Chapter 11 Chapter 10 The Massacre in Plum Blossom Town (1937.10.12-15)

Meihua Town is located in the south of Gaocheng County and is a famous commercial center. From October 12, 1937 (the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar) to 15, the Japanese invaders committed a massacre of 1,547 people here. After the "July Seven" Incident in 1937, Chiang Kai-shek adopted a policy of non-resistance. Many troops of the Central Army fled southward, while the former 691 regiment of the 53rd Army of the Northeast Army withdrew to Meihua Town and Side Village in Zhao County to persist in the war of resistance.The regiment is not part of Chiang Kai-shek's direct line of troops, and has participated in the Xi'an Incident.As early as 1936, there was an organization of the Communist Party in the regiment. After the first battalion of the 691st Regiment entered Meihua Town, the head of the regiment, Lu Zhengcao, obtained the consent of Sun Zhiyuan, the representative of the Communist Party, and decided to fight the Japanese army in Meihua Town.The first battalion was ordered to build fortifications and block the four gates.When the people of Meihua Town heard that they were going to fight the Japanese army, they were very happy. They boiled water, cooked food, made pancakes, boiled eggs, and warmly condoled the officers and soldiers.

On the evening of October 11, the two brigades of the Itagaki Division of the Japanese army invaded Meihua Town from the northwest and surrounded the first battalion in Meihua Town.At around nine o'clock, the battle broke out. The first battalion used the walls and gates of the village as shelters to repel nine Japanese attacks, causing heavy casualties. At dawn on the 12th, a large number of Japanese reinforcements arrived, and the 691st regiment moved to Xiaoqiao Town, Jin County. When the regiment withdrew from Meihua Town, the soldiers shouted on the street, asking the common people to leave Meihua Town and go far away to avoid being slaughtered by the Japanese army.Because the battle was still going on in the western part of the town, most people did not hear the shouts and did not withdraw.Most people in the east of the town heard the call and withdrew from Meihua Town through the east gate.

On the morning of October 12, more than 5,000 Japanese troops invaded Meihua Town.Groups of Japanese soldiers climbed over the wall from the southwest of the town and rushed into the town.At that time, it was still dark, most people's houses had not yet opened their doors, and only a few people walked around on the street. The Japanese army smashed down the doors, burned the houses, and killed everyone they saw.Immediately, thick smoke billowed in Meihua Town, and the flames shot into the sky.Gunshots, doors being smashed, and the cries of adults and children all rang out. Several Japanese soldiers broke into Wang Naughty House.As soon as he entered the door, he shot and killed Wang Naughty's mother.Father Wang Baoyun picked up a three-tooth rake and shouted to the whole family: "Come out with me!" A Japanese soldier was killed with one rake.He rushed to another Japanese soldier, but unfortunately was shot and died.Wang Naughty took the opportunity to run out.His wife and two children were bayoneted to death in the courtyard by the Japanese army.

A group of Japanese soldiers broke down the gate of Lu Quancheng's house and kidnapped Lu Quancheng.The family desperately stepped forward to call for help, but the Japanese army shot and killed Lu Quancheng's two sons under the age of ten, and kicked his five-year-old daughter to the ground.Lu Quancheng's grandmother cried out and was kicked down by the Japanese soldiers, who first chopped off her feet and then killed her.Lu Quancheng's mother, wife and a child were pushed into the well in the courtyard and smashed to death in the well with a potter's wheel and bricks.There were six households with 20 people living in the Lu Quancheng family compound, and 15 people were killed by the Japanese army, including three households.

The massacre continued for a day.On the street, in the courtyard, in the cesspit...there are mutilated corpses everywhere.On this day, more than 300 people were massacred by the Japanese army. On the 12th, while killing people in various places in the town, the Japanese army also arrested a group of young and middle-aged men, tied them together, and forced them to kneel on the street, in front of the Zhenwu Temple, and in several larger courtyards in the town. was held in custody.Afterwards, the Japanese army pulled them out batch by batch and killed them.There are eight major murder scenes: the potter's wheel puddle at the west end of the town, the landlord Shang Wuzi's parents' factory, the stinky alkali water pit at the east end of the town, the blanking pit, the blood well, and the thirty-six cemeteries at the south end of the town.There are also the dyeing workshop compound in the street and the powder workshop compound in Yang Luofeng.In these eight places alone, more than 1,200 people were brutally killed.

