In July 1995, when a television program crew in Nanjing was preparing to shoot a documentary commemorating the Nanjing Massacre, Ni Yongjie, then chief of the propaganda section of the Nanjing Municipal Taiwan Affairs Office, accidentally discovered a short message published by the Hong Kong magazine Wide Angle Mirror, in which he said that a military history museum in Taichung County exhibited a Japanese military saber, participated in the Nanjing Massacre, and seemed to be the knife of the "Hundred People Beheading" incident that year.
The film crew shunteng touched the melon, and actually found a Japanese war criminal who had caused a massacre of more than 100 people in Nanjing. Shockingly, this murderer was not found in the great trial after the victory of the War of Resistance.
First, the reporter's unexpected discovery
Why is it the other 1?
Probably everyone knows that in January 1948, according to the trial of the Chinese military tribunal, three Japanese war criminals who participated in the Nanjing Massacre and caused the massacre of 100 people were shot in Yuhuatai, Nanjing. The three men were Tanaka Junji, Toshiaki Xiangjing, and Takeshi Noda, of whom Tanaka Junji massacred more than 300 people, and Toshiaki Xiang and Takeshi Noda inhumanely engaged in a "100-person beheading" killing contest, killing 106 Chinese and Noda hacking 105 people. The data on the killing contest was published in the December 1937 issue of Japan's Tokyo Ilbo Shimbun (now the Mainichi Shimbun), and the evidence is conclusive and irrefutable.
Therefore, what the world knows is that 3 war criminals were punished, but in fact, there was a murderer who killed Chinese, leaving evidence of the massacre, but he missed the net in the investigation and trial of that year.
In July 1995, after the Film Crew in Nanjing saw a text message from a Hong Kong magazine, they also thought that the saber was probably used by one of the three people who were shot in Nanjing.
In order to capture the real historical evidence, the film crew decided to shoot on the spot in Taiwan. Unexpectedly, when I arrived on the island, I found that hong Kong reported it wrong, and this saber was not in Taichung County, but in the "National Army Historical Museum" in Taipei, and the collection level was still relatively high.
The film crew rushed to the museum and learned that the Japanese saber was participating in the "special exhibition for the 50th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance" organized by the museum.
In the special exhibition at that time, there was a special exhibition area for the Nanjing Massacre, and the "Hundred Man Chop" knife was displayed in a rectangular glass display case on the first floor, supplemented by photos of the Nanjing Massacre of the Japanese Army and a simulated wax statue of the Chinese slashed with a saber.
The reporters arrived at the scene and photographed the saber as they wished.
The reporters and teachers of the film crew had done their homework before, and the details of the hundred-person beheading incident that year were probably understood. While filming the saber, the film crew quickly spotted an anomaly.
This knife is a common Japanese saber, but the difference is that there is a inlaid copper block on the handle of the knife, which is inscribed in Japanese with the words "107 people killed in the Battle of Nanjing", leaving the evil mark of the invaders showing off their killing achievements.
107 people!
This is different from the number of kills by Junji Tanaka, Toshiaki Xiangjing, and Takeshi Noda.
The film crew immediately felt that this was not a trivial matter, and it was not a saber that the three of them had used. The nanjing massacre of 100 people, there may be a war criminal. However, a review of the trial records of that year did not reveal any other homicides.
The murderous knife left evidence of the brutality of the Japanese army, but where was the butcher of this evil? Was it punished as it should be after the war? What happened during the decades when the knife was unknown? It seems that only by finding the parties can we find out the ins and outs of this
We must immediately trace the origin of this battle knife and give justice to the people of Nanjing!
Second, track down the truth
The film crew immediately launched an investigation in Taipei.
According to the archival records in the "Nationalist Army Historical Relics Museum" in Taipei, the Japanese sabers that killed 107 people in the "Battle of Nanjing" were collected by Mr. Wei Bingwen, former lieutenant general of the 16th Army of the Kuomintang. Wei Bingwen died in 1971, and in 1985 the saber was donated by his relatives.
