Snowflakes flew, but the white snow was stained with bright red colors, the north wind whistled, and there was a strong fishy smell, the wild dogs ate red eyes, and there were women's cries everywhere.
In the world's modern history, no city has ever been killed and ravaged by other countries' armies as tragically as Nanjing, China, and after the fall of the city, the scene of blood flowing and bones here shocked the world.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the defense of Nanjing</h1>
On July 7, 1937, the "July 7 Incident" broke out, indicating that Japan began to attack China in an all-round way and occupy important towns in China. After three months of the Battle of Songhu, Shanghai finally fell, and after the Japanese army occupied Shanghai, they set their sights on Nanjing, which was very close to Shanghai.
Nanjing was an important town on the Part of the Kuomintang, and once It was captured, then Japan could achieve the goal of "forced landing by war", and for this reason, the Japanese army's attack on Nanjing was almost crazy.
The defensive problems of the city of Nanjing were spread out in front of Chiang Kai-shek and a number of senior Kuomintang officials.
At the meeting presided over by Chiang Kai-shek, most of the generals advocated abandoning Nanjing from a military point of view, they believed that Nanjing was a Jedi, the enemy could surround the city of Nanjing from three sides, and once defeated, only the Yangtze River north of Nanjing City could ensure the retreat of the troops, but once the retreat was not timely, it gave the enemy the opportunity to attack, in other words, once defeated, there was no way to retreat;
In addition, in terms of morale, the Kuomintang army had just experienced a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Songhu, morale was low, equipment and soldiers had not had time to replenish, and it was not suitable for fighting the enemy;
The best way to do this was to directly evacuate the Nanjing defenders from outside the city and prevent the enemy from going north in search of fighters.
According to the situation at that time, abandoning Nanjing was undoubtedly the best thing to do, but Nanjing was the stronghold of the Kuomintang, and if it directly abandoned Nanjing and let the Japanese invade the city, then the situation of public opinion would be directly unfavorable to the Kuomintang. ”
As an economic, cultural and political center at that time, Nanjing had a special status different from that of ordinary cities in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
In the face of the party's call to abandon Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary:
"The lonely city of Nanjing cannot but be defended, and it is difficult for the country and the people to be cherished."
Chiang Kai-shek was not willing to surrender Nanjing to the enemy, but the generals' remarks also had some truth, so Chiang Kai-shek could only make two preparations for the time being, on the one hand, he ordered Tang Shengzhi to be the commander of the Nanjing garrison, and quickly mobilized 150,000 soldiers and horses to defend the city of Nanjing, and also ordered the troops along the way to meet the defeated and retreating Nanjing garrison in time.
On the other hand, Chiang Kai-shek issued an order for the Kuomintang to move to Chongqing.
Chiang Kai-shek, who originally thought that such an operation was foolproof, did not expect that in just eight days, the city of Nanjing would be occupied by the Japanese.
The city of Nanjing was quickly occupied, although it was unexpected by Chiang Kai-shek, but it was expected by the Japanese army, after all, the Japanese army had already plotted to occupy Nanjing as early as after the July 7 Incident.
On August 15, 1937, Matsui Ishigen became the commander of the Shanghai Dispatch Army, and when he took office, he had already told the then Prime Minister Konoe:
"Only by taking Nanjing can we crush Chiang Kai-shek."
To this end, Matsui Ishigen began to show his strategic mind.
After the occupation of Shanghai, Matsui Ishigen personally drafted the "Essentials of Occupying Nanjing City", in which he emphasized the use of artillery to seize the city wall and then forcibly occupy Nanjing.
In addition to the military offensive, he also carried out a spiritual attack on the soldiers and people of the city, and when Matsui's troops arrived on the outskirts of Nanjing, they ordered the distribution of the "Letter of Persuasion" to the Chinese troops, with the intention of making the Chinese soldiers stop resisting.
In the face of the Japanese soldiers under the city, the Kuomintang generals at the head of the city still had differences of opinion, so in the case of their own unequal strength, in the face of the crazy attack of the Japanese army, the Kuomintang army struggled to support, and finally the city was destroyed, and some of the generals were reduced to zero and hidden among the common people.
But it was such a fearless struggle that plunged the entire people of Nanjing into a sea of corpses and blood.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > why Japan went on a killing spree</h1>
According to international practice, the victorious side is not allowed to kill civilians and prisoners of war at will, so why did the Japanese army carry out a crazy massacre of the soldiers and civilians in Nanjing?
