Chapter 64 Second, the first trial Tani Hisao

The trial of Hisao Tani, another major criminal of the "Nanjing Massacre", was held in Nanjing. February 6, 1947 was the day of the public trial of the Hisao Tani case.On this day, the gate of the auditorium of the Nanjing Lizhi Society was heavily guarded, and military police wearing helmets and armed with live ammunition stood on both sides of the road.On the sill of the gate of the auditorium, there is a huge banner that reads "Ministry of Defense Trials War Criminals Tribunal".The loudspeaker of the cable broadcast was pulled out from the auditorium, attracting thousands of people who came to listen. Many people sat on the soft grass, discussing excitedly and waiting for the upcoming historic moment.

The trial hall was filled with dark crowds. At 2:00 p.m., the judges sat down in court.Sitting in Taichung is the presiding judge Shi Meiyu. He has a dignified face and an extraordinary bearing.On his right sat the judge Song Shutong, and the judge Ye Zaizen who was in charge of Gu Shoufu's case sat on Shi Meiyu's left. His handsome face was stern, and his delicate brows were cold.Judges Li Yuanqing and Ge Zhaotang sat at the two ends. After the trial, the presiding judge Shi Meiyu shouted: "Take the defendant!" With the majestic shout, Hisao Tani was escorted by the military police through the passage made aside by the crowd, and entered the court.Everyone in the hall cast their gazes over.

Gu Hisao came in wearing a yellow military uniform, a gray woolen coat, and a yellow leather bag.A stocky, stocky man with a mustache, he came before the judge with a sullen face.After Tani Hisao stepped onto the dock, he stood upright, then bowed respectfully to the judges on the trial platform, and then lowered his head, pretending to be thoughtful. After Shi Meiyu conducted a routine questioning of the defendant, she announced that the public prosecutor would read out the indictment.Prosecutor Chen Guangyu stood up with a serious expression, and read the indictment aloud in a sad and indignant tone.This is the bloody and tearful accusation of the people of Nanjing, and this is the just and stern denunciation of the Chinese nation.The indictment stated in detail the various crimes committed by Hisao Tani to lead the Japanese invaders to massacre the people of Nanjing from December 13 to 21, 1937, based on conclusive facts.After reading it, I read it again for Gu Hisao through a Japanese translation.In the auditorium, there was no sound, only the reporters pressed the shutter from time to time, and the arc flashed and dazzled people's eyes.

After the reading, the presiding judge interrogated the defendant loudly: "Tani Hisao, do you plead guilty to the charges listed in the indictment?" Gu Hisao said calmly: "Not guilty!" He immediately took out the defense statement that he had prepared in the detention center from his purse, and began to speak eloquently.He said that although he had served in military positions, he had never participated in the research and decision-making of national policies. He always believed that China and Japan are countries of brothers, and he advocated goodwill between China and Japan.In the end, he flatly denied it and said: "I led troops to China twice, and both were ordered by the emperor to fight against China. It is common sense for soldiers to obey orders. As for the fact that I led my subordinates to massacre the people of Nanjing, It's absolutely nothing."

There was an uproar in the auditorium, and angry scolding sounded from time to time.The judges tried their best to control their emotions and continue the interrogation, but the cunning Tani Hisao repeatedly denied it. He even painted himself up and said: "My army is an elite Japanese army with strict military discipline. All the subordinates are educated soldiers. I can guarantee that they will There will be no burning, killing, prostitution, or looting." Hearing the executioner's cunning denial again and again, there was a lot of shouting and cursing in the gallery.The survivors of the massacre and the families of the victims were extremely angry, wishing to pounce on them immediately and tear this cunning and stubborn demon to pieces.The atmosphere in the courtroom was quite tense, and the shouts and curses made the loudspeakers outside roar into a roar.The presiding judge hurriedly rang the bell to signal the audience to be quiet, but it took a long time for the raging waves of anger to subside.

The presiding judge then clapped the case and sternly said: "Witness witnesses!" Hearing the war criminals' repeated sophistry and denials, the witnesses who had wanted to rush forward for a long time gritted their teeth in anger, and a crowd of people stood up in the gallery, and they all rushed forward, crying in front of the judge. grief and pain.Shi Meiyu pressed her hands, motioning for everyone to sit down first and come one by one. Liu Shihai, who lived in Jiangdongmen, was the first to accuse the Japanese army of atrocities. Liu Shihai said: “When the Japanese army attacked Nanjing, I was a soldier of the Fifth Army of the National Army. We couldn't find the boat, so about 50 of us had to come to Jiangdongmen again, planning to take a shortcut to Wuhu. We walked all the way and saw corpses everywhere on the road, and there were seven or eight dead people hanging upside down on a telegraph pole. They are connected together with wire, there are men, women, and children.

