Chapter 16 Chapter 15 The Majishan Massacre in Taihu Lake (1938.3.12-13)

Maji Mountain in Wuxi City, referred to as Ma Mountain, is a thousand-year-old island in the northwest of Taihu Lake, with a population of more than 4,000 in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War.The island is shaped like a moon arc, with an area of ​​31.4 square kilometers. It is bounded by Chaiqian Village and divided into the eastern half-mountain and the west half-mountain. The land is fertile and the products are rich.During the Anti-Japanese War, it was the base of the Second Division of the New Fourth Army in South Jiangsu, and it was also the lake connecting the guerrilla areas of Yi (Xing), Wu (Jin), (Wu) Xi South, Suzhou (West) and Zhejiang (Jiang) West. springboard.

After the Battle of Songhu in 1937, more than 600 members of the Tian Wenyou Department of the Kuomintang Army retreated, claiming to be an army of 100,000. Relying on Mashan, they occupied Taihu Lake.They destroyed the Wu (Xi) Yi (Xing) Highway and burned the Lvjiang Bridge in an attempt to block the Japanese army's transportation. The Japanese invaders immediately mobilized their forces to "sweep" Mashan. On the morning of March 12, 1938 (February 11 in the lunar calendar), the Japanese army dispatched more than 1,400 people and dozens of motorboats to forcefully land on the Eastern Mid-Levels under the cover of three aircraft.After the Japanese army defeated Tian Wenlong's department, they carried out a bloody massacre on the people of Mashan.They burned every village from east to west, and killed anyone they saw. They killed 1,400 unarmed people and owed a lot of blood debt to the people of Mashan.

In this tragic massacre, Qi Village in the eastern half of the mountain was the first to bear the brunt.This village is divided into two villages, Jiannan and Jianbei, with a total of 10 households and 50 houses.After the Japanese army arrived in Jiannan from Yanwei Zhuchong, they set fire to the houses without seeing the villagers.They found that there were still some villagers in Jianbei who hadn't fled, so they searched and drove 25 people who were in Zhuangzi and hiding near the village to the field in front of the house, and forced them to separate men and women and kneel on the ground.The masses refused to kneel down, so the Japanese army brutally searched them one by one.There was a long-term worker named Xiao Sizi, who was only wearing a ragged cotton jacket with the buttons off, a rotten straw rope tied around his waist, and the jacket protruded from his chest.The Japanese soldiers insisted that he had concealed a gun on his body and forced him to take off his ragged cotton jacket.The fourth son would rather die than obey.Without any explanation, the two Japanese soldiers rushed up and stabbed him seven times with bayonets on his head and chest.The fourth son was blood splattered all over, and fell down staring at him with hatred eyes.Witnessing the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, the crowd roared and expressed strong protest.The brutal Japanese army fired with machine guns, and all the people present fell down.In order to prevent anyone from surviving, the cunning Japanese army called the interpreter to the fallen crowd and shouted that all those who survived should stand up, and everything will be fine.The 67-year-old Xing Xin, who was not shot, believed it was true, pushed away the two dead men on her body, and slowly got up.But before she could stand still, a Japanese soldier rushed up and stabbed her five times.The kind old man was stabbed to death like this.The Japanese army was still not at ease, and "checked" the dead bodies one by one, and stabbed those who were still alive a few more times.The 13-year-old Du Xianzhang, who fell among the dead, jumped up and rushed to the field outside the field when he saw that the Japanese invaders were about to check him.As soon as he rushed forty steps, he was hit by a Japanese bullet and fell to the ground.Then the Japanese army piled up the 24 corpses, put the bed stools on the corpses, poured gasoline on them, and set them on fire. After the Japanese army withdrew, when Du Charteran slowly came to his senses, the entire village was burned to the ground. The body was burnt so black that it could not be identified.Some people who fled returned to the village and found it difficult to collect their bodies.Qian Xingxin wanted to collect his mother's body, but it was difficult to recognize her face. Later, she found a foot still wearing a half-burnt shoe in the pile of dead people, so she decided that it was her mother's body, picked up a few bones, and considered the body to be collected.Because of Yongzhi's deep hatred, people called this place where the Japanese army massacred villagers "Hateful Village".This is an excerpt from Du Charter's oral recollection of the atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders. He said:

On the morning of February 11 of the lunar calendar in 1938, the sky was cloudy.About eight or nine o'clock, I went up the mountain to cut firewood, and saw a Japanese motorboat in Taihu Lake. I didn't know what kind of boat it was.Everyone fled from the mountain and saw the Chinese army retreating in large numbers.Everyone lost their mind for a while and didn't know what to do, so they scattered and fled for their lives.Fleeing to the mountain pass, the Japanese had landed and shot at the people with machine guns.I hid and saw that my house was on fire. I was flustered, so I ran back to the village with everyone to grab the things in the house. In the end, I only snatched a little stuff that was in use, and burned the rest.

