December 13, 1937

Nanjing Massacre

Japanese forces capture Nanjing; the Nanjing Massacre begins

On the afternoon the city fell, several hundred disarmed soldiers approached the refugee zone; its organisers warned they could not protect them.

13 December 1937: the capital falls

Japanese forces under the Central China Area Army captured Nanjing, then China's capital, on 13 December 1937.

Tang Shengzhi, commanding the Nanjing garrison, had ordered a retreat the previous day. Chinese troops crowded toward the Yangtze; many discarded their weapons and uniforms or entered the Safety Zone among civilians.

That afternoon several hundred disarmed soldiers entered or approached the Safety Zone seeking help. John Rabe's International Committee warned that it could not protect them, but appealed for their treatment as prisoners of war.

The tribunal dated the killing to the capture itself

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found that mass murder, rape, looting and arson began with the city's capture on 13 December — not after a cleanly separated battle.

Iwane Matsui, commander-in-chief of the Central China Area Army, was later convicted by that tribunal for failing to control his troops and protect Nanjing's civilians.

Prince Yasuhiko Asaka commanded the Shanghai Expeditionary Army during the final assault; his personal responsibility for an alleged order to kill captives remains disputed.

Counting depends on where the lines are drawn

The Tokyo tribunal estimated more than 200,000 civilians and prisoners murdered in Nanjing and its vicinity during the first six weeks, and approximately 20,000 rape cases inside the city during the first month.

Modern scholarship gives figures that move with the boundaries used: more than 100,000 but fewer than 200,000 across the broader city and six surrounding counties, and below 50,000 for six weeks inside the walled city.

A single casualty figure is misleading unless its geography, its period and its inclusion of prisoners of war are stated.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 7 sources 2 audit passes, 1 issue open

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The fall of the city on December 13 is securely dated, but the massacre’s death toll depends heavily on geographic and temporal boundaries.
The Tokyo tribunal used a figure above 200,000 for Nanjing and its vicinity over six weeks, while a modern scholarly synthesis estimates 100,000–200,000 across the broader city and six counties and fewer than 50,000 inside the walled city over six weeks.
A purported order to “kill all captives” is often attributed to Prince Asaka, but scholarship describes the order and its authorship as alleged; evidence more securely establishes multiple unit-level orders not to accept or to execute prisoners.