| Mukden incident |
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| Part of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the interwar period |
Japanese troops entering Shenyang during the Mukden incident |
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| Belligerents |
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China |
Japan |
| Commanders and leaders |
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| Strength |
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160,000 |
30,000–66,000 |
| Casualties and losses |
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- Western claim: 340+ killed
- Chinese claim:
- 5 officers and 144 soldiers killed
- 14 officers and 172 soldiers wounded
- 483 soldiers missing
- Japanese claim: 320 killed
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- Western claim: 25 killed
- Japanese claim: 2 killed, 22 wounded
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- 1931–1936
- 1937–1938
- 1939–1942
- 1943–1945
- Air War
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The Mukden incident was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, Lieutenant Suemori Kawamoto of the Independent Garrison Unit of the 29th Japanese Infantry Regiment detonated a small quantity of dynamite close to a railway line owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway near Mukden (now Shenyang). The explosion was so weak that it failed to destroy the track, and a train passed over it minutes later. The Imperial Japanese Army accused Chinese dissidents of the act and responded with a full invasion that led to the occupation of Manchuria, in which Japan established its puppet state of Manchukuo five months later.