"When we arrived at Jiangdongmen, we were stopped by a group of Japanese soldiers, so we quickly raised the white flag and said loudly that we would not fight anymore. But the Japanese soldiers drove us to the vegetable field next to the model prison without asking questions. Form a team. There are fifty or sixty Japanese soldiers around, a dozen of them are carrying sabers, and the rest are holding bayonets. Unexpectedly, the Japanese soldiers rushed up from all around with a cry, hacked and killed us, and I was cut in the neck , Then he fell into a pool of blood and didn't know anything.

"By the time I came back to life, it was already dark. Taking advantage of the dark, I lifted off the corpse on my body, covered the knife edge with my hand, and walked more than half a mile until I came to an air-raid shelter. Only then did I take my life. Everyone said, are the Japanese devils evil? More than 50 of our brothers were killed by their swords, and now I still have a long scar on my neck." After speaking, Liu Shihai turned around in a circle, and pointed to the long scar on the back of his neck for everyone to see. Tang Guangpu, who was lucky enough to survive from the pile of dead bodies, came from Jiangbei to testify.

Back then, as an orderly in the Second Regiment and Third Battalion of the Teaching Corps, he was mixed among the corpses burned with gasoline after being shot by Japanese machine guns. He used his own experience to tell the tragic experience of more than 57,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians being massacred by the Japanese army.Zhou Fengying, whose family of five were massacred by the Japanese army, stepped onto the witness stand. She had been crying for a long time. On the third day after the Japanese army entered the city, five men, her uncle Zhou Bifu, husband and brother Yongchun, Yongshou, Yongcai, and Yonglin, were all killed. Japanese machine guns swept to death.That day was the 30th birthday of the third brother Yongcai.Before Zhou Fengying finished speaking, she cried so hard that she couldn't speak, so she had to be supported by two people back to her seat.A slender woman named Chen Er was finally looking forward to the day when she would wash away her humiliation. She covered her face and cried, crying and complaining about the crimes of insulting her by the Japanese army.

Li Xiuying, known as the Martyr of Nanjing, stepped onto the witness stand, and her loud voice overwhelmed the sobbing of many people.She told how she was killed 37 times for resisting the insult of the Japanese army, and then angrily walked up to Tani Hisao: "You bastard Japanese, I heard that you led the troops into Nanjing, I ask you, I How will I settle the 37 knives I received on my body? How will I avenge my unborn child? Tell me! Don’t tell me I’ll slap you to death!” Li Xiuying was about to slap her as she spoke, but the military police hurriedly stopped her , even pulled and persuaded to go back to the witness stand.

