Corroded bullets Yang unearthed during his numerous trips to the site of the battle. Photo by Zou Hong / China Daily

 

Begging forgiveness

Occasionally, he is accompanied by Chinese and expat members of his hiking club, the sons and daughters of men who fought in the battle, or on very rare occasions, the elderly veterans themselves.

"In August 2014, I took a veteran called Jia Shanming to the battleground. By then, he was 97," Yang recalled. "When we arrived at the exact place where he had fought, the old man knelt down and said, 'Forgive me, brothers, for propping my gun on your dead bodies, and for leaving you here for so long.' "

According to Jia, no sand bags were available during the battle, so the Chinese troops had no alternative but to use the bodies of their fallen comrades to prop up their machine guns to prevent them from shaking violently when fired.

Jia, who now lives in Henan province, about 1,000 kilometers from Beijing, carries several scars on his upper left arm, but he doesn't need them to remind him of an experience he will never forget. "When I arrived at Nankou, seven days into the battle, I smelled human flesh and literally had to walk over the dead to reach my position," he said. "The chambers of our machine guns became so hot that the cooling water circulating inside the guns was boiling."

On Aug 8, 2009, four years after he got his first "glimpse of war" at Gaolou, or Hill No. 1390 as it was designated by the Chinese army, Yang and some friends walked to the top of the mountain carrying a 150-kilogram stone stele bearing the inscription, "A Belated Memorial".

"So far, I've erected five memorial stones, and carved inscriptions on three of them alone in the mountains. I hope people who come here for fun will discover the history for themselves," he said, lighting a cigarette and placing it on a rock in front of a stele. "We may never know the names of those dead soldiers, but we owe each of them a deep bow."

It's now nearly three weeks since the Tomb Sweeping Festival, but Yang is still emotionally in thrall to his recent experience. "Most of those who were with me were students from a nearby university. They told me war had never been so real to them," he said. "For me, the heroism of the Chinese army lies not in winning, but in fighting vehemently with little hope of winning."

The two corpses he buried earlier this month were discovered lying face down, one on top of the other. "At first, I thought both were Chinese because after winning the battle, the Japanese collected and burned the bodies of their dead," he said. "But, lodged in the rib cage of one of the bodies, I found a bullet of the type known to have been used by the Chinese Army at the time, as well as a couple of shirt buttons that appeared to have been made in Japan.

"They may have died while trying to kill each other. I buried both of them, because we Chinese believe in people resting in peace," he said. "But deep inside, I really hope that the Japanese will acknowledge the history and all the suffering their war brought to the Chinese and to their own people. Only when that happens will the dead rest peacefully."

Contact the writer at zhaoxu@chinadaily.com.cn