One of the great miscalculations of modern history was made by officers of Japan's Guandong (Kwantung) Army when they planted the bomb that killed the "Old Marshal" Zhang Zuolin (Chang Tso-lin) as he was fleeing Beijing for Manchuria in 1928. The Guandong Army hotheads thought that Zhang's son Zhang Xueliang (Chang Hsueh-liang), a drug-addicted [1] playboy, would be easier for them to manipulate. It turned out that the "Young Marshal" Zhang Xueliang was more modern and more of a Chinese nationalist than his father. He soon raised the Guomindang flag in Manchuria, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Flag_Replacement something which I doubt his father would have done--the Old Marshal was willing to accept the inevitable, withdraw from Beijing, and acknowledge Chiang Kai-shek as the ruler of China below the Great Wall, but he would not accept GMD authority in Manchuria. The Young Marshal however believed in Chinese unity (though of course with considerable autonomy for him in Manchuria) and supported Chiang Kai-shek as the man most likely to bring this about. In 1930 Chiang Kai-shek faced a serious civil war, the so-called Central Plains War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Plains_War Chiang faced the formidable coalition of his old GMD rival Wang Jingwei with the warlords Feng Yuxiang (the "Christian General"), Yan Xishan (the "Model Governor" of Shanxi) and the "Guangxi Clique" (led by Li Zongren). Although the coalition used "liberal" rhetoric in denouncing "Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship," fundamentally what it objected to was Chiang's centralizing policies--policies which threatened warlord prerogatives but were arguably essential if China was to build a strong state capable of resisting Japan. The decisive factor in the war was the Young Marshal, who in the end came down on Chiang's side. And of course in 1936 the Young Marshal played the key role in the "Xi'an Incident" which greatly strengthened Chinese unity against Japan. Thus, in 1928, 1930, and 1936 the Young Marshal worked for the Chinese unity the Japanese wanted to prevent (and in 1936 he was very helpful to the Communists from whom the Japanese claimed they wanted to "save" China). To be sure, the Young Marshal was not effective in resisting the Japanese conquest of Manchuria and Jehol in 1931-3. But given the disparity between Chinese and Japanese power, it is doubtful that anyone else would have done much better; and even here, the Young Marshal in a way helped Chiang by serving as a scapegoat.
The consequences of the Old Marshal's assassination were momentous for internal Japanese politics as well. When the Old Marshal fled Beijing he was (though a bit belatedly) doing exactly what Japan's Prime Minister Tanaka wanted him to do:
"...in Tanaka's view Chiang Kai-shek had tacitly accepted Zhang Zuolin's continued governance north of the Great Wall and the position of the Japanese in Manchuria in return for a free hand in China proper. Moreover the Old Marshal had at last agreed to evacuate North China without fighting (23 May), and he had all but delivered the 'three eastern provinces' into Japanese hands when he signed the railway agreements (13 and 15 May). Tanaka would have been a fool to unleash the Guandong Army under the circumstances. He stood at the threshold of success in China without ruffling the feathers of the Great Powers or contravening treaties which Japan had solemnly signed..." Leonard A. Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s (Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 158. http://books.google.com/books?id=vlA3wijPak4C&pg=PA158
"Zhang Zuolin's death had terrible repercussions in the years to come. Tanaka's house of cards, the nonmilitary solution to Japan's Manmo [Manchuria-Mongolia] problem, had appeared near completion, but the bombing of Marshal Zhang collapsed it at a stroke. The 'Young Marshal' Zhang Xueling, Zuolin's son and successor, soon switched Manchuria's allegiance to the Guomindang, sealing the door against any but a military solution for Japan. For the army it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Manchurian Incident of 1931 was the direct result. This, in turn, led inevitably to new clashes between the Nanjing government and Japan, ending in the China Incident, which eventually blended into the larger conflagration of World War II.
