Editing The Rape of Nanking (book) (section)

== Contents ==
''The Rape of Nanking'' is structured into three main parts. The first uses a technique—what Chang calls the "[[Rashomon (film)|Rashomon perspective]]"—to narrate the events of the massacre from three different perspectives: that of the Japanese military, the Chinese victims, and of the Westerners who tried to help Chinese civilians. The second part concerns the postwar reaction to the massacre, especially that of the American and European governments. The third part of the book examines the circumstances that, Chang believed, have kept knowledge of the massacre out of public consciousness decades after the war.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|14-15}}

=== Atrocities ===
The book depicted in detail the killing, torture, and rape that occurred during the Nanjing Massacre. Chang listed and described the kinds of torture that were visited upon the residents, including [[live burial]]s, [[mutilation]], "[[death by fire]]," "[[Freezing to death|death by ice]]," and "death by dogs." Based on the testimony of a survivor of the massacre, Chang also describes a killing contest amongst a group of Japanese soldiers to determine who could kill the fastest.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|83-88}} On the rape that occurred during the massacre, Chang wrote that "certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history." She estimates that the number of women raped ranged from 20,000 to as many as 80,000,<ref name="RapeOfNanking89">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 89, citing: {{Bulleted list|Catherine Rosair, ''For One Veteran, Emperor Visit Should Be Atonement'';|George Fitch, ''Nanking Outrages'';|Li En-han, ''Questions of How Many Chinese Were Killed by the Japanese Army in the Great Nanking Massacre''}}</ref> and states that women from all classes were raped, including [[Buddhist nun]]s.<ref name="RapeOfNanking90">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 90, citing:{{Bulleted list|Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking'';}}</ref> Furthermore, rape occurred in all locations and at all hours,<ref name="RapeOfNanking90-91">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 90-91, citing:{{Bulleted list|George Fitch, ''Nanking Outrages'';|Gao Xingzu, et al., ''Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing''}}</ref> and both very young and very old women were raped.<ref name="RapeOfNanking91a">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 91, citing:{{Bulleted list|Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking'';|David Nelson Sutton, ''All Military Aggression in China Including Atrocities Against Civilians and Others'';|Shuhsi Hsu, ''Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone''}}</ref> Not even pregnant women were spared, Chang wrote, and that after gang rape, Japanese soldiers "sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the [[fetus]]es for amusement."<ref name="RapeOfNanking91b">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 91, citing:{{Bulleted list|"A Debt of Blood," ''Dagong Daily'', 7 February 1938;|''Xinhua Daily'', 24 February 1951;|Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking'';|Tang Shunsan, interview with Chang;|Gao Xingzu, et al., ''Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing''}}</ref> Not all rape victims were women, according to the book, Chinese men were sodomized and forced to perform repulsive sexual acts.<ref name="RapeOfNanking95a">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 95, citing: {{Bulleted list|Shuhsi Hsu, ''Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone''}}</ref> Some were forced to commit incest—fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers.<ref name="RapeOfNanking95b">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 95, citing:{{Bulleted list|Guo Qi, August 1938, "Shendu xueluilu," ''Xijing Pingbao''.}}</ref>

=== Death toll ===
Chang wrote of the death toll estimates given by different sources:<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|100}}
* Chinese military specialist Liu Fang-chu proposed a figure of 430,000; officials at the [[Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall]] and the procurator of the District Court of Nanjing in 1946 stated at least 300,000 were killed;
* the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]] (IMTFE) judges concluded that more than 260,000 people were killed;
* Japanese historian [[Akira Fujiwara]] mentioned at least 200,000;
* [[John Rabe]], who "never conducted a systematic count and left Nanking in February," estimated 50,000 to 60,000; and
* Japanese historian [[Ikuhiko Hata]] argued the number killed was between 38,000 and 42,000.

The book discusses the research of historian Sun Zhaiwei of the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences. In his 1990 paper, "The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population", Sun estimated the total number of people killed at 377,400. Using Chinese burial records, he calculated that the number of dead exceeded the figure of 227,400. He then added estimates totaling 150,000 given by Japanese Imperial Army Major Ohta Hisao in a confessional report about the Japanese army's disposal efforts of dead bodies, arriving at the sum of 377,400 dead.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|101}}

Chang wrote that there is "compelling evidence" that the Japanese themselves, at the time, believed that the death toll may have been as high as 300,000. She cited a message that [[Japan's foreign minister]] [[Kōki Hirota]] relayed to his contacts in [[Washington, DC]] in the first month of the massacre on January 17, 1938. The message acknowledged that "not less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians [were] slaughtered, many cases in cold blood."<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|103-4}}