In 1961, Masanobu Tsuji, then a Japanese senator and former Japanese army staff officer, asked for a month's leave from the Japanese Congress to travel to northern Vietnam. But after setting off in April of that year, Tsuji Masanobu disappeared.
The last record shows that this Japanese politician disguised himself as a monk and smuggled himself into Laos, and has not been heard from since.
It was not until 7 years later that the Japanese government announced Tsuji Masanobu's death.
After confirmation, Tsuji Masanobu finally entered Laos from Vietnam and cooperated with the Laotian guerrillas. His purpose was not to help the guerrillas fight, but to find gold buried by the Japanese army in Southeast Asia.
Japanese newspapers used "Tsuji Masanobu's Golden Dream" to report Tsuji Masanobu's last experience. Before that, this short soldier had the nickname "Jackal Staff " in Japan.
Staff Officer Tsuji was a fanatic of Japanese militarism. He fought in China and Southeast Asia and planned the "Singapore Massacre" and "Bataan Death March" that shocked the world, killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians and prisoners of war.
The reason why he is called "Jackal" is because Tsuji Masanobu personally hacked an American pilot to death and asked his subordinates to use his body to "add food", which scared the Japanese military leaders so much that they peed their pants.
Masanobu Tsuji had blood on his hands during World War II, and his crazy words disgusted his colleagues around him. But after the war, he hid in Southeast Asia and escaped Tokyo Trial .
It was not until 1950, when the Allies announced that they would no longer pursue war criminals, that he returned to his country and entered politics.
Unexpectedly, this lunatic had been a politician's "Jackal Advisor" for 10 years, but he couldn't control his greed, and finally died on the way to Southeast Asia to hunt for treasure.
So, how anti-human is "Counselor Tsuji" Masanobu Tsuji? What scandalous things did he do during World War II? How did he disappear in the end?
1. "King of Rolls" Tsuji Masanobu's path to the army
Tsuji Masanobu was born in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan in 1902. His hometown is called Higashiko Okura, which is famous for its hot springs Ishikawa Prefecture .
Masanobu Tsuji’s family has been farmers for generations. The family has several acres of rice fields and can barely support a large family.
In the generation of Tsuji Masanobu's father, Tsuji Kamekichi, he went to school with the help of the "Meiji New Deal", and later went to the technical secondary school normal school. He returned to his hometown and opened a small dojo to help the villagers handle weddings, funerals and some paperwork. affairs.
Tsuji Masanobu's family was very poor when he was a boy. He earned his tuition by selling bamboo charcoal. He walked several kilometers to school every day, sold charcoal, and developed excellent foot strength.
Tsuji Masanobu also had some talent for reading and did well in elementary school. His family thought that he could go to a normal school and become an elementary school teacher.
But at the age of 15, Tsuji Masanobu changed his mind about becoming a teacher and began to yearn for the army because he saw the valiant posture of Japanese military officers on a school trip.
In the end, Tsuji Masanobu gave up applying for a normal technical secondary school and chose the Army Infant School.
At that time, there were only 7 army kindergarten schools in Japan, and 20,000 to 30,000 students signed up every year. The competition was very fierce. Tsuji Masanobu was born into a poor family and had no social connections to draw on. It was very difficult for him to enter Rokuyo.
Fortunately, the hard life in the countryside allowed him to develop a good body and excel in his studies. Finally, Tsuji Masanobu was able to enter the Nagoya Army Infantry School and embarked on the road to joining the army.
In the military academy, Tsuji Masanobu's performance was called the "King of Rolls". This robot-like student only knew how to study and exercise, and had no other activities.
Tsuji Masanobu was excellent in all aspects of physical education and cultural studies. He finally graduated from the Roku Elementary School with the first place in 1920 and was awarded a "pocket watch" by Prince Hirohito. This was an encouragement for the top five students in the elementary school.
