The Sichuan army is out of the river
The Sichuan Army was an extremely important unit in the Chinese War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the main force of the Chinese Anti-Japanese Army. In order to fight against the Japanese, since 1937, more than 3 million Sichuan troops have left Sichuan, accounting for one-fifth of the country's anti-Japanese army. Therefore, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the mainland was even more said to have no river or no army.
Sichuan's huge number of troops naturally made its contribution and sacrifice in the War of Resistance Against Japan equally huge, and the casualties of more than three million Sichuan people and more than 600,000 people proved everything. Even 60 years after the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when a Japanese veteran visited China, he said that the Sichuan army had come to Sichuan specifically because of the Sichuan army, and he said that he had broken the role of the Sichuan army in the War of Resistance.
Shioya Baofang visits China
This Japanese veteran who visited China was named Shiotani Baofang, a Japanese veteran who joined the Japanese Army in 1940. He committed massacres in the Battle of Luzhong and massacred more than 70 local civilians with his troops. According to Shiotani Baofang, during the five years he participated in the invasion of China, more than 10 Chinese died under his command. In 1945, Shioya returned from Korea with his troops, but was captured by the Soviets at the time and sent to Siberia to dig potatoes, where he was not released until 1948.
After returning to China, Shiotani Baofang has been very tormented, and the crimes he committed that year lingered in his mind. By 1962, Shioya Hofang had established the "Clothing Association", which gathered thousands of members for the purpose of introspection, apology and atonement. By 1985, Shioya Beyoshi began visiting China once or more a year, basically visiting China's anti-Japanese museums, memorial halls, martyrs' cemeteries, and primary and secondary schools.
By 2006, Shioya had visited China more than twenty times, including six in Sichuan alone, and even more if you count Chongqing, which had not yet seceded from Sichuan during the anti-Japanese period. Shioya's visit to Sichuan has aroused the curiosity of countless people, because he has been stationed in Shandong during the invasion of China and has little contact with Sichuan.
Shioya Baofang said that when he fought in Shandong, many of the Chinese soldiers he saw were from Sichuan, and these people left their hometowns to protect the country, which left a very deep impression on him. Perhaps, these Sichuan troops who left their hometown to protect the country made Shioya Baofang, who left his hometown in order to invade China, very ashamed.
No river, no army
How big is the role of the Sichuan Army? A sentence by Shioya Baofang directly tells the answer: In that turbulent era, the Sichuan army, which poured into the anti-Japanese team in large numbers, supported the anti-Japanese army that had been repeatedly defeated at that time. The Sichuan army held backward weapons and wore worn-out straw shoes, but they always maintained enthusiasm in the great cause of anti-Japanese resistance, and this enthusiasm also offset the haze of repeated defeats of the anti-Japanese army in the war of resistance against Japan.
It can be said that without these three million Sichuan troops, the will of the anti-Japanese army would be more passive, and their morale would be even lower. However, the sichuan army, which was always enthusiastic, let the anti-Japanese army persist, and let the Chinese army persist in the state of 14 years of anti-Japanese war, losing more and winning less.