The potter's wheel puddle is the biggest killing field. At noon on the 12th, hundreds of Japanese soldiers stood around the puddle with bayonets and mounted machine guns.Planes circled overhead.The bound people drove from the street and in front of the Zhenwu Temple to the puddle.The Japanese soldiers threatened with bayonets and sticks and forced them to jump into the puddle.The water was so deep that many jumped in and drowned.While forcing people to jump into the puddle, the Japanese army fired with machine guns, and the corpses filled the puddle.Bloody water overflowed the pit and flowed along the ditch for half a street.The Japanese soldiers standing around the pit saw those who were not dead, shot them to death with guns from a distance, and stabbed them to death with bayonets nearby. There were more than 600 people, only 8 people including Lu Quancheng and Zhang Mancang survived.After the tragedy, the villagers salvaged the corpse here for five days.Among them, more than 100 corpses were bloody and unrecognizable, and they were buried together in a pit in the west of Zhenxi.

After Lu Quancheng was kidnapped by the devils, he saw with his own eyes the spectacle of the devils' massacre at the potter's wheel in the west of the village.So how did Lu Quancheng escape from death?He said: It was getting dark, and the devils drove people to the water hole in the west of the village.Take us to the potter's wheel puddle, where many people have been killed by devils.The rain was heavy that year, and the water roots in the pit were deep.The water in the pit has turned red.The old man next to me was called Ma Luojin, and he whispered to me, "This is to kill us!" If I wanted to kill the devils, I might as well jump into the pit and drown myself.While the ghost soldiers were not paying attention, I jumped into the puddle.I don't know how to float, so I drank a lot of bloody water as soon as I went down, and passed out in a daze.

Later, I couldn't remember how I was pushed to the northwest corner of the pit by the people in the pit.As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw my uncle named Zhang Luodong next to me. He wrapped me in a robe and told me to run. I couldn't move, and I was lying among the piles of dead bodies, with only the upper part of my face exposed.You can only hear the sound of machine guns and people crying and screaming.After a while, nothing happened.I opened my eyes a little, and saw two black shadows moving not far away, and heard two sounds of "Hmm! Mmm!", and two more ordinary people were stabbed and fell into the puddle by the devil.A few Japanese devil soldiers walked south with their guns in hand.

It was too dark to see what was around.I moved a bit, opened my eyes and saw a black figure in the distance, bending over and running towards the northwest.When I was in a hurry, I wanted to run away!Climbing out of the puddle, leaning against the ground, he saw that there were no devil soldiers on both sides. In the distance to the south, devil soldiers were warming up around the fire.At that time, I was physically strong, and when I got up, I ran north.First, I ran into a Fenfang compound not far away, and saw a man tied up, and he whispered, "Untie me"! "Untie me"!I couldn't see who he was either, so I untied him in a panic.After untying the man, I ran to the wall of the village. Because of nervousness, I climbed up three times, but fell down, stopped for a while, and then climbed up again. Zhaigou, I ran to my relatives' house in Muliancheng along the way, and saved my life.

Zhang Mancang said: When we got to the water hole of the potter's wheel, we saw Japanese soldiers using bayonets and sticks to force people to live in the water hole, and at the same time, they kept shooting guns into the water hole.Later, a machine gun was brought in and fired into the puddle. Many people were killed, and circles of blood flowed out. Seeing this scene, I thought to myself, I will never survive. Entering the pit, fortunately, I was tied to a rope by myself, and I slowly dived to the west, fearing that the devils would find me when I got out of the water, and I drank several mouthfuls of bloody sewage under the water.Really couldn't hold it anymore, he showed his head a little, took a breath, and quickly dived into the water again.After swimming far away, I emerged from the water, eyes half-opened and half-closed, lying on my back, with my head between the thighs of a dead body.The enemy's bullet hit Zhang Qiufu's head. He was very close to me, and my face was splashed with brains and blood.

