During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese could say that they attached great importance to Shanxi, on the one hand, because Shanxi's geographical location occupied a very important position in the Japanese strategy. On the other hand, Shanxi's abundant coal resources can also provide Japan with a steady stream of war reserves.
It is also based on these two considerations, so for the Shanxi Rikou at that time, it adopted a strategy of rapidly mining local coal resources after occupation. The next group of photos that I share with you is a group of photos taken by the Japanese in Datong, Shanxi, in 1939, in Showa 14. In this set of photos, we can see that Rikou is aiming his lens at the miners in a mine called "Yongding" in Datong, Shanxi.
In the photo above, we can see two miners mining coal resources underground, in fact, for the mine at that time, there were two kinds of mining sites, underground and aboveground. Relatively speaking, the work on the ground is relatively safe, but the remuneration is relatively low, the danger factor of the work deep underground is relatively large, but the remuneration is relatively high, for people at that time, it is very important to have a job with a relatively good income, so even if it is very dangerous to mine underground, but for the coal mine, they are not worried about recruiting workers to do this job.
For most of the coal miners who worked in the coal mines at that time, their living places after work were basically in the coal mines. The miner's children, parents and wives and other relatives also live with it, and the photo above is the scene of one of the miners' home, from which we can see that this should be a kind of dwelling similar to a cave, and there are some necessities of life inside the cave. Of course, from the perspective of modern people, it is impossible to imagine how to live in such an environment.
We can see a large group of miners living in the cave, young and old, and in the photo above, we can also see a decorative painting on the wall of the cave. When the two children were talking to the adults, they had happy smiles on their faces, and it was perhaps difficult for us to understand how people could still be happy under such living conditions, after all, it felt that such conditions had been difficult to a very extreme state. But as the author said earlier, in such an era of starvation, for the miners and their families, there can be a shelter from the wind and rain, for the family to live and use, to have a job that can stabilize the income, is the greatest satisfaction, and when people feel a certain satisfaction, they will naturally feel happier.
And this photo seems to be the entrance to the cave, or for the miners, the door to their home. Facing the Japanese camera, the person in the photo crouched on the ground, seemingly looking at the Japanese in front of him with some fear. Whether in the society of the time or in the workplace at that time, the social status of the miners was extremely low. When they see some strangers entering their own living environment, they will naturally have a sense of vigilance and fear.
For the Japanese, the reason why they took these photos at that time is that I personally think it is very likely that they were summarized and sorted out as materials to facilitate future research work, and if it were not for this consideration, then these photos would not be preserved so completely inside Kyoto University in Japan for reference. It should be said that as invaders, the Japanese and Kosovars were extremely dangerous for us, and they could also show the long-term nature of their ambitions.