 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
The Tonghua incident was a mass killing of rebelling Japanese soldiers that occurred on 3 February 1946 in southern Jilin, China.
 |
Tonghua, being the local transport hub, had a large influx of refugees in 1945. The first instance of violence (a Shosankoku incident ) was reported 13 August 1945, when a train, filled with civilian Japanese refugees, was stopped at an elevated track near the tunnel entrance, and the Japanese women were gang-raped by the locals after the train security guards were killed. The train was unintentionally stopped by Chinese guerilla forces attempting to intercept the preceding evacuation train of the family of the last Chinese Emperor (Puyi), most notably Empress Wanrong. The incident involved children being killed by being thrown from windows, over 100 Japanese women committing suicide by jumping from a nearby cliff, and a mob shooting anyone who tried to escape. The rest of passengers were rescued when a battalion of the Imperial Japanese Army, alerted by the sole girl to escape, arrived the next morning. Many of the survivors of the Shosankoku incident would become the inhabitants of the Tonghua refugee camp, later falling victim to the Tonghua incident.
Following the surrender of Japan, the local refugee camp was filled by 17,000 Japanese locals and over 100,000 Japanese civilians fleeing from various regions of China. The city was initially surrendered to the Red Army but nominally controlled by the Democratic North-East Army . Although, according to the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, Soviet support of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Soviet-dominated areas was forbidden, the Democratic North-East Army was a de facto affiliate of the CCP's Eighth Route Army.
Tensions heightened in late August 1945 when groups of Soviet soldiers repeatedly raided Tonghua Girl's High School, raping, abducting, and killing both students and teachers. At least one shootout with a teacher possessing a concealed pistol was also reported, leading to additional raids. Participation of the male teachers in the rapes was also reported.
The gang rapes reportedly happened even in broad daylight on the streets, and at least one Soviet officer was shot dead while trying to stop his fellow soldiers. Japanese refugees responded mainly by shaving the women's heads bald, applying dirt and grease to their skin, and wearing storage bags instead of normal clothes.
In September 1946, a general withdrawal of the Soviet occupation forces was in progress. As the CCP sought to control the region to undermine Kuomintang positions, mass killings were underway, with approximately 70,000 people killed across Manchuria by March 1946. One of the organizations helping the CCP to dismantle existing civilian infrastructure (both the residual Japanese and Kuomintang) was the Ri Koko detachment, staffed mostly by ethnic Koreans, many of whom were former members of the Imperial Japanese Army. That detachment was known for particularly poor discipline when compared to the regular CCP units.
On 22 September 1945, the CCP-affiliated forces evicted Kuomintang forces from Tonghua. By 2 November, the CCP positions in the city had consolidated enough that a red flag was raised over the city headquarters.
In early November 1945, all property owned by those of Japanese ancestry was confiscated and all Japanese males aged 15 to 60 were forced to join labor teams. From 17 November, CCP forces were arbitrarily raiding Japanese homes in search of weapons and drafting those they came across into labor teams, regardless of gender or age. Forced eviction of Japanese people from their dwellings also began.
From 10 December, some of the former Japanese soldiers were recruited into the CCP's newly created aircraft squadron to help the Chinese master the captured Japanese airplanes. It was the part of ruse de guerre intended to transmit a false image of the Kuomintang still being in control of the city with the help of the former personnel of Kwantung Army. Large-scale collaboration of Japanese units with CCP in the aftermath of the surrender of Japan was not uncommon, most notably among the 47th division of the Imperial Japanese Army.
On 23 December, an event publicizing collaboration between CCP and the Japanese was held.
On 5 January 1946, Tanehiko Fujita , a Japanese spokesperson in the Tonghua refugee camp, was requested by CCP to give out Japanese armament caches. He was later arrested on 15 January.
By 10 January, the Tonghua branch of the "Japanese People's Liberation Army" was disbanded with 140 Japanese arrested, amid persistent rumors concerning a wide scale rebellion by the Kwantung Army.
On 21 January, further arrests and detentions of Japanese occurred in the aftermath of the murders of a high-ranking Japanese civilian leaders.
On 2 February 1946, a phone call from Mitsushige Maeda was received by the CCP office in Tonghua, regarding the planned rebellion in a refugee camp. A wave of arrests, interrogation with torture, and executions followed immediately. In particular, all of the Japanese arrested on 10 January were immediately shot. The Ri Koko detachment acted upon this with particular cruelty.[ citation needed ]
At midnight on 3 February, the Japanese rebellion started according to the agreement with the Kuomintang. Although it was initially planned to be assisted by Kuomintang forces in Shenyang, the radio message postponing the rebellion was not received due to equipment failure. As a result, several hundred Japanese attackers, armed mostly with shovels and clubs, and a small number of swords or rifles, were decimated by machine gun fire from ambush positions, both inside and outside the CCP headquarters. The rebellion on the airfield was thwarted before it started. Out of three rebel attacks, only the attack aimed to take control of Empress Wanrong's apartments in the Public Security building succeeded.
The Public Security building was soon surrounded by CCP reinforcements and shelled. The Japanese rebels, lacking heavy weapons, surrendered.
| |
By the morning of 3 February 1946, all Japanese males aged 16 or older and suspected females, frequently wearing only pajamas, were chained and forced to march 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) in −20 °C (−4 °F) weather. Any who fell from exhaustion or wounds were shot dead.
About 3,000 Japanese men and women were put into old warehouses, packed 5 persons per square metre (one person per 2.2 sq ft). Many became hysterical due to the lack of oxygen, but anyone climbing through a window was shot. Soon, the flooring had turned into a pool of blood, and people died on their feet – the corpses could not fall because of extreme crowding. About 2,000 civilians who did not fit into the warehouses were shot nearby.