It was getting dark, and the devil soldiers all went to the south of the puddle to warm up the fire, so I slowly dragged my heavy and tired body to climb the dirt puddle.Play your luck, if you meet a devil, you will die, if you don't, you will escape with your life!I finally passed through the Fenfang compound, climbed over the wall, and escaped from the tiger's mouth. The landowner of Meihua Town, Shang Wuzi, the parents of the workers, has a spacious and spacious compound.The Japanese army forcibly drove more than 100 people into the courtyard, where they knelt for a day and a night, not allowing them to eat or drink a drop of water. On the 13th, a group of Japanese soldiers came in and shot and strangled all the more than 100 people to death.The corpses were thrown into two large vegetable cellars and a large cesspit in the courtyard. On the 12th, the Japanese army dragged the women captured from various households to the Fenfang compound of the landlord Yang Luofeng.Among them, 11 women who were pregnant and about to give birth were cut open by the Japanese army, and the fetus was hung on a tree to practice shooting. One Japanese soldier lifted the fetus more than one foot high with a bayonet and smashed it into a meat paste.Meng Xiaoqing's wife was stripped naked and hung from the door beam. She was beaten to pieces, and then the fetus was cut out and held with a bayonet, laughing wildly for fun.Zheng Xiaoe was stripped naked and had her breasts cut off. Her two children crawled on top of her crying and were also picked to death by the Japanese army. More than 100 women who were driven to the compound of Dyefang were also tortured by the Japanese army.More than a dozen Japanese soldiers gang-raped the young daughter-in-laws Jiang Wang, Wei Wu, Zhang Deng, etc., and stabbed them to death one by one with bayonets.At night, groups of Japanese soldiers entered with flashlights, captured young women, raped and mutilated them savagely. On October 13 and 14, farmer Zhang Li and other 62 people took up sticks and rushed out of the blockade to escape, but unfortunately fell into the hands of the Japanese army.They were tied up, their waists were broken, their legs were broken, and then they were pushed into a blanking pit and filled with earth to bury them alive.At the same time, the Japanese army tied more than 200 young and middle-aged men to the open space outside the East Gate. After torture and torture, a group of 11 people including Ma Shengfu and Ma Xifu were stabbed to death by the Japanese army.Ma Shengfu, Ma Xifu and others continued to curse, and finally the Japanese soldiers poured gasoline on their bodies, pushed them into the fire, and burned them alive. Fan Jinbao and other 63 people were tied to the stinking puddle outside the east gate, their eyes were gouged out, their limbs were chopped off, their heads were chopped off, and they were thrown into the stinking puddle. There is a big-eye well outside the east gate. On the afternoon of the 14th, 45 young adults were tied to the well.The Japanese soldiers howled and held up their sabers, forcing them to kneel down, but the people would rather not kneel.Furious, the Japanese army hacked all 45 people to death, hung their heads on a tree, and threw their bodies in a well.People call this well "Blood Well".There are 12 more wells like this. The massacre outside the south gate was even more shocking. On October 13, more than 200 women and children were tied up under the wall of the Nanmen Village.The Japanese army wanted to find out the whereabouts of Lu Zhengcao's troops, and made plans on women and children. They first coaxed them, and then threatened them, asking where the troops were going.Seeing that the people were silent, the Japanese army pulled out four girls under the age of ten and cut them in half.The Japanese army continued to question them, but they still couldn't get a word out. They were so angry that they shot and killed more than 200 women and children, and their bodies were thrown into the ditch.When the corpses were buried, 36 of them could not be claimed and were buried together, known as "thirty-six graves".When preparing to build the "Plum Blossom Town Tragedy" exhibition hall, three skulls were excavated from here, and one of the skulls was still stuck with a Japanese bullet. On October 14, six people including Zhang Yuzhen, who had fled from famine and came to Meihua Town since childhood, were severely beaten by the Japanese army for a whole day.After dinner, the Japanese soldiers took them outside the east gate.They saw corpses all over the street, lying in a pool of blood, and bloody heads hung on the trees.Zhang Yuzhen and the others couldn't help cursing: "You bastards, sooner or later you will settle accounts with you!" They broke the rope and fought the Japanese army with their bare hands.The ferocious Japanese soldiers stabbed randomly with bayonets in their hands, and five people died tragically.Zhang Yuzhen was bayoneted 11 