The Battle of West Suiyuan () was part of the

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 Th ...

. It was fought from January – February 1940, as part of the Chinese

1939 Winter Offensive This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January ...

Battle

In 1937 the Chinese government picked up intelligence that the Japanese planned a puppet Hui Muslim country around Suiyuan and Ningxia, and had sent agents to the region. The ''Middlesboro Daily News'' ran an article by

Owen Lattimore Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of ''Pacif ...

which reported on Japan's planned offensive into the Muslim region in 1938, which predicted that the Japanese would suffer a massive crushing defeat at the hands of the Muslims. The Japanese planned to invade Ningxia from Suiyuan in 1939 and create a

Hui The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...

Muslim puppet state. The following year in 1940, the Japanese were defeated militarily by the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

Muslim General Ma Hongbin, who caused the plan to collapse. Ma Hongbin's Hui Muslim troops launched further attacks against Japan in the Battle of West Suiyuan. In Suiyuan 300 Mongol collaborators serving the Japanese were fought off by a single Muslim who held the rank of Major at the Battle of Wulan Obo in 1939 April. Muslim Generals Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin defended west Suiyuan, particularly Wuyuan in 1940 against the Japanese. Ma Hongbin commanded the 81st corps and sustained heavy casualties, but eventually repulsed the Japanese and defeated them. Japan used poison gas against Chinese Muslim armies at the

Battle of Wuyuan The Battle of Wuyuan (March 16 – April 3, 1940; ) was a Chinese counterattack that defeated the Japanese invasion of the Wuyuan area. This happened in reaction to the Chinese 1939-40 Winter Offensive in Suiyuan during the Second Sino-Japanese W ...

and Battle of West Suiyuan.

References

West Suiyuan Battles involving Mengjiang 1940 in China January 1940 events February 1940 events {{WWII-battle-stub