In Taiyuan in the depths of winter, the wind is cold.

Under the cover of night, the division headquarters of the Sena Division of the Japanese Army stationed in Tunshan West was heavily guarded, brightly lit, and the atmosphere was solemn.

An important figure who took off from the Japanese mainland and arrived in Beiping, China: Kogoro Sakai, senior staff officer of the Japanese General Staff Headquarters, arrived in Taiyuan today, accompanied by important members of the North China Front Headquarters.

Sakai and his entourage brought the top-secret mission of the Japanese army base camp, so the North China Front Army Headquarters in Beiping sent an order to Taiyuan in advance, and the whole city was on guard and strictly controlled.

This is the beginning of February of the 27th year of the Republic of China (1938), the North China Front of the Japanese invasion of China has controlled most of the land of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, and Henan, including the two large cities of Beiping and Tianjin; Dozens of days ago, a puppet organization called the "Provisional Government of the Republic of China" was noisy on this occupied Chinese territory. The timing of the establishment of this pseudo-institution is delicate: December 14, 1937. The day before, on December 13, the Japanese Central China Front had captured Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China.

Today, the five-color flag of the "Provisional Government of the Republic of China" is fluttering everywhere on the occupied land of North China, and it is waving in the distance with the five-color flag of the "Manchukuo" in the four eastern provinces (with different patterns), indicating the ambition and pace of the Japanese Empire to destroy and annex the Republic of China.

This puppet provisional government, the "national capital," was located in Beiping, and four provincial offices were set up in Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, and Henan, among which the Shanxi Provincial Office was located in Taiyuan. Less than a few miles away from the Shanxi Provincial Office, it is the division headquarters of the Japanese Army's North China Front Army.

The commander of the division, Norio Sena, personally arranged the operation to receive the secret envoy of the General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo. After a dinner cooked by a Japanese chef, at this moment, in the small conference hall of the division headquarters, there were several high-ranking figures: Lieutenant General Kogoro Sakai, special envoy of the Japanese General Staff Headquarters, Major General Yoshio Suzuki, senior staff officer of the North China Front Headquarters, Lieutenant General Norio Sena, commander of the Sena Division of the North China Front, and Major General Akira Hagiwara and Major General Kato Sumeru, brigade commanders of the two brigades under the jurisdiction of the Sena Division.

The level of confidentiality of the meeting has reached the top secret level. Lieutenant General Sakai, who flew from his native Tokyo, carried a document formulated by the General Staff Headquarters with the theme: Secretly recruiting Chinese comfort women to accompany the army in North China.

Lieutenant General Sakai explained the intention of this move by the General Staff Headquarters: A month and a half ago, the Central China Front of the Imperial Army conquered Nanjing, the capital of China, and immediately afterwards there was an incident in which soldiers of the Imperial Army wantonly raped and raped women in China. To this end, the General Staff Headquarters has recently urgently drawn up a plan for comfort women to enlist women to provide sexual services to soldiers of the Imperial Army, in order to alleviate the trend of rape of women in the occupied territories.

The plan was carried out separately in the two major battlefields of the northern and southern wars of China. In the Southern Battlefield (Central China Front), comfort women are tentatively scheduled to continue to recruit volunteer women from the empire and North Korea to China. In the Northern Battlefield (North China Front), it was preparing to secretly forcibly recruit local Chinese women to form a comfort women detachment.

In the sixth year of the Showa era (author's note: 1931), several custom places operated by foreign nationals in the Japanese concession of Shanghai (author's note: i.e., erotic places) had been designated as "special comfort stations" by the imperial navy stationed in Shanghai; After the outbreak of the Shanghai Incident at the beginning of the following year, the soldiers of the Imperial Army began to repeatedly violate the discipline of rape and rape of women in China, and for this reason, the Imperial Consulate General in Shanghai mobilized comfort women to China from the mainland (including North Korea). However, the Northern Theater has so far had no experience in this area.

Speaking of this, Lieutenant General Sakai stopped his words and glanced at Yoshio Suzuki, a senior staff officer of the North China Front Command, who was sitting precariously.

