It was a shocking scene, as if you were in purgatory on earth. devastated villages, with burnt houses everywhere; The old and weak women and children in ragged clothes were haggard and hungry. What is even more heart-wrenching is that there are elderly people who are grieving, telling the tragic situation of their family members being killed. What's going on? Why did this land that should be quiet and peaceful become hated by the people of the ghost realm? What kind of crime caused this innocent people to be so humiliated and tormented?
Operation Sweep: the beginning of a man-made catastrophe
The Rehe area has always been pleasantly landscaped, surrounded by mountains, gurgling springs, and scattered villages, where the people have lived and worked in peace and contentment for generations. However, one summer day in 1940, all the good things about life were completely turned upside down, replaced by bloody and tragic tragedy.
In the summer of that year, the Japanese army suddenly launched a massive "sweep" operation along the Great Wall. Their aim was to wipe out the area once and for all and to eliminate the guerrilla forces that were allegedly infiltrating the civilian population. From then on, this area was classified as a so-called "no man's land", and the Japanese army ordered: all residents were spared, and all were forcibly evicted!
In this way, a frenzied military force consisting of thousands of Japanese military police and puppet troops suddenly swept in. They are armed with murder weapons, ready to attack like predatory beasts. The men of the village bore the brunt of the attack, young and old, bound and beaten, their sabers tumbling on their bodies, and blood flowing. Those who resisted at the slightest were shot on the spot, and their bodies were strewn all over the field.
Next, it was the death of the women and children. They panicked, and some of them fled with their families, but they were soon caught up and embarrassed; Some knelt on the ground and begged for mercy, but in exchange for merciless ridicule. The Japanese army behaved recklessly, and some of them were young and greedy, and physically humiliated the women. What's more, they threw their children into a raging fire, burning their immature lives with all their might...
Tragedy: Suffering to the common people
In the frenzy of the sweep operation, innocent civilians were subjected to unprecedented humiliation and torture. Their former comfortable lives have since fallen apart and been replaced by a desperate situation in which life is worse than death.
In one village, an official saw a gruesome sight: the women were completely naked, with only a rag around their waists, exposed to the open air, and allowed to be exposed to the sun. Most of them are old women who are over the age of flowers, with chapped skin, yellow and thin muscles, and they are simply walking skeletons. When asked why, the guide lowered his voice and cautiously explained: This is the new "rule" of the Japanese army, men are not allowed to work in the fields, and women must be so naked if they want to hoe the ground.
What's more, sometimes when the Japanese attack suddenly, they would order these poor women to tear off the poor cover, and let them inflict all kinds of insults and teasing them. A teenage girl was dragged away just a few days ago and was ......never heard from The guide whispered that this was only the outer part of the no-man's land, and it was even more unbearable than this when you really entered the core area!
Sure enough, after entering the no-man's land, the experience of an old man is heart-wrenching. He used to be a prosperous family, but now there are eleven members of the family, except for him, an old man, the other ten are all murdered.
"My eldest son was hanged alive from a tree; Of the three youngest sons, one was shot and two were thrown into a fire pit; Two daughters-in-law and three grandchildren, and my 14-year-old daughter...... All of them were forcibly pulled away by the devils and were brutally murdered...... ＂
The old man's voice trembled and choked. He also spoke of the tragic fate of his parents and ancestors: his ancestors were killed while building the Great Wall, his father was killed in another war, and his mother died in fear at home........ Now that he is alone, the family foundation is ruined, and it doesn't matter whether he lives or dies.
"Sir, I'm so tired of seeing all this, I'd rather die! In a few days, I'll go to the Great Wall! The old man said, tears welling up in his eyes.
Sin is unforgivable
In this land shrouded in blood and gunpowder, the atrocities of the Japanese army can be described as all kinds of evil, and some crimes are even more heinous.
Among them, the most hated is Abe, a Japanese military police captain nicknamed "Big Devil Head". This demon does all kinds of evil, and he does all kinds of evil, he is simply a human Shura.
The greatest hobby of the Abe warlords was to loot the belongings of the common people. Whenever he swept up, he always wielded a wine knife himself, took the lead in sweeping away daily necessities such as quilts and cotton clothes, and then quietly sent these illegal gains back to his hometown in Japan and made a fortune.
What is even more outrageous is that Abe likes to collect intimate items such as underwear, flowers and pillows worn by women, and hide these shameful trophies like treasures in the base camp of the gendarmerie. Because of such obscene and obscene behavior, the people all secretly compared him with Zhu Bajie.
