You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast.

I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world.

These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Vigllan, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark,

and so many other famous, and not so famous, adventures from throughout history.

Go to Explorerspodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app.

That's the Explorers Podcast.

Music Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War, episode 56, the second

Sino-Japanese War Part 7, sinking deeper.

This week, a big thank you goes out to Kail Vasili and Gruk for choosing to support the podcast

over on Patreon.

If you would like to find out more information about supporting the show, head on over to

History of the Second World War.com slash members to find out more information.

When 1937 ended, the overall territory controlled by Japan

within China had massively expanded when compared with the beginning of the year. Shanghai,

Nan King, and all the territory in between had fallen into their hands. In northern China,

they'd taken control of five of the most northern provinces, and they would

then create the Chinese people's federated government, which much like the government in Manchuko,

was technically a Chinese government, but one wholly controlled by the Japanese.

As new territory was brought under the control of Tokyo, there were plans put in place to

begin to take advantage of that

territory as quickly as possible. The natural resources were very valuable to the ongoing preparations

...