"Of the fifty or so people, only I survived. A 10-cm scar can still be seen on my neck."

In the 25th year of the Republic of China (1936), I joined the army of the former Nationalist government. In the following year, the army marched to Shanghai to fight with the Japanese army and later retreated to Nanjing. In December of the 26th year of the Republic of China, the Japanese army approached Nanjing. I fought the Japanese army in Yuhuatai for two or three days, then the troops collapsed. We moved to Xiaguan, trying to cross the river, but there was no boat, so we didn't succeed. In the chaos, I lost contact with the troops.

I am from Anhui, so I joined the team that fled to Anhui. There were a total of over 50 people in the group, and we came to Jiangdongmen from the Sancha River, intending to go to Wuhu. Along the way, we saw countless bodies on the ground, and there were seven or eight bodies hanging upside down on a telegraph pole. They were connected with each other through a wire piercing through the clavicle, including men and women, even children. Going forward, the dead bodies were even more.

When we reached Jiangdongmen at the gate of Model Prison, a group Japanese troops blocked us. We waved the white flag and told them: “We're the surrendered soldiers.” But they seemed not to care, and they forced us to a vegetable plot to the east of the prison, ordering us to stand in a row. There were about 50 to 60 Japanese soldiers, dozens of which were holding sabers in hands, and others were armed with the bayonets. Then all at once, the Japanese soldiers rushed to us from all around, using the sabers and bayonets to cut and kill. I was cut on the neck. I could only remember the ferocious look of a Japanese soldier who waved saber to me, and nothing else could be recalled.

When I woke up, it's already dark. Two dead bodies were on top of  me. I used all my  strength to push them away before I could stood up. Luckily my wound was not that deep, and the blood had been stopped. I left the vegetable plot hurriedly under the cover of darkness before dawn. After walking more than half of a mile, I saw an air-raid shelter so I hid in it. At dawn, some Japanese soldiers appeared at the entrance and shouted for a while in Japanese. I guess they were saying "come out". Because it’s very dark in the cave and nothing could be seen, the Japanese soldiers went away after shouting for a while.

That tragedy happened on  14 or 15 of the eleventh month  of lunar calendar Of the fifty or so people in the group, only I survived. A 10-cm scar can still be seen on my neck.