But even so, Abe's atrocities are far from over. In the process of sweeping around Luanping Chimney Beam, this brutal demon actually ate the hearts of innocent people and drank human blood, which was despicable and infamous.
What's more, Abe actually engaged in a heinous business - selling human skins! At his gendarmerie base camp, Abe once publicly dried a brand new human skin, which was chilling. According to him, this is not the first time, he has sold more than a dozen human skins to Japan before, because there are people in Japan who specialize in this "commodity".
It can be said that Abe is a demon who does all kinds of evil and loses his conscience. His accumulated crimes are simply innocent, and his sins are unforgivable. Such an atrocity is shocking, it is really outrageous!
4. A dramatic change in the landscape
This place, which was supposed to be peaceful and quiet, was completely unrecognizable under the indiscriminate bombardment of the sweeping operation. The prosperity of the past has now turned into devastation; What was once verdant and beautiful is now a dilapidated and withered scene.
The village was the first to be ravaged, and the houses were razed to the ground one after another under the frenzied destruction of the Japanese army. These huts, which were once filled with the laughter and laughter of the villagers, are now only ruins. Even the beautiful carved wood window lattices and delicate pottery tiles were not spared, and they were destroyed one after another. Trampled bricks and scorched wood can be seen everywhere, and the smell of soot fills the air.
And that's just the beginning. After the village was razed, the hand of destruction of the Japanese army reached out into the lush woods. They frantically cut down the trees and savagely swept away the imperial forest. Soon, the greenery of the mountains was gone, replaced by desolation and depression. As a result of their brutality, towering trees were cut down and burned along with the lush bushes. The flames were blazing, the smoke was billowing out, and the entire once-lush green hills were destroyed.
What's even more distressing is the turbulent stream. These crystal clear streams gushing out of mountain streams are the lifeblood of the villagers. But during the sweep, these precious resources were all contaminated and destroyed. The Japanese army indiscriminately added artillery fire, corpses, and all kinds of miscellaneous items. For a moment, the stream became muddy, like a black, smelly stream of water flowing from a sewage ditch. The floating corpses and decaying objects in the river are even more flocking, giving people a smoky smell and disgusting people.
Villages, green hills, forests, and rivers were completely destroyed in just a few days. Ruined walls, dead trees, scorched earth, stinky water and turbidity... This once peaceful and beautiful paradise was all ravaged by the Japanese army and turned into a barren land. The ordinary scenery has disappeared without a trace, and the peace and tranquility of the past have been completely swallowed up by the flames of war.
5. Mountains of evidence
The heinous crimes committed by the Japanese army on this land were finally revealed to the world in a phased manner after the war.
On August 15, 1945, after the nuclear bombingbai ashes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan finally announced its unconditional surrender. Immediately, as a suspect of war criminals, the notorious "big ghost" Abe was escorted back to China to stand trial.
In the courtroom of Enhua Town, Tokyo, a mountain of ironclad evidence and unspeakable atrocities were lifted one by one and exposed to the world. A large amount of physical evidence was presented at the scene, including intimate items such as human skins, men's and women's underwear, etc. What made the audience even more uproar was that there was a can of fresh human blood that had been drunk by Abe!
The victims stood up even more scarred, without exception to testify to the murderer's heinous crimes. Among them were the elderly man who had lost his entire family in the Luanping area, as well as the women who had been humiliated and tortured. Their heart-rending stories caused a cry to resound.
In the end, Abe was sentenced to be hanged to apologize to Renzu. However, this is only a drop in the abyss. For the families of many of the victims, the pain is deep in their hearts and in their bones. What's more, the sweeping operation is just a microcosm of the atrocities of the Japanese army, and there are countless similar tragedies in the entire Rehe area, who can count them?
What is embarrassing is that the official who witnessed the sweep was shrouded in shadows after the war until his old age. He described that every time he recalled the scenery full of wolf smoke and the terrible cry, he felt his blood surging and his eyes were full of ice.
"With a moment of reverie, the image of the bloody tragedy reappears before my eyes...... In his memoirs, he wrote, "The atrocities of the Japanese army that brutalized innocent people still make it difficult for me to sleep at my age, and it is difficult to erase the last trace of shadows." ＂
The scars of history will heal slowly, but they will never be completely healed. This horrific massacre is destined to be a wake-up call that will never be forgotten.