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China's New Remembering of World War II: The Case of Zhang Zizhong1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Arthur Waldron
Arthur Waldron
Affiliation:
U.S. Naval War College and Brown University
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Extract

General Zhang Zizhong, commander of the eight divisions that constituted the Chinese 33rd Army Group, was killed at approximately 4:00 P.M. on May 16, 1940, in fighting at Shilichangshan (‘Ten li mountain’) near Nanguadian in Northern Hubei. The battle was one engagement of the Zaoyang-Yichang campaign that rumbled through late spring of that year. Surrounded by the Japanese, his forces had refused either to retreat or to surrender. In the ensuing hand-to-hand combat, General Zhang had been wounded seven times in all, by grenade, bullet, and finally by bayonet. The victorious Japanese realized Zhang's identity only when a major discovered, in the left breast pocket of his blood-soaked yellow uniform, a fine gold pen engraved with his name. The major quickly summoned senior officers; they ordered a stretcher brought and the body was carried away from the battlefield. (This was observed, through half-opened eyes, by Zhang's long-time associate, the Chinese major Ma Xiaotang, who lay nearby, bleeding from a bayonet wound, and who later gasped out the story to Chinese as he died).

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 945 - 978
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

2 The Chinese committed 35 regular divisions and about the same number of irregular and guerrilla units. See Long-hsuen, Hsu and Ming-kai, Chang, comp. The History of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) (Taipei: Chung Wu Publishing Co., 1971), pp. 334–42.Google Scholar

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101 Ibid., p. 491.

102 Ibid.

103 Ibid., p. 492.

104 Ibid.

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110 Wakeman, Frederic Jr, ‘Mao's Remains,’ in Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China (see fn. 37), pp. 257–9Google Scholar; See also Youchun, Xu and Zhiming, Wu, Sun Zhongshan fengan dadian (Beijing: Huawen chubanshe, 1989).Google Scholar

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