Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Who led China in the First Sino-Japanese War?
The war demonstrated the failure of the Qing Dynasty's attempts to modernize its military and fend off threats to its sovereignty, especially when compared with Japan's successful Meiji Restoration. For the first time, regional dominance in East Asia shifted from China to Japan; the prestige of the Qing Dynasty, along with the classical tradition in China, suffered a major blow. The humiliating loss of Korea as a tributary state sparked an unprecedented public outcry. Within China, the defeat was a catalyst for a series of political upheavals led by Sun Yat-sen and Kang Youwei, culminating in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution.
That the Japanese had suffered a military defeat at the hands of a motley collection of irregular forces was a considerable political embarrassment. Japan was anxious to present Manchukuo to the world as a peaceful nation, especially as a League of Nations delegation was now investigating the situation. When the news of the victories of Wang's Chinese People's National Salvation Army spread around eastern Kirin, hundreds of troops who had been reluctant members of the new Manchukuo Imperial Army defected to the NSA and estimates of its total strength in April rose from 4,500 to above 10,000 and, possibly nearer 15,000 organized in five brigades.
The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 saw aid flow into the Republic of China (ROC), from the United States under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A series of Neutrality Acts had been passed in the US with the support of isolationists who forbade American aid to countries at war. Because the Second Sino-Japanese War was undeclared, however, Roosevelt denied that a state of war existed in China and proceeded to send aid to Chiang.
Lin Biao (December 5, 1907 – September 13, 1971) was a Marshal of the People's Republic of China who was pivotal in the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeast China. Lin was the general who commanded the decisive Liaoshen and Pingjin Campaigns, in which he co-led the Manchurian Field Army to victory and led the People's Liberation Army into Beijing. He crossed the Yangtze River in 1949, decisively defeated the Kuomintang and took control of the coastal provinces in Southeast China. He ranked third among the Ten Marshals. Zhu De and Peng Dehuai were considered senior to Lin, and Lin ranked directly ahead of He Long and Liu Bocheng.
Sun Yat-sen (; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925) was the founding father of the Republic of China. The provisional first president of the Republic of China, Sun was a Chinese medical doctor, writer, philosopher, Georgist, calligrapher, and revolutionary. As the foremost pioneer and first leader of a Republican China, Sun is referred to as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic of China (ROC) and the "forerunner of democratic revolution" in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Sun played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty (the last imperial dynasty of China) during the years leading up to the Xinhai Revolution. He was appointed to serve as Provisional President of the Republic of China when it was founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China), serving as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and he remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Qin Shi Huang (, ; 18 February 25910 September 210) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and was the first emperor of a unified China. He was born Ying Zheng () or Zhao Zheng (), a prince of the state of Qin. He became Zheng, the King of Qin () when he was thirteen, then China's first emperor when he was 38 after the Qin had conquered all of the other Warring States and unified all of China in 221 BC. Rather than maintain the title of "king" ( "wáng") borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor () of the Qin dynasty from 220 to 210 BC. His self-invented title "emperor" ( ""), as indicated by his use of the word "First", would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia.
Kim Il-sung, later to become leader of North Korea, was a high-rank officer in this army, and attained a distinction that he invaded China-Korea border and attacked Japanese police station in Bochonbo 1939. It was widely reported by Korean presses such as Donga Ilbo and he became famous in Korea as the most prominent leader of the anti-Japanese movement. After the war, some of the Korean nationals in this army became the first generation of the leaders of North Korea. Besides Kim Il-sung, An Gil, Kim Chaek, Choe Yong-gon and Kang Kon were also Korean high-rank officers of NAJUA, later assumed high positions in North Korea.
On 26 March 1868, the first Naval Review was held in Japan (in Osaka Bay), with 6 ships from the private domainal navies of Saga, Chōshū, Satsuma, Kurume, Kumamoto and Hiroshima participating. The total tonnage of these ships was 2,252 tons, far smaller than the tonnage of the single foreign vessel (from the French Navy) that also participated. In July 1869, the Imperial Japanese Navy was formally established, two months after the last military engagement of the Boshin War – the private navies of the Japanese nobles were abolished and their 11 ships were added to the 7 surviving vessels of the defunct Tokugawa "bakufu" navy, including , Japan's first steam warship. This formed the core of the new Imperial Japanese Navy.
Liu Yalou (; April 1910 – 7 May 1965) was a general in the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China, first commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army Air Force, as well as chief of staff of Lin Biao's army group during the Chinese Civil War, occupied the whole of Manchuria in 1948 and captured 472,000 Nationalist troops in the Liaoshen Campaign.