A few years later, Tsuji Masanobu was admitted to the Army Sergeant School . He graduated in 1924 and still ranked first. As a result, he met Prince Hirohito for the second time. Hirohito was also deeply impressed by this student who had received silver pocket watches twice.
After graduating from the Army Sergeant School, Masanobu Tsuji became a second lieutenant and was assigned to the 7th Infantry Regiment of Kanazawa.
In 1928, Tsuji Masanobu was admitted to the Japanese Army University from the army. In that era, entering mainland Japan was equivalent to stepping into the "general gate" with one foot, and Tsuji Masanobu immediately became a man of the hour in his hometown.
Tsuji Masanobu still created a legend in mainland China. It is said that he never sleeps at night and studies by light in the stable, sleeping only 2-3 hours a day. His theoretical courses are very good, and he is praised by the school as the "Future Minister of War".
Three years later, Tsuji Masanobu graduated from Mainland China with the "Third Flower" grade, took over the "Plum Blossom Sword" from Emperor Hirohito, and became a member of the " Saber Team ".
After that, Tsuji Masanobu returned to his old army "Kanazawa United" and became a squadron leader.
It was 1931, and the Japanese Kwantung Army swallowed up China's three northeastern provinces in the September 18th Incident. The "cadets" of the Japanese army cheered. is an idol, and they all want to go to China to make contributions.
Masanobu Tsuji had also been looking forward to "going out". In January 1932, his "opportunity" came.
2. In order to make meritorious service, Tsuji Masanobu harmed the Kwantung Army
In January 1932, the "December 128 Anti-Japanese War" broke out between China and Japan. Tsuji Masanobu followed the Kanazawa 7th Regiment to Shanghai to participate in the war, and fought with the 19th Route Army of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army. war.
During the war, the Chinese 19th Army fought bravely in Shanghai and inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese army. This battle allowed Tsuji Masanobu to see the cruelty of war for the first time. More than a dozen of his men were killed by Chinese soldiers. He himself also suffered a knee injury and almost died on the battlefield.
But the cruelty of war did not scare this madman.
After the "128th Anti-Japanese War", Tsuji Masanobu returned to the country and entered the Japanese Army Staff Headquarters to serve as Colonel Tojo Hideki.
During this period, Masanobu Tsuji was inspired by Tojo Hideki to superstitiously invade China. Later, Tojo Hideki went to serve in the Kwantung Army, and Tsuji Masanobu was also transferred there to serve as the section chief of the military station section in the Kwantung Army.
Tsuji Masanobu’s years in the Northeast were the period when Japan’s Kwantung Army, under the leadership of Hideki Tojo, was bursting with ambition.
In 1937, the Kwantung Army and the North Korean garrison advocated invasion of China, which eventually evolved into a Sino-Japanese all-out war starting from the " July 7th Incident".
After the "July 7th Incident", Tsuji Masanobu was extremely "excited".
Although Ishihara Kanji, who advocated "stop invading China" at the time, was his idol and spiritual mentor, Tsuji Masanobu's eyes were blinded by ambition, and he madly supported the expansion of the invasion of China and served as a staff officer in the frontline troops.
In the "Northern Front Army", Tsuji Masanobu wanted to show off his talents, but his almost crazy words and deeds caused him to go down the mountain to ponder the disagreement with the chief of staff.
went down the mountain and felt that this stupid young man who yelled about fighting and killing was not suitable as a staff officer, so he drove him back to the Kwantung Army.
The Kwantung Army was Tsuji Masanobu's home base at this time. Its commander Ueda Kenkichi was Tsuji Masanobu's old boss, and Tojo Hideki was also his old acquaintance. So Tsuji Masanobu was lawless here, brewing a big drama.
In early 1939, Tsuji Masanobu published the "Outline for Handling the Manchurian-Soviet Border Issues." This document appeared to be about the signature of the Eastern Army Commander-in-Chief Ueda Kenkichi, but it was actually something that Tsuji Masanobu had concocted by himself.
