China Expeditionary Army

The China Expeditionary Army (Shina hakengun) was a general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1939 to 1945.

The China Expeditionary Army was established in September 1939 from the merger of the Central China Expeditionary Army and Japanese Northern China Area Army, and was headquartered in the pro-Japanese Reorganized National Government's capital city of Nanjing. The China Expeditionary Army was responsible for all Japanese military operations in China except in the puppet state of Manchukuo, which Japan claimed was not part of China, and was the main fighting force during the Second Sino-Japanese War, with over 1 million soldiers under its command at its peak. The China Expeditionary Army was dissolved upon the Surrender of Japan in August 1945. The separate Kwantung army was the main Japanese army occupying Manchukuo, and had another 1 million Japanese troops alongside over a million Japanese settlers in Manchukuo, separate from the China Expeditionary Army's million troops.

Japan had yet another third army, the Burma Area Army, attacking China from its southwestern border with Burma at the Battle of Northern Burma and Western Yunnan in the Battle of Mount Song and Battle of Tengchong in western Yunnan in 1942, 1943 and 1944.

The Burma Area Army, Kwantung Army and China Expeditionary Army were three separate Japanese armies that fought against China, so the total number of Japanese troops that fought against China was over double the number of the China Expeditionary Army.

In military literature, the China Expeditionary Army is often referred to by the initials "CEA".