On December 13th, a large number of refugees tried to escape from the Japanese by trying to cross the Yangtze River. They were trapped on the east bank because no transportation was available; many of them tried to swim across the river. Meanwhile, the Japanese arrived and fired at the people on the shore and in the river. A Japanese soldier reported that the next day he saw an uncountable number of dead bodies of adults and children covering the whole river. He estimated that more than 50,000 people were killed at this tragic incident of the Nanjing Massacre.

The Japanese killed so many men, women and children with machetes that their arms became tired and they had to rest before they continued. The soldiers killed men with machine guns, live burial, fire, freezing, mutilation, explosion, and other unspeakable tortures. Decapitation was popular, and Chinese heads were fed to the dogs.Some people were buried waist deep and torn apart by German shepherds. Babies were thrown in the air and bayoneted on the way down. Men were castrated. People were lined against a wall and shot. Then a number of Japanese, armed with pistols, trod nonchalantly around the crumpled bodies, pumping bullets into any that were still kicking. In some cases, the Japanese poured gasoline onto the captives and burnt them alive. Sometimes, poisonous gases were used. Women were raped, forced to perform bizarre sexual acts, then killed. Chinese men were forced to rape corpses.

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