Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When did the Pacification of Manchukuo begin?
The Pacification of Manchukuo was a Japanese anti-insurgency campaign during the Second Sino-Japanese War to suppress any armed resistance to the newly established puppet state of Manchukuo from various anti-Japanese volunteer armies in occupied Manchuria and later the Communist Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. The operations were carried out by the Imperial Japanese Kwantung Army and the collaborationist forces of the Manchukuo government from March 1932 until 1942, and resulted in a Japanese victory.
In early 1934, Dirksen himself came into conflict with Heye over the latter's attempts to secure not just a soybean monopoly, but over all German business in Manchuria. As Special Trade Commissioner, Heye told the Japanese that Germany would soon recognize Manchukuo and he would be the first German ambassador in Hsinking (modern Changchun, China). Heye wanted not only a soybean monopoly, but further wanted all German business and investments in Manchukuo to made through a corporation run by himself and the industrialist Fritz Thyssen who would charge German firms operating in Manchukuo a 10% fee on all profits that they made in Manchukuo. In addition, Heye, acting on his own, informed the Japanese that German recognition of Manchukuo would soon be coming, a claim that strained German relations with both the Chinese (who were offended at the idea of German recognition for Manchukuo) and the Japanese (who were offended when German recognition did not come). The dispute was finally settled in February 1935 when Heye was finally disavowed by Hitler. Dirksen, a keen supporter of the "National Revolution" in Germany, often urged a German-Japanese rapprochement under the grounds that the Japanese plans for a "New Order in Asia" paralleled Germany's plans for a "New Order in Europe". In one dispatch to Berlin, Dirksen wrote: "It seems to be a psychological imperative and one dictated by reasons of state that these two great powers, who are combating the status quo and promoting the dynamism of living forces, should reach an agreement." In 1936, Dirksen joined the Nazi Party, and henceforward always wore a Nazi Party badge.
The recently reformed Manchukuo Imperial Army replied with a major campaign with 16,000 men from October 1936 to March 1937, against the 1st Route Army in the Tungpientao region. This was the first time it operated against the guerrillas without the support of Japanese troops. Despite heavy casualties the Manchukuo Army managed to kill over two thousand guerrillas including some of their leaders. Thus, the number of insurgents declined to 30,000 in 1936; and 20,000 in 1937.
At Heihe on April 7, Ma announced the reestablishment of the "Heilungkiang Provincial Government" independent of Manchukuo, and reorganized his troops into 9 brigades at the beginning of May. Ma also established another eleven troops of volunteers at Buxi, Gannan, Keshan, Kedong and other places. This became the Northeast Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army. Ma was also appointed nominal commander-in-chief, over all other Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies that were forming in various locations, and commanded a total fighting force of about 300,000 men at peak strength according to Japanese estimates.
The Kwantung Army for its part tolerated the talk of social revolution in Manchukuo as the best way of gaining support from the Han majority of Manchukuo, who did not want Manchuria to be severed from China. Even more active in going to Manchukuo were the products of "Tenkō" ("Changing directions"), a process of brainwashing by the police of left-wing activists to make them accept that the Emperor was a god after all, whom they were best to serve. "Tenkō" was a very successful process that turned young Japanese who once been ardent liberals or leftists who rejected the idea that the Emperor was a god into fanatical rightists, who made up for their previous doubts about the divinity of the Emperor with militant enthusiasm. One "tenkōsha" was Tachibana Shiraki, who once been a Marxist Sinologist who after his arrest and undergoing "Tenkō" become a fanatical right-winger. Tachibana went to Manchukuo in 1932, proclaiming that the theory of the "five races" working together was the best solution to Asia's problems and argued in his writings that only Japan could save China from itself, which was a complete change from his previous policies, where he criticized Japan for exploiting China. Other left-wing activists like Ōgami Suehiro did not undergo "Tenkō", but still went to work in Manchukuo, believing it was possible to effect social reforms that would end the "semi-feudal" condition of the Chinese peasants of Manchukuo, and that he could use the Kwantung Army to effect left-wing reforms in Manchukuo. Ōgami went to work in the "agricultural economy" desk of the Social Research Unit of the South Manchurian Railroad company, writing up reports about the rural economy of Manchukuo that were used by the Kwantung Army and the Manchukuo state. Ōgami believed that his studies helped ordinary people, citing one study he did about water use in rural Manchukuo, where he noted a correlation between villages that were deprived of water and "banditry" (the codeword for anti-Japanese guerillas), believing that the policy of improving water supply in villages was due to his study. The outbreak of the war with China in 1937 caused the state in Manchukuo to grow even bigger as a policy of "total war" came in, which meant there was a pressing demand for people with university degrees trained to think "scientifically". Fogel wrote that almost all of the university graduates from Japan who arrived in Manchukuo in the late 1930s were "largely left-wing Socialists and Communists. This was precisely at the time when Marxism had been all but banned in Japan, when (as Yamada Gōichi put) if the expression "shakai" (social) appeared in the title of a book, it was usually confiscated".