There are five reasons for this:
(1) Heroic resistance was met with frenzied retaliation
The Chinese army has always shown no mercy to the aggressors, and no matter how big the gap in combat effectiveness is, it will resolutely and resolutely raise its gun to resist the enemy and carry out a tenacious struggle.
In the defense of Nanjing, under the circumstance that the enemy was strong and we were weak, the Chinese army still fought to the death, causing great casualties to the Japanese army, and their heroic battle also left many painful memories for the Japanese army.
The Japanese army shamelessly transferred the hatred of the Chinese army for its heroic resistance and the huge losses inflicted on Japan to ordinary Chinese.
Matsui Ishigen once said:
"Since landing in Shanghai, our officers and men have been engaged in a fierce and brutal battle, and such battles have caused the soldiers to have a strong hatred for the enemy."
Therefore, after the Japanese army attacked the city of Nanjing, Matsui Ishigen issued an order to "sweep" the city, which was undoubtedly a massacre of Chinese soldiers and innocent people who had surrendered.
In fact, on the way from Shanghai to Nanjing, the senior leaders of the Japanese army once issued a massacre order, resulting in the death of Chinese civilians and soldiers along the way.
(2) Stranded soldiers were slaughtered
On December 12, Tang Shengzhi, commander of the Nanjing garrison, was unable to resist the Japanese army, and after receiving Chiang Kai-shek's order to retreat, he formulated a retreat method of "breaking through most of the troops, crossing the river in one part" taking into account the objective factors such as the tight time, the large number of people to retreat, and the small number of manned ships.
Originally, this method was the most reasonable at that time, but when the retreat was actually announced, he changed the order to: "If you can't break through all of them, if there are ferries, all of them will cross the river and assemble." ”
After such an order was issued, it made the division and regiment wonder whether some of the teams were going to the river or all the teams. As a result, many troops that had planned to break through also moved to the riverside, and at this time, there were as many as 9 divisions waiting to cross the river.
However, according to the original plan, the ferry that received the river could only undertake the transfer task of one division, and such a large group of people, except for a small number of people who successfully crossed the river, the rest of the people were stranded by the river, and these people also became the target of wanton killing by the Japanese invaders along with hundreds of thousands of refugees.
(3) Soldiers are hidden among the people
Due to the unfavorable retreat of the Nanjing Defense War, a large number of soldiers who had laid down their weapons hid among the people of Nanjing, which also provided an excuse for the Japanese invaders to hunt down and kill civilians.
After entering the city of Nanjing, the Japanese invading army, under the banner of searching for "plainclothes soldiers," wantonly captured civilians, killed them wantonly, and even slaughtered them indiscriminately, regardless of men, women, young and old.
Of course, on some occasions, the Japanese army will also search according to the "standards", but these so-called standards are only shown to some specific international people, and even sometimes the so-called "plainclothes soldiers" are searched, and after the international people's intercession, clarification, etc., the hypocritical Japanese army will release them.
The Japanese soldiers did have the purpose of searching for "plainclothes soldiers", but this was just an excuse, they were just venting their animal lust on the ordinary people in Nanjing.
(iv) The brutal nature of Japanese militarism
Since the "Black Ship Incident", Japan has begun to transform into a capitalist country, the shogunate group has been completely defeated, the emperor has also moved from behind the scenes to the front, and the power in his hands has reached its peak.
Due to the rapid transformation of Japan's political system and the emergence of militarist ideas in Japan, Japan became a war machine, and the Japanese soldiers who committed atrocities in China were even only part of this war machine.
The Japanese army tried to force the Chinese people to abandon their resistance through the mass slaughter in Nanjing, so the Japanese soldiers in Nanjing began to massacre the civilians and Chinese prisoners of war in an organized and planned manner.
(5) The perverted psychology of the Japanese army
Japan has always regarded the "Yamato nation" as the highest nation in the world, and it does not look down on other races in the world at all, and in their thinking, the world should be ruled by the emperor, and the whole world should only exist in the Yamato nation.
They despised Chinese, and a Japanese soldier in Nanjing once said contemptuously: "A pig is worth more than a (Chinese) person, because a pig can eat." ”
So under such thinking, there is a reason why Japanese soldiers pointed their swords at ordinary Chinese people.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Nanjing Massacre shocked the world</h1>
After the Japanese occupied Nanjing, in order to cover up their evil deeds, they set up a strict press ban in The city of Nanjing, but this did not completely seal the exterminating massacre.