"The effects within Japan were equally disastrous. The chief of the assassins was Col. Komoto Daisaku, the senior staff officer on the Guandong Army staff. Though his part was hidden from the Japanese people and the world until the International Military Tribunal, Far East, met after the war, the facts that proved the case against Komoto were known to high officials of the army soon after the event. Tanaka's battle with the army to expose the crime and punish the offenders, however, met a stone wall of hostility. In the end Tanaka's position with the emperor and Prince Saioniji, both of whom agreed that justice must be meted out in the case, became irreparably compromised, finally forcing the Tanaka cabinet to resign on 2 July 1929. Tanaka Giichi died some weeks later. There is little doubt that the 'great unsolved Manchurian case' contributed to his demise.
"The permanent rupture in the relationship between the army and the government caused by the untoward affair overshadowed Tanaka's death, however. Friction and suspicion between the army and the government never healed, and it was only a matter of time before the emboldened army, led by staff officers of field grade rank, overbore both the political parties and the civil government. The internal effects on army discipline can be imagined...A new atmosphere of instability gripped the army, in which it was easy for politically minded groups of officers to wield power far beyond the perquisites of their rank or the numbers of their direct adherents..." Humphreys, pp. 161-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=vlA3wijPak4C&pg=PA161
(Komoto incidentally thought that the assassination of Zhang would lead to fighting between the Chinese soldiers of Zhang's army--who were then crowding into Mukden after abandoning Beijing to the GMD--and the Guandong Army. The Guandong Army would easily defeat the leaderless Chinese, so the administration of Manchuria would fall by default into the hands of Japan and the army. The better to provide a basis for such a conflict, Komoto ordered an infantry brigade to be stationed at the Yamato Hotel in Mukden. Unfortunately for Komoto, the Guandong Army's Chief of Staff, Major General Saito Hisashi, knowing nothing of Komoto's plot, countermanded the order. In any event, almost no fighting developed. Humphreys, p. 164. http://books.google.com/books?id=vlA3wijPak4C&pg=PA164 So in the end Komoto's plans came to nought, except that Zhang Zuolin was now dead.)
So if instead of Komoto, the Guandong Army had had a senior staff officer less impatient to get rid of Zhang Zuolin, history might have been changed momentously. Or perhaps if General Saito had learned about the plot, he could have stopped it. OTOH, Komoto might not have acted as he did had other young officers not shared his belief in a radical solution for the Manchurian problem, and presumably one or more of them might have done the same thing if he did not. Yet even if one assumes that eventually some Guandong Army officers would have killed Zhang Zuolin, a delay could have important effects, e.g., by coming late enough that Zhang Xueliang doesn't get the chance to provide crucial support for Chiang Kai-shek in 1930...
[1] He was eventually (in 1933) cured in Shanghai "by an American drug specialist who put him and his equally addicted wives to sleep with anesthetics, and then injected their arms with fluid drawn from blisters induced on their stomachs. They were unconscious for several days. 'If he dies, so will you,' a Manchurian aide warned the doctor. But the Marshal and his wives came round..." Jonathan Fenby, Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost, p. 222. https://books.google.com/books?id=PNJOxyP0SqEC&pg=PA22
The consequences of the Old Marshal's assassination were momentous for internal Japanese politics as well. When the Old Marshal fled Beijing he was (though a bit belatedly) doing exactly what Japan's Prime Minister Tanaka wanted him to do:
"...in Tanaka's view Chiang Kai-shek had tacitly accepted Zhang Zuolin's continued governance north of the Great Wall and the position of the Japanese in Manchuria in return for a free hand in China proper. Moreover the Old Marshal had at last agreed to evacuate North China without fighting (23 May), and he had all but delivered the 'three eastern provinces' into Japanese hands when he signed the railway agreements (13 and 15 May). Tanaka would have been a fool to unleash the Guandong Army under the circumstances. He stood at the threshold of success in China without ruffling the feathers of the Great Powers or contravening treaties which Japan had solemnly signed..." Leonard A. Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s (Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 158. http://books.google.com/books?id=vlA3wijPak4C&pg=PA158
"Zhang Zuolin's death had terrible repercussions in the years to come. Tanaka's house of cards, the nonmilitary solution to Japan's Manmo [Manchuria-Mongolia] problem, had appeared near completion, but the bombing of Marshal Zhang collapsed it at a stroke. The 'Young Marshal' Zhang Xueling, Zuolin's son and successor, soon switched Manchuria's allegiance to the Guomindang, sealing the door against any but a military solution for Japan. For the army it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Manchurian Incident of 1931 was the direct result. This, in turn, led inevitably to new clashes between the Nanjing government and Japan, ending in the China Incident, which eventually blended into the larger conflagration of World War II.
