Chapter 22 Chapter VIII Surrender

Gao Wenbin——Translated by the Chinese Procuratorate for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East Robert Donahan - U.S. Attorney at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East Rao Pingru——At that time, he was the platoon leader of the second platoon of the mortar company of the 188th Regiment of the 63rd Division of the 100th Army Chen Haiwu——At that time, he was the mechanic of the Fifth Brigade of the Sino-US Mixed Air Wing Zhao Zhenying——Major Battalion Commander of the 1st Battalion of the 40th Regiment of the 14th Division of the New Sixth Army Yang Yongbin——At that time, he was the captain and company commander of the 57th Division of the 74th Army

Wu Song——At that time, he was a captain and a member of the manager's office of the director department of the ninth war zone Li Xianglin——At that time, he was the commander of the second company of the first battalion of the third artillery regiment I am torn.After I read the Chinese translation of the surrender statement read by the Emperor of Japan in 1945, I didn't know how to describe the day of victory in the War of Resistance. Did the Japanese really declare their surrender?This is the first problem I struggle with. In the edict to end the war, the Japanese emperor said nothing about surrender.In all the video materials we have seen now, the Japanese civilians kowtowed and wept in front of the camera, they are just lamenting that the Japanese emperor was forced to accept the "Potsdam Proclamation".This kind of compulsion made the Japanese feel humiliated, and this kind of humiliation has been with the Japanese for many years.It is said that on August 15 every year, Japanese radio stations will broadcast the voice of the Japanese emperor reading the edict to end the war, and Japanese citizens will stop their work at that moment, face the direction where the emperor is, bow their heads and weep .

Are they commemorating the peace that began at that moment?I hope so. For a long time, we have regarded the surrender ceremony held in Zhijiang, Hunan on August 21, 1945 as a sign, as if the Japanese army had officially surrendered since that day, but according to historical data, the representative of the Japanese army’s surrender on that day was not Okamura Neji, but only his adjutant Imai Takeo and his team.They also didn't carry any surrender schedules or anything like that.Some sources say that on that day, the Japanese said, I am going to surrender, but I need to send an adjutant to sit down with your commander-in-chief and discuss how to surrender.

Ten days later, the Japanese surrendered to Allied forces aboard the USS Missouri.It is said that on that day, all the U.S. troops on the "Missouri" who participated in the surrender ceremony took off their military rank marks, because they felt that if they received Japanese surrender representatives as soldiers, they were not qualified. Then there is Nanjing 7 days later.Regarding the memory of the surrender ceremony, the old man Zhao Zhenying’s narration is more detailed than what I described in the film, but the most exciting part of the old man Zhao Zhenying is that they are wearing custom-made riding boots, breeches and brand-new American military uniforms, all of which are It was the best equipment at the time.

I always hear people say that people only pay attention to what they want to see. As a result, we can only see the national celebration in 1945 and the weeping and kowtowing of the Japanese, but is this the real history? I don't want to liquidate or turn over old accounts, but I don't want to leave a one-sided history to future generations, although I can't explain the ins and outs of history clearly.But at least years later, someone will want to make sense of that summer of 1945.So I repeated the sentence that Mei Ruao wrote in the diary.Maybe many people will forget it, maybe many people will laugh at it, but I believe there will be some people who will remember it.

History cannot be forgotten. On May 3, 1946, Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East held its first session.This international tribunal, composed of judges and prosecutors from 11 countries including China, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France, is about to begin the Tokyo Trial that attracts worldwide attention.Gao Wenbin, the translator of the Chinese procuratorate, sat in the public gallery with mixed emotions. Gao Wenbin recalled: "That place was the original location of the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer Academy. Hideki Tojo and Kenji Doihara all came out of this school. During the war, that place was also the location of the Japanese Army's General Staff Headquarters. It used to be there to issue orders and invade other countries. The country, now judging you as a court, has a sense of reckoning."

On January 19, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East was established, and China appointed jurist Mei Ru'ao as the Chinese judge.A committee of prosecutors from 11 countries filed an indictment with the court on April 29 of that year.Of the 28 defendants, except for the death of Matsuoka Yosuke and other 3 people who were exempted from prosecution, 25 people were actually tried.The indictment charged the accused with crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity from January 1, 1928 to September 2, 1945.Robert Donahan, the U.S. Attorney for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East at the time, said: "The tribunal mainly tried Japanese government officials for crimes committed by Japan before and during World War II."

