"I heard it's a Japanese woman!"
"Oh! She was a Chinese, or a gege, and later she was sent to Japan, and she took herself as a Japanese, and as a result, the Japanese did not recognize her at all! ”
"If the gun is shot well, this kind of collaborator and traitor to the country should be stabbed with a thousand knives!"
At about 6:30 a.m. on March 25, 1948, Yoshiko Kawashima was executed by firing squad at Peiping No. 1 Prison outside Xuanwu Gate for treason.
Then a man in the form of an officer walked out the door, and at his beckoning, Yoshiko Kawashima's body was carried out the door.
The crowd of onlookers and the reporters who had been waiting for a long time stepped forward to confirm whether this wretched corpse was the most heinous female traitor.
The female corpse on the wooden board maintained a lying position, her body was full of mud, her head was tilted to one side, her face was covered with blood, it was difficult to identify her face, and only a dark bullet hole was faintly seen between the eyebrows, which could be confirmed to be a shooting death.
The female corpse clasped her hands, as if clutching something, but the onlookers did not care about this detail.
It wasn't until noon that a Japanese monk, Furukawa Daihang, came to collect her body and found the crumpled paper ball in Yoshiko Kawashima's hand.
With doubts, Furukawa Daihang opened the paper ball, which was Kawashima Yoshiko's desperate poem before her execution: "There is no home to return, and there are tears that have nowhere to hang." There is law injustice, and to whom are the grievances filed? ”
The lines of this poem all reveal Kawashima Yoshiko's helplessness and resentment towards a tragic life, so what happened to Yoshiko Kawashima? How did she get on this road of no return?
First, the family abandoned by the times
On May 24, 1906, Ai Xin Jue Luo Xianxuan was born in prince Su's mansion to the son of Ai Xin Jue Luo ShanQi, a descendant of Hauge, the eldest son of Emperor Taiji, one of the eight hereditary princes of the Qing Dynasty.
Prince Su married a total of one concubine, four side concubines, and gave birth to a total of thirty-eight children, Xianxuan was the fourteenth daughter of Shanqi, known as the Fourteen Gege, and in the family she also had a name called Dongzhen, which means the pearl of the East.
On the ranking of royals, Xianyue's generation should be regarded as Puyi's niece.
According to the normal development of the situation, the Xianxuan, who is a Gege, should be dressed in fine clothes and food to live a childhood life, and then marry another member of the royal family at the marriageable age, and if he is lucky, he may marry which brother or even become an empress.
But when Xianyue was born, the Qing Dynasty was already on the verge of death, a walking dead-like existence, and the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 ignited the revolutionary resistance of the whole country like a raging fire, giving the decadent Qing Dynasty a fatal blow.
In 1912, under the coercion and inducement of Yuan Shikai, The Empress Dowager Longyu announced the abdication edict of Puyi, and the Qing Dynasty, which lasted for 296 years, officially ended.
In this way, almost overnight, the xianxuan family fell from a noble royal family to an ordinary commoner, becoming a relic of the old times.
Although this psychological gap did not seem to be deeply felt by Xianxuan, who was only six years old at the time, his father Shanqi was extremely resistant to such a change and became a hard-line restorationist, taking the lead in uniting with other imperial relatives and state relatives to refuse to sign the abdication edict.
But such a move, before the tide of the change of the times, is like a praying arm as a car, seeing that there is no hope of stopping, Xianxuan's father's eyes fell on the body of external forces.
Since he could not save the Qing Dynasty with the strength of these Manchu Qing relics, he could only hope that the qing dynasty would be restored by the hands of the great powers, and he chose the Japanese who had been coveting China for a long time.
Since the prince could not be passed on to foreigners, Zenki gave the 7-year-old Xianxuan as a "small toy" to a powerful Japanese ronin at that time, Kawashima Nanasu, as an adopted daughter and worshipped her as a brother.
And this also became the beginning of the tragedy of Xianxuan.
Second, distorted and morbid growth
After Xianyue was given to Kawashima Suwami as an adopted daughter, he soon followed him to Japan, and Kawashima Sumiro personally gave Xianji a Japanese name, Kawashima Yoshiko.
