of Japanese assertion and Chinese resistance, a broader understanding might have been reached. Chiang's troops, however, continued to expand their control in northern China and the Japanese army's distrust of the forces of Chinese nationalism would only grow. According to historian Akira Iriye, the Jinan incident demonstrated the weak nature of the Japanese chain of command, and the powerlessness of civilian government officials to stop unilateral aggression by the military. Japanese army leaders, increasingly outside civilian control, feared that Chiang would respond to patriotic agitation and threaten their interests in southern Manchuria. Following the precedent of General Fukuda's unilateral action in Jinan, a group of officers of the Kwantung Army assassinated the leader of the Beiyang government and ruler of Manchuria Zhang Zuolin on 4 June 1928, setting off a chain of events that created the pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Dispute over photographs According to Japanese researcher Hara Masayoshi, pictures of the corpses of massacred Japanese citizens undergoing autopsy in a Jinan hospital have been mistakenly used by Chinese publishers in textbooks as depicting the Japanese Unit 731 biological weapons experiments. They have also appeared in a museum in Jilin province, and in middle school textbooks. The same pictures have also been mistakenly used in Japan, such as in "The Road to the Tokyo Trials" by Kuriya Kentarō, and in a TV Asahi programme about the horrors of war. Some of these pictures can be viewed below. See also Events preceding World War II in Asia Huanggutun incident (Japanese assassination of the Chinese head of state Generalissimo Zhang Zuolin on 4 June 1928) Northeast Flag Replacement (by Zhang Xueliang on 29 December 1928) Japanese invasion of Manchuria Mukden Incident (18 September 1931) January 28 Incident (Shanghai, 1932) Defense of the Great Wall (1933) Marco Polo Bridge Incident (7 July 1937) Gando massacre Kantō Massacre Nanjing Massacre Nikolayevsk incident Tonghua incident Tungchow mutiny Shakee Massacre References Citations Sources External links 1928 in China 1928 in Japan Battles involving China Battles involving Japan Conflicts in 1928 Combat incidents China–Japan relations Japanese war crimes War crimes in China May 1928 events Military history of Shandong Jinan Northern Expedition