Chapter 43 Chapter 42: Japanese Atrocities in Xinyang

On October 12, 1938, the 3rd Division of the Japanese Army occupied Xinyang under the support of the 10th Division.Before and after the Japanese invaded and occupied Xinyang, they carried out the "Three Alls Policy" of killing, burning and robbing all. They committed heinous crimes and brought serious disasters to the people of Xinyang. Before the Japanese army occupied Xinyang, from the summer of 1937 to the first ten days of October 1938, a large number of planes were sent to bomb Xinyang in turn, exercising their power.According to the statistics of more than 10 days from June 15 to September 29, 1938, more than 20 batches and more than 200 sorties of Japanese planes dropped more than 1,000 bombs inside and outside Xinyang City. Xiguan and Xiguan are almost in ruins, the commercial area is full of bomb craters, ruins and ruins can be found everywhere, most of the urban area has been reduced to rubble, and nearly a thousand innocent people were killed or injured.

One day in July 1938, at both ends of the Shihe Bridge in the south of the city, more than 100 people were washing clothes and carrying water, and there were still 20 or 30 people walking on the bridge.Suddenly, five Japanese planes roared over, circling at low altitude.The unprepared crowd fled in all directions, screaming, and had nowhere to hide.Airplanes dropped bombs on the bridge repeatedly, and the bridge was blown up, people were bloody and bloody, the river was stained red, and the stumps and broken bodies drifted along the river. There were very few survivors.Another time, several Japanese planes suddenly flew over Guangshui Bay on the outskirts of the city, and more than 80 people in the vicinity hid in an air-raid shelter.Local resident Wang Cheng said: "My aunt Song Shen's family of five died in the cave."

One day in late July, a train had just entered the station, and seven or eight hundred displaced refugees had just got off the train. Nine Japanese planes followed it. Some refugees and residents near the station were killed.Zhang Hanfu reported the tragedy of the bombing in the newsletter of "Xinhua Daily" and "Southern Henan Editing" on August 5, 1938: "Nine enemy planes went to bomb the station area, and the emergency alarm and bombing were almost at the same time. Terrified, the station area was bombed terribly! Burning bombs fell, and the fire inside and outside the city lasted for 30 hours. Houses collapsed, hundreds of people were killed and injured. The refugees in the woods were even more terribly bombed. Human flesh and blood replaced leaves , hanging all over the treetops. Crying and shouting, it was extremely miserable! On that day, the market changed from bustling to deserted, there were no pedestrians on the street, and the doors of the shops were tightly closed." Li Jinlan, a resident of Yangshan Office in Xinyang City, witnessed After seeing the tragedy of the bombing, her father-in-law, mother-in-law and younger brother who were 8 months pregnant were all killed in the bombing.

From 8:45 a.m. to 12:00 noon on September 28, more than 70 enemy planes attacked Xinyang in groups. The fire broke out, and most of the houses were destroyed. The East, South, Xiguan and East Railway Station suffered heavy losses, and most of the urban area was reduced to rubble. After the Japanese army occupied Xinyang, they set fires and burned houses on the pretext of preventing "spies".From the autumn of 1938 to the spring of 1939, the suburbs of Xinyang were full of smoke during the day, and the four townships were ablaze at night, especially the fire dragons along the railways and highways that stretched for several miles. After the autumn of 1938, villages in a radius of more than 10 miles to the south of Sanlidian in the suburb of the city were burned one after another. Among them, Lijiagang and Fujiagang were burned to scorched earth, leaving thousands of farmers homeless and without food to eat.

While implementing the policy of burning everything in Xinyang, the Japanese army carried out a brutal massacre of the people of Xinyang, using the following methods: First, arbitrary arrests and indiscriminate torture. On the Ching Ming Festival in 1941, people burned papers for relatives killed by the Japanese invaders on both sides of the Shi River in Xiguan. The Japanese patrol team found them and falsely accused them of lighting the fire to "send a signal". More than 20 people were arrested and sent to the gendarmerie.Everyone was severely tortured, some had their arms broken, some were bitten by foreign dogs, some were electrocuted, and some were poured cold water and pepper water.After more than 20 days of torture, most of them died in the gendarmerie, and only one survived. In 1942, the puppet police station and security team went to Shierliqiao, Dongshuanghe, and Qingshiqiao areas to clear the countryside, arresting 50 or 60 people at a time, and killing more than a dozen people.

