Against the Current

After the Anti-Japanese War broke out, a spontaneously organized anti-Japanese group of middle school students, the Anti-Japanese Traitor Extermination Group, was active in the Beiping-Tianjin area occupied by the Japanese army. They carried out anti-Japanese traitor extermination actions such as bombings and assassinations in Tianjin and Beiping on multiple occasions.
After their organization was destroyed by the Japanese army, their activities shifted to intelligence gathering and mobilizing intellectuals to leave the occupied areas.
Many members of this group were descendants of high-ranking officials, dignitaries, wealthy merchants, and celebrities, all of whom were either rich or powerful. For example:
Feng Jianmei, granddaughter of Xiong Xiling, Premier of the Beiyang Government;
Liu Youshen and Liu Yougan, grandsons of General Liu Guanxiong, Minister of the Beiyang Navy, and his grandsons-in-law Wang Wencheng and Wang Wenjian;
Zheng Tongwan and Zheng Kunlun, two grandsons of Zheng Xiaoxu, Premier of Manchukuo;
Sun Xiangde, son of General Sun Lianzhong, Commander of the 11th War Zone, and his daughter Sun Huishu; and so on.
They personally organized, planned, and carried out assassinations that had far-reaching impact, even causing diplomatic disputes between China, Britain, and Japan.
The traitors who were injured or killed by them that year include:
Wu Juchi, editor-in-chief of "Xin Min Bao";
Yu Dachun, director of the Beiping Construction General Administration and the General Labor Bureau;
Tao Shangming, director of the Education Bureau;
Wang Zhulin, chairman of the Tianjin Chamber of Commerce;
Cheng Xigeng, manager of the Tianjin Reserve Bank and customs inspector, etc.
Kawashima Yoshiko and Zhou Zuoren, who were not successfully assassinated.
Today, the members of the Anti-Japanese Traitor Extermination Group are gradually dwindling, and this period of history is rarely known.
The author of this book, Lai Endian, self-funded and spent several years traveling to Beijing, Shanghai, the United States, and Taiwan to find and interview seven living members of the Anti-Japanese Traitor Extermination Group, recording valuable video materials. From these, he compiled over 300,000 words of oral history into this book, "The Defiant," preserving precious first-hand information for this period of history.
Currently, only three of these seven elderly members remain in Taiwan, there are no members in mainland China, and only five members of the group remain worldwide.

2022-02-18

1 Plus Books

492

9781949736373