The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was an extremely arduous anti-aggression war in Chinese history, in which the Chinese paid a terrible price in order to resist the aggression of Japanese imperialism, with a total of 35 million casualties and millions of soldiers sacrificing their lives for the country. However, after the end of this war, China did not retaliate on a large scale against the Japanese invaders, and only punished a small number of high-ranking war criminals. The Japanese were supposed to thank the kind Chinese, but in 1946, another very hateful thing happened, that is, tens of thousands of Japanese prisoners of war in Tonghua launched a riot.
Tonghua is located in the southeast of Jilin Province, Tonghua is located in the border of Changbai Mountain, the south is bounded by the Yalu River and North Korea, and the north is connected to the Songliao Plain, where coal, iron and forest resources are abundant, industrial development and convenient transportation.
Tonghua's military status is very important, here you can enter the Songliao Plain, retreat can defend the Changbai Mountains, since ancient times has been a place where soldiers must fight. After the September 18 Incident, the Japanese army gathered heavy troops here, and the famous anti-Japanese generals Yang Jingyu and General Wang Fengge were all killed near Tonghua. After the Soviet army launched a major attack on the Kwantung Army in 1945, the headquarters of the Kwantung Army and the capital of puppet Manchukuo were moved here, and the Japanese army wanted to take advantage of the terrain in this area to resist.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a certain unit of the Northeast Democratic United Army, which was reorganized from the Eighth Route Army as the mainstay, was stationed in Tonghua, and later the Northeast Military and Political University, the Northeast Aviation School, the Northeast Artillery School, the Liaodong Provincial Cpc Committee, and other important units were successively moved into Tonghua, making Tonghua the central revolutionary base area under the leadership of the Communist Party of China in the Changbai Mountains.
There were tens of thousands of Japanese expatriates in Tonghua, most of whom immigrated after the September 18 Incident, mainly as soldiers, officials, businessmen, and a small number of peasants. Before the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army entered Tonghua, the Japanese soldiers in Tonghua were not honest, and they buried some weapons and ammunition in the ground in a vain attempt to wait for an opportunity to make a comeback. When Japan first announced its surrender, the people of Tonghua wanted to go to the Japanese military camp to ask the Japanese army to rob them of their grain, but the Japanese not only did not give it, but also beat them, and finally burned all the grain on fire.
After the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army entered Tonghua, the custody of these Japanese prisoners of war was relatively lax. The Tonghua Detachment of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army and the Korean Volunteer Army sent most of their troops outside the city to suppress bandits, and there were not many troops in the city. Because there were tens of thousands of bandits around Tonghua at that time, they frequently attacked the personnel and vehicles coming and going in Tonghua under the bribe of Kuomintang agents, causing great trouble to the normal life of the ordinary people in Tonghua.
Nationalist agents had always wanted to seize control of Tonghua, so they colluded with the Japanese. The Kuomintang Liaoning Provincial Party Department also secretly recruited some Japanese prisoners of war to plot some riots.
In the end, the Kuomintang agents and the Japanese prisoners of war reached an agreement, and the two sides decided to form a Sino-Japanese coalition government after the success of the riots, and the Kuomintang side guaranteed that the Japanese in Tonghua would not lose their jobs and would not return to China, and that all Japanese expatriates in Tonghua would become Taiwanese. After the success of the uprising, both the Kuomintang party flag and the Japanese national flag were hoisted, and Sun Gengyao, the commissioner of the Kuomintang provincial party department, was in charge of administrative affairs, and the former chief of staff of the 125th Division of the Japanese Kwantung Army, Fujita Shigehiko Daisa, took control of the military.
On the night of February 2, 1946, which was also the night of Chinese New Year's Eve that year, a complacent agent leaked the information. In order to quell the rebellion, the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army Combat Headquarters, headed by Commissioner Jiang Yaquan of the Tonghua Administrative Office, quickly ordered the cessation of all festive activities. The personnel of the party, government, and military organs were urgently mobilized, fully armed, and put into the position to stand by. He also quickly ordered the main force of the Tonghua Democratic Coalition Army outside the city, and the Korean Volunteer Army to enter the city to support.
In the early morning of February 3, before dawn and everyone was still immersed in the joy of the festival, the city's electric lights suddenly flashed twice and then the whole city went dark. Immediately after that, the thugs armed with machine guns, rifles, katanas, and wooden sticks launched an attack on important units such as the Tonghua Administrative Office Building, the Artillery School, the Tonghua Detachment Headquarters, the Public Security Bureau, the Telephone Bureau, and the airport.
Because the enemy was outnumbered and defended, the action to quell the chaos was fraught with danger. When the Eighth Route Army first entered Tonghua, it incorporated a field hospital of the Japanese army, and the Japanese doctors and nurses in the hospital were retained, but in this riot, the Japanese doctors and nurses of this hospital were involved in it, and they killed the wounded soldiers of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army with scalpels, surgical scissors and other tools.
Before the riots began, the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army secretly detained more than a hundred former Kwantung Army commanders. However, due to the leak of secrets by traitors, the place of detention was leaked, and it was besieged by hundreds of thugs, guarding this place with a squad, the squad leader decisively killed more than 100 Japanese commanders who tried to cooperate with the outside with machine guns, and then began to pacify the outside thugs.
After the main force of the Tonghua detachment of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army and the Korean Volunteer Army led by Fang Hushan entered the city, the situation quickly reversed. At that time, the troops involved in the suppression of the rebellion fought with the Japanese army for many years and had a deep hatred for the Japanese army, so the suppression was very severe, and the slightest resistance would be shot.
At that time, it was the Chinese New Year, and tens of thousands of Japanese expatriates in the city were reluctant to hang up China's Spring Festival, and in the process of quelling the riots by the Northeast Democratic Alliance, they also secretly hid thugs. Therefore, the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army searched the families in the city that did not hang the Spring League, and all Japanese adult men were arrested and interrogated, and as long as anyone escaped, they would be shot immediately.
By noon the next day, the Northeast Democratic Coalition Command had ordered that only arrest and not kill, while more than 4,000 Japanese thugs had been shot. The Korean Volunteer Army was the only department in this incident that was not countered by Japanese and Kuomintang agents, and it was also the most ruthless in this crackdown.