SHENYANG, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — Yang Huafeng, a 92-year-old Chinese veteran of the War of Resistance in opposition to Japanese Aggression, grew up listening to his dad and mom’ tales in regards to the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, which was a set of anti-Japanese guerrilla forces led by the Communist Party of China, energetic in northeast China.
The September 18th Incident of 1931, meticulously plotted and launched by Japan in northeast China, marked the start of 14 years of invasion. The folks of the northeast have been the primary to endure brutal occupation — and the primary to rise in resistance.
Yang was born in Jiangdong Village, not removed from the Wusihun River in Linkou County, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. That riverbank was the positioning of one of many struggle’s most tragic and heroic episodes. In 1938, eight feminine troopers of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, the youngest barely 13, made their final stand there.
To cowl the retreat of their comrades, the younger girls intentionally drew hearth from the Japanese and their puppet troops. Surrounded by the enemy with their ammunition exhausted, they refused to give up and selected as a substitute to collectively stride into the raging currents, sacrificing their lives for the Chinese folks’s struggle in opposition to invasion.
“Those heroes and heroines of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army have shaped who I am today,” Yang mentioned on the September 18th Historical Museum in Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province. The museum is the one one devoted to comprehensively chronicling the September 18th Incident.
Yang’s personal story was deeply entwined with that painful historical past. Even after greater than 80 years, he can’t cover his grief and indignation when recalling how his dad and mom have been killed by Japanese troops.
On an autumn morning in 1942, nine-year-old Yang was returning house along with his mom after selecting greens from their backyard after they noticed Japanese aggressors setting hearth to their courtyard. His mom rushed into the home in an try and salvage some meals, solely to be struck on the top with a rifle butt by a Japanese soldier. She collapsed, dying in a pool of blood. Yang survived solely as a result of a neighbor pulled him shut and shielded him along with his personal physique.
Another tragic hit two years later, when Yang’s father was seized by Japanese troops as a compelled laborer. During an interrogation, he defiantly proclaimed, “I am a Chinese!” and was brutally crushed to demise by the Japanese.
After turning into an orphan, Yang waited eagerly daily for the arrival of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. In the summer time of 1945, when the military liberated Jiangdong Village, Yang instantly volunteered to affix them. He educated diligently in marksmanship, bayonet fight, grenade lobbing and different navy abilities, rapidly turning into an excellent soldier.
During a mission, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army deliberate to assault a Japanese stronghold positioned greater than 10 km from Jiangdong Village. The authentic plan would require a full day’s detour, however Yang knew the place so effectively that he guided the troops to a shortcut, resulting in the entire annihilation of the enemy. This profitable raid marked the start of the liberation marketing campaign for Linkou County.
“After the victory in the War of Resistance in 1945, people in my hometown poured into the streets, cheering: ‘Japan has surrendered! At last, we can truly call ourselves Chinese again!'” recalled Yang, his eyes brimming with tears and lips trembling with emotion.
While by no means forgetting the private and nationwide wounds of struggle, Yang, who skilled the struggle firsthand, maintains a profound craving for peace.
“Although some Japanese politicians have strongly denied that period of history, I still believe that the Japanese people are fundamentally good,” Yang mentioned. “I sincerely hope Japan will learn from historical lessons, and I look forward to a strengthened friendship between our peoples to advance China-Japan relations. This is my greatest aspiration.”
“Peace is the aspiration of people worldwide,” mentioned Yang Dongmei, daughter of Yang Huafeng. “We must uphold the great spirit of the War of Resistance and transform it into a driving force for excelling in our work, because only when the nation is strong can its people live in security.”
Over the years, Fan Lihong, director of the September 18th Historical Museum, has witnessed and been deeply impressed by many touching examples of pleasant exchanges between the Chinese and Japanese folks.
In 2015, a Japanese choir visited China to carry out a live performance themed “Singing for Peace.” Many of its members have been descendants of Japanese struggle criminals who had as soon as invaded China. Through quite a lot of creative varieties, together with choral singing, recitation and dance, the efficiency recreated the historic account of how China reeducated and granted clemency to Japanese struggle criminals in northeast China.
The choir’s China tour included a go to to the September 18th Historical Museum. “They offered sincere apologies for Japan’s wartime atrocities and expressed, through their songs, profound admiration for the Chinese people’s extraordinary magnanimity, as well as their earnest desire for peace and friendship,” Fan mentioned.
In early August, after over two months of renovation, the September 18th Historical Museum reopened to the general public. According to Fan, regardless of the scorching warmth, the museum attracted greater than 40,000 guests on its first day of trial reopening, demonstrating the Chinese public’s enthusiasm for studying about wartime historical past.
“We must understand this history not to perpetuate hatred, but to ensure that such a shadow never falls over any nation again,” mentioned Wang Xiaojun, a neighborhood customer touring the museum along with his son.