Ma Zhanshan
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Ma Zhanshan or Ma Chan-shan , 馬占山 (1885-1950), was born in Gongzhuling, in Jilin province, in a poor farm family. At the age of 20 he became a security guard of Huaide County. Promoted to Guard Monitor of the 4th Security Guard Battalion for his good marksmanship and equestrianism, by Wu Junsheng, Commander of Tianhou Road Patrol and Defence Battalion of Mukden in 1908.
In 1913, Ma was appointed as Major Company Commander of 3rd Company, of the 3rd Regiment, 2nd Brigade of the Central Cavalry Army in the Army of the Republic of China. In 1920, he was promoted to Colonel who and followed his patron, Warlord Wu Junsheng.
He started his military career in Zhang Zuolin's northeastern army, serving as a brigade commander of 5th Cavalry Brigade, 17th Cavalry Division then as brigader of 3rd Infantry Brigade of the Heilongjiang Army. After Zhang's death in 1928 Ma was nominated as Heilongjiang Provincial Bandit Suppression Commander and Heilongjiang Provincial Cavalry Commander-in-chief in 1928.
After the Mukden Incident, when the Japanese invaded the provinces of Liaoning and Jilin, the Chairman Wan Fulin of Heilongjiang Province was in Peiping, nobody was there to lead the province with the danger of invasion threatening. Zhang Xueliang telegraphed Nanjing Government to ask for instructions, and then appointed Ma Zhanshan to act as Chairman of Heilongjiang Province and Military Commander-in-chief of Heilongjiang Province October 10th 1931. Ma Zhanshan arrived in the capital Tsitsihar on October 19th and took office the next day. He held military meetings and personally inspected the defence positions while facing down the party who wished to surrender and refused inducements to surrender from the Japanese army, saying “I am appointed as Chairman of the province, and I have the responsibility to defend the province and I will never be a surrendering general”.
The Japanese invaders repeatedly demanded to repair the Nenjiang River Bridge, that had been dynamited in earlier civil strife to prevent an advance by a rival Chinese general. These demands were all refused by Ma Zhanshan. The Japanese, determined to repair the bridge sent a Japanese repair crew, guarded by 800 Japanese soldiers. Nearby were 2,500 Chinese troops and a clash ensued. Each side charged the other with opening fire without provocation, and thus began the Jiangqiao Campaign. Although eventually forced to withdraw his troops in the face of Japanese tanks and artillery, Ma became a national hero for his resistance to the Japanese which was reported in the Chinese and international press. Ting Chao and other senior commanders followed Ma's example at the industrial city of Harbin in Jilin province and elsewhere. His troops inspired the people of Northeast China, to aid or enlist in volunteer forces. On November 18th, Ma Zhanshan evacuated Tsitsihar. By November 19th, Ma Zhanshan led his troops to the east to defend Baiquan and Hailun. After the General Ting Chao was driven from Harbin, Ma's forces suffered serious casualties and were soon driven over the Soviet border.
Because of his fame and heroics fighting them, the Japanese decided to recruit Ma Zhanshan to fight for them. Colonel Kenji Doihara, made contact with Ma and offered him a huge sum to join the Manchukoan Army. He offered to tour the country and reconcile the Chinese of the northeast to their rule. He flew to Shenyang in January 1932, where he attended the meeting that founded the puppet state of Manchukuo. Ma was ill at that time thus avoiding signing the Independence Declaration of Manchukuo. He attended the inaugural ceremony of Pu Yi as emperor of Manchukuo in March the same year, and he was appointed as War Minister of Manchukuo and Governor of Heilongjiang Province. However, the Japanese invaders put very strict control on him, he had to ask approval from his Japanese advisor about all matters of the province before implementating them.
Ma intended to rebel after secretly using the Japanese money to raise and reequip his new volunteer force. When he was appointed as the Governor of Heilongjiang, he secretly transported weapons and ammunition out of the arsenals and evacuated the wives and families of his troops to safety. He then led his troops from Qiqihar on April 1 with the excuse of an army inspection. At Heihe on April 7th he announced the reestablishment of the Heilongjiang Provincial Government and continued to resist the Japanese. Ma reorganized the former puppet troops into 9 brigades at the beginning of May, and then he established another 11 troops of volunteers at Buxi, Gannan, Keshan, Kedong and other places and thus established the Northeast Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army with Ma appointed as Commander-in-chief, at least nominally, over the other volunteer armies, commanding a total fighting force of about 300,000 men at its peak strength.
The Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army units under Ma undertook ambushes along the major roads and badly mauled Manchukuoan and Japanese troops. In the Ma Chan-shan Subjugation Operation the Japanese Kwangtung Army transferred a large mixed force of Japanese and Manchukuoan troops to encircle and destroy Ma's Army. Ma Zhanshan's troops though seriously depleted in the fierce battles escaped due to the laxity of the puppet troops. In September Ma Zhanshan arrived in Longmen County and established relationship with the Anti-Japanese Army of Su Bingwen. In the Su Ping-wei Subjugation Operation, 30,000 Japanese and Manchukuoan troops made attacks on the volunteer forces forcing Ma Zhanshan and Su Bingwen to retreat into the Soviet Union in December. Most of these troops were then then transferred to Rehe.
Ma himself stayed abroad in Russia, Germany and Italy only returning in June 1933, and went to Jiang Jieshi ask for armies to resist the Japanese but failed. He then settled in Tianjin until October 1936 when Jiang Jieshi suddenly sent him to the front of the Civil War. At Xi'an at the time of Xian Incident, he suggested to Zhang Xueliang not to kill Jiang Jieshi while the country was in trouble and signed on the Current Political Situation Declaration issued by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng as well. Zhang Xueliang appointed Ma Zhanshan as the Commander-in-chief of the Anti-Japanese Aid Suiyuan Cavalry Group Army, which was suspended afterwards when Zhang Xueliang was detained by Jiang Jieshi.
After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Ma Zhanshan was appointed as Commander of the Northeastern Advance Force in charge of the four northeastern provinces Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and Rehe. Ma Zhanshan established Headquarters in Datong in August 1937 and led his troops to fight the Japanese in Chahar, Suiyuan, Datong and Shanxi Area and he cooperated with Fu-Zuyi's troops in the defence of Suiyuan and in the Yinshan War.
Ma Zhanshan abhorred the nonresistance policy of the Kuomintang and he agreed with the Anti-Japanese and National Salvation aims of the Communist Party expressed during communications with the Communist Party. He visited Yanan in 1939 in order to look for a way to carry out Anti-Japanese and National Salvation efforts. Ma Zhanshan was appointed as Chairman of the government of Heilongjiang in August of 1940 that he held to the end of the war. He then started to undertake Anti-Japanese and National Salvation activities.
After the victory of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Government of the Republic of China appointed Ma Zhanshan as Northeast Deputy Security Commander. He took office in Shenyang, but a half year later he retired to his home in Beijing saying he was ill. He crossed over to the Communist Party in January 1949 after persuading Gen. Fu Zuoyi and Deng Baoshan in Beijing, to allow Beijing to be taken bloodlessly by the Communists. After the founding of the People's Republic, Chairman Mao Zedong invited him to attend the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in June 1950, but he failed to attend because of illness and he died the same year on November 29th, 1950, in Beijing.
[edit] Sources
- Ma Zhanshan with photo
- The volunteer armies of northeast China
- Jowett, Phillip S. , Rays of The Rising Sun, Armed Forces of Japan’s Asian Allies 1931-45, Volume I: China & Manchuria, 2004. Helion & Co. Ltd., 26 Willow Rd., Solihul, West Midlands, England. pg. 18-24
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