|
Canton Operation
The Canton Operation (; pinyin: Guǎngzhōu Zhànyì) was part of a campaign by Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War to blockade China to prevent it from communicating with the outside world and importing needed arms and materials. Control of Guangzhou (Canton) and the Pearl River Delta would provide a base to make the blockade of Guangdong province more effective by seizing southern China's major port and isolate the British port of British Hong Kong. Background By the end of 1937, south China was crucial to the Republic of China as a means of maintaining contact with the outside world. Guangzhou and Hong Kong served as vital centers of transportation and international aid to Chiang Kai-Shek. Approximately 80 percent of supplies from abroad to the Chinese forces in the interior passed through Guangzhou. Imperial General Headquarters believed that a blockade of Guangdong province would deprive China of essential war material and the ability to prolong the war. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War. The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. Some Chinese historians believe that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 18 September 1931 marks the start of the war. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. China fought Japan with aid from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States. After the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts which are generally categorized under those conflicts of World War II a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sampan
A sampan is a relatively flat-bottomed Chinese and Malay wooden boat. Some sampans include a small shelter on board and may be used as a permanent habitation on inland waters. The design closely resembles Western hard chine boats like the scow or punt. Sampans are generally used for transportation in coastal areas or rivers and are often used as traditional fishing boats. It is unusual for a sampan to sail far from land, as they do not have the means to survive rough weather. Some think that "sampan" is the Cantonese pronunciation of the Chinese word 舢舨, or "shan-ban" in "Pinyin" (standard) pronunciation). Of the two characters, "舢" (shan, literally "mountain-like") means ocean-going large ship, and "舨" (ban, literally "return") means small boat for shuttling between the ship and shore. Since the small boat is necessary for the big ship where deep water port was not available, it became one word meaning "the small boat for the big ship". Later it was generalized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tungsten
Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolated as a metal in 1783. Its important ores include scheelite and wolframite, the latter lending the element its alternate name. The free element is remarkable for its robustness, especially the fact that it has the highest melting point of all known elements barring carbon (which sublimes at normal pressure), melting at . It also has the highest boiling point, at . Its density is , comparable with that of uranium and gold, and much higher (about 1.7 times) than that of lead. Polycrystalline tungsten is an intrinsically brittle and hard material (under standard conditions, when uncombined), making it difficult to work. However, pure single-crystalline tungsten is more ductile and can be cut with a hard-steel hacksaw. Tungsten occurs in many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
The Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact () was signed in Nanjing on August 21, 1937, between the Republic of China and the Soviet Union during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The pact went into effect on the day that it was signed and was registered in '' League of Nations Treaty Series'' on September 8, 1937. Effects At first, the pact led to improving relations between the Kuomintang government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Soviet Union. After the signing of the pact, the Soviets began sending aircraft to the Chinese national government in Operation Zet, as well as economic aid, to help stave off the Japanese invasion. Chiang hoped that was a precursor to Soviet intervention into the war, but as time passed, he soon realized that the Soviet Union was constricted in the aid that it could provide to avoid upsetting the tacit alliance with the United Kingdom, France, and later the United States, all of which favored China in the war but would back Japan against the Soviets to weaken ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hankou
Hankou, alternately romanized as Hankow (), was one of the three towns (the other two were Wuchang and Hanyang) merged to become modern-day Wuhan city, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers where the Han flows into the Yangtze. Hankou is connected by bridges to its triplet sister towns Hanyang (between Han and Yangtze) and Wuchang (on the south side of the Yangtze). Hankou is the main port of Hubei province and the single largest port in the middle reaches of Yangtze. History The city's name literally means "Mouth of the Han", from its position at the confluence of the Han with the Yangtze River. The name appears in a Tang Dynasty poem by Liu Changqing. Other historical names for the city include Xiakou (), Miankou (), and Lukou (). Hankou, from the Ming to late Qing, was under the administration of the local government in Hanyang, although it was already one of the four major national markets ( :zh:四大名镇) in Ming dyna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kowloon–Canton Railway
The Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR; ) was a railway network in Hong Kong.Legislative Council information paper CB(1)357/07-08(0 THB(T) CR 8/986/00, CB(1)1749/07-08(0/ref> It was owned and operated by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) until 2007. Rapid transit services, a light rail system, feeder bus routes within Hong Kong, and intercity passenger and freight train services to China on the KCR network, have been operated by the MTR Corporation since 2007. While still owned by its previous operator, the KCR network (which is wholly owned by the Hong Kong Government through the KCRC) has been operated by the MTR Corporation Limited under a 50-year, extendible, service concession since 2 December 2007. The two companies have merged their local metro lines into one unified fare system. Immediately after the merger, steps were taken to integrate the network into the same fare system as the MTR, and gates between the two networks were removed in several stages in 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guangzhou–Hankou Railway
The Guangzhou–Hankou or Yuehan railway is a former railroad in China which once connected Guangzhou on the Pearl River in the south with Wuchang on the Yangtze River in the north. At the Yangtze, the railway carriages were ferried to Hankou, which then connected to the Beijing–Hankou railway. It was constructed from 1900 to 1936 and, from their former romanizations, was known at the time as the . The completion of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge in 1957 finally linked the two lines into a single contiguous railway and its former track now forms the southern leg of the Beijing–Guangzhou railway. History In 1897, a concession for the Beijing–Hankou railway was awarded to a Belgian consortium backed by French financing. The British were then the dominant foreign power in China, and the Belgian concession would keep the important route out of British hands. To prevent the French from controlling the entire route between Beijing and Guangzhou, the Chinese government act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial General Headquarters
The was part of the Supreme War Council and was established in 1893 to coordinate efforts between the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during wartime. In terms of function, it was approximately equivalent to the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the British Chiefs of Staff Committee. History The Imperial General Headquarters was established by Imperial Decree 52 on 22 May 1893 under the auspices of creating a central command for both the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff. The Emperor of Japan who was defined as both Head of State and the Generalissimo of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces according to the Meiji Constitution of 1889 to 1945, was the head of the Imperial General Headquarters, and was assisted by staff appointed from the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy. The Imperial General Staff Headquarters was completely independent of the civilian government of the Empire of Japan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chiang Kai-Shek
Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 to his death in 1975 – until 1949 in mainland China and from then on in Taiwan. After his rule was confined to Taiwan following his defeat by Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War, he continued to head the ROC government until his death. Born in Chekiang (Zhejiang) Province, Chiang was a member of the Kuomintang (KMT), and a lieutenant of Sun Yat-sen in the revolution to overthrow the Beiyang government and reunify China. With help from the Soviets and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chiang organized the military for Sun's Canton Nationalist Government and headed the Whampoa Military Academy. Commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army (from which he came to be known as a Generalissimo), he led the Northern Expedition from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Hong Kong
Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841, during the First Opium War between the British and the Qing dynasty. The Qing had wanted to enforce its prohibition of opium importation within the dynasty that was being exported mostly from British India, as it was causing widespread addiction among its populace. The island was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking, ratified by the Daoguang Emperor in the aftermath of the war of 1842. It was established as a crown colony in 1843. In 1860, the British took the opportunity to expand the colony with the addition of the Kowloon Peninsula after the Second Opium War, while the Qing was embroiled in handling the Taiping Rebellion. With the Qing further weakened after the First Sino-Japanese Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl River Delta
The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD; ; pt, Delta do Rio das Pérolas (DRP)) is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Referred to as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in official documents, the region is one of the most densely populated and urbanized regions in the world, and is considered a megacity by numerous scholars. It is currently the wealthiest region in Southern China and one of the wealthiest regions in China along with the Yangtze River Delta in Eastern China and Jingjinji in Northern China. Most of the region is part of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, which is a special economic zone of China. The region is a megalopolis, and is at the southern end of a larger megalopolis running along the southern coast of China, which include metropolises such as Chaoshan, Zhangzhou-Xiamen, Quanzhou- Putian and Fuzhou. The nine largest cities of the PRD had a combined populatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
