Editing Nanjing Massacre (section)

==== "Mopping-up Operations" ====
The fighting in Nanjing continued beyond the night of December 12–13, following the Japanese Army's capture of the remaining gates and entrance into the city. The Japanese army continued to encounter sporadic resistance from the remaining Chinese forces for several days, as many units were attempting to break out of the Japanese lines.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |page=238}}</ref>
The Japanese military determined that they needed to eliminate any remaining Chinese soldiers hidden within the city. However, the search process used an arbitrary criteria for identifying former Chinese soldiers. Chinese males who were deemed to be in good health were automatically presumed to be a soldier. During this operation, Japanese forces committed atrocities against the Chinese population.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Noboru Kojima |title=Ni~Tsu Chū sensō (3) |publisher=Bungei Shunju |year=1984 |location=Tokyo |pages=191, 194–195, 197–200 |language=ja |script-title=ja:日中戦争(3) |trans-title=Sino-Japanese war (3)}}</ref>
[[File:Check of Chinese soldiers in Nanking01.jpg|thumb|Japanese [[Kempeitai]] inspect Chinese men for weapons ]]
The criteria used in identifying former soldiers was often arbitrary, as was the case with one Japanese company which apprehended all men with "shoe sores, callouses on the face, extremely good posture, and/or sharp-looking eyes". For this reason many civilians were taken at the same time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yamamoto |first=Masahiro |title=Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity |date=2000 |publisher=Praeger |page=100}}</ref>

According to George Fitch, head of Nanjing's YMCA, "[[rickshaw]] coolies, carpenters, and other laborers are frequently taken".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zhang |first=Kaiyuan |title=Eyewitnesses to Massacre |page=94}}</ref> Chinese police officers and firefighters were also targeted, with even street sweepers and Buddhist burial workers from the [[Red Swastika Society]] being marched away on suspicion of being soldiers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937, Battle for a Doomed City |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |pages=242–243}}</ref> Those who fled at the approach of any Japanese soldiers risked being shot.<ref name=":15">{{Cite book |last=Van de Ven |first=Hans |title=China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China |date=2018 |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=96-97}}</ref>[[File:Chinese captives in Nanking.jpg|thumb|Chinese prisoners captured near Mufu Mountain. All of them would be murdered within a few days.]]The rounding-up and mass killings of male civilians and captured POWs were referred to euphemistically as "mopping-up operations" in Japanese communiqués, in a manner "just like the Germans were to talk about 'processing' or 'handling' Jews".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |page=243}}</ref>