The earliest name for the Japanese by the Chinese began in the Ming Dynasty. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the Ashikaga clan of Japan established the shogunate, began to rule Japan, and started trade in goods with the Ming Dynasty. After orthodoxy, with the Ming Dynasty The government was politically corrupt and the coastal defenses were lax. In order to gain the power to trade with the Ming Dynasty, some of the guarding daimyo seized control of the Ming Dynasty. Without trade alliances, the daimyo engaged in piracy. At this time, Japanese pirates were called Japanese pirates, and later the word "Japanese pirates" became independent as a noun. , used to refer to invaders from Japan.

Japanese pirates during the Ming Dynasty

On the eve of the Sino-Japanese War of Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government sent Li Hongzhang as envoy to Japan. At the press conference, the Japanese side issued a couplet: Riding a strange horse, stretching a long bow, playing the harp and pipa, the eight great King, shoulder to shoulder at the head, fighting alone! It means: Japan has strong soldiers and horses, long bows and simple weapons. There are eight "kings" alone. They all have great talents and strategies. Japan can defeat China by "fighting alone".

Portrait of Li Hongzhang

Li Hongzhang immediately wrote the second couplet: Japanese commissioners, attacking dragon robes, monsters and monsters, four little ghosts, kneeling beside him, joining hands to capture! Many reporters saw it and all of them applauded. The meaning of the second line is: You Japanese Zhang Changgong and his horse are actually a group of Japanese pirates who stole my dragon robes from the Qing Dynasty. The "harp, harp, and pipa" became "spectacles and monsters", and the "eight kings" became the "four little devils", "shoulder to shoulder at the head." It has become "kneeling down beside you", and "fighting alone" has become "grabbing with both hands together". From then on, everyone no longer called the Japanese invaders "Japanese pirates", but instead called them "Japanese invaders". Later, people added a small word because Japan's territory is small, (the total area is 378,000 square kilometers), which is only one-thirtieth of China. So after that, the Japanese were called little devils.

After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese people called the Japanese invaders little Japs. "Little" described the Japanese as short and bow-legged (they are not tall now), showing that even at that time, people were Despite being at a relative disadvantage, I still look down on the Japanese in my heart. I hope it can increase national self-confidence and believe that I can defeat the little Japanese devils.

During World War II, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in the United States. U.S. President Roosevelt famously said: "The Japanese are the most despicable and shameless people I have ever seen in history." He vowed to wipe Japan off the map. After that, MacArthur called the Japanese soldiers "Japs". From then on, the US military also called Japan "Japs". The subsequent US President Truman once said: "Kill little Japan and kill all the Japs." Later, he dropped the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The two atomic bombs caused hundreds of thousands of casualties. Japan could not bear it and had to declare its surrender on August 15, 1945. Submitted a letter of surrender to China on September 2.