Preamble:
In 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out, and Japan's aggression against China began as early as 1931, which means that we fought against Japan for 14 years. With the full-scale outbreak of World War II, in addition to sending a large number of soldiers to the Chinese battlefield, Japan also deployed a large number of troops in other regions, and the total number of troops invested reached more than 7 million, but only 370,000 prisoners of war finally returned to Japan.
Why did only 370,000 of the more than 7 million Japanese soldiers return to Japan after the war? We have always pursued a policy of preferential treatment of prisoners, and it is impossible to massacre prisoners of war like the Japanese, and we will also persuade troops that have lost their combat effectiveness to surrender, so it is impossible for our fighters to kill the Japanese soldiers who have surrendered. Could it be that the number of Japanese soldiers killed during the war was too high?
Japanese military strength during World War II
In 1931, Japan's total strength was only 320,000, of which 230,000 were attached to the army. After plundering part of the oil fields, ores, and various gold, silver and jewelry in the northeast region, Japan had the ability to expand its army, so after the September 18 Incident to 1937, Japan's total military strength suddenly expanded to 1.08 million.
In 1939, World War II broke out, and Japan rapidly expanded its military to 1.5 million troops. After opening up the southern theater, Japan's total strength reached 2.2 million. In 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in the United States, and the United States officially entered World War II, and Japan also rapidly expanded its military, and in 1942, the total strength of Japan's navy and army reached a staggering 7.2 million.
At the beginning of World War II, Japan's main battlefields were the Chinese battlefield and the Burma battlefield, and until the end of the war, the total number of Japanese soldiers killed in the Chinese battlefield was about 500,000, and the total number of Japanese deaths in Burma was about 160,000.
In the later stages of the war, as more and more Chinese soldiers and civilians joined the fighting, the resistance became more and more fierce, and the situation on the Chinese battlefield became a stalemate between the two sides. As a result, the main battlefield of the Japanese army was also changed, and it became the Pacific Theater and the Burma Theater, in which the death toll of the Japanese army in the Pacific Theater was about 1.55 million.
How did Japan suddenly appear with such a large number of troops?
Japan's navy and air force have been greatly expanded in a very short period of time, so why only mention Japan's navy and Japanese army, but not the Japanese air force? In fact, during World War II, Japan did not have such an air force, and all the fighters flying in the sky were actually Japanese army aviation and Japanese naval aviation.
Before Japan's Meiji Restoration, Japan's army and navy were two major families, and there was a feud between the two families, and both families formed their own air forces in order to expand their influence.
Among them, the army vigorously expanded its army, and the navy vigorously built ships, but the two did not cooperate much during the war, so the Japanese army had its own sea troops, and the Japanese navy also had its own land forces. It was precisely because of this high degree of overlap of responsibilities, coupled with the expansion of the scale of the war, that the total strength of the Japanese army increased explosively, or rather, the two families competed.
At that time, there were about 16 million men of military age in Japan, of which about 10 million were eligible for conscription. Under the emperor's instigation and brainwashing, most of this group of people took the initiative to sign up for the army, so Japan's military strength showed an explosive growth trend.
Japanese soldiers on the front lines of the war sometimes wrote to their relatives who were still in their homeland about their current situation, and if their male was still alive, then these relatives would hold a family gathering. If a Japanese officer arrives at the home of a soldier who is fighting on the front line, it usually means that the soldier has been killed, and his family will not only feel sad, but angry, because in their eyes Japan is the side of justice.
Regardless of whether the men on the front line in the family are dead or alive, as long as a letter comes back and an officer arrives, the surrounding neighbors will see it. Therefore, the spread of militarist ideas among the Japanese people is far faster than people imagine, so some Japanese who are unwilling to fight wars and do not want to believe in militarist ideas have joined the army under the coercion and inducement of the Japanese military, their neighbors, and their own families, and have become part of foreign aggression, and their thinking will gradually be corroded in the army.