times and passed out immediately.Waking up in the middle of the night, turning over, bleeding all over.Enduring the severe pain, Zhang Yuzhen climbed to a place far outside the town, was rescued, and survived to this day.He still has 11 scars and half of his thumb. Zhang Erbai, a farmer, was captured by the Japanese army and taken to the street. Several Japanese soldiers beat him while walking with sticks.Zhang Erbai turned around sharply, grabbed the stick from the Japanese soldier, raised the stick and dropped it, blood splashed everywhere, and a Japanese soldier's head exploded.He swung his stick and beat left and right. Several Japanese soldiers before and after were beaten to the ground by him.A Japanese soldier with a gun rushed over, and Zhang Erbai pounced on him, but was unfortunately shot and killed. 59-year-old Yan Luocong came to live in Meihua Town by begging on the street.He saw a group of people being driven to the potter's wheel to kill the puddle, and shouted: "Folks! Fight with the little Japan!" The Japanese army rushed to him, and he grabbed a brick from the ground and smashed the Japanese army. only eye.The Japanese soldier howled in pain.Later, the Japanese soldiers tied him to a tree, and he cursed again.The Japanese army cut off his tongue, he glared, and with all his energy, he sprayed the Japanese army with blood all over his face.Later, the Japanese army chopped off his feet and arms, and cut his flesh with a knife, which was extremely cruel.Although Yan Luocong was killed, his strength was so strong that even the Japanese soldiers present were stunned. The burning and killing lasted for four days and three nights. It was not until noon on October 15 that the Japanese army left Meihua Town.In Meihua Town, there were 550 households and 2,500 people at that time, 46 households were exterminated, and a total of 1,547 people were killed.More than 600 houses and shops were burned down. The tragedy in Meihua Town aroused the awakening and resistance of the people of Gaocheng County.One month later, the anti-Japanese armed forces organized by the county's Communist Party member Ma Yutang and others joined forces with Li Xiaozhen's local armed forces to conquer the county in one fell swoop and captured more than 40 Japanese soldiers.Since then, the anti-Japanese fire in Gaocheng County has become more and more prosperous.The county quickly organized anti-Japanese armed forces such as the independent detachment, the Pinghan advance team, the Shidong guerrilla team, the county brigade, and the peasant brigade, and attacked everywhere to fight against the Japanese army.The people of Meihua Town and Gaocheng County took the initiative to send their own food, cloth, military shoes and other materials to the mountainous base areas in a steady stream, which strongly supported our anti-Japanese troops. In 1938, Gaocheng County was named as a model county for anti-Japanese war by the Party Committee of Southern Hebei District. In October 1947, the 11th Special District of Jizhong District conducted a mass tragedy investigation in Meihua Town. The following is the investigation report at that time: On the eighth day of September in the twenty-sixth year of the Republic of China, the 691st Regiment of the 53rd Army (that is, the regiment of Lu Zhengcao, the predecessor of the Jizhong Eighth Route Army) blocked the Japanese attack here. They fought fiercely all night, killing more than 800 Japanese soldiers and repelling them several times. In the attack, the soldiers persisted on the wall of the village, and the Japanese army could enter the village.At dawn on the ninth day of the lunar new year, a large number of Japanese troops arrived. In order to avoid heavy casualties, Lu Bu moved to the enemy's rear and insisted on guerrilla warfare in the Jizhong Plain. The Japanese are coming, run for your life!"The ignorant common people thought that they were not the army, and that the Japanese army would not kill them completely when they came.The unfortunate event finally happened.At dawn on the ninth day of the lunar new year, the Japanese army's white flag troops (about 600 people) surrounded the village. After entering the village, they searched every house and tied up all the merchants and refugees fleeing from other villages. Tens, hundreds of dozens, etc., rushed to a large pit in the northwest corner of the village in a row. The Japanese soldiers behind them armed with machine guns and big guns, forcing people to jump into the puddle. Machine gun fire.In an instant, the water in the pit turned into blood, and the corpses were lying on the ground, which was horrible.Liu Xiaosi is 65 years old. A bullet hit him in the arm. He feigned death and crawled for half a day and midnight before running away from the wall of the village at night.Liu Xiaosan was hit in the leg, but also feigned death, and escaped at night.Lu Quancheng's mother was shot to death by the Japanese army, his wife jumped into a well and