We didn't expect the Japanese to kill right away.When his father saw the Japanese pointing his gun at him, he ducked and ran away, bullets flying past his head.Later, we were driven together by the Japanese, and the men and women were all separated.The Japanese touched his shoulders, looked at his hands, searched his waist, and ordered the man to kneel down.There was a hired worker from Yixing, in his 30s, wearing a black linen jacket, with pock marks on his face, and a pair of cloth socks on his feet.The Japanese suspected that he was a Chinese soldier and pulled him out.After walking more than 10 meters, the man said: "Mr. Yang, I am a common man! Mr. Yang, I am a common man!" The Japanese ignored him, and three bayonets stabbed into his chest at the same time. He snorted and died.The Japanese pulled out the bayonet, and blood dripped down the tip of the knife.

Before we understood it, a gun rang out suddenly, and I fell down without being beaten to death. I lay in the pile of dead people and did not dare to move. After one or two hours, I saw that the Japanese were snatching us out of the wooden tree. Beds and other wood are piled on top of people.I thought, no, I'm going to set fire to people.I moved a little, and found that under me was Qian Adu, a fellow villager, who was shot in the waist and was moaning.Who knows, there is still my younger brother under Qian Adu, who is not dead yet.I heard him say: "How come this far".Soon after seeing smoke coming out of the pile of people, I thought that I would not be burned alive by them, so I pushed hard, climbed out of the pile of people, and saw a Japanese soldier dragging the dead body towards me.I turned around and ran to the northeast. The Japanese caught up and shot at me. The bullets entered the back of my neck and came out on the left side of my face.Pour it into the water at once.When I woke up later, I saw myself soaked in the water, and when I turned over, blood gushed out of my mouth and nose.The left eye could not be opened, and when I touched it with my hand, there was a hole under the eye.I shouted: "Uncle, come and help me!" He came to help me up.My uncle hid me in the bushes at the foot of the hillside, and got two bundles of dry branches to cover me up, so I survived.Later I learned that the rest of my uncle's family had been killed.

In that massacre, only my father, mother, elder brother, younger brother and I were left in my family, and everyone else died.A total of 23 people died in the village, and two households were exterminated. The oldest was 62 years old, and the youngest was a nursing baby. They have not yet been named. To the southwest of Qicun is Tanxi Village.This village is relatively large, with 53 households and more than 300 people.When the people in Tanxi Village heard the news that the Japanese troops were on the island, they all took refuge.Four families including Yang Zhengda and Yang Yuehai, including 18 people, men, women and children, all hid in a pool in the bamboo forest at the foot of the mountain behind the house.Yang Zhengda's 70-year-old grandfather, worried, came out of the pond and looked at his home through the gaps in the trees.I saw three Japanese soldiers rushing into the gate of his house, coming out from the back door, and setting fire to his house.He stomped his feet and cried, "It's bad, it's bad, my house is on fire!" This cry alarmed the Japanese army.They dropped their torches and rushed over while shooting.Grandpa Yang Zhengda yelled to Tanli, "It's not good, the devil is coming!" and ran west.Less than 50 steps away, he was shot and killed by the Japanese army.At this time, two young men, Yang Yuechao and Xu Shangen, suddenly rushed out of the pool and ran to the east.The three Japanese soldiers turned around and chased after them. When they looked sideways, they found a pond.The people in the pool, the elderly with gray beards, and the young ones were being hugged and breastfed, and the women huddled together in fright. At this time, Yang Axiang stood up and said, "We are all ordinary people, we are all ordinary people!" The Japanese army raised their guns and aimed at him with one shot.Yang Axiang fell down.Then there was a burst of ping-pong-pong shooting, and there were 18 people in the pool. Except for the two young people who rushed out, 10 people were killed and 6 were seriously injured. 9-year-old Yang Yuehai's family of 7 members, his parents, sister-in-law, sister, and brother were all killed, leaving only him and his 5-year-old brother Yuezhong.After liberation, this pool was called "Blood Tears Pool".

