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The question was, what caused the Nanking Massacre?
My essay:
History is a witness of numerous horrific genocides, both known and unknown. Among these genocides is the Rape of Nanking, also referred to by historians as World War Two’s forgotten genocide. The Rape of Nanking, also known as the Massacre of Nanjing, was one of history’s darkest periods of mass murder and mass rape committed by the Japanese soldiers towards the people of Nanking, China. An estimate of 200,000 to 800,000 thousand girls and women, from ages 8 to 80, were raped and approximately 200,000 to 400,000 Nanking civilians were killed within a six-week period by the Japanese soldiers. Public properties and houses were burned down, civilians were forced to take opioids, become drug addicts, and bury one another’s graves. There is no sharp cause as to what led this genocide to occur; however, most historians do agree that this genocide was a result of the Japanese loss of the Shanghai battle against China, beginning their domination of the Eastern world from Nanking due to previous tensions, and a poorly trained military mindset, leading this genocide to turn out as gruesome as it is known today.
The Japanese army stormed the city of Nanking in December of 1937, just one month after their loss to the Chinese army at the Battle of Shanghai. Expecting to take full control of Shanghai in just three days, “As many as 300,000 people died in the epic three-month struggle,” ending with the defeat of Japan and the victory of China. Japan expected the Chinese army to surrender and was quite outraged by the loss of this battle, which is why the Japanese soldiers specifically “targeted Chinese men who had previously taken part in that battle during the Nanking Massacre.” Chinese soldiers were killed out of rage, and so were the civilians, as most of the common people fled to Nanking and other big cities during the Battle of Shanghai, which is why this is also sometimes referred to as the “Rage of Nanking.” This rage over the loss of the battle is indisputably one of the driving factors for the Japanese army to attack Nanking and dominate the city.
Rage isn’t the only contributing factor to the Nanking Massacre, hatred and competency between China and Japan was already a bond they were familiar with for years. The first Sino-Japanese war took place “from 1894-1895, intending to gain resources and imperialize China.” This followed a two years “Boxer Rebellion in 1899-1901” where Japan and other Western nations forced China into allowing an economic foreign trade policy. Up to this point, China and Japan were rival enemies of one another until their relationship got more bitter after Japan” invaded the province of Jehol” in China for three months in 1931 and they “conquered Manchuria for one year in 1933.” When planning to conquer Shanghai failed, Japan saw a “golden opportunity to continue their conquest of dominating over the Eastern World,” competing for power over China, when the Chinese soldiers had recently fought in the battle of Shanghai. This hatred and desire of imperialism and gain of additional resources were what led Japan to begin their conquest in Nanking, as this way, they would take revenge and be able to fluidly conquer the Eastern world beginning in a nearby place. This competency and long bond of hatred was a driving force for the Japanese domination of the Eastern world with its closest enemies, as power and dominance was what the two countries competed for since its earliest years.
Apart from the bitter past between Japan and China, there was another factor which equally contributed to the atrocity of this massacre: The poor training of the Japanese army. Before the Nanking Massacre occurred, two Japanese officers, named Toshiaki and Tsuyoshi, “staged a competition to be the first to behead 100 Chinese soldiers” using a sword as they were marching to Nanking. This inhuman competition between the two Japanese officers clearly illustrated that the Japanese army was not taught to be moral. The initial goal of the domination of Nanking was to achieve power and get revenge from the Chinese soldiers as they did not surrender, however, this was not in any way intended to brutally punish the civilians of Nanking by raping thousands of women and children and killing thousands of innocents’ lives. If Japanese soldiers were well-trained, they would have killed only the Chinese soldiers, simply captured Nanking, and imprisoned innocent civilians. In other words, the Nanking Massacre would not have happened if the Japanese soldiers were trained properly and righteously. Furthermore, safe places or boundaries where soldiers were not allowed to raid were also completely destroyed and “attacked by the Japanese soldiers.” This demonstrated that there was no limit established within the Japanese army on who they could kill or places they could invade and destroy. Another factor that contributed to the inhuman act of the Japanese soldiers was the Japanese National Seclusion Act. This act perhaps maintained the Japanese’s pride and made the Japanese feel superior amongst other Asians and non-Japanese civilians. To this day, the Japanese as a whole never officially apologized for their war crimes committed against the Chinese. If the rightly trained soldiers truly invaded Nanking for the sake of revenge against the Chinese soldiers and to spread their dominance across Asia, they would have done so in a more war-like manner instead of the harsh torture against the civilians and breaking many of the war rules.
This Nanking Massacre was what marked the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese war. Most of the world has forgotten this darkest chapter in World War II, where the innocent Nanking civilians were raped, tortured, killed, forced to take drugs or become comfort women for the Japanese soldiers. This all was simply a result of rage against losing the Shanghai battle just when the Japanese thought they would soon dominate Shanghai just as they did for Jehol and Manchuria. This all was simply a result of years of hatred, jealousy, and competency between the Chinese and Japanese. Truly, if the Japanese soldiers were not raised in a close-minded culture of superiority and hatred against non-Japanese individuals, this would have been a simple reign over a city rather than a genocide. Unlike most of the genocides history mourns, this dreadful genocide remains to be the lost, forgotten genocide of China, never being apologized, mourned, or sympathized for, with its survivors aging in trauma in the corner of the world. Indeed, spreading awareness about this dark and untold period of history is the least anyone can do for the victims of Nanking.
Thanks for reading! Also, can you estimate my grade level based off of my writing? Thank you
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This is actually really good. If you fix a few things you'll definitely get an A.
-Don't use contractions in academic writing
-citations from quoted texts missing
-lots of run on sentences
But you've provided good paragraph structure. Good introduction and conclusion. Lots of information delivered with a compassionate perspective.
I would guess anywhere from 7-9th grade
ReplyI don't know why you have to know this. I have never heard of this before and have survived all right so far.
Reply