View source for Hundred man killing contest

{{Short description|1937 event during the Japanese invasion of China}}
[[File:Contest To Cut Down 100 People.jpg|thumb|The ''Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun''{{'s}} news coverage of the event on 13 December 1937. Mukai (left) and Noda (right). The bold headline on the right reads, "Hundred-man killing 'super record': Mukai 106 – 105 Noda: The two second lieutenants to continue the contest in overtime".]]
{{Nanjing Massacre}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}

The '''hundred-man killing contest''' (also known as the '''Contest to kill 100 people using a sword''' or '''Competition that shall determine who is more proficient at slaying one-hundred men exclusively through the art of the blade'''<ref name=":0" />) ({{langx|ja|百人斬り競争|hyakunin-giri kyōsō}}, {{langx|zh|百人斬比賽}}) was a newspaper account of a contest between [[Toshiaki Mukai]] (3 June 1912 – 28 January 1948) and Tsuyoshi Noda (1912 – 28 January 1948), two [[Imperial Japanese Army|Japanese Army]] officers serving during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|Japanese invasion of China]], over who could kill 100 people the fastest while using a sword. The two officers were later executed on charges of [[Japanese war crimes|war crimes]] and [[crimes against humanity]] for their involvement.<ref name=yosh>Takashi Yoshida. ''The making of the "Rape of Nanking"''. 2006, p. 64.</ref> 

The news stories were rediscovered in the 1970s, which sparked a larger controversy over Japanese war crimes in China, particularly the [[Nanjing Massacre]]. The modern historical consensus is that the stories did not occur as they were described.<ref name=":0">[[Fogel, Joshua A.]] ''The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography''. 2000, p. 82.</ref>{{sfn|Wakabayashi|2000|p=307}} The original accounts printed in the newspaper described the killings as hand-to-hand combat; however, historians have suggested that they were most likely a part of Japanese mass killings of Chinese [[Prisoner of war|prisoners of war]].{{sfn|Honda|1999|p=128}}{{sfn|Kajimoto|2015|loc=Postwar Judgment: II. Nanking War Crimes Tribunal}}

==Wartime accounts==

[[File:Toshiaki-Mukai.jpg|thumb|Mukai at [[Sugamo Prison]] after his arrest by the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]]]]
[[File:Tsuyoshi-Noda.jpg|thumb|Noda at Sugamo Prison after his arrest by the U.S. Army]]

From November 30, 1937, to December 13, 1937, the ''[[Mainichi Shimbun|Osaka Mainichi Shimbun]]'' and its sister newspaper the ''[[Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun]]'' covered the hundred-man killing contest in four articles, with the last two translated in the ''[[Japan Advertiser]]''. According to the reports, the two Japanese Army second lieutenants {{nihongo|Toshiaki Mukai|向井 敏明}} and {{nihongo|Tsuyoshi Noda|野田 毅}} were vying with one another to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword, as the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] advanced from Shanghai to [[Nanjing]], prior to the infamous [[Nanjing Massacre]].

According to the ''Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun''{{'s}} report on December 13, 1937, Toshiaki Mukai said, "Without realising, we both surpassed 100 people. It was quite pleasant." Because it was difficult to determine which officer killed 100 people first and won the contest, according to journalists Asami Kazuo and Suzuki Jiro, they decided to begin another contest to kill 150 people with a sword, beginning on December 11th.{{sfn|Wakabayashi|2000|p=319}} The ''Nichi Nichi'' headline of the story on 13 December read, "Hundred-man killing 'super record': Mukai 106 – 105 Noda: The two second lieutenants to continue the contest in overtime".<ref name=xinhua2005>{{cite news|author1=徐机玲|author2=蔡玉高|author3=杨维汉|title=日军"百人斩杀人比赛" 南京大屠杀"史料与事实"|editor=康宁|agency=[[新华网]]|date=2005-08-11|url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2005-08/11/content_3340103.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130428151324/http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2005-08/11/content_3340103.htm|archive-date=2013-04-28|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Other soldiers and historians have noted the improbability of the lieutenants'  heroics, which entailed killing enemy after enemy in fierce hand-to-hand combat.{{sfn|Kajimoto|2015|loc=Postwar Judgment: II. Nanking War Crimes Tribunal|p=37}} Noda himself, on returning to his hometown, admitted this during a speech that "I killed only four or five with sword in the real combat{{nbsp}}... After we captured an enemy trench, we'd tell them, 'Ni Lai Lai.'{{efn|"Ni Lai Lai" ({{lang-zh|你来来}}) can be translated as "you, come, come".}} The Chinese soldiers were stupid enough to come out the trench toward us one after another. We'd line them up and cut them down from one end to the other."{{sfn|Honda|1999|pp=125–127}}