This is Yang Yuehai's dictation of how he narrowly escaped death in the "Tan of Blood and Tears": In 1938, after Tian Wenlong's troops arrived in Mashan, we fled to Xueyanqiao's father's hometown (my father recruited his son-in-law to Mashan).I saw them digging holes there, mostly in mulberry fields, on higher ground.After we returned to Mashan, my father and Yang Zhengda’s grandfather started to dig the hole. After three days of digging, the Japanese came on the fourth day. It was around eight or nine o’clock in the morning on February 11th of the lunar calendar in 1938. , my father and I fled to Ridge Mountain Lou.At around ten o'clock, my father carried me home, ready to run after eating.During the meal, there were 10 people in my family. My father urged us to eat quickly, and he went out to see by himself.After a while, he came back and said that Sai's house was on fire, and he asked us to leave quickly.We hastily brought some things, I remember quilts, foot stoves, clothes, etc., and ran into the mountains.We went to the cave first and planned to hide for a while before leaving.When I went there, I saw that 7 of Yang Zheng and his family were already inside, and Xu Shangen was also there, together with us there were 18 people in total.We put the things at the entrance of the cave, and the upright father-in-law was checking the situation nearby. He said that someone's house was on fire, and then rushed to shout: "Ah Xiang (my father) is not good, the Japanese saw it." My brother Yue Chao and Chu Shangen left the cave and ran up the mountain.A Japanese soldier saw it, raised his gun and shot at them, turned around and found something at the entrance of the cave, and found someone in the cave.My father felt bad, so he came forward and begged him, saying: "Mr. Yang, we are all ordinary people." Before he finished speaking, the Japanese soldiers robbed him twice, and my father died immediately.The Japanese soldiers hit my father with a foot stove again, and the soot in the stove rose up, making us cough and cough. Some people cried, and my sister quickly said, "We can't cry, we have to pretend to be dead." After a while, another Two Japanese soldiers came, stood on both sides of the hole, and shot fiercely into the hole.Suddenly, there was no sound in the cave, and some people fainted from fright.After a long time, I opened my eyes and saw my brother sitting on my mother's lap and crying.Mother was leaning on Shibi, shot in the forehead, and died.My aunt's right thumb was broken, and only a layer of skin was attached.Her 11-year-old son also died.I was shot in the hand and asked her to drag me. She is a widow herself, and now she sees her son dead, and she is very sad, as if she can't hear my voice.I saw her crawling out of the hole, about to commit suicide.She could only tie the trouser belt to the tree with one hand, but she couldn't tie it securely, and she couldn't hang herself, so she went to look for my brother.After hearing this, my brother cried and said that everyone should run for their lives.At around five o'clock in the evening, we heard gunshots on the mountain, and my brother was beaten to death by Japanese soldiers.

At that time, a total of 10 people were killed in the cave. Those who died in my family were: father Yang Yangming, who was under 40 years old; mother Yang Shi, who was two years younger than his father; Xu Erzhong is only 11 years old. Nearly a hundred people in Mashan Village hid in the ridge crate under Guanzhang Peak behind the village.The Japanese army searched along the mountain, firing guns while searching, so frightened that the baby cried. In order not to expose the target, the baby's parents stuffed the baby's mouth with a towel or a pacifier, and smothered the baby with a skirt until he died of suffocation. Seven-year-old Xu Quanda was too scared to move.Lying in her mother's arms, a stray bullet suddenly took Xiao Quanda's life.During the search by the Japanese army, five young men, including Axuan, Caiquan, Handa, Genbao, and Wangxi, who were hiding in the bushes beside the small mountain road, were stabbed to death one after another on the side of the road.Other people were also searched out.The Japanese army drove more than 70 young men over the age of 13 and 14 to the top of Guanzhang Peak, which is more than 260 meters high, and fired them with machine guns.There were three young people who had no way out and fell down the cliff. Two of them were shot to death by the Japanese army. Only Xu Bingrong escaped death and survived.

After leaving Guanzhang Peak, the Japanese army went to Guzhu and Xincheng to burn and kill them.When the Japanese army rushed to Guzhu Village, Hong Gen was escaping from the back street in a hurry, and the cruel Japanese army swung a knife and chopped him down.Hong Gen's head and neck were cut off, and blood rushed straight out. The 12-year-old Zhou Zhengye was caught by the Japanese army on the way to escape.Seeing his worn-out sneakers, the devil insisted that he was the son of a Chinese soldier, stripped him naked, and cut him into three sections.The Japanese army captured two and three-year-old children in Murakami, regardless of gender, stripped them naked, stabbed them with bayonets, picked them up on guns, and ran away with them.They also hang the child's body on a tree or on the door, dragging all the internal organs outside, which is unbearable to see.

