Jinan incident

Jinan Incident / 3 May Tragedy
Japanese soldiers atop a gate in the walled city of Jinan, May 1928
Date 3–11 May 1928 (1 week and 1 day) Location Jinan, Shandong, China Result Japanese victory; Japanese army occupied Jinan until March 1929
Belligerents
Kuomintang government	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Chiang Kai-shek Feng Yuxiang	Fukuda Hikosuke Ryū Saitō
Units involved
National Revolutionary Army NRA 1st Collective Army NRA 2nd Collective Army (Guominjun)	Imperial Japanese Army 6th Division Kwantung Army
Casualties and losses
6,123 civilians and soldiers killed Thousands wounded[1]	13–16 civilians killed 26 soldiers killed 157 soldiers wounded[2]

The Jinan incident (simplified Chinese: 济南惨案; traditional Chinese: 濟南慘案; Japanese: 済南事件; formerly romanised Tsinan) or 3 May Tragedy (simplified Chinese: 五三惨案; traditional Chinese: 五三慘案; pinyin: Wǔsān Cǎn'àn) began as a 3 May 1928 dispute between Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army (NRA) and Japanese soldiers and civilians in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province in China, which then escalated into an armed conflict between the NRA and the Imperial Japanese Army.

Japanese soldiers had been deployed to Shandong province to protect Japanese commercial interests in the province, which were threatened by the advance of Chiang's Northern Expedition to reunite China under a Kuomintang government.^[2] When the NRA approached Jinan, the Beiyang government-aligned army of Sun Chuanfang withdrew from the area, allowing for the peaceful capture of the city by the NRA.^[3] NRA forces initially managed to coexist with Japanese troops stationed around the Japanese consulate and businesses, and Chiang Kai-shek arrived to negotiate their withdrawal on 2 May. This peace was broken the following morning, however, when a dispute between the Chinese and Japanese resulted in the deaths of 13–16 Japanese civilians. The resulting conflict resulted in thousands of casualties on the NRA side, which fled the area to continue northwards toward Beijing, and left the city under Japanese occupation until March 1929.^[2]