3 People and divisions involved

The 29th Army, composed mostly of Feng Yuxiang's forces and infantry, secured the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and Hebei Province.

KMT Forces

Name (abbreviation hereafter)	Military Post(s)	Non-Military Post(s)
General Song Zheyuan (Song)	Commander of 29th Army	Chairman of the Hebei Legislative Committee (same as a provincial parliament), Head of the Beijing Securities (similar to police)
General Qin Dechun (秦德純 qin2 de2 chun2) (Qin)	Vice-Commander of 29th Army	Mayor of Beijing
General Liu Ruming (劉汝明 liu2 ru3 ming2) (Liu)	Commander of the 143rd Division	Chairman of Chahar Province
General Feng Zhian (馮治安 feng2 zhi4 an1) (Feng)	Commander of the 37th Division	Chairman of Hebei Province
General Zhao Dengru (趙登汝 zhao4 deng1 ru3) (Zhao)	Commander of the 132nd Division	N/A
General Zhang Zizhong (張自忠 zhang1 zi4 zhong1) (Zhang)	Commander of the 38th Division	Mayor of Tianjin
Colonel Ji Xingwen (吉星文 ji2 xing1 wen2) (Ji)	Commander of the 219th Regiment, under the 110th Brigade of the 37th Division	N/A

The Japanese Guandong Army at the region was a combination of infantry, tanks, mechanized forces, artillery and cavalry.

Japanese Forces

Name (abbreviation hereafter)	Military Post(s)	Composition of the corresponding units
Matsui Taisa = Colonel Matsui (松(matsu) 井(i) 大(tai) 佐(sa)) (Matsui)	Commander of the 117th (?) Battalion of the Guandong Army and troops around Beijing and Tianjin	Infantry
Taii = Captain (?)	Commander of the 221th (?) Mechanized Squadron	Some tanks and mostly armoured vehicles
Taii (?)	Commander of the 3rd (7th?) Battery	Artillery with few infantry
Taii (?)	Commander of the 6th (8th?) Squadron	Cavalry

Deployment

Phase I

KMT Forces

Unit	Location of Headquarters	Strength in Number of Soldiers	Deployment or Duties
29th Army	Beijing	around 10000	Hebei Province
143rd Division	Beijing	just below 3000	Beijing
37th Division	Beijing	just below 3000	south of Beijing
132nd Division	Beijing	several thousands	between Beijing and Tianjin
38th Division	Tianjin	several thousands	Tianjin
219th Regiment, under the 110th Brigade of the 37th Division	Wanping Town	around 400 of the 3000	deployed right in front of the Japanese for security of the bridge

Japanese Forces

Unit	Location of Headquarters	Strength in Number of Soldiers	Deployment or Duties
117th (?) Battalion	?	around 400	west of Marco Polo Bridge
221th (?) Mechanized Squadron	same as 117th	around 400	West of Marco Polo Bridge
3rd (7th?) Battery	Nankou Town	around 400	Nankou Town
6th (8th?) Squadron	Tongzhou Town	around 400	Tongzhou Town

Phase II

KMT Forces
Same as Phase I except 132nd was moved to garrison Nanwan Town which is between Wanping Town and Beijing.

Japanese Forces
The 3rd (2nd?) Division of the Guandong Army from Chahar Province and the 15th (9th?) Division from Manchuria and troops from Phase I were all commanded by General Hashimoto (橋本大将). The strength of the Japanese Army sharply increased from around 1000 to around 3000. The 34th (?) Division of the Guandong Army was on its way from Manchuria and Korea.

4 The Battle

Phase I

Beginning late June 1937, the Japanese army (several hundreds) deployed at the west end of the bridge was practicing while Kuomintang forces, garrisoned in Wanping Town, watched closely. At dawn on July 7, the Japanese army telegraphed the KMT forces saying that a soldier was missing and believed to be hiding inside the town. The Japanese demanded that its army should enter the town to search for the missing soldier, who was later found unharmed. There are some disputes among historians over the incident with some historians believing that this was an unintentional accident while others believing that the entire incident was fabricated by the Guandong Army in order to provide a pretext for the invasion of central China.

