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Mr. Tong Zeng:
　　Regards to you

On March 25 last yeast, I read the second page of the end-of-month edition of the Hunan Women Daily, an article entitled ‘Chinese Civilian “Claim” Against Japan Now in Action’ by staff reporter Comrade Zhou Huiyu about interview with Mr. Tong Zeng, the initiator of the claim action, after reading the article, my whole family admired your action and felt grateful for your righteous approach to help the victims. At that time, I wrote a document and mailed it to Li Ling, Editor-in-Chief of the Women Daily (May 17 last year) in duplicate, I asked her to forward one copy to you, because I didn’t know your exact work place address, so I don’t know whether or not he had forwarded the material to you, and I felt very anxious. Recently, I paid a special visit to Changsha, and found the editor comrade of the Women Daily, he said the materials had been forwarded to you, and told me your work place name and address, so I specially mailed another copy to you, about how to handle this matter, please give me instructions via mail.

2 Longxi Road, Baiyashi Town, Dongan County, Hunan Province
Zhang Xianjue (name seal)
1.9.

The Japanese Invasion War resulted in the terrible tragedy of five deaths and persecution of two persons in my family

From August 1944 to August 1945 the Japanese invaders occupied our hometown Yuetang Village, Duanqiaopu Town, Dong’an County, Hunan Province for a whole year. As a matter of fact, during the invasion war period, Japanese invaders indiscriminately burned, killed, raped, looted, and committed all sorts of crimes. In order to avoid ravage by the enemy, one day some villagers in our village and my family decided to take refuge in the deep mountains forests in Guojiachong. When we passed Huangtunao Village, we saw the bodies of two people killed by the Japanese soldiers on the road side, we didn’t hesitate, and ran ahead to Guojiachong without stop, and hid ourselves half way up the mountain. Although our whole family had successfully departed, there was a big buffalo left in the home, grandfather Zhang Xiuqing and father Zhang Guangxun were anxious, fearing that it might be killed by the Japanese soldiers, which would create problem for farming in the future. So my grandfather and my father along with two youths in the village Zhang Xianzhong and Zhang Baosheng together returned home to fetch the cow and tried to hide some belongings. Soon after these four people left Guojiachong, just behind the place where we were hiding, someone shouted: “Has Beard Xiu (my grandfather was called ‘Beard’ affectionately by people of his same age) come?” My mother Ding Juxiang answered: “He had gone back to fetch the cow”. That person said: “Damn, you shouldn’t let him go, the Japanese have left Luhong City and are coming this way, hurry, send someone to take him back”. The Japanese Army had to pass Huagntunao path when traveling from Luhong City to Baiya City, and my grandfather had to pass that road before returning home, hearing this, mother said to me: Yougong (my infant name, Zhang Xianjue is my formal name) go and fetch them. At that time I was 16 and rushed out the Guojiachong. Unfortunately, the four people had gone quite far, and could not hear my shouting to them.
Unfortunately, the four persons has just passed the stone bridge of Xiaoliu Village, and four Japanese soldiers were crouching at the foot of the slope, and they first caught my grandfather and my father, the other two young men turned and escaped, when I returned to Guojiachong, these two persons had come back, they reported news of the capturing of my grandpa and my father – my god! Now the family was dismantled, what should we do, my mother along with my sisters and brothers shed tears, but we were afraid of crying out loud, for fear that we would be discovered by the Japanese who would come to capture us. On that day we braved rain and wind, and the night passed slowly. On the second day, it was reported the Japanese had arrived at Baiya City, we left the mountain, and went to the home of Yu’s and Grandfather Zhai’s home in Dachong to settle down, in the evening of the fifth day, my father escaped and returned, the whole family asked: Why grandfather didn’t come with him, father burst into tears while telling us the scenes of their capture and persecution by the Japanese: My grandfather was over 70, and was still expected to carry a load of over 70 catties. I saw grandfather was slow when carrying things, and his burden was heavier than mine. When we reached Chetangpu Village in Baiya City, I took over my grandfather’s workload. My grandfather handed over the heavy load to me, but the vicious Japanese soldiers not only disallowed our act, but also thrust the rifle barrel towards my chest and belly for a number of times, I crouched down, and spit out red blood, the Japanese pointed at my head with bayonet, “if you cry again, we will kill you”. My grandfather was indignant at seeing me being beaten, and grabbed the Japanese solder, at this moment, another Japanese solder used gun barrel to thrust at my grandfather and pushed him onto the ground from his back. Four Japanese soldiers surrounded my grandfather, kicked and pounded, and thrust the gun barrel forcefully. My grandfather fainted and nearly died. Since my grandfather was old and weak, how could he withstand such heavy beating and torture; even after we had received beating, the Japanese soldiers not only disallowed us to swap the load, instead they added extra weight, an additional 2/3 wt on my grandfather’s load, and forced us to walk on. In the afternoon, we stopped at Tongzi Mountain, they even did not allow us to drink water and eat meal. In the evening, we came to Jiucai Village of Damiaokou Town. When everything was quiet, grandfather shouted to me: Jiuer (my father’s infant name), you hurry back, I’m no longer useful, otherwise what could our family depend on for the family’s livelihood! My grandfather was no longer able to carry load nor walk, because he was too worried for his family, he momentarily lost mental balance, at about 4 o’clock, one place in Baiya City burst into flame, he thought it was the Japanese burning our home, so he cried and shouted, which woke up the Japanese. The four inhuman Japanese bandits didn’t even treat seniors as human, for they stabbed repeatedly with bayonets at my grandfather and killed him. Afterwards, because of the turmoil of war, we were afraid of being caught when collecting the body, so the body was abandoned on the desolate field.

