In the autumn of 1948, in the Hankou Army Hospital, everything seemed ordinary, but it hid a shocking nightmare.
The sounds of soldiers and the whispers of the sick in the hospital are intertwined into the daily melody, but in the corridor of the middle of the night, behind a door, it becomes a hell in the shadows.
In that ward No. 17, instead of the wounded, there were six "soldiers" disguised as patients: a lieutenant colonel, a captain, a major, a colonel, an inspector, and a cadet with a bright rank, who were actually a group of "demons" hiding in the rear in order to escape the battlefield.
In the quiet of the night, the figure of a woman passed by, carrying a bucket of water from the dimly lit corridor to the water room, only to unexpectedly fall into a well-planned catastrophe.
How exactly did this incident move from the hospital shadows to the national spotlight?
"Lust" in Hankou Hospital
Chen Yu's father was a high-ranking general of the Kuomintang, and his family status was prominent, and it can be said that he belonged to the upper class at that time.
In daily life, whether it is her parents or her older brother, she always puts her first, and she has never experienced the cold of the world.
When Chen Yu became an adult, he naturally married a Kuomintang officer with the rank of colonel and a family background that matched the Chen family.
Her husband treats her very fondly, and even finds time to spend with the family outside of work. At home, she is a well-cared for wife, while her two young sons are the center of her life.
In such days, Chen Yu lives an almost complete life in the eyes of others. She has superior conditions, a slender figure, good looks, and her mature charm complements the brightness of her girlhood.
In September 1948, Chen Yu accompanied her husband to the Hankou Army Hospital.
At that time, the husband was living in Ward 11 due to illness and was already quite weak.
In order to take care of him, Chen Yu took care of all the chores day after day, kept the ward as clean as possible, and was also responsible for washing clothes and preparing food and medicine for her husband.
The conditions of the hospital are relatively simple, and Chen Yu has to walk through a long corridor to the public water room on the other side to fetch water.
Most of the people hospitalized at that time were officers wounded in the war and other Kuomintang army-related personnel.
Some of the unfamiliar faces of the servicemen also frequented the corridors, and their ward number was 17, which was relegated to a room in a quiet corner.
The six men were of different ages, ranging from their 20s to their 40s, with different sizes and body types.
And their backgrounds are not ordinary, in terms of military ranks, including lieutenant colonel director, captain military doctor, major military doctor, colonel adjutant, as well as a student who has just graduated from the military academy and an inspector of the Hankou police station.
They were stranded in hospitals under the pretext of faking illness to avoid being sent to the front lines to fight.
With their own relatively special backgrounds, they are not too constrained, but use this as an excuse to maintain their idle life.
They often drink and have fun in their rooms, and even speak contemptuously about passing nurses or patients.
Some people are used to it, others choose to remain silent, and many more don't know who they really are.
That night, Chen Yu walked out of her husband's hospital room as usual and prepared to go to the water room to get water.
The water room was poorly lit, with only a faint light hanging at the end of the hallway, and just as she walked unsuspectingly through a dimly lit corner, the long-hidden crisis finally broke out.
The two men suddenly pounced out of the shadows and attacked Chen Yu, who had been unprepared in advance.
They had already prepared everything they needed to kidnap her, and the cotton cloth was quickly crumpled into her mouth.
The next move was done in one go, and they lifted her up together, quickly subduing her body, and forcibly leading her into the empty Ward 17, which had been occupied by them for a long time.
The situation does not end there. The other four people were already waiting in the house, and they joined the action after seeing the prey being brought in.
The duration of the evil deeds in the room could not be accurately recorded, but Chen Yu's irresistible body became a tool for the six thugs. She was insulted to the extreme, until they were satisfied.
When the atrocity was over, one of them approached the limp body and threw a few sinister threats to her, making it clear that if she dared to tell anyone about it, she would be doomed and her husband's life would be at risk.
Seeking justice only to fall into the conspiracy of the hospital's higher-ups
After the rape, Chen Yu endured unbearable physical and mental pain and reported his experience to Cai Shande, the director of the Hankou Army Hospital.
As the director of the Hankou Army Hospital, Cai Shande should have taken decisive action at the first time for any illegal acts that occurred within the hospital.
However, he reassured Chen Yu in a tone that seemed to be concerned and advised her to keep quiet for the time being.
He pretended to stress the importance of protecting her and her husband, while promising her that he would personally intervene in the investigation to ensure that justice was done.
Cai Shande took the opposite action behind his back. He gave instructions to his subordinates, busied himself with making sure that the matter was not known to the outside world, and methodically proceeded to destroy all possible evidence.
In response to the various abnormalities in Ward 17 described by Chen Yu, he ordered people to quickly change the room arrangement, and the hospitalization records of the six people were exchanged or deleted.
In just a few days, Chen Yu found that she had not received any substantive response.
Although she continued to ask the dean, it was only a vague explanation of the regulations or a prevarication.
Faced with the procrastination and cover-up within the hospital, she gradually realized that things were moving towards a different situation – protecting criminals, covering up scandals, and trying to erase the traces of events.
Chen Yu chose to take the severity of the incident to a higher level. She spent a lot of time writing a complaint, detailing her ordeal, and submitting materials to the local government with details of the scene and the identity of the culprit.