Li Xiuying's actions were like a fuse, igniting the anger in people's hearts, and the audience in the auditorium stood up and roared angrily. "Beat him to death! Beat Hisao Tani to death!" "Beat the murderer to death!" "Revenge for the dead compatriots! Revenge!! Revenge!!!" ... The whole court shouted together, and the shouts shook people's hearts to breathe fire.The presiding judge Shi Meiyu finally rang the bell to silence the angry discussion.Survivors, witnesses, and insiders went to the court one by one. Many people showed the painful scars left on their bodies, or the blood and tear relics left by their relatives, and they burst into tears. After more than 80 witnesses narrated, the witness stand was wet with tears for a large area! Hisao Tani in the dock was stunned, his gloomy and sophisticated face also showed faint panic and uneasiness.What surprised him was that when his subordinates dealt with the captives and requisitioned raw meat, they all reported that no one was left alive. He believed that history would never turn that cruel page.But now, less than 10 years have passed, and those "survivors" who escaped from death have all stood on the witness stand for his trial.No one can overthrow this kind of flesh-and-blood evidence, but he still said something outrageous: "When the war starts, both sides will die. As for the civilian casualties, they may be caused by other troops. I deeply regret it." With just a few words, he completely dismissed his guilt, which shows that Gu Hisao is a treacherous and cunning man, and is extremely insidious! On February 8, the third day of the public trial, Tani Hisao began to change his strategy under the harsh interrogation of the court's ironclad evidence. He no longer denied the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, but blamed them on others. There are 114 divisions, 16 divisions, 18 divisions, direct subordinates and special addition troops in the city army. Everyone who testified in court expressed their resentment towards the Japanese army on the defendant. Neither the name of the perpetrator nor the number of the unit was given. In terms of location, they are all outside the jurisdiction of our department; in terms of time, most of them are after the deployment of our troops, so this kind of proof cannot be used as strong criminal evidence." In response to Gu Hisao's sophistry, Shi Meiyu summoned loudly: "Bring up the skulls from the Yuhuatai mass grave!" The military police carried a sack for every two people, and carried the skulls excavated outside the Zhonghua Gate to the trial one by one. In front of the stage.Forensic doctor Pan Yingcai and inspector Song Shihao immediately stepped forward, opened the sacks one by one towards the audience, and took out eight heads and placed them on the long table in front of the judge's seat. There was no sound in the courtroom, and all the audience held their breath and turned their eyes to the trial platform.But I saw eight heads standing heavily on the long table, with their black eyes wide open, as if they were glaring at the executioner who was stained with their blood; !They came to the court to testify on behalf of the innocent souls who died in the Nanjing Massacre. 10 years have passed, how much pain, how much sorrow, they want to sue!Shout!To revenge!To seek justice!Representatives of hundreds of thousands of wronged souls stood heavily on the long table. This silent accusation, this silent cry, is more shocking than the utterances of all the living!Lan Youyou's spotlight flickered, adding to the gloom and grief in the courtroom at this time! Forensic doctor Pan Yingcai reported loudly: "The skulls in the sacks were all taken from the mass grave in Yuhuatai, and most of them had traces of being hit by knives and iron tools. Three of the eight heads on the table belonged to women after inspection, and all of them were kept. There are cut marks from the knife." There was a lot of crying in the auditorium, and the families of the victims in the Yuhuatai mass grave cried the most tragically. The heads in front of them may indeed be their dead relatives! Only Gu Hisao remained indifferent, he pretended to be nonchalant and bowed his head in thought.The judge Ye Zaizeng sternly said, "Defendant, raise your head and take a closer look!" Gu Hisao raised his head slowly, a trace of panic flashed in his eyes, but he immediately pretended to be calm. Judge Ye Zaizen immediately asked: "Defendant, just now the forensic doctor has reported that these heads were dug out from mass graves in your area, and there were three women among them. Could it be that women also become combatants?" Gu Hisao was speechless for a moment, dumbfounded, and had nothing to answer.The presiding judge Shi Meiyu then announced: "Next, we invite foreign witnesses to testify in court." Professor Smith of Jinling University came up and said loudly: "I testify! I am an American, and I swear in the name of God that the massacre committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing is an objective fact. When the Nanjing Safety Zone was established, I was the Secretary of the district committee. After the Japanese army entered the city, the people in the safe zone were treated so badly that I had to protest to the Japanese embassy. The Japanese asked for proof of facts, but started reporting and putting every fact into Protest." "Let's read the distribution of casualties by gender and age in my book "Nanjing War Disasters": If we analyze the atrocities and arrests according to gender and age, we will find that the casualties of all ages Among the victims, men accounted for 64%, and the casualties were as high as 76% between the ages of 30 and 40. Strong men were suspected of being deserters because they had calluses on their hands, which was taken as evidence that they held guns , so were killed. 65% of the injured women were between the ages of 15 and 29, however, in the survey questions for these injuries, injuries due to rape were also excluded. "What is even more tragic is that a large number of elderly people over the age of 60 were killed by soldiers. Among all the elderly people over the age of 60, 28% of men and 39% of women died in this way... My testimony is over, God proves My honesty. Amen!" Smith gestured with his hands on his chest, crossing himself reverently. Another professor at Jinling University, an American friend, Beides, walked up quickly. He gestured with his hands and stated to the court excitedly: "I testify from the standpoint of justice and humanity. Since the Japanese army entered Nanjing, The widespread arson, looting, killing, stabbing, and rape of civilians, as well as the shooting of unarmed personnel who they believed to have filled the Chinese army, took place over a period of three to seven weeks. During the past three weeks, especially In the past seven to ten days, the crimes committed against life are immeasurable. I have personally seen the Japanese army shoot Chinese civilians, and the streets of the city are full of corpses..." After the presentation, Professor Beders took out a copy of "Japanese Atrocities Witnessed by Outsiders" by British journalist Timberley and submitted it to the presiding judge.Shi Meiyu handed over to Gu Hisao the record of Japanese atrocities written by Smith and Tian Bolie in court.The fascist seemed flustered, and he turned it over a few times before returning it to the interpreter. After the two upright American scholars made their statements, the curtains in the bright courtroom were suddenly closed and the light dimmed. A screen was pulled out from the trial platform, and a white beam of light shot directly onto the screen from the back of the hall. The bloody and terrifying scenes ten years ago reappeared in front of people's eyes one after another: Corpses strewn about on the streets, collapsed houses burned in flames, dead floating in rivers, corpses of women with disembowelled stomachs after being raped, girls in agony after being gang-raped, Japanese soldiers laden with stolen goods... …These films were secretly filmed by New York Times reporter Du Ting and Paramount Pictures photographer Meng Gen at risk, as well as the proud scenes shot by the Japanese army themselves to promote the might of the imperial army.Hisao Tani, who was in the dock, had beads of sweat on his forehead at this moment.At the beginning, these films were shot to show the might of the emperor in front of the emperor, but no matter what, they never thought that ten years later, these films would become ironclad evidence tightly held by Chinese judges! These ironclad evidences are hard to deny no matter what, but the seasoned and cunning Tani Hisao still came up with a way to delay. He proposed to the court that all the witnesses testifying in court are Chinese witnesses, and he asked for Japanese witnesses to testify in court, otherwise "there will be no Axiom at all."After a collegial meeting, the judges accepted his request.

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