The Home of Chen Shoucai and his wife, veterans of the Nationalist War. (Internet photo)
Mr. Lin Huaqiang from Tiantai, Zhejiang Province, took me to interview Mr. and Mrs. Chen Shoucai, veterans of the Song-Shanghai War of Resistance. Everything in his house is from the Republic of China era, only electric rice cookers and electric fans, which are west of our era today.
I have been in the country of Japan for six years, interviewing more than 20 veteran ghosts of the invading Japanese army, and have not seen a single poor person. However, I interviewed 42 National Army resistance soldiers who experienced the war against Japan alone in Tiantai, Zhejiang Province, and excluding one, they all lived in absolute abject poverty. The war, the civil war, the rebellion, and the Cultural Revolution have soaked the lives of this generation of Chinese soldiers in deep water and fire.
Chen Shoucai, a veteran of the Nationalist Army’s resistance to Japan
National Army soldiers who fought against The Japanese in blood at the Battle of Songhu in 1937. (Internet photo)
His name is Chen Shoucai, and he was the one who fought during the August 1, 1937, Song-Shanghai War. He is Chen Shoucai, the National Army war veteran who fought with the Japs at the outbreak of the Song-Shanghai War of Resistance on August 13, 1937.
In June 1937, 16-year-old Chen Shoucai went to the 37th Brigade of the National Army as a soldier. The reason was that his cousin Yang Mengwan was a second lieutenant platoon leader in the 37th Brigade. According to Chen Shoucai’s old man’s recollection: the 37th Independent Brigade of the National Army, a Xiang army, was stationed in Zhejiang before the war. In February 1936, the 37th independent brigade was reorganized from the new 10th Division, and when the Shanghai War broke out in August 1937, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 37th independent brigade in Zhejiang to go to the front line as a participating division in the Shanghai War on August 13, 1937.
August 11, 1937, Admiral Zhang Fakui to Chiang electricity: “Shaoxing, Yuyao area is still sparse defense, Wang Haonan belongs to the 37 brigade consolidation Ningzhen, seems to be too thin, the potential and then make both.” So, just enlisted recruits Chen Shoucai on the start, on the front line.
According to the 90-year-old Chen Shoucai veteran, the only 37 brigade he was in participated in the August 13 Song-Shanghai War. His cousin Yang Mengwan, a second lieutenant platoon leader, died gloriously in the Song-Shanghai War.
Chen Shoucai recalled to me: “First of all, I knew: ‘When a soldier eats Food, when a soldier wears clothes, when a soldier receives pay, when a soldier fights, when a soldier dies in battle! But, who knows? I just became a soldier, and then I was in a war! The war in Shanghai! And, the war was raging! Smoke and mirrors! The bodies were everywhere!”
“After the Song-Shanghai War, I always wanted to go home to farm. However, there has been no opportunity to leave the army.”
“Quietly escape? That’s not good! If you are caught, you will be shot! Besides, I had to fight the Japs for real!”
“I was wounded until the eve of victory in the war against Japan, and only then did the chief agree to my return to my hometown, which I had left behind for many years.”
Most of the National Army resistance soldiers were poor to the extreme
Huang Jianwen, a veteran of the 64th Cantonese Army of the Nationalist War, complained bitterly: “Dogs are not as miserable as we are! Can you at least give me a bowl of rice Soup for my congee?” (Screenshot from a Tencent video in 2012, now deleted)
Mr. Lin Huaqiang from Tiantai, Zhejiang Province, took me to Chen Shoucai’s home. Can I say that his house is “full of houses”? Not appropriate. His house has electric fans and rice cookers. These are the things of modern society. However, his house is from the Qing Dynasty era, inside and out, up and down. He said that his Family has lived in this broken house for five generations. Except for the Anti-Japanese War, when he went to the front line to fight against the invading Japanese army, he had never been anywhere. After winning the war, Chen Shoucai returned to his hometown of Tiantai County, Zhejiang Province, and continued to farm for a living.
Chen Shoucai escaped from the suppression of counter-revolutionary movement just after liberation; in the unprecedented Cultural Revolution in 1967, he was ignored by the “revolutionary masses”. When I look at him now, he is indeed an old Chinese peasant.
Chen Shoucai, a Kuomintang war veteran, did not receive a pension or a medallion to commemorate his victory in the war against Japan.
