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Evidence of Japan's Vicious Black Death Found
A newly-discovered clandestine file shows that Japanese troops tested bubonic plague in China killing hundreds of people.
The file belonging to Japan's 731 troop, a notorious germ warfare troop stationed in northeast China's Harbin city in the 1940s, contains a key research thesis showing that the troop spread pestis bacteria in northeast China's Nongan and Changchun cities.
This is the first time that a written document has been discovered identifying that Japanese troops staged a germ war in China.
The document was found by a Japanese scholar in a library warehouse of a medical college in Japan, and it has been transferred to the Chinese side.
The document records in details the way the pestis bacteria was produced and spread, the conditions of the affected viscuses, and the relationship between plague and climate.
It makes a conclusion that "the outbreak of the black death must be accompanied with the increase of the number of mice".
It is believed that at least hundreds of Chinese people were killed in the germ experiment.
The author of the thesis was an officer in charge of plague research of the 731 troop.
After World War II experts from the United States investigated the 731 troop's headquarters in Harbin twice and obtained samples of plague in Nongan and Changchun.
A few Japanese POWs confessed that they had produced plague bacteria in China, but there had been no hard evidence until the latest document was found.
It is believed that a copy of the file was delivered to the US army in July, 1948. Many experts maintained that the United States has staged a germ warfare in Korea in the early 1950s based on the Japanese experiment.
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