident, April–May 1928

By April 1928, Chiang Kai-shek had once again consolidated power, at which time he resumed the Northern Expedition. The NRA was able to quickly push back the forces of Beiyang-aligned warlord Sun Chuanfang, and advanced into Shandong. Sun retreated to Jinan by railway on 17–18 April, leaving the path to Jinan open to the NRA.[14] When the Japanese learned of Sun's failure to defend Shandong, Prime Minister Tanaka, on the counsel of his military advisors, decided to deploy the 6th Division to Jinan on 19 April, in what was called the "Second Shandong Expedition" (第二山東出兵, Dai-ni Santō Shuppei).[14][15] Whilst Tanaka had misgivings about whether it was prudent to launch the expedition, his party, the Rikken Seiyūkai, had run on a platform of "protecting nationals on the spot" in the February 1928 election, limiting his ability to moderate the Japanese response.[16] Even before Tanaka had given the order, troops under the command of General Fukuda Hikosuke had begun arriving in Jinan via the Qingdao–Jinan railway, possibly as early as 10 April.[14] This was the first serious case of unilateral action by the post-Meiji Restoration Japanese military.[17] The first substantial group of 475 troops, however, arrived in Jinan from Qingdao on 20 April. They were followed by over 4,000 more troops over the coming days. The arrival of the Japanese troops in Jinan, just as the Beiyang-aligned forces had retreated there, prompted suspicions about whether the Beiyang warlords had asked for a Japanese intervention. This was used as propaganda by the Kuomintang, though Beiyang government leader Zhang Zuolin denied doing any such thing.[14][15] Both the Beiyang government and the KMT government in Nanjing protested against the Japanese action, deeming it a violation of Chinese sovereignty.[17]

As the NRA launched a pincer attack on Jinan, the railways to Qingdao and Beijing were damaged, preventing warlord-aligned troops from receiving reinforcements.[14] This also brought the NRA in conflict with the Japanese, who were guarding the Qingdao–Jinan railway, though no violence broke out at this stage. On 29 April, chaos erupted as the warlord troops began to flee northwards across the Luokou Yellow River Railway Bridge, abandoning Jinan. As they left the city, the warlord forces were reported to have engaged in looting, though Japanese-inhabited areas continued to be protected by Japanese troops.[3] Public dissatisfaction with the presence of the Imperial Japanese Army in Shandong became increasingly evident, their presence viewed as a new attempt by the Japanese to seize control of the region, as they had in 1914 during the First World War. NRA troops marched into Jinan over the course of 30 April and 1 May, and took control without trouble.[3] On 2 May, Chiang Kai-shek began negotiations with the Japanese to withdraw their troops, gave assurances to Japanese Major General Ryū Saitō that there would be no disruption in Jinan, and ordered his troops to proceed northward from Jinan with haste, so as to avoid any potential conflict.[18][2][19] Following the negotiations, Saitō decided to begin preparations to withdraw the Japanese troops, and said that all security matters in Jinan would then be entrusted to Chiang. General Fukuda later gave his approval to this decision, and the Japanese troops began withdrawal during the night of 2–3 May.[18][20]

The area remained quiet, though tense, until a clash erupted between Japanese and NRA soldiers during the morning of 3 May. The exact details of what instigated the clash are contested between the Japanese and Chinese sides.[21][22] As the Japanese immediately destroyed the Chinese wireless station after the clash began, they were left in control of the only working line of communication out of Jinan, forcing foreign media reports to rely entirely on the Japanese version of the events.[23][3] According to the official Japanese narrative, as reported by General Fukuda, a group of Chinese soldiers under the command of General He Yaozu, reputed to have been responsible for the Nanjing incident, broke into an office of the Japanese Manshū Nippō newspaper, and assaulted its proprietor at 09:30.[24][25] A group of Japanese soldiers commanded by Captain Kumekawa Yoshiharu patrolling in the area rushed to the scene, and attempted to stop the Chinese soldiers. The Chinese soldiers then opened fire on the Japanese troops, causing the Japanese to return fire.[24] In the Chinese version of events, as recorded by Chiang Kai-shek, a sick Chinese soldier who had attempted to seek treatment at a local Christian hospital with the help of a local labourer was blocked from proceeding down the street to the hospital by Japanese soldiers, sparking a verbal argument. The Japanese then shot and killed the soldier and the labourer.[2] Different Chinese sources, however, reported different versions of the events, and this gave the impression that the Chinese were inventing stories to justify their behaviour.[26] The Japanese version, however, is marked by its own association with the later use of disinformation tactics by the Kwantung Army in the Huanggutun and Mukden incidents.[27]

