In 1937, Japan issued a plan to emigrate one million households to Manchuria, and planned to relocate Japanese people to Northeast China in batches to achieve the goal of long-term occupation of Northeast China.
This program is known as the "Pioneer Corps". Under the vigorous impetus of **, about 300,000 veterans and middle- and lower-class civilians poured into Northeast China, illegally seized land, and hired Chinese farmers to work for them.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, there were still nearly 300,000 Japanese agricultural immigrants in the northeast, with a total of 1.5 million. With the assistance of China**, these migrants were gradually repatriated.
In Tohoku, nearly 4,000 Japanese immigrants have been abandoned by the state, including a family of five from Tsuneyoshi Inobi. They came to China in February 1945, and after the Japanese surrendered, they became the last group of immigrants to flee into the primeval forests of the Xiaoxing'an Mountains.
However, Tsuneyoshi Pignose contracted an illness in the forest and eventually died. His family died or fled, and it wasn't until 1985 that they met again in the Northeast.
However, their mother had died many years ago and had not been able to return to Japan.
A family of five became homeless in pre-war China. In February 1945, according to the immigration plan, the Japanese sent the last group of pioneers to China.
Among them, Tsuneyoshi Tsunekishi, who is in his forties, and his wife Nobuko Takahashi took their three children to Sunwu County, Heilongjiang Province, on a long-distance transport boat. Tsuneyoshi Inonobi was an ordinary Japanese farmer who did not know much about the war.
His wife, Nobuko Takahashi, was a gentle and virtuous man, and one of their children worked as a farmer in the Japanese countryside, while the other followed their parents to China.
After the 918 Incident, the Japanese ** formulated a plan for the pioneer group, but most people had no interest in it. In order to attract more civilians to participate, it was announced that all farmers who participated in the pioneer group would be exempted from paying miscellaneous taxes for 10 years, not only for themselves, but also for their families.
Japan claims that the land of Tohoku is fertile and in urgent need of development. This sparked the interest of the general public, and many farmers responded to the call to China. Pig-nosed Nagayoshi is also one of them, and after registering with the ** department, he took his family on a journey.
After two months, they arrived in Sunwu County in the northeast, where they were incorporated into the pioneer group and obtained land, houses and production tools.
It turns out that these lands were cultivated by farmers in Northeast China. However, it was forcibly taken away by the Japanese troops stationed here by violent means or very low **, and a pioneer regiment was formed.
They used the land to grow crops, but let the Chinese peasants suffer in it. By the end of the war, a large number of young people in Japan had been sent to the battlefield, and the Tohoku pioneer regiment was mainly composed of the elderly, women, and children, and its combat effectiveness had been greatly weakened.
When the Soviet Union sent troops to the northeast, the Kwantung Army suffered heavy losses in the battle, and the remaining old and weak women and children fled in all directions. Pig-nosed Nagayoshi had just settled down in Sungo County, and before he could adapt to the agricultural life of the Northeast, he heard the news of the Japanese emperor's surrender.
During his stay in Sungo Prefecture, Inobi Nagayoshi gradually realized the truth of the war through communication with the local Japanese. He found that this war, known as the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity", was actually an act of aggression launched by the first country, which caused great harm to China's territory and people.
On Chinese soil, the Japanese flaunted their might and commanded the Chinese, leading to tensions between the two sides. With the improvement of the situation of the Anti-Japanese War, the attitude of the local Chinese towards the pioneer regiment changed, and they no longer regarded them as an invincible force, but an enemy who did not share the sky.
Finally, in August 1945, the Japanese emperor announced his surrender, and the Soviet Union sent troops to northeast China, sweeping away all the remnants of the Kwantung Army stationed there. Sunwu County was located on the Sino-Soviet border, and the war gradually spread to the county, and many of the Japanese in the pioneer regiment panicked and fled.
The Pig-nosed Nagayoshi family was no exception, they packed their bags and left the house and land assigned to them by the pioneer group.
During the catastrophe of the pioneer group, many Japanese men did not hesitate to shoot their wives and children in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Chinese. However, Pig-nosed Nagayoshi chose to take his family on the road to escape and avoid cruel revenge by the Chinese.
