Nanking Massacre: Part 1 - Marching Towards a Slaughter

Chiang Kai-Shek, then the Chairman
of China's government. The problem with
detailing massacres is the pictures are
rather horrible, so... here's just a picture
of a man.

History is chock-full of human misery. At least to some degree it's the byproduct of massive movements; revolutions, rebellions (whether they are toppling something evil or not), even technological or economic surges tend to have more than a pinch of sadness mixed into the soup. Take one look at the industrial revolution and you'll probably find that those factory workers weren't in the highest of spirits. Look into the Great Leap Forward and Stalin's Five Year Plans and you'll find them paved with suffering. Even the Canadian Pacific Railway meant moving through hordes of mosquitoes (although that one might be a push). The most obvious example I haven't mentioned yet is warfare. It's just about the worst thing humanity puts itself through, and gosh darn it do we do it often. Worse yet, there are far too many examples of when countries are going toe to toe with bitter hatreds between them, and those hatreds culminate into the worst, most heinous acts against their fellow man. Nanking is the tragic story of Chinese citizens that felt the brunt of wartime aggression meeting its maximum in the most foul and horrible ways imaginable.

The atrocities that were committed in Nanking cannot be explained by simply stating "well, these things happen in war." The number of civilian deaths and crimes committed on them doesn't allow for that simplistic of reasoning. There's something more there, because this doesn't happen in the average war. The roots of it go way back just before Canada was even a country. Japan had just gone through an extended period of isolation, setting themselves far behind the rest of the developed world technologically. Feeling snubbed, the modern, social world still remembered that the land of Japan was brimming with resources and potential, but were being squandered by closing their borders to the outside. America, in the most typically American fashion, decided that they had had enough and sailed right into their harbours with their giant, imposing, technologically advanced fleet of ships with Matthew Perry at the helm (his name isn't important, but... Matthew Perry). The purpose wasn't to destroy Japan, but to force them into trade agreements. Ultimately they were successful, but it caused the Japanese citizenship to have some qualms with how their leaders dealt with the situation; essentially, they were displeased by the way they were bowing down to these foreigners and giving in so readily. The result was a massive uprising that displaced their leaders, setting up a new government. 

China's military marching. Another riveting picture.
Trust me, you would prefer this to the alternative.

From there, the new Japan awakened, and this time they meant business. Well... not just because of the commerce deal, but that's another matter. They were united under the banner of Japan and the Emperor, seeking to rise to power once more. They learned the technology that had long since surpassed them, studied the military tactics of other countries (they were most impressed by Germany's), and all the while their whole culture became very warlike. Propaganda abounded, and schools had a distinctly military feel to them. There was also a distinct feeling of superiority, and the belief that they were the greatest of the Asian nations, and thus felt a contempt for the countries around them. What helped both stroke the ego of the Japanese and fanned the flames of hatred towards the Chinese was the fact that Japan became exceptionally rich during World War I through dealing weaponry and supplies, but ran into post-war difficulties through tariffs imposed upon them. Suddenly, they were faced with the decision of trying to push into world markets and emigrating out (avenues that were largely shut down by other countries) or taking more territory by force. 

They had what it takes to do it; individual dedication, the weaponry for their soldiers, a strict devotion to their leader, and on top of that, the change in government also reignited the samurai ethic of Bushido. It is that samurai code that made them such a difficult foe in World War II; surrender was exceptionally rare, and they saw their lives as meaningless unless their actions supported the Emperor. To demonstrate with statistics: Allied soldiers surrendered at a rate of one prisoner for every three dead. The Japanese, however, had a rate of one for every 120. So with all their determination, their first step was to set their sights on their very large neighbour. The desire to acquire more territory is what led them to attack China, which meant doing their best to incite an incident to give them an excuse to go to war. They devised a plot in which they bombed their own train and made it look like it was the Chinese who had attacked. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the world did not take kindly to their actions, and Japan left the League of Nations in 1933 to stake their claim in mainland Asia.

The building to building fighting in the Chinese cities.
Those practiced in Call of Duty felt they were better
prepared, but realized shortly after it didn't exist yet.

The Japanese felt they were going to storm through China without much difficulty, planning to have the massive country under their control in what some estimated as a three month stretch of fighting. However, it didn't pan out that way; the Chinese defended their city of Shanghai with the savage vigour of those that, well, are defending their very homes and livelihood. The fighting stretched out to street-by-street battles, plunging both countries into an exhausting, expensive and brutal war. The Japanese emerged victorious, but after suffering a number of losses and spending much more time than they had anticipated. It was with that anger and frustrating they marched upon Nanking.

The defense on the way to the city was poor. The Chinese had no air support, lacked communication (largely because the soldiers often spoke different languages) and many were just drafted, poorly trained, and sick. They were forced to retreat, and even then many died in what quickly turned into a rout as falling back proved difficult as well. From there, the city fell in just four days after having been sufficiently bombed in air raids.

As for the Nanking citizenship, half of the population had already left the city - typically those that had the wealth or the health to do so. With many of the outlying areas moving in, the city's population before the arrival of the Japanese but after many had ran reached somewhere around 600,000, with 90,000 soldiers captured as well. It was those unfortunate people that chose to remain in the city that would find the worst of fates at the hands of the invading Japanese soldiers, some 50,000 of them.

From there, the Japanese army went on to commit six weeks of some of the worst war crimes you'll ever hear. It was 1937, just prior to the second World War.