1939 Sengoku / Ishida Manga Map, Second Sino-Japanese War (World War II)

An impressive large-format 1939 manga propaganda map of China and Korea compiled by a team led by political activist and union organizer Sengoku Kotaro and published as a supplement to the periodical Ie no hikari. It was published at the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945) (the Chinese theater of World War II), as Japan's initial advances slowed, and the war settled into a grueling stalemate.

A Closer Look

Coverage includes China, Mongolia, Manchuria, and Korea, with portions of surrounding territories. Cartoon figures representing farmers, soldiers, and workers of different nations appear throughout. Though outwardly innocuous, these illustrations reflect common, and often denigrating, Japanese perceptions of other Asian peoples, while also endorsing Japan's rationale for invading China in 1937.

China is presented as a bountiful land of vast resources and hardy people, whose industriousness, it is implied, is only held back by ineffective government. Chinese farmers and laborers are seen lugging bags labeled 'wheat,' 'salt,' 'rice,' and so on, hinting at the resources that Japan hoped to acquire after the war. Aside from the large puppet state of Manchukuo towards top-right, figures in areas more recently occupied by Japanese troops, such as Beijing, Nanjing, and Inner Mongolia, wave flags and welcome Japan's benevolent influence. The depiction of Koreans is similarly loaded and self-serving, with an indolent yangban figure smoking opium, a peasant uprooting ginseng, and miners digging iron and coal. Conversely, soldiers and civilians of the Mongolian People's Republic (Outer Mongolia) and the Soviet Union are presented as obstinate and menacing, a threat all along the borders of Manchukuo and northern China.

Aside from humans, animal figures, boats, and structures like the Great Wall of China are drawn to reflect regional characteristics. For instance, an unlucky goldminer in northern Heilongjiang, the northernmost point in China (or, rather, Manchukuo here), runs from an angry bear. Though Japanese and Chinese soldiers are not depicted, an inset map at bottom-right refers to the intense, ongoing conflict, indicating areas occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army as of the end of October 1938.

The Second Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China, led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Guomindang (GMD, or Kuomintang KMT), and the Empire of Japan. Though generally dated to 1937, some scholars trace the beginning of the war to the Mukden Incident and the September 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. In the following years, Japan established a puppet regime in Manchuria and extended its influence into northern China through several other 'incidents,' to the extent that it directly or indirectly controlled most of northern China and Inner Mongolia by 1937.

Although determined to resist the Japanese, Chiang was eager to eliminate the domestic threat from the Communists first while also buying time to modernize his armies and gain better control over his generals, most of whom were semi-independent warlords. These plans were disrupted when Chiang was kidnapped by one of his own generals in December 1936 and forced to enter a united front with the Communists. Now compelled to turn his attention towards Japan, it was a matter not of if but when a full-scale war with Japan would come.

The July 7, 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident has traditionally been considered the start of the war, when Chinese and Japanese troops began exchanging fire at the Marco Polo (Lugou) Bridge, along a main access route to Beijing. This exchange of fire escalated to an all-out battle leading to Japanese forces capturing both Beijing and its port city of Tianjin. As the conflict expanded, Chiang aimed to deliver a knockout blow before Japanese reserves could be thrown into the fight. He launched an assault on Shanghai in the autumn of 1937, hoping to throw the Japanese garrison there into the sea, but was unable to completely drive them out. When Japanese reinforcements did arrive, they launched a counterattack that forced Chiang to retreat from Shanghai with heavy losses. After a cursory defense of the capital, Nanjing, Chiang moved deep into the Chinese interior to prepare for a protracted war of attrition.

Slowing Japan's Advance

After their rapid victories at the start of the war, by mid-1938 Japan was reaching an impasse. Years of military modernization and propaganda had laid the groundwork for the successful first phase of the war, but Japan simply lacked the resources and manpower to occupy the vast territory of China. It was hoped that further victories and capture of major cities would force Chiang to surrender, and so Japanese armies took city after city along the coast and down the Yangzi River. For its part, China had scored a surprise victory at the Battle of Tai'erzhuang in the spring of 1938, slowing Japan's advance, and engaged in grand-scale scorched earth tactics, most famously blowing up the dikes on the Yellow River, flooding thousands of kilometers of land, killing several hundred thousand civilians and Japanese troops, and restricting the possible paths of Japanese advance.

Chiang set up a temporary headquarters in Hankou (Wuhan) while preparations were made in Chongqing. Japanese commanders hoped that another major victory would demoralize Chinese forces to the point that Chiang would surrender. With the extra time provided by the Yellow River floods, Chiang prepared a defense of Hankou and the wider middle Yangzi region. In June 1938, the Japanese began their attack in earnest, quickly capturing Anqing, Jiujiang, and several strategically important railways. However, they ran into increasingly stiff resistance as the campaign wore on, while also contending with guerilla attacks and surprise counterattacks deep behind the front line. A campaign was also launched to cut off Chiang's supplies by invading and occupying Guangzhou, which diverted resources from the main battle near Hankou. In the end, the Japanese occupied both Hankou and Guangzhou, but at a high cost and without achieving their goal of forcing Chiang to surrender. Afterwards, Japan shifted toward trying to cut off supplies to Chongqing while establishing a rival government in Nanjing with enough legitimacy to win over the Chinese public but failed on both accounts.

Publication History and Census

This map was published as a supplement to the January 1, 1939 (Showa 14) New Year's edition of Ie no hikari (家の光), a publication of the Central Union of Co-operative Societies (産業組合中央會). It was edited by Sengoku Kotaro (千石興太郎), a political activist and leading figure in the Central Union. The illustrations themselves were done by Ishida Eisuke (石田英助) in conjunction with the publisher Tanseidō (丹誠堂), with information reviewed by Kumae Nobumitsu (隈江信光) of the Tokyo Higher Normal School (東京高等師範學校). Printing was done by Akiba Makoto (秋葉信). The map is similar to Ishida's November 1937 manga map published at the start of the conflict in Women's Club magazine (previously sold by us). We note examples of the present map among the holdings of the National Diet Library, the National Library of Australia, Stanford University (at the David Rumsey Map Center), and the National Folk Museum of Korea.