In the process of invading China, Japan attached great importance to propaganda work, and as early as 1919, the Japanese military set up a press class of the Army Province, which was specifically responsible for the propaganda work of the Japanese Army. After the July 7 Incident. The Japanese army news class has stepped up foreign propaganda and reporting in an attempt to create a "positive image" of the Japanese army. Through a large number of false propaganda that confuses the public opinion and misleads public opinion, it is a vain attempt to create chaos and shake the determination of the Chinese residents to resist Japan.
Among these propaganda products, the Japanese army paid special attention to the photography and propaganda. Because most of the Chinese people at that time were illiterate, the Japanese army believed that it was more effective to carry out propaganda through photographs than written narratives, and people at that time generally believed that photos could not lie. Therefore, at that time, during the Japanese invasion of China, in addition to using the military news agencies to shoot, the Japanese army also specially convened photographers to shoot special reports for propaganda according to certain policies. Later, with the increasing importance of photo promotion, it increased dramatically. The Japanese Army has also set up a special "photo class" to take charge of this work.
The group of photographs we see today is from some of the photos in the propaganda photo album "South Branch Dispatch Army" issued by the Japanese army invading China on March 20, 1940. Through deliberate filming, the Japanese army disguised itself as a well-disciplined unit that did not violate the common people, in a vain attempt to forge itself into a benevolent and righteous division.
So after the Japanese army occupied Guangzhou, was it really as "strict discipline" as shown in the photo?
It's a question that doesn't need to be thought out at all. After the fall of Guangzhou in October 1938, it was a "hell on earth".
At that time, the cooperative reporter saw a Chinese child with his arms and chest stabbed with a bayonet by the Japanese army, while his mother was humiliated by the Japanese army, who had died tragically under the japanese guns. The Japanese army also abducted women everywhere in the city of Guangzhou, and locked them up in the so-called "Imperial Army Comfort Station" set up in the Aiqun Hotel for the beast soldiers to vent their desires.
These are just the tip of the iceberg of the Japanese army's crimes in Guangzhou. When we revisit the photographs taken by Japan today in order to beautify its own aggression, in addition to seeing the japanese army's self-deception in those years, we should also see the importance that the Japanese army attached to public opinion propaganda in the process of invading China.