"The recruitment of comfort women from the mainland and North Korea is limited in number and long distances, and it is not a long-term solution. For this reason, the Imperial General Staff Headquarters has instructed our North China Front Army to secretly recruit women from China and set up comfort women camps, which will be sent to all divisions and regiments stationed in North China in the future. The headquarters of the front army recently decided that the Sena Division stationed in Tunshanxi would select a site in Shanxi for implementation. ”

After hearing this, Norio Sena bowed his head in his seat and saluted forcefully: "Hi Yi! Thanks to the Front Army Command for entrusting such a heavy task to our division, Sena will definitely live up to the trust! ”

Seeing that the main content of the meeting was basically explained, Lieutenant General Sakai became relaxed, he showed a smile on his face, and said in a slightly mocking tone: "Matsui Ishine's subordinates, this time in the capital of the Shina people, it is indeed a bit too much, I heard that tens of thousands of women have been raped; No wonder even our German allies there can't look at it. His Majesty the Emperor and the Prime Minister are very embarrassed in the international community. ”

Major General Suzuki also laughed, revealing a mouthful of scorched teeth: "The Central China Front has suffered a lot in Shanghai, and the stubborn resistance of the Chinese Army is beyond imagination, so after the capture of Nanjing, it is normal for the soldiers to relax to their heart's content." Nanjing women are famous in the country of Qinhuai, and the warriors of Matsui-kun seem to have feasted on their blessings! ”

At this time, the commander of the Sena Division and the two brigade commanders under him couldn't help laughing.

Major General Suzuki changed the topic and suddenly said to Sena: "General, I heard that when I attacked northern Jin in September last year, an incident similar to the later Nanjing occurred in a small city?" ”

The commander of the Sena Division was stunned and was thinking about it, but Major General Hagiwara Akira, the commander of one of his brigades, took over and replied: "Report to General Suzuki, it was an incident that occurred in Tianzhen in northern Jin, but it was not the work of our North China Front Army, but a mixed brigade sent by the Kwantung Army." ”

Kogoro Sakai from the General Staff Headquarters became interested: "Huh? Kwantung Army? So is it Hideki Tojo's subordinate? ”

Hagiwara replied respectfully, "Yes, Your Excellency Lieutenant General." At that time, the 15th Mixed Brigade under the command of Chief of Staff Tojo (author's note: when the Japanese army invaded North China in 1937 and attacked Hebei and Shanxi, the Japanese Kwantung Army stationed in Tun puppet Manchukuo sent three mixed brigades to assist, commanded by Lieutenant General Hideki Tojo, who was then the chief of staff of the Kwantung Army), encountered an ambush when attacking Tianzhen. They also showed their majesty to the women of the city. ”

Kogoro Sakai first watched Hagiwara's account with great interest, and then turned to Suzuki: "It seems that the cause is the same. However, the rape incident in a small city in Shanxi Province is far less influential than that in the capital of China. ”

Major General Kato Sumeru, another brigade commander under the commander of Sena's division, said with a serious expression on his face at this time: "I think that the imperial army's strong conquest of women in the occupied areas will not only help relieve the tension and anxiety of the soldiers, but also boost their morale; At the same time, it was also a heavy psychological blow and humiliation to the Chinese army that resisted. ”

Hearing the brigade commander say this, Major General Suzuki was equally upright: "There is a role in soothing emotions and boosting morale, but we must realize that the widespread rape of the Imperial Army soldiers will also trigger more fierce resistance from the soldiers and civilians of China, which will not contribute to the long-term peace and stability of the occupied areas." This is the reason why the General Staff Headquarters took great pains to formulate the comfort women plan and sent Lieutenant General Sakai to deploy in North China. ”

The commander of the Kato Brigade couldn't help but show panic on his face, and hurriedly bowed his head and said yes.

Lieutenant General Sakai, who came from Tokyo, was well received in Beiping and Taiyuan, and was in a good mood, so he started a round at this moment: "Ladies and gentlemen, there is a saying among the people of China - the wool comes out of the sheep - the establishment of a secret camp for comfort women is also the capture of women from China to serve the soldiers of the Imperial Army, which has not changed in essence from the open rape. But at least let the empire be able to speak internationally of interest. ”

Major General Suzuki finally said: "This matter is top secret, please ask the commander of the Sena Division to take full responsibility in Shanxi, and if necessary, coordinate with the Taiyuan secret service to formulate a detailed and specific plan to strictly prevent leakage." ”

After seeing off the guests of the General Staff Headquarters and the Front Army Headquarters, the commander of the Sena Division immediately summoned his subordinates to study and arrange relevant actions. They decided to set up the planned secret camp for comfort women in the mountainous areas of central and southern Shanxi Province to avoid people's eyes, but at the same time, they would be as close as possible to the Tongpu railway line, so as to facilitate the transfer of comfort women to Hebei, Shandong, and Henan in the future. To this end, the division will immediately send troops to occupy the mountainous areas around Jinnan.

The task of preparing for the establishment of a secret camp was entrusted to the Hagiwara Brigade.

The plan was submitted to the North China Front Command and was immediately approved.

Three days later, the Otsuka Kosuke Wing under the command of the Hagiwara Brigade, together with the field artillery brigade, cavalry, and engineer squadrons assigned to them by the Sena Division, set out from the Junling Tomb stationed in Tun and began to attack Fengdian, the gateway to southern Jin.