The "Outline for Handling the Manchurian-Soviet Border Issue" requires the Japanese army to fight for every inch of land in the border areas, and the military commander is responsible for the border. This is equivalent to encouraging the Japanese army to grab land from the Soviet and Mongolian armies.
One month after the publication of this "outline", the various divisions on the border of Puppet Manchuria were gearing up, all wanting to make some big splash to stand out.
In fact, this order is completely contrary to the requirements of the Japanese Military Ministry and the cabinet, and is the embodiment of Tsuji Masanobu's personal adventurism. He wanted to provoke the "Soviet-Manchurian dispute", let the Japanese army defeat the Soviet army, seize benefits from the Soviet Union, and make himself the "second Ishihara Wanji".
But Tsuji Masanobu had no idea about the military level of the Soviet Union at that time, and thought that the elite Kwantung Army could destroy the Soviet army. Little did he know that the Soviet army's combat effectiveness was far superior to the Kwantung Army.
As a result, in the Battle of Nomonhan that broke out on May 11, 1939, the Japanese 23rd Division was almost completely wiped out by the Soviet army. More than 8,000 Japanese soldiers died, more than 7,000 were injured, and several heavy weapons and aircraft were lost. It was a disastrous defeat.
After the war, the commander of the 23rd Division, Michutaro Komatsubara, committed seppuku. The Soviet Union and Japan signed a non-aggression pact. The commander of the Kwantung Army, Kenkichi Ueda, was also implicated and was dismissed from his post and was assigned to the reserve force to lead troops.
However, as the instigator of this fiasco, the madman Masanobu Tsuji escaped and was sent to Wuhan and Nanjing successively.
In the summer of 1940, he was assigned to Taiwan Island. After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, he came to Indochina to assist Yamashita Fengfumi and served as director of the operations department.
During the Pacific War, Yamashita Tombumi's 25th Army was invincible and captured the entire Indochina Peninsula.
The next year, Yamashita Fengwen captured Malay and Singapore. The British army was defeated and Yamashita Fengwen was nicknamed the "Malay Tiger".
In Singapore, the Japanese army extorted and massacred local Chinese. Tsuji Masanobu was the main participant in this massacre. The massacre had more than 20,000 victims, making it the largest massacre of civilians in Southeast Asia.
In addition, Philippines the Japanese 14th Army also received an order from Tsuji Masanobu under the guise of the General Staff Headquarters, asking them to "reduce" the number of prisoners to reduce military consumption.
With the orders from the General Staff Headquarters, the Japanese army began to slaughter British and American prisoners unscrupulously in the Philippines. 30,000 American soldiers were tortured to death in the Bataan prisoner of war camp alone.
The Japanese army held "knife test competitions" when they had nothing to do, and chopped off the heads of Americans for fun, which made American soldiers suffer from mental illness.
3. "Chinese soldiers are far superior to American and Soviet soldiers. They will fight to the last man."
In 1944, the Japanese army fully occupied Myanmar . Masanobu Tsuji served as a staff officer in the 33rd Army. At the same time, he also went on a killing spree in the local area, massacring the anti-Japanese armed forces. and prisoners of war from the Chinese and British armies.
At the end of September 1944, the Japanese air defense forces intercepted a U.S. fighter formation. A pilot named Benjamin Parker was captured by the Japanese after parachuting.
Tsuji Masanobu tortured Parker and wanted to know what his combat goal was, but Parker refused to speak, even if he was tortured, he would not say a word.
In the end, Tsuji Masanobu became so angry that he first peeled off Parker's face with a knife, and then chopped off his head with a Burmese machete.
The adjutants beside him were stunned by this scene, but Tsuji Masanobu was very calm. He ordered Parker to be carried down to "add food" to the soldiers.
At that time, the Japanese army was indeed running out of food in Myanmar, but using people to "add food" still scared the shit out of the Japanese army's top soldiers.
Because of this "public case" of cannibalism, the Japanese later called Masanobu Tsuji a "jackal".