Just after the court session, Gao Wenbin became angry-Okawa Zhouming in the dock yelled loudly from time to time, disturbing the normal order of the court. Gao Wenbin said: "This man is a theorist who writes articles advocating Japan's war of aggression. He is not a member of the army, but a civilian. There are two rows in the dock. He sits in the highest row, and Hideki Tojo sits in the Below him, he went to hit Hideki Tojo on the head. The U.S. military police came up and took him away." Okawa Zhouming, who was taken away, never returned to the court.The jury of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East finally decided to abandon the prosecution against him, because Okawa Zhouming suffered from mental illness after being identified by a medical expert appointed by the court.However, Gao Wenbin knew in his heart that Okawa Zhouming's abnormal behavior was a fake, and his mental illness was fake. "After he was released, it was said that he was faking mad, and the Americans also knew that he was faking mad."

Although many people knew that Okawa Zhouming was performing a farce when he was taken out of the court, but Chinese prosecutors were helpless in the court where evidence needs to be spoken.In the dock, the rest of the war criminals also harbored ulterior motives.Kenji Doihara, who once planned the establishment of the Puppet Manchukuo, shirked all his responsibilities in the war to his subordinates; Seishiro Itagaki, who initiated the "September 18th" Incident, prepared a 48-page written testimony, threatening to fight with the prosecutor. They fought for three hundred rounds. Gao Wenbin said: "They knew that they would die if they didn't defend themselves, and they might still survive if they defended themselves, so they pushed the charges to the bottom, and said that the crimes they were accused of were groundless, just two words: Cunning."

According to Gao Wenbin's recollection, each war criminal had at least one American defense lawyer, and at the same time hired 2 to 6 Japanese lawyers, making the entire defense team as high as 310 people. "These defendants turned out to be high-ranking Japanese officials and very rich. They all listened to the United States and asked American lawyers to defend them." When the Far East International Military Tribunal opened, the war had been over for nine months, and the war criminals in the dock showed no remorse.Gao Wenbin knows that although Japan has surrendered, it does not mean that the war criminals will definitely plead guilty, and around the surrender and trial, the turbulent political game has just begun.

At 12:00 noon on August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito of Japan read out the "Armistic Edict" to the whole country: "Although the land and sea generals are brave and good at fighting, all the officials and officials are working hard to govern, and the 100 million people are serving the public. It has not improved, and the general situation in the world is not in our favor. In addition, the enemy has recently used brutal bombs, killing innocent people frequently, and the extent of the damage is really unpredictable. If the war continues, it will not only lead to the demise of our nation, but also destroy The civilization of mankind. If so, how can I preserve the billions of children and thank them to the gods of the emperor's ancestors. This is why I ordered the imperial government to accept the joint announcement." It is worth noting that there is no mention of surrender in the Armistice Edict.For most, though, at this moment, the war is over. On the same day, Chiang Kai-shek, as the supreme commander of the Chinese theater, called Neiji Okamura, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Chinese Expeditionary Force stationed in Nanjing, instructing him to follow the principles of surrender: "Should immediately order the subordinate Japanese troops to stop all military operations; after the military operations cease, the Japanese troops They can temporarily keep their arms and equipment, maintain their current situation, maintain order and traffic in their location, and wait for the orders of General He Yingqin, the commander-in-chief of the Chinese Army." On the same day, Zhu De also called Neiji Okamura in the name of "Commander-in-Chief of the Anti-Japanese Army in the Liberated Areas of China": "You should order all the troops under your command to obey the orders of the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and the South China Anti-Japanese Column in the Liberated Areas of China, and surrender to us. . except for the part surrounded by the troops of the Kuomintang government." The surrender dispute between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party has actually started secretly.On August 10, when the Japanese government expressed its acceptance of the "Potsdam Proclamation", Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to He Yingqin, which mentioned that "the enemy forces within the jurisdiction should be warned not to surrender or disarm anyone other than the military chief I have designated."At the same time, the Secretariat of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang