In the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Teaching Corps was the most elite unit at that time, and the whole team was mainly equipped with German ordnance. The teaching corps was first-class in China at that time, from officers and soldiers to weapons and equipment, but in the defense of Nanjing, the teaching corps was completely lost, and finally the entire army was destroyed. So, how many people were sacrificed in the Battle of Nanjing? Turning to the files preserved by China and Japan, we have found a sad answer.
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Tang Shengzhi
The full name of the Teaching Corps is the Central Military Academy Teaching Corps, which is a unit of a teaching nature and was not initially set up as a combat unit. In January 1931, the Central Military Academy accepted the advice of the German military advisers and began a military reorganization of the Teaching Corps, which consisted of two infantry battalions and an artillery company. At this time, although the teaching corps had a certain nature of a combat unit, it still belonged to the exemplary teaching establishment.
In 1933, Gui Yongqing took up the position of commander-in-chief, Gui Yongqing had strong organizational skills, and he quickly obtained a large number of resources for the teaching corps and expanded this exemplary teaching unit into a field army. After the reorganization, Gui Yongqing served as the chief captain, and his two classmates Zhou Zhenqiang and Zhang Kunsheng served as vice captains. The combat organization of the Teaching Corps was divided into three regiments, including Zhou Zhenqiang, commander of the First Regiment, Hu Qiru, commander of the Second Regiment, and Zhang Kunsheng (later Ma Weilong), commander of the Third Regiment, with a non-commissioned battalion, an artillery battalion, a cavalry battalion, an ordnance station, an anti-aircraft artillery company, a special agent company, a communications company, and a military music platoon.
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Teach the General Brigade
In March 1936, the total strength of the Teaching Corps was 13,517. On July 23, 1937, Deputy Commander Zhou Zhenqiang recorded in the "Report on the Education of Defense Personnel and Ordnance of the Central Military Academy Teaching Corps" submitted to Chiang Kai-shek: "There are 617 officers, 118 military adjutants, and 99 military dependents, a total of 834 members, a total of 12291 soldiers, and a shortage of 1181. Before the Battle of Songhu began, the teaching corps had more than 13,000 troops.
After the Battle of Songhu broke out, Deputy Commander Zhou Zhenqiang led the Second Regiment of the Teaching Corps to Shanghai to participate in the battle. In the battle of Zhang Huabang's blockade, the teaching corps fought fiercely with the Japanese army for three days and nights, with nearly half of the casualties. On November 5, more than 7,500 people were urgently dispatched to Shanghai to reinforce the 67th Division, which was holding the Bazi Bridge. At the Battle of Songhu, the teaching corps suffered no less than 3,000 or 5,000 casualties, and the total strength of the troops when they withdrew to Nanjing was less than 5,000.
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The Japanese invaded Nanjing
After the teaching corps withdrew to Nanjing, it was supplemented and expanded from Jiangxi, Hunan, and other places. On the eve of the Nanjing Defense War, the teaching corps has been expanded into three brigades, 6 infantry regiments, a supplementary regiment, and an engineer regiment, with a total number of more than 25,000 people, plus military special service companies, health teams, military music platoons and other units, with a total strength of more than 29,000 people, close to 30,000 people. Liu Yongcheng, platoon commander of the third company of the second battalion of the second regiment of the teaching corps, recalled: "There were only six regiments in the three brigades, and at that time, the seventh, eighth, and ninth regiments did not return to Nanjing after receiving troops in Jiangxi and Hunan provinces. "This is the strength of the teaching corps on the eve of the Nanjing Defense War.
On the eve of the defense of Nanjing, Gui Yongqing was ready to transfer the teaching corps to Hunan to replenish the 7th, 8th, and 9th regiments, and to stick to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. However, Tang Sheng intellectually defended Nanjing and asked the teaching corps to stay in Nanjing to participate in the defense war. Tang Shengzhi and Gui Yongqing quarreled, and finally Gui Yongqing agreed to leave the teaching corps that had not yet been completed to participate in the defense battle.
