Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, Episode

215, Collision Course, The Road to Pearl Harbor.

For the third time, Chen Kai-shek was setting up his new capital, this time in Chongqing,

just over 1000 kilometers from the coast west of Shanghai, where this latest fighting

with Japan had started.

And most of that territory between the coast and Chongqing was controlled by the enemy,

or at the very least not controlled by the Chinese nationalists.

Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuhan, and territories to the north of these, not to mention Manchuria,

were gone, and no longer providing material, manpower, or money in the form of duties paid

to Chen's government.

And yet the nationalists went on.

For Chen Kai-shek, the successor to Sun Yat-sen had no choice, not really.

But the question was how to go on.

The west wasn't helping, even though Russia was contributing, but that was just Stalin's

way of making sure Japan did not come after his eastern possessions.

Yet Japan's prospects were little better.

Yes, they were winning the war.

A war the Supreme Command did not want, and did not know how to win.

And by the end of 1938, Tokyo found itself putting practically its entire armed forces

on the mainland.

Not that this brought Chen to the negotiating table, for he would not talk unless the enemy

moved back to the pre-1937 borders.

...