Editing Second Sino-Japanese War (section)

==1938==
By January 1938, most conventional Kuomintang forces had either been defeated or no longer offered major resistance to Japanese advances.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|122}}  KMT forces won a few victories in 1938 (the [[Battle of Taierzhuang]] and the [[Battle of Wanjialing]]) but were generally ineffective that year.<ref name=":022" />{{Rp|page=29}} By March 1938, the Japanese controlled almost all of North China.<ref name=":022" />{{Rp|pages=29–30}} Communist-led rural resistance to the Japanese remained active, however.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Opper |first=Marc |title=People's Wars in China, Malaya, and Vietnam |year=2020 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |isbn=978-0-472-90125-8 |location=Ann Arbor |doi=10.3998/mpub.11413902 |hdl=20.500.12657/23824 |s2cid=211359950}}</ref>{{rp|122}}

===Battles of Xuzhou and Taierzhuang===
[[File:Taierzhuang.jpg|thumb|Chinese soldiers in [[urban warfare]] in the [[Battle of Taierzhuang]], March–April 1938]]

With many victories achieved, Japanese field generals [[Battle of Xuzhou|escalated the war in Jiangsu]] in an attempt to wipe out the Chinese forces in the area. The Japanese managed to overcome Chinese resistance around Bengbu and the Teng xian, but were fought to a halt at Linyi.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mackinnon |first=Stephen |title=Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China |date=2008 |publisher=University of California Press |pages=32}}</ref>

The Japanese were then decisively defeated at the Battle of Taierzhuang (March–April 1938), where the Chinese used night attacks and [[close-quarters combat]] to overcome Japanese advantages in firepower. The Chinese also severed Japanese supply lines from the rear, forcing the Japanese to retreat in the first Chinese victory of the war.{{sfn|Mitter|2013|pp=149–150}}

The Japanese then attempted to surround and destroy the Chinese armies in the Xuzhou region with an enormous [[pincer movement]]. However the majority of the Chinese forces, some 200,000–300,000 troops in 40 divisions, managed to break out of the encirclement and retreat to defend Wuhan, the Japanese's next target.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Storm Clouds over the Pacific, 1931–1941 |year=2018 |publisher=Casemate |page=111}}</ref>

===Battle of Wuhan===
[[File:NRAWanjialing1.jpg|thumb|Chinese troops advancing near Wanjialing]]

Following Xuzhou, the IJA changed its strategy and deployed almost all of its existing armies in China to [[Battle of Wuhan|attack the city of Wuhan]], which had become the political, economic and military center of China, in hopes of destroying the fighting strength of the NRA and forcing the KMT government to negotiate for peace.{{sfn|Huang|p=168}} On 6 June, they captured Kaifeng, the capital of Henan, and threatened to take Zhengzhou, the junction of the Pinghan and Longhai railways.

The Japanese forces, numbering some 400,000 men, were faced by over 1 million NRA troops in the Central Yangtze region. Having learned from their defeats at Shanghai and Nanjing, the Chinese had adapted themselves to fight the Japanese and managed to check their forces on many fronts, slowing and sometimes reversing the Japanese advances, as in the case of [[Battle of Wanjialing|Wanjialing]].<ref name="Mackinnon2008" />{{rp|39–41}}

To overcome Chinese resistance, Japanese forces frequently deployed poison gas and committed atrocities against civilians, such as a "mini-Nanjing Massacre" in the city of [[Jiujiang]] upon its capture.<ref name="Mackinnon2008">{{Cite book |last=Mackinnon |first=Stephen |title=Wuhan 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China |year=2008 |publisher=University of California Press}}</ref>{{rp|39}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Storm Clouds over the Pacific, 1931–1941 |year=2018 |publisher=Casemate |pages=119}}</ref> After four months of intense combat, the Nationalists were forced to abandon Wuhan by October, and its government and armies retreated to Chongqing.<ref name="Crean" />{{rp|72}} Both sides had suffered tremendous casualties in the battle, with the Chinese losing up to 500,000 soldiers killed or wounded,<ref name="Mackinnon2008" />{{rp|42}} and the Japanese up to 200,000.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clodfelter |first=Michael |title=Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 |year=2017 |publisher=McFarland & Company |edition=4th |page=393}}</ref>

===Communist resistance===
After their victory at Wuhan, Japan advanced deep into Communist territory and redeployed 50,000 troops to the [[Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region]]. Elements of the Eighth Route Army soon attacked the advancing Japanese, inflicting between 3,000 and 5,000 casualties and resulting in a Japanese retreat.<ref name=":4" />{{Rp|pages=122–124}} The Eighth Route Army carried out guerilla operations and established military and political bases.<ref name=":022" />{{Rp|pages=34–35}} As the Japanese military came to understand that the Communists avoided conventional attacks and defense, it altered its tactics.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|122}} The Japanese military built more roads to quicken movement between strongpoints and cities, blockaded rivers and roads in an effort to disrupt Communists supply, sought to expand militia from its puppet regime to conserve manpower, and use systematic violence on civilians in the Border Region in an effort to destroy its economy. The Japanese military mandated confiscation of the Eighth Route Army's goods and used this directive as a pretext to confiscate goods, including engaging in grave robbery in the Border Region.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|122–124}}

With Japanese casualties and costs mounting, the Imperial General Headquarters attempted to break Chinese resistance by ordering the [[Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service]] and [[Imperial Japanese Army Air Service]] to launch the war's first [[Strategic bombing during World War II#Japanese bombing|massive air raids]] on civilian targets. Japanese raiders hit the Kuomintang's newly established [[Bombing of Chongqing|provisional capital of Chongqing]] and most other major cities in unoccupied China, leaving many people either dead, injured, or homeless.

===Yellow River flood===
[[File:1938 June Yellow River.gif|thumb|National Revolutionary Army soldiers during the [[1938 Yellow River flood]]]]
{{Excerpt|1938 Yellow River flood|paragraphs=1–2}}