Xiushui, a beautiful city, has also suffered deep trauma in the war-torn years.
At that time, the Japanese army was pressing forward step by step, in a vain attempt to sever the connection between China's various major theaters, and the Battle of Xiushui broke out against this background.
War was undoubtedly cruel and merciless, but in that tragic war, the occasional flash of humanity became an indispensable part of that history.
After the "918" incident, Xiushui Shanshan became the place where the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China established the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi Provincial Committee to oppose imperialism, and began to organize an anti-Japanese movement to save the country in the local area.
After the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and the local Kuomintang successfully established an anti-Japanese national united front after many negotiations. When the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated, the place of Xiushui was of great strategic importance to both sides.
The Japanese army's conspiracy began to manifest as early as 1933, and they sent spies to infiltrate Xiushui several times in an attempt to obtain important information. In their view, the occupation of Xiushui was crucial to the control of the perimeter.
However, their occupation was accompanied by numerous atrocities and many heinous crimes. Xiushui is located on the left flank of Changsha, which is both the front line and the rear, and it is also the "front line in the rear".
In the First Battle of Changsha, the main battles were in the three directions of northern Jiangxi, northern Hunan and southern Hunan, while Xiushui and the surrounding area became the main battlefield.
On the frontal battlefield, the fall of Guangzhou made Chiang Kai-shek realize that Nanchang was facing the dilemma of a north-south attack, and it was only a matter of time before the Japanese army captured Nanchang. Compared with **, the equipment of the Japanese army was more superior, and Chiang Kai-shek knew this.
If the enemy attacks with all its might, the defense of Nanchang is worrying. Faced with this situation, Chiang Kai-shek had to face not only the reality of a shrinking territory, but also the expectations of the broad masses of the people.
If the Japanese attack is allowed to go, he will bear criticism. Therefore, he ordered Xue Yue to hold Nanchang no matter what, and not to take it lightly.
Xue Yue, a fierce general in **, was commended by Chiang Kai-shek for his outstanding performance in the Southwest War and was promoted to lieutenant general. After in-depth thinking and judging the situation, he ** arrived at the Japanese army Although Wuhan had been captured, it suffered heavy losses on the Nanxun Road, and it would take at least 4 months to recover.
Xue Yue's ** was approved by Luo Zhuoying of the 19th Group Army, and they began to actively build strong fortifications north of Nanchang to prepare for defense.
For this battle, Xue Yue specially held a coordination meeting at and above the division level in Nanchang to make precise deployment of troops. Although Xue Yue's plan was creative, it encountered many difficulties in its implementation.
Due to the fact that the defense line was too scattered, it was difficult to concentrate troops, and because the equipment was backward at that time, there were no even the most basic reconnaissance planes, so it was impossible to fully grasp the enemy's situation.
In contrast, the Japanese army had a high degree of mechanization, and hundreds of tanks and constantly fired smoke bombs blurred the vision and made it impossible to accurately judge the enemy's movements. When the enemy tanks rushed up, the people were stunned and stunned.
You know, at that time, the number of tanks in China was scarce, and many front-line soldiers had never even seen such a large machine.
Xiushui played an important role in the peripheral battlefield in the previous battles of Changsha, and several battles were extremely fierce. At the beginning of October 1939, the 1st Division of the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army avoided the avenue and made a detour to attack Xiushui County through the Yangmeiling, Jiangkeng, Changniling and other small roads in Uesugi.
At Zhajin, the 20th Army led by Janssen engaged in fierce battles with the enemy. After the enemy broke through the ** defensive line, he continued to advance towards the horse pass. Wang Lingji was keenly aware of the enemy's situation, and immediately dispatched a nearby engineer battalion to Ma Ao to hold on and wait for reinforcements, and sent a pistol battalion to support.
In the following days, the squadron resisted valiantly and achieved a preliminary victory, providing a safe evacuation opportunity for most of the residents of Xiushui County to avoid suffering from the Japanese army.
However, on October 5 of the same year, the county seat of Xiushui fell. The main purpose of this operation was to relieve the 1st Division of the Japanese Army, which had been besieged by the squadron, and to weaken the strength of the General Headquarters of the 30th Army.
During this period of war, the war was very cruel, and Japan's atrocities were exposed, and even poison gas bombs were used again in offensive and defensive battles on both sides of the strait. Despite the inhumanity of this war, there were hiccups that were recorded.