Wei Bingwen was defeated in Taiwan in 1949 with the Kuomintang army, and has been living in Taiwan ever since, and it is unknown what the situation of his relatives is. The film crew had no channel to find Wei Bingwen's descendants in Taipei, so they had to inquire about Wei Bingwen's whereabouts through the Whampoa Military Academy In Taipei.
Wei Bingwen was born in the first phase of Huangpu, and had previously been in contact with Tongxin, but his information was limited, and he only knew that he was from Xi'an, Shaanxi, and as for his relatives and children, he did not know anything.
Without this crucial link, it is impossible to continue to trace the origin of the saber. The film crew was not satisfied, and after returning to Nanjing, they contacted the Huangpu Alumni Association in Shaanxi to see if they could find information about Wei Bingwen's relatives in his hometown.
At the same time, the film crew also informed the experts of Nanjing University of the information about the saber to see if they could find historical information. Unexpectedly, Comrade Gao Xingzu, professor of the History Department of Nanjing University and president of the Nanjing Massacre History Research Association, quickly remembered that he had seen an article more than ten years ago that mentioned this saber. He searched for historical materials overnight and found that the original collector of sabers was a veteran of the Kuomintang army named Yu Hongcheng, who now lived in Dazhu County, Sichuan.
The person in charge of the film crew called Dazhu County and learned that the elderly Yu Hongcheng was still alive and was currently the vice chairman of the Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese in Dazhu County, Sichuan. In 1985, when Yu Lao was commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he wrote an article entitled "Unforgettable Blood Debt" in the "People's Political Consultative Conference Daily" of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, in which he told the story of the Japanese murderous knife that he had confiscated.
Professor Xingzu read the article, this is it.
The film crew contacted Dazhu County, and the local Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese found the elderly Yu Hongcheng and asked him to write a special letter explaining the origin of the saber.
It turned out that the saber had been seized in January 1946. It turned out that the Japanese army that had surrendered in China at that time had not yet been completely disarmed, and Yu Hongcheng was then the commander of the battalion of the 22nd Division of the 16th Army of the Kuomintang Army, and was ordered to go to DingXian County, Hebei Province, to receive all the troops and horses of the Japanese Independent Mixed 1st Brigade.
On the Japanese side, a lieutenant liaison officer who graduated from the Imperial University of Japan went through the handover procedures with Yu Hongcheng.
During the conversation, the Japanese liaison officer saw that Yu Hongcheng was interested in sabers, so he told Yu Hongcheng that he regretted the ancestral combat knife in his hand, because he was a prisoner of war, and the saber could not be carried back to China as a weapon. After the handover of the army and horses, the Japanese lieutenant liaison officer, on behalf of the brigade commander, handed over 10 sabers to Yu Hongcheng.
Afterwards, Yu Hongcheng drew every one of them and looked at it, including a knife stained with the blood of Chinese soldiers and civilians engraved with the words "Killed 107 people in the Battle of Nanjing."
According to Yu Hongcheng's recollection, the knife that killed 107 people was not the one worn by the Japanese liaison officer himself, and there was a clear difference in the style of the two knives.
At that time, Yu Hongcheng, who loved to collect sabers, was convinced that this fierce knife was unlucky and that life would not be smooth after taking it back, so he took out 5 of them, including this fierce knife, and asked Li Futang, the commander of the military engineering battalion who received the military horses, to bring them back to the military department and hand them over to the military department. The knife was left for collection by Wei Bingwen, then a lieutenant general and deputy commander of the 16th Army, and was later brought to Taiwan.
That's what happened.
The details are clear enough, but both the comrades in the Nanjing film crew and the elderly Yu Hongcheng have some regrets about the events of that year, if they were sensitive enough at that time, after seeing these words, they immediately asked the Japanese liaison officer, probably able to understand the information of the original owner of the sabre.
In this way, the 1948 trial would also have brought the murderous maniac to justice.
