I believe that the name of Okamura Ningji, a Japanese, is not unfamiliar to many people, even if decades have passed since the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, as long as this name is mentioned, Chinese will unconsciously remember the numerous crimes committed by the Japanese invaders in China at that time.
After fourteen years of arduous War of Resistance Against Japan, the Japanese fascists were finally defeated by us, and the japanese invaders who were forced to be helpless were forced to sign an armistice due to the situation, and submitted a surrender letter in 1945 to admit their defeat. But in his memoirs of the war written by Ninji Okamura decades later, he expressed the idea that the best time for Japan to compromise with China was not in 1945, but in 1943. So what led him to such a conclusion?
War criminals who invaded China have committed numerous crimes
Okamura Ningji is known to the world as a Japanese war criminal of the invasion of China, he was born in 1884, after the Hundred Regiments War has been the supreme commander of Japan in north China, during his tenure, the Japanese army he commanded carried out many cruel sweeps of the anti-Japanese base areas of our army, and brutally killed many soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, not only that, he also carried out a terrible massacre of the civilians in north China at that time. Throughout, Okamura has been implementing a policy, the Sanko Policy. It can be said that a large part of the crimes committed by the Japanese army in China were committed by Okamura Ningji.
At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Okamura was appointed commander-in-chief of the Japanese Dispatch Army, presiding over the work of the Japanese invaders in China at that time. However, the unjust war of aggression is doomed to failure, and Japan's war of aggression in China is doomed to fail. After Japan's surrender in 1945, Okamura Had no choice but to lead the generals of the Japanese army invading China to surrender to the government of the Republic of China in accordance with the instructions of the Japanese Emperor at that time, and signed the instrument of surrender in Nanjing on September 9.
After the defeat of the Japanese invasion of China, Okamura Ningji was not executed, on the contrary, his situation seemed to be quite good. He was first appointed by the government of the Republic of China as the General Liaison Department for the Rehabilitation of Japanese Officers and Soldiers in the Chinese Theater to assist the international community in handling post-war affairs. He was later hired as a military adviser by the government of the Republic of China. In 1949, the rule of the Kuomintang forces in the mainland gradually declined, and Okamura Ningji had to return to China for the sake of his own life. Soon after, the Japanese government appointed him as vice president of the Comrades-in-Arms Alliance for Japanese returnees. A few years later, he died of illness in Tokyo. For a war criminal, such an ending is also a good homecoming.
Looking back on the past, my heart is not at peace
After returning to Japan, Okamura Ningji has mixed feelings every time he thinks about his previous years. In his opinion, the Japanese general's policy in China at that time had many mistakes, and he later mentioned these things in his memoirs.
At that time, most of the Japanese generals supported the continuation of their power in China in terms of policy, and wanted to drag it out to the end. However, at that time, Japan's armaments and materials were no longer enough to support the Japanese army to carry out a long-term protracted war in China, on the other hand, at that time, the strength of the Chinese army was constantly expanding, morale was high all the way, and the Japanese army was like a bamboo. In this way, the Japanese army must not be able to support it, and at that time, the situation of the world anti-fascist war began to reverse, and if it continued to be trapped in the quagmire of China and could not get out, then what awaited the Japanese army would definitely be a worse outcome.
When Okamura saw this scene, his heart was anxious, and after repeated thoughts, he made up his mind to start preparing for peace talks.
He did not look for the wang jingwei puppet government in Nanjing at that time, in his view, wang puppet was just a good-looking vase, with a false appearance, and there was no right to speak inside. He turned around and managed to contact his former student, Yin Tong, and relied on Yin Tong's matchmaking to get Wang Pengsheng to agree to the peace talks. Such smooth progress made Okamura Ninji a little fluttery, and in his opinion, the peace talks were not far from success.
Who knew that the sky did not go according to people's wishes, Yin Tong suddenly died violently, and the peace talks were almost about to be abandoned, and Okamura Ningji was shocked to maintain several times before he could save some results. However, under such circumstances, the Japanese rulers knew what Okamura Ninji had done, and in anger ordered him to stop the peace talks, and under the oppression of absolute power, Okamura Ninji had no choice but to stop the peace talks, but he still remembered the matter very much in his heart.
Later, after returning to China, whenever he thought about this, Okamura Ningji was very remorseful, in his opinion, it was the best time for Japan to compromise with China and seek peace, but the Japanese authorities did not realize this and made a wrong decision, so that japan's situation became more and more embarrassing, even if it was later realized that he was inferior, then it was too late to do it again.
In Okamura's view, if his peace talks had not been stopped in 1943, and if Japan had reached an agreement with China according to his arrangement, the humiliation of 1945 would not have occurred. Later, Okamura Ningji was very painful whenever he recalled the scene when Japan submitted the surrender letter, but history was already doomed, and he could only continue to regret in his heart.
brief summary
Although Okamura had always thought that the peace talks he was presiding over at the time would be a success, it was not in the eyes of others. First, most of Japan's leaders with real rights at the time supported Japan's continued maintenance of the situation in China, rather than starting peace talks. In their view, the Japanese army still had spare strength at that time, and it was not impossible to gather forces to carry out a reversal in the later stages of the war.
As an enforcer of tactics, Okamura has no real right to make real decisions over others. Even if he does succeed in the peace talks, whether the leaders in the later stage will acknowledge the outcome of the peace talks remains to be considered. After all, in the eyes of most Japanese generals at that time, Okamura's behavior was very abnormal, obviously the Japanese army still had a great advantage at that time, why did he surrender himself to negotiate peace with those Chinese who were in a weak position?
Although in Okamura's view, the best time for Japan to compromise with China was the peace talks he presided over in 1943, not in 1945, when Japan submitted its surrender and formally announced its surrender. But history is history because history cannot be changed, and even if the blueprint Okamura Ninji sketched in his mind is beautiful, it is just a dream. The surrender of Japan in 1945 had become an established fact, and even the regret was in vain.