Kwantung ArmyThe Kwantung Army (Japanese: 関東軍, Kantō-gun) was a general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945. The Kwantung Army formed in 1906 as a security force for the Kwantung Leased Territory and South Manchurian Railway Zone after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, and expanded into an army group during the Interwar period to support Japanese interests in China, Manchuria, and Mongolia.
VladivostokVladivostok (ˌvlædɪˈvɒstɒk ; Владивосто́к, vlədjɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, in the far east of Russia. It is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area of , with a population of 600,871 residents as of 2021. Vladivostok is the second-largest city in the Far Eastern Federal District, as well as the Russian Far East, after Khabarovsk. It is located approximately from the China–Russia border.
Mukden IncidentThe Mukden Incident was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, Lieutenant Suemori Kawamoto of the Independent Garrison Unit of the 29th Japanese Infantry Regiment (独立守備隊) detonated a small quantity of dynamite close to a railway line owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway near Mukden (now Shenyang). The explosion was so weak that it failed to destroy the track, and a train passed over it minutes later.
KantokuenKantokuen (関特演, from 関東軍特種演習, Kantōgun Tokushu Enshū, "Kwantung Army Special Maneuvers") was an operational plan created by the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army for an invasion and occupation of the Russian Far East, capitalizing on the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in June 1941. Involving seven Japanese armies and a major portion of the empire's naval and air forces, it would have been the largest combined arms operation in Japanese history up to that point, and one of the largest of all time.
KhabarovskKhabarovsk (Хабаровск xɐˈbarəfsk) is the largest city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located from the China–Russia border, at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, about north of Vladivostok. As of the 2021 Russian census, it had a population of 617,441. The city was the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia from 2002 until December 2018, when the status was given to Vladivostok. It is the largest city in the Russian Far East, having overtaken Vladivostok in 2015.
Pacific WarThe Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast Pacific Ocean theater, the South West Pacific theater, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Soviet–Japanese War. The Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China had been in progress since 7 July 1937, with hostilities dating back to 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
Russian Far EastThe Russian Far East (Дальний Восток России) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is administered as a part of the Far Eastern Federal District, which is located between Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean. The area's largest city is Khabarovsk, followed by Vladivostok. The region shares land borders with the countries of Mongolia, China, and North Korea to its south, as well as maritime boundaries with Japan to its southeast, and with the United States along the Bering Strait to its northeast.
Second Sino-Japanese WarThe Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945, as part of World War II. In China, the war is called the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (). This total war between China and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, although some scholars consider the European War and the Pacific War to be entirely separate, albeit concurrent.
ManchukuoManchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until 1945. It was founded ostensibly as a republic in 1932 from the lands seized by the Japanese during their invasion of Manchuria, and in 1934 it became a constitutional monarchy still under de facto Japanese control, with the final Emperor of China Puyi as its figurehead.
Puppet stateA puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government is a state that is de jure independent but de facto completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders. Puppet states have nominal sovereignty, except that a foreign power effectively exercises control through economic or military support. By leaving a local government in existence the outside power evades all responsibility, while at the same time successfully paralyzing the local government they tolerate.