Third, the knife of terror
At the same time, progress has also been made in the search for Wei Bingwen's relatives.
The huangpu military academy alumni association in Shaanxi Province sent good news, where the registered information was more complete than that of the Taipei Tongxin Association, and Wei Bingwen had a younger brother in his hometown, and the two sons of the younger brother, who were also Wei Bingwen's nephews, left information in the same society. The reporters and comrades of the Nanjing film crew got the addresses of Wei Bingwen's two nephews in Xi'an City and Chang'an County, and then visited them, and according to them, Wei Bingwen and a brother, Wei Bingchao, followed him to Taiwan. Mr. Wei also has several children who have settled in Taipei and have not returned to the mainland for years. Wei Bingchao left a Taipei address many years ago, but I don't know if it is still there.
This is a valuable piece of information.
Due to the inconvenience of transportation at that time, the film crew could not immediately rush to Taipei for an interview. Until November 1997, in the name of producing a documentary commemorating the 60th anniversary of the death of compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre, the film crew went to Taipei to conduct interviews.
On November 11, the film crew visited Wei Bingwen's younger brother Wei Bingchao in the compound of No. 30, Lane 56, Wolong Street, Taipei.
Wei Bingchao was 72 years old, and when he fled taipei with his brother defeated, he thought that his brother was a high official and could live a good life. However, the reality is not unexpected. Although Wei Bingwen was a high-caliber student in the huangpu phase, during the Xi'an Incident that year, Wei Bingwen signed his name in the joint military advice launched by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng. This led to him being later relegated to another book and never being reused. Therefore, as a first-term student of Huangpu, he was only a deputy commander when he fled to Taiwan, and du Yuming, Song Xilian, and others in the same batch were already the commanders of the corps and the deputy commanders of the front, and Hu Zongnan was promoted to general after he retired from Taiwan, and Wei Bingwen failed to bring good luck to his family and relatives.
After Wei Bingchao came to Taiwan, there were a large number of soldiers, family members, and officials at that time, and there were only more than 6 million people in Taiwan, but they had to support as many as 1 million military and political personnel, and the conditions were very poor. Wei Bingchao had no skills, nor did he marry a wife, he had been alone, he had not even mixed up with a decent house, and he was crammed into a "Rongmin" compound and lived alone in a room.
After the reporter explained his intentions, Wei Bingchao remembered the past and couldn't help but sigh, he did know the story of the saber.
According to him, after Wei Bingwen's death, the saber was left to his youngest son, Wei Liang, who hid it in his hands for many years and later donated it.
The reporter asked for the phone number at Wei Liang's home and contacted Wei Liang on the same day. The reporter introduced Wei Liang's intentions, and at first Wei Liang still had concerns; when the reporter learned of the great national righteousness, complained about the tragic situation of the compatriots killed in Nanjing, and the extermination of humanity by the Japanese army, Wei Liang finally dispelled his concerns and briefed the reporter on the relevant situation of this knife.
Wei Liang is a young man born in Taiwan, has two older brothers and an older sister, he is the last in line, is Wei Bingwen's favorite youngest son.
According to Wei Liang, Wei Bingwen had no job and no power after coming to Taiwan, and had been idle at home, and had also cut off contact with those old colleagues in the army, so the saber that was left behind was not known to the outside world.
Wei Liang used to play with this knife when he was a child, and at that time he didn't know what the engraved "Battle of Nanjing killed 107 people" represented, but he just thought that it was a trophy left by his father, which was very interesting.
This knife is very sharp, a foot thick of horse manure paper, a knife can be cut through. He took the knife to cut down the tree and played, and when he used a lot of force, the handle of the knife could always shake off a lot of dark red blood slag, staining the palm of his hand.
There are also a series of twine threads around the handle of the knife, and I don't know what the intention is.
When he was a child, he did not understand it, but later learned about the history of the Nanjing Massacre, and then he suddenly realized that the blood residue on this knife turned out to be the blood of the compatriots killed in Nanjing.