==Trial and execution==
After the war, a written record of the contest found its way into the documents of the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]]. In 1947, the two soldiers were arrested by the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] and detained at [[Sugamo Prison]]. They were then [[extradited]] to China and tried by the [[Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal]]. On trial with the two men was Gunkichi Tanaka, a Japanese Army captain who personally killed over 300 Chinese POWs and civilians with his sword during the massacre. All three men were found guilty of [[Mass atrocity crimes|atrocities]] committed during the [[Battle of Nanjing]] and the subsequent massacre, and sentenced to death. On 28 January 1948, the three were [[Execution by shooting|executed by shooting]] at a selected spot in the mountains of the [[Yuhuatai District]]. Mukai and Noda were both 35 years old; Tanaka was 42.<ref>{{Citation |last=Nanta |first=Arnaud |title=Historiography of the Nanking Massacre (1937–1938) in Japan and the People's Republic of China: evolution and characteristics |date=2021-05-13 |url=http://books.openedition.org/cdf/11197 |work=Historians of Asia on Political Violence |editor-last=Cheng |editor-first=Anne |editor1-link=Anne Cheng|series=Institut des civilisations |place=Paris |publisher=Collège de France |language=en |isbn=978-2-7226-0575-6 |access-date=2022-03-11 |editor2-last=Kumar |editor2-first=Sanchit}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sheng |first=Zhang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HrJIEAAAQBAJ&dq=Gunkichi+Tanaka+300&pg=PT442 |title=The Rape of Nanking: A Historical Study |date=2021-11-08 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-3-11-065289-5 |language=en}}</ref>

==Modern assessment==
{{see also|Historiography of the Nanjing Massacre}}
In Japan, the contest was lost to the obscurity of history until 1967, when [[Tomio Hora]] (a professor of history at [[Waseda University]]) published a 118-page document pertaining to the events of Nanjing. The story was unreported by the [[Japanese press]] until 1971, when Japanese journalist [[Katsuichi Honda]] brought the issue to the attention of the public with a series of articles written for ''[[Asahi Shimbun]]'', which focused on interviews with Chinese survivors of the World War II occupation and massacres.{{sfn|Honda|1999|p=ix}}

In Japan, the articles sparked fierce debate about the Nanjing Massacre, with the veracity of the killing contest a particularly contentious point of debate.<ref>Fogel, Joshua A. ''The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography''. 2000, pp. 81–82.</ref> Over the following years, many authors have argued over whether the Nanjing Massacre even occurred, with viewpoints on the subject also being a predictor for whether they believed the contest was a fabrication.{{sfn|Honda|1999|pp=126–127|loc=Footnote}} The ''[[Sankei Shimbun]]'' and Japanese politician [[Tomomi Inada]] have publicly demanded that the ''Asahi'' and ''Mainichi'' media companies retract their wartime reporting of the contest.<ref>Schreiber, Mark, "[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/31/national/media-national/u-s-sea-patrols-fuel-war-words-print/ U.S. sea patrols fuel war of words in print] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151102023620/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/31/national/media-national/u-s-sea-patrols-fuel-war-words-print/ |date=2015-11-02 }}", ''[[Japan Times]]'', 1 November 2015, p. 18</ref>

In a later work, Katsuichi Honda placed the account of the killing contest into the context of its effect on Imperial Japanese forces in China. In one instance, Honda notes Japanese veteran Shintaro Uno's autobiographical description of the effect on his sword after consecutively beheading nine prisoners.<ref name=kathon /> Uno compares his experiences with those of the two lieutenants from the killing contest.<ref name=kathon /> Although he had believed the inspirational tales of hand-to-hand combat in his youth, after his own experience in the war, he came to believe the killings were more likely brutal executions.<ref name=kathon /> Uno adds,