After following her adoptive father to Japan, Yoshiko Kawashima received a comprehensive education in Japanese militarism, and was Japaneseized in all aspects of her lifestyle and behavior.
At first, Yoshiko Kawashima would often cry because she had left her hometown and missed her family, because her turbulent childhood encounters made her lonely and did not like to talk to her peers.
I was not interested in the skills of flower arrangement, tea art, and weaving and embroidery that girls learned, but was curious about the skills of horseback riding, fencing, and shooting.
Over time, Yoshiko Kawashima's thinking was gradually distorted by the daily education of fascism and the extreme ideas that her adoptive father often instilled in her ears.
Gradually, she began to accept the ideas of Japanese militarism, and longed to one day restore the Qing Dynasty in the land of Manchuria and Mongolia, and once again become a royal aristocrat.
Ten years have passed in the blink of an eye, and Yoshiko Kawashima has grown from an ignorant young girl to a young girl who stands tall and has also made a boyfriend named Iwata Ainosuke.
And Kawashima Yoshiko's attitude towards her adoptive father Kawashima Suwami also changed from the initial strange fear to the later worship and admiration, and finally even surpassed her own biological father in her mind, and she once regarded Kawashima Suwami as her real father in her heart.
And this attitude continued until the age of seventeen, when one thing completely shattered the image of his adoptive father in his mind.
Kawashima Suori met with Yoshiko Kawashima alone and said to her, "Prince Lingzunsu is a benevolent person, and I am a brave one." The benevolent one alone cannot win the world, and the brave alone will fail. If the benevolent and the brave are united in blood, the children born will be wise and courageous. ”
At the end of the conversation, he looked at Yoshiko Kawashima's body meaningfully.
Yoshiko Kawashima immediately understood the sound of Kawashima's words, and she instinctively retreated backwards until her trembling hand touched the doorknob, and then turned around to try to grab the door and flee, but she did not know when the door had been locked.
In this way, the 59-year-old Kawashima Sumizu raped 17-year-old Yoshiko Kawashima.
Kawashima's heart was devastated by her adoptive father's beastly behavior, and the next day, she wrote in her diary: "On October 6, 13, Taisho, at 9:45 p.m., I forever liquidated my part as a woman. ”
She wants to go to her boyfriend, Ainosuke Iwata, for comfort, and cries to him about her experience: "I don't want to live, I deserve this life!"
But her boyfriend's indifference made her feel more and more desperate, so she thought about suicide, that is, it was at that time that she first wrote the "desperate poem": "There is no home to return, and there are tears that have nowhere to fall." There is law injustice, and to whom are the grievances filed? ”
She then picked up the pistol and pulled the trigger on the heart of her chest. But the bullet passed next to the heart and pierced the left rib, and she did not succeed in suicide.
After her adoptive father Kawashima Suori learned of this, he knew that he was ashamed in his heart, so he sent Kawashima Yoshiko to Kagoshima with a pleasant climate to recuperate, but Kawashima Yoshiko was already extremely disappointed in her adoptive father at this time, she hated the people around her, hated her daughter's body, and was powerless to resist all this.
Just after that incident, she put on the Bun of a Japanese woman for the last time, dressed in a kimono, put on makeup, and went to the photo studio to take her girl's farewell photo.
Subsequently, she personally cut her long hair with scissors, changed her to a men's head, and from then on, she wore only men's clothes, and her language was changed to men's language (some words between men and women in Japanese are different).
Third, the pursuit of power by any means
Yoshiko Kawashima, who was separated from her daughter, began to see herself as a man, eager to get rid of the weakness of women, and therefore desperate for power and wealth.
As a member of the Manchu Qing royal family, combined with her militarist education over the years, she thought of the conspiracy of "Manchu-Mongolian independence" planned by her father and adoptive father for many years.
Although she was already disappointed in her two fathers, she saw this as an opportunity, an opportunity to take power.
