After the Japanese Kwantung Army occupied the three eastern provinces, they sent troops to Jehe and encroached on northern China. In 1933, the Kuomingtang government and the Kwantung Army signed the Tanggu Agreement on the armistice at Rehe. The main purpose of signing this agreement was to end the war with the Kwantung Army in Rehe to prevent the war from spreading inside the pass. However, things did not go as he wished. According to the agreement, the military problems inside the Great Wall should have been solved by the Japanese garrison in Tianjin, but the Kwantung Army obviously did not want to be restricted by this. Its tentacles began to extend to the unarmed areas inside the Great Wall, and its ambition to covet North China was obvious. For the Kwantung Army, North China was undoubtedly a big piece of fat meat. The five provinces of Hebei, Cha, Jin, Lu, and Sui were extremely important in the political, economic, and military positions of China. Controlling North China was undoubtedly decisive for Japan's ambition to conquer China. The first step was to instigate North China's autonomy and establish an independent country led by Japan that was closely related to Manchuria. This would eliminate the influence of the Nanjing government on this region and form a barrier against Manchuria.
In October 1933, Dohihara Kenji once again took up the post of head of the secret service in Fengtian. His main mission was to open up the situation for the Kwantung Army in North China. With his unique skills, Yoshihara quickly spread a large net in North China, placing the Japanese secret service agencies in Shanhaiguan, Tongzhou, and Tangshan in North China under the leadership of the Kwantung Army's secret service agencies. This not only allowed the Kwantung Army to gain a firm foothold in the pass, but also greatly expanded the stage of the Kwantung Army's activities. At that time, Song Zheyuan of Peiping, Yan Xishan of Shanxi, Han Fuju of Jinan and Shang Zhen of Baoding held military power in North China. How to control these four people and make them cooperate with each other to establish an "autonomous regime" that could compete with Jiang Jie's regime became the primary problem that Tufei Yuan racked his brains over. In fact, before this, Tada Jun, the commander of the Japanese garrison in Tianjin, also noticed this problem and tried to do so.
Tada Shun called the four of them over at the same time to discuss the issue of North China's autonomy. After some small talk, Tada Jun couldn't wait to throw out his blueprint for North China Autarchy."If all of you work together to establish a new regime that is in harmony with Manchuria and beyond, then North China will prosper rapidly. Once the new regime has a conflict with the government of Nanjing, Japan will fully support the new regime. Please don't worry about this. Do you intend to establish a new neutral regime that does not obey the Nanjing Central Government?”
The four of them were actually mentally prepared for Tada's suggestion. They clearly understood that Japan's intention was to achieve its ultimate goal of occupying China by dismembering it step by step. The so-called "North China Autarchy" was just a replica of the puppet Manchurian regime in North China. Although the four of them had different thoughts, they were surprisingly unanimous on this issue. First, they expressed their agreement to the establishment of a neutral regime. At the same time, they expressed that they did not hate Japan and could cooperate with the puppet Manchuria that Japan was trying to support. However, they also pushed the blame on each other. As for the new regime, as long as the other three agreed, they would fully cooperate. Tada was overjoyed. He thought that the new regime would be established soon and that the formation of the " North China Autarchy " would be imminent. After the crafty Dohihara Kenji heard the news from Tada, he immediately concluded that Tada's work had actually failed. According to Tufei Yuan's many years of experience dealing with important military and political figures of the Celestial Empire, he understood that when there was only one person present, he might answer some things very quickly and certainly. If there were many people present, they would often adopt a wait-and-see attitude, which would make it impossible to achieve the final goal. Especially for these powerful figures, if you persuaded them one by one in private to avoid them sitting down face to face to discuss the matter, a " new regime " might be established. However, Tufei Yuan did not have much confidence in the final outcome of this matter. He could only take it one step at a time. After the policy was decided, Tufei Yuan first invited Song Zheyuan and Shang Zhen to gather in Beiping to find out if the Song and Shang sides could work together to build a new regime. After the meeting, the result was just as Tufei Yuan had expected. Both sides were very ambiguous and refused to make any clear promises. Immediately after, Tufei Yuan invited Song Zheyuan and Han Fuju to meet directly, but the result was also undecided.
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