On November 12, 1948, under the strong appeal of the famous Chinese jurist Mei Ru'ao , the murderer Matsui Iwane who had committed the Nanjing Massacre in our country was sentenced to hanging by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The result of
is undoubtedly very satisfying!
I believe that every Chinese who understands the true history and is full of passion will grit his teeth whenever the words "Matsui Iwane" are mentioned.
During the war of aggression against China, Iwane Matsui committed a crime that will never be forgiven against the people of Nanjing, our country.
Even after Iwane Matsui returned to Japan, his cruel behavior against China still did not stop.
Before leaving Nanjing, Matsui Iwane had people dig up ten jars of soil mixed with the blood of the Chinese people in Dachang Town, Nanjing.
So, what exactly is Matsui Iwane going to do with these ten jars of soil mixed with the blood of the Chinese people? What is the story behind these ten altars of blood and soil?
Everything starts with the sin-filled "Kwan-yin-yuan" in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan...
The sin-filled "Kwan-yin-yuan"
About two hours' drive south from Tokyo, you can come to Japan's most popular Welcome to Marina City - Atami City located at the entrance to the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture.
There is Mount Izu not far from the center of Atami City. There is a Kannon-in Temple on the mountain called "Koya Kannon-in Temple".
So, what is "Xingya"?
If you understand it from the surface meaning, it means that "makes the countries of Asia prosperous".
During the war of aggression against China, the term "Xingya" was very popular in militaristic Japan. However, its real intention was: to make Asian countries regard Japan as the leader and be led by Japan.
Such a blatant ambition instantly distorted the symbolic meaning of this Guanyin statue.
When you truly understand the layout and structure of this Guanyin Temple, you will find that this is actually a small "Yasukuni Shrine".
At the entrance of Guanyin Temple, there is a stone tablet engraved with "Determined March", which clearly affirms the war of aggression.
On the way up the mountain, you will see a stone slab with three stone tablets erected around it.
respectively read "The Heroic Spirit Bodhi of the Soldiers in the Great East Asia War", "To enshrine the 1068 souls who died in the Great East Asia War", and "The Monument of the Seven Scholars Shigeru Yoshida ".
After entering the main hall, there is a photo album of Class-A war criminals such as Hirota Koki, Matsui Iwane, and Toki Eijo in the center.
On the altar on the right side of the main hall, there is a photo album of Pal, an Indian judge of the International Tribunal for the Far East, who advocated the innocence of Japanese war criminals.
On one wall of the main hall, there is an oil painting depicting the "harmony and friendship" between the Japanese army and the Chinese people on the Chinese battlefield.
According to the host here, on August 15th every year, people come here to worship the ghosts who died in the "Holy War".
It can be said that Xingya Guanyin Temple is full of evil. Among them, the chief evil is the statue exposed to the blue sky - the copper-colored "Xingya Guanyin Statue" that is three meters high and weighs 600 kilograms. .
When the sinful and notorious "Xingya" put on the cloak of great mercy, the "great compassion" was tainted with an evil spirit that makes people do evil!
Because the person who led the construction of this Guanyin Temple was none other than Matsui Iwane, the soil used to build the "Xingya Guanyin Statue" in the Guanyin Temple was exactly the 10 altars he brought back from Nanjing, China, stained with Chinese people. Bloody soil!
Ten jars of blood and soil dug up from the Nanjing Massacre
Matsui Iwane was born in a samurai family in Japan. Since childhood, he was deeply influenced by Army General Kawakami Soroku's advocacy that "the reason for the existence of the Japanese army is to ensure the peace of the East." Ideological edification.
Matsui Iwane had always attended the Army School, and was promoted step by step from a junior lieutenant to an army general.It can be said that before 1936, Matsui Iwane's official career had always been smooth.
It was not until February 26, 1936, that a small number of young officers of the " Imperial Road Sect" of the Japanese Army launched the "February 26 Mutiny" that lasted only three days.
Matsui Iwane was implicated and retired from active service, and returned to his hometown of old Owari Province (today's Aichi Prefecture) in desperation.
