PuyiThe Xuantong Emperor (born Puyi; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final monarch of the Qing dynasty and ruler of the puppet state of Manchukuo under the Empire of Japan from 1934 to 1945. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate at the age of six in 1912 during the Xinhai Revolution. His era name as Qing emperor, "Xuantong" (Hsuan-t'ung, 宣統), means "proclamation of unity".
History of the Republic of ChinaThe history of the Republic of China begins after the Qing dynasty in 1912, when the Xinhai Revolution and the formation of the Republic of China put an end to 2,000 years of imperial rule. The Republic experienced many trials and tribulations after its founding which included being dominated by elements as disparate as warlord generals and foreign powers.
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.
Warlord EraThe Warlord Era was a period in the history of the Republic of China when control of the country was divided among former military cliques of the Beiyang Army and other regional factions from 1916 to 1928. In historiography, the Warlord Era began in 1916 upon the death of Yuan Shikai, the de facto dictator of China after the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China in 1912. Yuan's death created a power vacuum that spread across the regions of Sichuan, Shanxi, Qinghai, Ningxia, Guangdong, Guangxi, Gansu, Yunnan and Xinjiang.
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.
HarbinHarbin (ha:r'bIn,_-bi:n; ; ) is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital and the largest city of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as the second largest city by urban population after Shenyang and largest city by metropolitan population (urban and rural together) in Northeast China. Harbin has direct jurisdiction over nine metropolitan districts, two county-level cities and seven counties, and is the eighth most populous Chinese city according to the 2020 census.
Empire of JapanThe Empire of Japan or Japanese Empire, also referred to as Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation-state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the reformed Constitution of Japan in 1947. From 29 August 1910 until 2 September 1945, it administered the naichi (the Japanese archipelago and post-1943 Karafuto) and the gaichi (Korea, Taiwan, Kwantung Leased Territory, and pre-1943 Karafuto). The South Seas Mandate was a single Japanese dependent territory in the name of the League of Nations.
Yasukuni Shrineis a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It was founded by Emperor Meiji in June 1869 and commemorates those who died in service of Japan, from the Boshin War of 1868–1869, to the two Sino-Japanese Wars, 1894–1895 and 1937–1945 respectively, and the First Indochina War of 1946–1954, including war criminals. The shrine's purpose has been expanded over the years to include those who died in the wars involving Japan spanning from the entire Meiji and Taishō periods, and the earlier part of the Shōwa period.
Battle of Lake KhasanThe Battle of Lake Khasan (29 July – 11 August 1938), also known as the Changkufeng Incident (Хасанские бои, Chinese and Japanese: ; Chinese pinyin: ; Japanese romaji: ) in China and Japan, was an attempted military incursion by Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state, into the territory claimed and controlled by the Soviet Union. That incursion was founded in the Japanese belief that the Soviet Union had misinterpreted the demarcation of the boundary based on the Treaty of Peking between Imperial Russia and Qing China and the subsequent supplementary agreements on demarcation and tampered with the demarcation markers.
Northern ExpeditionThe Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The purpose of the campaign was to reunify China, which had become fragmented in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1911. The expedition was led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and was divided into two phases.