Rabe, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, came to China in 1908 at the age of 26.
In July 1937, after the Lugou Bridge Incident, the situation between China and Japan was already very tense, at this time Rabe was working in the Siemens office in Nanjing, for security reasons, the headquarters asked him to return to China, but Rabe refused, he still chose to stay in Nanjing.
In view of the dangerous situation in Nanjing, Rabe, in consultation with other expatriates, was prepared to follow the precedent of setting up refugee camps in the Shanghai Public Concession, decided to set up a refugee camp in Nanjing as well, and established an international relief agency, of which Rabe was elected chairman of the committee.
Ordered to take office in times of crisis, Rabe began to take office, which also began his rescue time in China.
Rabe was a man with a great sense of justice, and he was very dissatisfied with the atrocities of Japanese imperialism, so from September 1937, Rabe began to record the atrocities he witnessed in China, until he left Nanjing on February 23, 1938. In his diary he wrote:
"The japanese destruction of this place is simply too numerous to describe."
"I have to pick myself up and record it all so that I can say it all in the future as an eyewitness."
……
Driven by a sense of justice, Rabe fought continuously against the Japanese invaders in order to ensure the safety of refugees in the "safe zone".
Because Rabe is German and comes from Japan's "cooperative country", so he has a certain voice in the Japanese, for this reason, he constantly negotiates with the Japanese army and the Japanese embassy in China, asking the Japanese army not to hurt the refugees, he even directly found the Japanese commander in East China Matsui Ishigen, accused him of the atrocities of the Japanese army, and asked him to maintain normal order, stop the atrocities, and let the people live a normal life.
In the face of the oppression of senior Japanese officials, Rabe was not afraid, but what caused Rabe a headache was the problem of how to resettle the refugees.
Due to the large number of refugees, Rabe has set aside 25 places as refugee shelters, and even his home is full of ragged refugees.
Although the refugees have a place to live and can temporarily guarantee their lives, the large number of refugees is difficult to meet their food and clothing with the strength of Rabe and others, so Rabe and his partners contact institutions such as the International Red Cross through personal relations, and win a lot of donations for the refugees.
In addition to the problem of food and clothing, the basic water and electricity supplies of refugees cannot be satisfied. After the Japanese army occupied the city of Nanjing, it immediately destroyed the water and electricity in the city, in order to allow the refugees to drink water and use electricity, Rabe personally negotiated with the Japanese side, and led the plumbers to repair the generators that had been destroyed.
Rabe's efforts were not in vain, and half a century later, his Diary of Rabe was known.
Upon Rabe's return to China, the refugee committee was taken over by Baeders, a professor at Jinling University who began a catastrophe after the fall of Nanjing.
Bedes was furious at such a massacre and formed a refugee camp with Rabe.
Because the Japanese army was killing people in the streets of Nanjing, many refugees did not dare to go out, so Beders personally sent food to the refugee camp.
The camp was short of food, and Beders changed his diet, changing bread to thin porridge to share the hardships with the refugees.
After the refugees' dietary problems were resolved, an even more difficult problem emerged in Bedles, namely, the over-representation of women in the camps.
In order to vent their bestiality, the Japanese army often rapes women unscrupulously in the streets and houses, and the number of women in the refugee camp is very large, in order to avoid the Japanese army entering the refugee camp and infringing on the women who were killed, so Beders had to take turns with other American professors to guard them day and night to protect them.
Later, the Japanese army saw that there were many women in the refugee camp, and even asked Beders to "borrow people" to serve as comfort women for the Japanese army, and such a brazen request was strongly rejected by Beders.
It is worth mentioning that Beders also worked with the members of the committee to protect a special group of people, who were special refugees - Liao Yaoxiang and other Chinese officers.
After the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, the Chinese generals were bound to be killed as soon as they were discovered, and in the face of such a dangerous situation, Beders arranged Liao Yaoxiang and others in jiangnan cement factories, Jinling University and other places, evaded several Japanese raids, and finally successfully escaped danger.
Because the Japanese army blocked all the news in Nanjing, the transmission of information was very difficult, and Beddex took the opportunity of his work to convey the situation in Nanjing to the outside world. Later, in the course of the trial of war criminals, Bades appeared in court as a witness to testify, confirming the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing, and making the Japanese commander fu fa.
In addition to Rabe and Beders, there was a priest who also worked for the people of Nanjing, and his name was Maji.
