On September 18, 1931, the Japanese army deliberately created the "918 Incident" on the South Manchuria Railway, provoked the incident and then launched a surprise attack on the North Camp where the Northeast Army was located, occupying the three eastern provinces in the shortest possible time. For the surprise attack of the Japanese army, Zhang Xueliang, who was the highest commander in the northeast at the time, adopted a "policy of non-resistance", which made him a sinner who was reviled by the world, but in fact, as a soldier who took obedience to orders as his duty, Zhang Xueliang did not do wrong, he obeyed the orders of the Nanjing Nationalist Government headed by Chiang Kai-shek, so that the three eastern provinces fell into the hands of the Japanese Kou, for many reasons, and a very important policy was Chiang Kai-shek's policy of "taking the outside world before being at home".
To say that he hates the Japanese, Zhang Xueliang is no less than others, and it is precisely because of the "Huanggutun Incident" created by the Japanese that he killed his father, Zhang Zuolin, the king of the Northeast. In the face of the Threats and Inducements of the Japanese, Zhang Xueliang resolutely announced that the Northeast would change its banner, obey the Three People's Principles, and accept the command of the Nationalist Government in Nanjing, thus enabling China to achieve formal unification. Zhang Xueliang's move was exactly what the people wanted, winning the support of the whole country, and the three eastern provinces he ruled were once considered to be the Great Wall for the defense of Japan. However, for this premeditated raid, Zhang Xueliang was a little undecided. This is mainly based on the following reasons:
First, Zhang Xueliang did not have enough understanding of the aggressive ambitions of the Japanese. As early as the time of Ito Hirobumi's administration, the Japanese top level already had a plan to "cut off southern Manchuria and occupy China." In 1927, Japan held the "Eastern Conference" and formulated the "Program of Policy Toward China," which established the policy of separating Manchuria and Mongolia from China and turning it into a Japanese colony. In July of the same year, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiichi Tanaka submitted the infamous Tanaka Recital, openly declaring: "If you want to conquer China, you must first conquer Manchuria and Mongolia; if you want to conquer the world, you must first conquer China." Under this thinking, the Japanese army made careful preparations for the occupation of the three eastern provinces. Zhang Xueliang and others who ruled the northeast at that time did not think much of this, they believed that the Northeast Army had a strength of nearly 300,000 troops, which was also one of the best in the country and well-equipped, while the Japanese Kwantung Army only had a few tens of thousands of people, which was not worrying at all. The Northeast Army came from top to bottom, most of them with this idea, and there was no preparation for battle except for routine exercises.
Second, Zhang Xueliang believed that the strength of the Northeast Army was difficult to resist the Japanese army. Although the strength of the Northeast Army is comparable in China, and there is an air force and navy, in the Central Plains War in 1930, Zhang Xueliang was tempted by Chiang Kai-shek to lead an army of 100,000 into the customs, resulting in the emptiness of the northeast defense and a great reduction in strength. In addition, in the face of the well-trained and well-equipped Kwantung Army, Zhang Xueliang felt that the hundreds of thousands of Northeast Troops stationed in the Northeast were not strong enough to resist Japan. If a war is rushed, it is likely to weaken the strength of the Northeast Army and lose territory. Therefore, he issued an order not to resist, strictly requiring the military and the people to "fight back and scold and not return the mouth" to the unreasonable provocations of the Japanese, and not to give the Japanese an excuse to provoke a war, so as to avoid the escalation of the situation. It was under the influence of this negative thinking that the Japanese army drove straight in and quickly captured most of the three eastern provinces.
In the face of the Japanese provoking incidents, Chiang Kai-shek also lacked a sufficient understanding of Japan's aggressive ambitions and repeatedly adhered to the erroneous policy of "taking care of the outside world before at home." After the Central Plains War, although Chiang Kai-shek ostensibly unified the whole country, the forces on all sides were not really satisfied. Moreover, Chiang Kai-shek continued to adhere to the anti-communist campaign and mobilized large armies to carry out large-scale "encirclement and suppression" of the Red Army on many occasions. On the eve of the "918 Incident", Jiang mobilized 300,000 troops to carry out the third encirclement and suppression of the Red Army. After the outbreak of the September 18 Incident, Chiang Kai-shek was in the midst of a political whirlpool, and forces from all sides were trying to force Chiang Kai-shek to go into the wilderness, and Chiang was too busy with infighting to take care of external troubles. After the Japanese army successively occupied a large area of territory in our three eastern provinces, he was still busy consolidating his own rule and adopted a policy of non-resistance to the Japanese army.
On September 23, 1931, the Nationalist government in Nanjing issued a "Letter to the People of the Whole Country", saying that it would "strictly order the national army to avoid conflict with the Japanese army, and unanimously warn the people to maintain a serious and calm attitude." Under the pressure of the Japanese army step by step, the Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kai-shek still stubbornly pursued a policy of non-resistance, and the Japanese army soon occupied more than one million square kilometers of land in the northeast, and more than 30 million of our compatriots became slaves to the country. The war of Japanese aggression did not stop because of this, and under the indulgence of this policy, the Japanese army burned the war to the vast areas of Chinese mainland, bringing great suffering to hundreds of millions of people.