Today marks the 90th anniversary of the 1928 Songhu War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
From the outbreak of the September 18 Incident in 1931 to the Japanese army's attack on Shanghai in 1932, the 1.28 Incident broke out, and the Japanese army's act of brazenly launching a war of aggression against China was clearly revealed. The war not only brought deep pain to the Chinese people, but also trapped a group of international friends who came to China, who left behind the good story of fighting side by side with the Chinese people and the heartfelt hope of calling for world peace.
History never goes away. 90 years later, many details have returned to the public eye, inspiring people to remember history, cherish peace and forge ahead.
Lovers of love experienced the Songhu War of Resistance
On a hot afternoon in the summer of 1931, the young and promising Edgar Snow and the lively Helen Foster met for the first time at a new American-style café in downtown Shanghai. In December 1932, the two were happily married.
The young lovers, both from the United States, both journalists, shared many common languages in a foreign country across the Pacific. However, soon after the two fell in love, the January 28 Incident broke out. In her memoir, "My Years in China," Helen claimed that the first Songhu War of Resistance, which broke out on January 28, 1932, was the "first war" she encountered in her life.
According to Helen's recollection, in early January 1932, the clouds of Japanese invasion of Shanghai had spread to the public concessions, Japanese goods stores began to reduce prices, some stores were renamed, and a Japanese Navy transport ship had sailed into the calm port of Shanghai. By January 27, the nerves of war had tightened. She described it this way, as soon as the door rang, or the rickshaw tires "fired", she had to consider how to take shelter further. In her letters to her family, Helen used "miserable" and "strange" to describe Shanghai at that time. She believes that China is isolated and helpless, "no navy, no air force, no arms." This is her personal observation of China's defense forces, and the words are full of worry.
Helen writes that on January 28, 1932, Chinatown in Shanghai was plunged into a war of real guns, with the Japanese invading on the one hand and the Chinese Nineteenth Route Army resisting on the other. Years later, Helen found some of the letters and newspaper clippings of that year, and she took the initiative to write a telegram at the time, saying: "Japanese military planes flew over the city of Shanghai and bombed the main train station. Chinatown was in flames, and there was no hope of controlling the situation. The Japanese Navy had completely occupied the Zhabei area. ”
"Chinese resisting!" In Helen's memory, after the outbreak of the 1/28 Incident, Edgar Snow was never idle, he traveled everywhere, paying attention to the war, and witnessing the Japanese attack at Hongkou. "They killed all the way, and the Chinese soldiers were wounded and had to retreat..." Helen's memoirs cite the scene of the first sighting described by Edgar Snow at the time.
Both Snow and Helen documented the first Songhu War of Resistance in 1932 as "war correspondents." The cruelty of the war brought two young, peace-hungry hearts closer, and the love in the war was precious, and later the couple arrived in northern Shaanxi one after another, and the well-known "Red Star Shines on China" was born.
Snow and Helen have the same feeling, in the flames of the War of Resistance, the image of the Chinese revolutionary soldiers is clearer, they are not scattered soldiers, they are the national heroes of that era.
Crossing the line of fire to try to rescue Lu Xun
"The Nineteenth Route Army is a southern army known for its national consciousness and bravery." "In that battle, the patriotic enthusiasm of the people was unquestionable. Houses and schools were turned into hospitals, doctors, nurses and students volunteered to serve, and workers went straight to war or on stretchers. 700 workers and soldiers stood guarding Wusong Fort for several weeks in the face of a coordinated attack by the Japanese army, navy and air force. In his famous work "China's Battle Song", Smedley described the first Songhu War of Resistance in Shanghai in 1932.
She also wrote: "This war gave me the first opportunity to learn about Chinese soldiers on the basis of first-hand information. To most foreigners, they are vulnerable mercenaries. Many of them are not much older than children, but they are already experienced 'veterans' in the battlefield. Like the Chinese civilians, who are not deaf and dumb, who are able to speak their minds freely, who hate the Japanese, who oppose the imperialist powers, who see no reason to fight a civil war. ”
Smedley cherished the friendship he had forged with the famous writer Lu Xun. After the outbreak of the First Songhu War of Resistance, she crossed the line of fire in the hope of rescuing Mr. Lu Xun.