<blockquote>Whatever you say, it's silly to argue about whether it happened this way or that way when the situation is clear. There were hundreds of thousands of soldiers like Mukai and Noda, including me, during those fifty years of war between Japan and China. At any rate, it was nothing more than a commonplace occurrence during the so-called Chinese Disturbance.<ref name=kathon>[[Katsuichi Honda]], ed. [[Frank Gibney]]. ''The Nanjing massacre: a Japanese journalist confronts Japan's national shame''. 1999, pp. 131–132, [[M.E. Sharpe]], {{ISBN|0765603357}}</ref></blockquote>

In 2000, Bob Wakabayashi weighed in with his own study which concluded that although "the killing contest itself was a [[lie|fabrication]]" by journalists, it "provoked a full-blown controversy as to the historicity of the [[Nanjing Massacre|Nanking Atrocity]] as a whole." In turn, the controversy "increased the Japanese people's knowledge of the <!--caps per quotation-->Atrocity and raised their awareness of being victimizers in a war of imperialist aggression despite efforts to the contrary by conservative revisionists."{{sfn|Wakabayashi|2000|p=307}} In a later book, Wakabayashi quotes Joshua Fogel as saying that "to accept the story as true and accurate requires a leap of faith that no balanced historian can make."<ref> Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, ''The Nanking Atrocity 1937–1938'' (Berghahn Books, 2007), p. 280.</ref> 

The [[Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall|Nanjing Massacre Memorial]] in China includes a display on the contest among its many exhibits. A ''[[Japan Times]]'' article has suggested that its presence allows revisionists to "sow seeds of doubt" about the accuracy of the entire collection.{{sfn|Kingston|2008|p=9}}

The contest is depicted in the 1994 film ''[[Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre]]'', as well as the 2009 film, ''[[John Rabe (film)|John Rabe]]''.{{fact|date=March 2021}}
[[File:Trial of Noda.jpg|thumb|Noda, center, and Mukai, right, during their trial for war crimes in China. Gunkichi Tanaka is on the left.]]

In April 2003, the families of Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda filed a defamation suit against [[Katsuichi Honda]], Kashiwa Shobō, the Asahi Shimbun, and the ''[[Mainichi Shimbun]]'', requesting ¥36,000,000 in compensation, and for Honda's publications to be retracted due to "inveracity". On 23 August 2005, [[Tokyo District Court]] Judge Akio Doi ruled against the plaintiffs. The court argued that as both soldiers were deceased, discussions over their wartime behavior do not infringe on their "honor and privacy rights". Instead, it could be claimed that a false narrative infringed on the plaintiffs' "affection for and admiration for the two lieutenants", but the court dismissed this claim as well. The judge noted that "the contents of the news article are{{nbsp}}... extremely questionable" but that second-hand discussions of the news story do not constitute slander; instead, it has become part of a historical discussion wherein "the evaluation as a historical fact is still in the undetermined situation."<ref name="Victory for Japan's war critics">{{cite news| title = Victory for Japan's war critics| url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4176272.stm| work = BBC News| date = 2005-08-23| access-date = 2010-01-08| first = Chris| last = Hogg| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090930030908/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4176272.stm| archive-date = 2009-09-30| url-status = live}}</ref>{{sfn|Heneroty|2005}} Some evidence of killing Chinese POWs (not hand-to-hand fighting) was shown by the defendants, and the court supported the possibility that the "contestants" killed POWs by sword, which in its view would suggest that the story is not "completely false in an important part".<ref name="Victory for Japan's war critics" /> In December 2006, the Supreme Court of Japan upheld the decision of the [[Tokyo District Court]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.47news.jp/CI/200705/CI-20070517-6456278.html |script-title=ja:国の名誉守りたい 稲田衆院議員 「百人斬り裁判」を本に |trans-title=Congressman Inada published the incidents regarding the court on the hundred man killing contest |newspaper=[[Fukui Shimbun]] |via=[[47NEWS]] |date=2007-05-17 |access-date=2013-08-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140806170836/http://www.47news.jp/CI/200705/CI-20070517-6456278.html |archive-date=2014-08-06 }}</ref>

==See also==
*[[:Commons:Battle of Nanking|Nanking (1937–1945)]]
*''[[Tameshigiri]]''
*[[Japanese war crimes]]
*[[Petar Brzica]]
*[[Human safari (terror campaign)|Human safari]], similar occurrence during [[Russian invasion of Ukraine]]