In 1922, after years of planning for the restoration of the Qing Dynasty but ultimately without success, and finally exhausted his financial and material resources, Kawashima Sulang was entrusted by several sons of Shanqi to sell the property left by Shanqi in Beijing, Dalian, and Lushun, and Chuandao Sulang even took half of it privately into his own pocket.
In 1927, Yoshiko Kawashima returned to China and told her brother that she was going to marry the Mongolian magnate Kangyur Zhabu in order to win over the Manchu and Mongolian nobles and realize the ambitions of the two fathers to "Manchu-Mongolian autonomy".
However, shortly after marriage, she found that Kangyur Zabu had a cowardly personality, and such a man was obviously difficult to realize his dreams, and two years later, Kawashima Yoshiko chose to divorce.
But she did not have a dead heart, and when she saw that a plan could not be achieved, she had another plan.
At this moment, at a stage when Japan's militarist ambitions are extremely inflated, in order to realize the ambition of annexing Manchuria and Mongolia and then invading China to dominate East Asia, the military department needs to recruit a large number of spies from China to serve Japan.
Yoshiko Kawashima thought of getting in touch with the Japanese military, so she began to run around, shuttling back and forth between Manchuria, the interior, and Japan, hoping to arouse the interest of the Japanese military department.
Finally, the kung fu paid off, and Yoshiko Kawashima soon attracted the attention of the Japanese military department, and with her clever mind and handsome appearance, she spent all day mixing with some high-ranking Japanese officers Such as Doihara, Touyama Man, Itagaki Seishiro, Tada Jun, and Honjo Shigeru.
Due to her higher defense education and training in Japan, coupled with her beautiful appearance and witty mind, Yoshiko Kawashima was soon accepted and recruited as a spy by the Japanese Kwantung Army.
The head of the Japanese military's secret service, represented by Takayoshi Tanaka and Kenji Toihara, took a fancy to Yoshiko Kawashima's unique identity, and also saw her utilitarian psychology of seeking the restoration of the external situation, and Kawashima Yoshiko herself also recognized Japan's militarist ideas very much, so he sent her to engage in espionage activities in northeast China.
At this point, Yoshiko Kawashima finally embarked on the path of fame she had always dreamed of, becoming a spy who planned subversive activities in China to serve the Japanese military, and she did not think that this road would end up being a road of no return.
Fourth, the road of no return for traitors to the country and seeking glory
In 1931, at the behest of Takayoshi Tanaka, after the outbreak of the September 18 Incident, Yoshiko Kawashima rushed to Fengtian (present-day Shenyang) in early October of the same year and joined the senior staff officer of the Kwantung Army, Itagaki Seishiro.
At this time, in order to cope with international public opinion that was unfavorable to itself, cover up the facts of aggression, whitewash the illusion of peace, and strengthen its colonial rule over northeast China, Japan plotted to support Puyi, the deposed emperor of the late Qing Dynasty, as a puppet, and planned to build a puppet regime in puppet Manchukuo.
When Kawashima Yoshiko arrived in Fengtian, the Japanese had abducted Puyi to Lushun under house arrest, but how could there be an emperor without an empress?
At this time, Empress Wanrong and other late Qing Yu Dang were still stranded in Tianjin, so the task of inviting Empress Wanrong back fell on the head of Kawashima Yoshiko.
It turns out that Kawashima Yoshiko is indeed a good spy, through a rhetoric, promising the noble life after the founding of the country and the identity of one person above ten thousand people, WanRong was moved, she agreed to Kawashima Yoshiko's request,
The two set off from Tianjin together and both disguised themselves as men, hitchhiking, taking a boat, trekking, and finally arriving in Lushun from Tianjin under the eyes of the people, and soon "reunited" with Puyi, creating conditions for the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo for "the emperor and the empress to appear at the same time".
The success of Yoshiko Kawashima's mission satisfied the military and called him a "genius liar."
Because of this outstanding merit, Kawashima Yoshiko was specially awarded the rank of Shōsa of the Japanese Army, becoming the highest-ranking female officer in the Japanese army at that time.
