After Japan s defeat in World War II, why didn t it bring back 100,000 women from Tohoku?

Mondo Military Updated on 2024-02-16

As an aggressive country, the belligerent Japan has brought a painful historical memory to Asia, especially East Asian countries. And there is such a group of Japanese, who are not only the "victims" under the rule of Japanese militarism, but also the "perpetrators" who harm the Chinese people, and they are members of the so-called "pioneer group."

After the 918 Incident, the Northeast Army withdrew from the three eastern provinces on a large scale, and the Kwantung Army occupied the magpie's nest and essentially ruled the three eastern provinces. Although the Kwantung Army presented an overwhelming superiority militarily, how to cook this piece of fat gnawed from China became a topic of endless debate at the top of Japan.

In the end, the Japanese decided to implement a large-scale immigration program to Northeast China. At that time, because of the serious economic crisis and the war launched by Japan, there was a shortage of materials, and a large number of rural people were hungry, so they decided to form a so-called "pioneer group", which was responsible for organizing and transporting them to Northeast China to multiply.

Fujii, a Japanese expert who specializes in the study of Japanese pioneer groups, interviewed hundreds of members of the pioneer group in the last century, and finally came to the conclusion mentioned above that they were both victims and perpetrators. In 1934, the first "pioneer group" departed from Nagano Prefecture and sailed on a Japanese steamer to Northeast China. This group of members were mainly poor Japanese peasants who had no place to live, some of whom were eager to go out to earn a living, while others were reluctant to leave their homeland. The latter were threatened by the Japanese authorities, warning them that this was their only way out of the economic crisis.

The Kwantung Army bought land from the locals in the Northeast at an extremely low price**, or simply enclosed the land by force and let the people of the "pioneer regiment" cultivate it. These landless peasants in Japan suddenly had their own land. However, because they were not familiar with the agricultural cultivation of Northeast China and were responsible for the cultivation of military rations for the Kwantung Army, they still belonged to the bottom of the oppression by Japanese militarism. In any case, in a foreign land, these Japanese peasants survived, but they did not realize that they were invaders, and they were encroaching on the land of the Chinese.

Militarist Japan is trying to gradually digest the occupied territory into Japanese territory by reclaiming the three eastern provinces. By the eve of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, there were more than 800 "pioneer regiments" in Japan, with a total number of more than 300,000. Of the more than 300,000 Japanese people, more than 100,000 are Japanese women.

At first, they fought against people, and the local Chinese dared to be angry with them, and could only flatter them superficially. An old Japanese man who was a member of the "Pioneer Group" recalled that by 1943, the Chinese and Japanese people realized that Japan "might not work," and the respectful attitude of the Chinese people towards them was gone.

Perhaps because of a premonition that Japan would soon fail, a considerable number of members of the "Pioneer Group" set off for Japan one after another. By the time the Soviet Red Army defeated the Kwantung Army and Japan completely surrendered, the peak number of members of the "Pioneer Regiment" had long passed. Some of them were captured and screened by the Soviet Red Army and repatriated, and some were repatriated by the nationals. But then the Chinese Civil War broke out again, and a considerable number of female members of the Japanese "Pioneer Group" were exiled to the Northeast and were unable to return to China.

This is actually not bad, according to the data, after the defeat of Japan, many extreme Japanese officers would rather "jade shatter" than accept the reality of Japan's defeat. They not only committed suicide by disembowelment, but also forced some men and women of the Japanese "Pioneer Group" to take the first step to "martyr".

After the situation became chaotic, some of them were unable to return to China, and some were homeless, freezing and starving to death on the streets. Others were accepted by the kind Chinese and became the Japanese wives of bachelors.

Sachiko Fujita, a Japanese, is such a person. At that time, she and her husband were preparing to escape back to Japan by train from the Mudanjiang River, but the scene was overcrowded, and in the chaos, her husband picked up the train and left, leaving Sachiko Fujita alone. In desperation, Sachiko Fujita could only follow the crowd back, and there were fewer people on the way back, and when she walked near Yubara, she was alone. Sachiko Fujiwara, who was tired and sleepy, had to pretend to be dumb and beg for food from Chinese farmers, and after receiving goodwill assistance from Chinese farmers, she couldn't help but say thank you, and her Japanese identity was recognized.

The woman took Sachiko Fujiwara to the village to the shop, and eventually she became the wife of a single farmer. She and her Chinese husband have five children. After the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan in the 70s, Japan sent people to visit and pick up Japanese orphans. Sachiko Fujita finally chose to stay in China, and she had no plans to return to Japan. It can be seen that when Japan was defeated in the war, Japan was too busy to take care of itself, and could not manage these so-called "overseas Chinese" at all, and later Japan accepted the management of the United States, and Sino-Japanese relations did not improve until the 70s of the last century.

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