The Exhibition Hall of the Battle of Changde and the Changde Bacteriological Warfare

The Exhibition Hall of the Battle of Changde and the Changde Bacteriological Warfare

The Exhibition Hall of the Battle of Changde and the Changde Bacteriological Warfare is a patriotic education base.

The Exhibition Hall of the Battle of Changde and the Changde Bacteriological Warfare is located inside the Changde Museum at No. 144, South Wuling Avenue, Changde City.

In the early morning around 5 a.m. on November 4, 1941, when the sky was still gloomy, a Japanese aircraft flew from east to west, circled overhead, and dropped large quantities of grains, wheat, beans, sorghum, as well as rotten cotton wads and rags. These items landed in areas such as Jieniang Lane, Guanmiao Street, Court Street, Gaoshan Street, as well as Wupu Street outside the East Gate, Shuifu Temple, and the outskirts including Shimenqiao and Zhendeqiao. Among these, Guanmiao Street received the heaviest fallout. Five or six days later, a large number of infected rats died within the city of Changde. On the eighth day, Cai Taoyue, the daughter of blacksmith Cai from Guanmiao Street, fell ill and died 36 hours later. After an autopsy and laboratory tests jointly conducted by the captain of the Red Cross team (a Jewish man) and doctors from Guangde Hospital, she was confirmed to have died of septicemic plague. Following this, over 600 more people in the urban area succumbed to the plague. The rural areas around Deshan and Shimenqiao also saw over a hundred deaths from the disease. The atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders in Changde brought immense disaster and terror to the local people.

The Sino-Japanese Battle of Changde, also known as the “Defense of Changde,” took place from early November to late December 1943 during World War II. The 57th Division of the 74th Army of the Nationalist Kuomintang, tasked with defending Changde, faced an enemy that was well-equipped and had numerical superiority, while the defenders had to hold a city that was easy to attack but hard to defend. With only 8,000 troops, they fought alone against 40,000 well-armed invaders for 15 days and nights. In the end, nearly the entire division was wiped out, with only about 80 soldiers surviving. However, they also inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese army, leaving over a thousand bodies in the suburbs of Changde and significantly weakening the enemy’s combat strength. The heroic defense of Changde led by Division Commander Yu Chengwan has written a glorious chapter in the annals of China’s anti-Japanese national heroes.

In August 2005, the Changde Museum organized this large-scale exhibition to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the 62nd anniversary of the Battle of Changde, and it has been on permanent display since then.

The exhibition is divided into three sections: “The Turbulent Tides of WWII, Dark Clouds Over Changde,” “An Unprecedentedly Brutal Battle, Written in the Blood of History,” and “Martyrs Shine Through History, National Humiliation Never Forgotten.” It features over 200 photographs and more than 100 artifacts. The section on the Changde Bacteriological Warfare by the Japanese includes over 100 precious historical photos, 33 research monographs, 85 written documents, and 23 physical exhibits.

In November 2008, the Exhibition Hall of the Battle of Changde and the Changde Bacteriological Warfare was designated as a municipal-level patriotic education base by the Publicity Department of the Changde Municipal Committee.