　　Seeing my grandfather was killed, my father dared not cry out, after a while, when the Japanese soldiers fell into deep sleep, he escaped, he walked and crawled when too tired, and slowly crawled back to home. After returning to home, in the day he was unable to eat, and in the night he was unable to fall asleep, for several month she was totally bed-ridden. He had received severe physical persecution, he had injury and illness resulting from overwork, later he became disabled and his health deteriorated, which resulted in many illnesses, in 1979 he passed away in bitter resentment.

　　The above is an account of the one of the serious crimes of the Japanese Army in killing of my grandfather, and wounding of my father. Meanwhile, because of the turmoil of war, the nation was thrown into turmoil, people found it hard to live on, some otherwise perfectly normal people died unnatural deaths, for instance, my sister-in-law Tang Xiyun, wife of Zhang Xianjin, 6-year old younger brother Zhang Xianzhi, and 4-year old younger sister Zhang Lili, together with the just new-born nephew, a total of four persons all died prematurely at a young age. How did these four people die? In the year when Japan was defeated, before birth delivery, in order to take precaution against the enemy, each day we lived in the rock caves near the village, but due to the lack of caves, and poor conditions, we were afraid we might be discovered by the enemy, one day my whole family fled to the home of my elder sister in South Jiangqiao Village, Xijiangqiao Town, soon after we entered the house, my sister-in-law gave birth to a baby, just when we were giving the baby a bath, outside in the field people ran amok, as it turned out the Japanese Army had come from Luhong City, so my sister-in-law did not rest for a moment after giving birth, and immediately carried the baby to run away while the body was still bleeding, in less than four days, she died. After her death, the baby did not have the mother’s breast milk, nor was there any other nutritional food. In less than seven days the baby starved to death. My younger brother and younger sister both died, when we for the first time fled to Guojichong to seek refuge, on that day it rained heavily, everyone was totally drenched, without a single dry yarn on the body, due to too much cold and wet weather, both developed high fever for consecutive days, in such chaotic days of complete darkness, with no peace even for chicken and dog, there was shortage of medical service and drugs, finally both of them died miserably.

　　I (Zhang Xianjue) am also one of the victims, in August 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered, but they were still unsatisfied, when they were retreating, they continued with their biological warfare by spreading toxic bacteria along our Xianggui (Hunan-Guangxi) Railway. In that year many common residents contracted “Da Bai Zi” (namely malaria), in some cases when one or two people in a family contracted this disease, the whole family would become bed-ridden, in the past our hometown had no past history of this disease, all patients of this disease would first feel cold then develop fever at a fixed time, I suffered from this disease for more than nine months, in the process of which my health deteriorated. For three times I nearly died, and was saved by others, later, I developed neurotic disorder, in the late 1950’s, I also contracted duodenal ulcer, which still relapses today. All these are towering crimes committed by the Japanese invaders against Chinese people and my family; it is indeed an irreconcilable enemy with numerous crimes.

Therefore, according to international law, the defeat nation that wages invasion war must pay compensation to the victory nations. One form is war compensation, which is mainly between governments, another form is damage compensation, which refers to compensation that must be undertaken by the defeated nation to compensate for serious crimes committed against the civilians and properties of the invaded nation, due to violation of laws of war, and inability to follow humanitarian rules by its troops and individuals. In other words, in 1972 what China abandoned is war compensation between governments, China never abandoned civilian damage compensation. On March 11, 1992, the spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the first time indicated “Civilian victims of Sino-Japanese War can directly demand Japan to compensate for losses”. On April 1, 1992, General Secretary of CPC Central Committee Jiang Zemin said in an interview before visiting Japan that “The state government abandoned the claim to demand Japan to pay war compensation, but there is no restriction on movements of civilian demand for compensation”. To this end, the Japanese government should clearly realize that this is an invasion war waged by you, which brought disaster to us Chinese people. There is an old saying in China: “A murderer must pay with his life, a debtor must pay his debt.” This is a right and proper golden saying, my grandfather and my father were killed, wounded and disabled by you, the deaths of other family members in my family and the persecution of myself are direct results of this Invasion this responsibility should be totally borne by you, now the two brothers of us represent the whole family to solemnly demand the Japanese government: My family received serious damage, which must be compensated, the compensation amount is USD 500000. I also request news media to openly publish this segment of my family’s history soaked in blood and tear, in order to denounce the crimes committed by the Japanese invaders against the Chinese people.

Zhang Xianjue, retired cadre of Hunan Province Dong’an County Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Station (name seal)
Address: 2 Longxi Road, Baiyashi Town, Dong’an County
Zhang Xianjin, Retired teacher of Yaoxiang High School, Dongan County, Hunan Province (name seal)
March 25, 1993