Yoshiko Kawashima, who had a military rank, was not satisfied, she longed to have an army of her own, so she did not hesitate to spend a lot of manpower and financial resources, running around to contact, contacting a large number of old chaebols and late Qing Yu Party who supported the restoration of the Qing Dynasty.
With the support of these people, she established an armed force called the "Dingguo Army Cavalry Regiment", which was subordinate to the Japanese Military Department, and she naturally became the "commander-in-chief" of this army.
At the end of 1931, Yoshiko Kawashima was ordered to go to Shanghai, and the Japanese military was actively looking for excuses to expand the war.
After days of contemplation with Takayoshi Tanaka, who was also a Japanese spy, they developed a plan that they thought was seamless.
On January 18, 1932, five Japanese dressed as monks walked past the gate of the main factory of Shanghai Sanyou Industrial Society on Mayushan Road in Yingxiang Port, and they still chanted words for the "heroic souls" of the Japanese army who died in the "918" incident.
Most of the workers in the factory are very patriotic, and after the outbreak of the "918" incident, they not only pasted on the factory wall that "we will recover the three eastern provinces!" And other patriotic slogans, but also formed the "Three Friends Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army."
When the five men passed the entrance of the factory, Amazaki Qisheng and Shui Shui Hideo, who were the leaders, rushed into the factory, shouting that they wanted to tear up the slogans propagating anti-Japanese patriotism.
In the chaos, a group of "workers" armed with steel pipes and other instruments rushed out of nowhere, and beat several monks head-to-head and face- and beat them until several monks fell in a pool of blood.
By the time the police arrived at the scene, Amazaki had already died, and two others were seriously injured. This bloody incident immediately became a hot spot in public opinion at that time, adding fuel to the already tense Sino-Japanese relations.
Yoshiko Kawashima later confessed that the five monks and the "workers" who rushed out to beat people were all Japanese ronin who had arranged in advance, and the whole process of the matter was planned by her and Tanaka Takayoshi, and all she needed to use was the patriotic enthusiasm of the workers in the Mitomo factory.
Immediately after the "Japanese monk incident", the Japanese consul general in Shanghai immediately protested to Shanghai Mayor Wu Tiecheng and demanded that "the murderer be arrested."
At this time, Kawashima Yoshiko gave a sum of money to the Japanese living in Shanghai to form the "Indochina Volunteer Regiment", and assigned Captain Chiharu Shigeto to command this group of more than thirty members of the Youth Comrades' Association to carry out retaliatory attacks on the Sanyou Factory in the name of hunting down the killer.
At 4:00 a.m. on January 20, after careful arrangement, more than 60 Japanese ronin under the command of Chiharu Shigeto, dressed in civilian clothes, suddenly rushed into the Mitomo Industrial Towel Factory, smashed all the machines, and fought fiercely with the workers who guarded the factory.
When the police who heard the news came to suppress it, the group of ronin not only did not flee but also hit the police, and finally after killing a Chinese policeman and injuring the two, they fled.
The Sanyou Company, which has thousands of employees, was set on fire by the Japanese during this incident.
In the afternoon of the same day, more than a thousand Japanese expatriates took to the streets to march, frantically clamoring for "exterminating the anti-Japanese movement" and "killing all Chinese."
The Japanese Consul General in Shanghai also seized the opportunity to make four arbitrary and rude demands to the Shanghai authorities:
- Apologies to Japan;
- Severely punish the murderer;
- Bear the medical expenses and alimony of the murdered monks;
- Immediately disband anti-Japanese groups from all walks of life in Shanghai and ban anti-Japanese activities.
On January 22, the japanese First Fleet Headquarters in Shanghai issued a threatening statement: "If the Shanghai Municipal Government fails to respond satisfactorily, the Japanese Navy will take stern measures." ”
Subsequently, Wu Tiecheng, then mayor of Shanghai, replied to four requests and recognized them. For a time, the concessionary attitude of the Nationalist government made it difficult for the Japanese side to find an excuse for war.
On January 28, the Japanese demanded that Chinese troops withdraw from Zhabei under the pretext of protecting the expatriates.