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

;Bibliography
{{refbegin}}
* {{citation |last = Kingston |first = Jeff |url = http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2008/08/10/to-be-sorted/war-and-reconciliation-a-tale-of-two-countries/ |title = War and reconciliation: a tale of two countries |periodical = Japan Times |date = 10 August 2008 |page = 9 |access-date = 1 May 2017 |archive-date = 5 October 2016 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161005152123/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2008/08/10/to-be-sorted/war-and-reconciliation-a-tale-of-two-countries/ |url-status = dead }}.
* {{citation |last = Powell |first = John B. |title = My Twenty-five Years in China |location = New York |publisher = Macmillan |year = 1945 |pages = 305–308}}.
* {{Citation |last = Wakabayashi |first = Bob Tadashi |title = The Nanking 100-Man Killing Contest Debate: War Guilt Amid Fabricated Illusions, 1971–75 |journal = Journal of Japanese Studies |volume = 26 |issue = 2 |pages = 307–340| publisher = The Society for Japanese Studies |date = Summer 2000 |issn = 0095-6848|doi = 10.2307/133271| jstor = 133271}}<!--| accessdate = 2009-06-23 -->
* {{Citation |last = Honda |first = Katsuichi |author-link = Katsuichi Honda |editor1-first = Frank |editor1-last = Gibney |editor1-link = Frank Gibney |title = The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_H0JEjAqMcsC&q=The%20Nanjing%20Massacre%3A%20A%20Japanese%20Journalist%20Confronts%20Japan%27s%20National%20Shame&pg=PA126 |access-date = 24 February 2010 |year = 1999 |orig-year = Main text from ''Nankin e no Michi'' (''The Road to Nanjing''), 1987. |publisher = M. E. Sharpe |isbn = 0-7656-0335-7 }}
* {{Citation |url = https://thenankingmassacre.org/2015/07/04/nanking-war-crimes-tribunal/ |title = The Nanking Massacre: Nanking War Crimes Tribunal |first = Masato |last = Kajimoto |date = July 2015 |publisher = Graduate School of Journalism of the University of Missouri-Columbia |at = 172 |access-date = 4 August 2016 |quote = However, as many historians point out today, the stories of hyped heroism, in which those soldiers courageously killed a number of enemies in hand-to-hand combat with swords, couldn't be taken at face value. ... The three researchers interviewed by author for this project, Daqing Yang, Ikuhiko Hata, and Akira Fujiwara said that the contest could have been mere mass murder of prisoners. |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150713105631/http://thenanjingmassacre.org/2015/07/04/nanking-war-crimes-tribunal/ |archive-date = 13 July 2015 }}
* {{Citation |title=Japanese court rules newspaper didn't fabricate 1937 Chinese killing game |first=Kate |last=Heneroty |url=http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/08/japanese-court-rules-newspaper-didnt.php |work=Paper Chase |publisher=JURIST Legal News and Research Services |location=University of Pittsburgh |date=23 August 2005 |access-date=24 February 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110225011506/http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/08/japanese-court-rules-newspaper-didnt.php |archive-date=25 February 2011 }}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
;In English:
*[[:Commons:Battle of Nanking|Nanking (1937–1945)]]
;In Japanese:
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070505201227/http://www.geocities.jp/pipopipo555jp/han/nich-mai-hikaku.htm Full text of all articles pertaining to the event]
*[http://www.asyura2.com/0505/war73/msg/688.html 百人斬り訴訟で東京地裁は遺族の敗訴だが朝日新聞記事と東京日日新聞記事は違う点を無視の報道]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070115105111/http://andesfolklore.hp.infoseek.co.jp/intisol/hyakunin/hanketul.htm Decision of the Tokyo District Court (full text)]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20051221224952/http://andesfolklore.hp.infoseek.co.jp/intisol/hyakunin2.htm Mochizuki's Memories "Watashi no Shina-jihen" (私の支那事変)], ''one of the exhibits in evidence at the Tokyo District Court, which revealed Noda and Mukai beheaded Chinese farmers with their swords during the killing contest.''
{{refend}}

[[Category:Nanjing Massacre]]
[[Category:Massacres committed by Japan]]
[[Category:1937 murders in China]]
[[Category:20th-century mass murder in China]]
[[Category:Competitions in Japan]]
[[Category:Massacres of the Second Sino-Japanese War]]
[[Category:Sword attacks in Asia]]
[[Category:Mass stabbings in China]]