It has been exactly 80 years since the Song-Shanghai War. This interview with Chen Shoucai was written on May 21, 2010. I heard that veteran Chen Shoucai is no longer with us. When I wrote about Chen Shoucai, I unconsciously remembered the 20 or so veterans of the former invading Japanese army whom I interviewed when I studied in Japan from 1991 to 1997. When I think back, there are no veterans of the Japanese war who have experienced such war and are so poor.
On May 19, 2005, he came from Japan to Beijing to kneel at the Lugou Bridge to express his gratitude and repentance for his crimes in the war. It would have been impossible for him to travel from Wakayama, where he lives in Japan, to Tokyo, let alone from Tokyo to Beijing by air, if his family was in need.
As we know, 1967 was the year when China’s cultural revolutionary movement began to break out. I was 13 years old at that Time. I remembered that a boiler burner at my father’s office, the China Youth Publishing House, was a Nationalist soldier. So, I fought against him. A KMT major general named Hu Shuzhuan hanged himself in the data room.
The Japanese didn’t do anything, but none of their former enemies remained! All wiped out by the Chinese themselves!
I used the opportunity to study in Japan from 1991 to 1997 to interview nearly 30 old ghosts of the former invading Japanese army. From 1999 to the present, I have interviewed more than 500 Chinese veterans who experienced the war in person throughout China. Among them, in Tiantai County, Zhejiang Province, I interviewed 42 former National Army resistance soldiers. They are all the same as Chen Shoucai, the National Army war veteran above! were poor to the extreme. Only one’s son is a boss, and he can live beyond that!
Why are the National Army soldiers poor and discriminated against so far?
For one thing, the successive years of war! First, the war against Japan! Then the civil war!
Second, the “suppression of counter-revolutionary movements” at the beginning of the liberation period. Almost all the former National Army personnel were executed and imprisoned.
Thirdly, the thirty years from 1949 to 1979 were marked by supervision, surveillance, discrimination and indifference from the people.
Fourth, to this day, they are still a group of people who are doubly discriminated against. –Anyone want to talk to me?
I have published my interview notes about the interview with Tiantai, Zhejiang Province, in the book The Last War Veterans. Book, published by Shandong Pictorial Society in 2008.
The care and generous treatment the invasion veterans received in Japan
The situation in Japan is very different from that in China. Let’s talk about the difference between the “fixed-year annuity” and the “gratuity system”. “The “annuity for a fixed year” is the pension that the Japanese elderly receive after the legal retirement age. In this regard, Japanese veterans who “fought for the country” have a higher annuity than other Japanese nationals.
One veteran of the Japanese invasion of China told me that his pension was “cumulative. That is: one year of participation in the war against China is considered three years, or seven years of service. For example, if you fought in China for five years, when you get your annuity, it will be 15 years. In this way, all the years of service were counted together to receive the amount of annuity; the war veterans were always higher than the ordinary, other Japanese nationals.
Since August 1945, when Japan surrendered and Japan called the “Final War,” there has been no “trouble” for Japanese veterans.
There is also the “gratuity system”. This system was the law of the land from the “Taisho era” to the “Showa era” to the “Heisei era” today. It has been in place until today.
I have been in Japan for six years, and I have interviewed nearly 30 former veterans of the Japanese invasion of China. I took a bath with one of them, a Japanese veteran named Shiotani Hofon, bare-assed. I counted six bullet holes in his body! They were all “penetrating wounds” from Japanese Type 38 rifles fired at a distance of 200 meters.
I went to sleep with some old Japanese devils! The pictures hanging on the wall are the same as the pictures hung by the Chinese soldiers! Heavy machine guns, light machine guns, and submachine guns were placed in the front for pictures. All the men were in the back, in rows. The old Japanese devil pointed to the picture and said to me, “He, he, he, he, he …… died in battle in China.”
I have not met a single old devil of the former invading Japanese army who lived in poverty. Not even one.
In my seven years in Japan, I have not met one or a group of Japanese social groups that “care for the veterans of the invasion of China”. Because, the old soldiers who “fought for the country” in Japan do not need any care, love, concern, pity, sympathy, and injustice from all sectors of Japanese society ……. The Japanese state also does not call for “respect for the elderly”, because these “respect”, “care” in the legal level are provided for, according to the law, enough.
I used to compare the “Chinese National Army resistance soldiers” who experienced World War II with the “old Japanese devils”.
Written on July 20, 2016
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