Latest Evidence of Japanese Troops' Atrocities Discovered in XiangyangOn March 18, Li Liansen, a 68-year-old retired teacher in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, stepped into a local PLA barracks to present to officers and men an album of pictures showing "Japanese Troops' Crimes of Invading China" which he has kept for 62 years. The album, through its large numbers of on-the-spot pictures, truthfully records the towering crimes committed by Japanese troops in China: they bombed factories, burned residential dwellings, slaughtered common people, raped women, and buried civilians alive. The atrocities make people bristle with anger.According to Li Liansen, the album was consigned to him then at the age of 6 by Li Jianhua, his brother-in-law and a staff officer under Li Zongren with the Kuomintang fifth war zone command. In 1944, the Japanese troops occupied Xiangyang. Learning that Li's was a wealthy family operating an edible oil workshop, Japanese soldiers broke into his home six times, ransacked and robbed of everything valuable, except the album. During the "cultural revolution", rebels also repeatedly searched Li's house and confiscated his property. The old man hid the album in the cracks of a vegetable cellar, the album was thus kept intact. The 16mo, 96-page album was compiled and published by the Political Department of Kuomintang Military Commission in July 1938. It consists of 173 black-and-white pictures divided into eight parts in the order of "bombing, burning, slaughtering, raping, plundering, drifting about, the battle array of the Chinese Army and the decline of the Japanese aggressor troops. The statistical chart showing the losses suffered by both sides in the war is carried at the back of the album. "Chou Ge, (Song of Hatred)" with words by Tian Han and music by Xian Xinghai, appears on the back cover. The album was kept intact except that the front cover was lost. Related experts said that the album has a high value of historical materials and provides convincing evidence of Japanese troops' atrocities perpetrated in their invasion of China. |
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