Xinhua News Agency, Harbin, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- An unjust battle will kill itself -- a story of the Tiger Head Fortress.
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhu Yue.
The snow is white and the wind is cold. In the dim tunnel of the Hutou Fortress in Hulin City, Heilongjiang Province, there was a slight chill.
According to the book "Japanese Kwantung Army Fortresses", from 1934 to 1945, the Japanese army invading China built a total of 17 fortresses and 80,000 permanent fortifications in the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian border areas from Hunchun, Jilin Province in the east, through the Sino-Soviet border in Heilongjiang Province in the middle, and 5,000 kilometers to Hailar and Arshan in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the west. Tiger Head Fortress is one of them.
A corner of the Tiger Head Fortress Museum of the Japanese Invasion of China (taken on July 29). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhu Yue.
These deep "underground fortresses" contain dormitories, ammunition depots, power stations, hospitals, command rooms, etc., some with access to cars and some with hangars. According to historical records, the Tiger Head Fortress could accommodate up to tens of thousands of troops and a large number of supplies during the war. In that year, it was boasted by the invading Japanese army as a "permanent fortress of North Manchuria" that was not afraid of siege.
Wang Zongren, a member of the Chinese Society for the Study of the History of World War II, said that the Japanese army invading China had built a military fortress group with a total length of about 1,700 kilometers in northeast China, and the Hutou Fortress was an important part of it.
On the walls of the fortress, bullet holes from the fierce battles of the past are clearly visible, and some walls are full of bullet holes. These physical evidence vividly show the battle scenes of the rain of bullets and bullets in those years.
Rewind to 78 years ago, after Japan announced its unconditional surrender, the Japanese troops stationed at Tiger Head Fortress were still resisting. The Northeast Anti-Japanese Union fighters cooperated with the Soviet army to launch a fierce attack on the Tiger Head Fortress, and 11 days later, the Japanese army was completely annihilated, and the "last fierce battle" of World War II came to an end.
No matter how powerful the Japanese army was equipped and how strong the fortress was, it was doomed to failure because it was an unjust war of aggression they launched. Yu Shenglin, former director of the Hulin City Cultural Relics Management Institute, said.
Military fortresses hidden in the mountains and forests are not only historical sites and war wreckage, but also living historical textbooks.
On the inner wall of the Tiger Head Fortress Museum of the Japanese Invasion of China, several survivors' ** were hung. In the museum, the old man who stood in his late teens before was full of anger and sadness in his eyes.
Wu Shuang, a docent at the Tiger Head Fortress Museum of the Japanese Invasion of China, introduced that in order to identify the Chinese laborers, the Japanese army brutally cut off their right eyebrow, and many laborers who lost their ability to work were also sent to Unit 731 of the Japanese Invasion of China for human experiments.
Historical data show that in order to build a military fortress group in the northeast, the Japanese army lured and forcibly recruited millions of Chinese laborers. When these laborers were transported to the fortress, it was like entering hell on earth. They were poorly clothed, starved of food, and worked hard for more than 10 hours a day, and countless laborers died of exhaustion, disease, and were killed.
While building military fortresses, the invading Japanese army also explored and plundered the natural resources near the fortresses.
The smoke of war is gone. Today, Hulin has become a new border city with economic and trade prosperity. Wen Yongbao, deputy secretary of the Hulin Municipal Party Committee and mayor, said that Hulin City has actively built an important economic growth pole in the border areas of Heilongjiang Province through the development of border trade and characteristic industries, and is moving towards the goal of a national green organic food production base, a leisure summer resort base, and a northern medicine development and production base.
Against the backdrop of snow, the town under the Tiger Head Fortress is quiet and peaceful, but people will not forget the war catastrophe that happened here more than 70 years ago, and will cherish this hard-won peace and tranquility.