Shortly after the news was sent, the commander of the Japanese First Fleet, Major General Yukiichi Shiozawa, immediately issued an order to the Marine Corps that night, marched into Zhabei outside the Japanese garrison area, and engaged in a fierce battle with the Nineteenth Route Army -- the "1.28" incident that shocked China and foreign countries broke out, and tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers were killed or wounded in the battle.
Fifth, the fate of being abandoned again
After successfully provoking the "1.28" incident, Yoshiko Kawashima's name was once very famous in Japan, becoming the object of hype in Japanese newspapers, and has almost become a goddess-level existence in the minds of the Japanese people.
In 1938, the later Japanese Class A war criminal Hideki Tojo was successfully elected Prime Minister of Japan, and this fascist fanatic with his hands stained with Chinese blood arranged for Yoshiko Kawashima to be a restaurant owner's wife, and by meeting those senior Kuomintang officers who frequented them and some political figures, celebrities, etc., he spared no effort to collect available information from these people and collate it and report it to the Japanese military department.
At the same time, the cunning and cunning Hideki Tojo did not forget to arrange for other agents to spy on Yoshiko Kawashima herself, because in his eyes Kawashima Yoshiko was not really Japanese.
In this restaurant, Yoshiko Kawashima and Dai Kasa, the head of the Kuomintang military command agent, got along, and under the unfavorable situation in the later stage of the Japanese war, the two sides reached a secret agreement of "living in peace and jointly suppressing the communists."
It was also in this hotel that Yoshiko Kawashima met Li Xianglan, who was still a young girl at the time, and the two had a close relationship, often hooked up together, and were called "brothers and sisters", Li Xianglan called Yoshiko Kawashima as her brother, and Kawashima Yoshiko called Li Xianglan as her sister.
On August 15, 1945, with the slightly trembling tone of Emperor Hirohito on the radio, the Japanese invaders finally announced their unconditional surrender, at which point Yoshiko Kawashima realized that her end was approaching.
But before she could escape back to Japan, on October 10, 1945, Yoshiko Kawashima was arrested by Kuomintang gendarmes for treason at her home at No. 34 East 49-Joo Hutong in Beijing.
At two o'clock in the afternoon of October 8, 1947, the Grand Court of the Peking District Court held a public trial for Kawashima Yoshiko's treason.
As early as the news was released, some people rushed from all over the country to witness the fate of this female traitor, and on the day of the trial, the Beiping District Court was blocked by reporters and onlookers who came to shoot, and the court, which was not spacious, stood with thousands of people.
The inside of the courtroom was crowded, even the glass was all squeezed, the mercury lamps of the cameras were squeezed, and the bailiffs who maintained order were also squeezed, and so many people were to witness the trial of this female traitor.
At this time, Kawashima Yoshiko thought that she still had a "life-saving trump card" in her hand, that is, her Japanese identity, and her "sister" Li Xianglan, who was also indicted for treason, was released because of her Japanese identity, and all she had to do was to ask her adoptive father Kawashima Suhou to prove her Japanese identity to the court.
Yoshiko Kawashima, who had been smart all her life, did not think in the end that her adoptive father, Kawashima Sushiro, was not willing to appear in court as an author, but scribbled back: "I can say with certainty that Yoshiko Kawashima is absolutely Japanese, but there is a problem, her household registration certificate was lost by me." ”
In this way, Yoshiko Kawashima's last straw also disappeared, and she silently welcomed her final judgment in frustration.
On October 22, 1947, the Hebei Provincial High Court sentenced Yoshiko Kawashima to death for adultery and espionage, and executed her in March of the following year, and on the occasion of her parting, Kawashima wrote her desperate poem crying about the injustice of fate.
epilogue
Yoshiko Kawashima's life is indeed full of tragedy, from birth she was viewed as a tool, and when she grew up, she awakened her self-awareness and wanted to get rid of this identity.
Later, by betraying the interests of the country, he thought that he had ascended to a high place of power and was no longer called upon to be used by others, but in his final end, he once again realized that he was still a tool, a dispensable tool.
When she wrote the verses that cried out about her fate, did she ever think of how many of her compatriots had died directly or indirectly from her own ambitions?