 After its initial success, the army was forced out of Harbin when the Japanese sent their own troops under Jiro Tamon.Ting Chao's beaten Jilin Self-Defence Army retired from Harbin and marched to the northeast down the Songhua River, to join the Lower Songhua garrison of General Li Du and together reorganized, swelling its ranks with volunteers to 30,000 men in nine brigades by April 1932.It continued to resist, occupying the towns along the eastern section of the Chinese Eastern Railway, between Harbin and the Soviet border.