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Instruct the artillery units of the headquarters in the defense of Nanjing
On December 5, the main force of the Japanese army attacked the positions on the outskirts of Nanjing, and the defense of Nanjing was officially launched. The Second Regiment of the Teaching Corps was ordered to hold the Guanghua Gate, and the rest of the units were defended at Purple Mountain and its surrounding positions. The Japanese 16th Division attacked the Purple Mountain position, of which the 33rd Wing attacked the Purple Mountain position, the 38th Infantry Wing attacked from Xuanwu Lake and the northern area of Purple Mountain to the north of Nanjing, the 9th Infantry Wing attacked the area south of Purple Mountain; and the 20th Infantry Wing attacked along the main road to Zhongshan Gate. At the same time, the 35th Wing of the Japanese 9th Division also sent a brigade to attack Purple Mountain.
The Battle of Purple Mountain was fought extremely fiercely, and the Teaching Corps inflicted great casualties on the Japanese army, but also paid a heavy casualty price. Only the Japanese army's "Detailed Report on the Battle Near Nanjing of the 33rd Infantry Regiment" records that from December 10 to 13, during the four days of fighting, the Chinese army left a total of 6830 corpses. It can be seen that the number of people who died in the Battle of Purple Mountain was not less than 7,000, and the number of wounded was not counted.
The Japanese invaded the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum
After the fall of Nanjing, Beishan He, commander of the 3rd Machine Gun Squadron of the 20th Regiment of the Japanese 165th Division, wrote in his diary on December 14, 1937: "At 2 p.m., the machine gun team set out to clear the remnants of the enemy near Purple Mountain. After the sub-time, he returned from the qing and suppression battlefield. They disarmed some 800 remnants of the enemy and shot them all. ”
Dong Shilang, a soldier of the 20th Infantry Regiment of the Japanese 16th Division, wrote in the "Diary of Dong Shiro": "After capturing Nanjing, the 20th Regiment captured nearly 7,000 Chinese prisoners around Purple Mountain, and they were all taken to the vicinity of the Qilin Gate and massacred with machine guns. According to the captain, most of these prisoners came from the elite teaching corps in Nanjing, who inflicted heavy wounds on the Japanese army at Purple Mountain, so the squadron slaughtered the prisoners to vent their anger. ”
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Captured soldiers
According to the "East Asian Achievements" compiled by the Japanese Defense Agency after the war, "(after the fall of Nanking) about a thousand Chinese soldiers were captured in the ravine, of which more than 500 were lured into laying down their weapons and mass slaughter, and their bodies were buried in the ravine." In addition to the Japanese records, the Nanjing Massacre survivor Lin Changsheng's oral account "The Rest of the Tiger's Mouth" records: "Thousands of fallen officers and men of the Teaching Corps and the 83rd Army lost contact with the large troops, and they were scattered in the ravines outside Jiang Wangmiao Street, in the firewood grass and in the woods at the foot of the Purple Mountain, and five or six hundred of them were finally captured and killed by the Japanese army." ”
In the Defense of Nanjing, more than 29,000 people participated in the battle. How many people were killed or captured? After the commander-in-chief Gui Yongqing broke through from Nanjing, on December 21 in Kaifeng, he said that the ace team had only less than 1,000 people successfully broke through from Nanjing. Deputy Captain Zhou Zhenqiang pointed out in his memoirs that the number of people who taught the corps to successfully cross the river at that time was about 4,000. The Japanese 16th Division also roughly recorded this data in its combat report, which roughly coincided with the records of Gui Yongqing and Zhou Zhenqiang. It can be seen that the number of people sacrificed by the teaching corps is at least about 25,000 people, and the maximum is about 28,000 people. This kind of casualty figure, the teaching corps has been completely destroyed.
Holocaust atrocities
The entire defense of Nanjing lasted for a week, and the Chinese army of 150,000 people fought a bloody battle with the Japanese army, and nearly 90,000 people were killed or captured and slaughtered due to the confusion of command, coordinated operations and retreat. The teaching corps, which was an ace, lost at least 25,000 people in this battle, and many officers and soldiers were slaughtered by the Japanese army after laying down their weapons. Judging from the bloody records of the Japanese army, the sacrifice of the officers and men of the teaching corps can be described as tragic and heartbreaking.
The history is not far away, and the previous car can be learned. Only by remembering the shame of history and working hard can we avoid the recurrence of historical tragedies and live with dignity.
[This article is collected by Barnyard Shi Hou to collect anti-war materials, memoirs to sort out and write, errors and omissions, Jingxi readers correct]