Japan found this golden opportunity to colonize some of the vaguely defined areas in East Asia from the hands of Russians and started skirmishing with Russians in the Northeast areas of China 满洲 (Manchuria). The Russo-Japanese war, although without words like "Sino" or "China" in it, was in fact fought mostly on Chinese soil. Machine guns were introduced in the war, but like many weapons in the history, the side that was the early adopter of the magic weapon did not get a victory because of it. The final act that nailed down the victory for Japanese, happened in Japanese Sea when a group of faster and lighter warships swooped down on a group of heavier and more powerful Russian warships, but were much slower. Those Russian warships had sailed for a long journey and most of them were quickly sunk with small casualty inflicted on the Japanese. The Russian Pacific Squadron was almost annihilated with a few remaining ships went back to Russia to participate in the October Revolution. After this war, Japan's power nation status was confirmed and unequal treaties imposed on her earlier were completely rid of. Quickly after, Japan started imposing unequal rights upon its Asian neighbors and also ventured into loosely administering Asian part of the Russian sphere of influence.

Chinese revolutionaries, ordinary people and local officials finally had enough of the incompetent 清 dynasty and the central government was overthrown by 辛亥革命/民国 Nationalists soon after the Russo-Japanese war.

Machine guns, like tanks of the Second World war, felt people did not use its full potential in the first war that it appeared in, therefore got its usage fully exploited in the next bigger and wider scaled armed conflict. World War I, or in Europe simply known as The Great War, started not too long after China became a republic. Other unexpected weapon and tools that changed the outlook of the warfare in World War I were things such as barbed wires, rail roads, bikes/taxis, chemical weapons, submarines and airplanes. After assassination of Prince Ferdinand in Sarajevo, nations calmed for a couple of months, since Ferdinand was a rather unpopular prince in Austro-Hungarian Empire. But history took a funny turn because some Austrian generals wanted to get a war to have some excuses to teach Serbians, and Balkan people in general, a lesson. What Austro-Hungarian Empire finally got was a war that broke herself. The other main players in the World War I were Germans, French and British in the Western front and Russians, Turks, Germans in the Eastern front.

Over in the Western front, both sides quickly entered into a stalemate and both sides realized that digging into the trenches and fighting a defensive war was more advantageous than conducting an offensive campaign. The Germans failed to materialize Von Schlieffen plan, while Ferdinand Foch, "Papa" Joffre and Philippe Petain made their names fighting the Germans in defensive trench warfare on their home soil. In the Eastern front, Erich Ludendorff and Von Hindenburg quickly overran the weaker Russian army and became German national heroes. British tried to break the stalemate by starting a Gallipoli campaign against the Turks, but failed. First admiralty Lord Churchill took a fall with it, leaving his post as a minister and went to the front. Mr. Churchill and a group of colleagues tried to experiment on an offensive moving vehicle that could be as tough and solid as a defensive fortress. Such a vehicle was called "tank", intended to break the stalemate at the Western front. Some people in World War I called the vehicle a joke, but many nations started perfecting the technique with the weapon after the war, and made it star of the World War II.

In the end, what really broke the status qua over in the west front was the participation of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). The force was led by a Missouri born straight talking general John J. Pershing, who fought hard with his colleagues in the French Army and British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) wanting to feed his troops piece meal into different theaters of war. At that time, American military was considered junior partner when fighting along side the French and English. It was said that the first trip for some early arrival AEF soldiers in France was to visit the tomb of Lafayette and pay tributes. Then Marines in the AEF started making newspaper headlines all over the United States, but still had to keep fighting merely for the sake of existence because traditional army brass still was not sure what to do with such a new type of armed force. They wanted it dissolved or merged into the army after the war .

Over on the high sea, after seeing the greatest fire arch built by gunboats in the human history opened the Battle of Jutland, German navy was defeated and Britannia still ruled the sea. In the Eastern front, Germans sponsored a communist named Vladimir Lenin to travel back to Russia and led a revolution. The revolution succeeded and soon Russia announced that it was withdrawing itself from the war. Such was the "stabbed at the back by politicians and communists" strategy Hitler later labeled as suffered by Central Powers. But Russia was the first victim on hands of Germans. Germans finally ran out of steam in the Western front after waves and waves of fresh American soldiers poured in. Treaty of Versaille was finally signed with punishing terms to the Central Powers to conclude a war, which prompted General Foch to say: "this isn't peace, this is a truce of 20 years".

Almost exactly moving 20 light-years away, one could see Germans crossing the border of Poland while Russians sent their Red Army too.

But for a while, world peace was spreading its wings. League of Nations was founded based on the idea of some academic Americans, especially President Wilson, but US congress refused to join the organization. Chinese and Japanese both wanted to reclaim former colonies occupied by the Germans. Since Japan was more powerful in the League of Nations and it had more fire power in its arsenal, demands from Japan were heard. Demands from China were not quickly brushed away, and Japanese further increased their encroachments into China.

The quasi-colonization of the Japanese and other European powers were conducted in China through warlords, at first. Soon after, some of the warlords emerged more powerful than others, like kids playing musical chairs. The kind of "Waring State" game was played on Chinese soil again, resonating the everlasting proverb "there is nothing new under the sun".

Finally, Chinese Nationalists and Communists seemed to get the idea that fresh blood and more radical changes would be needed, since none of the warlords would truly represent majority of the Chinese people. Class struggle went up on the priority list and parties representing underprivileged classes started recruiting young people among the majority classes of poor peasants, or workers and funded schools to educate those youth man and women. The success of armed forces built out of freshly trained youth, who were faithful and disciplined, were soon demonstrated in 北伐 (Campaign to the North). Soon warlords in most areas of China had to at least show token submission to the Nationalist government led by 蒋介石 in 南京. One big problem was 蒋 killed off many communists before getting warlords everywhere to listen to him, so he got staunch enemies out of one group of armed soldiers who truly represents the majority of poor and underprivileged people in China, and so went the stability of the country.

After 东北易帜 满洲国/九一八, Japanese seemed to be getting on the nerve of most Chinese people, but the Nationalist government insisted on getting rid of communists first 攘外必先安内, with fair amount of success. Chinese red army was forced to start the Long March (长征) for a year, which was a retreat or escape, with heavy losses and casualties. The positive effect of Long March, to the communists, was that it sorted out a group of veteran military and political leaders that reached the ranks of world class.

Over in Germany, some Germans still had a hard time accepting the humiliation of defeat while paying the war debt had led to revolutions and chaos all over the country. Britain with its usual imperialistic ways led by Sir Winston Churchill negotiated to keep its currency at a higher exchange rate against Franc, which inadvertently ruined the British economy. France, being war torn with its home soil still littered with unexploded ammunition, had a hard time rebuilding. Britain and France soon watched America and Germany surpassing them as bigger economies in the world, but not too much attention were paid to new up-stars before they had made names for themselves?

America under the leadership of Herbert Hoover alike was carrying the free market policy to an extreme and were later criticized for failed to prevent US from racing towards depression. Then Great Depression set in, with Japanese turning more militaristic over in the East, and then German president Von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor. Soon after, Nazism took over Fascism as the senior partner among the right extremists -- Axis, and more things in the world turned sour.

Over in China, 西安事变 happened and shortly afterwards, Japanese crossed Marco Polo bridge 芦沟桥事变 to occupy vast areas of China. When they carried out the Rape of Nan-kin 南京大屠杀, it ended the possibility of that nation ever becoming the leader and model of all Asian people. The kid just didn't know how to lead other peoples and could not handle the pressure of leadership, and too much power.