Japanese Gendarmerie.The people in the Xuanfu class called it "Ghost Gate" and "Hall of Hell".According to the survivors who were arrested into the gendarmerie and those who were forced to work as handymen: Since 1938, people have been arrested into the gendarmerie almost every day.As soon as they entered the gendarmerie, they were first severely beaten, and then locked in a dungeon or a dark room without windows.There are many names of ester punishments here, which are brutal and tyrannical, which is heinous.Ropes, thick iron wires, and iron chains were hung from the roof beams on both sides of the interrogation room. On the floor were tiger benches, door panels with iron wires, electric chairs, axes, knives, knives, pliers, buckets, irons and other instruments of torture, as well as military dogs.He didn't say a few words during the interrogation, and then he was tortured.Japanese gendarmes sometimes hang people like "duck ducks", or hang one arm or one foot, or hang two arms; the hanged people are either whipped with leather whips or burned with fire, and sometimes they are tied to a bench After filling the stomach with kerosene, hot pepper water, and cold water, the victim would step on it with leather shoes, and the victim's seven orifices would bleed immediately; Tie it to a tree and let the military dogs bite it.In this murderous den, the howling of gendarmes, the barking of dogs, and the screams of victims can be heard day and night.According to a victim who was accused of being a "spies" by the Japanese propaganda class: In the Japanese propaganda class, there are water prisons where innocent people are detained (half a room is big, more than one meter high, and people cannot stand upright in it), Dungeon (underground, the size of a room, more than 20 people are locked up, and there is only one entrance and exit above).The walls of the water prison are all concrete, only one meter high, and there are no windows. The water is as deep as the chest, and all the urine and feces are dissolved in the water.These cages have killed countless innocent people.Several people who had witnessed the brutal torture of Chinese people by the Japanese invaders Xuan Fu Squad said: In the summer of 1939, we passed by the Xuan Fu Squad outside Xiguan, and saw with our own eyes that Japanese soldiers tied the hands of several people with iron wires to their respective walls. On one foot, the other foot was allowed to stand on a barbed wire made of barbed wire.Some people couldn't stand and fell down, their bodies were pierced with countless small holes, and blood flowed pool after pool.

Second, slaughter and bury alive in groups.The Japanese invaders were murderous in Xinyang. In Xinyang City, which has only tens of thousands of people, it is just outside Liulindi (near the glass factory today), Luoyang Bridge (outside Xiguan), Sanglin Temple (east of the Big Arch Bridge), and outside Beiguan. There are as many as seven killing fields in other places.The Japanese army killed more than 2,000 people in Liulindi, and the masses called it a "mass grave".From the winter of 1938 to the end of 1940, the Japanese Gendarmerie used cars to drag people to "mass graves" for slaughter almost every day after 3 pm.They tied people's hands behind their backs, and sometimes tied the left arms of twenty or thirty people in a string with a thick rope. Then they cut off a piece of each person's clothes and blindfolded them.Then, the Japanese military police pointed at the victims with large knives or bayonets in their hands, stabbed each of them, and kicked them into the pit. Some victims were still screaming and buried alive. In early March 1939, for several days in a row, Japanese military police colluded with traitors and arrested more than 600 people selling firewood, grass, and grain on the south bank of the Lion River, and all of them were killed in the "mass grave". At the end of 1938, farmer Yang Guide was arrested and dug a pit to bury him. When the last person was buried, the Japanese soldiers suddenly slashed him with a knife and kicked him into the pit, and buried him alive. In 1941, the Japanese gendarmes buried corpses in the "mass grave", so they moved the entrance to the river near Sanglin Temple. From 1941 until Japan surrendered, Japanese invaders killed thousands of people in Sanglin Temple.

In April 1939, Japanese soldiers arrested 16 farmers who were going to the market in the southern suburbs of Xinyang City. They were immediately tied up and taken to Grape Well (near the present Agricultural Science Institute). 7 people were hacked and 9 people were buried alive. In February 1939, 16-year-old Wang Guiyin, Lu Baolin and several young people were captured by Japanese soldiers outside Beiguan and buried alive in a field outside Beiguan. During the Japanese occupation of Xinyang, they used various methods to plunder property. After the autumn of 1938, Japanese soldiers went to the countryside to plunder almost every day.Xujia Village in the suburbs was robbed four times in two days, and every family was robbed of food, chickens, pigs, and sheep.One day, more than a dozen Japanese soldiers broke into Zhangjia Village. They shot cattle, slaughtered pigs and sheep, and immediately screamed.The people here who had no time to escape were forced by the Japanese army to cook the killed livestock and poultry. After they were full, they kicked over the pot, and then snatched more than 10,000 catties of rice from eight farmers in the village and set it on fire. houses in the village.Shuangjing Township on the outskirts of the city is very close to the railway, and it is a place where Japan often plunders. According to the statistics of Shuangjing and Shibalimiao villages in the township, the Japanese army plundered more than 500 large livestock and more than 30,000 pieces of property .

