On September 18, 1931, hundreds of officers and men of the Japanese Kwantung Army launched a fearful attack on the heavily defended North Camp of the Northeast Army. At that time, the garrison of the North Camp was Wang Yizhe's Seventh Brigade, which was one of the most elite units of the Northeast Army, with a total of more than 7,000 people, well-equipped and well-trained, and the brigade commander Wang Yizhe was Zhang Xueliang's confidant. However, under Zhang Xueliang's order not to resist, this unit did not carry out fierce resistance and withdrew from the North Camp.
After the fall of the North Camp, in addition to Wang Yizhe's troops, the rest of the Northeast Army troops also withdrew from the garrison area. The Japanese occupied the entire northeast in just three months. The Japanese Kwantung Army's gamble was actually not agreed with at home, but it did not expect the gamble to win, and the Japanese Kwantung Army, a force of only 20,000 people, later developed into a million troops, becoming the largest and best equipped unit among the four major Japanese fronts. So, after the end of the 9/18 incident, how big did China lose?
Although Zhang Zuolin was a big boss, he attached great importance to the talent development and economic development of the northeast, and at that time the northeast had more than half of the country's heavy industrial facilities, and the most complete military facilities in China at that time could be said to be all in the northeast region. The northeast accounted for more than half of the country's total economy, which is why after the Central Plains War, Zhang Xueliang could divide the world equally with Chiang Kai-shek and control half of China north of the Yellow River.
The morning after the September 18 Incident, the Japanese army rushed into Shenyang. After entering Shenyang, the Japanese army went straight to the Marshal's Mansion and confiscated all the family property of the Marshal's Mansion. The Japanese army transported 80,000 gold bars and hundreds of thousands of taels of silver directly to the northeast of the Marshal's Mansion, in addition, countless gold and silver in the Marshal's Mansion were also transported away. In addition to the Zhang family's own property, the government-run banks in various parts of the northeast and the private banks of the Zhang family were all raided by the Japanese army, plus the loss of railways and military and political organs, exceeding 20 billion.
In the northeast, there was also the Fengtian Arsenal, the largest arsenal in the entire East Asian region at that time, which Zhang Zuolin built at great expense. The Japanese captured 150,000 rifles, thousands of light and heavy machine guns, thousands of artillery of various types, and countless bullets from this arsenal. The Fengtian mortar factory was also captured by the Japanese, and more than 3,000 mortars and more than 300,000 shells were captured by the Japanese. In addition, the Northeast Army also had the most powerful aviation unit in China at that time, with a total of nearly 300 fighters of various types, which were also captured by the Japanese army. You know, in 1937, the Nationalist government's aviation force had only 300 fighters.
Northeast China is rich in mineral resources, forestry resources, agricultural resources, and during the fourteen years of Japanese colonial rule in Northeast China, it frantically plundered local resources. Japan has also moved 550,000 immigrants to the Tohoku region, which accounts for half of the high-quality arable land in the Northeast. After occupying the northeast, the Japanese army began to gradually have the strength to invade China in its entirety, accumulating strength for the subsequent all-round invasion of China.