Former foreign office building in Jinan, site of the killing of Cai Gongshi

Regardless of who started the clash, it quickly resulted in a full-scale conflict between the NRA and the Japanese Army. The Japanese reported that NRA soldiers had "run amok", causing mass destruction and a massacre of Japanese civilians, and the British Acting Consul-General reported that he had seen corpses of Japanese males that had been emasculated.[27][15] In an incident that would provoke Chinese outrage, Japanese soldiers entered a building that the Chinese later said was their negotiation headquarters, and killed Chinese diplomat Cai Gongshi, eight members of his staff, seven NRA soldiers, and one cook.[28] The exact nature of the killing is contested between the Japanese and Chinese sides, with the Japanese claiming they were attacked from the upper floors, and did not know that the building was a government office or that Cai held the position of negotiator.[29] The Chinese, on the other hand, said that the building was clearly marked, and that Cai's nose, ears, and tongue were cut off, and his eyes gouged out, before he was executed. The other members of his staff were reported by the Chinese to have been stripped naked, whipped, dragged out to the back lawn and killed with machine guns.[30] In response to these reports, Major General Ryū Saitō wrote that the Chinese account was "propaganda", that Cai was simply shot dead during ongoing fighting between the Japanese and Chinese, and that one cannot cut off ears or noses with a bayonet.[31]

Negotiations to halt the escalating violence quickly began, with Chiang and Fukuda agreeing to a truce. Chiang, who was not interested in conflict with the Japanese, and wanted to continue the Northern Expedition, agreed to withdraw his troops from the city, leaving only a small number to keep order.[22][27] On 4 May, however, the Japanese reported that their chief negotiator, Colonel Sasaki Tōichi, was robbed and nearly beaten to death, and only saved by intervention of one of Chiang's officers. In addition, they claimed that Chiang's promise to remove all Chinese soldiers from the Japanese-inhabited commercial area of the city had not been implemented.[27] Speaking after the Sasaki incident, Major General Tatekawa Yoshitsugu said that it was "necessary for Japan to chastise the lawless Chinese soldiers in order to maintain Japan's national and military prestige".[27] Responding to a request from General Fukuda, Prime Minister Tanaka ordered the despatch of reinforcements from Korea and Manchuria in the "Third Shandong Expedition" (第三山東出兵, Dai-san Santō Shuppei), which began arriving in Jinan on 7 May.[22]

With his forces bolstered, General Fukuda issued a set of demands to the Chinese, to be met within twelve hours. These were: punishment of responsible Chinese officers, the disarming of responsible Chinese troops before the Japanese army, evacuation of two military barracks near Jinan, prohibition of all anti-Japanese propaganda, and withdrawal of all Chinese troops beyond 20 li on both sides of the Qingdao–Jinan railway.[22] The Japanese knew that the Chinese would not be able to fulfil their demands within the stated timeframe. Instead, their issuance was designed to raise the morale of Japanese troops, cow the Chinese, and demonstrate the "determination" of the Japanese military to foreigners.[32] As expected, the demands were viewed as humiliating and unacceptable by the Chinese. In response, Chiang, who had left the area, sent a courier to the Japanese garrison, stating that he would meet some, but not all of the stated demands.[22] Fukuda, who deemed that his demands had not been met, launched a full-scale attack on the Chinese in Jinan in the afternoon of 8 May.[33] Fighting was fiercest on the night of 9–10 May, with the Japanese using artillery to bombard the old walled city, where the remaining NRA troops had holed up. The civilian population of the old city were not warned in advance of the Japanese bombardment, which is thought to have resulted in many casualties. The final group of Chinese soldiers escaped under the cover of night on 10–11 May.[29][34] By morning, the Japanese had gained full control of Jinan, and took up positions in the walled city.[33] The city would remain under Japanese occupation until March 1929, when an agreement to settle the dispute over Jinan was reached.[2] The period of occupation was defined by oppression, with freedom of the press and assembly proscribed, postal correspondence censored, and residents killed for alleged sympathies with the KMT.[35]