sent He Yingqin a surrender policy: "In order to prevent traitors (referring to the Chinese Communist Army) from occupying cities and towns without authorization, the command should issue orders first. During Japan's surrender, all parts of the country The troops should absolutely be at the disposal of the Supreme Command, and anyone who acts without authorization will be regarded as a rebel." With the active support of the United States, Chiang Kai-shek issued a series of telegrams on August 10 and 11, requiring all theaters to "advance with the main force to disarm the enemy." Armed", "Puppet troops in various places should be responsible for maintaining local law and order at their current locations", but the telegram to Zhu De, Commander-in-Chief of the Eighteenth Army Group, contained another content: "The troops affiliated to this group army should be stationed on standby. The troops in the combat areas of each theater should be under the jurisdiction of the commanders of the respective theaters, and should not act without authorization.” Neiji Okamura later revealed in his memoirs that, based on the intentions of the United States and Chiang Kai-shek, he ordered his troops to surrender only to the Chiang army, and not to surrender or disarm other anti-Japanese troops. The U.S. military entered Tianjin, Beiping, Qinhuangdao, Tangshan and other places, and transported the Kuomintang army to North China to receive surrender with a large number of aircraft and warships. After Japan surrendered, the scope of surrender in the Chinese theater was mainland China (the Northeast was surrendered to the Soviet Army), Taiwan and Vietnam north of 16 degrees north latitude.The Japanese troops that should surrender are: North China Front Army (326,244 people), Central China Sixth Front Army (290,367 people), Beijing-Shanghai Area Sixth Army, Thirteenth Army (330,397 people), Guangdong Front Twenty-third Army (137,386 people), The Tenth Army of Taiwan (169,031 people), the 38th Army (29,815 people) in the area north of the 16th north latitude of Vietnam (29,815 people), and a total of 1,283,240 troops surrendered.The puppet troops who surrendered totaled 683,569 according to statistics from the Kuomintang Military Commission. Guo Rugui and Huang Yuzhang edited "China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Frontal Battlefield Operations" said, "The Kuomintang used its legal status to completely monopolize the acceptance of surrender." On August 16, 1945, Chiang Kai-shek delivered a radio speech to the Chinese people in Chongqing, announcing the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.He said: "Today the enemy army has been defeated by our allies. Of course, we must strictly oblige him to faithfully implement all the terms of surrender, but we do not want revenge, let alone insult the innocent people of the enemy country. The Nazi warlords were fooled and driven to show mercy and make them extricate themselves from their mistakes and crimes. You must know that if they use violence to answer their previous wrong sense of superiority, they will retaliate with grievances and never end. This is by no means the purpose of our righteous teachers.” On this day, in the military camp in the western suburbs of Shaoyang, Hunan Province, the victory parade had not yet ended. Outside the gate of the camp, Rao Pingru, the leader of the second platoon of the mortar company of the 188th Regiment of the 63rd Division of the 100th Army, was killed A deputy head surnamed Wang held his hands tightly. "He said, I'm going this time, good or bad is uncertain, I don't know what will happen, if I don't come back, please help me write down how I sacrificed." Rao Pingru recalled that Deputy Head Wang was going to The place is Shaoyang City four or five miles away.The 116th Division of the Japanese Army stationed in Shaoyang City has been confronting the 100th Army for two full months. Rao Pingru recalled: "Commander Li Tianxia ordered the 188th Regiment to send a messenger to tell the commander of the Japanese 116th Division to surrender to us immediately." Deputy head Wang and a squad leader were ordered to go to Shaoyang City to demand that the Japanese disarm and surrender. Rao Pingru said: "They found a bamboo pole, tore apart a white sheet, and made a white flag. The white flag has two meanings in the army: one means surrender, and the other means the envoy of the army. At one o'clock, they found a horse, deputy head Wang rode the horse, and the squad leader held a white flag." Rao Pingru remembered that starting from the military camp, Shaoyang City was just across a mountain. "They arrived at the edge of the city. Suddenly, more than a dozen Japanese soldiers ambushed in the woods on both sides rushed out, pulled Deputy Commander Wang off his horse, blindfolded both of them with a cloth, and led them into the city." The whole night, Rao Pingru didn't close his eyes, he was waiting for the news from Shaoyang City. "The next day, they came back. Deputy Commander Wang said that he saw some Japanese officers lose their temper, knocking on the table with sabers, chattering, and didn't know what to say. One Japanese officer cut seppuku He