September 1, 1923

On Saturday, September 1, 1923, at noon, Tokyo Station was filled with people preparing to go on vacation. The people, who were immersed in the peaceful atmosphere, did not notice some anomalies in nature, the rooster continued to crow, the domestic dog barked incessantly, the frog suddenly stopped croaking, and a large number of seabirds flew away...... An ominous atmosphere has come over us.

At 11:58 a.m., there was a heart-pounding "quack" sound in the air and underground, followed by the earth shaking up and down, swaying from side to side, "the land undulating like the waves of the sea, and the hills and mountains writhing sharply." The port rises suddenly, and the pier twists and turns like a dough.

At this time in Tokyo, 22-year-old Li Gong, a Chinese in Japan, was having lunch with friends. Suddenly, the earth trembled sharply, the dishes and chopsticks clanged, and several people were stunned, and Li staggered to the outside of the house, and a picture of a landslide appeared in front of him: the 12-story Tokyo Tower was cut in two like matchsticks, and countless high-rise buildings were crumbling and collapsing. In the face of the noisy shouts one after another, and the overwhelming dust and smoke, Li Ji's expression was blank and stunned.

A magnitude 8.1 earthquake swept through the Kanto region of Japan, with its epicenter in Sagami Bay, 90 kilometers southwest of Tokyo. Scientists at Tokyo Imperial University were stunned to see that the seismograph first fluttered wildly, and then the pointers were all shaken away, and only one imported instrument could barely be monitored. The disaster affected Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, and Ibaraki, and is known as the "Great Kanto Earthquake that destroyed one prefecture and six prefectures".

When the earthquake struck, it was midday cooking time, and the toppled stove fire caused hundreds of fire points at once. Underground water pipes were damaged by the earthquake, and firefighters tried every possible way to pump water from ditches and wells, but to no avail. In Tokyo and Yokohama, where most of the houses are made of wood, the fire spreads between the high-rise buildings to form a "fire stream", which in the blink of an eye gathers into a sea of fire, and people are constantly crying for help.

In the panic, many people flocked to the open area outside, and squares, parks, and school playgrounds immediately became people's refuge. According to the Tokyo Chronicle, "Some people ran out into the streets, and although they escaped from the demons, they encountered fire demons again. They fell to the ground, covered in hot blood blisters. They may be lucky compared to those who have been burned to the ground. How much life does that pile, piece by piece of ash contain? Nobody knows??"

About 40,000 people have taken refuge in Tokyo's Sumida Ward Military Clothing Factory Square, which is the size of a stadium. Due to the downwind, the roaring "fire" ignited the military uniforms stacked in the clothing factory and the luggage carried by the citizens. Soon the square was surrounded by fierce fire, and there was no way to escape. In the chaos, 38,000 people died in the fire.

There was even a tragedy of "cremation on the water" in Tokyo Bay. More than 3,000 victims could not stand the scorching heat and jumped into Tokyo Bay, where they floated on the surface of the water using wooden planks and other objects as carriers. In the evening, a huge explosion was heard from the nearby Standard Oil Company and its oil depot, and hundreds of thousands of tons of crude oil were discharged into the bay. The explosion sparked a raging flame, which was fiercer than a tiger, and the waters around Tokyo Bay were soon scorched. In the "dire waters", the victims who were lucky enough to avoid the fire on land were burned to death in the sea.

An equally tragic scene took place in Yokohama Park. To escape the fire, hundreds of people jumped into the pool, and people sat in the water, breathing only with their heads exposed. More than 24,000 people in the park were engulfed in flames when the fire struck. The lake in the park was scorched by the fire, and the people who hid in the water were finally doomed.

Many survivors fled to the shore or on their boats, and as a result, the tsunami caused by the earthquake set off huge waves that destroyed the harbors and docks of Tokyo and Yokohama, and more than 8,000 ships of all kinds sank and disintegrated. When the water recedes, beaches in Tokyo and elsewhere are filled with wooden roofs, bed boards, doors and windows, and human remains. Earthquakes also trigger secondary disasters such as mudslides. In the Yokohama area, a large mountain forest slid down the valley at a speed of more than 90 kilometers per hour, ran over a railway and a village, and rushed into the bay with a train and a village of people, and the waters in a radius of several kilometers turned blood-red.

On September 3, Li moved from his 5-chome residence where he worked. The sudden earthquake and the tsunami and fire that followed it destroyed almost all of Tokyo. Extreme fear brought these ragged Wenzhou migrant workers together.

They came to Japan because their hometown was too poor. Although Zhejiang is the land of fish and rice, it is known as "seven mountains, one water and two fields", and there is very little farmland, and the "seven mountains" are concentrated in Wenzhou, Chuzhou and other places in southern Zhejiang. After the First World War, Japan's economy developed rapidly, and many villagers came to Japan to work, and the number of people reached about 4,000 before the earthquake. Lee came to Japan in the leap month of last year and joined the ranks of wage earners, earning only 2~3 yen a day.

