Suiyuan Campaign

The Suiyuan Campaign was an engagement between the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and the Japanese-trained Inner Mongolian/Grand Han Righteous Armies before the outbreak of official hostilities during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Background

The Tanggu Truce of 1933 established a ceasefire between the Imperial Japanese Army and the Kuomintang National Revolutionary Army, including a demilitarized zone running from the coast at Tianjin to Beijing. As neither the Empire of Japan nor the Republic of China wanted to break the truce overtly, the center of conflict shifted west to Inner Mongolia, where proxy armies were used by both sides over the provinces of Chahar and Suiyuan.

During the 1933-1936 period, Chahar proclaimed itself the independent Mongol Military Government allied with Japan under Prince Demchugdongrub who sought to rule all of Inner and Outer Mongolia and parts of northern China.

History

On 14 November 1936, a coalition of the Inner Mongolian Army's 7th and 8th Cavalry Divisions, Wang Ying's Grand Han Righteous Army, and Mongol mercenaries from Jehol, Chahar and other areas, supported by 30 Japanese advisors, attacked the Chinese garrison at Hongort.