According to Smedley, she sat breathlessly in the carriage, which sped down the streets lined with Japanese troops on both sides, "and before they had time to raise their hands and ask for their documents, we had swept by." She saw that the Hongkou area at that time had been destroyed by the war. After arriving at Lu Xun's apartment, she knocked the door and called in English and German, but no one answered.
Smedley pounced. She and her companions galloped through the Japanese positions and back to the public concessions of the time. She recalled that it was not until the end of the first Songhu War of Resistance that she learned that Lu Xun's family had been rescued in time by Japanese friends and had the privilege of escaping the disaster.
In "China's War Song", Smedley also wrote that during the war, many friends were brutally killed by the Japanese, including Chinese students returning from the United States, as well as European and American people. In her view, war harms humanity regardless of age or nationality.
In 2021, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of Lu Xun's birth, lu xun's literary collection published by Shanghai Century Publishing Group's Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House published a number of letters from Lu Xun and his friends in the first half of 1932, and also mentioned the huge impact of the war on daily life after the January 28 Incident. In a letter marked with the time of the payment of "February 22nd", he told his friend Xu Shousheng: "This incident was so unexpected that it suddenly fell into the line of fire, the blood blade was blocked, and the flying pill entered the room. On February 6, Uchimiyama Jun managed to take his women and children into the British Concession, and although none of the books were taken with them, they were fortunate to be spared. This refers to a past after the January 28 Incident, Lu Xun received help from Uchiyama to escape home with Xu Guangping and Zhou Haiying.
Precious memories "rediscovered"
The personal experience of international friends in the 1932 Shanghai War is now scattered in some Chinese translations published after the reform and opening up.
In the early 1980s, scholar Jiang Feng completed the translation of international friend Smedley's tome "China's Battle Song", which has about 390,000 Chinese characters. Jiang Feng lamented in the preface to the translation, and Smedley emphasized the authenticity of writing. Jiang Feng believes that Smedley knows that only the truth is the most powerful, and can be invincible in the "battle of the pen tip". Scholars also found smedlet to be extremely keenly aware of signs of an imminent Japanese invasion of China in the early 1930s. Reportage works such as "China's Battle Song" provide first-hand information for the study of the history of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in addition to providing rare historical materials for Lu Xun's research.
An Wei, one of the translators of "My Years in China", an expert on Snow's research for a long time on the mainland, said in an interview that Snow and Helen's acquaintance and their many consensus on the current situation in China at that time were a special factor that later led to the publication of "Red Star Shines on China". Especially in Shanghai, his experience in Shanghai, including their interviews with the progress of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression at that time, and his close contacts with well-known personalities such as Song Qingling and Lu Xun, further inspired Snow's creation, allowing him to move forward step by step in the future, and to better understand the Chinese revolution and the Chinese Communist Party from the depths of his heart. Although Snow and Helen divorced in 1949, their precious memories as war correspondents became a valuable asset for studying Chinese history from the perspective of international friends.
In the early days of Smedley, Snow and others left in Shanghai, they mainly included on-site transcripts, memoirs and old photos. Inspired by long-term research, the Shanghai Audio-Visual Archives have further excavated the "Songhu Anti-Japanese War in International Perspective" series of video materials based on the Shanghai Anti-Japanese War Historical Image Library, which has been collected and integrated overseas for nearly 30 years.
The relevant person in charge of the Shanghai Audio-Visual Archive said that the video data research carried out around the two Songhu Anti-Japanese War in 1932 and 1937 found that the war that occurred in Shanghai in the 1930s was a news event that caused a sensation in the world, was continuously focused and reported by major international news agencies, and spread to all parts of the world, thus leaving many valuable historical images. For example, at that time, The Hearst News, Global News, Fox News, Paramount News, and The French Hyakudai News all filmed and reported on major news events in Shanghai in the 1930s.
Today we can see that about 90 years ago, some foreign journalists reported in front of the ruins of the Japanese invasion of China, when Chinese civilians suffered from war, whether it is the memoirs left by International friends such as Snow, or the precious images left by other war correspondents, they are inspiring future generations to remember history, face the future, and spare no effort to promote peace and development in the world. (Reporter: Xu Xiaoqing participated in the writing: Tian Yuhe)
Source: Xinhua Daily Telegraph