On March 29, 1946, Mei Ruzhang wrote this important passage in his diary:
"I am not an echievists, and I have no intention of writing on the japanese people the blood debt that Japanese militarism owes us. However, I believe that forgetting the sufferings of the past may lead to future disasters. ”
Mei Ruxuan is the only Chinese judge at the Tokyo Trial.
Mei Ruxuan
On March 20, 1936, Mei Ruxuan represented China as a judge of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and went to Tokyo, Japan, to participate in the world-famous Tokyo Trial.
Shortly after Mei Ruxuan arrived in Tokyo, she met Dr. Gu Yuxuan, who had come to investigate the current situation of education in post-war Japan, and Gu Yuxuan gave a sword to Mei Ruxuan, who took the sword and said: "Red powder is given to a beautiful person, and the sword is given to a strong man, but unfortunately I am not a strong man." ”
Gu Yuxuan said: "On behalf of the forty-five million Chinese and tens of millions of compatriots who died, you have come to the capital of this invading country to punish the culprits. ”
Walking the streets of Tokyo, Mei Ruxuan found that the living conditions of Japanese people were not as bad as advertised in the newspapers, but rather rosy and physically strong. Seeing such a scene, Mei Ruxuan thought of the thousands of compatriots who died, and could not help but feel sad, and he made up his mind that he must seek justice for the dead compatriots and use legal weapons to win dignity for his country.
However, the trial did not go as smoothly as expected.
Before the trial began, the judges of the Allied countries squeezed Mei Ruxuan in various ways, and the presiding judge was the Australian judge Weber, who actually ranked China's sitting rank third, so sitting second, how to be worthy of those compatriots who died, Mei Ruxuan argued according to reason, preferring to resign rather than participate in such a trial.
Mei Ruxuan protested to the presiding judge: "In Japan's war of aggression, China suffered the deepest aggression, the longest war of resistance, and the greatest sacrifice, while Britain only blindly endured and surrendered, and China absolutely could not accept being ranked behind Britain. ”
In early May 1946, in order to reconcile relations between countries, the military tribunal met for three consecutive meetings and discussions, and finally Mei Ruzhang won the victory and won the respect he deserved.
Of the 11 judges sitting at the top of the courtroom, Mei Ruxuan was in the fourth from the right
The second level is the trial, not long after the trial, sitting in the back row of the war criminal Okawa Shuming actually pretended to be crazy and stupid, and also slapped Hideki Tojo in front, Okawa Shuming was the organizer of the 918 incident, and what is even more infuriating is that later the forensic doctor identified him as syphilis on the brain, and actually let him escape the trial.
Among the 11 Allied countries who attended the trial, some countries did not suffer from Japan's aggression, and they did not feel that kind of pain, so they did not have a deep hatred for Japan, and there were also objections to the trial, especially the US Commander MacArthur, who was even more partial, and when Mei Ruxuan strongly requested the trial of the culprit of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, MacArthur refused on the pretext of the Potsdam Proclamation.
The Japanese tactics in the trial were infuriating, and the Japanese war criminals lawyer went so far as to ask all the judges to recuse themselves, saying that none of the judges present were qualified to try them.
Mei Ruxuan had already seen through the Japanese tactics, he knew that this was just a psychological tactic of the Japanese legal team, so that the more angry the judges, the more unfair they were, he reminded the American judges: "If it is a personal reason, you can avoid it at any time, but this is a trial of the 11-nation procuratorial team, you must be calm." ”
In the end, at Mei's strong request, the court rejected Japan's unreasonable claim.
In the face of the judge's interrogation, all the war criminals were so shameless that they said that they were innocent, and even did not admit that the Huanggutun incident was initiated by Japan, and the forced sophistry was only a local conflict.
Under such sophistry, Chinese lawyers asked prosecutors to summon Japanese Army Lieutenant General Ryuji Tanaka to testify. What the Japanese lawyer did not expect was that Tanaka directly admitted that the Huanggutun incident was committed by the Japanese army, and the prosecutor continued to ask Tanaka whether the Shanghai Incident, the 918 Incident, and the July 7 Incident were all carried out by Japan, and Tanaka directly pointed out that all these planners were Hideki Tojo, Kenji Doihara, and Seishiro Sakagaki.
Through 8 days of testimony, it was finally proved that Japan's stationing in China was an illegal invasion.
25 Japanese Class A war criminals tried at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
Then there is the Nanjing Massacre, which is the most serious case and needs to be tried separately. The direct mastermind of the Nanjing Massacre was Matsui Ishigen, and in the face of the trial, he denied it.
In order to uphold justice, Mei Ruzhang summoned foreign businessmen, priests and other witnesses living in Nanjing at that time to show the judges the crimes of the Japanese army in Nanjing that had been collected in the past two years, and when they saw the precious images taken at that time, all the judges and reporters had chills on their backs.
Images of Japanese soldiers assassinating Chinese civilians
In the blink of an eye, a year had passed, and Mei Ruxuan had never imagined that the trial of Japan would be so complicated and difficult.
On September 16, 1947, kenji Doihara and Seishiro Sakagaki, two Class-A war criminals who had launched the war of aggression against China, were tried, and their hands were stained with the blood of countless Chinese, and they owed Chinese a heavy blood debt.
Kenji Toihara adopted a policy of shrinking without saying a word, trying to take advantage of the legal loopholes in the common law system to evade responsibility, and Seishiro Sakagaki was even more arrogant, writing a 48-page defense to glorify the war of aggression against China into a snow and charcoal, and threatening to fight with the Chinese lawyer group for 300 rounds.
Mei Ruxuan and his assistants worked almost endlessly, working day and night to collect evidence of the Japanese invasion of China. He told his assistant: "If you can't punish him severely, you will never see Your Father and Elder Jiangdong again, but you will die in the sea to thank the people of the country." ”
Finally, during the trial of the supreme war criminal, Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, Hideki Tojo was even more arrogant, he did not realize his mistake at all, and insisted that it was for peace and self-defense.
Hideki Tojo, who is sophistry in court
From 1937 to June 1941, the Japanese army killed 2.01 million Chinese, and the crimes of Zhuangzhuang were clearly exposed, and if they were not severely punished, how could justice be upheld.
On November 12, 1948, after more than two years of trial, when the convict was convicted, mei Ruxuan did not expect that at this time, Western countries talked about humanitarianism and believed that sentences should be civilized, especially the Indian judge Barr even said Buddhist respect for life, so the number of people who did not approve of the death penalty in the court was the majority.
Mei Ruxuan thought that if he did not send these demons to hell, he did not dare to imagine what would happen to the Chinese people, so he used all his life to vow to deal with these powers.
Mei Ruxuan generously stated: "Religion is to tell the world how to reach heaven, on the other hand, the law clearly stipulates what we cannot do, otherwise we will be punished, we will go to the guillotine, we will go to the gallows, this is the law." If the law does not give Japan the most severe punishment to these war criminals, who dares to guarantee that Japan will not provoke war again one day, who dares to guarantee that Japan will not invade other countries again, who dares to guarantee that the specter of Japanese militarism will not be revived again. ”
Mei Ruxuan speaking in the judge's seat (right)
In the end, with six votes to five votes more than one vote, Hideki Tojo and 7 other people were sent to the gallows, winning justice for the country and the nation.