When the Japanese army arrived in Xincheng Village, they did not see any common people, so they went up the mountain to search, and found 36 people in the bushes on the mountain.The Japanese army stabbed them to death one by one with bayonets.Yin Suying, who was only 5 years old at the time, was stabbed 5 times but missed the point. After the Japanese army left, she slowly came to her senses, crying for her mother, who died on her left side, and crying for her sister, who had only been married for 8 days. On her right, the upper half of her 3-year-old brother's head was cut off by the Japanese army, and his whereabouts are unknown. The following is Yin Suying, a survivor of the Mashan massacre, describing her narrow escape. She said: My name is Yin Suying, from Mashan Town, Wuxi City. I was 6 years old in 1938.On the twelfth day of the second lunar month, everyone is preparing for the Ching Ming Festival.There are 5 grandmas, mothers, uncles, older sisters and younger brothers in my family.My sister has promised someone. That morning, the Japanese devils came over the mountain from the direction of Tanxi, and the whole village was ready to flee. My mother had little feet and couldn't run fast. She said that it was useless to run, and she would die at home.Later, he escaped.We hid in a deserted tomb on a hillside not far from the house. There were already a lot of people gathered there, about thirty-five or six, most of whom were fishermen who came ashore from fishing boats.As soon as the Japanese devils entered the village, they burned down houses.An old woman next door to me saw her house being burned, and cried out anxiously. As a result, we were all exposed.I saw a Japanese official wave the flag towards us, and a group of Japanese devils rushed straight over, killing and provoking us with bayonets.Suddenly, it was miserable.cry.My mother was stabbed in the head and died immediately.My brother's head was chopped off and was never found.I was bayoneted five times and passed out.The next day, I slowly woke up, and the padded jacket turned from gray to red.I was sore, cold and hungry, I couldn't move, I could only cry.Because I have no energy, I can't even cry.On the third day, my father found me. He didn't recognize me and asked, "Who are you?" I replied, "It's Suying."He hurriedly asked his mother and younger brother where they were?When I said he was dead, he immediately passed out, collapsed, and rolled down the hillside. He was carried away by fellow villagers, and it took him a while to wake up.After I was carried home, I had no money for medical treatment, so I sold Bafen Tian.I finally survived. While the Japanese army was burning and killing, Liao practiced brutality and raped women everywhere, ranging from old ladies in their 60s and 70s to girls as young as 12 or 13 years old.After they raped, they used bayonets to pierce their stomachs open.There was a woman in Chaiqian Village who was eight months pregnant. After being raped, the Japanese army stripped her naked, opened her stomach with a bayonet, and picked the fetus on the head of the gun, which was bloody. After the bloodbath in the eastern half of the mountain, the Japanese army burned and killed the western half of the mountain.The Japanese army rushed into the West Village, captured the two brothers Lu Yuezi and Lu Qiaozi, and hung them on the beam of the waterwheel shed in the west of the village.Several Japanese soldiers took them as living targets and stabbed them one after another for fun, until they were stabbed to death, and then sent a group of people to burn the watershed. Hang Bainian from Zhangqing was only 5 years old at that time, his mother dragged him and fled to Xuejialan with the crowd.The Japanese army fired randomly, and his mother was killed on the spot.A bullet went into Hang Bainian's right ear and came out on the left side of his face, and he fell to the ground.When the villagers collected the body, they found that his chest was still a little hot, so they took him home and gave him some porridge soup and medicinal soup. After 8 months of nursing, he was revived.The left side of Hang Bainian's face has since sunk.The people of Mashan never forget the blood and tears of the Japanese imperialists, and call him "half-headed man". People from the villages near Neilu all ran to Bancan Mountain, which was smooth and steep.The Japanese army fired machine guns at anyone they saw. There was an 18-year-old Niu Hairong in Yanmen. After being shot, his intestines flowed out from his waist.He put his intestines into his belly and tied the wound with the bamboo skirt on his body, but he couldn't move anymore.The Japanese army chased him and stabbed him to death with a bayonet. Some people ran to Longtoujie, the westernmost small hill in Taihu Lake.Faced with these unarmed masses, the Japanese army bombed them with planes in the air and strafed them with machine guns on land and on the lake.On that small Longtou Zhu, more than 200 innocent people were shot dead in one shot. The Japanese army burned and killed 999 and a half local people in Mashan in just two days. Many families were killed for three generations. The Kuomintang army Tian Wenlong killed more than 100 people, and also killed Taihu Lake fishermen and 400 people who took refuge in Wuxi, Changzhou and other places. Many people, a total of more than 1,500 people died under the butcher's knife of the Japanese army, burned more than 3,600 houses, and burned more than 40 fishing boats. After the massacre, Mashan was bleak with corpses strewn across the fields and blood flowing down the hills.Those lucky enough to survive were old and young, with more women and fewer men, resulting in a situation where "there are no people in the fields, orphans and widows suffer from hunger".This is the brutal "Mashan Massacre" by the Japanese army.