Into the Grinding Mill

In August 1937 hostilities broke out between Chinese troops and Japanese Marines posted in Shanghai. The Japanese escalated the conflict by large-scale troop landings outside the city and took the coastal town of Baoshan after a brutal siege. Japanese forces then advanced toward a line of fixed defenses …

1937-09-12

J147

In August 1937 hostilities broke out between Chinese troops and Japanese Marines posted in Shanghai. The Japanese escalated the conflict by large-scale troop landings outside the city and took the coastal town of Baoshan after a brutal siege. Japanese forces then advanced toward a line of fixed defenses near the key road junction at Luodian, manned by 300,000 Chinese soldiers. The Japanese massed more than 100,000 troops, supported by overwhelming firepower of naval guns, artillery, tanks, and airplanes. The carnage and ferocity of the ensuing battle earned Luodian the Chinese nickname “grinding mill of flesh and blood”.

Luodian, China

The Battle of Shanghai was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It lasted from August 13, 1937, to November 26, 1937, and was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war, later described as "Stalingrad on the Yangtze", and is often regarded as the battle where World War II started. After over three months of extensive fighting on land, in the air and at sea, the battle concluded with a victory for Japan. Since the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 followed by the Japanese attack of Shanghai in 1932, there had been ongoing armed conflicts between China and Japan without an official declaration of war. These conflicts finally escalated in July 1937, when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the full advance from Japan. Dogged Chinese resistance at Shanghai was aimed at stalling Japanese advance, giving much needed time for the Chinese government to move vital industries to the interior, while at the same time attempting to bring sympathetic Western powers to China's side. During the fierce three-month battle, Chinese and Japanese troops fought in downtown Shanghai, in the outlying towns, and on the beaches of the Yangtze River and Hangzhou Bay, where the Japanese had made amphibious landings.

Japanese

Chinese

Scenario Type = Standard