Monument to the Miners Who Died at the Qidao Gou Iron Mine During the Japanese Puppet Regime

The Monument to the Miners Who Died at the Qidao Gou Iron Mine During the Japanese Puppet Regime

The Monument to the Miners Who Died at the Qidao Gou Iron Mine During the Japanese Puppet Regime is a cultural relic protection unit of Tonghua County and also serves as a patriotic education base.

The Monument to the Miners Who Died at the Qidao Gou Iron Mine During the Japanese Puppet Regime is located in Qidao Gou Village, in the southern part of Guosong Town, Tonghua County. It is about 1 li from the village center and 1 kilometer from the Qidao Gou Iron Mine, covering an area of 2,800 square meters with a protected area of 1,500 square meters. The monument itself is 7 meters high, 2 meters wide, and 0.65 meters thick. On the front of the monument is engraved in intaglio: Monument to the Miners Who Died at the Qidao Gou Iron Mine During the Japanese Puppet Regime.

The Qidao Gou Iron Mine in Tonghua County was first discovered in 1898 by a local ginseng farmer named Du Baojia. In 1905, the Qing government granted the mining rights to a local landlord named Li Fangyun, who had contributed to suppressing the Boxer Rebellion. After the Japanese invasion of Northeast China, they aggressively exploited various resources. From 1933 to 1938, Japanese technicians conducted multiple surveys at the Qidao Gou Iron Mine. In 1938, the Qidao Gou Mining Office was established, and formal mining operations began in 1939. By the time Japan surrendered in 1945, over 3.5 million tons of iron ore had been looted. The invaders adhered to fascist policies such as “mining only rich veins,” “taking ore, not people,” and “exchanging human lives for ore,” which subjected miners to extremely brutal enslavement and abuse. The miners came from four main sources: those deceived and recruited from provinces like Shandong, Henan, and Hebei; conscripted and rounded-up drifters; captured anti-Japanese resistance fighters and patriots; and young men from the “Labor Service Corps” who failed military conscription checks. At that time, the mine’s production equipment was rudimentary, workers suffered from malnutrition, and medical conditions were abysmal. There were no safety measures in place, and cruel practices such as excessive working hours, food and wage deductions, and physical abuse and beatings led to extensive injuries and deaths among the miners. The Japanese built two crematoria that operated 24 hours a day but still could not keep up with the number of bodies. As a result, they simply dumped corpses or barely alive miners into large pits, forming three “mass graves” known as the West Railway Mass Grave, Cao Family Tomb, and Banfanggou Mass Grave. The scenes were horrifying, with corpses and bones strewn everywhere. From 1939 to 1945, more than 17,000 workers died from disease, starvation, accidents, and brutal treatment.

Formed between 1939 and 1945, the site was utilized starting May 1964. On May 1, 1964, the People's Committee of Tonghua County erected a monument at the largest of the mass graves, the West Railway Mass Grave. The site has since been well preserved and utilized, with relatively high standards of construction. It is currently recognized as a county-level cultural relic protection unit and a municipal-level patriotic education base. (Provided by the Party School of the Tonghua County Committee of the Communist Party of China)

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