Tungchow Mutiny The , sometimes referred to as the Tōngzhōu Incident , was an assault on Japanese civilians and troops by East Hopei Army in Tōngzhōu , China on 29 July 1937 shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident that marked the official beginning of the Second Sino - Japanese War . In early 1937 , Tōngzhōu was capital of the East Hopei Government , a Japanese puppet state controlling the strategic eastern district of Beijing . In July , a detachment of approximately 800 troops of the Chinese 29th Army , under the command of General Sung Che - yuan and loyal to the Kuomintang government , camped outside the walls of Tōngzhōu . Refusing to leave despite the strong protests of the Japanese garrison commander , the Japanese did not know that General Sung had reached an agreement with East Hopei leader Yin Ju - keng , who hoped to use Sung ' s Kuomintang troops to rid himself of his Japanese overlords . On 27 July , the Japanese commander demanded that the Kuomintang soldiers disarm . When they refused , fighting erupted the following day , and the outnumbered and outgunned Chinese troops were trapped between the Japanese and the city wall . However , the Kuomintang Chinese troops ' unwillingness to surrender in what was essentially a suicide mission strongly affected the Japanese - trained 1st and 2nd Corps of the East Hopei Army who were attached to the Japanese army . When East Hopei Army units refused to press the attack , Japanese troops bombed their barracks on the evening of 28 July . On midnight of 28 July , some 5000 troops of the 1st and 2nd Corps of the East Hopei Army mutinied , turning against the Japanese garrison . In addition to Japanese military personnel , some 260 civilians living in Tōngzhōu in accordance with the Boxer Protocol of 1901 were killed in the uprising ( predominantly Japanese including the police force and some ethnic Koreans ) . According to contemporary sources , the majority of women were raped and brutally massacred . Female bodies were found lying on the floor with brooms inserted in their violated genitals ; several severed heads of café waitresses were found lining up on a café table in a manner of atrocity exhibition ; a woman had her head chopped with a machete , after which the Chinese perpetrator raped the body in a necrophilic act ; the intestines was savagely taken out of the body ; a child was found dead with a barbed wire nose ring pierced in the nostrils . Only around 60 Japanese civilians survived and they provided both journalists and later historians with firsthand witness accounts . To complete their orgy , the Chinese set fire and destroyed much of the city . The massacre shocked the Japanese public and anti - Chinese sentiments were further intensified in Japan . The popular Japanese slogan in those days was " 暴戻支那膺懲 ( Bōrei Shina Yōchō ) " or its shorter version " 暴支膺懲 ( Bōshi Yōchō ) " , both of which mean " To punish China the outrageous " . The Japanese military adventurers stationed in China used this bloody incident to justify further military intervention under the pretext of protecting Japanese lives and properties in and around Beijing . After World War II the Japanese defence team at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East ( the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal ) submitted the official statement made in 1937 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan as the inevitable cause of the Sino - Japanese conflicts , but presiding judge Sir William Webb KBE rejected it as evidence .