Battle of Wuhan and the Stalemate Stage

After Nanjing fell, the National Government moved its capital to Chongqing, but the military, political and economic center was in fact Wuhan, which became the center of national resistance. From June 1938 Japan massed about 400,000 troops in turn and advanced on Wuhan along both banks of the Yangtze and the northern foot of the Dabie Mountains. To defend Wuhan, China committed about a million troops, who fought the Japanese across a wide area of Anhui, Henan, Jiangxi and Hubei. In the Battle of Wanjialing in Jiangxi, Xue Yue directed Chinese forces in surrounding and badly mauling the Japanese 106th Division, a major victory. During the battle the National Government moved many factories, schools and supplies to the southwest rear area. In late October Japan took Guangzhou, and the three towns of Wuhan fell by the end of the month. The Battle of Wuhan lasted four and a half months and was one of the largest and longest of the war; Chinese troops, at heavy cost, wore down much of Japan's manpower, and Japan's strategy of quick decisive victory completely failed. After Guangzhou and Wuhan fell, Japan's lines were overstretched and its forces insufficient for large strategic offensives, and the war entered a strategic stalemate stage. Japan shifted toward political inducement of the National Government as its main policy, with military pressure secondary, and used most of its forces against the anti-Japanese bases behind its lines, so the behind-the-lines battlefield gradually became the main one. After Wuhan the government's political and military center moved to Chongqing, which suffered long “indiscriminate bombing” by Japan, but its people kept on resisting, showing an unyielding national spirit.