committed suicide. Someone told him through an interpreter: "You have been to our headquarters, and you have seen our situation. Normally, I will goug out your eyes. Now that you are an emissary, forget it, you go back." We're not surrendering, we don't have to surrender.'” Rao Pingru didn't understand why the Japanese army in Shaoyang City still refused to disarm after the Emperor of Japan announced his surrender? "The surrender of the Chinese dispatched army was not because of its own defeat, but because of the surrender of the country, it had to surrender." These words in Okamura Neiji's memoirs were the general mentality of the Japanese army at that time. On the morning of August 21, 1945, Takeo Imai, the representative of Neiji Okamura and the deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, took Neiji Okamura's special plane from Wuhan to Zhijiang, Hunan to discuss surrender matters. Takeo Imai, who was the military attache of the Japanese Consulate in Beiping at the time, witnessed the July 7th Incident eight years ago. Zhijiang is an ancient small town in the Xuefeng mountain area of ​​western Hunan.In April of that year, in order to compete for the Zhijiang Air Force Base, the last battle in the Anti-Japanese War, the Battle of Xiangxi, started. After 55 days and nights of fierce fighting, the Japanese army was defeated, with more than 20,000 casualties. This day is a day when Zhijiang people feel proud.Chen Haiwu, who was the mechanic of the Fifth Brigade of the Sino-American Mixed Aviation Wing at the time, recalled: "People who lived more than ten miles outside Zhijiang City all came to see it. The Zhijiang Airport was full of people. We stood beside the runway." At 11:15 in the morning, a plane carrying 8 people including Takeo Imai appeared over the Zhijiang Airport, and two red cloths with a length of 3 meters were tied on the tail of the plane to show the surrender.Above the Japanese aircraft, there are three fighter planes driven by Chinese pilots. Chen Haiwu said: "Our plane escorted the Japanese plane on it. When it arrived at Zhijiang, it first circled twice at the airport at low altitude to show respect. Our command platform told it to land before it landed." Imai Takeo later described the plane he was on in his memoirs: "It has suffered a lot from war. Not only is the paint peeling off and mottled, but it is also full of bullet marks. The more it looks, the more shabby it becomes." Chen Haiwu remembered that when Takeo Imai was approved to get off the plane, he kept his head down. "He didn't dare to look up, got into a jeep, and a white flag was planted on the jeep." At this time, the crowd of onlookers began to commotion.Wan Jinyu, the head of the second and third divisions of the first division of the Chinese Army General Headquarters, who participated in the surrender work, later recalled in the article: "The onlookers shouted the slogans of 'Down with Japanese imperialism' and 'Judgment of Japanese war criminals' angrily. The sound was so loud that it resounded through the sky. Hearing such angry slogans, Imai and others pretended to be calm on the surface, but in fact they were ashen-faced in shock and dared not look up. They sat in the car and let everyone hunt for the camera." After Imai Takeo and his party left the airport, the onlookers couldn't get enough of it, so they simply tore off the two red cloths on the tail of the Japanese plane, divided them into many small pieces, and kept one piece for each person as a souvenir. Chen Haiwu said that on the way from the airport to the negotiation venue, there were many military police to maintain order at the scene. "There is a gendarme only about two or three feet away." At 3 p.m., Lieutenant General Xiao Yisu, Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army General Headquarters, received Takeo Imai and his accompanying staff officers on behalf of General He Yingqin, Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army.Accompanying the interview were Lieutenant General Leng Xin, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army General Command, and General Pat Noor, Chief of Staff of the US Combatant Command in the China Theater. Chen Haiwu recalled: "In that auditorium, the Japanese sat on the bottom and our officers sat on the top. They could do whatever they wanted. They were honest and didn't have much to say." After Takeo Imai presented the map of Japan's military deployment in China, he listened quietly to the Chinese side reading aloud the "Memorandum No. "The word 'surrender' one after another in the "Memorandum" violently impacted the nerves of the Japanese representative. Soon, beads of sweat broke out on Takeo Imai's head, and the adjutant beside him also closed his lips tightly, feeling like he was sitting on pins and needles. Takeo Imai later said: Describe the state of mind as the envoy of surrender: "We who have been defeated in battle seem to be cut off from the future by a dark wall, and the desperate loneliness and uneasiness cannot be eliminated.'” In Chen Haiwu's impression, the surrender ceremony did not last long. "During the whole process, Takeo Imai didn't say a word of apology." Six days after the