After several decades, things are not human, but blood debts are still stubbornly recorded here.
Wei Liang felt so terrified that he probably knew the origin of this knife, but it was a fierce and evil thing, and he didn't dare to play with it anymore.
Such a fierce thing is destined not to be hidden all the time.
In the 1950s and 1960s, a film studio in Taiwan made a film called "Yangtze River Storm", which told the story of the Japanese army's invasion of China. The producer did not know where to find out that the retired general Wei Bingwen's family had a Japanese saber with iron and mud, so they asked him to borrow it as a prop.
Yangtze River actor
Wei Bingwen lent out this knife for use as a prop, and a close-up of this knife appeared in the film. I didn't expect to cause endless trouble from then on.
The film later spread to Japan, and when a Japanese person saw the film, he inquired about the collector of the saber everywhere, and later learned the address of Wei Bingwen's house, and repeatedly came to the door to buy the knife at a high price. What was the origin of this Japanese, Wei Liang did not know, nor did he inquire, for fear of causing trouble.
To this end, they moved four times to avoid harassment. After each move, the Japanese man tried to find a way to come to the door again, and stared at it very tightly.
Later analysis, there were two possibilities for the identity of this Japanese, one was that the original owner or his family wanted to take back this weapon that once represented their martial courage. Another possibility, probably the Japanese official saw the words "killed 107 people in the Battle of Nanking" and was eager to destroy the historical evidence, so they were impatient to take back the knife.
However, at that time, Wei Bingwen was too busy to take care of himself, his life was average, and he did not have the heart to consider tracking down the real murderer, so the matter was shelved. Now, the film crew can no longer find the identity of the Japanese.
I have to say that this is another regret.
Wei Liang had experienced these things since he was a child and knew the value behind this knife. After Wei Bingwen's death in 1971, he asked an auction company in Taipei to estimate the price, when he was told that it was at least a million dollars. Wei Liang was startled, and after going home to tell his mother, her mother misunderstood that he was going to sell knives and lost her temper.
Wei Liang told reporters that the valuation was actually just a momentary curiosity, in fact, how much money could not be sold, and those who were hacked died so unjustly, how could they bear to take their bloody money.
In early 1985, Wei Liang's mother, Wei Changlian, died. On the occasion of his death, the old man confessed to his children and donated the knife, leaving behind the last words of an ordinary Chinese woman.
In that year, Wei Liang consulted with his brother and sister and donated the saber to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Wei Liang's clues also ended here, and the film crew could no longer look for the Japanese murderer hidden in the dust of history, who was alive or dead, who was it!
The heavens of the heavens, the ruthlessness of the heavens, make the murderer flee!
Fourth, the real murderer surfaced
The 1997 investigation was fruitless, and the film crew did not continue because it lacked sufficient support.
This blood debt of the Nanjing Massacre is about to be annihilated in the long river of history, and the blood and tears of the 300,000 compatriots who were killed in Nanjing are still flowing under the Nine Springs, hoping for a miracle from Heaven.
Fortunately, miracles have really happened.
20 years later, in 2017, with the unremitting efforts of a young scholar, the original owner of this saber was finally investigated.
The author's writing, never to make a mistake, here is the name of this Japanese soldier to indicate:
Ma mi tsuka yazo.
The year of his death is unknown, but he was a native of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, along with One of the Hundred Killers, Takeshi Noda. At the time of the Nanjing Massacre, Ma mizuka served as the commander of the 11th Squadron of the 23rd Infantry Regiment of the 6th Division of the Japanese Army, with the rank of Lieutenant.
How did this man dig it up? It was the young scholar Wu Jingpeng who sorted out from the vast sea of Japanese war historical materials.
Let's take a general look at the process of Mamitsuka's involvement in the war of aggression against China.