The Qing conquest of China lasted for several more decades. Resistance to Qing rule was intensified by the "haircutting command" on 21 July 1645, which forced all Chinese men to adopt the clothing of the Manchus and shave their forehead, leaving their remaining hair tied into a queue. Zhu Youlang, the last emperor of the Southern Ming, was killed by Wu Sangui in 1662. Wu Sangui was given a large territory in the southwest China, where he reigned as a satrap until he was recalled to Beijing in 1673. He and three other governors then rose in rebellion against the Qing. Though Wu died in 1678, the rebellion of the Three Feudatories lasted until 1681. In 1683 the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) defeated the forces of Koxinga, the leader of the last Ming restoration movement. After this period of solidification, the Qing controlled China until 1912.
The nascent People's Republic did not yet control all of the territory of the Republic of China. Mao declared it his goal in 1950 to "liberate" Hainan, Tibet, and Formosa, and while he accomplished that of the first two, the third was interrupted: On 25 June 1950, the forces of North Korea invaded the South unleashing the Korean War. The United States Seventh Fleet was summarily dispatched to protect Formosa from a mainland Red Chinese invasion. Although Mao was apparently unenthusiastic about that war, a Chinese volunteer force entered the Korean War in November.
The United States was a strong supporter of China after Japan invaded in 1937. Even the isolationists who opposed war in Europe supported a hard-line against Japan. The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 saw aid flow into the Republic of China, led by Chiang Kai-shek. American public sympathy for the Chinese was aroused by reports from missionaries, novelists such as Pearl Buck, and "Time Magazine" of Japanese brutality in China, including reports surrounding the Nanking Massacre, also known as the 'Rape of Nanking'. By early 1941 the U.S. was preparing to send American planes flown by American pilots under American command, but wearing Chinese uniforms, to fight the Japanese invaders and even to bomb Japanese cities. The "Flying Tigers" under Claire Lee Chennault arrived just as the U.S. entered the war.
The Qin dynasty () was the first dynasty of Imperial China, lasting from 221 to 206 BC. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), the dynasty was founded by Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of Qin. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the Legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the fourth century BC, during the Warring States period. In the mid and late third century BC, the Qin state carried out a series of swift conquests, first ending the powerless Zhou dynasty, and eventually conquering the other six of the Seven Warring States. Its 15 years was the shortest major dynasty in Chinese history, consisting of only two emperors, but inaugurated an imperial system that lasted, with interruption and adaptation, until 1912 CE.
An early opportunity for Spain to enter China presented itself when the Chinese pirate Limahong attacked Manila in 1574. As Limahong was wanted by the Chinese authorities, officials in Fujian province were willing to let the Spanish establish a trade port on an island south of Xiamen in return for Limahong's capture. However, the governor of the Philippines at the time did not respond favourably, and the offer came to nothing when Limahong escaped from Manila. In the 1590s, the need for a Spanish base in China gained new urgency as Japan, ruled by the militant regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi, invaded Korea and threatened to conquer Ryukyu, China, Taiwan, and the Spanish Philippines. The "San Felipe" incident of 1596 and the subsequent execution of Franciscan friars in Nagasaki all but confirmed Japan's hostile intentions in Spanish eyes, and even the death of Hideyoshi in 1598 did not alleviate these fears. Thus, in 1598, governor Francisco de Tello de Guzmán sent Juan de Zamudio to the coast of China not only to establish trade, but also to warn Chinese authorities of possible Japanese aggression in its southern coast.
On January 18, 1952 The first president of South Korea Syngman Rhee declared that the vicinity of Dokdo was a territory of South Korea (Syngman Rhee line). Subsequently, some 3,000 Japanese fishermen who conducted fishery operations in this vicinity were captured. This incident, called the Dai Ichi Daihoumaru Ship case strained relations between South Korea and Japan.
Since the historical triumph of the Battle of the Japanese Sea in 1905, as a part of the Russo-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Navy had been the world’s third strongest. By the end of World War I Japan had a powerful battle fleet. In the 1930s, following the Washington Naval Treaty, Japan built a strong naval aviation arm with excellent aircraft and pilots. Even so, the Imperial Japanese Navy could not compete against the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, the top two navies in the world. Consequently, the much smaller Kriegsmarine (German Navy) and the Regia Marina (Italian Navy) could not defeat these two dominants. Furthermore, the Imperial Japanese Navy had been made overconfident by its victory in the Naval Battle of the Japanese Sea and was not willing to acknowledge its inferiority. However, his unique experiences made him convinced of his view. Therefore, Yonai clearly announced his opinion: the Imperial Japanese Navy will lose if it attacked the Royal Navy and the United States Navy.
Liu Bei (; ; 161 – 10 June 223), courtesy name Xuande, was a warlord in the late Eastern Han dynasty who founded the state of Shu Han in the Three Kingdoms period and became its first ruler. Despite early failings compared to his rivals and lacking both the material resources and social status they commanded, he gathered support among disheartened Han loyalists who opposed Cao Cao, the warlord who controlled the Han central government and the figurehead Emperor Xian, and led a popular movement to restore the Han dynasty through this support. Liu Bei overcame his many defeats to carve out his own realm, which at its peak spanned present-day Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Hunan, and parts of Hubei and Gansu.
