ABSTRACT
When gunfire exploded on the hot summer night of July 7, 1937, terrified farmers in the small village near Lukouch’iao, not far from Peiping, must have considered this just one more in the endless series of violent incidents perpetrated by bellicose Japanese soldiers. Weeks passed before it became evident that the fire-fight that night between Japanese and Chinese soldiers signaled the onset of a new and more ominous stage in the Japanese invasion of continental China.