In October 1933, he became the German Ambassador to Japan. On 18 October 1933 Dirksen had met Hitler and gained the impression that Hitler favored recognising Manchukuo. Hitler had met Dirksen at the Gröditzberg Castle, in Silesia. Shortly after his arrival in Tokyo, Dirksen became involved with the efforts of a shady German businessman, drug dealer, Nazi Party member and friend of Hermann Göring, Ferdinand Heye, to become Special Trade Commissioner in Manchukuo. Dirksen's backing for Heye's schemes for a monopoly of Manchurian soybeans and his advocacy of German recognition of the Empire of Manchukuo brought him into conflict with his superior, the Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath, who preferred closer relations with China than with Japan. The question of recognition of Manchukuo was a litmus test for relations with both Japan and China. Against Dirksen's advocacy of recognizing Manchukuo, Neurath countered that Germany did far more trade with China than Manchukuo and so recognising Manchukuo would damage Germany's relations with China. On 18 December 1933, Dirksen was invited by the Japanese to visit Manchukuo to meet the Emperor Puyi, an invitation that Dirksen wanted to take up, but his projected visit to Manchukuo was vetoed by Neurath. Instead, Dirksen sent his economic counselor to Manchukuo to meet Puyi, a meeting that was widely then taken to indicate that Germany would be recognizing Manchukuo soon, which promoted furious protests from China.
The Sungari Fleet was active on the Sungari, Amur and Ussuri rivers from 1933, and received additional gunboats from Japan. However, it proved hopelessly inadequate during the Pacification of Manchukuo, and the Japanese instituted numerous training programs in an attempt to raise its capabilities. Reserve or retired Japanese officers were assigned to the Sungari Fleet, and Manchukuo cadets were sent to study navigation and gunnery at the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy.
The Manchukuo Imperial Army was the ground component of the Empire of Manchukuo's armed forces and consisted of as many as 170,000 to 220,000 troops at its peak in 1945 by some estimates, having formally been established by the Army and Navy Act of 15 April 1932. The force included members of all the major ethnic groups of Manchukuo, which were trained and led by Japanese instructors and advisors. Despite the numerous attempts by the Japanese to improve the combat capability of the Imperial Army and instill a Manchukuoan patriotic spirit among its troops, the majority of its units were regarded as unreliable by Japanese officers. Their main role was to fight Nationalist and Communist insurgents that continued to resist the Japanese occupation of northeastern China, and occasionally the Manchukuo Imperial Army took part in operations against the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and the Soviet Red Army (usually in support of the Imperial Japanese Army). Initially its members were former soldiers of Marshal Zhang Xueliang's warlord army who had surrendered to Japan during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. But since the Young Marshal's former troops were largely not loyal to the new regime and performed poorly against partisans, the new government of Manchukuo took efforts to recruit—and later draft—new soldiers. In 1934 a law was passed stating that only those that had been trained by the government of Manchukuo could serve as officers. The Military Supplies Requisition Law of 13 May 1937 allowed Japanese and Manchukuo authorities to draft forced laborers. The actual calling up of conscripts for the army did not begin until 1940, at which point all youths received a physical and 10% were to be selected for service. Between 1938 and 1940, several military academies were established to provide a new officer corps for the Imperial Army, including a specific school for ethnic Mongols.
The Japanese 30th Army was initially raised on July 30, 1945 in the Manchukuo capital of Hsinking. As the war situation on the Pacific front grew increasingly desperate for Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army transferred more and more experienced divisions out of Manchukuo to other fronts. By early 1945, the vaunted Kwantung Army was largely hollowed out, and indications of a buildup of Soviet Red Army forces on the borders on Mengjiang and Manchukuo were alarming. The Japanese 30th Army was assigned to the Japanese Third Area Army, and based in southern Manchukuo, but it was raised only days before the beginning of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and its force of under-armed and untrained raw recruits, reservists and civilian militia were no match for the experienced battle-hardened Soviet armored divisions. After a brief struggle at Hsinking (during which time the remnants of the Manchukuo Imperial Guard also defected to the Soviet side, the Japanese 30th Army surrendered. Most of its survivors became Japanese POWs in the Soviet Union, many of whom died under harsh conditions in Siberia and other parts of the Soviet Union.
Within days Henry Puyi, the Manchurian former emperor of China deposed in 1911, was made provisional president of the independent state of Manchukuo by the resolution of an All-Manchuria convention at Mukden, whose members included General Ma Zhanshan flown in from the north. The next day on March 1 the provisional Manchukuo Government was established with Ma Zhanshan as its Minister of War, in addition to his post as provincial governor. On March 9, the State of Manchukuo was inaugurated. The Chinese Government announced that not only did it not recognize the new state, but asserted that Puyi been kidnapped by the Japanese.
