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In July 1950, on a train from the Soviet Union to China, Masao Kata, a Japanese officer, felt a deep sense of fear.
He would rather stay in the USSR all the time than set foot on Chinese soil, simply because he had committed heinous crimes here.
"I was worried, worried that the Chinese would retaliate, and I was trembling with fear. ”
In Kata's diary, the sins he committed against the Chinese are recorded, and each one is difficult to write.
And what he will not forget for a long time is that in a village called Poplar Tree, he and his subordinates brutally killed his daughter in front of an elderly man.
Ahead
What was the most desirable profession for Japanese men in the thirties of the last century? It was definitely a soldier, and a soldier who went out to fight.
Born in 1918, his father was a teacher and a typical militarist, who revered the emperor very much, and if it weren't for his age, he might have been the first person in his family to rush to China with a gun to do evil.
With such a father, he will definitely raise a group of children with strong aggressive thoughts and want to expand the territory for the emperor.
At the age of 22, he moved to Shanghai, which was already under Japanese control, and where he signed up for the army.
And in the barracks, he felt for the first time the "horror" of being a soldier, or the horror of being a Japanese soldier.
"It's a paradise for veterans, but it's a hell for recruits. ”
In the training of recruits, the recruits were completely erased by the tragic training and the unlimited oppression of veterans.
"The servicemen here, without conscience, without any sympathy, what the order is, they will do it!"
Especially in China, assassination training using living people as targets is the most brutal training, and each recruit has to try to kill a Chinese.
And these Chinese are all innocent, they are all captured, there are honest peasants, there are also bloody prisoners of war, and the old and children are generally not used for training.
But there are no absolutes, Lutian once saw a veteran and a recruit kill several children, called: Courage Test!
And the recruits will only feel that they are killing pigs, and once they are soft, they will be severely criticized by their superiors!
At this time, Kada often thought: "It is an honor to punish these inferior people who dare to challenge the excellent Japanese nation, and this is to serve His Majesty the Emperor, and even more so to plan for his own future!"
Sweep the poplar trees
In order to become an officer, Lu Tian went all the way up the exam, and was finally admitted to the preparatory non-commissioned officer school in Nanjing, and after graduation, he came to a squad of the 39th Division and became a squad leader.
And when he came to the real front line of invasion of China, he realized that the projects in the recruit training were just "pediatrics", and the real scene was often even more tragic.
One day in late December 1943, Lutian was called to a meeting at the headquarters of the wing, and the commander of the wing gave instructions: the next day to sweep the village of Baiyangshu, because the whole village is an anti-Japanese village, so all men, women and children will not be spared!
In areas behind enemy lines, the indiscriminate killing of innocent people is not allowed on the documents of the Japanese, and although such things happen from time to time, there is no possibility of identification without a living person coming forward to prove it.
But once it is determined that this person is "anti-Japanese" and that the village is "reactionary", then the killing is "legal" on paper, because the Japanese army will decide that this is a battle, not a bully.
In the early morning of the next day, Lutian set off with his team, Baiyangshu Village is a large village with nearly 100 households, and Lutian's team is responsible for seven or eight families on the east side.
After the first gunshot, the village became agitated, and for a while the villagers ran out, never thinking that the whole village was surrounded by devils.
When someone entered the shooting range of Lutian's team, Lutian decisively ordered to shoot, and more than a dozen old and weak women and children fell under the tongue of fire.
When everyone had fallen, Shikada led the people up to check if there were any live openings, and stabbed them one by one with bayonets.
One child was still breathing when he was found, and the two devils skewered him with the other child and threw him into the air.
When they came to a simple house, they found the sound of people moving inside, and Shikada was the first to walk up and kicked the door open.
I saw that in this small room, an old man in his fifties and sixties was so frightened that he was squatting in the corner and shivering, and on the bed, there was a woman in her twenties with a sallow face.
The man reacted from the fright, rushed over and hugged Lutian's legs, and yelled: "Taijun! My daughter is sick!
Katamoto had no plans to do anything to the woman, but the man's act of pounceing on him angered him.
He thought to himself: Such a bed bug, and you still want to change my mind? This is clearly resisting the Japanese army, damn it!
Deeply guilty
"I feel unbearable now, but at that time, that pleading made me feel sick, very sick!"
Kada didn't think much of it, he gave the order to his subordinates, and the muzzle of the black hole was aimed at the woman's head.
And at this time, the father began to wail again, and even wanted to snatch the weapon from the devil's hand.
Lutian stood at the front and gave the old man a kick, which was already thin and weak, and he clutched his chest in pain after being kicked.
“嗙——”
The woman's head bloomed, blood and brains splashed all over the front wall, and the old man's face was also splashed with a lot of blood, his eyes instantly became hollow, and then his whole body trembled, his eyes were red, and tears welled up!
"Japanese devils, you brutes! inhuman! Dogs! All dogs!"
Lutian and the others left happily, and set fire to the family's house, and the old man dragged his daughter's body out, but was forced to retreat by the flames, and could only watch his daughter turn to ashes.
The old man was escorted away by two Japanese soldiers in an angry abuse, and he was not killed because of kindness, but because he was needed to carry the materials looted by the Japanese soldiers.
In an hour, more than 200 people were killed in Poplar Village, corpses were piled up everywhere, and the only remaining prime-aged laborers were pulled by the devils to carry the looted supplies, including grain, pigs, and even killed chickens and ducks.
The tragic death of a woman, an angry father, innocent villagers, and more than 200 lives made Shikada feel remorseful.
He had thought that he would face fierce reprisals after being sent from the Soviet Union to China.
I didn't think that there was no, the Chinese just locked them up for reform, there was no brutal torture, no revenge for a tooth, no blood for blood.
In August 1956, Kada received leniency from the Chinese government and was soon returned to Japan after being exempted from prosecution.
For the rest of his life, Kada has been reflecting on the sins of his youth, trying to confess and repent, and said that he can provide testimony at any time to prove the heinous crimes committed in Japan during that period.
References:
Chapter 1: The Pride of an Officer, Killing the Martyr Mou Gaoxuan (Masao Kata)
Science Network - The Bloody Atrocities of the Japanese Invasion of China as Seen in the Confessions of Japanese Army Veterans - Chen Manrong's blog post