Chapter 10 Chapter Nine Bloodbath of Zhao County (1937.10.7-15)

After the "July 7" Incident in 1937, the Japanese invaders drove straight in along the Pinghan and Jinpu railway lines, and invaded North China. Occupied Shijiazhuang in early October, and then extended its aggressive claws to Zhao County. On October 7, they bombarded the city of Zhao County wantonly and indiscriminately. On October 12, with nearly two regiments, they murdered, set fire, raped and looted seven villages near the city of Zhao County and Doufuzhuang Village.From October 7th to October 15th, in just a few days, the Japanese army used extremely vicious and brutal methods such as plane bombing, machine gun shooting, living people as targets, killing with knives and guns, burning and flooding, and burying alive and poisoning. A major bloody tragedy that killed 1,149 of my compatriots (among them: 910 died, 239 seriously injured and disabled).

On October 7th (the fourth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar), it coincided with the big market in Zhao County. At about 11:00 in the morning, the crowds in the streets of the city were bustling with people, and the market activities reached a climax.Suddenly, five Japanese planes flew in from the northwest and northeast, formed a line, and shot and bombed the crowd going to the market from north to south.All of a sudden, houses collapsed and people and animals were injured.The Japanese military aircraft dropped 21 criminal bombs on this crowded gathering, killing and injuring more than 200 innocent people and causing countless property losses.

A grain store on Cross Street was bombed, killing 6 people.The house of Wang Zidong's family in the east of Wanghanhe was bombed, his daughter-in-law and granddaughter were killed, and Wang Zidong was blinded in one eye.There were 8 members of Tiger's family, except for Tiger who survived when he went out, all the other 7 members died tragically.All six members of Cao Xiaozhi's family, young and old, were killed in the bombing.Dongmadao Street, which is less than 100 meters away, killed more than 20 people, blood and flesh splattered, and the street was full of corpses.Some had their limbs blown off, some had their heads blown off, and some had half their bodies blown off.A citrus that exploded was inserted into the stomach of a villager who was going to the market. The fellow was in unbearable pain and screamed.

The people who survived the catastrophe and the market vendors fled for their lives outside the city in a chaotic mess. Amidst the dust covering their eyes and the screams of people and animals, three Japanese planes flew to Ningjin County to bomb, and the other two Japanese planes flew to Ningjin County. Fly to the northeast.From then on, the people in the city panicked and terrified, some fled outside the city, and some hid in air-raid shelters.There are no pedestrians on the street, the shops are closed, and the whole city is dead silent.Despite this, the Japanese planes often fly and circle. On October 9, two more Japanese planes flew in and dropped two bombs.But there were few people in the city at that time, so only a few houses were blown up.

On October 11 (the eighth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar), nearly two regiments of the Japanese army invaded Zhao County from the northwest. Overnight, both sides suffered heavy casualties. At dawn on the 12th, the Japanese army launched an offensive, coupled with the bombing of Japanese planes, the cavalry regiment retreated south, and the county seat of Zhao County fell.Like a group of wild beasts, the Japanese army rushed into the city and seven nearby villages including Songcun, Changyang, Guanzhuang, and Dongyantou, killing more than 700 innocent people and seriously injuring and maiming more than 80 people.

On the morning of October 12 (the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar), the Japanese army rushed into the county from the west gate and north gate.At that time, every house in the city was closed and everyone hid.After the Japanese army entered the city, they first closed the east, west, and north gates, and then carried out large-scale searches and massacres, smashed doors and homes, arrested people everywhere, and were killed on the spot if they resisted a little.Captured more than 30 innocent people from West Street and Xianqian Street, forced them to the root of the city wall on the east side of Bolin Temple, and let the Japanese fascist robbers standing in a row with bayonets point at each other. All my more than 30 compatriots were picked to death.More than 60 people hiding in the air-raid shelter at the root of the city wall in the northeast corner were killed one by one on the spot after being discovered by the Japanese army.

The raids and massacres by the Japanese army aroused the anger of the masses, and many people rose up to resist.The Xiguan masses Xinggeying fought with the enemy with a pole. One Japanese soldier was knocked to the ground with a pole, and then two Japanese soldiers came up.Faced with the enemy's butcher's knife, Xing's battalions continued to fight without fear, but were finally killed in the doorway because they were outnumbered.Li Baizi and his mother were hiding at home in Lijiagang Street, when suddenly several Japanese soldiers broke in through the door and raped Li's mother when they saw her.Li Baizi rushed to hug a Japanese soldier and rolled on the spot. Dozens of Japanese soldiers came up and caught Li Baizi. First, he cut off his ears, then his limbs, and finally his head.Li Baizi was cut into pieces and died.The Japanese army killed more than 110 innocent people in the city in just one day.

