Welcome to The History column No. 1071. When it comes to China's modern war against Japanese aggression, the first impression is basically the War of Resistance in the 1930s and 1940s. However, the Sino-Japanese War in the late 19th century was also launched by Japan, and the result of the war brought shame to our country and lost its territory, and Taiwan was ceded to Japan because of the defeat in this war. Inside a cemetery in Osaka, Japan, the remains of 10 Chinese (Qing Dynasty) soldiers are still buried.
It is said that this matter is rather strange, and it is not unusual for there to be Japanese graves in China, because China has been invaded in several wars, and soldiers who died on the battlefield, no matter which country, do not have the conditions to immediately return the bodies to their homeland, and are generally buried on the spot. In northeast China, there are a large number of graves of Japanese officers and soldiers who died during the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, all more than 100 years ago. However, it is rare to have the graves of Chinese soldiers in Japan, because between 1894 and 1895, the Chinese Beiyang Fleet never attacked the Japanese mainland, but only experienced the three battles of Toshima, Dadonggou and Weihai. It was even more impossible in the time of the all-out War of Resistance, the Chinese Navy sank itself collectively in Jiangyin at the beginning of the war, and without the ability to threaten the Japanese mainland, how could there be prisoners in Japan?
It turned out that when the Sino-Japanese War first began in 1894, the Japanese fleet took the lead in sneaking into the Qing Dynasty's transport ships to increase troops to Korea. After the sinking of the Gaosheng, nearly 2,000 Qing soldiers fell into the water, most of whom drowned on the spot, and a few were picked up by the Japanese army and became prisoners of the Japanese combined fleet. A small fraction of them were transported back into Japan (at that time the Japanese had not yet invaded the northeast from land, and the captives could not return to China immediately), and these people lived in Japan very poorly, working as laborers until they died. This is why there are graves of Chinese Qing Dynasty soldiers in Osaka, and these 10 people are certainly not all captured, and some of the captives were sent back to China after the signing of the Treaty of Maguan.
Judging from the situation inside the Osaka cemetery, the graves of 10 Chinese soldiers are linked together, with the names and origins of each person written on them (the tombs of 4 of them have been completely unable to see their names because of their disrepair). They are surrounded by Japanese graves, because the Qing captives have no relatives in Japan, although the local tomb was built for them, but for a long time no one to maintain, no one to worship, more than 100 years ago has been weeds everywhere, and the surrounding Japanese grave cleanliness is a great contrast, after watching people quite sad.
Inside this cemetery, there is another scene that is particularly sad: 10 Qing Dynasty soldiers (probably not sailors, most of whom were sent to Korea by the Qing Army), although the tombs have their own tablets, but there are two words engraved on them: Prisoner. Although these two words are true, they are too cruel and even an insult to the Qing Dynasty soldiers who cannot return to their homeland after death; and for their opponents, they have the element of showing off their military achievements.