surrender of Zhijiang, Leng Xin flew to Nanjing and began preparations for the official surrender ceremony to be held in Nanjing.Later, he wrote in his memoirs: "When the plane arrived over Nanjing and overlooked the whole city of Nanjing, although the rivers and mountains were still there, they were devastated. There were three or five dilapidated planes on the airport, parked in the desolate vines, feeling desolate. The Prime Minister's Mausoleum Well, it's been eight years, I don't know if it's still intact..." On September 9, 1945, the Nanjing Central Military Academy Auditorium, following the Japanese surrender signing ceremony held on September 2 on the USS Missouri cruiser in Tokyo Bay, the surrender signing ceremony of the Chinese theater was held here. Early in the morning, Zhao Zhenying, major battalion commander of the 1st Battalion of the 40th Regiment of the 14th Division of the New Sixth Army, put on a brand new military uniform.The first battalion was ordered to undertake the task of guarding the venue of the surrender signing ceremony.The number and positions of soldiers inside and outside the venue were arranged by Zhao Zhenying the day before and rehearsed repeatedly. "My new military uniform was temporarily made in Nanjing. How could you wear riding boots when you were fighting? If you want to go to such a big occasion, you can't wear straw sandals or cloth shoes." Zhao Zhenying recalled, "The soldiers all wear steel helmets. Carrying a backpack and carrying a gun, but the bullets are not loaded. Such a ceremony, good equipment is used." At 8:50 in the morning, the four crystal lamps in the auditorium were lit up, and Zhao Zhenying immediately became nervous.He saw Okamura Ningji, the representative of the Japanese army’s surrender, and 7 people got off from 3 cars respectively, and followed the Chinese personnel, “holding hats in their hands, walking with their heads down, looking dejected. It's possible." More than 1,000 people, including senior Chinese generals, Allied military officers, and Chinese and foreign journalists, attended the surrender signing ceremony. Wan Jinyu's article "The Inside Story of Japan's Surrender and the Surrender of the Chinese Army Headquarters" described the specific process of the ceremony: At 8:56 on the same day, He Yingqin led 4 military officers who participated in the surrender into the arena, and Chinese and foreign military officers and guests stood in silence to pay their respects.He Yingqin sat in the center of the surrender table, with Admiral Chen Shaokuan and Air Force Colonel Zhang Tingmeng on his left; Army Admiral Gu Zhutong and Lieutenant General Xiao Yisu on his right.It has a clock and a set of Chinese stationery in the center. At 8:58, General Wang Junzhong, the deputy director of our military training department, guided the surrender representatives of the Japanese army out of the waiting room and entered the venue to the prescribed position. They stood at attention and bowed 45 degrees to General He Yingqin, who was sitting in the middle of the surrender bench.He bowed to answer and ordered to sit down.Representatives of the surrender of the Japanese army sat in the surrender seats according to the regulations (issued with the "Memorandum"). Okamura Neiji was in the middle, facing He Yingqin on the surrender seat. He could see the Chinese, American, British , the flags of the four major allied countries of the Soviet Union and the giant golden "V" logo (that is, the meaning of victory).Lieutenant General Kobayashi Asaburo Kobayashi, Chief of Staff of the Japanese Expedition to China, Vice Chief of General Staff, Major General Imai Takeo, Staff Officer, Army Lieutenant Kiyoshi Ogasawara, etc., sat on the left side of Ningji Okamura in turn; Japanese Fleet Stationed in China Commander and Vice Admiral Fukuda Ryozo, Taiwan Army Chief of Staff and Army Lieutenant General Haruki Yoshiyama, Chief of Staff of the 38th Army and Army Chief Masao Misawa, etc., sat on the right side in turn.A total of 7 representatives of the Japanese army surrendered, all of whom attended according to the personnel regulations in the "Memorandum No. 19 of Zhongzi"; At 9:04, He Yingqin ordered Ningji Okamura to present the supporting documents, and Okamura took out the documents and handed them over to Chief of General Staff Kobayashi to present to General He Yingqin.After Ho's inspection, he immediately left the proof document, and handed over two Chinese copies of the Japanese surrender letter to Chief of Staff Xiao Yisu and submitted it to Neiji Okamura.Okamura immediately stood up and accepted it with both hands, while Chief of the Japanese Army General Staff Kobayashi rubbed ink for it.Okamura flipped through the letter of surrender in a hurry, while holding a pen and sucking a pen, he signed the two letters of surrender without any hesitation, and took out a round crystal stamp from his right pocket, and stamped it under the signature.At this time, Chinese and foreign journalists were scrambling to capture this rare and fleeting shot, and the momentary surrender represented Xi Dun as the focus of film cameras and cameras.The letters, pens and inkstones on the desk, and the military