In 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident, the Japanese army began a full-scale invasion of China, promising to destroy China within three months. A month later, at the Battle of Songhu, the Kuomintang troops abandoned their resistance under chiang kai-shek's orders and Shanghai fell. The Japanese army immediately launched an attack on the capital of the Nationalist government, Nanjing, and the generals of the Nanjing garrison ordered a retreat after only ten days of fighting, and Nanjing also fell into the hands of the Japanese army. After invading Nanjing, the heartbroken Japanese Kou launched a six-week burning and looting campaign, and more than 300,000 soldiers and civilians died tragically at the hands of the Japanese army, and the blood stained the entire city of Nanjing red. However, at that time, why didn't so many nationalist troops and young and strong people in Nanjing rise up to resist, but instead obediently obeyed and allowed the inhumane Japanese to carry out massacres? It wasn't until 40 years later that a veteran who survived the Nanjing Massacre said the answer. In this video, we will learn about the tragic massacre created by the Japanese Kou in Nanjing 83 years ago.
After the defeat at the Battle of Songhu, the Japanese army marched to Nanjing in three ways. As the capital of the Nationalist government, Nanjing did not have particularly strong military defensive measures, and at the meetings held by the high-ranking generals in Nanjing on November 17 and 18, 1937, most people told Chiang Kai-shek that only symbolic resistance to the Japanese army attacking Nanjing was needed, and the Nationalist army still had the primary goal of withdrawing from Nanjing to preserve its strength. Tang Shengzhi, a first-class general in the Kuomintang army, insisted on guarding Nanjing, telling Chiang Kai-shek that Nanjing is the capital of the Republic of China and a symbol of a country, and moreover, the mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen is still here, and if he takes the initiative to give up, it will be difficult to account for the people and the international community.
Tang Shengzhi's words reminded Chiang Kai-shek that abandoning the capital was an absolute shame that could not be washed away, and that he must send people to stay in Nanjing, even after the battle. Considering the international situation, China's counterattack to defend the capital is a major help to public opinion in the world anti-fascist war, and presumably the Soviet Union will not sit idly by and watch the fall of Nanjing, and will inevitably provide support in the military field in the later stage. Chiang Kai-shek agreed to Tang Shengzhi's suggestion to stay in Nanjing and appointed him commander of the Nanjing Garrison, but still did not recommend holding on to Nanjing, but told Tang Shengzhi that he only needed to hold on for one to two months for a short period of time, so that the international community would know that the Nationalist government had resisted the defense of Nanjing.
Chiang Kai-shek left Tang Shengzhi with about 100,000 troops to defend Nanjing, nominally 13 divisions and 15 regiments. However, most of these soldiers retreated from the Battle of Songhu, had just experienced a defeat, their morale was low, and on the way they were attacked by the Japanese army, and the Nationalist army that made mistakes in the fortifications routed and fled, and the troops were seriously understaffed. Others are new recruits who have not been trained in combat at all, and some do not even use guns. Tang Shengzhi and such a group of shrimp soldiers and crabs will be left in Nanjing by Chiang Kai-shek.
In order to show his determination to resolutely resist the Japanese army and defend the capital, Tang Shengzhi decided to break the ship and seize all the ships of all the troops, so as to prevent anyone from abandoning the resistance to cross the river without permission, not only the entire steamship at the Nanjing ferry port was removed, but even the passage of the wharf was also closed. Tang Shengzhi also publicly declared many times that he would die to defend Nanjing and coexist and die with Nanjing.
On December 1, the Japanese army launched an offensive against the city of Nanjing, and the defense of Nanjing was officially launched. The next day, the Navy's First fleet and Second Fleet at Jiangyin Fortress were sunk by the Japanese, the only water barrier for the Nanjing government. On December 8, the Japanese had already breached the first-line defensive positions on the outskirts of Nanjing, and then launched a general offensive.