At about 9 o'clock, the Japanese army rushed into Songcun, frantically captured young and middle-aged people, carried stretchers for them, and transported the bodies of the wounded and dead soldiers.After the stretcher bearers left, the Japanese massacre in the village also began.The air-raid shelter of Liang Laoluo's house was on the threshing field in the south of the village. There were 32 people hiding in the cave. The Japanese army discovered it and forced them to come out.Kong Youzhi's father was shot and killed by the Japanese army as soon as he showed his face outside, and the rest of the people did not dare to show their faces.The Japanese army ignited poisonous gas and threw it into the cave, poisoning more than 30 people to death.

The young and middle-aged men who were arrested to carry the stretchers carried the corpses of the Japanese soldiers to Xiguan, the county seat, and were locked in a wall, along with 80 to 90 people from other villages.In the evening, the Japanese army pulled my compatriots out one by one from the fence, stabbed them to death in the puddle at the west entrance of the street with bayonets.More than 30 young and middle-aged men in Song Village were all stabbed to death. Only Liang Rongtai was stabbed 7 times. Although he was covered in blood, he did not hurt his vitals. The massacre by the Japanese army in Songcun lasted for three days, burning more than 70 houses, killing nearly 200 compatriots, seriously injuring more than 40 people, killing 5 families, and leaving 11 families with orphans and widowed mothers. The family is dead, and the village is crying.

On the evening of October 12 (the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar), a battalion of Japanese soldiers suddenly broke into Changyang Village, which had only 59 households and 349 people at that time, and drove the whole village to an open space at the south street of the village, screaming. They talked about the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and the establishment of a "kingly land" and other nonsense, and then pulled out more than 30 young and middle-aged men, and the Japanese army pretended to go to the south of the village to dig trenches and repair fortifications, and asked my compatriots to dig a big hole.After the pit was dug, the Japanese army dragged these people to the edge of the pit, and they used them as live targets for assassination practice. They killed 28 people at once, and then forced the remaining few people to throw their dead bodies into the pit to bury them. Shoot these people to death with guns, put them on the top of the dead man's pit, light firewood, and burn the corpses to wipe out traces.