Maggie perfectly avoided the eyes and ears of the Japanese army, filmed the atrocities of the Japanese army in Nanjing into a documentary, and successfully brought the film of the documentary out of Nanjing, which became the key evidence for the future exposure of the atrocities of the Japanese army.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the cries of the parties</h1>
The Nanjing Massacre has ended, more than 300,000 people and soldiers have been brutally killed, although we can understand the tragic situation at that time through some reports, books, and videos, but we can never imagine what happened to the survivors who crawled out of the pile of dead people. Did the experience of that time haunt them like a nightmare?
I ask my parents to end my life as soon as possible
Cao Zhikun was one of the survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, he was only 14 years old at the time, he was still a primary school student, on the day the Japanese army captured Nanjing, the school was closed, and he did not understand what a life-and-death parting was at a young age, but in the next moment he understood.
The roar of the plane came from far and near, six Japanese planes flew towards Lishui County, accompanied by a large number of bullets that broke through the air, and the moment the plane flew low, hundreds of people were stained with blood on the spot. Faced with such a situation, Cao Zhikun could only run, and he thought to himself: As long as I run fast enough, the plane will not be able to catch up with me.
But he ran, he ran, and a bullet hit him in the left thigh.
Cao Zhikun's left thigh was broken, but his sense of survival supported him to crawl toward the river, in the direction of home.
When he climbed to the river with all his strength, there was still an explosion around him, and the wailing around him kept coming, and Cao Zhikun suddenly lost his strength and fainted.
When his father found him, Cao Zhikun's thigh wound was very serious, and because there was no way to heal him, he even painfully begged his parents to end his life.
Eventually, under the persuasion of his family, he began to strengthen, but the wound continued to be inflamed and suppurated, but fortunately, in the winter, the weather was cold, and the wound gradually improved, but he still fell disabled.
When I was only twelve years old, I was exposed to the atrocities of the Japanese army
Although Cao Zhikun was physically injured, he was a man after all, and in Nanjing at that time, a woman's suffering was sometimes much more terrible than that of a man, and the survivor Zhang Xiuhong was like this.
At the beginning of December 1937, the news that the Japanese army was going to kill zhang Xiuhong spread in the village, it was said that the Japanese would burn down all the houses in the village and kill all the people, which made the villagers feel terrified, in order to avoid encountering the Japanese army, so the people in the village hid in the fields with quilts.
Although the field is safe, but it is in the depths of winter, the field is cold and wet, and I have not seen the shadow of the Japanese army for several days, for the sake of the child's health, Zhang Xiuhong's grandfather took her back to the village to live. Unfortunately, as soon as they returned to their village, they met Japanese soldiers.
As soon as the Japanese soldiers entered the village, they gathered the men and women in the village separately, focusing on checking whether the men of the right age had knife wounds and gunshot wounds, whether there were cocoons on their hands, and whether there were hat marks on their heads.
That day, Zhang Xiuhong and grandpa were working at home, suddenly a Japanese soldier broke into the house, pointed a bayonet at the old man, said to want "flower girl", and the old man naturally knew what the Japanese soldier meant, so he quickly said no, but the Japanese soldier directly pointed the bayonet at Zhang Xiuhong, the old man stepped forward to block the bayonet stabbed, Zhang Xiuhong in order to save grandpa was raped by the Japanese soldiers, the lower body was torn apart, leaving a lifelong disability, that year she was only twelve years old.
Later, in order to protect her, Grandpa cut her hair short, dressed up as a man, and sent her to live in the field, and the family hid, and by the next year, almost all the men in the village were killed, leaving only women.
By this time the women were no longer crying, their tears had dried up. When the Japanese army did not come to search the village, Zhang Xiuhong's family returned to the village to live, and on their way back to the village, they saw many dead bodies - they had been torn apart by wild dogs.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="19" > summary</h1>
"Hell is empty, demons are on earth."
This seems to be a true portrayal of the city of Nanjing on December 13, 1937, after the Japanese army invaded China occupied Nanjing, it created a terrible massacre, more than 300,000 Chinese were killed, countless women were trampled, became a tool for Japanese soldiers to vent their bestiality, and even the so-called "hundred people beheading" competition, which was undoubtedly the darkest night in Chinese history and even world history.
After the victory in World War II, the Far East Court tried the Nanjing Massacre, so that the war criminals with blood stained hands received the punishment they deserved, and let them be nailed to the pillar of shame forever, but as Chinese we still can't forget that dark moment.