As an island, Taiwan on the contrary, was known before World War I as the Republic of Formosa, with Taiwan under Japanese rule occurring between 1895 and 1945. It is geographically separate from Mainland China where the Kuomintang (KMT) party first began. During World War II, the KMT party that came to found the Republic of China was also part of the formation of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China in Mainland China, within the Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
The "Meiji" government issued its First Naval Expansion bill in 1882, requiring the construction of 48 warships, of which 22 were to be torpedo boats. The naval successes of the French Navy against China in the Sino-French War of 1883–85 seemed to validate the potential of torpedo boats, an approach which was also attractive to the limited resources of Japan. In 1885, the new Navy slogan became "Kaikoku Nippon" (Jp:海国日本, "Maritime Japan").
In China, the Jin dynasty, which had united the nation prior in 280, began to quickly face troubles by the start of the century due to political infighting, which led to the opportunistic insurrections of the northern barbarian tribes (starting the Sixteen Kingdoms period), which quickly overwhelmed the empire, forcing the Jin court to retreat and entrench itself in the south past the Yangtze river, starting what is known as the Eastern Jin dynasty around 317. 
Towards the end of the century, Emperor of the Former Qin, Fu Jiān, united the north under his banner, and planned to conquer the Jin dynasty in the south, so as to finally reunite the land, but was decisively defeated at the Battle of Fei River in 383, causing massive unrest and civil war in his empire, thereby leading to the fall of the Former Qin, and the continued existence of the Eastern Jin dynasty.
In 1902 Japan and the British Empire forged the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which would last until 1923. The purpose of this alliance was to contain the Russian Empire in East Asia. In response to this alliance, Russia formed a similar alliance with France and began to renege on agreements to reduce troop strength in Manchuria. From Russian perspective, it seemed inconceivable that Japan, a non-European power which was considered to be undeveloped (i.e. not-industrial), and almost bereft of natural resources, would challenge the Russian Empire. This view would change when Japan started and won the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05).
Under Emperor Hong Taiji, the Manchuria-based Qing dynasty invaded Korea twice, in 1627 and 1636. Following the Second Manchu invasion of Korea, the Qing claimed victory and forced Injo of Joseon into submission, severing its relations with the collapsing Ming dynasty, which eventually fell in 1644. Qing China's national strength gradually declined after its defeat in the First and Second Opium Wars. As such, China was forced to sign a series of concessions and "unequal treaties" with the Western colonial powers. At the same time, the Meiji Restoration occurred in Japan and led to the rise of the Empire of Japan, which gradually expanded its military power. The Donghak Peasant Revolution of Korea in 1894 became a catalyst for the First Sino-Japanese War, which saw the defeat of the Qing military. As part of the terms in the post-war Treaty of Shimonoseki, China recognized the independence of Korea and ceased its tributary relations. The Korean Empire established modern diplomatic relationship with Qing, but Korea was eventually annexed, against their will, by Japan under the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910.
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was fought between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the port of Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895.
In the course of the Second World War (1939–1945), the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the nationalist Kuomintang party (KMT) set aside their civil war (1927–1949) in order to fight, defeat, and expel Imperial Japan from China. To that end, Stalin of the USSR ordered Mao Zedong, leader of the CPC, to co-operate with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the KMT, in fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) and expelling the Japanese; afterwards, the communists and the anti-communists renewed their civil war for China in the Chinese Communist Revolution (1945–50).
In July 1937, the Sino-Japanese war began with the Marco Polo incident. Dirksen reported that his Japanese hosts were extremely unhappy that Germany was the largest supplier of arms to China, and that officers of the German military mission were training and in some cases leading the troops of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army into battle against the Imperial Japanese Army. In response to Dirksen's suggestion that the German military mission be recalled from China, the War Minister Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg proposed sending officers to the military mission in China. In late 1937, Dirksen become involved in attempts to mediate the end of the Sino-Japanese war. The Sino-Japanese war had caused a major bureaucratic power struggle within the German government with Wehrmacht and the "Auswärtiges Amt" supporting China while the "Dienststelle Ribbentrop", the SS, and the Propaganda Ministry supporting Japan. Dirksen a pro-Japanese voice in the otherwise solidly pro-Chinese "Auswärtiges Amt" feared his career might become marginalized as Neurath was annoyed at Dirksen's support for the pro-Japanese Ribbentrop, which led him to suggest German mediation to end the war before the struggle between the pro-Japanese and pro-Chinese factions destroyed his career. Neurath for his part, afraid that he might lose out in the power struggle with Ribbentrop, took up the suggestion of mediation as a way out while Hitler himself was indecisive about which side to back.