died, and his two children (the eldest ugly was 11 years old and the second ugly was 10 years old) were also shot to death by the Japanese army.Lu Quancheng was tied into a puddle, drank several mouthfuls of blood, and escaped ashore at night.In this waterhole, 550 people were killed by machine gun fire.The Japanese army tied forty to fifty businessmen and peasants to the cesspit in Li Luoyuechang, and forced them to kneel down facing north. All were massacred, and the severed heads were burned, leaving the corpses unrecognizable and buried together.In the hut in the northeast of Li Luoyue Village, 22 people were stabbed to death; in Shanghejiu's house, 93 people were shot to death. At that time, He Xigui was shot twice, but he survived.14 people were killed on Zhaojin Road, 5 people in the primary school well, 50 people outside the south gate (36 people inside were unclaimed and buried together), 24 people in Maru Xinjing, 17 people at the root of the wall in the southwest village, and the bridge outside the west gate 29 people from the south, 31 people from the smelly alkali puddle outside the east gate, 25 people from the north well of the smelly alkali puddle, 62 people (foreign businessmen) who were buried alive in the blanking pit outside the east gate, and 43 people (refugees) who were drowned in the ditch outside the west gate. ), 120 people were stabbed to death in the cesspit of Shang Yun’s family, and 15 people were stabbed to death in Lu Quancheng’s well.4 people were killed behind Yang Luokuan's house in Nanmenli, 6 people were shot to death at the wall of the north wall in Ximenli, Shang Dahei was burned to death in Shang Zengxiu's yam cellar, and a clerk in Shang Zenglai's pimp shop was scared to death Tang Fuxi's hired worker (from Fengzhuang, Zhao County) was also hanged, the businessman Wang Luoduo (from Ningjin) was so frightened that he jumped into the well of Shang Wuzi's house, the small trader Guo Hunzun was beaten to death in the well by a big wooden stick, and Ma Lianzheng was burned in the backyard. Five people including Ma Xifu, Ma Shengfu, Cheng Qun and Li Dongkang died. Ma Erhei, 40 years old, a poor peasant, and his daughter-in-law Ma Weishi, 30 years old, who was pregnant but not yet delivered, was subjected to an abdominal examination by the Japanese army. Even a three-year-old boy was stabbed to death beside his mother.Ma Erhei was tied up in a big wooden pit and shot dead. Only his parents were left in his family, who could not live because of the disaster.They fled, and later, the two old men died of cold and starvation.This is how Ma Erhei's family was torn apart. Wang's naughty daughter-in-law was pregnant, and the Japanese army opened her mouth.His parents and two children were killed at the same time, leaving Wang Naughty alone. In the 29th year of the Republic of China, he joined the Eighth Route Army to avenge his parents, wife and children. Unfortunately, he was captured by the Japanese and puppet troops in Meihua Town. Finally sacrificed. In the night of that day, all the surviving women in the village hid in a scroll workshop in the Jiama family in the southeast of the village. Three houses were crowded, and a few elderly ladies were in the outer room.Unexpectedly, they were discovered by the Japanese army, and groups of three and four rushed into the back room with flashlights, and the old ladies dared not make a sound.The women in the three houses were raped by the Japanese army one by one. The Japanese army killed more than 1,500 people in Meihua Town.342 people whose names are known in this material; 1158 people whose names are unknown (including farmers and merchants in Baoding, Shimen, Ping, Jin, southern Hebei, and Luxi, and refugees who fled from the disaster), whose names cannot be checked.42 households in this village were killed and 24 people were disabled. The Japanese army occupied Meihua Town for seven years, with 23 hectares of wasteland (at that time, the Japanese and puppet troops did not allow them to farm far away, and opened the gate at 9:00 am and closed at 5:00 pm every day).People still have to go out, stand on guard, guard the walls of the village, and watch the wires. Fifty-six-year-old Feng Baba and Zhang Erni fell to their deaths when leaving their husbands.Chen Shutian's family of 5 people, in the 32nd year of the Republic of China, had no food for more than two months, and the leaves and wild vegetables were enough to satisfy their hunger. His parents were old and died of hunger.The five members of Wang Fushan's family had no food for more than a month that year.There are more than 500 households in the village, and more than 400 households eat chaff, leaves, cotton seeds, yam vines, bean cakes, etc., and rich farmers also eat bran. After liberation, the party and the government established the "Meihua Town Tragedy Exhibition Hall" in Meihua Town, and erected monuments and built pavilions at the site of the tragedy to mourn the dead compatriots.