In eastern Manchukuo, Wang Delin's troops set three minor railway stations afire and gutted the city of Suifenho near the Russian border. Drawing more troops from the seemingly quiet southern Fengtien province, the Japanese launched the Li Hai-ching Subjugation Operation in May 1932. A mixed force of Japanese and Manchukuo troops attacked Li Hai-ching's guerrillas in southern Heilungkiang province from three directions, rapidly dispersing them and securing control of the region.
Since the creation of the state in 1932, an airline called the Manchukuo Paramilitary Airline operated as a fleet of transports, consisting mainly of passenger aircraft. The only military action it saw was providing support to the Inner Mongolian Army during the Suiyuan Campaign in 1936. An "independent volunteer battalion" which included thirteen planes assisted the Inner Mongolian troops in their attempt to drive the Nationalists out of the Suiyuan province. The official Manchukuo Air Force was not established until February 1937, when thirty volunteers from the Manchukuo Imperial Army were sent to Harbin for training. Initially the Kwantung Army commanders did not trust the Manchukuoans enough to give them an independent air arm and the early air force consisted of mostly Japanese pilots.
The Japanese built an efficient and impressive railway system that still functions well today. Known as the South Manchuria Railway or "Mantetsu", this large corporation came to own large stakes in many industrial projects throughout the region. "Mantetsu" personnel were active in the pacification of occupied China during World War II. However, most railway lines in Manchukuo were owned by the Manchukuo National Railway, which, though theoretically independent, was managed and operated entirely by Mantetsu.
Following the establishment of Manchukuo, fires were set in the Japanese quarter of Mukden. General Honjo's train suffered an attack which was repulsed, and minor revolts began in the remoter parts of Manchuria.
The British writer Peter Fleming visited Manchukuo in 1935, and while riding a train through the countryside of Manchukuo, a group of Japanese colonists mistook his Swiss girlfriend Kini for a Russian refugee, and began to beat her up. It was only after Fleming was able to prove to the Japanese that his girlfriend was Swiss, not Russian, that the Japanese stopped and apologized, saying that they would never had beaten her up if they had known she was Swiss, saying that they sincerely believed she was a Russian when they assaulted her. Fleming observed that in Manchukuo: "you can beat White Russians up till you are blue in the face, because they are people without status in the world, citizens of nowhere". Fleming further noted that the Japanese in Manchukuo had a strong dislike of all white people, and because the Russians in Manchukuo were stateless without an embassy to issue protests if they were victimized, the Japanese liked to victimize them. Until World War II, the Japanese tended to leave alone those travelling to Manchukuo with a passport as they did not like to deal with protests from embassies in Tokyo about the mistreatment of their citizens. The Kwantung Army operated a secret biological-chemical warfare unit based in Pinfang, Unit 731, that performed gruesome experiments on people involving much visceration of the subjects to see the effects of chemicals and germs on the human body. In the late 1930s, the doctors of Unit 731 demanded more white subjects to experiment upon in order to test the efficiency the strains of anthrax and plague that they were developing leading to a great many of the Russians living in Manchukuo becoming the unwilling human guinea pigs of Unit 731. The Russian Fascist Party, which worked with the Japanese was used to kidnap various "unreliable" Russians living in Manchukuo for Unit 731 to experiment upon.
The children of the Russian exiles often married Han Chinese, and the resulting children were always known in Manchukuo as "mixed water" people, who were shunned by both the Russian and Chinese communities. Chinese accounts, both at the time and later, tended to portray the Russians living in Manchuria as all prostitutes and thieves, and almost always ignored the contributions made by middle-class Russians to community life. Mindful of the way that Americans and most Europeans enjoyed extraterritorial rights in China at the time, accounts in Chinese literature about the Russians living in Manchukuo and their "mixed water" children often display a certain "schadenfreude" recounting how the Russians in Manchukuo usually lived in poverty on the margins of Manchukuo society with the local Chinese more economically successful. The South Korean historian Bong Inyoung noted when it came to writing about the "mixed water" people, Chinese writers tended to treat them as not entirely Chinese, but on the other hand were willing to accept these people as Chinese provided that would totally embrace Chinese culture by renouncing their Russian heritage, thus making Chineseness as much a matter of culture as of race.