On August 13 of the following year, the Japanese army created the "August 13th" incident in Shanghai and began an all-out invasion of central China.
The urgent war made Matsui Iwane return to the army in less than two years.
Later, Matsui was promoted to the commander of Japan's Shanghai Expeditionary Force, and led two divisions to rush to the Songhu battlefield to support the commander of the Japanese Third Fleet Kiyoshi Hasegawa .
This Battle of Songhu lasted for almost three months. China and Japan invested more than one million troops, and the battle was very fierce.
In the end, under the command of Matsui Iwane, the Japanese army narrowly won at the cost of 40,000 casualties. After the fall of Shanghai, Matsui Iwane's next target was the capital Nanjing.
Although the Japanese high command did not have a strong intention to continue attacking the capital of the Nationalist government, Matsui Iwane, who was deeply poisoned by the martial arts ideology, directly ordered the Japanese troops to attack in three directions without the permission of the Japanese high command. Nanjing.
It was not until November 22 that Matsui Iwane formally submitted his proposal to attack Nanjing to the General Staff Headquarters.
The capture of Nanjing was already in progress, and the Japanese high command could not change the status quo, so it approved Matsui Iwane's application.
On December 12, the Japanese 6th Division, under the command of Lieutenant General Hisao Tani, the commander of the division, blasted open the Zhonghua Gate of Nanjing with artillery, destroying several parts of the city wall.
In the evening of the next day, Japanese troops swarmed in and Nanjing fell.
On the night when Nanjing fell, the besieging Japanese army issued a secret order to massacre the city with a retaliatory nature:
The city of Nanjing would be raided by district; all men, women, old and young in the city would be killed, and all houses would be burned down.
Later, the people of Nanjing experienced a nightmare for about forty days in "hell", and suffered massacres through various cruel methods such as shooting, assassination, burial alive, and drowning. The number of casualties was as high as 300,000!
All kinds of evil deeds by the Japanese army were carried out with the deliberate connivance of Matsui Iwane.
The cruel anti-humanity atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing shocked the international community. At that time, the German representative in Nanjing reported to his own government:
This was not an individual act but a brutal and criminal act by the entire army, that is, the Japanese army itself. The Japanese army was The "band of beasts" has erected a monument of shame for itself.
Later, unable to withstand the pressure from international public opinion, the Japanese government recalled Matsui Iwane and his subordinates on March 5, 1938.
It is worth mentioning that before Matsui Iwane returned to Japan, people dug up ten jars of blood and soil in Dachang Town, Nanjing.
He planned to use the blood and soil to represent his "great achievements" to build a statue of Guanyin.
After returning to Atami City, Matsui Iwane has been waiting for the opportunity to put this plan into action...
The completion of "Koya Kannon-in Temple"
After returning to Japan, one day, Matsui Iwane was in Izuyama While walking, I met Anji Furushima, the owner of the Congcong Garden.
Matsui Iwane said straight to the point:
I plan to build a Guanyin Temple in the mountains to commemorate the 23,000 sacrificed subordinates. If you can help me, I will be grateful for the rest of my life.
Kojima Anji did not think about it for a long time, and he generously dedicated the ancestral treasure land of Narusawa Ridge in Izu Mountain to Matsui Iwane for him to use to build a church and a statue.
To build a Guanyin Temple, the most important and most scarce issue is funding.
Therefore, Matsui Iwane approached the mayor of Atami City and established a "praise association" with the mayor of Atami City as the leader and himself as the president to start the fund preparation work.
Soon, the person who inscribed the plaque was identified as Asakagong Palace Jiuhiko, the son of Prince Asahiko and the executor of the Nanjing Massacre.
The abbot is held by Itami Ninrei , a zealous admirer of Matsui Iwane and a Shinto native, and his wife Myojin of Kannon Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo.
In addition, the preparatory meeting also mobilized Atami City’s rural military association, fire brigade, youth league and other social groups to participate in daily operations and services.
In the end, only the question of "Who will make the Guanyin statue" is left.
