Huanggutun incident

The Huanggutun incident (Chinese: 皇姑屯事件; pinyin: Huánggū Tún Shìjiàn), also known as the Zhang Zuolin Explosion Death Incident (Japanese: 張作霖爆殺事件, Hepburn: Chō Sakurin bakusatsu jiken) in Imperial Japan, was the bombingassassination of Fengtian cliquewarlordZhang Zuolin, who was the Acting President of the Republic of China and the last head of state of the Beiyang government, on early morning of June 4, 1928. Zhang, whose National Pacification Army was being defeated by the Nanjing government's , was returning to Shenyang from Beijing when his personal train carriage was destroyed by a massive bomb explosion at an overpass near the Huanggutun Railway Station, mortally injuring Zhang (who died hours later) and killing his associate Wu Junsheng. The explosives, consists of about 120 kg (260 lb) of picric acid, were planted by the Kwantung Army, the colonial detachment of the Imperial Japanese Army in Manchuria.

Although the Kwantung Army had wanted to remove the increasingly defiant Zhang in order to advance Japan's interests in Manchuria, Zhang's death had undesirable outcomes as the Japan then was not yet ready to capitalize on Zhang's death, and the incident was concealed as "A Certain Important Incident in Manchuria" (満州某重大事件, Manshū bō jūdai jiken) in Japan, with numerous Japanese right-wingers trying to blame the incident on the Soviets. Zhang's son and heir Zhang Xueliang, realizing the Japanese threat, agreed to peacefully submit to the Nationalist government at the end of 1928, marking the end of the Warlord Era, and in 1929 arrested and executed the pro-Japanese general Yang Yuting, whom the Kwantung Army had been grooming to replace Zhang. The fallout from the incident delayed the Japanese invasion of Manchuria for several years until the Mukden Incident in 1931.