In the span of six weeks, approximately three hundred thousand men and women were killed or raped in Nanjing, China. (Katsuichi 3). After failing to surrender, the Japanese attacked various parts of China in 1937, where they then decided to head towards the then capital Nanjing, or Nanjing. “Japanese soldiers swept into the city […] over the next two months […] murdering, raping, and killing” (Nanking Massacre Encyclopedia Gale). The Japanese army launched an assault on the walls of Nanjing from multiple directions. The streets were filled with the bodies of men, women, children and even the elderly. The air was filled with the smell of blood. (Chang 24) The Japanese destroyed the city and did what they had to do, which was to spread fear throughout the world through Nanjing. Japan was hungry for power, so it showed other countries what it was capable of doing. The Japanese used the Rape of Nanjing to instill fear and gain control throughout China and the world by leaving Nanjing in ruins, raping women, and killing people. Brutally scarring and killing people was one way the Japanese wanted to show what they were capable of. for power. Many were killed, in fact “between 250,000 and 300,000 people were killed” (Scarred by History: Rape of Nanking BBC). The Japanese created pits in which they killed people and placed the corpses in them. Sometimes, in the pits, they would hold head-cutting competitions to see who could cut off the most heads at a certain time. (Katsuichi 22) The head cutting competition demonstrated that Japan did not and would not have any sympathy for anyone. They made sure that no one could escape by bayoneting the gates and also tied people they had not yet killed to the houses. Sometimes soldiers randomly shot people because… middle of paper… Gelow, et al. vol. 3: Biographies. Detroit: UXL, 1999. 272-277. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Network. March 25, 2014. Tojo took part in the Nanjing rape. It talks about how brutal the Japanese were towards the Chinese and how they destroyed many cities and villages throughout China. He was the chief of staff of the Kawangtung Army. He agrees that the Rape of Nanjing was one of the worst attacks by the Japanese. Tojo explains how the Chinese tried to push back the Japanese, but the Japanese had a strong army and were up to date with technology at the time. They used bayonets, guns, poison, etc. to hurt and kill everyone in Nanjing. Tojo explains that there were bodies everywhere, everywhere you went you saw bodies lying around, of all types including many women and children. Tojo is now a veteran of the Japanese, he held many combat roles when he was in the Japanese army.