When Japan began its military adventures in China in 1931, it was a society in turmoil. Less than 80 years previously, it had been forced out of two-and-a-half centuries of self-imposed seclusion from the rest of the world.
1894 and 1936, Imperial Japan fought several “small wars” against Tonghak Rebels, Taiwanese millenarians, Korean Righteous Armies, Germans in Shandong, Taiwan Indigenous Peoples, and “bandits” in Manchuria.
