Chapter 106 14. Confessions of Japanese prisoners of war

In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the Eighth Route Army combat troops found it difficult to capture Japanese prisoners. Most of the Japanese soldiers were stubborn, and they harbored a deep fear of the Eighth Route Army in their hearts.The more this is the case, the greater the significance of educating and reforming the Japanese prisoners.Master Liu Bocheng once said: "It is a good thing to capture captives. If we can educate and influence them well, then they will go back and publicize for us. There is an old saying that although the whip is as long as the horse's belly, this kind of propaganda is ours. We can't do it. We should have this confidence that the power of the Communist Party is enough to transform them into new people."

As long as the Japanese soldiers are willing to lay down their arms, they are our brothers.After this sentence was translated into Japanese by Zhang Xiangshan, Chief of the Enemy Engineering Section of the Jindongnan Military Region of the Eighth Route Army, it moved almost all the Japanese prisoners. They kept repeating in Japanese: Brother!brother! A wounded Japanese soldier who was captured by the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army in the "Hundred Regiments War" recalled: Our squadron was completely wiped out, and the rest of us were taken as prisoners. I was worried that the Eighth Route Army would kill me in some cruel way.But in the hospital, the wounded Eighth Route Army soldier who lived with me was very kind to me. Even when I urinated at night, I called him up, and he responded to every request.

"When I left Japan, I didn't shed tears when I said goodbye to my mother and brother, but when I parted from him this time, I couldn't help but burst into tears." In August 1940, Corporal Kagawa Takashi and others captured by the Eighth Route Army in the "Hundred Regiments War" were received by Zhang Xiangshan, a cadre of the Eighth Route Army who spoke fluent Japanese.Zhang Xiangshan was very familiar with the internal situation of the Japanese army, and thought very carefully for the prisoners: "If your troops know that you have been captured by the Eighth Route Army, then your family members in Japan will definitely suffer. So you should immediately consider choosing another name to replace the original name." Thus, Kagawa Takashi became Umeda according to the text.

After being captured, 100 days passed in the blink of an eye.There is an unwritten rule in the Japanese army, as long as 100 days have passed, even if you return to the army, you will be sent to military law for processing.Therefore, when Zhang Xiangshan proposed to send them to Yan'an, none of them objected. The soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who escorted them did not mean to treat them as prisoners or mistreat them at all. They protected them in battle and cared for them in life. They would rather eat coarse grains by themselves than cook delicious meals for them. Soak your feet. Umeda Teruwen and his party took a vivid education class along the way. They personally experienced the armed forces led by the Communist Party behind enemy lines, witnessed the burning, killing and raping of their own compatriots in the "Land of Kings", and saw the tension between the Chinese people and the Eighth Route Army. The love of fish and water.

If we say that when they left Matian, Shanxi in 1940, they still held the resistance of captive soldiers, then after they arrived in Yan'an in June 1941, they had unknowingly regarded themselves as part of the anti-Japanese torrent.All the Japanese prisoners sent to Yan'an experienced the mental journey of Terufumi Umeda and his party. In the Battle of Zhengtai Road in the Battle of Hundred Regiments, something like this happened: Comrades from the rear of the Eighth Route Army hid in a cave with two Japanese prisoners.When the footsteps of the Japanese army searching the mountain approached the cave, one of the prisoners was shaken by fear and tried to run out to inform the Japanese army and make meritorious deeds for atonement.

Another prisoner who came with him grabbed him and asked him in a low voice: "How can the Eighth Route Army feel sorry for you? Do you still have a conscience for doing this?" The Japanese army outside the cave was getting closer and closer, and the prisoner rushed up and grabbed his neck fiercely with his hands... The enemy is far away, and the comrades of the Eighth Route Army are out of danger.The Japanese captive who tried to tip off the news was also strangled to death by his companions.Later, this story spread among the Eighth Route Army, and everyone was very moved. In short, the Japanese anti-war organization's political offensive against the enemy shook the morale of the Japanese army, seriously damaged the Japanese army's combat and organizational capabilities, and caused the intensification of the Japanese army's internal political crisis. It caused great panic in the Japanese military.The Japanese military department even regards the anti-war organization, which has only a few hundred people at best and a thousand people at most, as equal to the strength of several divisions.Although the Japanese military department took various sabotage activities, with the support of the Chinese anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians, the Japanese anti-war organizations launched a strong counterattack, so the Japanese military department had no choice but to issue "the methods of the Eighth Route Army to disintegrate the imperial army, the most powerful is preferential treatment and The release of the captives, "The anti-war alliance conducts propaganda against Japanese soldiers anytime and anywhere, and it is impossible to guard against it", "The anti-war struggle of the Japanese People's Liberation League has shaken the people's belief in victory, and even instigated opposition goals among several officers and soldiers", etc. .