Shangkai shek and the chinese wanted to prove that they could put up a fight against the japanese. The strategy at the battle of shanghai was influenced by global public opinion. Shanghai had quite a lot of westerners in it. And so the chinese threw in all their best units, stuff that they had stock piled for a long time. As they chase them, an atrocity begins to occur.
Deep themes run through this show, with allegations of Japanese war crimes and atrocities in China at the start leading to eerily familiar, almost modern questions over how the world should respond. And then Dec 7, 1941 arrives...