Battle of Nanking - Pursuit and "mopping-up" Operations

Pursuit and "mopping-up" Operations

Japanese troops pursued the retreating Chinese army units, primarily in the Xiakuan area to the north of the city walls and around the Zijin Mountain in the east. Although the popular narrative suggests that the final phase of the battle consisted of a one-sided slaughter of Chinese troops by the Japanese, some Japanese historians maintain that the remaining Chinese military posed a serious threat to the Japanese. Prince Asaka told a war correspondent later that he was in a very perilous position when his headquarters was ambushed by Chinese forces that were in the process of retreating from Nanking east of the city. On the other side of the city, the 11th Company of the 45th Regiment encountered some 20,000 Chinese troops who were making their way from Xiakuan.

The Japanese army conducted its mopping-up operations both inside and outside the Nanking Safety Zone. Since the area outside the safety zone had been almost completely evacuated, the mopping-up effort was concentrated in the safety zone. The safety zone, an area of 3.85 square kilometers, was literally packed with the remaining population of Nanking. A number of Chinese soldiers in civilian clothes were hiding among the civilians in the Safety Zone;the Japanese military leadership estimated the number of such soldiers at about 20,000. They learned that anti-aircraft artillery positions remained intact within the safety zone, and that numerous plain-clothed soldiers were found concealing their weapons.

Some Japanese historians argue that, if the soldiers inside the Safety Zone had found an opportunity to assault the Japanese, the Safety Zone would have become a battlefield and endangered the safety of innocent civilians. For this reason, the Japanese army leadership assigned some units to separate the plain-clothed soldiers from the civilians, working through the Safety Zone section by section.