Huanggutun Incident, 1928

As the Northern Expedition approached Beijing, Zhang Zuolin withdrew toward his Manchurian power base. Officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army believed his removal would create a more compliant political order and planted explosives beneath the railway near Huanggutun.

The bomb destroyed Zhang’s train on 4 June 1928 and he died shortly afterward. The plot failed strategically because his son Zhang Xueliang aligned Manchuria with the Nationalist government rather than accepting direct Japanese control.

The Emperor’s Bones builds toward the assassination as the endpoint of the warlord conflicts it depicts, connecting private revenge and intelligence operations to the wider contest for Manchuria.