Speaking of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, we have to mention the Kwantung Army, which is called the "flower of the imperial army" in Japan, and once became the ace army of the Japanese Army for its fierce combat, best equipment, and huge scale.
But it was this army, at the end of World War II, that was completely defeated by the Soviet army in just six days, 83,000 people were killed, and 600,000 people were taken prisoner and sent to the bitter cold land of no grass for labor reform, which surprised all countries, including Japan.
Now let's use 34 rare pictures to restore how this army, which committed unspeakable crimes in China, came to an end.
"Kanto Prefecture" in the old map of Japan
The Japanese Kwantung Army got its name from the "Kwantung Prefecture" that invaded Jinxian and Dalian in northeastern China.
In 1898, the Tsarist government forced the Qing government to "lease" Lushun and Dalian Bay to Russia, which was named "Kwantung Prefecture". Russia built a military port in Arthur, known as the "Arthur's military port" that would never fall.
Japanese shelling of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War
In February 1904, the Russo-Japanese War broke out and Russia was defeated.
Under the mediation of the then President of the United States, Roosevelt Sr., Japan and Russia signed the Treaty of Portsmouth
Under the Treaty of Portsmouth signed between Japan and Russia, all Russian privileges in this area were ceded to Japan.
Kanto Governor's Office
Kwantung Army
On September 1, 1906, Japan officially established the Kanto Metropolitan Government in Lushun. Later, the War Department of the Kwantung Metropolitan Government was upgraded to the "Kwantung Army Headquarters", and from then on, the name Kwantung Army officially appeared. At this time, the size of the Kwantung Army was two divisions and 50,000 people, which was just a small army!
Zhang Zuolin's special train that was blown up in the Huanggutun incident
On June 4, 1928, in order to clear the obstacles to the occupation of the Northeast, the Kwantung Army directed the "Huanggutun Incident" and killed the Feng warlord Zhang Zuolin.
The culprit of the 918 Incident, Ishihara Wanji, died of bladder cancer on August 15, 1949, which happened to be the fourth anniversary of Japan's surrender
In 1929, Ishihara Waner, a staff officer of the Kwantung Army, drew up an ambitious "Plan for the Occupation of Manchuria-Mongolia by the Kwantung Army". Proceeds began to occupy northeastern China.
Photographed on September 18, 1931, the Northeast Army's Beida Camp was smoked after being bombarded by Japanese artillery
On September 18, 1931, the Kwantung Army attacked the North Camp of the Northeast Army
On the night of September 18, 1931, the Kwantung Army blew up a section of the South Manchurian Railway track in Shenyang, blaming the Chinese army. And used this as an excuse to bombard the Beida Camp of China's Northeast Army, which shocked China and the rest of the world The September 18 Incident broke out.
On September 19, 1931, the tanks of the Kwantung Army entered Shenyang
On October 18, 1931, at the headquarters of the Kwantung Army of Japan, Commander Shigeru Honjo received the emperor's condolence decree
Due to the implementation of the "non-resistance policy" of the Northeast Army, the Northeast Army hastily withdrew from Shenyang, and a large number of munitions and materials were looted by the Japanese army. Only one day later, the headquarters of the Kwantung Army was moved from Lushun to Shenyang. By February 1932, the Kwantung Army had basically occupied the entire territory of the three northeastern provinces.
The enthronement ceremony of Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, in the "puppet Manchukuo".
In order to facilitate its rule over the Northeast, Japan took great pains to get the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Pu Yi, who ascended the throne on March 9, 1932 with the support of the Kwantung Army, and established the notorious "puppet Manchukuo".
After the September 18 Incident, the people of Northeast China launched an extremely arduous struggle against Japan. In order to suppress the Northeast Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army, the Kwantung Army began to expand rapidly, and by the end of 1932, the Kwantung Army reached 160,000 men.
Northeast Volunteers
Compared with the non-resistance of the Kuomintang army, the Northeast Volunteer Army was a spontaneous anti-Japanese armed force based on the masses after the "September 18 Incident", with a maximum number of about 300,000 people, and its scope of activity spread throughout the entire northeast.
Shiro Ishii, the founder of the "731" unit of the heinous Kwantung Army
In 1932, Shiro Ishii, a lieutenant general of the Japanese Army and a doctor of medicine, established "Unit 731" in the Kwantung Army to conduct bacterial infection, anatomical and biochemical experiments on living people.
Base of "Unit 731".
Group photo of some officers of Unit 731
In the "Unit 731," there are more than 2,600 research personnel engaged in bacteriological warfare. Almost all bacteriologists and universities in Japan have provided assistance to the unit's bacteriological research.
In the experiment conducted by the Kwantung Army "Unit 731" with a living person, the mouth of the test subject was gagged, and because it was too bloody, the picture was partially processed
It is worth mentioning that on the eve of Japan's defeat, the frenzied Shiro Ishii suggested that all the bacteriological warfare weapons of "Unit 731" be put into the Soviet Union, but fortunately they were not approved in the end.
After the war, Shiro Ishii was interrogated by Thomson, an American bacteriological warfare expert. He exchanged the research results of "Unit 731" for the pardon of all war criminals of "Unit 731". Although he escaped trial, he did not escape the disease, and died in 1959 in Tokyo, Japan, suffering from throat cancer, which truly explains what it means to "have evil retribution".
The scene of the signing of the Tanggu Agreement
Since then, the Kwantung Army has continued to expand into China's Kannai. The invasion of Hebei in 1933 forced the then government of the Republic of China to sign the "Tanggu Agreement", which opened the door for the Japanese army to further occupy North China.
