Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
After the Mukden Incident, when the Japanese Kwantung Army invaded the provinces of Liaoning and Jilin, Governor Wan Fulin of Heilongjiang Province was in Beijing, leaving no one in authority in the province to take charge of defenses against the Japanese. Zhang Xueliang telegraphed the Nanjing Government to ask for instructions, and then appointed Ma Zhanshan to act as Governor and Military Commander-in-chief of Heilongjiang Province on October 10, 1931. Ma arrived in the capital Qiqihar on October 19 and took office the next day. He held military meetings and personally inspected the defense positions while facing down parties advocating surrender, saying “I am appointed as Chairman of the province, and I have the responsibility to defend the province and I will never be a surrendering general”.
Ma Zhanshan in 1931.
Japanese repeatedly demanded to repair the Nen River Bridge, which had been dynamited in earlier civil strife to prevent an advance by a rival Chinese warlord. These demands were refused by Ma Zhanshan. The Japanese, determined to repair the bridge, sent a repair crew, guarded by 800 Japanese soldiers. Nearby were 2,500 Chinese troops, and the Battle of Nenjiang Bridge ensued. Each side charged the other with opening fire without provocation, and thus began the Jiangqiao Campaign. Although eventually forced to withdraw his troops in the face of Japanese tanks and artillery, Ma became a national hero for his resistance to the Japanese, which was reported in the Chinese and international press. Ting Chao and other senior commanders followed Ma's example at the industrial city of Harbin in Jilin province and elsewhere, and his successes inspired the local Chinese to aid or enlist in his forces. On November 18, Ma evacuated Qiqihar. However, after the General Ting Chao was driven from Harbin, Ma's forces suffered serious casualties and were soon driven over the Soviet border.
Ma appealed in a telegram to the League of Nations asking for help against the Japanese.
$2,000 were cabled by Chinese in America to Ma to help him fight.
Ma Zhanshan with Kung-Yu-Chao, Minister of Foreign Affairs, after negotiations with the Japanese in Hailun, 1931.
Manchukuo
Because of his fame and heroics efforts in resisting the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Colonel Kenji Doihara offered Ma Zhanshan a huge sum of $3,000,000 in gold to defect to the new Manchukuo Imperial Army. Ma agreed, and offered to tour the country to reconcile the local inhabitants to the new government. He flew to Shenyang in January 1932, where he attended the meeting that founded the puppet state of Manchukuo. Ma was ill at the time, and avoided the signing of the Independence Declaration of Manchukuo. He attended the inaugural ceremony of Pu Yi as Regent of Manchukuo in March the same year, and was appointed as War Minister of Manchukuo and Governor of Heilongjiang Province under the new government. However, the Japanese did not fully trust Ma (as with other Manchukuo officials), and he had to ask approval from his Japanese advisor about all matters of the province before taking any actions.
General Ma had secretly decided to rebel against the Japanese after his "defection", using large amounts of Japanese money to raise and re-equip his new volunteer force with munitions. He secretly transported weapons and ammunition out of the arsenals, and evacuated the wives and families of his troops to safety. On April 1, 1932, he led his troops from Qiqihar, supposedly on a tour of inspection. However, at Heihe on April 7, he announced the reestablishment of the Heilongjiang Provincial Government, and his independence from Manchukuo. Ma reorganized his troops into 9 brigades at the beginning of May, and then he established another 11 troops of volunteers at Buxi, Gannan, Keshan, Kedong, and other places. This force was styled the “Northeast Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army”. Ma appointed himself as nominal Commander-in-chief and absorbed the other volunteer armies in the region, commanding a total fighting force of about 300,000 men at its peak strength.
The units under Ma undertook ambushes along the major roads and badly weakened Manchukuo and Japanese troops in several engagements. In the “Ma Chan-shan Subjugation Operation”, the Kwantung Army transferred a large mixed force of Japanese and Manchukuo troops to encircle and destroy Ma's Army. Ma Zhanshan's troops, though seriously depleted from previous battles, escaped due to the laxity of the Manchukuo troops. In September, Ma Zhanshan arrived in Longmen County and established a relationship with the Heilungkiang National Salvation Army of Su Bingwen. In the “Su Ping-wei Subjugation Operation”, 30,000 Japanese and Manchukuo troops forced Ma Zhanshan and Su Bingwen to retreat across the border into the Soviet Union in December. Most of these troops were then transferred to Rehe.
General Ma Zhanshan commanded 3,500 guerilla fighters against the Japanese, conducting attacks such as a raid on the Manchukuo treasury, attacking Changchun, the capital, and hijacking six Japanese planes from an airfield.
General Ma caused so much trouble to the Japanese that when his equipment and horse were captured, the Japanese presented them to the Emperor in Tokyo, assuming that he was dead. They were enraged to discover that he had survived and escaped. The China monthly review reported that "the persistence with which the Japanese telegrams reiterate and insist that General Ma Chan-san is dead is little short of comical". The Japanese, over the course of several months, continuously invented different versions of how Ma Zhanshan allegedly "died".
After General Ma escaped, his men kept up the fight against the Japanese occupying forces. They seized 350 Japanese and Korean hostages and held them for weeks and kidnapped foreigners such as the son of a British general and an American executive's wife.
Ma Zhanshan on horseback in the snow in 1932.
