Kwantung Army

관동군

The Japanese army formation stationed at Port Arthur from 1906 to guard the Kwantung Leased Territory on the Liaodong peninsula and the South Manchuria Railway, both won in the Russo-Japanese War. Operations it launched without Tokyo's approval, the assassination of Zhang Zuolin in 1928 and the Liutiaohu incident of 1931, were ratified after the fact, and it became in effect a political power of its own; after Manchukuo was founded it governed that state in all but name. As the home of the Strike North doctrine it clashed with Soviet forces at Lake Khasan in 1938 and Khalkhin Gol in 1939, losing both times. Once its best units and equipment had been drawn south by the widening Pacific war, it collapsed in under two weeks against the Soviet Manchurian operation of August 1945.