In December 1937, during the Nanjing Massacre, the bodies of Nanjing civilians, bound in the rear hands, were scattered about as they were slaughtered by the Japanese. They were tied together with iron wire, lined up in four rows, and driven to Shimonoseki and Kusabara Gorge, where they were swept by machine guns and stabbed with bayonets.

  Bodies of Nanking civilians, bound in the rear, were scattered by the Japanese army in December 1937 during the Nanjing Massacre.

　On December 16, 1937, Masatake Imai, a retired reporter for the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, reported that on December 13, 1937, Japanese troops occupied Shimoguan, a wharf on the Yangtze River, was a boating yard in the outer harbor of Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, and the whole area of the wharf was a pile of blackened, folded corpses. The whole surface of the wharf was covered with piles of blackened corpses. 50 to 100 wandering figures dragged the corpses and threw them into the river. The moaning, spilling blood, convulsing limbs, and silence made it possible to faintly see the other side of the river. The whole area of the wharf glowed dully with blood. The workers, who had finished their work, were lined up in a row on the riverbank. At the sound of machine gun fire, they were thrown back, overturned, and danced into the river. The massacre was a result of the arrests and executions of captured Chinese soldiers and the plain-clothes-clad troops.

　At the time, the Nanking Massacre was unknown to the Japanese public. The Japanese people learned of it after the defeat of the war at the Tokyo Trials. Testimony and evidence of the Nanking Massacre were presented. The facts are reconstructed from the stenographic record of the court proceedings. The people were called to a roll call on the bank of the river, and the men and women were lined up on the bank of the river. A truck pulled up with a machine gun and opened fire on the Chinese people. The tragedy continued for about an hour. The number of people shot dead by machine gun fire was 10,000.

  At around 7:00 p.m. on December 20, Japanese soldiers examined the palms of Chinese citizens and found that five of them had calluses on their hands, and bayoneted them to death. When they were taken to Bakufu Mountain, about 200 dead bodies of many Chinese nationals were found lying on the road and other places. Many children were also stabbed to death with bayonets.

 　Chinese troops attempting to retreat and a total of 57,418 refugees, including men, women, children, and elderly, were confined in a village near Bakufu Mountain, and were cut off from food and drink. On the night of December 16, 1937, those who survived were tied together with iron wire and forced into four rows and driven into the Shimonoseki Kusabara Gorge, where they were shot with machine guns, stabbed with bayonets, and finally burned with oil. After the incineration, all the corpses were thrown into the Yangtze River.