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Chapter 188 Crisis in the safe zone

With 250,000 people crammed into an area of ​​only 2.5 square miles, sanitation problems quickly became a new nightmare.

The refugee camp was in a state of disarray. On both sides of the already narrow roads that were difficult for people to walk, human excrement was everywhere, and the smell was unpleasant. The toilet problem in particular made all the members of the safe zone committee furious, and they held a meeting for this purpose. , Rabe delivered a fiery speech at the meeting.

After the meeting, the sanitary conditions in the refugee camp were improved. Not only that, in addition to the improvement of the toilet environment, the walls of the entire compound were modified by the refugees.

Rabe lamented: "The Chinese are very hands-on. I don't even know where those beautiful new bricks on the walls came from."

Later, Rabe discovered that many new buildings in the safety zone were much shorter than before. It turned out that the Chinese refugees in the safety zone had removed the roofs of some useless houses in the safety zone and reinforced the walls around the safety zone. .

This pleased Rabe.

However, when one incident was not resolved, another one arose again.

A British professor came to Rabe with a sad face: "Chairman, I shouldn't tell you this matter. You are already busy enough, but now we are facing huge problems that we cannot solve."

Rabe asked: "What's the problem?"

The British professor said: "There is a food problem. There are too many refugees in the safe zone. The amount of food they eat every day is an astronomical amount. We don't have much food to provide them."

Rabe rubbed his eyebrows. This was indeed a huge question: "Have you discussed it?"

The British professor nodded: "Yes, in early December, before Jinling fell, the mayor of Jinling gave us 30,000 shi (about 2,000 tons) of rice and 10,000 bags of flour as rations for the refugees, but these grains were stored in Jinling There are no trucks outside the city or in the safety zone to transport this food."

Since the Chinese army had already requisitioned most of the means of transport in the area to transport 20,000 people and 5,000 boxes of treasures out of Jinling, desperate civilians and individual soldiers even took desperate risks and stole almost all the remaining vehicles.

There are no trucks in the safe zone.

Rabe thought for a moment and said to him: "No, we still have our own car."

Their cars can also transport food, but their cars are cars and are not like trucks that can pull a lot of goods at once.

"Let's go more often."

The grain was stored outside Jinling City, and it took a long time to travel back and forth. On the way, it even had to pass through areas occupied by the Japanese, which was very dangerous.

But they have no choice. If they don't deliver food as soon as possible, the food for hundreds of thousands of people in the safety zone will not be guaranteed.

Rabe and other foreigners had no other choice but to drive their cars frantically back and forth between the two places, transporting as much food as possible to the safe zone. Even when the Japanese army bombed Jinling, they drove Cars shuttled through fierce artillery fire, transporting bags of food to safe areas.

One of the drivers was unfortunately blinded in one eye by a stray shrapnel while transporting food. In the end, the person in charge of the safety zone only transported back a small part of the food obtained.

Although the quantities of 10,000 kilo of rice and 1,000 bags of flour are not large, they have saved many refugees in the safe zone from hunger.

On December 9, Rabe realized that the terrorist situation was deteriorating, and the International Committee of the Safe Zone tried to mediate between China and Japan to achieve a three-day ceasefire. During this period, the Japanese troops could maintain their existing positions and the Chinese troops could withdraw peacefully.

Leave Jinling City.

However, Chiang Kai-shek opposed the ceasefire, which prompted the Japanese army to launch a more violent attack on Jinling the next day.

On the 12th, at the request of the Chinese military, the International Committee of the Safe Zone once again mediated on China's surrender to Japan, but this plan also failed to materialize.

After several attempts, Rabe failed to achieve success. Apart from watching and waiting for the inevitable disaster to happen, Rabe could do nothing.

Rabe briefly recorded the deterioration of the situation in his diary.

On December 12, at 6:30 pm, Rabe wrote: "The cannons on Purple Mountain continued to fire, and the surroundings were full of fire and roar. Suddenly, the entire mountain was in flames - some houses and ammunition depots were on fire.

Already."

