After reading Dong's Diary, it took me a long time, and I finally got rid of a burden in my heart. At the same time, I also read Dong's Graphic Diary. When these two books are read together, we can appreciate the authenticity of that historical record.
The reason why I want to read this diary is mainly to see the mental state of the Japanese soldiers at that time, because there was too little description of the Japanese army itself during the Japanese invasion of China in the past, and China people always had a one-sided view of the Japanese army. I think it is a disrespect for history. According to the preface of this diary, in order to ensure the integrity of its information, all languages adopt literal translation, and the editor also makes corresponding comments on the fallacies of historical geography knowledge in the article, without changing the original text. In this way, the objectivity of the data is maintained, so the Chinese version of Dong Diary has great collection value and academic value.
Most of the contents in Dong Diary were not written by Dong during the war, but were supplemented in detail when he came back from illness. Many words in the diary suggest that he wrote it with his own memory. It is very likely that what he recorded during the war was only a framework or a few sentences, and it was only when he had time that he arranged it into what it is now. The article is all-encompassing and records all aspects of what an ordinary Japanese soldier saw, heard and experienced on the battlefield. The thoughts and ideas recorded in it are as true as possible, and the way of thinking has not changed because of the current social situation and the propaganda of militarism. I really don't have much such first-hand battlefield information here, too much is artistic. The book "East" also uses a lot of artistic techniques, but most of them are lyrical and emotional, which is his ideological activity and does not involve novel-style character design and dramatic plot. It can be seen that there were many ways of speaking and rhetorical devices circulating in the Japanese army at that time, as well as the institutional background of the Japanese army's sweeping and requisition, as well as the internal discipline of the Japanese army, their ideological trends, religious beliefs, and so on. It also involves a lot of Japanese cultural status at that time, as well as the face of the Japanese army in the eyes of the Japanese. From this point, Dong, we can know that the world is autumn. By then, the pattern and landscape of the whole battlefield in China will also be roughly visible. Then combined with other materials, for example, I have a book "Ghost Soldiers I Know", which can almost completely and comprehensively restore the real situation of China's anti-Japanese battlefield at that time.
In this way, I think the grasp of any war novel will be persuasive and infectious, otherwise it will inevitably be thin and extreme. No matter how dehumanized the war is, the two participants in the war and the common people are all flesh and blood, and they have their own interests and cultural background. It is not easy to be full of such a big subject.
Dong said in his diary that the language barrier is the most annoying thing. Sometimes when you get caught asking each other, you don't understand. They didn't want to kill him at first, but in the end they didn't know whether the other party was a soldier in China, so they killed him. Later, I arrested the people and simply didn't ask. If we knew we didn't ask them for anything, we would kill them. According to the diary, the psychological activities of the Japanese massacre of China people are very complicated, and the thinking modes of China people and Japanese soldiers are quite different. If both sides have the same cultural background or the background of modern system and scientific and technological reform, many unnecessary casualties may be avoided. China's army and Japanese army have different ways of thinking. As can be seen from the diary, the Kuomintang army also released a lot of information about the Japanese army's organizational system, discipline, weapons, customs and habits. The Japanese side also asked the Chinese side to translate, saying that it always took a lot of military energy to figure out what the other side was doing in wartime. Neither side knows what the other is going to do, and then they are blindly hostile. In the end, they suffer hardships and are just ordinary people.
If we don't treat the two sides of the war as hostile relations, we only regard it as a large-scale ideological conflict, that is to say, we look at the war not from the perspective of military national defense, but from the perspective of human ideological behavior. I feel that this hostility and aggression are really ignorant and funny. Of course, this farce is very big and the action is very big. How many people died in the ruins? Blind misunderstanding and speculation between races, religions or regimes lead them to make great efforts to play a spectacular big game. Nature is also ambitious, and the expansion of economy and productivity leads to inevitable competition for natural resources and territory. Even in this peaceful society, in order to compete for an iron rice bowl, intrigue between people often occurs. As a result, some people will put forward a new order, and some people will put forward a theory of trampling on another group. After people actively or passively agree with these ideas, they will realize. When these thoughts completely dominate your spirit, brainwash you and lose the independence of thinking and behavior, terrible blindness will occur. Both sides of all wars will tell their teams that we are just, and then take advantage of people's kindness, such as loyalty to the motherland, such as purifying the world, such as establishing a glory circle in Greater East Asia, such as the industrialization of the whole world. In the case of blind fanaticism, these good things will become great evils. Then there are desperate attacks and resistance, guns coming at each other, hatred accumulating, and finally being completely destroyed, and nothing is created, or some war culture or war subculture is created more or less, such as the birth of abnormal deductive culture in Japan after the war, but in the end these are gradually drifting away from their original ideals. The war of aggression against China not only destroyed a considerable amount of China culture, but also destroyed Japanese culture. No matter how much Japan pays attention to the reconstruction of its own culture after the war, it is seriously lame.
