Editing Second Sino-Japanese War (section)

===Battle of Beiping–Tianjin===
{{Main|Battle of Beiping–Tianjin}}
On 11 July, in accordance with the Goso conference, the [[Imperial Japanese Army General Staff]] authorized the deployment of an [[infantry division]] from the [[Chosen Army of Japan|Chōsen Army]], two combined brigades from the [[Kwantung Army]] and an air regiment composed of 18 squadrons as reinforcements to Northern China. By 20 July, total Japanese military strength in the Beijing-Tianjin area exceeded 180,000 personnel.

The Japanese gave Sung and his troops "free passage" before moving in to pacify resistance in areas surrounding Beijing (then Beiping) and Tianjin. After 24 days of combat, the Chinese 29th Army was forced to withdraw. The Japanese captured Beijing and the [[Taku Forts]] at Tianjin on 29 and 30 July respectively, thus concluding the Beijing-Tianjin campaign. By August 1937, Japan had occupied Beijing and Tianjin.<ref name=":022"/>{{Rp|page=29}}

However, the Japanese Army had been given orders not to advance further than the Yongding River. In a sudden volte-face, the Konoe government's foreign minister opened negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek's government in Nanjing and stated: "Japan wants Chinese cooperation, not Chinese land." Nevertheless, negotiations failed to move further. The [[Battle of Shanghai#Ōyama Incident|Ōyama Incident]] on 9 August escalated the skirmishes and battles into full scale warfare.<ref name="Hoyt2001">{{cite book |author=Edwin Palmer Hoyt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xITp5N5hceEC&pg=PA152 |title=Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict |year=2001 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8154-1118-5 |pages=152–}}</ref>

The 29th Army's resistance (and poor equipment) inspired the 1937 "[[Sword March]]", which—with slightly reworked lyrics—became the National Revolutionary Army's standard [[marching cadence]] and popularized the [[racial epithet]] ''[[guizi]]'' to describe the Japanese invaders.<ref>Lei, Bryant. [http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/download/pdf/12207607.pdf ''"New Songs of the Battlefield": Songs and Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution'', p.&nbsp;85.] University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh), 2004.</ref>