 He held military meetings and personally inspected the defense positions while facing down parties who wished to surrender, saying “I am appointed as Chairman of the Province, and I have the responsibility to defend the Province and I will never be a surrendering general".In November 1931, General Ma Zhanshan chose to disobey the Kuomintang government's ban on further resistance to the Japanese invasion and attempted to prevent Japanese forces from crossing into Heilongjiang province by defending a strategic railway bridge across the Nen River near Jiangqiao.This bridge had been dynamited earlier by Ma's forces during the fighting against pro-Japanese collaborationist forces of General Zhang Haipeng.