In 1901, in Shanghai, China, a school named "East Asian Tongshu Academy" quietly opened.
On the surface, this is a cultural and educational institution created to promote Sino-Japanese friendship, but behind it hides an extremely shocking truth - it is the Japanese government's base for training spies against China, and more than 5,000 Japanese students have come out of here to become accomplices in the invasion of China.
127 years later, Japan's ambitions are still undiminished, and some rats did not even show their tails until 2016.
In today's seemingly peaceful world, we must face up to the past, because only by recognizing the past can we guard against the future.
The role of the East Asian Academy
Since the establishment of the "East Asian Literary Academy" in Shanghai, Japanese spies have poured into all parts of China.
They weaved through the streets of Shanghai and hurried through the stone roads of the French Concession lanes.
They mingled through the gates of Beijing's officialdom, catching the conversations of officials without a trace in the passing cars and horses.
They even become servants in the homes of wealthy merchants and celebrities, obtaining valuable inside information in the casual chatter of their masters.
These spies, disguised as petty traders during the day and underground intelligence agents at night, can always easily obtain all kinds of important information, and then use various secret methods such as code words or supplementary advertisements to transmit this classified information that can determine China's fate back to Japan and directly to the tea tables of the military and politicians.
For a time, China could barely escape the eyes and ears of Japanese spies with almost no privacy.
They spied on merchants in hotels, targeted arms shipments at docks, and even eavesdropped on officials' private conversations in high-end clubs.
This seemingly trivial piece of intelligence was brought together to create an accurate and comprehensive map of China for the Japanese government, both commercially and militarily, which was firmly controlled in the palm of the hands of the Japanese.
The 86-year-old Hiroshimasa Ao is a typical example.
While still studying at the East Asian Academy, he actively participated in the so-called "Great Tour", following the established route to various parts of China for investigation.
In order to obtain first-hand information about the topography and topography, he even pretended to be a merchant from northern China with a strong accent, mixed into local trading gangs, and followed them south and north.
Sometimes he would pretend to be a dedicated private school teacher, wandering from village to town, using the children's immature mouths to get clues about his family background and his father's occupation...
After graduating, Hiroshimasa Ao perfectly inherited the espionage skills he developed during school, pretending to be a scholar returning from studying abroad, buying real estate in Beijing for a long time, and even holding important positions in some academic institutions.
This status provides him with access to high-level information and allows him to freely enter and exit some key areas.
For decades, with this perfect disguise, Hiroshimasa Ao secretly transmitted a large amount of important intelligence to the Japanese government, including many military-industrial secrets related to national security.
It wasn't until 2016 that the "invisible intelligence machine" was finally caught at an aircraft factory in Yunnan.
It is conceivable that the intelligence he has provided over the years has caused incalculable loss of life and property in China.
In addition, Japan also makes extensive use of bribery, threats, inducements and other means to make some Chinese officials or intellectuals work for them, and even directly betray the country and become internal traitors.
This situation was particularly serious during the War of Resistance Against Japan, when many important secrets were thus destroyed.
For example, during the Battle of Songhu, internal ghosts appeared among the members of the Kuomintang participating in the emergency military conference, secretly providing the Japanese army with a large amount of information about the deployment of the Nationalist army, troop deployment, etc., which directly led to the defeat of the Nationalist army in the Battle of Songhu.
With the help of internal traitors, the Japanese army easily broke through the Nationalist defense line and accelerated the occupation of China.
It can be said that the infiltration of Japanese spies caused great difficulties in China's war of resistance and seriously hindered the process of rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Speaking of the East Asian Tongshu Academy, we must first mention the main founder behind it - Japanese Foreign Minister Kenjiro Shima.
This politician and careerist single-handedly created this ostensibly "cultural exchange" institution, but the real purpose behind it was to train first-class spy talents for the Japanese government against China and accumulate strength for future aggression against China.
Infiltration and operations of Japanese spies
Under the planning of its founder, Kenjiro Shima, the college organized its Japanese students to conduct field trips to China for more than 40 years, which became known as the "Great Travel" project.
These Japanese students set off together, dressed in Chinese robes and horse coats, carrying bulky bags, and embarked on a mysterious journey to the East.
They have traveled to every coveted corner of China, traversing the ancient Silk Road with yellow sand and climbing the grassland plateau with thin air.
These "travelers" recorded China's topography, resources, people's conditions, military important places, and other detailed information in notebooks, and handed them over to the Japanese government and military department, which became an important reference for formulating policies against China in the future.
Looking at the subsequent fate of the graduates of the East Asian Tongshu Academy, the true face of this school's training of spies is even clearer.
Counting the graduates of the 5th to 42nd batches alone, nearly 1,500 chose to stay in China for a long time and became plainclothes spies.
They have different identities, teaching or doing business, quietly lurking in various Japanese institutions in China, waiting for opportunities to continue gathering intelligence.
Some graduates went directly to the puppet Manchukuo regime and served in the Japanese colonization.
According to statistics, nearly 200 of the officials working in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs are from the East Asian Literary Institute, which shows the depth of the penetration and influence of the students of the college on the government.
In this way, the East Asian Academy aptly fulfilled the mission entrusted to it by the Japanese government and became a huge factory for cultivating spies against China.
Thousands of outstanding students walked into China from this campus, becoming pioneers and undercover agents of the invasion of China.
It can be said that the East Asian Literature Academy has accumulated powerful personnel and intelligence support for the future all-out war of aggression against China, and has played a very inadequate role.
A long and protracted battle against spies
The impact of decades of espionage infiltration on Chinese society is all-encompassing and almost pervasive.
Japan's huge team of spies cultivated through institutions such as the East Asian Tongshu Academy has laid a fine intelligence network in China, and almost all fields cannot escape their attention.
In the political field, the Japanese side has made many Chinese officials and even military officers work for them through bribes and threats, and many important political and military decisions will be transmitted to Tokyo as soon as possible.
Under the complete transparency of political and military operations, the secrets of the Chinese government are nowhere to be hidden, and national security has also suffered incalculable damage, especially on the battlefield, where our military often loses its strategic initiative, so it has not suffered the bitter fruit.
In the economic sphere, Japanese spies were also active.
They are also rooted in some key positions, and they have information on China's raw material production, port trade volume, and the capacity of state-owned factories, all of which have been completely delivered to the Japanese government.
Through this economic intelligence, Japan was able to carry out precise economic plunder against China.
In the field of culture, Japan infiltrates through the status of scholars, international students, etc., who can often influence public opinion and guide pro-Japanese thinking.
For a time, "learning Japanese" and "learning from Japan" became fashionable, and even some works by Japanese authors were used as textbook content.
This cultural penetration shakes the cultural self-confidence of the Chinese people.
It was not until the victory of the War of Resistance that the Chinese government gradually destroyed Japan's spy network, the East Asian Academy was ordered to close, and Japanese nationals in China were also repatriated.
But Japan's ambitions have not diminished in the slightest, and they have only turned to more covert and secure ways to continue to erode China.
The awareness of vigilance and prevention remains an important issue for us in peacetime.
What this history of the East Asian Academy of Letters will reveal will only be the tip of the iceberg of Japan's espionage activities in China.
The number of spies dispatched by the Japanese side to China and the poison of their methods are still incalculable.
We must face up to history and remain vigilant, because the traces of the past show that Japan's covetousness for us has not diminished in the slightest.