cap that Okamura put on the desk all became the lens of great interest to the reporter.After Okamura signed and affixed his seal, he ordered his Chief of General Staff Kobayashi to submit the letter of surrender to General He Yingqin, while nodding his head, indicating that the Japanese army had completed the surrender ceremony.Xiao Lin carefully held the two surrender letters to the surrender table, and presented them to General He Yingqin with both hands.After He's inspection, he signed and stamped the surrender letter of the Japanese army.One of them was ordered to be delivered to Okamura by Chief of Staff Xiao Yisu.Okamura stood up to accept.He Yingqin handed the "Order No. 1" issued by Jiang Zhongzheng, the supreme commander of the Chinese theater, together with the acceptance certificate, to Chief of Staff Xiao Yisu and transferred to Okamura.Okamura immediately signed and stamped the acceptance certificate, and sent the acceptance certificate to General He Yingqin, Chief of General Staff Kobayashi.At this point, He Yingqin announced the withdrawal of the Japanese military representatives.Lieutenant General Wang Jun still guided the representatives of the Japanese army to leave their seats, bowed to General He Yingqin, and then exited the auditorium. The whole ceremony ended in only 20 minutes. Witnessing the surrender ceremony in person, Zhao Zhenying had mixed feelings.For a veteran of the eight-year war of resistance, 20 minutes is too short.Although at the end of the ceremony, Neiji Okamura and his party bowed deeply to the Chinese representatives who accepted the surrender, in Zhao Zhenying's view, such an expression of apology obviously could not heal the humiliation, injury and suffering suffered by the Chinese people in the past eight years. suffering. The Japanese had to bear the humiliation of defeat. Neiji Okamura wrote in his diary on this day: "This is always a painful situation that was never expected." Outside Nanjing, Yang Yongbin, captain and company commander of the 57th Division of the 74th Army, was ordered to lead his troops to accept the surrender of the Japanese troops stationed around Nanjing. "The Japanese saluted us when they saw us, and even knelt and worshiped us. If we won the battle, we are really kings." Yang Yongbin lamented, "Their commander, we don't care about him. He is afraid of us. He gives us swords, cameras, everything, and flatters us. He is afraid that if we abuse them." The Japanese, who used to show off their might, have become cautious now, and Yang Yongbin has experienced the thrill of a winner. Compared with Yang Yongbin, Wu Song, the captain and member of the manager's department of the Ninth War Zone, has more complicated feelings as the winner. In September 1945, he arrived in Nanchang with the army.At this time, there were no Japanese on the streets of Nanchang, and the Japanese soldiers who had been stationed here had already been sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, waiting to be repatriated. When inspecting the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, Wu Song found a piece of paper on the wall with the word "forbearance" written on it. "At first I wanted to tear it off, but then I thought, it's not good to tear it off, as if we were afraid of them, so I didn't. Then I saw a Japanese army major, and I asked him to come over. When he came, I said Pointing to the word 'forbearance', he smiled and said: "You said that China will be destroyed in three months, is it destroyed? You just want to endure and want to take revenge, which is impossible.'” The Japanese commander did not say much, but only hoped that the Chinese army would protect the lives of the Japanese prisoners of war. Wu Song recalled: "In the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, ordinary people ran to beat them. However, if we send troops to protect them, it is equivalent to protecting the enemy. We are unwilling. Later, we figured out a way to send them a rifle without bullets. And the gun bolt, let a Japanese soldier stand at the door with a gun, the common people don’t understand and dare not go in.” Li Xianglin, who also surrendered to the Japanese army and was the commander of the second company of the first battalion of the third artillery regiment, saw much more stubbornness. "We went to receive the artillery from the Japanese army. A Japanese captain came. After he handed the cannon to us, he saluted the cannon. I said: 'Why do you salute the cannon?' He said: 'This artillery has made great contributions.' I said : "What is the merit of this artillery?" He said: "This artillery has been fighting from Nanjing to Wuhan, and it has worked hard." I said: "Nonsense, your artillery has killed so many ordinary people in China, is there any merit?!" Li Xianglin said to the Japanese captain, you were defeated and surrendered. "He said: 'We did not defeat, did not surrender.' I said: 'Why not?' He said, 'We obeyed the emperor's order.' I said: 'Your emperor is so stupid, did you surrender without defeat? ?You should reflect on it. You launched a war of aggression and massacred many of our Chinese people. Don’t you admit such a big crime?!’ At the end, he said a sentence: ‘We will meet again in 30 years.’” Thirty years later, and many years later, Li Xianglin never saw the Japanese again. On November 17, 1945, the first ship to repatriate Japanese prisoners and overseas Chinese set sail from Tianjin Tanggu Port.In the following seven months, 3.1 million Japanese captives and overseas Chinese scattered across China were repatriated one after another. On February 15, 1946, the military tribunal for the trial of war crimes of the Ministry of National Defense opened in Nanjing. On February 6, 1947, the Nanjing Trial Court held a three-day public trial for the first criminal in the Nanjing Massacre and the head of the Sixth Division of the Japanese Invasion Army, Hisao Tani. On March 10 of that year, Hisao Tani was executed in Yuhuatai, Nanjing. shot. From August 1945 to May 1947, a total of 2,357 Japanese war criminals were arrested in various parts of China, and military courts for trial of war criminals were successively held in Beiping, Nanjing, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, Taiyuan, Xuzhou, Jinan, Taipei, Shenyang and other places. After trial, 35 war criminals were executed, and the rest were punished accordingly. In the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Chinese prosecutors are working day and night, hoping that war criminals will get the punishment they deserve, comfort the compatriots who died in the war, and seek justice and dignity for the suffering motherland. One day in June 1946, the night was already very deep, and the lights in the archives room on the third floor of the Tokyo International Prosecutor’s Office were still on. Gao Wenbin sat behind two thick stacks of Japanese military files, carefully reviewing them.Consulting the vast amount of Japanese military materials has become the daily work of the translator Gao Wenbin voluntarily. Gao Wenbin recalled the court trial at that time: "The court session is held every day from Monday to Friday. All the defendants, regardless of whether the case is related to him or not, have to come to listen. Some defendants stand there like wood, holding pencils on paper Draw and draw." What impressed Gao Wenbin was, "The Anglo-American legal system is different from the continental legal system to which our country belongs. In the Anglo-American legal system, when someone is caught, he is assumed innocent first, and then the prosecutor finds evidence to prove his guilt. So evidence is very important." Before Japan surrendered, the Japanese army destroyed a lot of evidence in a planned way, which greatly increased the difficulty for prosecutors to investigate and collect evidence.In order to collect more evidence, the Chinese procuratorate applied to the Allied Army Headquarters to open the internal files of the Japanese army. "We obtained some secret documents through special concessions." Gao Wenbin said. In the archive room on the third floor of the International Procuratorate, Gao Wenbin made an unexpected discovery. "Accidentally came across a newspaper that reported that two Japanese military officers had a killing contest in Nanjing. One killed 106 people and the other killed 105 people. Because he cut the Chinese head with a knife until the edge of the knife became blunt, he lost. .” This newspaper was the "Tokyo Nihonichi Shimbun" on December 13, 1937. The two Japanese military officers in the report have been hailed as "warriors" by the Japanese military circles. "They are demons who committed murder. We didn't have specific evidence before, but we finally found it." Gao Wenbin said. At the beginning of 1947, Gao Wenbin dug up this newspaper from the internal archives of the Japanese army and submitted it to the international inspection team as an important material evidence of the Nanjing Massacre.At the same time, Gao Wenbin also sent a copy of the newspaper back to China. On October 25, 1947, the "China War Criminals Handling Committee" extradited to China the war criminals Toshiaki Mukai and Takeshi Noda who were involved in a "murder contest" in Nanjing. On December 18, the two were sentenced to death. On January 28, 1948, Toshiaki Mukai and Takeshi Noda were escorted to Yuhuatai, Nanjing, to be executed by shooting. On August 15, 1946, at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, John Magee, a missionary from the United States, testified as a witness for the prosecution.The American pastor who helped Chinese civilians during the Nanjing Massacre brought his 105-minute documentary to the court and screened it as important evidence. The real picture of the Nanjing Massacre shocked the world. In September of that year, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East set up an independent unit to investigate the truth about the Nanjing Massacre.Gao Wenbin found that the number of Japanese who came to the court to listen suddenly increased.Many Japanese people have been queuing up to receive audition tickets from the night before, and some people even resell audition tickets on the black market near the court. Gao Wenbin said that after learning about the Nanjing Massacre in court, "Some Japanese suddenly realized that their soldiers were like this, because they had