However, a large-scale ** campaign against the Japanese army was being launched in China, which made the Pig-nosed Nagayoshi family frightened. They tried to avoid densely populated places, and only walked through the forest paths and barren mountains.
After 4 days, they saw taller and taller trees and creatures they had never seen before, stumbling along the way, walking through the vast forest.
Nobuko Takahashi's family strayed into the 5 million hectares of primeval forest in the Little Khing'an Mountains, where no one has set foot and they lack the tools to survive.
Because of his chronic hunger and cold, he eventually fell to the ground and couldn't get up. The three children were heartbroken, and Nobuko Takahashi also cried bitterly because she couldn't save her husband's life.
However, she knew she had three more children to take care of and could not collapse because she had lost her husband. She buried her husband's body in tears, and led the youngest daughter and second son to the edge of the forest.
However, the youngest daughter, because of her weak body, was not as resistant as her older siblings, and after a day of walking, she developed a high fever, and the fate of the family became even more difficult.
The dangers of primeval forests are everywhere, and without medicine, it is easy to develop complications and even death after injury. Nobuko's family came out in a hurry, there was no medicine in the package, and the way out of the forest was still long.
Seeing the symptoms of flushing on her daughter's face, there was no one around to call for help, and Nobuko could only hug her daughter and the other children tightly and spend a desperate night. The next morning, Nobuko made the difficult decision to leave her daughter in a small depression, covered her clothes, and left with her two other children.
Halfway out, the daughter trembled and asked where her sister had gone, Nobuko was speechless, and the children realized something, so they silently did not ask again.
Nobuko collapsed at that moment, and she ran desperately for the way she came. At this moment, the little daughter's body has gradually become cold. Nobuko hugged her daughter tightly, tears almost coming out of her eyes, her body had reached its limit.
She buried her little daughter, and her heart was full of reluctance, but for the sake of the children, she had to be strong. With a child in her hand, she walked resolutely towards the edge of the forest. After three days and three nights of struggle, Nobuko and her two children finally saw the edge of the forest.
Through their own efforts, the mother and son were taken in by well-wishers, and each went to a different life. When Nobuko saw the two children with yellow faces and thin skins and tattered clothes, she gave them the only rice ball in her package and did not eat a single bite herself.
Although they left the Little Khing'an Mountains, Nobuko's motherly love will never change.
Watching her children finish eating rice balls, Nobuko recalled what her husband had told her before his death, that the Chinese were full of hatred for the Japanese, and that if the Chinese won the war, they would surely take cruel and merciless revenge on the Japanese.
Nobuko stood at the intersection of the forest and the village, pondering for a long time, and finally she decided that although the Chinese would take revenge on the Japanese soldiers and women, as long as the children remained silent, they would not be tortured by these innocent Japanese children.
After careful planning, Nobuko gathers the two children together and tells them that there is a Chinese village ahead and that the only way to survive is to go there. As long as they talk as little as possible, the Chinese will not know that they are descendants of the Japanese pioneer group, and they will have some sympathy.
Although the two children did not know why their mother was reluctant to walk with them, they still followed their mother's instructions and each took two different paths.
The Pig-nosed Nagayoshi family was completely separated, and Nobuko Takahashi never saw her child again. Nobuko watched the two children leave, then returned to the forest, found a large tree, untied her belt and hung it on it, ready to end her life.
However, this act of hers was seen by a passing hunter, who immediately rushed over to save her. Seeing that Nobuko spoke Japanese, the hunter was surprised, but he did not do any harm to Nobuko, but instead used gestures to tell her that the Chinese would not harm innocent Japanese civilians.
Although Nobuko was suspicious of this, she followed the hunter to the village, and the hunter gave her food, and Nobuko settled down in the village. A few years later, she married the hunter, and after the hunter died of typhoid fever, Nobuko buried him with the villagers.
After that, Nobuko was introduced by people to marry Wang Haishan from a nearby village and started a new life.
Wang Haishan, a typical Northeast man, has a bold personality and is careful and considerate, and his 6-year relationship with Nobuko is enviable. As for Nobuko's children, Lily and Changnan, after their mother left, Lily was adopted by Wang Huizhong, a kind-hearted villager of Banjuhe Village, who selflessly gave her food and water when Lily was hungry and thirsty, so that Lily could grow up healthily in Banjuhe Village.