By 1935, Mamitazuka had become the squad leader of the 23rd Infantry Regiment of the Japanese 6th Division, and was deeply influenced by the militaristic ideas of KitaIchiki, who concocted the theory of aggression against China and was known as the "godfather of Nazism" in Japan. In April of the same year, he published an article entitled "Implementing the Showa Restoration and the Rise of Young Officers" in the magazine "Qingyun" of the 23rd Wing, proposing that "the primary task of young Officers in Japan at this stage is to implement the Showa Restoration, completely transform Japan into a militarist country, and call on all young officers of the Japanese Army to rise up quickly."
It can be seen that this is a person who considers himself a "Showa Restoration boy" and is deeply poisoned by Japanese militarism.
In August 1937, Ma mitsukazu invaded China with the 6th Division, fighting its first battle in North China.
The Chinese troops stationed in northern China organized a fierce counterattack. At the end of August of that year, Wei Lihuang, the former commander-in-chief of the enemy in the Second Theater and commander-in-chief of the 14th Group Army, led his troops to aid the Nankou Battlefield and commanded the 14th Group Army to break through the Japanese positions in the western suburbs of Beiping, threatening the Japanese headquarters in Beiping for a time.
Mamituka Yazo's unit was the 23rd Infantry Regiment of the Japanese 6th Division, and as soon as they set foot on Chinese soil, they were sent to mentougou and near Qianjuntai to engage in fierce battles with the Chinese 14th Group Army.
In this battle, the Japanese 23rd Wing suffered heavy losses, paying the price of 177 dead and 371 wounded, and Mamita Tsuka Yazo was also wounded in the battle and was sent to the 6th Division Regiment Field Hospital for recuperation.
In early November 1937, the 6th Division, led by Lieutenant General Gu Shoufu, moved from North China to East China and landed in Hangzhou Bay. It was at this time that Ma mizuka Yazo returned from his wounds and participated in the Battle of Nanjing. Later, everyone knows that Gu Shoufu led his troops to invade the city of Nanjing, and then systematically organized the heart-wrenching massacre.
Mamizuka does not seem to have participated in the killing contest between Toshiaki Xiangjing and Takeshi Noda, but the people he killed were not fighting, but like Xiangjing and Noda, killing Chinese civilians or laying down their weapons. This is an act expressly prohibited by the conventions of international war. The reason why Ma mizuka Yazo's murderous deeds were not reported by Japanese reporters was probably that he did not take the initiative to find reporters to "break the news" like XiangJing and Noda.
Mamitsuka Yazo was transferred out of the 6th Division in early 1938, and on January 15, 1944, Mamitsuka Yazo was inaugurated as the commander of the 72nd Independent Infantry Brigade of the 1st Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army.
In September 1945, the 1st Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army surrendered in Dingxian County, Hebei Province, and then waited for the Chinese army to take over. In January 1946, he surrendered his weapons to the 16th Army of the Chinese Army and went to the Tianjin Shelter. In May 1946, Mamita Tsukachizo returned to Kagoshima, Japan. After the war, he escaped justice and survived in Kagoshima.
Mr. Wu Jingpai said that it was not entirely certain that Ma Mizuka Yazo was the owner of the saber, and more accurate evidence, such as the inscription on the knife, was needed.
However, with a little analysis, we can also infer the approximate range.
At that time, the Japanese army invading China only gave officers sabers, and if they could kill so many Chinese soldiers and civilians in a row, they must have a certain number of soldiers under their command to assist, and this officer could not be a second lieutenant, at least a captain with a certain position and a certain unit.
According to the previous comparison, the only officer who participated in the Battle of Nanjing, served in the Independent Mixed First Brigade before surrender, and surrendered in Hebei was only Mamitsuka Yazo, who was a squadron leader at the time, and was fully qualified to let his soldiers assist him in carrying out murderous atrocities.
Here, we thank Mr. Wu Jingpeng for his research, which brings us one step closer to the historical truth.
However, the truth came too late after all, and this mad Japanese murderer is very likely to have died of old age and escaped the punishment of justice, which is our eternal regret!