Editing Second Sino-Japanese War (section)

===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>