After 5 days of confinement, the survivors were let to walk out, only to be beaten to death by the Ri Koko detachment guards. The CCP also carried out rapid interrogations and subsequent torture. The people deemed related to the rebellion were shot. Also, many of the Japanese women were raped and/or committed suicide.
Sun Keng-hsiao , a Kuomintang-appointed governor of the region, was publicly flogged to death by the CCP together with the Japanese rebellion leaders. Tanehiko Fujita , the nominal Japanese leader in Tonghua, died on 15 March 1946 in prison due to pneumonia.
Kuomintang captured Tonghua in late 1946 and held a memorial service to the victims of the rebellion. The city was retaken by the CCP in 1947.[ citation needed ]
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party, with armed conflict continuing intermittently from 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949, resulting in a Communist victory and control of mainland China in the Chinese Communist Revolution.
The Tongzhou mutiny, sometimes referred to as the Tongzhou Massacre, was an assault on Japanese civilians and troops by the collaborationist East Hebei Army in Tongzhou, China, on 29 July 1937, shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which marked the official beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Tonghua is a prefecture-level city in the south of Jilin province, People's Republic of China. It borders North Korea's Chagang Province to the south and southeast, Baishan to the east, Jilin City to the north, Liaoyuan to the northwest, and Liaoning province to the west and southwest. Its population was 1,812,114 registered residents at the 2020 census living in an area of 15,195 square kilometres (5,867 sq mi). Its built-up area made of the two urban districts was home to 446,917 inhabitants. It is known as one of the five medicine production centres in China.
The Northeast Counter-Japanese United Army was the main Counter-Japanese guerrilla army in Northeast China (Manchuria) after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Its predecessors were various Counter-Japanese volunteer armies organized by locals and the Manchuria branches of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In February 1936, the CCP, in accordance with the instructions of the Communist International, issued The Declaration of the Unified Organization of Northeast Counter-Japanese United Army and marked the official formation of the organization.
The Northeast People's Counter-Japanese Volunteer Army was led by Tang Juwu, formerly the commander of a Northeastern infantry regiment, interned by the Japanese at the beginning of the invasion of Manchuria. It was created by the Northeast National Salvation Society that had appointed Tang as commander following his escape from the Japanese, and helped him link with the local forces which others were organising. Tang also made use of his personal contacts with police chiefs, officials, local gentry militias and the leaders of the Big Swords Society. Tang was able to organize a force which threatened the region to the east of Mukden and communications with Korea.
The Fujian People's Government, officially the People's Revolutionary Government of the Republic of China, was a short-lived anti-Kuomintang government that established a socialist state in the Republic of China's Fujian Province. It lasted between 22 November 1933 and 13 January 1934. The rebellion that led to its formation and its collapse are known as the Fujian Incident or Fujian Rebellion.
Japanese people in China are Japanese expatriates and emigrants and their descendants residing in Greater China. In October 2018, there were 171,763 Japanese nationals living in the People's Republic of China, and 24,280 Japanese nationals living in the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Akira Suzuki was the pen name of Japanese non-fiction writer and freelance journalist Akio Imai.
Akira Fujiwara was a Japanese historian. His academic speciality was modern Japanese history and he was a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University. In 1980 he became a member of the Science Council of Japan and was a former chairman of the Historical Science Society of Japan.
The Awa Tanuki Gassen (阿波狸合戦) is a Japanese legend that takes place in the Awa Province. The legend is about a great war between two tanuki powers.
The Gegenmiao massacre or the Gegenmiao incident was a war crime by the Red Army and a part of the local Chinese population against over half of a group of 1,800 Japanese women and children who had taken refuge in the lamasery Gegenmiao/Koken-miao (葛根廟) on August 14, 1945, during the Khingan–Mukden Operation in Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
The 125th Division was an infantry division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the Eiki Division. It was formed 16 January in Heihe as a binary division, later upgraded to triangular division. It was a part of a batch of eight simultaneously created divisions: the 121st, 122nd, 123rd, 124th, 125th, 126th, 127th and 128th Divisions. The nucleus for the formation was the remnants of the transferred 57th Division plus the 7th and 13th Independent Border Guards units.
Domingos Chōhachi Nakamura was a Catholic missionary and priest from the Diocese of Nagasaki (Japan). He worked as a priest for 26 years in Japan and 17 years in Brazil, where he died in 1940 with a reputation for holiness. He is now a Servant of God.
Fuki Kushida was a Japanese peace and women's rights activist.
Katsura Motozumi was a Japanese samurai and commander of the Sengoku period. Motozumi was one of the most important retainers of the Mōri clan. He was also the castle lord in command of Sakurao Castle.
Adabana is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by NON. It was serialized in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Grand Jump from March 2020 to June 2021, with its chapters collected in three tankōbon volumes.
Yamakuni Hyōbu Tomoaki was a Japanese samurai retainer of the Mito Domain, military strategist, and student of the Hirata school of kokugaku. As a kokugakusha, he used the name Shikanoya (止戈堂).
Present life is a religious term meaning the current life someone is living in right now. It is distinct from the next life or past life in religions which believe in reincarnation or the Everlasting world in Shinto, or the afterlife in Abrahamic religions.
Arata Sato, is a Japanese idol, actor, singer, and talent. He is an artist affiliated with Tobe. He is a member of the male idol group IMP. He is from Tokyo.
Tenrin-Ō Meisei Kyōdan (天輪王明誠教団) is a Shinto-based Shinshūkyō founded in 1881. It was founded by Oku Rokubē (奥六兵衛) as a confraternity of Tenrikyo in Kyoto.