At the end of 1944, in order to provide food for the Japanese troops in Southeast Asia, the Japanese "China Expeditionary Force" launched the "Henan, Hunan and Guangxi Operation" to open up the mainland's communication lines.
However, because the Japanese army was unable to maintain communication lines and repair railways, the Japanese army in Southeast Asia was still hungry, and was finally defeated by the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the British Army.
After the Chinese Expeditionary Force was renovated in India, it was equipped with American weapons, sufficient supplies, and well-trained soldiers. As soon as it entered Myanmar, it launched a dimensionality reduction attack on the Japanese army.
At that time, a Chinese art division could chase down several divisions of the Japanese army. Tsuji Masanobu could not believe that this was the Chinese army. He later believed: "With the same weapons, Chinese soldiers are much more powerful than American soldiers. "
In 1945, the Japanese army was struggling to support itself in the Pacific. The Japanese army in Southeast Asia became useless and was abandoned by the Japanese base camp. At this time, Tsuji Masanobu began to think about his own future.
After Japan's defeat, Tsuji Masanobu traveled to Southeast Asia and escaped the trial of the Allies. Otherwise, based on what Tsuji Masanobu did, he would definitely be sentenced to and hanged in the Tokyo Trial.
In 1950, the Allies announced that they would no longer pursue Japanese war criminals, and Tsuji Masanobu reappeared and ran for parliament.
As a famous staff officer of the Japanese army during World War II, Masanobu Tsuji still has his own group of fans, and he is considered a celebrity among members of Congress.
During his time as an official, Tsuji Masanobu wrote a book called "Asia's Sympathy", which ranked the Japanese army first, the Chinese soldiers second, and the remaining countries such as the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain were ranked behind.
The reason why Tsuji Masanobu is ranked like this is very simple. On the battlefield, Chinese soldiers are just like the Japanese army. They can "fight to the death" and are even more fierce than the Japanese army. Even in disadvantageous battle situations, they will often fight to the last man. Even Tsuji Masanobu Such lunatics are admired with all their hearts.
However, Westerners throw up their hands and surrender when they are at a disadvantage. This kind of willpower makes the Japanese look down on them.
Tsuji Masanobu was very popular during his participation in politics, but this "Jackal Counselor" was always thinking about some treasures-gold that the Japanese army looted in Southeast Asia.
It is no longer news that the Japanese army hid gold in Southeast Asia. There are reports of Japanese army treasures in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Laos. Especially in the Philippines, there was a nationwide treasure hunt in the 1960s, and there were indeed many examples of treasure hunters who made fortunes.
In 1961, Masanobu Tsuji received news that a batch of Japanese gold was in the mountains of Laos, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Tsuji Masanobu was overjoyed. He said goodbye to his family and went to Vietnam. He also disguised himself and sneaked into Laos, and has not been heard from since.
A few years later, some Chinese said that they had seen an old bald Japanese man in the Laos guerrillas, who should be Masanobu Tsuji.
It was later confirmed that Tsuji Masanobu was arrested by the guerrillas after sneaking into Laos and was kept as a hostage. Tsuji Masanobu wanted the Chinese to rescue him and said he would give the Chinese a large sum of money.
The Chinese did try to rescue Tsuji Masanobu in order to let him accept justice. However, Tsuji Masanobu disappeared in 1962, and the Lao guerrillas said he had escaped.
Chinese people involved speculated that Tsuji Masanobu should be secretly executed as a spy. Although he was not allowed to accept justice, the way this lunatic was secretly executed to death was enough to make people vent their anger.
Japan later announced Tsuji Masanobu's death in 1968, and his name briefly changed from "Jackal Staff Officer" to "Golden Staff Officer."
Later, some good people in Japan went to Laos to look for Tsuji Masanobu's traces, but found nothing. His traces even became the subject of some decrypted adventure novels, which attracted many readers.
Text/Shang Xueye
Reference: "Footprints of the Jackal - Japanese Army Staff Officer Tsuji Masanobu", Yu Tianren
