In the early morning of June 4, 1928, with a shocking bang in Huanggutun, The Japanese army wrote a major event into history by assassinating Zhang Zuolin at the Sandong Bridge outside Shenyang. As Zhang Zuolin, the long-Time commander of the Feng Dynasty, started to get rid of the Japanese control and sent telegrams to the Northern Expeditionary Army to seek peace, and because the hardliners within the Kwantung Army, such as Ishihara Guanl, intended to create trouble and launch a military adventure to occupy the three eastern provinces, the Japanese army, with Kawamoto Daisaku, a senior staff officer of the Kwantung Army, plotted to blow up Zhang Zuolin on his way back to Shenyang by placing explosives at the South Manchurian Railway’s San Dong Bridge, which was controlled by the Kwantung Army. The plot to kill Zhang on his way back to Shenyang.
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Due to thorough planning, the Japanese assassination operation was completely successful. Zhang Zuolin was seriously injured after his car was blown up and died of uncontrollable injuries that day. Pictured here: the San-dong Bridge before the blast, a photo taken by the Kwantung Army as a field trip to the site in order to carry out this plot. Note that the Japanese controlled South Manchurian Railway is above and the Chinese controlled Jingfeng Line Railway is below. Zhang Zuolin’s car was passing from below, at which point the Japanese army detonated the explosives pre-set on the bridge above. This photo was suspected to be the material after the blast repair, but according to the comparison with the concrete bridge pier repaired after the blast, it was confirmed to be taken before the explosion.
The photo was taken by a former Kwantung Army officer, Japanese Lieutenant Tainosuke Kanda, who was also one of the masterminds of the event, and he and his assistants recreated the events of the “explosion that killed Zhang Zuolin” with typical Japanese care. The photos were entrusted to the custody of his subordinate Tokuichiro Sakuma, a special agent of the Kwantung Army, who knew the value of these photos so well that he sewed them into his infant son’s cotton jacket at the time of the defeat and kept them until fifty years later, when he offered them together with the other thirty-one photos of the war against China. The Japanese detonated the explosives and Zhang Zuolin’s seat car was blown up! Note that the shape of the San-dong Bridge is vaguely recognizable. Zhang Zuolin’s car was the eighth of the twenty cars, and the Japanese detonated the explosives when the eighth, ninth and tenth cars entered the bridge. Therefore, Zhang’s car was greatly damaged. The Japanese had intelligence officers along the route to keep Zhang informed of the car’s whereabouts, so the explosion point was extremely accurate. Note that at this time the subsequent car is not yet different, thereafter it began to burn!
The moment of the explosion. In other words, the filmmaker was prepared, in the explosive detonation, the train flew across, smoke rising, others did not have time to appear at the scene began continuous filming.
From this photo taken above, you can see Zhang’s seat car was blown damage total destruction, only the floor and door, even the carriage side panels and roof, were blown away.
Explosion site, you can see the surviving doors, is Zhang’s seat car eight, because the eight car was bombed, and the seven car decoupling, the front seven cars continue to move forward, so that the eight car in the picture as if it became the first car. The right end of the picture can be seen blown up carriage compartment board, Zhang’s seat car has actually disintegrated, Zhang was bombed and thrown out of the car, fell on the side of the tracks. Wu Junsheng, a fellow Heilongjiang governor, was killed instantly by the explosion.
The same just exploded when the photo was taken, you can see that there are already Japanese personnel appeared, can not wait to test the effect of the explosion.
The burning train carriage, which was still intact in the previous picture, started to burn.
The carriage of Zhang Zuolin’s train being blown up.
Another angle, because this photo shows the word “VIP” on the side, many people think this is Zhang’s car, but in fact this is car number ten, the car of Zhang’s sixth wife Yue, which was only affected. Yue’s carriage caught fire, but was rescued by the guards. If several hundred kilograms of yellow explosives had only blown Zhang’s seat car into such a state, he would have had a good hope of survival.
The guard of honor at Shenyang station, which was ready to meet Zhang Zuolin, arrived and acted as a rescue team, found Zhang Zuolin and quickly rescued him. The group of people on the right side of the picture is the one who carried Zhang Zuolin, so the Japanese army knew that Zhang was not immediately killed by the bomb at that time, which posed a greater influence on the Japanese action after that.
The Chinese army arrived and started to rescue the survivors of Zhang Zuolin’s car.
Before the smoke was gone, Japanese photographers were already present at the bridge in full armor.
The Japanese officer took a photo of Zhang Zuolin’s car on the compartment board of car number eight. This Japanese officer was later proved to be the main author of this set of photos – Kanda.
An important proof of Kanda’s authorship is the caption on the back of the photo of the burnt people in Zhang’s car, with Kanda’s signature on the left side.
Another photo of the site taken during a field trip by the Kwantung Army before the explosion, which was taken from the South Manchurian railway line managed by the Japanese above the railroad bridge.
A photo taken from almost the same angle after the explosion.
The severity of the blast can be seen in the steel rails hanging down from the upper road bridge that was blown up.
The Chinese side is rescuing the injured.
Zhang Zuolin’s funeral. The plaque at the main entrance is hung with the words “Chinese and foreigners share the sorrow”. The cemetery chosen by Zhang Zuolin was “Marshal’s Grove”, but unfortunately, due to the September 18 Incident two years later, Zhang was never buried in this cemetery.
Zhang Zuolin’s residence was also his funeral hall, and it was only after Zhang Xueliang quietly left the country and took over the military and political power in Northeast China that Zhang Zuolin’s death was publicly announced for him. By this time, it had been more than two weeks since the death of the lord of the generation.
The Japanese officers attending the funeral walked out of the auditorium, and to the left, a group of Northeast Army officers were walking into the hearse. The shadowy faces of the Japanese officers seemed to remind people of an old poem – the mountain rain is coming to fill the building.
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