China Expeditionary Army

The China Expeditionary Army (支那派遣軍, Shina Hakengun) was established on September 12, 1939 as a general army placed over the two existing commands in China: the Central China Expeditionary Army, which was abolished and absorbed into the new headquarters, and the North China Area Army, which continued as a subordinate command headquartered in Beijing. Headquartered in Nanjing — the capital of the collaborationist Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China under Wang Jingwei — it was the supreme Japanese command authority over all ground forces in China south of the Great Wall (excluding Manchuria, which was under the Kwantung Army).

At the end of the war, the China Expeditionary Army still commanded about 1,050,000 troops organized into multiple area armies and field armies spread across the vast Chinese theater. It conducted major operations including the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign (1942), Operation Ichi-Go (1944) — the largest Japanese ground offensive of the war, which advanced across southern China — and numerous anti-guerrilla campaigns.

The China Expeditionary Army's commander at war's end, General Yasuji Okamura, formally surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's representative General He Yingqin at a ceremony in Nanjing on September 9, 1945.