Changes

The total size of the CCP Army, including the New Fourth Army, which was newly formed in November 1937, did not exceed 70,000 people. Its power was weakened further by internal fractional politics; it could have been eliminated in a single battle.  If the CCP were to face the Japanese in battle, it would not be able to defeat a single division of Japanese troops. Sustaining its own power rather than ensuring the survival of the nation was the central focus and the reason for its emphasis on “national unity.”  

The total size of the CCP Army, including the New Fourth Army, which was newly formed in November 1937, did not exceed 70,000 people. Its power was weakened further by internal fractional politics; it could have been eliminated in a single battle.  If the CCP were to face the Japanese in battle, it would not be able to defeat a single division of Japanese troops. Sustaining its own power rather than ensuring the survival of the nation was the central focus and the reason for its emphasis on “national unity.”  

After the Japanese occupied the city of Shenyang on Sept. 18, 1931, thereby extending Japanese control over large areas in northeastern China, the CCP fought alongside Japanese invaders to defeat the KMT.  The CCP exhorted people in the KMT-controlled areas to rebel against the KMT, calling on “workers to strike, peasants to make trouble, students to boycott classes, poor people to quit working, soldiers to revolt” so as to overthrow the Nationalist government.

After the Japanese occupied the city of Shenyang on Sept. 18, 1931, thereby extending Japanese control over large areas in northeastern China, the CCP fought alongside Japanese invaders to defeat the KMT.   

The KMT Army was essentially alone on the frontlines fighting the Japanese, losing more than 200 marshals in the war. The commanding officers on the CCP side bore nearly no losses. However, the textbooks of the CCP have constantly claimed that the KMT did not resist the Japanese and that it was the CCP that led the great victory in the war against Japan.

The Japanese set up a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit in [[Harbin]]. Unit 731 and its affiliated units  were involved in research, development and experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both military and civilian) throughout World War II. Plague-infected fleas, bred in the laboratories of Unit 731 and Unit 1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes upon Chinese cities, including coastal Ningbo and Changde, [[Hunan]] Province, in 1940 and 1941.<ref name="ciadoc" /> This military aerial spraying killed tens of thousands of people with [[bubonic plague]] epidemics. An expedition to [[Nanjing|Nanking]] involved spreading [[Typhoid fever|typhoid]] and paratyphoid germs into the wells, marshes, and houses of the city, as well as infusing them into snacks to be distributed among the locals. Epidemics broke out shortly after, to the elation of many researchers, where it was concluded that paratyphoid fever was "the most effective" of the pathogens.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/Sheldon%20H.%20Harris%20-%20Factories%20of%20Death%20-%20Japanese%20Biological%20Warfare%2C%201932-1945%2C%20and%20the%20American%20Cover-Up%20%28pdf%29%20-%20roflcopter2110%20%5BWWRG%5D/Sheldon%20H.%20Harris%20-%20Factories%20of%20Death%20-%20Japanese%20Biological%20Warfare%20%28pdf%29%20-%20roflcopter2110%20%5BWWRG%5D.pdf|title=Factories of Death |last=Harris|first=Sheldon|page=77}}</ref><ref>Barenblatt, Daniel. ''A Plague Upon Humanity: the Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation'', HarperCollins, 2004. {{ISBN|0-06-018625-9}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

 

At least 12 large-scale field trials of biological weapons were performed, and at least 11 Chinese cities were attacked with biological agents. An attack on Changda in 1941 reportedly led to approximately 10,000 biological casualties and 1,700 deaths among ill-prepared Japanese troops, with most cases due to cholera.<ref name="histpersp" /> Japanese researchers performed tests on prisoners with [[bubonic plague]], [[cholera]], [[smallpox]], [[botulism]], and other diseases.<ref>[https://fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/bw/ Biological Weapons Program-Japan] Federation of American Scientists</ref> This research led to the development of the defoliation bacilli bomb and the flea bomb used to spread bubonic plague.<ref>[http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/germwar/731rev.htm Review of the studies on Germ Warfare] Tien-wei Wu ''A Preliminary Review of Studies of Japanese Biological Warfare and Unit 731 in the United States''</ref> Some of these bombs were designed with [[porcelain]] shells, an idea proposed by Ishii in 1938.

 

Due to pressure from numerous accounts of the bio-warfare attacks, [[Chiang Kai-shek]] sent a delegation of army and foreign medical personnel in November 1941 to document evidence and treat the afflicted. A report on the Japanese use of plague-infested fleas on Changde was made widely available the following year, but was not addressed by the Allied Powers until [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] issued a public warning in 1943 condemning the attacks.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Biohazard: Unit 731 and the American Cover-Up (Page 5)|url=https://www.umflint.edu/sites/default/files/groups/Research_and_Sponsored_Programs/MOM/b.altheide.pdf|website=[[University of Michigan–Flint]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Guillemin|first=Jeanne|date=2017|editor-last=Friedrich|editor-first=Bretislav|editor2-last=Hoffmann|editor2-first=Dieter|editor3-last=Renn|editor3-first=Jürgen|editor4-last=Schmaltz|editor4-first=Florian|editor5-last=Wolf|editor5-first=Martin|title=The 1925 Geneva Protocol: China's CBW Charges Against Japan at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal|journal=One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences|language=en|publisher=Springer International Publishing|pages=273–286|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_15|isbn=9783319516646|doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Yanan Rectification Movement===

===Yanan Rectification Movement===