Where did Japan's multimillion-strong army go?
Except for the Japanese soldiers who died in the war, where did the rest of the Japanese soldiers go, and why did only a few hundred thousand Japanese soldiers return to Japan in the end? In fact, the figures published vary depending on the method used by each country to calculate wartime casualties.
Some countries do not count prisoners of war who die after the end of the war as wartime casualties, nor do they count enemy soldiers who still resist after the surrender of the belligerent countries in wartime casualties. And the large number of soldiers who went missing in the war does not have an exact number.
Taking the United States as an example, the military strength of the United States during World War II was undoubtedly second only to the existence of the Soviet Union, and most of the Japanese soldiers in the recorded number of Japanese soldiers killed died in the Pacific theater, which was also the main battlefield of the United States and Japan. A large number of artillery and machine guns equipped by the United States inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese troops, and a salvo of American naval guns could directly flatten a hill.
The Americans have always been covered by firepower and indiscriminate bombing in wars, which has also led to the loss of the bones of many Japanese soldiers who have been directly bombed. Most of the remaining Japanese soldiers will follow the principle of swearing to the death and not surrendering, or pretend to surrender and die with the American soldiers, which also led to the fact that the American soldiers killed the Japanese soldiers directly as long as they saw them in the later period, and the military discipline in the United States was not strict, so there was often a phenomenon of prisoner abuse, and many Japanese soldiers committed suicide in the prisoner of war camp.
After advancing to Germany proper, the Soviet Union also launched the Battle of Nomenkan, and Japan could not withstand the steel torrent of the Soviet Union, and a large number of Japanese soldiers surrendered. These surrendered Japanese soldiers were later transported by the Soviet Union to Siberia to dig potatoes, and Siberia was perennially frozen in the soil, not to mention digging and digging a hole.
A large number of Japanese soldiers were frozen to death, and the bodies of these frozen Japanese soldiers would be pushed into the furnace as "fuel", and the same bones remained.
Australia has done something similar, but with a more "simple and crude approach". They besieged the Japanese army on a tropical island, and the Japanese army had no supplies to deliver, and the Japanese troops on the island were skinny and skinny. These Japanese soldiers also thought about surrendering, but all the Japanese soldiers who went to surrender were shot on the spot, and due to malnutrition, many Japanese soldiers suffered from dysentery and died tragically in the field.
As more and more Japanese soldiers died, more and more Japanese soldiers fell ill, and they became weaker and weaker, unable to even hold guns, and could only sit and wait for death in the face of the attacks of wild beasts and poisonous insects in the jungle.
The truth
In fact, the number of prisoners of war who were returned to Japan after the war was far more than 370,000, and the number of Japanese captured soldiers and Japanese nationals sent back by China after Japan's surrender alone was as high as 2.14 million. So it is very likely that the figure of 370,000 is only the number of Japanese prisoners of war released by the Allied or Soviet forces.
During the 14 years of the War of Resistance Against Japan, no matter what the Japanese army did to the Chinese, no matter how much the common people and anti-Japanese fighters hated these Japanese soldiers, the anti-Japanese martyrs upheld the humanitarian spirit and did their best to keep these prisoners of war fed and clothed.
The author perceives
Whatever the reason, no matter where the figure of 370,000 comes from, we can be sure that during the 14-year Anti-Japanese War, China's anti-Japanese forces never allowed the abuse of prisoners, and if a soldier mistreated a prisoner, then the soldier would definitely be punished in accordance with laws and regulations. To a greater extent, the reason why Chinese soldiers do not mistreat prisoners is because we love peace and we consciously uphold the spirit of humanitarianism, but this does not mean that the Chinese nation is weak.
After 14 years of war, the Chinese have never given in, and no matter how difficult the conditions, the Chinese military and civilians have always insisted on driving out the future invaders. The Chinese people have loved peace since ancient times and will never take the initiative to cause trouble, but if there is an invading enemy, China will not be afraid of things.