Chapter 13 Chapter Twelfth Qiucheng Tragedy (1937.11.13)

On November 13, 1937 (October 11th in the lunar calendar), the ferocious Japanese invaders invaded and occupied Qiucheng on the border between Hebei and Shandong. In less than three hours, they killed more than 800 innocent civilians and created a horrific "Qiucheng". City tragedy". When the Japanese army aggressively invaded the south in early November, the 29th Army of the Kuomintang government deployed defenses in the Hedao Valley of Nanhe County in southern Hebei, and launched a bloody battle with the Japanese army.After severely injuring the Japanese army, they retreated southwestern Shandong along Jize, Pingxiang, Guangzong, and Qiu counties.At this time, a part of the Japanese army rushed from Ci County and Guangping to Qiu County, trying to attack the 29th Army in Qiu County with the chasing troops.In order to cover the safe retreat of the large troops of the 29th Army, the army sent a left-behind battalion to build fortifications in Qiucheng to block it.

At 3 o'clock in the afternoon on November 12, the Japanese army came to Nanwangbao Village, Qiucheng, and deployed heavy artillery to attack the city.Since most of the shells fell on the fields and villages in the north of the city, the fortifications built by the 29th Army were not destroyed.At night, the Japanese army did not succeed in several sneak attacks. At dawn on the 13th, the Japanese army assembled a large number of troops and began to attack the city again. The left-behind battalion of the 29th Army was forced to withdraw from the fortifications in the south of the city and climb up the city wall, and used the bunker above the city to fight back heroically.At the same time, a company of machine guns was dispatched, carrying 40 machine guns, to detour to the Da Tuyao in the southwest of the city, and stormed the Japanese flanks, causing heavy casualties to the besieging Japanese troops.In the moat, there are about 500 ghost corpses left.The Japanese army was frustrated and had to retreat to Wangbao Village again.

At 10 o'clock in the morning, seeing that the fortifications of the city had not been destroyed, the Japanese army redeployed artillery along the Laosha River northeast of Wangbao Village.Dozens of cannons lined up to the big sand bump in the east of the city, surrounding Qiucheng in a semicircle.At this time, the main force of the 29th Army has basically withdrawn, and the remaining troops have basically completed the blocking task, leaving only one company in the city to continue fighting. At 12 o'clock, the Japanese army bombarded Qiucheng again, first blowing down the Kuixing Building in the southeast corner of the city.A platoon leader of this company fought with a machine gun until his last breath.Then, the Japanese army climbed to the top of the city wall from the gap in the collapsed city wall.Due to being outnumbered by staying behind, he was forced to withdraw the city wall and withdraw from Qiucheng from the Xuandi Temple in the northeast of the city.Some people also took the opportunity to escape, but most of the people were blocked in the city by devils.

At about 1:00 p.m. on the 13th, the Japanese invading army broke through the south gate, and then the east gate was also breached.As soon as the Japanese army entered the city gate, they began a frantic massacre, first chasing and killing them on the street, and then breaking into houses and searching them.In an instant, the streets, alleys, courtyards and houses were filled with the bodies of the murdered people.Some were beheaded, some were disemboweled, and some were pierced through the chest by a bullet... The tragic situation is unbearable to watch.Especially the people in South Street, West Street and East Street suffered the most.

Zhao Zhihao from the southeast corner caught the devil, chopped off his head with one knife, and kicked him a foot away.The "Five Boys" on the East Street were on Jiugong Road. When they heard that the Japanese army had entered the city, they knelt on the house floor to burn incense and pray.A Japanese soldier kicked in the door and shot through his chest with a gun.The five members of the Tang family in South Street retreated to a well under the coercion of Japanese soldiers with bayonets.They would rather die than be bullied. The adults first pushed the children into the well, and the men pushed the women into the well. Finally, the whole family died in this well.

A group of Japanese devils came to Shi Fuchun's house on West Street and shot Shi Fuchun to death. His wife was pregnant in August or September. Also picked out.The three children on the kang burst into tears when they saw this.That day the Japanese army raised their knives and strangled the three children to death on the kang.The mother of Zhao Yingxian in Dongjie was shot dead by the Japanese army in the mill. The 5-month-old child in her arms was still nursing on the corpse.In this way, the bodies of the victims filled a shaft in West Street and a large pit in East Street.The city was littered with the bodies of the people who had been killed.

Prior to this, in order to avoid the bombing of the invading army, the county magistrate Wang Tingyan (nicknamed Erbezi) had asked the masses to dig an air-raid shelter at every water slide on the city wall. The hole was more than 3 feet long, 3 feet high, and 3 feet wide. .A total of 24 such air-raid shelters were dug in the city.After the Japanese army captured Qiucheng, the masses had nowhere to hide, and some of them hid in air-raid shelters.After being discovered by the Japanese army, they first fired with machine guns, and then threw grenades and exploded in the hole.Some were stabbed to death by the Japanese army with bayonets as soon as they climbed out of the cave entrance. Then, the inhumane Japanese bandits blocked the cave entrance with dead cows and released poisonous gas into the cave. More than 200 people were blown to death and poisoned died in the hole.Later, when people went into the cave to collect the corpses, they all turned into meat paste.After liberation, there were still many unidentifiable bones in the cave.

More than 800 people were killed in this massacre.Among them, there are more than 240 people whose names can be checked in Qiucheng.The rest were those who went to the city to do business, those who fled, those who visited relatives and friends, and those who worked in the government. The Japanese army killed so many people, but did not find out how many 29th Army soldiers there were.They howled frantically in the street: "It's not enough!" At around 3:00 pm on November 13, the massacre stopped.The Japanese army took the captured civilians into Huang Zhanyi's compound in Beijie, where they underwent so-called "reformation" education, and asked the Chinese to do things for them and become slaves to the country.Those who accept the "probation" are each given a white armband, and they can go out to find something to eat.Those who refused to be "reformed" were tied up and beaten, and were not given food or water, and many died here.At night, the Japanese army surrounded the women, and the officers selected them first, and then the soldiers.Young and middle-aged women were forcibly taken away by them, and they abused them wantonly.The Japanese army ransacked every household in the city.A large number of door panels, tables, chairs and cabinets were smashed and used as firewood.These robbers sat around the fire, burning pigs, mutton and chicken, and laughed grimly.They also gave the quilts they took to cover their horses' feet and backs.

Soon after the massacre, the Japanese army forced the masses to build artillery towers for them, and only four or five were built in the city alone.Outside each blockhouse, two trenches more than one foot wide and eight feet deep were dug, and barbed wire was drawn outside.In order to build the gun tower, many houses were demolished.Many migrant workers who have lost their loved ones, who are willing to build gun towers for the devils.For those who "grind foreign workers" and sick people, the devils arrested them and tied them to the trees outside the east gate. First, they released poisonous gas beside them, and used the wind to test the effectiveness of the poisonous gas in the wilderness.I saw the beaten people twisting their heads and bodies, and passed out after a while.Seeing this, Guizibing laughed out loud for fun.Later, the bound people were targeted and shot, and everyone was shot dozens of times.

The people of Qiucheng were extremely angry at the Japanese invaders' acts of aggression against China and massacres. When Qiucheng fell, some patriotic people bravely joined the battle.Wang Chuanyu's elder brother "Wang Piantou" on Nanjie grabbed a gun from the dead 29th Army soldier and shot at the Japanese soldiers who climbed to the top of the wall one after another.The two long-term workers, "Big Come Back" and "Second Come Back", picked up the guns of the rich man's house and shouted on the street: "Folks, quickly pick up the guns and fight the enemy!" Several enemies died heroically in the end.