She believes that the role of local governments should focus on more serious issues outside the hospitals.
The complaints did not provoke much repercussions among the local authorities.
News reports bring the truth to the surface
If the government department doesn't deal with it, then she will take the initiative to contact the reporter to expose it.
The incident spread rapidly under the detailed report of Zhengfeng Bao, and Chen Yu's story became the focus of attention of the whole society.
The newspaper article described in detail the brutal treatment of Chen Yu at the Hankow Army Hospital.
The report criticized these so-called "corrupt elements" by name, and further pointed out that such man-made disasters reflected the corruption of the Kuomintang's military discipline and serious dereliction of duty in the management system.
As soon as this article was published, it immediately attracted widespread attention.
The elite intellectuals further made profound criticisms in the surging tide of public opinion, questioning whether the Kuomintang's military discipline management had reached the point of collapse.
They expanded the scope of discussion of the incident through their own channels, and some even wrote articles calling for a thorough investigation of those vicious criminals within the Kuomintang who abused their power for personal gain and went unpunished.
Through the media, word of mouth, and various public occasions, the scope of the incident is constantly promoted.
The pressure of public opinion put the KMT's top brass in an embarrassing situation for a time, especially in 1948, when the KMT-CCP civil war had entered a critical stage, the country was unstable, and the morale was very fragile.
Some front-line officers and soldiers fought the battlefield, while such a scandal broke out in the rear, which caused serious damage to the image of the Kuomintang.
Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly instructed that the matter should be thoroughly investigated, and demanded that the local government and the military take concrete actions to appease public opinion and restore the dignity of military discipline.
Under Chiang Kai-shek's strict orders, the Wuhan police had to officially launch an investigation into the case.
In March 1949, the rape case, which shocked the whole country, finally ushered in a judicial conclusion.
After months of investigation, evidence collection and trial, all the criminals involved in the case were convicted.
Under the pressure of public opinion and the need within the Kuomintang to save the reputation of the military, the authorities decided to sentence the four servicemen who were mainly involved in the case to death.
The four were the lieutenant colonel's chief, the captain's medic, the major's medic and the colonel's adjutant.
On the day of the execution, the atmosphere was tense. The authorities chose an open area on the outskirts of Wuhan, which was heavily guarded, and after the court identified them, gunfire cut through the sky and the four men were executed on the spot.
The other two people involved in the case, namely the inspector of the Hankou Police Department and the military cadet, were controversial during the trial because of the complicated backstage relationship.
Despite the abundance of evidence, the two men were sentenced to life imprisonment and exempted from the death penalty as "accomplices" or "non-principal offenders" because of their low military rank and secondary involvement at the time of the crime, as well as the behind-the-scenes forces that protected them.
The shady scene of the last years of the Republic of China
In the last years of the Republic of China, all kinds of appalling incidents emerged one after another, but the Jingminglou incident was undoubtedly the most outrageous and outrageous one.
The tragedy occurred in August 1948 in Hankou, Hubei Province, where more than 20 US military officers stationed in Hankou joined forces with a number of foreign nationals to rape and gang rape several Chinese socialites who had been invited to the city in a venue called Jingminglou.
After the incident, the Nationalist Government, which was supposed to do its best to uphold justice, chose a completely different approach.
They are worried that the impact of the case will spread to the diplomatic level, especially the stability of "affecting Sino-US diplomatic relations".
The official in charge of public opinion immediately contacted the press and asked the reporters to "take into account the overall situation" and avoid allowing reports of the incident to appear in the newspapers.
In some newspapers, representatives of the Nationalist Government even went to their homes to clear up the situation, trying to calm public opinion in various ways.
The Nationalist Government took no substantive action against those US military officers and foreign nationals, and these participants continued to live and operate with impunity in Hankow.
On the other hand, the government has turned its attention to the victims and innocent ordinary people, who need to find a "scapegoat" for this scandal.
Soon, the Kuomintang arrested Zhang Yueming, Yang Yulin, Liu Baoshan, Cao Xiuying, and Zhang Jiying, and announced that they were the "masterminds" of the Jingminglou incident.
These five people are ordinary and have no direct connection with the case itself, but they are installed as the core of the "organized fornication" and bear the blame for the real perpetrators.
The court announced its verdict on April 1, 1949, sentencing the five men to prison terms for "disturbing morals and intending to make a profit."
Several of the five could not even be sure whether they were present at the time of the Jingminglou incident, but the court did not investigate in depth, as if they had just completed a task in a hurry.
They became a shield for American officers and their allies in the foreign diaspora, covering up the real criminals with their own sentences.
Several of the women victims who "made a fuss" after the case aroused the dissatisfaction of the Nationalist Government because of their public protests and the arrogant attitude of the US military.
As a result, these women who called the police for help were arrested one after another on the absurd charge of "seducing and seducing the Allies to engage in promiscuous activities", and finally sentenced.
A case that was supposed to condemn atrocities and protect victims turned out to be absurd in which victims were convicted.
Resources:
[1] Hu Zhigang. The "Jingminglou Incident" that occurred 56 years ago[J].Fujian Party History Monthly,2004(12):21-23