At about 9 o'clock in the evening (Japan time), the tranquility of the inn was shattered by the swarming Japanese. Hundreds of members of the Japanese "Youth Self-Police Corps" (equivalent to the joint defense force or militia), police and soldiers, stormed the small inn and demanded that the Chinese get up immediately and send them home.

The Lee totals were kicked out of the inn, and the Japanese led them to assemble in the open space outside the store.

Suddenly, the Japanese shouted: "Earthquake! Lie down!"

174 Chinese obediently lay on the trembling earth. The Japanese swarmed up, axes, slashes, swords, and hooks, and the miserable howls of the Chinese resounded in the sky, echoing the rumbling of the earth.

Lee passed out, and a large hole was opened in his head and behind his right ear. Companions struggled and writhed before dying, and some climbed on top of him. Under the cover of these corpses, he became the only survivor of the 174 people.

In addition, massacres of Chinese workers also occurred in Yokohama and other Chinese-populated areas. According to the Japanese scholar Fumiko Nitogi, the total number of Chinese victims in Japan in September 1923 was 758, of which 656 were killed, 91 were injured, and 11 were missing, 90% of whom were from Wenzhou

But what the Japanese didn't know was that a video camera was pointing at them in a building on the side. A day earlier, spies in Japan had reported to him that the Japanese wanted to massacre other dissidents by taking advantage of the earthquake in Japan. Although there are many spies in Japan, they have not yet been able to form an effective fighting force, and there is no way to stop this kind of thing, but the existence of video cameras will tell the world about this atrocity.

At this time, under the call of the central government, Beiping was mobilizing the whole people to donate food and clothing for Japan's earthquake relief, which would become the first large-scale foreign aid in China's modern history. At this time, the domestic warlords were fighting, and the country was weak and the people were poor. The First Sino-Japanese War, the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance, including Japan, and the Russo-Japanese War in Northeast China, are still fresh in my memory. However, the Beiyang government still called on all walks of life to abandon their war suspicions, not to boycott Japanese goods, and to donate money and materials to reduce the burden on the Japanese people, and at the same time ordered the temporary exemption of tariffs on food, clothing, medicine, sanitary materials, and other exports to Japan. Gu Weijun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, pointed out that with regard to the earthquake disaster in Japan, "China's duty to provide relief to its neighbors should not stand idly by, and the government should issue an order to persuade the people to jointly raise funds for relief." All the cabinet members expressed their approval, and the Ministry of Finance quickly raised 200,000 yuan in silver to remit to the Japanese government, and at that time 1 yuan could buy 40 catties of rice.

When Chen Shao saw all the materials, he was immediately furious. At this time, spies in Japan also sent back many photos of the massacre, and the movie was on its way. He thought for a moment and picked up the phone on the table.

"Wang Jie, tell the radio station that I want to speak on the radio and personally tell the people about the good things that those Japanese have done."

"Yes."

After more than two years of development, the current broadcast coverage has been expanded to the whole country. Many towns and villages have also built radio stations, for this new thing that often has opera, all the farmers and talents from all walks of life, after a busy day, are accustomed to sit under the radio, relieve the fatigue of the day, and occasionally know the current day's major events.

After a busy day, at dusk, there was a long pole on the threshing floor of the township, and a megaphone was on the pole. A large number of people had already gathered under the pole, some of them brought their own chairs, and some of them simply sat directly on the ground. At dusk, you can hear little songs on the radio every day, and there are many short stories, jokes, and other programs.

Just as everyone was laughing about a joke, the broadcast suddenly cut off.

"Dear people, the radio station has received a notice from Chen Shao, head of the Liangguang Autonomous Region Government, that he will immediately go to the radio station to announce a message to everyone, please wait a while, and after the news, the program will continue."

For this news, many people were stunned for a moment, and many people knew about the Liangguang government. Because they run the radio station, and the radio stations in the townships and towns are all set up free of charge, to many people, this district chief is familiar to everyone, and everyone is very clear about the policies within the two countries, for many peasants, it is paradise, everyone has their own land, the old have something to support, and the little have education. If it weren't for the reluctance to leave the foundation of their ancestors, many peasants would have to go to Liangguang. For warlords everywhere, Chen Shao can be regarded as envy, jealousy, and hatred. Envy is envy of his strength and money, and so is envy. Hate is a kind of dissatisfaction with his policy, good guy, you have money to engage in a lot of policies that benefit the people, and even many clans have fallen under your gun, but what about us, if we want money and no money, and want to take the clan landlord like you, then we are digging our own grave. The current warlords have no clan behind them, and the clan is moving their own foundation, where do they dare to do that. Moreover, many warlords at the junction of the two Guangzhous are even more helpless to Chen Shao, and many peasants in the border areas have moved to the two Guangzhous. However, for Chen Shao's strength, they can't stop calming down, and everyone is tacit about some things.