"Maybe I will be killed tomorrow, but I believe that one day our descendants will get this justice for us!" This is a sentence said by the survivors of the Nanjing Massacre that year, I believe that every Chinese will be surprisingly shocked to see this sentence, and the protagonist in today's story is also the same, he is deeply aware that his own strength alone is insignificant, but he always has to do something for the "justice" of that year.
In 1990, Tong Zeng finally sorted out his own ten thousand words book, which was densely packed with the heinous crimes committed by Japan in China in those years, and he clearly proposed that "war reparations" and "civil compensation" should be distinguished, and Chinese civilian victims have the right to claim compensation from the Japanese government and enterprises! As soon as this book came out, it was like a thunderclap in this world, and its appearance directly laid the legal foundation for the Chinese people's claims against Japan.
On March 28, 1991, Tong Zeng handed over a neatly bound proposal entitled "China Demands Urgent Compensation for Japanese Victims" to the staff of the Bureau of Letters and Visits of the General Office of the National People's Congress, which demanded that Japan compensate the victims of the mainland with $180 billion; in 1992, 38 deputies to the National People's Congress signed a proposal, which was officially included in the congress bill.
Why did Tong Zeng propose $180 billion in damages? This also brings us to the "Directory of Chinese Laborers Forcibly Abducted to Japan" compiled in 1964, which records the list of Chinese laborers who were forcibly abducted from China to Japan from Japan from 1943 to 1945, which details the name, age, and place of origin of each laborer, totaling 34,282 people.
That is to say, in addition to burning and looting on the mainland, Japan also abducted Chinese to Japan as labor, because due to the impact of the Pacific War that year, Japan's labor force was seriously lacking, in order to meet the needs of Japanese enterprises, the Japanese government helped them to come to China to forcibly recruit labor.
According to the research of Japanese scholar Hiroshi Tanaka, the number of Chinese laborers forced by Japan in fact far exceeded 34282, which should be 41758, 2823 people died before taking the boat, and the actual number of japanese was 38935, of which 35778 were in the five provinces of North China.
The main members were peasants, the youngest girl was only 11 years old, called Wang Dianmei; the oldest was 78 years old, called Zhang Zhaoli, and the Japanese did not even let them go. According to the records, these Chinese laborers were assigned to 135 "work sites" of 35 Japanese companies, of which Mitsubishi and Mitsui chaebols enslaved the most Chinese laborers!
I believe that many people do not know this list and these things, but Mr. Tong Zeng's "Ten Thousand Words Book" directly brought this history to the surface, those who suffered in the civil war must be compensated, and those who were tortured in Japan must also be compensated!
Mr. Tong Zeng was looking for survivors of the Nanjing Massacre and for the laborers who had been robbed and taken to Japan, each of whom was eligible for compensation from Japan, the Japanese government was responsible, and Japanese companies did not want to stay out of the matter.
In May 1992, Mr. Tong Zeng wrote a letter directly to the Japanese Emperor, asking Japan to return the Chinese cultural relics that had been plundered by the Japanese army and were now hidden in the Japanese Imperial Family, and soon after, he submitted the information he had collected for many years to the Japanese Embassy in China, and more and more people joined Mr. Tong Zeng's ranks.
This incident also caused a great response in Japan, so the Japanese lawyer Onodera Toshitaka specially met with Mr. Tong Zeng, and investigated and collected evidence from the Chinese victims of World War II, who was responsible for the Chinese people's claims against Japan, and the voice of public opinion became louder and louder.
Japan's Mitsubishi Group finally resisted the pressure, admitted the history of aggression against China in 2016, and publicly apologized to all the victimized laborers of that year, signed the "Settlement Agreement", established the "Historical Human Rights Peace Fund", and compensated 8 billion yen to the Chinese laborers who were coerced by their group by force, a total of 3765 people, of which 1500 were confirmed, 722 people died elsewhere, and the remaining 1543 people are still searching.
After 77 years, these survivors have finally received the apology and compensation they deserve, Mr. Tong Zeng said that only the Mitsubishi Group's apology and compensation is not enough, the road is still far, he will continue to walk firmly, Mr. Tong Zeng's behavior deserves the admiration of each of our Chinese!
Reference: Directory of Chinese Laborers In Forced Occupation in Japan