seen in newspapers that their soldiers were the bravest and most capable. It turned out to be worse than robbers. It was as if they had woken up from a dream, men and women with their heads bowed, feeling ashamed that they had been cheated by the Emperor." In the face of irrefutable evidence, the war criminals had a premonition that the end was coming.Chinese judge Mei Ru'ao recalled: "Dong Tiao was as rigid as a clay sculpture, without any of the prestige and arrogance of the past. Today, Matsuoka Yosuke is sallow and emaciated, and his beard is a mess. The most pitiful thing is Nanjing University. The chief murderer of the massacre, Matsui Iwane. My God, this is a poor man who is as tame as a sheep. The English newspaper said that this murderous general looked like a bank secretary who had lost his job and owed his salary for a long time .This remark could not be more appropriate!" According to Mei Ru’ao’s recollection: From May 3, 1946 to November 12, 1948, the Tokyo Trial lasted two and a half years, with 818 court sessions, more than 48,000 pages of trial records, and 1,218 pages of verdicts, which took 8 full days to read. Among the 25 war criminals sentenced, Hideki Tojo, Iwane Matsui, Kenji Doihara, Seishiro Itagaki, Akira Muto, Heutaro Kimura, and Koki Hirota were all sentenced to death by hanging. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, 20 years for one war criminal, and 7 years for one war criminal. Although the Chinese side did not raise any objections to the verdict, in Gao Wenbin's view, there are still many regrets in this trial, especially that Emperor Hirohito of Japan was not sent to the trial seat. "At that time, the Soviet Union had become a major power. If the US government wanted to control Japan, it left the emperor behind." Robert Donahan said: "If I had to decide whether the emperor is guilty, I would recommend that he be convicted. However, the decision on whether to put Emperor Hirohito on trial is not my business. It is a political issue." In addition to Emperor Hirohito, Neiji Okamura also escaped responsibility for the war. On January 26, 1949, the military court of the national government declared him "not guilty" in Shanghai, and he was released back to China. Gao Wenbin said: "The International Tribunal originally wanted to send Neiji Okamura to Tokyo, because Neiji Okamura was very familiar with the situation of the Eighth Route Army when he was in North China, and the Kuomintang government kept him as a staff officer." On August 27, 2002, the Tokyo District Court made a first-instance judgment on the five-year-long lawsuit against the Chinese victims of the Japanese army’s bacterial warfare, affirming the fact that Unit 731 and other Japanese invaders launched bacterial warfare in China to kill the Chinese people. However, the 180 Chinese plaintiffs' demands for an apology and damages compensation to the Japanese government were rejected.The germ warfare launched by the Japanese invaders in China is one of the many remaining issues that were not tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Gao Wenbin agrees with what Mei Ruao said: "I am not a revanchist, and I have no intention of writing the blood debt owed by the Japanese militarism to the Japanese people. However, forgetting the suffering of the past may lead to disaster in the future ” Gao Wenbin, who was already old, wanted to write a memoir about the Tokyo Trial, but finally gave up due to a stroke, which became the greatest regret in his life. Gao Wenbin said: "Many times, when I close my eyes, my mind is full of blood and tear testimonies of hundreds of thousands of words of Chinese people that I have translated. History cannot be forgotten, yes, absolutely not!" By February 1946, most of the Japanese invaders had disarmed.According to the statistics of the Kuomintang Military Commission, the main weapons and equipment of the Japanese army collected include: 685,897 rifles, 60,377 pistols, 29,822 light and heavy machine guns, 12,446 artillery pieces, 383 tanks, 151 armored vehicles, military vehicles (including special vehicles) ) 15,785 vehicles, 74,159 military horses, 1,068 aircraft (291 usable, 626 waiting for repair, and 151 unusable), 26 warships (90 to 1,000 tons each), and speedboats and gunboats , 29 submarines.The above does not include the weapons and equipment of the puppet army (most of the puppet army turned into the Kuomintang army, only a few disarmed). Shortly after the Nanjing Surrender Ceremony, Mei Siping, minister of the Industry Department of Wang Puppet Nanjing Government, became the first batch of traitors arrested by the National Government, and the curtain of arresting and trialing traitors began.Mei Siping eventually became the first big traitor to be executed in Nanjing.From September 1945 to the end of that year, a total of 4,692 traitors were tried across the country and received their due fate.
8 years of war More than 35 million Chinese military and civilian casualties More than 100 million people's wives and children were separated The loss of property and war cost more than 600 billion U.S. dollars 如果你被这些可爱的老人感动，别忘了，这只是冰山一角。

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