At 8 o'clock in the evening, Rabe saw the sky in the south of the city red with firelight. Then he heard frantic knocking on the door. Many Chinese women and children were outside the gate, begging Rabe to open the door and let them in.

The men came in over the garden wall from behind the German school.

People scrambled into foxholes in the garden, and some even hid under a giant German flag that Rabe had used to warn Japanese pilots not to bomb their homes.

The cries and knocks on the door became louder and louder, flares shone in the distant sky, and the arcing shells fell into Jinling City. In an instant, the entire Jinling City was shaking violently.

With his conscience severely condemned, Rabe couldn't bear it anymore, ran to the gate, opened it, and let the crowd in.

But as the night wore on and the crowd's noise continued unabated, Rabe became irritated by the Chinese. He put on his helmet, came to the garden, and roared loudly to tell the Chinese to shut up.

At about 11 o'clock in the evening, Rabe received an unexpected visitor. The visitor was Christian Kroegel. Like Rabe, he was a Nacui. He was about 30 years old and worked for the German Reich & Co., Ltd.

.

He is a tall, blond engineer who was originally sent to China to oversee the construction of a large steel plant, but now, like Rabe, he is caught up in the madness of Jinling.

The International Committee of the Safe Zone assigned him to be in charge of property matters.

"Rabe, Zhongshan Road is full of Chinese army soldiers. They retreated. They lost all their weapons and equipment. Some even wanted to buy cars for twenty dollars each."

Kroeger asked: "Do you think anyone will buy their car?"

"No, how could a refugee buy this car?" Rabe said.

"It's impossible, so I asked the guy to come to my office tomorrow morning," Kroeger said.

"Which car do you want to buy?" Rabe asked him.

"Yes, we have to prepare in advance, don't we? The Chinese army has already escaped, and the Japanese will come in." Kroeger spread his hands. This car can hold a lot of things, and it will always come in handy.

when.

Early the next morning, Rabe was awakened by the sound of a huge air raid. Sitting on his bed, Rabe thought that not all troops had chosen to evacuate, and there must be Chinese troops who resisted.

It was around 5 o'clock and it was still dark, so Rabe chose to lie down again. Like most of the citizens of Jinling City, he was also exhausted by the Japanese air raids.

Fortunately, the army he was in was a residential area for foreigners, and Japanese planes would not drop bombs here. But even so, the huge explosions still made him unable to sleep. He put on a coat, opened the

The curtains on the window looked at Jinling shrouded in a sea of ​​fire.

He decided to go for a walk outside.

In the garden, the refugees did not sleep. They seemed to have been standing all night. Their faces were tired and they looked a little frightened.

This intensified the heaviness in his heart.

Later in the evening, Rabe went to the city to inspect the damage to Jinling.

The streets were littered with Chinese corpses, most of them civilians who had been shot in the back.

He saw a group of Japanese soldiers breaking into a German cafe. Rabe ran over, pointed at the German flag hanging on the cafe, and angrily shouted: "You are committing theft!"

A Japanese soldier who spoke English shouted loudly: "We are hungry. If you want to complain, go to the Japanese embassy and they will pay the bill."

Then, he told Rabe: "Our military supplies have not arrived yet. We are tired and hungry now. Even if the military supplies arrive, it will not be our turn. We are responsible for our stomachs."

Rabe watched helplessly as the Japanese soldiers rushed into the cafe and looted it.

After walking a few streets, he turned to look in the direction of the cafe and found that there was thick smoke billowing and fire burning in the sky.

He yelled angrily.

This group of Japanese not only looted the cafe, but also burned it to the ground.

The worst was yet to come. From a distance, Rabe saw Japanese soldiers advancing from the south to the north, occupying the entire city.

To avoid them, Rabe drove from north to south to Zhongshan Road, the main road in Jinling, and stopped outside the Red Cross Hospital of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Chinese medical staff have fled, the hospital has been severely beaten, and the bodies of patients have filled the rooms, corridors and even the exit of the hospital.

Rabe was so angry that he wanted to curse. He had lived here for more than thirty years. The Chinese were very friendly to him, but because of the arrival of the Japanese, all of them died.

