"september 18 Incident" And Northeast Rural Social Structure

On September 18, 1931 the Japanese imperialist launched the September 18 Incident, and seized the whole Northeast China quickly, making it the Japanese colony. The September 18 Incident exerted profound influence on rural social construction of Northeast China, causing abnormal structural mutation of Northeast China's rural society in its course of development, whose manifestations are as follows: First, the September 18 Incident interrupted the internal and voluntary flow of population in the region and hinder the natural process of population exchanging between Northeast China and North China, which changed the nature of population migration, serving the war and looting demands of Japanese invaders, and resulting in the increased instability and dwindled interregional migration and reorientation. Japan promotes strongly the policy of the agriculture immigrants, causing the large influx of Japanese into the rural area of the region, pounding at the original social structure in the countryside. Korean immigrants formed another important part of colonization policy. Second, clan structure and family size also changed, The September 18 Incident made the changing process of the northeast rural clan structure developing a reversal trend, as the clan system appeared to consolidate. At the same time, the September 18 Incident also reversed the trend of family decentralization with the family model enlarging gradually. Third, the September 18 Incident also changed the rural authoritarian structure, disintegrating the binary power structure of "national government and local spire" since the founding of the Republic of China, engendering the sole power structure of the Japanese in rural Northeast China.Fourth, the September 18 Incident accelerated the hierarchical fluctuation process in rural areas; after the September 18 Incident broke out, the stratum of large landowners in rural Northeast China suffered the impact with the quick descent in ratio of land they owned. The crazy depredation of land by the Japanese colonists made many small landowners lose their land, many small peasants bankrupt, causing a quick increase in landless peasants. The pro-Japanese landlords made use of the Japanese influence, maintaining and continuing to annex large tracts of land, the size of real estates expanding continuously, and hence intensifying the hierarchical fluctuation process of rural Northeast China.