Chapter 852 851 [International Friends]

In order to obtain first-hand information about the Nanjing Massacre, Zhou Hexuan first contacted "Reader's Digest" and "Classmates" magazines. Because in the historical data of later generations, these two publications were the first American media to report on the Nanjing Massacre.

However, Zhou Hexuan was disappointed because the two media outlets could provide very little information. They only have a few photos of the massacre, and the rest are all written descriptions, and the descriptions are extremely one-sided and fragmented - the four shocking documentaries of the Holocaust have not yet been sent back to the United States.

In fact, this is easy to understand, because while the Japanese invaders were carrying out massacres, they were very afraid of Westerners and prohibited white people from walking around in Nanjing. Therefore, although there are reports of the massacre in European and American countries, they are all told from a personal perspective and have no idea of ​​the scale of the massacre.

Now European and American countries have confirmed that there was a massacre of civilians in Nanjing, and speculated that there were tens of thousands of innocent victims. Some say it’s a few thousand, and some say it’s tens of thousands. Anyway, there are different opinions. No one dares to speculate that the number of victims has exceeded 50,000, let alone 300,000, because that is beyond the imagination of normal people.

Under the guidance of Reader's Digest, Zhou Hexuan began to contact churches in various places, because the media also obtained information about the massacre from churches.

After visiting churches in several states, Zhou Hexuan obtained a large amount of first-hand information, mainly written descriptions in letters, with no more than a hundred photos in total. Moreover, these photos were taken secretly and were basically photos of street massacres. There were no photos of large-scale massacres involving tens of thousands of people.

Regardless, these are evidence for future trials.

Zhou Hexuan not only obtained copies of the materials, but also requested the signatures of the local church and relatives and friends of the witnesses on each copy to make these copies more credible and legally binding.

After visiting several states, Zhou Hexuan felt that the speed was too slow. So he sent a telegram to the embassy in the United States and asked the Chinese consulates in each state to help. He thus collected church information in more than 40 states in the United States, which was sent to the embassy in Washington one after another.

The missionaries Zhou Hexuan was visiting this time were a pair of brothers named Henry Pulitzer and Frank Pulitzer.

The reason why they wanted to find these two brothers was also under the guidance of the church - they wanted to set up an aid organization to China in New York, namely the "Committee for the Non-participation of the United States in Japanese Aggression". In order to make this organization more influential, they also persuaded former US Secretary of State Stimson to serve as the honorary chairman of the committee, so this organization was also called the "Stimson Aid Committee to China."

The "Stimson Aid China Committee" was the largest aid organization in the United States during the early stages of China's comprehensive war of resistance against Japan. Through unremitting publicity and efforts, they gathered hundreds of thousands of people to write letters of protest to the US government and American businessmen. The largest one involved 102,000 Puritans at the same time, demanding that the U.S. government impose an embargo on Japan and pushing the U.S. boycott of Japanese goods to its peak.

Faced with the pressure from the entire American church, even Roosevelt and large financial groups could not withstand it. Coupled with the changes in the international situation, Roosevelt finally chose to abrogate the U.S.-Japan trade agreement.

At this moment, the "Stimson Committee to Aid China" has not been formally established, but former Secretary of State Stimson has agreed to be the honorary chairman, and even the headquarters office location of the committee has been selected.

Speaking of Stimson, we have to mention "Stimsonism", that is, "non-recognition doctrine".

When Stimson was Secretary of State, he highly praised U.S. isolation diplomacy. Regarding Japan's September 18th Incident, Stimson neither recognized the legality of Japan's invasion of China nor took any measures to stop it. Instead, he reached a secret understanding with Japan. In the following ten years, Stimson's non-recognition doctrine was regarded as the basic position of American diplomacy.

Now Stimson was out of office, a white man, serving only as Roosevelt's special adviser. He began to advocate aid to China again, and tried his best to persuade Roosevelt to join the war. As a result, before the war between the United States and Japan broke out, this guy had already become the United States Secretary of War.

The typical butt determines the head, the big brother plays it very smoothly.

"Zhou, we meet again!" Stimson opened his arms and gave Zhou Hexuan a warm hug.

Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "Hello, Mr. Stimson, thank you for working for China's war of resistance."

Yes, Zhou Hexuan and Stimson knew each other. The first time the two met was when they watched Mei Lanfang's performance at Ford's Theater, and they also chatted for a while about Zhou Hexuan's "The Rise of the Great Powers" (the relevant plot is in Chapter 314).

Stimson smiled and introduced: "Zhou, this is Henry Pulitzer, and this is Frank Pulitzer. They are all my old friends."

The Pulitzer brothers were over 50 years old. They were wearing church clothes and shook hands with Zhou Hexuan with serious expressions.

"On behalf of the Chinese people, I would like to thank these two gentlemen!" Zhou Hexuan said sincerely.

If the Pulitzer brothers had not consolidated the church's support for China and continued to put pressure on the U.S. government, I am afraid that the U.S. embargo against Japan would have been delayed and China's anti-war situation would have been even more severe.

Henry Pulitz said: "It is right to help China. I have been a teacher at Tsinghua University for seven years, and my brother Frank has also been a teacher at Jinling University for five years. We lived in China for more than ten years until the Japanese attack In Nanjing, we all still live in China. China is our second hometown, and there are too many friends there. I hope to do my best for our Chinese friends."

Frank Pulitzer said angrily: "Zhou, do you know? I witnessed the atrocities of the Japanese in Nanjing with my own eyes! They raped women everywhere, killed civilians, and drove Westerners away like pigs, just because they were afraid that Westerners would expose their brutality. I could only watch helplessly, watching the Japanese army snatch away the last clothes of the poor in the cold winter, watching the Japanese army take away the Chinese soldiers who put down their weapons and seek refuge, and watch countless innocent Chinese civilians being taken away and treated as A living target for bayonet practice! I remember clearly that day when the Japanese troops broke into the international safe zone, a dozen Chinese women knelt in front of me and begged me to help them. But I was powerless. I wanted to argue with the Japanese troops, but they pushed me down. On the ground. The Japanese soldier laughed and trampled the American flag in front of me, then picked up the Stars and Stripes with his bayonet to laugh at me, and snatched away the poor women in front of me..."

As he spoke, Frank Pulitzer choked up, and hot tears overflowed his eyes. He sobbed: "I will never forget those scenes. There were dead bodies and blood everywhere. Even when I returned to the United States, I felt the pain countless times. I woke up from a dream and dreamed that those poor Chinese people were asking me for help, but I couldn't speak or move in the dream, I was like a powerless living dead!"

Henry Pulitzer patted his brother on the shoulder and comforted him: "Let's put aside our sorrow for the time being and let us do all the efforts we should do for the living Chinese."