The next day, the people in the village fled outside. The Japanese army blocked the entrance of the village, shot at them, searched every house, killed anyone they saw, smashed things they saw, and raped women when they saw them. The village was full of terror.Nineteen people were blocked in the north house of Cao Gennian's house at the west end of the village. Japanese bandits armed with machine guns and bayonets blocked the doors and windows, pulled people out of the house one by one, and killed one in the courtyard. Of the 19 people, only one child named Zheng Wenxi survived by getting into the Kang cave.They killed people, piled up the corpses in the aisle, put them on tables, chairs, cabinets, sesame sticks, etc. and set them on fire.This group of murderous fascist bandits rushed to Zhou Gencheng's house again, and took living people as targets.They beat Zhou Gencheng's father, mother, and wife to death in the court, piled firewood and set fire to his body.The three-year-old child cried in the house when his mother was killed.When the Japanese soldiers heard this, they immediately picked up one leg of the child and threw it into the fire to burn him to death.Zheng Xiaojing and other 21 people were forced into a narrow alley, and the gangsters piled up firewood and burned them alive.The screams of the burnt people are creepy.Li Chenmin and other 14 people were tied to a well in the south of the village and forced to jump into the well and drown.A woman escaped from the village with her child under the age of one because she couldn't bear to be raped by wild beasts at home. As soon as she left the village, she was caught by the Japanese army and dragged to the ditch by the pit. Bury the mother and child alive. On the third day, this group of fascist bandits killed until there was no one left in the village, then went outside the village to search and capture the masses and passers-by, and dragged them to the big puddle at the east end of the village to kill them.For two days, the east and west banks of the big puddle were filled with bloody corpses, and there was also a layer of dead bodies floating in the pit.More than 100 people were killed and drowned here.Among the dead bodies, some were tied up and thrown into the water, some were strangled to death with bayonets, hacked to death with sabers, and some were tied up in a string and shot to death by machine gun.Among these dead bodies, those without heads, those who had their stomachs cut open, and those whose limbs were chopped off with war knives, the shape is indescribably horrific.This is the "heavenly land" of Japanese fascism. There were 16 corpses in a well in the east of the village. Children, women and old people committed suicide by jumping into the well because of the humiliation. Li Qinsheng's family alone killed 6 people in this well.Li Qinsheng has 12 members in his family. Before the Japanese army invaded Changyang Village, his sister-in-law and two children returned to her mother's house and survived death.The other 9 members of the family took refuge in a cellar near the well in the east of the village. There were more than 30 people hidden in the cellar. Unfortunately, the Japanese army discovered that Li Qinsheng's two older brothers and other young men were taken away, and they were dragged to the big puddle at the east end of the village. They were stabbed to death with bayonets, and the remaining women, young and old, saw their captured relatives being slaughtered from a distance, and were distraught.At this moment, the Japanese army was coming this way again. Seeing the imminent disaster, Qinsheng's mother plunged into the well.Afterwards, Qinsheng's older sister also jumped down. Qinsheng's father felt that there was no way out, so he first pushed Qinsheng's two younger brothers and a younger sister down the well, and then came to arrest Qinsheng. When he caught up, he jumped into a well and committed suicide.In a family of 12, apart from the sister-in-law and two nephews, there is only one orphan left. The four-day massacre by the Japanese army killed, burned, and drowned nearly 200 people in Changyang Village (100 relatives from outside villages and 78 people from Changyang Village).Eleven households including Zhou Baozi and He Dawu were killed.69 houses were burned down. The pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks in the village were killed and eaten by the Japanese soldiers, and all farm tools and furniture were burned and smashed.The Japanese army loaded ten carts with food and clothing, shot 29 large livestock in the village, and transported them to Zhao County. The day after the murderous Japanese army left, people who had fled to other villages came back one after another, looking for the bodies of their relatives.At that time, there were bloodstains all over the place, and there were many dead bodies. Several burned bodies could no longer be identified, so they had to be buried in the same pit.This tragedy made almost every family in the village dead, and every household was cut off from cooking.People buried their relatives, and they all went to relatives and friends, drifted away, and dared not return for several months.For a while, this village, which was only three miles away from the city, was in ruins and there was no sound. On October 12 (the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar), a battalion of Japanese troops invaded Zhao County from Gaocheng, and met the Kuomintang troops retreating south in the south of Tofuzhuang Village. For an hour, around 7 o'clock, the Kuomintang troops withdrew south, and the Japanese entered the tofu village. After the Japanese army entered the village, they frantically searched from door to door, catching chickens, leading sheep, slaughtering pigs, slaughtering cattle, and looting property; while arresting ordinary people.When they caught women, they raped them, and when they caught men, they stripped off their shirts, tied them with ropes, and forced them to the Xikou Field in the back street. They arrested 84 innocent people at once.In the afternoon, the Japanese army took people to the dry well at the south end of the field, and killed more than 80 people with extremely cruel killing methods such as chopping with swords, picking with bayonets, cutting open the heart, and calling names with machine guns, and then pushed the bodies into the dry well. Young Xu Xiaomiao, seeing the brutality and inhumanity of the Japanese army, angrily denounced the fascist atrocities committed by the Japanese army.Two Japanese soldiers stripped him naked, tied him to a tree, and cut him to death with bayonets.Xu Xiaofan broke the rope and tried to grab the gun, but a few Japanese soldiers grabbed his feet and tore him in two to death.When Huo Shuangsuo took advantage of the Japanese army forcing him to kill him by the dry well, he knocked down a Japanese soldier.The Japanese devils were so angry that they chopped off his head with a sword and let the foreign dogs take the head away. At the same time, in the poplar field in the northeast corner of the village, 14 ordinary people were hung from trees by the Japanese army, lit firewood and burned to death. The next morning, before the Japanese army withdrew from the tofu shop, they arrested another 32 people and killed them in Xikouchang, Backstreet.In this way, 130 people were massacred by the Japanese army in this small village with less than 1,000 people. In addition to the massacres in the above-mentioned villages, the Japanese army also massacred more than 20 people in Dongyantou, 18 people in Beijiejiatong, and more than 20 people from Da and Xiaolijiazhuang were also killed in Xiguan, the county seat.The nine-day massacre by the Japanese army inside and outside Zhao County resulted in the death of more than 910 people, 239 people were seriously injured and disabled, more than 20 families were wiped out, and more than 30 people were left with only orphans and widows.The people who were killed included old people, babies who had just entered the dust world, and more young men and women.In Dongyantou, the Japanese army removed Aunt Chen's son Chen Guangni, cut her limbs into pieces, put them in a suitcase, and forced Aunt Chen to eat her son's flesh.The world is so big, and the world is so vast, how can there be such cruelty and inhumanity as the Japanese fascist bandits!All this aroused great hatred from all walks of life in Zhao County, and the anti-Japanese war raged throughout the county. Our underground party organization actively led the people of the county to carry out the anti-Japanese and national salvation struggle.In less than half a month, an anti-Japanese guerrilla group of 700 to 800 people was organized, and the anti-Japanese fire in the whole county became more and more prosperous.