Matsui Iwane made the selection for a long time, and finally decided to have the famous ceramic artist Shibayama Qingfeng from Tokoname, Chita-gun, Aichi Prefecture, to produce the "Sitting Guanyin";
ceramic artist from Seto City, Aichi Prefecture the second generation Kato Haruji Create "Original Guanyin".
After fully listening to Matsui Iwane’s opinions, Shibayama Seifu designed and produced a small draft of a 30-centimeter-tall standing statue of Guanyin with hands folded together in July 1939.
Five months later, with the assistance of the sculptor Ogura Uichiro, Shibayama Kiyofu made the "Koya Guanyin Statue" using purple sand mountain mud and ten altars of blood and soil brought back from the Nanjing Massacre by Matsui Iwane. .
Immediately afterwards, Kato Haruji’s two-foot-tall standing and seated statues of the “Hospital Guanyin” were also completed.
Why did Matsui Iwane use the blood and soil of the Chinese people to create the "Koya Guanyin Statue"? After the Guanyin statue was completed, why did it move to the south?
According to the Feng Shui principles of " Easy to Learn ", the north is the upper position and is the direction used to place the Guanyin statue.
Since Nanjing is located in the southwest of Japan, Matsui Iwane had people move the Guanyin statue to the southwest, and his malicious intent was obvious.
Matsui Iwane was not only delusional about being blessed by the Bodhisattva, but also fulfilling his shameless wish to "integrate China into Japan forever". Therefore, he used the blood and soil of the Chinese people to create the "Xingya Guanyin Statue" .
After the completion of "Xingya Guanyin Temple", a consecration ceremony was held on February 24, 1940, under the auspices of Monk Masaru Oshima Tetsuzu of Pure Land Sect Shizojoji Temple.
And Matsui Iwane also built a study on the hillside of Mount Izu, named "Fearless Temple".
Matsui Iwane, who retired from the battlefield, would climb mountains with his arm every day and come to the Guanyin Hall to eat fast and chant sutras.
Is he repenting for the sins he committed in Nanjing? The answer can be read from a poem he wrote:
The army hangs on the festival with half a star of frost, and the holy cause is not completed but the battle is bloody. He Mao survived and became old and emaciated, and his remains vowed to repay the heroic spirit.
This poem clearly exposes his killing and no regrets. It can be seen that not only has Lao Matsui's dream of "Xingya" in his heart not yet awakened, he has also maliciously distorted the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese army against the Chinese people. How can
be seen?
This can be seen from the "spirituals of the Japanese war dead in the China Incident" and the "spirituals of the Chinese war dead in the China Incident" that he established in the "Xingya Guanyin Hall".
As a loyal follower of Japanese militarism, Matsui Iwane never recognized the atrocity of the atrocities he committed.
If there is a Bodhisattva in the world, how can he protect such a devil whose hands are stained with the blood of innocent people?
The ending of Matsui Iwane
Evil will be rewarded with evil, and good will be rewarded with good. It’s not that the time has not yet come for not repaying!
After the victory of World War II, on August 14, 1945, the International Tribunal for the Far East announced the arrest of Matsui Iwane.
However, at that time, Matsui Iwane suffered from pneumonia because he had been busy promoting the idea of "promoting Asia" in various parts of Asia some time ago. At this time, he was lying in bed unable to get up.
Out of the spirit of humanitarianism, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces extended the deadline to March 5, 1946, before notifying the Sugamo Detention Center in Tokyo, which specifically houses war criminals, to take him into custody.
Although Matsui Iwane wrote a long defense at the Sugamo Detention Center to clear himself of the charges, facts speak louder than words, and he could not escape justice after all.
At midnight on December 23, 1948, Matsui Iwane climbed onto the thirteenth level of the gallows.
More than thirty minutes later, the seven Class-A war criminals, including Matsui Iwane, all ended their sinful lives.
According to the resolution of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the bodies of the seven Class-A war criminals will be cremated and handed over to the US military for disposal.
At dawn, a US military truck covered tightly with a raincloth drove out of the back door of the Sugamo Prison, and arrived at the Kuboyama Crematorium on the outskirts of Yokohama twenty minutes later.
