Qinglong

Qinglong was the pre-Second Sino-Japanese War name for Ku-Shan, in the province of Liaoning, a town in Northeast China.

As a critical stop on the marital convoy route between steel-producing Anshan and the strategically significant port city Zhuanghe, Qinglong held a vital role for Japan-ruled Northeastern China. However, due to a fateful sabotage convoy led by Chinese rebels in 1938, the city fell from Japanese to Chinese authority.

Qinglong was part of the "puppet state," Manchukuo, that Japan created in order to mine precious resources such as steel to fuel their war machine leading up to and during World War Two, largely at the behest of the Manchurian Industrial Development Company.

After a brief skirmish instigated by the sabotage convoy, explosions from steel trucks rang out across the town, damaging many houses beyond repair. It was not until, 1941, during World War Two, that the town was rebuilt and renamed, as Ku-Shan.

The town was to be the locus of the so-called Manchurian Youth Corps, a forcible association of young men organized to some degree through the inspiration of the Nazi Hitler Youth.