He also once said to his colleagues in China: "You don't have to be afraid of the Japanese. Once they take over Jinling, peace and order will be restored, the railway to Shanghai will be built soon, and the shops will resume normal business."

Even as he fell asleep, he was still thinking: "Thank God, the worst is over and peace is coming!"

What he never expected was that the guy he said could bring peace and restore order would behave like a devil.

Instead of bringing peace and restoring order, they brought death and carnage.

Rabe walked among the corpses. There were old people over fifty years old, young children, injured people with broken limbs, and pregnant women.

He had never seen such bad behavior, but he saw it in his allies.

He even wondered whether Germany's alliance with such an ally would be a good thing or a bad thing.

That day, Rabe also encountered some Chinese troops who were hiding in the city and had not yet evacuated. This group of tired and hungry soldiers failed to cross the Yangtze River. When Rabe saw them, their eyes were gray and their hats were crooked.

Their clothes were dirty and messy, and their clothes and cheeks were blackened by gunpowder smoke, just like beggars on the street.

Driving through the Shanxi Road roundabout, he encountered 400 Chinese soldiers who had not yet disarmed and were heading in the direction of the Japanese advance.

When Rabe saw them, he had a "humanitarian" impulse. He thought of the corpses piled up on the streets and in the hospitals. This impulse was entangled in his conscience all the time. With great condemnation in his heart, he stopped

Get off the car and say to them in Chinese: "Don't go forward. There are Japanese in front of you. They are coming in this direction."

There was also an officer of the Chinese soldiers in the team. When he heard Rabe's words, he shouted like a frightened civet cat with explosive fur: "Get ready to fight!"

The originally lazy soldiers quickly raised their guns. Rabe looked at them with a look of terrifying deathly silence, a bottomless pool, with contempt for death and a trace of despair.

He took a deep breath and said to the officer: "I can guarantee your safety, but you have to throw away all your weapons and change your clothes."

The officer looked at Rabe and did not agree immediately. Instead, he discussed with other soldiers.

Finally, they listened to Rabe's advice, took off their weapons, put on refugee clothes, and followed him to the safe area.

The same situation occurred in the safe zone. More and more soldiers who had not had time to evacuate broke into the safe zone and asked the international committee of the safe zone to protect their lives.

Members of the International Committee for Safe Zones were undecided as to whether they should lend a helping hand.

When the safe zones were first established, the purpose was to provide refuge for civilians rather than military personnel.

If Chinese soldiers enter the safe zone, Japan will definitely have many opinions on this safe zone, which it does not recognize.

Unable to make up their minds, they could only try to get in touch with the Japanese military headquarters to solve this dilemma. However, they only met a Japanese captain on Hanzhong Road and failed to contact a higher-level Japanese commander.

The International Committee of the Safe Zone eventually gave in to their request, telling the soldiers that the Japanese might treat them kindly if they laid down their weapons and equipment.

Afterwards, the committee helped disarm these soldiers and placed them in various buildings in the safe zone. In the chaos, many soldiers took off their military uniforms, put on civilian clothes, and mixed with civilians.

The next day, Rabe wrote a long letter to a Japanese commander explaining the situation and imploring the Japanese to show sympathy to these former Chinese soldiers and treat them humanely in accordance with the recognized laws of war.

.

To Rabe's relief, a Japanese officer promised him that they would spare the lives of the Chinese soldiers.

However, the Japanese army broke their promise and took these disarmed Chinese soldiers out and executed them. This made Rabe very angry and he loudly rebuked the Japanese for what they had done.

The Japanese commander told him: "The Chinese killed many of my soldiers' comrades. If I choose to forgive them, then who will comfort those imperial soldiers who died, and who will comfort those imperial soldiers who lost their comrades?"

Mr. Bei, I have full respect for your nobility, but please don't make things difficult for me."

Rabe could only hope that the Japanese army would not be able to identify the hidden Chinese soldiers among the hundreds of thousands of civilians.

But he couldn't be more wrong.


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