Chapter 20 Chapter 19 The Tale of Iron Hooves Trapping Yancheng (1938.4.26-29)

During the War of Resistance Against Japan, Yancheng in northern Jiangsu was once the headquarters of the New Fourth Army and the center of the Central China Anti-Japanese Base.She is a city with a glorious history.Under the ravages of the crazy and barbaric Japanese invaders, Yancheng suffered serious disasters. On April 25, 1938, several Japanese bombers flew across the Tongyu line in northern Jiangsu from south to north.Immediately, smoke and flames rose for tens of miles north and south of Yancheng, and the flames soared into the sky.Countless houses and shops were burning in the flames, and the sound of houses being ripped apart and collapsed was mixed with the desperate cries, mournful calls and angry curses of the residents.Sorrow and terror enveloped this remote corner of northern Jiangsu.However, who would have thought that all this was just the prelude to the massacre and looting by the Japanese bandits!The people of Yancheng are facing unprecedented doom!

The 101st Division under the command of Major General Sato Shozaburo, who invaded the northern Jiangsu area, consisted of five infantry brigades.A field artillery brigade was dispatched from Rugao to the north, and successively looted Hai'an, Dongtai and other places. On April 26, the Japanese army cleared the way with bombers and invaded Yancheng County.Wu You was the first to bear the brunt of the important town guarding the south gate of Yancheng. Wuyou is a thousand-year-old town.There are many shops, grain stores, and salt stores in the town, the streets are bustling, and the houses are row upon row. It is a commercial port and seaport in Yancheng, and an important distribution center for salt, grain, and cotton.As soon as the Japanese army arrived in Wuyou, they burned, killed and looted inside and outside the town.In an instant, Wu You's four-mile long street from north to south turned into a big fire dragon.Houses inside and outside the town collapsed, resources were burned, and property was wiped out.Residents who were too late to escape were assassinated nearby, and those far away were shot.A group of Japanese soldiers rushed to the house of Song Ji'an, a resident, to ask for the "flower girl". Song didn't understand, but shook his head, and was immediately hacked to death with knives, and his stomach was pulled out five or six steps away.A woman surnamed Wang was thrown into the fire by a group of Japanese soldiers who wanted to do brutal things to her. She struggled and screamed, and was thrown back into the fire by the Japanese soldiers and burned to death.A young woman surnamed Wu was dragged by two Japanese soldiers to the home of Cai Yuxiang, a resident, where she was gang-raped.Residents of Wuyou ganged up and killed one of them, while the other brought a brigade of Japanese soldiers and arrested 16 residents including Liu Zhanzi, Cai and Zhang.The Japanese army forced 16 residents to kneel around the corpses of the Japanese soldiers, stabbed them to death with bayonets one by one, and performed a living sacrifice.A Japanese army captured 51 residents of Biancang in Wuyoujiao, forced them to demolish their houses and build a blockhouse, and then put them all in a broken wall frame and stabbed them to death with bayonets.Among them, only Huang Xueming, Chen Xiaomanzi, and Bian Guiquan were seriously injured and survived.

On the afternoon of the 26th, more than 300 people from the Kobayashi Squad of the Baishang Xiaochuan Regiment of the 101st Division of the Japanese Army invaded Yancheng, burning and killing them all the way.28 of the 32 houses in Majiazhuang were burnt down, dozens of pigs and cows, hundreds of chickens and ducks, and countless clothes were taken away.Villagers Chen Guangfu and Li Tingxiang were arrested, beaten, tortured, and buried alive. Their bones were nowhere to be found. At dusk, Japanese troops invaded the urban area of ​​Yancheng.They wantonly set fires on East and West Streets, dropped incendiary bombs, and robbed property.For a while, the city was full of flames, and it was dozens of miles away.From the east to the west of the city, from the south to the north of the city, they formed a sea of ​​flames.Numerous historical sites, buildings and buildings were destroyed by a torch.The famous temple of Lu Xiufu, a national hero in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, has a large scale and many cultural relics. After being robbed and burned, only a lonely gatehouse remained.Known as the Ximen Dengying Bridge in Yancheng, it spans the Chuanchang River and is so majestic that only a few dry and black bridge piles are left standing on the water.

