On December 13, 1937, Dalian Central Park was crowded with people, and more than 10,000 Japanese troops, Japanese overseas Chinese, and officials from all walks of life gathered to celebrate the so-called "victory" of "capture of Nanjing". The altar was filled with red cloth, and the Zhongling Tower was filled with spiritual thrones of the dead Japanese army. At this moment of great attention, an axe cut through the hypocrisy and carnival of the performance.
A young man wearing Japanese uniform and speaking fluent Japanese jumped up from under the altar, and took the head of a Japanese officer with an axe in his hand. The officer was killed on the spot, the other man's shoulder was cut off, and blood was splattered three feet away. The celebration of ten thousand people turned into a bloody scene.
The young man was named Cha Zixiang, an ordinary barber from Hubei. He was arrested after successful assassination and tortured. He was sentenced to electric power by the Japanese army in 1939 at the age of 27.
Why did an ordinary barber become a "lonely hero" who assassinated a senior Japanese official? How did he get involved in the 10,000-person conference in Dalian under Japanese rule and start accurately? Is there any organizational support behind it? What kind of hatred supports him toward death?
Cha Zixiang was born in 1912 in a poor family in Meichuan Town, Guangji County, Hubei Province. She has ten brothers and sisters and lives a difficult life. He is smart and studious, and can recite the "Three Character Classic" at the age of 4, but he dropped out of school from poor family and made a living by herding cattle. The first time his fate changed was in 1928. The 15th Red Army entered his hometown area. At the age of 16, he joined the Children's Corps and became the leader. He felt the hope of "the poor turning over".
But hope didn't last long, the Kuomintang army counterattacked, the Red Army was forced to retreat, and he returned to his life of herding cattle and weaving cloth. Weaving has a meager income and life is difficult. In 1934, after being introduced by fellow villager Wu Qingye, he came to Dalian and worked as an apprentice at a barber shop "Renhexuan" in a Japanese gathering area, and since then he embarked on another path.
Dalian was a Japanese colony at that time, and the entire city was filled with an oppressive atmosphere. The barber shop where Cha Zika is located is dedicated to serving the Japanese, and Chinese people are almost unable to enter. The apprentice's salary is meager and he is often humiliated and beaten by Japanese customers. Once, a Japanese officer was dissatisfied with his hairstyle and slapped him directly in the face. Cha Zika could only swallow his anger.
Faced with these humiliations, he learned Japanese while polishing his razor. It’s not to make a fortune, but to be able to identify the goals, speak the phone, and make the move one day. He lowered his eyebrows during the day and took revenge at night. He suppressed, endured, and waited every moment.
In July 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out and the full-scale war of resistance began. The Japanese in Dalian celebrated like crazy, with the streets and alleys full of slogans "The Fall of Nanjing", with lights and colorful gongs and drums. The Japanese customers in the store excitedly discussed how many "Chinese people" they killed, and even the tragic situation in Nanjing was a joke.
Chazika gritted her teeth and couldn't bear it anymore. He said to a fellow villager named Gao Luotuo: "I won't kill a few Japanese devils, I will be a Chinese in vain." At first, no one took it seriously, but he was already planning. In order to get closer to his goal, he spent two months savings to buy an old Japanese suit and carefully selected a sharp axe in the Xiaogangzi open-air market.
He began to pay attention to the movements of the Japanese and finally learned that on December 13, Japan will hold a celebration of ten thousand people in front of the Zhongling Tower in Dalian. This event not only celebrates the fall of Nanjing, but also mourns the dead Japanese army. Participants include senior Kanto Army leaders and the president of the local military association. It was a symbolic gathering.
Chazaka knew that the opportunity was coming. That morning, he asked his master for leave and said he wanted to visit relatives from his hometown. He put on a Japanese suit, hid his axe into the cuffs, and mingled into the venue. Relying on fluent Japanese, he successfully passed the gate inspection and entered the front row of the venue.
9 o'clock, the ceremony begins. The Japanese bowed collectively, which was the best time to start. Cha Zixiang suddenly jumped out from under the altar and chopped the priest officer in the middle with a medal-covered and gold-broken hat. Her axe was embedded in her skull, and blood splattered everywhere, and the body fell to the ground.
He turned and slashed at the second officer again. The other party was panicked and blocked with his arm. He was cut off by shoulder-to-shoulder, and his screams shocked the audience. The scene was in chaos and tens of thousands of people fled in fear. Cha Zika did not run away, but continued to wield her axe to try to break through. But the Japanese army quickly reacted, clamped him with a wooden ladder, and knocked him to the ground with a stick.
He was arrested on the spot and taken to the Dalian Police Station. The Japanese dare not announce the news, for fear of arousing more Chinese resistance. In prison, Cha Zixiang was interrogated one after another. The Japanese army did not believe that he was acting alone, and believed that there was organizational support behind it, and tried every means to force him to explain the so-called "accomplices". They used electric torture, tiger bench, pepper water, and soldering iron to burn the body, and Cha Zixiang always gritted her teeth.
Faced with the interrogation, he responded coldly: "No one wants to be a party, only I am." The Japanese have no choice but torture, and their torture has escalated. Cha Zixiang's leg bone was broken, her fingers were penetrated by bamboo sticks, and her tongue was bitten by electric shock. He still did not let go, but instead shouted to the interrogator: "You think you are afraid of killing me? You dream!"
In detention for nearly two years, Cha Zixiang has never revealed a single name. In September 1939, a gunshot rang out late at night in Lushun Prison, and 27-year-old Cha Zixiang died heroically.
Before his execution, he only said one sentence: "Kill me one, and give me 300,000 undead." After his death, a slogan suddenly appeared on the streets of Dalian: "Cheer, my head fell." Citizens ran around and told him, calling him "the great hero among barbers." Many Chinese people write couplets and make rumors to sing their stories.
After the founding of New China, the People's Government of Guangji County, Hubei Province recognized the anti-Japanese martyrs for him, and his name was finally written into national memory. Cha Zixiang has no guns, no teams, and no official identity. But he used an axe to cut off the heads of the Japanese senior Japanese officers on the altar where the enemy celebrated their achievements. With his passion, he firmly nailed the dignity of the Chinese people to the monument of history.
He is not the "brave of every man", he is the loudest resistance in the silent era. He is not a "lonely assassin", he is part of the 40 million Chinese. He is not a "nameless person", he is the embodiment of national blood.
In that era when the country was destroyed, some people chose to obey, some people chose to escape, and Cha Zixiang chose to stand up. Today, peace is hard-won. We commemorate Cha Zixiang not for hatred, but for remembering: The bones of Chinese people will never be soft.
Chazixiang's story is the most direct response of an ordinary person to the invaders. He did not shout slogans, nor did he give a shocking speech. He only used an axe to make the enemy remember what the bloodiness of the Chinese is. His name should not be forgotten.
