China marks 88 years since start of whole-nation resistance against Japanese aggression

China on Monday marked the 88th anniversary of the Lugou Bridge Incident, also known as the July 7 Incident of 1937, which marked the start of the entire nation's resistance against Japanese aggression during World War II. 

"Before dawn [that day], I was awakened by the sound as the 29th Army (of Chinese troops) clashed with the Japanese," Zheng Fulai told China Media Group in an interview before he died in 2024. 

"Clutching my mother's dress, I fled to the northern end of Changxindian Town. There was a pine grove in the north of the town. There, covered by cloth were fallen soldiers of the 29th Army who had died defending the city and the bridge."

Zheng, saddened by Chinese soldiers' sacrifices, spent much of his life telling young people about the war, as he thought the younger generations should know about their country's past and what its people went through.

Following the incident in southwest Beijing, then Peiping, the city was captured by the Japanese army on July 29, 1937. More than 10,000 civilians were killed or disappeared during the fall of the city.

The fall of Peiping City prompted the Chinese Kuomintang party and the Communist Party of China to cooperate in resisting against Japanese aggression, marking China's whole-nation resistance against the Japanese invasion, which was widely recognized as the main battlefield against Japanese imperialism and fascism during World War II. 

Official data shows that more than 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians died during the war, accounting for nearly 8 percent of China's total population in 1928.