TAIYUAN/CHANGSHA, July 27 (Xinhua) — Standing contained in the Taihang Memorial Museum of the Eighth Route Army, Chan Cheuk Hong, a journalist from Hong Kong’s TVB, was drawn to a light, worn-out leather-based suitcase.
This suitcase as soon as belonged to Zhu De, one of many main founders of the People’s Republic of China.
According to Tian Yuehui, the museum’s deputy curator, after the whole-of-nation resistance in opposition to Japanese aggression started in 1937, the Red Army’s essential forces have been regrouped because the Eighth Route Army, and Zhu De led the Eighth Route Army to the Taihang Mountains to battle the Japanese invaders. The suitcase accompanied him by the battlefields, bearing witness to his command throughout these turbulent years.
In the early Nineteen Forties, Zhu De offered this suitcase to his daughter Zhu Min as a farewell present when she departed for research within the Soviet Union. The suitcase had therefore turn into an emotional anchor that sustained Zhu Min by difficult occasions overseas. In 2005, Zhu Min and her household donated it to the museum.
Moved by the suitcase’s story and different reveals, Chan mirrored: “It’s deeply touching. Many details and artifacts are new to me, reviving memories of the war and offering a fresh history lesson.”
From July 22 to 26, journalists from international locations together with Britain, France, Russia and Japan, in addition to reporters from China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, visited a number of memorial museums in Shanxi and Hunan to study Chinese People’s War of Resistance in opposition to Japanese Aggression.
Their first cease was the Taihang Memorial Museum of the Eighth Route Army in Wuxiang County, north China’s Shanxi Province. Wuxiang is the previous web site of China’s Eighth Route Army Headquarters throughout the warfare of resistance in opposition to Japanese aggression, house to a number of battlefields the place the Communist Party of China (CPC)-led forces gained decisive victories.
The museum additionally reveals that throughout the warfare, out of Wuxiang’s 140,000 residents, over 90,000 joined anti-Japanese actions, 14,600 enlisted within the Eighth Route Army, and greater than 20,000 misplaced their lives.
Salionova Alina, a reporter from Russia’s RT TV, shared her shock: “What struck me most was a chart listing Japanese atrocities — dates, cities, and death tolls. No one could stay calm seeing those numbers. My eyes welled up with tears.”
In central China’s Hunan Province, the journalists realized in regards to the three Battles of Changsha, victories that dealt a heavy blow to Japanese forces and contributed considerably to the formation of the worldwide anti-fascist alliance.
Chen Qinglin, former deputy director of the Hunan Provincial Party History Research Office, famous that China paid an enormous sacrifice however successfully contained and decimated Japan’s essential forces.
China made a nationwide sacrifice of over 35 million casualties in its battle in opposition to nearly all of troops of Japanese militarism. During 14 years of fierce anti-fascist combating, China engaged and tied down over two-thirds of the Japanese Army, inflicting 70 p.c of Japan’s wartime army casualties. “We paid the price in blood,” Chen added.
The journalists additionally met 96-year-old veteran Wen Yunfu, who recalled surviving throughout the interval of Japanese invasion. “We lived in constant fear. I never want to see war or invasion again.”
In Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County, Hunan, the group visited the Flying Tigers Memorial Museum. During World War II, Zhijiang Airport turned a key base for the Flying Tigers, the first American Volunteer Group shaped in 1941 to assist China drive out invading Japanese troops. From Aug. 21 to 23, 1945, it was additionally in Zhijiang that Japanese representatives handed over a map of Japanese troops deployed in China and signed a give up memorandum.
The previous pictures, army uniforms, plane fashions, fight maps, and different reveals vividly seize the lives of those U.S. veteran pilots, sparking nice curiosity among the many journalists.
Standing within the memorial corridor to commemorate Japan’s give up, curator Wu Jianhong informed the reporters that the memorial corridor serves as a reminder that “peace is hard-won and that pursuing peaceful development is a common goal for all humanity.”
The journey left a profound impression on the journalists, deepening their understanding of China as the principle theater within the East throughout the World Anti-Fascist War and a significant contributor to the warfare’s victory.
“Overseas reporters should share more of China’s wartime history,” Alina stated. “Many believe World War II ended in May when Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, but few know it truly concluded on September 2.”
Through this go to, journalists can achieve a firsthand understanding of the historic particulars, bodily artifacts, and tales of worldwide cooperation associated to China’s War of Resistance in opposition to Japanese Aggression, famous Zhai Jiaqi from the seventh Research Department of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee.
“This will enable them to have a more personal appreciation of China’s efforts and contributions to global anti-fascist fighting and will also help them understand this period of history better,” she added.