On December 12, Tang Shengzhi received a telegram from Chiang Kai-shek proposing to retreat, summoning generals above the division level to arrange for the retreat. At this time, the defenders had already fled privately, and on the way they encountered reinforcements in this direction, and the city was in chaos. According to the deployment, except for the 36th Division as a cover for the final retreat, the other troops were all killed from the front, but Tang Shengzhi was afraid of losing too many of the Central Army's concubine troops, and told them that if the breakthrough failed, they could cross the river by steamship. The situation was further confused by inconsistent orders, and many of the commanders of the ranks fled for their lives, and before they could convey the evacuation order clearly, they fled in small boats reserved in advance, and the retreating soldiers who received the commander's notice abandoned their positions and rushed to the river, colliding with the troops who had not yet received the retreat order, and were killed or trampled on countless people.
With the exception of the headquarters and some of the central armies of the Consort clan who crossed the river by boat, most of the soldiers failed to break through the siege. After learning of the retreat orders from their superiors, all the soldiers tried to escape, but stampedes occurred in the crowds. Many people joined the fleeing team in a panic, and the nationalist soldiers were scattered in the chaos, they wandered the streets of Nanjing, and then gave up their weapons and changed into civilian clothes, and each of them hid.
On the morning of December 13, 1937, the Japanese army invaded the city of Nanjing. The Japanese had been clamoring for the destruction of China within three months, but the Battle of Songhu alone lasted three months. The number of Chinese and the courage to resist were not expected by the Japanese. In order to realize their militaristic strategy, the Japanese decided to carry out a massacre in Nanjing for deterrence purposes. After the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army first set up strict checkpoints at various exits, nominally to capture The Kuomintang prisoners, and also to check the cocoon on the hands, in fact, none of the young and middle-aged were spared, and they were all pulled away by the Japanese trucks. In the face of a large number of forgotten Kuomintang soldiers in Nanjing, the Japanese army said that as long as they handed over their weapons, the Japanese army would give preferential treatment to the prisoners and let them leave. In order to win their trust, the Japanese army even read out the relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions concerning the protection of the rights and interests of prisoners. In view of the fact that the Japanese invasion of China had not yet committed too sensational carnage, the soldiers could not imagine what a group of inhuman beasts, and they laid down their weapons and waited for the Japanese to release their prisoners.
Among them was Tang Spectrum, who was then a service soldier of the Third Battalion of the Nationalist Army's Teaching Corps. According to Tang Spectrum's recollection, the Japanese army immediately turned its face after disarming, and the heavily surrounded Japanese army set up machine guns to strafe the crowd, and found that the deceived but unarmed people tried to escape, but could not run out of the range of the Japanese army's strafing, and only a very small number of people escaped from the rain of bullets and bullets, and were captured by the Japanese army for the second time. Some of these warriors shouted resistance, "swear to die and not be a slave to the country", but were quickly shot and killed by the Japanese army. The captured Chinese officers were tied to trees by the Japanese as live targets for recruits to practice shooting and stabbing training, and some of the lower soldiers were buried alive en masse, while the Japanese soldiers were responsible for beheading the pit.
The Japanese held the captured soldiers uniformly, but did not give them any food or drink. Only from time to time people came to ask them if they were hungry, and some people said that they would be taken to dinner by the Japanese army if they were hungry. The people in prison at that time did not dare to think of the worst result, in fact, the people who were pulled out did die under the bayonets of the Japanese army. After being starved for five days, Tang and some of the imprisoned soldiers discussed a collective escape from prison and set a fire in the prison to escape. But before they could carry out their operations, the imprisoned men were crushed into trucks by the Japanese and dragged blindfolded outside the city. Due to the fact that the water has not entered for many days, many people have been too weak to walk, and they have no strength to speak.
As the number of people in the clearings grew, many of the captives were already aware of the Japanese attempt to shoot them en masse. Not giving them food or drink for a few days is to deprive them of the strength to escape and satisfy the penchant for slaughtering human lives by this group of inhuman executioners. People who wanted to survive began to struggle, and everyone tore at each other's ropes and tried their best to fight for the last fight. Before they could break free, The Japanese bullets came and row after row of people were swept down by machine guns. After a few rounds of machine gun fire, there was no one standing on the open ground, and the cruel Japanese troops patrolled among the fallen refugees with bayonets, making up a knife from time to time, and resolutely not sparing any living mouth. It wasn't until night fell that the entire slaughterhouse fell silent, and Tang Spectra, who was buried under the many corpses, carefully crawled out of the slaughterhouse full of corpses.