My grandmother lived in Dalian when she was a child. At that time, it was the time when Japan controlled Dalian. Japan advocates women's education, and my grandmother studied with her for a year. Later, she came to Beijing and dropped out of school. My grandmother often told me that the Japanese at that time were not so bad, especially her Japanese female neighbor, who was very nice. At that time, my grandmother was fifteen, and now she still remembers something about Dalian. Dong's Diary also mentioned Dalian, Kaifeng and other areas controlled by Japan at that time. Of course, there are dirty corners of failure here, but in Dong's words, this is a rare place of peace. I don't know, those places standing in China were occupied, and the people inside were all conquered people, who wanted to learn Japanese and were appeased by the Japanese army, and could not enjoy basic human rights. But in the eyes of the Japanese army, they regard the occupied place as their own place and the people there as their own, but they have different opinions. In Japanese logic, where there is resistance, there is slaughter. If we don't resist, let's occupy them smoothly, and we will be good to you. The Japanese army's explanation of burning, killing and rape is also different from China's. I feel that these are simply two philosophical systems. Japanese soldiers regard themselves as the children of the emperor and are chosen by God. They are engaged in jihad. Note that there are many romantic ideas in this word, and there is a cult atmosphere. The Japanese army pursues naivety, and it is somewhat naive whether it is life or death or serving the country. However, I feel that the Japanese army has never treated Japanese devils as children, and this view of the China army sometimes makes Japanese soldiers feel quite wronged. Japanese generals are the people who manage these children. They are always paternalistic, but they are actually children. There is only one adult in Japan, and that is the Emperor. The rest are children, and the general is the king of children. The whole rules of the game in their army are very simple. Even if a recruit has never been to the battlefield, as long as he comes, he becomes an official and the soldiers obey unconditionally. There may be subordinates attacking and beating their superiors, but it's over after the fight. Nobody cares about that order. When the leader dies, there will be an acting leader immediately, and there is no need to say hello to the superior at all, so until the end of a brigade, only a few people are left, and they can still maintain complete discipline and ceremony, which I think is different from that of the China army. The way of thinking is so different. Under this difference, if China invaded Japan, China might lose, but when Japan invaded China, they only had a little knowledge of China, so they came to spoil the game and didn't lose. Although the previous battles were won, they were only fighting for territory and controlling violence. As for China people, no matter how dark they are, they don't touch a hair. From this perspective, Dong Diary is of great practical significance to the cultural exchange between China and Japan. Through these wartime words, I hope to get some ice.
Dong mentioned the battlefields in North China, Shanghai-Nanjing, Central Plains, Xuzhou and Wuhan in his diary. Because malaria came later, I can't remember what happened later, so this diary is not completely sorted out. By comparing with the illustrations in Dong's Diary, we can see the general situation of Japanese invasion of China at that time and the anti-aggression thought of China army. Of course, the analysis of anti-Japanese military issues is clearer and more macroscopic than this diary. From a recruit who just went to the battlefield to Dong a year later, as an ordinary Japanese soldier, he can accurately grasp what he did on the battlefield and actively put forward and implement some battle plans. Although there were failures and sacrifices, I can feel that the war was really training. The famous saying that "the so-called war is to keep walking" is repeatedly mentioned in the diary, which is really classic! Articles describing war rarely mention this point, and most of them describe fierce confrontation. Dong is in poor health, so he has been a reserve player. He has been warned to attack the city, so in his 500-page diary, he fought several head-on battles, and the rest time was rest and walking. Hunger and fatigue are his greatest pains. This is very real. Moreover, I feel that Dong has been abandoned by the Japanese since he went to the battlefield, because it will never be their turn to return to China, so they are allowed to fight here and there. They are also typical tragic figures of that era. Getting two pieces of milk candy is like meeting their mother.
Peace, as long as it doesn't involve the positive battle scenes with the China army in Dong's diary, the word will appear constantly. Even if he is busy playing 50 meters away from the front line, he will feel that he enjoys peace when he smokes in the trenches. Perhaps this is the general idea of ordinary soldiers who are not crazy or abnormal. They prefer to correspond with their relatives and chat with their old neighbors abroad. These thoughts may also be the root cause of their hatred and unkindness to the enemy. Dong Hui enjoyed the beautiful scenery around him during the March. It may be naive to think of it, but I feel that his mental state at that time was much healthier than that of China soldiers. I don't know, maybe it's because China's propaganda about the mental state of China soldiers is untrue.
Well, this book and library card contain a lot of information, and there are too many things to be mined from them. Let's talk about these first, hehe. I like reading other people's diaries, especially old ones. No matter how poor the expression level is, for an era, he always has enough tension to carry out a lot of excavation. There may not be any useful truth in it, but the existence of those words has fully explained all the situations of that era. If you are good at reading texts, I think reading historical notes can be more rewarding than reading literary works at that time.