arly three months
against superior forces; but meanwhile the Japanese steadily advanced in
North China. On November 9th Nanking fell into their hands. By the
beginning of January 1938, the province of Shantung had also been
conquered.

Chiang Kai-shek and his government fled to Ch'ung-k'ing (Chungking), the
most important commercial and financial centre of the interior after
Hankow, which was soon threatened by the Japanese fleet. By means of a
number of landings the Japanese soon conquered the whole coast of China,
so cutting off all supplies to the country; against hard fighting in
some places they pushed inland along the railways and conquered the
whole eastern half of China, the richest and most highly developed part
of the country. Chiang Kai-shek had the support only of the
agriculturally rich province of Szechwan, and of the scarcely developed
provinces surrounding it. Here there was as yet no industry. Everything
in the way of machinery and supplies that could be transported from the
hastily dismantled factories was carried westwards. Students and
professors went west with all the contents of their universities, and
worked on in small villages under very difficult conditions--one of the
most memorable achievements of this war for China. But all this was by
no means enough for waging a defensive war against Japan. Even the
famous Burma Road could not save China.

By 1940-1941 Japan had attained her war aim: China was no longer a
dangerous adversary. She was still able to engage in small-scale
fighting, but could no longer secure any decisive result. Puppet
governments were set up in Peking, Canton, and Nanking, and the Japanese
waited for these governments gradually to induce supporters of Chiang
Kai-shek to come over to their side. Most was expected of Wang
Ching-wei, who headed the new Nanking government. He was one of the
oldest followers of Sun Yat-sen, and was regarded as a democrat. In
1925, after Sun Yat-sen's death, he had been for a time the head of the
Nanking government, and for a short time in 1930 he had led a government
in Peking that was opposed to Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship. Beyond any
question Wang still had many followers, including some in the highest
circles at Chungking, men of eastern China who considered that
collaboration with Japan, especially in the economic field, offered good
prospects. Japan paid lip service to this policy: there was talk of
sister peoples, which could help each