"The effects within Japan were equally disastrous. The chief of the assassins was Col. Komoto Daisaku, the senior staff officer on the Guandong Army staff. Though his part was hidden from the Japanese people and the world until the International Military Tribunal, Far East, met after the war, the facts that proved the case against Komoto were known to high officials of the army soon after the event. Tanaka's battle with the army to expose the crime and punish the offenders, however, met a stone wall of hostility. In the end Tanaka's position with the emperor and Prince Saioniji, both of whom agreed that justice must be meted out in the case, became irreparably compromised, finally forcing the Tanaka cabinet to resign on 2 July 1929. Tanaka Giichi died some weeks later. There is little doubt that the 'great unsolved Manchurian case' contributed to his demise.
"The permanent rupture in the relationship between the army and the government caused by the untoward affair overshadowed Tanaka's death, however. Friction and suspicion between the army and the government never healed, and it was only a matter of time before the emboldened army, led by staff officers of field grade rank, overbore both the political parties and the civil government. The internal effects on army discipline can be imagined...A new atmosphere of instability gripped the army, in which it was easy for politically minded groups of officers to wield power far beyond the perquisites of their rank or the numbers of their direct adherents..." Humphreys, pp. 161-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=vlA3wijPak4C&pg=PA161
(Komoto incidentally thought that the assassination of Zhang would lead to fighting between the Chinese soldiers of Zhang's army--who were then crowding into Mukden after abandoning Beijing to the GMD--and the Guandong Army. The Guandong Army would easily defeat the leaderless Chinese, so the administration of Manchuria would fall by default into the hands of Japan and the army. The better to provide a basis for such a conflict, Komoto ordered an infantry brigade to be stationed at the Yamato Hotel in Mukden. Unfortunately for Komoto, the Guandong Army's Chief of Staff, Major General Saito Hisashi, knowing nothing of Komoto's plot, countermanded the order. In any event, almost no fighting developed. Humphreys, p. 164. http://books.google.com/books?id=vlA3wijPak4C&pg=PA164 So in the end Komoto's plans came to nought, except that Zhang Zuolin was now dead.)
So if instead of Komoto, the Guandong Army had had a senior staff officer less impatient to get rid of Zhang Zuolin, history might have been changed momentously. Or perhaps if General Saito had learned about the plot, he could have stopped it. OTOH, Komoto might not have acted as he did had other young officers not shared his belief in a radical solution for the Manchurian problem, and presumably one or more of them might have done the same thing if he did not. Yet even if one assumes that eventually some Guandong Army officers would have killed Zhang Zuolin, a delay could have important effects, e.g., by coming late enough that Zhang Xueliang doesn't get the chance to provide crucial support for Chiang Kai-shek in 1930...
[1] He was eventually (in 1933) cured in Shanghai "by an American drug specialist who put him and his equally addicted wives to sleep with anesthetics, and then injected their arms with fluid drawn from blisters induced on their stomachs. They were unconscious for several days. 'If he dies, so will you,' a Manchurian aide warned the doctor. But the Marshal and his wives came round..." Jonathan Fenby, Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost, p. 222. https://books.google.com/books?id=PNJOxyP0SqEC&pg=PA22
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