In addition to the captured soldiers, the innocent people in Nanjing did not escape the hands of the Japanese army. On the fourth day of the occupation of Nanjing, the Chinese refugees who had taken refuge in the safety zone were tied back with their hands by the Japanese army, and taken to the docks in a string of ropes for concentrated shooting, and after shooting, tens of thousands of people were thrown into the river in an attempt to destroy the corpses. The refugees from the Nanjing Fangsheng Temple and the Salesian Children's Hospital did not escape the clutches of the Japanese army, and the Japanese army was shot and killed en masse.
The main executors of the Nanjing Massacre were the Japanese 16th Division and the 6th Division, and the two second lieutenant officers of the 16th Division, Xiang Toshiaki and Noda, encouraged by their superior officers, agreed to carry out a killing contest, and the first to kill 100 people won. The two men massacred 105 and 106 men, respectively, and both swords were wound up due to frequent use. Unsure who would kill 100 first, the two competed for a second round with a target of 150.
According to reports, the Japanese army raped more than 20,000 women in December alone, from 12-year-old girls to 80-year-old women. Japanese military reporters said that "there are no Japanese soldiers who do not rape" and "even if they are tired and have only one breath left, they will go as soon as they hear about rape." Many Japanese soldiers used babies and children as a lure, promising that as long as the Chinese women did not resist, they could let their children go, but after insulting the women, they directly stabbed the bayonets into the children's bodies. What's more, some Japanese soldiers directly cut open the stomachs of the rebellious pregnant women and picked up the children with bayonets. The japanese who had lost their conscience and slaughtered and looted in Nanjing lasted for more than 40 days, massacring 190,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians en masse, while the number of scattered massacres was about 150,000.
All these acts can fully show that the Massacre in Nanking, which was created by the Japanese army, was a premeditated and planned murder, and they did not give food or drink to the captured officers and men, making them lose their combat effectiveness or even the ability to resist. Even if the Japanese army threw away its weapons and fought with bare hands, it could easily defeat the weak prisoners. The strong soldiers were still powerless to resist, not to mention the unarmed and inexperienced people.
An American priest who was preaching in Nanjing witnessed the numerous atrocities committed by the Japanese army in the Nanjing Massacre afterwards, and afterwards he commented: "If this had not been seen with my own eyes at that time, then I would not believe anything, and in the modern society of civilization, there will be such things as, no, even beasts, and Japanese soldiers organizing groups to burn and loot everywhere in the streets of Nanjing, raping women, and countless women being humiliated, which is simply the shame of human civilization." ”
On March 1, 1938, George Fitch, an American who was the director general of the International Committee for the Nanjing Security Zone, arrived in Hong Kong, took some film of the Japanese military's atrocities against Chinese that reporter Magee risked his life, hid them in his coat, took them to the plane, and brought them to Hong Kong. At the invitation of the chairman of the Guangdong provincial government, he displayed these films and gave a speech entitled "Japanese Soldiers in Nanjing", exposing the inhumane atrocities committed by the Japanese Kou in a short period of time after entering Nanjing.
However, the militaristic forces of the Japanese army have always refused to admit the evil deeds they have committed, and since the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the "Declaration" published the article of the Nanjing Massacre, and Japan has denied its crimes. Japanese right-wingers even said that there was no massacre, and that the more than 300,000 soldiers and civilians who died innocently and tragically in Nanjing were normal war deaths. In recent years, Japan has even tampered with textbooks, changing the original history book that "the imperial army carried out massacres in Nanjing, and the death toll was between 40,000 and 300,000" to "there were killings and plundering of non-combatants" to cover up the past. What's more, some Japanese "deniers" believe that the Nanjing Massacre is fundamentally illusory, and this argument is supported by many political and business forces in Japan.
Although more than 80 years have passed since the Nanjing Massacre, the tragic memory of that period still leaves a permanent haze on the Chinese, and in the face of the Japanese's attempts to falsify history and even portray themselves as victims of World War II, we must remember history and remember national shame!