The Kwantung Army stepped on the Lugou Bridge
On July 7, 1937, the Kwantung Army concocted the "77 Incident", and Chiang Kai-shek made a speech in Lushan on July 17, announcing the war against Japan, and the outbreak of a full-scale war of resistance against Japan.
Japanese troops in the Risuno Gate Incident
The successive victories made the Japanese army's ambitions extremely inflated, and the Kwantung Army formulated a war strategy to invade the Soviet Union in the north and annex North China in the south. As a result, in the Battle of Nomenkan in 1939, the Soviet army led by Zhukov was defeated, with 60,000 casualties, and Japanese historians called this war "the largest defeat in the history of the Japanese army".
During the Nomenkan incident, the Kwantung Army negotiated with the Soviet Army
The Nomenkan incident forced former Japanese Prime Minister Fumihiro Konoe to abandon his plan to go north
By the end of 1942, the Kwantung Army had a total of 6 armies, 14 infantry divisions, 2 tank divisions, 1 tank training brigade, 1 cavalry brigade, 9 independent garrisons, 13 border garrisons, etc., with a total strength of more than 700,000, and its armaments and facilities surpassed those of the Japanese Army. In short, this was the period in the history of the Kwantung Army with the strongest overall strength.
Kwantung Army
With the expansion of the Japanese occupation area and the outbreak of the Pacific War, a large number of elite and armaments of the Kwantung Army were transferred to various theaters, and by the end of 1944, the infantry divisions under the jurisdiction of the Kwantung Army were reduced by one-third, leaving only 456,000 men.
He was transferred to the Kwantung Army in the Pacific Theater
Beginning in 1945, in response to the emperor's call for a "protracted war", the Kwantung Army recruited a large number of soldiers from the Japanese in the northeast and the Japanese mainland, although the number reached a record 750,000, but the quality was extremely low, many of them were old soldiers and baby soldiers, coupled with the tight supply of military supplies, the lack of fuel for cars, and the shortage of guns.
The road map of the Soviet army to northeast China
Marshal Vasilevsky
On August 9, 1945, the Soviet army mobilized 1,577,000 troops, 26,000 artillery pieces, 5,556 tanks, and 3,889 aircraft under the command of the famous Marshal Vasilevsky to attack the Kwantung Army entrenched in northeast China in multiple ways. These Soviet Red Army soldiers are veterans of a hundred battles who have experienced the Soviet-German war, and they are very capable of fighting!
And Marshal Vasilevsky was evaluated by American military historians as one of the most outstanding commanders of the Soviet Red Army, second only to Zhukov in status at that time.
The Kwantung Army in 1945
The last commander of the Kwantung Army, Otozo Yamada
At this time, the Kwantung Army had 780,000 troops in its headquarters, plus a total of about 1 million people in the puppet "Manchukuo" army and the Inner Mongolia servant army, 1,215 tanks, 1,800 aircraft, and 6,700 artillery and mortars. Compared to the Soviet army, it was at a significant disadvantage.
As for Commander Yamada Otozo, who was the supreme commander, although he was a senior general of the Japanese army, his military talent was extremely low, he had not fought a few battles, and his military rank was obtained by suppressing the Northeast Volunteer Army and bowing down to Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.
How does this work?
The Kwantung Army surrendered to the Soviet Army
From August 9th to August 15th, in just seven days, this battle truly explained what it means to "collapse at the touch of a button". The Kwantung Army collapsed, and the Soviet army killed 83,300 enemies and captured 594,000 enemies at the cost of only 32,000 casualties, winning a complete victory.
On August 15, Japan announced its unconditional surrender. In the early morning of the 17th, the Kwantung Army received an order to "immediately stop combat operations." At this point, the Kwantung Army, including Commander Yamada Otozo, was completely annihilated. Almost none of them fled back to Japan.
The Kwantung Army captured by Soviet troops
Beginning in September 1945, the captured Kwantung Army was transported by train to Siberia in the Soviet Union for hard labor in units of 1,000 men.
Japanese prisoners of war of the Kwantung Army digging coal in Siberia
During his time in Siberia, this group of Kwantung Army, which had been powerful and bad in China, was finally punished.
According to the Kwantung Army prisoner of war Ohua Weiwei recalled: "In the morning and evening, we ate a cup of millet porridge as big as the lid of a lunch box, 200 grams of black bread at noon, and a cup of salty soup with two or three thin potato slices in the evening. ”
Otozo Yamada on trial at a Soviet military tribunal
After the surrender, Yamada Otozo and other high-ranking officers of the Kwantung Army did not receive any preferential treatment, but engaged in heavy manual labor like ordinary soldiers. In December 1949, the Soviet military court listed Yamada as a Class B war criminal and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
After labor, a short break was taken under the supervision of Soviet soldiers
Japanese prisoner of war Jira Kagawa later recalled: "As soon as a person died, his clothes were stripped naked, and his body was frozen hard like a piece of wood. ”
The surviving prisoners of war of the Kwantung Army were repatriated to Japan
More than 60,000 Kwantung Army prisoners died in Soviet labor camps, and from 1949 onwards, Japanese Kwantung Army prisoners of war who had served hard labor in Siberia were repatriated to Japan.
These prisoners of war contributed significantly to the economy of the Soviet Union, and it is estimated that 0.7% of the Soviet Union's GDP in 1946 was produced by these prisoners of war......