Later, according to statistics, the Japanese army burned more than 58,000 houses and more than 1,000 shops in the whole city.The provincial Yancheng Middle School, the old Chamber of Commerce building, and the county government offices are almost gone.There are more than 400 shops in West Avenue, the busiest commercial street, and only Xu Tongmao Building survived the burning.The Japanese army also ruthlessly tortured and massacred urban residents. Wherever they went, they killed everyone they met, and the methods were extremely cruel.The captured residents were either doused in gasoline and burned to death, or their limbs were amputated, their hearts were gouged out, their hearts were cut open, their eyes were gouged out, or they were used as live targets for night shooting exercises.The Japanese army pierced a child's belly with a gun and carried it on his shoulders. The child was still dying and struggling, and all the Japanese soldiers couldn't stop laughing.The Japanese army wantonly insulted women, including young girls as young as seven or eight years old, and old women as old as seventy or eighty years old.After the attractive young women were arrested, they were first humiliated and then locked up in the Yingbin Hotel in the urban area. A special "comfort station" was set up for the beasts to vent their desires... In a few days, Yancheng was transformed into a city with a population of 130,000. The numerous cities have become extinct, full of ruins and ruins.There are no pedestrians walking in the streets and alleys every day, and there are only wild dogs cruising around in search of human corpses at night.How many residents of Yancheng City were massacred by the Japanese army is impossible to come up with precise figures.Only a street in the west of the city of the charity organization, the Red Cross, buried more than 480 corpses.

On the 29th, the Japanese army attacked Shanggang Town, the northern gateway of Yancheng.The local soldiers and civilians fought hard to resist, but were eventually defeated due to being outnumbered.The old, weak, women and children who couldn't escape were caught in the hands of the enemy and were bloody massacred.The blind man Gao Hesan was pierced through the palm of his hand by the Japanese army with a wire, his teeth were cut out, his tongue was cut, his body was disembowelled with a bayonet, and finally he was thrown into Longwangtang.Resident Xu Dabao was taken to the Japanese army camp, his hands were pierced by the Japanese army's wire, and he was tied to a wooden post. Xu was exposed to the sun and night dew, and starved for several days.When Xu was dying, the Japanese army stabbed him to death with a knife, and his body was pushed into Meihuagou.The Japanese army arrested more than 30 women and locked them upstairs in the Sino-German Hospital. They forced them to strip naked, take a cold bath in a large vat, and then gang-raped them one by one.Those who resisted a little were pierced by Japanese bayonets in their lower abdomen.A woman was still out of breath after her abdomen was broken, she was still struggling and rolling, and kept scolding the beast soldiers.All the Japanese soldiers stretched his limbs, stepped on them under the leather shoes, poured gasoline into his stomach, and set him on fire.The Japanese soldiers clapped their hands and laughed.The Japanese army found the daughter of the resident Lu Hongzhang hiding in a deep ditch in the east of Shanggang Town, and threatened her to go ashore.She refused, and was immediately beaten until her brains splashed all over, and she died tragically in the ditch.

The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Shanggang were horrific.Corpses were seen everywhere in and around Shanggang Township, along roadside ditches and ponds.In the Dragon King Pond in the east of the town, corpses are piled up like reed piles; on the wide water surface of the Chuanchang River in the west of the town, corpses are scattered in disorder, drifting with the current!Under the rubble and piles of fire ash, there are corpses everywhere.The tragedy is unbearable.The necks of men are often divided, and the corpses still have to be separated after killing; the corpses of women are often naked, and they will inevitably die after being insulted!Shanggang used to have a population of tens of thousands, but after the looting, it has been depressed ever since, with only a few thousand permanent residents left; Shanggang used to have hundreds of shops of all sizes, most of which were robbed.More than 29,000 houses were burnt alone.

Historically, Yancheng was rich in salt, grain, and cotton. The town was prosperous and merchants gathered in all seasons. It was known as the "Land of Fish and Rice" and "Little Shanghai" in northern Jiangsu.After several days of atrocities by the Japanese army, it became a piece of scorched earth, with desolation everywhere, towns were destroyed, resources were looted, houses were burned, compatriots were killed, women were prostituted, and property was robbed.The atrocities committed by the Japanese invading army are too numerous to record; the blood debt owed by the Japanese invading army is too numerous to count!