The Kwantung Army's criminal presence in China began in Lyushun, a strategic coastal gateway to Northeast China. Following the 1895 First Sino-Japanese War and the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, Japan seized the Russian-leased territories, founded the Kwantung Leased Territory and garrisoned its elite army there. Once glorified by wartime Japanese propaganda as a patriotic elite force, it was essentially an unruly military apparatus that fabricated pretexts for invasion and enforced brutal colonial rule to serve Japan's hegemonic ambitions in East Asia. Its incremental military advance across Northeast China — from its initial stronghold in Lyushun, Dalian, through the September 18 Incident in Shenyang, to the establishment of the puppet state capital in Xinjing (modern-day Changchun) — fully exposes the calculated, step-by-step expansion strategy and invasive essence of Japanese militarism.