When Sasu was helping a friend find information about Abe Norihide, he accidentally found some reminiscences of the Japanese army that invaded China. Among them, a Japanese soldier named Saito had a conversation with a Chinese soldier during the Battle of Shusui.
This shocked Sasu, who wrote: "It is unbelievable that Chinese and Japanese soldiers can have such friendly exchanges." "When Saito was fighting on the Shusui front, during a break in the fighting, he was washing apples by a small river, but he accidentally washed away the gasoline barrel, and he himself chased after him, only to find that the gasoline barrel had drifted to the other side.
At that time, Chinese and Japanese soldiers were stationed on both sides of the Xiushui River, and crossing the river meant entering the territory of the squadron.
At this critical moment, Saito spotted a Chinese soldier taking a bath. Since neither side had guns with them, it was not possible to shoot at each other. The Chinese soldier also suddenly spotted Saito, and they stood up and looked at each other.
The gasoline drum with the apple was next to the Chinese soldier, who picked it up, took out the apple and took a bite, then retreated towards the back of the woods. At this point, Saito asked at a loss, "Is it delicious?" ”
To his surprise, the Chinese soldier could speak Japanese, so he replied, "Thank you." In his recollections, Saito wrote: "He did not look like an ordinary Chinese soldier, at least he should have been a junior officer."
Out of curiosity, I asked him, 'How is your life?' How much is paid? ’”
In the context of war, people remain clinging to hope for the future, even when life is difficult. Despite the pressure of the Warlords, they still choose to stick to their posts and fight for their dreams.
This story was included in the book "The Broken Mountains and Rivers of the Country: Uncovering the Secrets of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression from Japanese Historical Materials" and was used to emphasize the dependence and perseverance of humanity in the midst of brutal wars.
In the history of Nanchang City, traces of the atrocities of the Japanese army have been left. On March 27, 1939, the Japanese army attacked Nanchang and began a brutal **. The Nanchang Federation of Social Sciences once organized an investigation into the criminal evidence of the Japanese invasion of China, which lasted more than half a year, and after visiting and investigating and sorting out the data, the final data released showed that during the Japanese occupation, a total of 64,420 residents of Nanchang City were killed, and 9,762 people were injured and disabled, causing property losses of more than 300 billion yuan.
This history is our pain and our warning.
The 261 veterans who lived through the war, with an average age of 81, shared memories of the Japanese army's atrocities, including the infamous poison gas and bacteriological warfare.
These facts can also be verified from a large number of historical materials and related literature. Back in March 1933, in order to open up the communication line in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Japanese army committed particularly serious crimes against innocent residents during the six years of occupation of Nanchang.
There were originally more than 300,000 people in Nanchang City, but now there are less than 90,000 left, and many people have been brutally killed by the Japanese army.
On March 20, 1939, the Japanese launched a fierce attack on the squadron, using a large number of poison gas and gas bombs. In the vicinity of the Yuying Tower in Nanchang County, the squadron successfully repelled the Japanese army, but then the Japanese army used sappers to release poisonous fog and sent more than 100 Japanese soldiers wearing gas masks to charge, causing the squadron to suffer a major **.
On March 21, when the Japanese crossed the river from Yongxiu to Qiujin, they again used poison gas bombs for cover and carried out bacteriological warfare on the edge of Nanchang. According to the memories of the old man Luo Huiluo in Shangluo Village, many villagers began to have sores on their bodies after the Japanese army entered the village, and even ulcerated.
According to the recollection of an old man, on April 27 of that year, the Japanese army surrounded our village and carried out large-scale ** and arson. Their actions violate the Geneva Conventions on the protection of civilians.
Nanchang City was not spared, the fire burned for six days and six nights, almost all the buildings and houses were burned down, and the scene was terrible. All these confirmed the crimes of the Japanese army in the attack on Nanchang using poison gas and carrying out large-scale ** and arson.
The treatment of prisoners of war by the Japanese was heinous, and they stripped them of their clothes, put them on trees or telephone poles, and executed them in a zero-cut manner, in serious violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
The mistreatment of prisoners of war was horrific and even in extreme fanaticism, which distorted the human nature of the Japanese soldiers and turned them into unblinking machines.
Many Japanese veterans also mentioned these things in their memoirs. The judgment of history cannot forgive them for their crimes.
Relive the history of the Xiushui Anti-Japanese War, taste the defense of Xiushui County in "Eight Hundred", and gain an in-depth understanding of the Party Office of Xiushui County.