At this time, what the US military in charge of the cremation did not know was that die-hard militarists would soon come to steal the ashes of war criminals.
At that time, the defense lawyer of the Class-A war criminal Koiso Kuniaki Sanjima Shohei privately approached the American lawyer George Burwes to smooth the relationship.
Lawyers for war criminals hope to transfer the ashes of Class A war criminals to the prisoners’ families by applying to the Supreme Command of the Occupation Forces.
However, this matter was no small matter, and Sanmonji Zhenghei was directly rejected.
Subsequently, Sanzi Wen Zhengping hurriedly rushed to Xingzen Temple next to the crematorium overnight, and discussed the plan to steal the ashes with the abbot Ichikawa Io and the director of Kuboyama Crematorium Hida Mizen .
The cremation of the corpses of Class A war criminals lasted for an hour and a half. When the iron door of the crematorium was opened, Tobita Meishan quickly used a hooked iron drill to remove a small amount of the ashes of the seven people and quickly transferred them to Secret room.
Afterwards, the ashes of the seven Class-A war criminals were handed over to their families for safekeeping.
However, when the families of war criminals quietly came to pay their respects to the place where the urns of war criminals were hidden, the white smoke rising was discovered by the US military police patrolling nearby.
After the US military smashed the urns , they threw them all into the crematorium and the ownerless ash pile.
The US military does not believe that die-hard militarists will steal ashes again, but they obviously underestimated the "determination" of the Japanese.
Even though the ashes of the war criminals were scattered in the indistinguishable burial pits among the ownerless ashes, the devils with the lingering militarism in their hearts once again formulated a plan to steal the ashes.
They are still three characters: Bun Masahei, Ichikawa Io and Tobita Mizan. They took advantage of the US military to celebrate Christmas Eve and sneaked into the unclaimed ashes burial pit and successfully dug out what they thought were seven Class-A war criminals. of ashes.
Afterwards, the urn was given the name of Sanmonji Shohei's nephew, Sanmonji Shosuke, who died in Shanghai, and was handed over to Kozenji Temple for temporary custody.
On May 3 of the following year, the urn was taken out of Kōzenji by Sanjimon Shohei and moved to the "Koya Kannon-in" built by Matsui Iwane on Mt. Izu.
Abbot Itami Ninrei found an extremely safe cave and hid it.
Until 1952, the Allies ended their military occupation of Japan with the signing of the San Francisco Treaty.
Later, Japan's right-wing forces re-emerged. In 1959, they even grandly placed "the ashes of seven Class-A war criminals" next to the "Xingya Guanyin Temple" and erected the "Seven Scholars Monument".
This move by Japan's right-wing forces first aroused dissatisfaction with the left-wing "radical" organization - the East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front.
On December 12, 1971, Japanese new left-wing activist Daidoji Shoji and three others placed at the bottom of the statue of Koya Guanyin, the "Monument of the Seven Scholars" and the "Monument to Support the Souls of 1,086 People who died in the Great East Asia War" respectively. Pipe bombs and fire extinguisher bombs.
At ten o'clock in the evening, the bomb exploded on time, "The Monument of the Seven Scholars" was blown into three pieces, and "The Statue of Xingya Guanyin" and the "Monument to Support the Souls of 1086 Soldiers who died in the Great East Asia War" were mute because of the bomb. It was slightly damaged.
With the fracture of the "Monument of the Seven Scholars", Iwane Matsui, who had turned to ashes, also disappeared from the Guanyin Temple that he had painstakingly built during his lifetime.
"Death without a burial place" is the karma that Matsui Iwane deserves!
Conclusion
"Koya Kannon-in Temple" was established in 1942 and has been standing on Mount Izu for 80 years.
Its existence proves Matsui Iwane’s numerous evil deeds against the Chinese people and the people of Nanjing.
No matter how many years pass, Matsui Iwane should not be forgotten or glorified by history.
As Chinese, we should sound the alarm and never forget the national humiliation!