Wang Huizhong took care of Lily as if she were his own daughter, and this selfless love made Lily grow up and spend 40 years in the Northeast and find her own happiness.
Because he was a little older, he knew a little about the relationship between China and Japan, so he didn't dare to set foot in the village easily. However, he was soon discovered by a family who had gone up to the mountains to hunt and was brought home by the kind ones.
Like his sister, he lived in the house for a long time, and when he grew up, he began to learn the skills of his adoptive parents, hunting and farming. Through the introduction of others, he found his partner in the county.
In the context of people-to-people exchanges between China and Japan, Japanese orphans returned to their hometowns and reunited with their relatives. In September 1945, Japan signed the instrument of surrender, acknowledging that the 14-year War of Resistance against Japan was an aggressive war.
According to the records of the former Soviet State Archives, Japan's Supreme War Guidance Council had instructed that in order to achieve the revival of the empire, the Japanese who remained in China should continue to settle in the region.
However, this instruction was intercepted by the USSR and sent to the commander-in-chief of the Soviet troops, Marshal Vasilevsky. Vasilevsky was furious when he saw this order, and he firmly opposed allowing 1.5 million Japanese to take root in the northeast region and possibly pose a threat to the country's strategic security.
With the cooperation of China, the United States and the Soviet Union, humanitarian actions to repatriate Japanese overseas Chinese in China began to be carried out. However, due to various reasons, by 1945, there were still some Japanese who had not been repatriated in the Tohoku and Inner Mongolia regions, including Nobuko Takahashi, who was married and remained in the Tohoku region.
Her two children, who also grew up with their adoptive parents, were unable to return to Japan.
In 1953, some overseas Chinese in Japan initiated activities to return to their hometowns to find their relatives, and received support from non-governmental organizations such as the Sino-Japanese Friendship Association. Nobuko Takahashi's husband, Wang Haishan, saw a relevant notice in the market, which stated that if the Japanese who stayed in China were willing to return to Japan, they could register with ** and go through the procedures in a unified manner.
Wang Haishan knew that Nobuko Takahashi had been thinking about his family in Japan, and although he was reluctant to cling to his wife, he still told her the news. Nobuko heard the news with mixed feelings, but she had family, relatives and friends in Japan, and her eldest son waiting for her at home.
After much deliberation, Nobuko decided to return to Japan. In the autumn of that year, Nobuko returned to Japan and met her family and friends, which strengthened her determination to find her two children who remained in Tohoku.
Accompanied by a friend, Nobuko went to the Japanese Red Cross Society with deep hopes that China would help her find the whereabouts of Lily Pignose and Pignose Nagao.
After receiving instructions from her superiors, the Public Security Bureau of Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, immediately sent a special person to get in touch with Xinzi, and according to the clues she provided, she ran around looking for the two children.
However, due to historical reasons, it was not until the 80s that the Public Security Bureau finally found traces of the two children. At this time, the pig-nosed man had already lived in Helen City, while the pig-nosed lily lived in Suileng County, although the distance between the two places was only 20 kilometers, but the years between them were 40 years apart.
In 1985, witnessed by many relatives and friends, the pig-nosed man and his sister the pig-nosed lily finally reunited, and they couldn't help but hug each other and cry when they saw that each other's temples were gray.
It turned out that Lily Pignose and her brother Pignose Nagao's mother had passed away in Japan. In 1988, they returned to their hometown of Hachinohe City and were warmly welcomed by their relatives.
At the welcome party, Mayor Hachinohe shared their experiences and expressed his deep gratitude to the Chinese people. Although they returned to Japan, they were always thinking about their adoptive parents in Tohoku, and a month later, at a family gathering, they expressed their desire to return to China.
On February 8, they returned to China after a brief reunion with family and friends. Since then, they have spent the rest of their lives peacefully on the land where they have lived for more than 40 years.
The Pig-nosed siblings are full of deep affection for this vast and deep black land, and the people raised on it, and have become an indispensable part of their lives.