Benjamin Lai: 7 books
Hong Kong 1941–45
First strike in the Pacific War
Language: English
Release Date: June 20, 2014
On 8th December 1941, as part of the simultaneous combined attack against Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) invaded the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia and the British colony of Hong Kong. After only 18 days of battle the defenders, a weak, undermanned brigade, were overwhelmed by...
Shanghai and Nanjing 1937
Massacre on the Yangtze
Language: English
Release Date: June 29, 2017
From 1931, China and Japan had been embroiled in a number of small-scale conflicts that had seen vast swathes of territory being occupied by the Japanese. On 7 July 1937, the Japanese engineered the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which led to the fall of Beijing and Tianjin and the start of a de facto...
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army since 1949
Ground Forces
Language: English
Release Date: November 20, 2012
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the largest army in the world. China is predicted to be on the brink of overtaking the USA as the world's largest economy, and China's military capabilities and global ambitions are the single greatest long-term pre-occupation of Western governments. The...
The Dragon's Teeth
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army—Its History, Traditions, and Air Sea and Land Capability in the 21st Century
Language: English
Release Date: July 14, 2016
When Mao Zedong proclaimed The People’s Republic of China in 1949, China was a poor and wrecked society after years of continuous wars. For centuries, in fact, China had been seen as a sort of plunder-zone to be invaded, and then a backwater until the late 1980s, when domestic policy brought about...
The Long March 1934–35
The rise of Mao and the beginning of modern China
Language: English
Release Date: September 19, 2019
Every nation has its founding myth, and for modern China it is the Long March. In the autumn of 1934, the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek routed the Chinese Communists and some 80,000 men, women and children left their homes to walk with Mao Zedong into the unknown. Mao's force had to endure...
Chinese Battleship vs Japanese Cruiser
Yalu River 1894
Language: English
Release Date: February 21, 2019
The 1894–95 war between China and Japan, known in the West as the First Sino-Japanese War, lasted only nine months, but its impact resonates today.
The Chinese Beiyang (Northern) Fleet was led by her flagship, Dingyuan, and her sister ship*, Zhenyuan*, which were the biggest in Asia; German-built...
Chinese Soldier vs Japanese Soldier
China 1937–38
Language: English
Release Date: October 18, 2018
In July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident sparked a bloody conflict between Chinese and Japanese forces that would rage across China and beyond for more than eight years.
The two sides' forces brought very different strengths and limitations to the conflict. In 1937 China was divided into...