Prairie Fire

Author: Xu Guangyao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: On May 1942, the entire North China underwent a complete upheaval. Okamura Nogi sat in an airplane, commanding 50,000 Japanese troops from above in a large "sweeping operation." Brutal battles raged everywhere, engulfed in flames. Japanese cars crushed the golden wheat fields onto the ground, cavalry surrounded villages, setting them ablaze as towering flames sent black smoke skyward. Infantrymen with fixed bayonets chased and herded the people, driving them from East Village to West Village and back again. Gunshots echoed everywhere, women wailed and children screamed. How many heroes fell in the bloodshed, how many soldiers perished under the bullets, how many local workers threw themselves into rivers, leaped into rivers—those with guns fired their last shots, shattering their own heads with the final bullet. Countless young and strong men, village cadres, were captured, sent to coal mines, transported beyond the borders, and taken to the Japanese islands.