However, in May 1932, with Japanese forces concentrated in the north, Tang Juwu in eastern Liaoning judged that the time was ripe for his army to go on the offensive. Tang's army, numbering 20,000 men surrounded the Japanese Tunghua garrison. In reaction the Manchukuo police and detachments of the Manchukuo Army attempted to relieve the siege in the First Tungpientao Clearance. They were unable to defeat Tang but did relieve the siege. However his force continued as a threat in the region to the east of Mukden and communications with Korea. Based in the Tungpientao area, his army fought with both the Japanese Kwantung Army stationed in Mukden and the Manchukuo Fengtian Army. Although all major cities had been lost, the volunteer armies gained a new lease of life during the summer of 1932 and reached their greatest strength.
From November 6 to November 20, 1932 the Manchukuo Army launched the Ki Feng - Lung District Subjugation Operation clearing the Ki Feng-lung district of guerrillas with 5,000 Manchukuo soldiers consisting of a battalion of the Chinganyuchitui and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the Fengtien Army and a Cavalry detachment of the Kirin Army.
The Third Tungpientao Subjugation operation, from November 22 to December 5, 1932, was launched to finally clear the remnants of Tang Juwu's guerrilla forces that had regrouped after the Second Tungpientao Subjugation campaign. The Manchukuo force was made up of a unit of Chinganyuchitui as well as locally raised militia forces from the Yalu, Central and Shenghai districts totaling 5,000 men. The operation was a success and led to the capture of 1,800 "bandits", some of whom were later recruited into the Manchukuo Army.
During July 1945 the 15th Border Guard Unit was created and commissioned for the garrison of the Kotou Fortress. When the Soviets irrupted over Manchukuo in Aug., 1945, stayed ones 1,400 units in place. Although the Soviets announced the surrender of Japan, Japanese garrisons did not believe this. They decided to continued to fight until last men.
Because of his fame and heroics efforts in resisting the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Colonel Kenji Doihara offered Ma Zhanshan a huge sum of $3,000,000 in gold to defect to the new Manchukuo Imperial Army. Ma agreed, and offered to tour the country to reconcile the local inhabitants to the new government. He flew to Shenyang in January 1932, where he attended the meeting that founded the puppet state of Manchukuo. Ma was ill at the time, and avoided the signing of the Independence Declaration of Manchukuo. He attended the inaugural ceremony of Pu Yi as Emperor of Manchukuo in March the same year, and was appointed as War Minister of Manchukuo and Governor of Heilongjiang Province under the new government. However, the Japanese did not fully trust Ma (as with other Manchukuo officials), and he had to ask approval from his Japanese advisor about all matters of the province before taking any actions.
It is commonly believed that the Holy See established diplomatic relations with Manchukuo in 1934, but the Holy See never did so. This belief is partly due to the erroneous reference in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film "The Last Emperor" that the Holy See diplomatically recognized Manchukuo. Bishop Auguste Ernest Pierre Gaspais was appointed as "representative "ad tempus" of the Holy See and of the Catholic missions of Manchukuo to the government of Manchukuo" by the Congregation De Propaganda Fide (a purely religious body responsible for missions) and not by the Secretariat of State responsible for diplomatic relations with states. In the 1940s the Vatican established full diplomatic relations with Japan, but it resisted Japanese and Italian pressure to recognize Manchukuo and the Nanjing regime.
On 5 March 1934, Nishio was appointed Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo, where he oversaw the establishment of the reorganization of the Manchukuo Imperial Army and the pacification of Manchukuo. In March 1936 he became Vice Chief of the General Staff and Acting Head of the General Affairs Bureau, of the General Staff. In early 1937, he briefly commanded the Imperial Guards Division, before being transferred to China at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. 
Of the Volunteer guerrilla leaders remaining in Manchukuo, Wang Fengge was captured in 1937 and executed, along with his wife and child. Wu Yicheng fought on with a small band of followers until 1937. Although Kong Xianrong, Wang Delin's deputy, gave up the struggle, his wife and another of Wang Delin's subordinates, Yao Zhenshan, led a small band which fought on until the spring of 1941 when it was annihilated.
With General Ting Chao defeated, Ma Zhanshan agreed to defect to the new Manchukuo Imperial Army on 14 February 1932 and retained his post as Governor of Heilungkiang Province in exchange for cooperating with the Japanese.
During the period from 1940 to 1945, the Manchukuo Imperial Army mostly saw action against Chinese Communist guerrillas. Most of the fighting was undertaken by elite units while the majority of the army was still considered to be too unreliable by the Japanese. The average Manchukuoan units were used for basic security and guard duties. Some attempts were taken to improve the army, however, and it did receive heavier artillery and armor from Japan. When the Soviets renounced their non-aggression pact with Japan, preparations began for the coming invasion of Manchukuo. Although the Kangde Emperor's army was reasonably well-trained and decently-armed by 1945 it was still no match for the much larger and more experienced Red Army. Its armored corps, consisting of some elderly tankettes and armored cars, did not compare to the much larger Soviet tank forces. The main strength of the Manchukuoan army by that time was its cavalry and that branch did see much fighting during the invasion.