Xinyang is located at the junction of Henan and Hubei. It is a transportation hub in southern Henan. Its business has always been relatively prosperous. After the Japanese army invaded Xinyang, some businessmen fled, some businesses closed down, and the market was depressed.At this time, Japanese business organizations took advantage of the gap and developed year by year.When Japan surrendered, in the small city of Xinyang, Japanese businessmen spread all over every corner, and established more than 40 foreign firms of various kinds, monopolizing the entire market.These foreign companies can be roughly divided into the following categories:

The first is mainly to purchase materials and raw materials: Yinghua foreign company (mainly purchases cattle and sheep hides, sesame, soybeans, wood, charcoal, copper, etc.), Yuelai foreign company (purchases grain and oil), Sanfan foreign company (purchases cattle and sheep hides), Sanleng Co., Ltd. (acquisition of sesame), Daguang Co., Ltd. (acquisition of various types of wood), Xinlong Co., Ltd. (acquisition of various types of fur), Aquaculture Co., Ltd. (acquisition of aquatic pigs), Ni Yu Agency (specialized in the acquisition of copper), Xinxin Company (acquisition of various types of fur). Tobacco), Yunan Timber Co., Ltd., Hirano Yoko, Masaki Yoko, etc.Most of these foreign firms are Japanese managers, and the scale is relatively large.The mode of operation is mainly to sell various daily-produced cloth, department stores, and groceries, and to purchase (or exchange) various military materials.

The second is that the foreign companies that operate daily necessities include: Hirano Yoko (sell daily groceries), Jinjundo (department stores, snacks), Dainichihiro Yoko (cloth), Satake Yoko, Takasago Yoko, Mizuno Yoko, Yamada Yoko, etc. All kinds of foreign firms operated by Japanese businessmen under the banner of "China-Japan Friendship" and "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity" are actually serving the Japanese invaders, especially the foreign firms that mainly purchase military supplies and other raw materials. .For example, the Japanese merchant Yinghua Foreign Firm (north section of Datong Road in the urban area), which was the largest foreign firm in Xinyang at that time, employed more than 30 Chinese as compradors in addition to the Japanese.The foreign firm signed a contract with the Japanese field warehouse and cargo factory. The cloth and miscellaneous goods it needed were supplied by the field warehouse, and the purchased sesame, soybeans, charcoal, and copper were delivered to the field warehouse.Japan's Ni Yu Agency (a Japanese special activity point) is a foreign firm that mainly buys copper and iron.The foreign firm is a business run by the Japanese Empress and has connections with the Japanese Navy. When it opened in February 1944, the scale was very small, with only more than 20 bags of salt. Later, it developed cloth, matches (matches), opium, etc., bought a car, and added two purchase points in the countryside. Collect tens of thousands of catties of copper.The operation of these commercial firms is to do business in name, but in fact it is to plunder under clever pretext. Wherever the Japanese army went, in addition to burning, killing, and looting, they also raped women and killed children, committing heinous crimes. Once the Japanese army arrived in Xinyang, in order to vent their animal desires, they brutally murdered and raped civilian women and women.During the seven years, the Japanese army raped women and killed children in a large number, and the methods were brutal, reaching an unprecedented level.To an appalling extent, they often imprisoned the captured women in a large air-raid shelter opposite the People's Cinema and a large house on the east side of the Zhongshan intersection for them to vent their beastliness and enjoy themselves.Countless women were murdered there. According to eyewitnesses, the corpses of murdered women were often transported out, and innocent women were often dragged in. Four of the six members of the family surnamed Wang in Chengxiguan were killed by enemy planes, leaving 10-year-old Wang Laizhi and his sister-in-law. One day in the winter of 1938, Japanese soldiers broke into his house and captured his sister-in-law. Wang Laizhi ran out in fright. Drown him alive.Then he raped his sister-in-law and stabbed him to death with a knife.In the winter of the same year, Li Zhongfu's family of six fled to Yanghe, where they were caught by a group of Japanese soldiers, who first beat Li Zhongfu and four other men to death, then gang-raped his wife and daughter, and stabbed him to death. Temple, two Japanese soldiers captured a young woman with a child, raped her and stabbed her to death with a bayonet.The child cried out in fright, and the Japanese soldiers threw the child on the haystack and burned him to death.In March of the same year, two drunken Japanese soldiers broke into the home of Tongma (12 years old at the time) in Fujiagang in the southern suburbs and forced his father to find the "flower girl".Tong Mo's father was too frightened to speak, and the Japanese soldier chopped off one arm and cut off Tong Mo's head with another knife, and rolled over a distance of ten feet.Another time, Japanese soldiers forced Mao Huabao, an old man in Maojia Village, to find a woman, but the old man refused.The Japanese soldiers cut off his right arm with one knife, dragged him to the field outside the door, and hacked him to death. The Japanese invaders occupied Xinyang for 7 years.During this period, countless heinous crimes were committed in military, political, economic, cultural and other fields, especially the bloody massacre of the people of Xinyang, which exposed the barbaric nature of Japanese imperialism.The people of Xinyang, like the people of the whole country, will never forget the crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists in aggression against China.