Colonel Ji denied the request backed by his superior, General Song. In the evening of July 7, Matsui gave Ji an ultimatum that KMT troops must let Japanese troops enter the town within the next hour or the town would be fired upon. The Japanese artillery had already aimed at the town when the ultimatum was sent. At midnight July 8, Japanese artillery units started bombarding the town while the infantry with tanks marched across the bridge at dawn. With orders from Song, Ji led the KMT forces of about 1000 to defend at all cost. The Japanese army partially overran the bridge and vicinity in the afternoon. KMT forces, after reinforcement from nearby units, outnumbered the Japanese and retook it completely next day. The Japanese army then halted the attack and offered to negotiate, marking the end of Phase I. Nevertheless the Japanese Army remained concentrated at the west end of the bridge.

Phase II

During the meeting of all senior KMT officers of the 24th Army in Beijing on July 12, Qin insisted that KMT forces must continue defending and resist any temptation to negotiate with the Japanese, whom he did not trust. Zhang in turn argued the incident on July 7 could still be settled by negotiation. Song then sent Zhang as KMT representative to Tianjin to meet General Hashimoto, the commander of all Japanese forces around the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and in Chahar and Rehe Provinces.

At the beginning Hashimoto told Zhang that the Japanese hoped the incident on July 7 could be settled peacefully. Zhang was encouraged by his friendly gesture and telegraphed Song that any more Kuomintang forces around Beijing would be viewed as an escalation and anger the Japanese. However Song thought Hashimoto was only buying time since he received various reconnaissance reports indicating increasing accumulation of Japanese forces from Manchuria and Korea around Beijing. As the recent Chinese victory relied on outnumbering the opponent, he transferred Zhao's 132nd Division accompanied by Qin to a station at Nanwan Town which was between the bridge and Beijing to keep up the pressure from concentration of Japanese forces. Similar to most KMT and CPC ( Communist Party of China) forces, the 29th Army was equipped with only rifles and just enough mortars and heavy machine guns, compared to better armed, trained and commanded Japanese troops whose tanks the Chinese armies still did not have any weapon capable of destroying.

The Japanese promised not to invade Beijing and Tianjin upon agreement of all following terms:

1) The KMT must wipe out all anti-Japanese organizations and halt all anti-Japanese activities inside the cities.
2) The KMT must take all responsibilities of the incident on July 7.
3) Song, not any other inferior officer of the 29th Army, must apologize.

Zhang accepted the first term and the commander of the battalion under Ji's command was to be relieved as an agreement to the second. However Zhang told Hashimoto that he could not decide on behalf of Song, thus could not agree on the third term at the time. He then returned to Beijing. Hashimoto also hinted that the Japanese would preferred Zhang as the commander of KMT troops around the city. As soon as Zhang left, the Japanese launched a full-scale attack on Beijing.

Three days after Zhang headed for the city, the bridge and Wanping Town fell to the Japanese. Nanwan Town fell on the next day with both divisions (37th and 132nd) shattered. Zhao was mortally wounded on the battlefield and Qin retreated with the remnants back to the city. In the evening after the fall of Nanwan Town, Zhang finally arrived (As he had to pass through enemy lines to reach the city.). Several days later, Song relieved himself of all non-military posts and appointed Zhang to take his posts and the mayorship of Beijing. Qin and Song then led the 29th Army out of the city, which was going to be surrounded within hours and left Zhang with virtually no troops. Japanese armies entered the city on August 18 without much resistance and installed Zhang as mayor. However Zhang felt he was betrayed and left the city secretly a week later.

5 Aftermath

With the fall of Beijing on July 29 and Tianjin on 30th, the North China Plain was helpless against Japanese mechanized divisions who occupied it by the end of the year. The Chinese armies (KMT and CPC) were on constant retreat until the hard fought Chinese victory at Tai er zhuang.

There are some disputes among historians over the KMT's handling of approach of Japanese troops on Beijing, with some believing that Zhang and Song secretly cooperated with Zhang's appointment to non-military posts in Beijing. Song and Qin could then safely retreat from the city to retain the fighting ability of the 29th Army. Others believe that the Japanese completely sold Zhang out as they still invaded the cities, even though the KMT agreed to all terms. Zhang was vilified relentlessly by the Chinese press, some of which (like that of Shanghai) reviled him as the traitor of the country. Upon arrival at Nanjing he apologized publicly. Since he later died fighting against the Japanese, the KMT pardoned Zhang for his activities in Beijing.

Battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War

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