More than 70 years ago, seven brave men blocked the Japanese for 8 days and 8 nights with their building, and were captured and dismembered! 111

Architecture is the mark of the times, is the witness of history, in the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong, preserved since the Ming Dynasty, mainly during the Republic of China built thousands of towers, the first World Heritage Site in Guangdong Province, "Kaiping towers and villages" in Kaiping City, there are still 1883 towers. These towers are divided into three forms: by a number of households to build a common House, for temporary refuge, 473 surviving; by the rich people alone to build a residence building, while the function of defence and residence, 1149 surviving; and the emergence of the most recent more Lou, for joint defence and early warning purposes, 221 surviving.
It can be said that each tower is a record of a family or even a village's past, writing the story of sorrow and happiness, but nearly a thousand towers in Kaiping, the story as tragic as Chikan South Tower, I'm afraid that we can not find a second.

The story of Nantou begins with the ancient town of Chikan, which is the most representative ancient town in Kaiping, located on the banks of the Tam River, since the Qing Dynasty, because of the waterway hub, Chikan gradually became a large and prosperous town.

There are two main family names in Chikan town, the Situ people live in the east of the river and the Guan people live in the west of the river.

The South Building is located in Tengjiao Village, Chikan Town, Kaiping City, is a watchtower built by the Situ family in 1913, south of the Tam River, the building is 7 storeys 19.06 metres high, reinforced concrete structure, a fortress of steel and iron, the South Building of the Situ clan and the North Building of the Guan clan in the north of the river are facing each other.

The South Building is not only the same as other towers, with iron doors and windows, but each floor also has a gun-eye, there is a lookout on the roof, with generators and searchlights on it, which can be described as advanced equipment.

Without a battle in July 1945, I am afraid that the South Tower is only an ordinary one of the existing 1883 towers in Kaiping, and today the South Tower in Kaiping towers in the status, it can be said that the seven brave men with their lives in exchange for.

June 24, 1944, the Japanese army occupied Kaiping three ports, the local people have organized to resist the Japanese invaders. Chikan Town's Situ Si Xiang Self-Defence Force was established in this situation, returning from the South Seas Chinese son Situ Xu served as deputy leader of the Self-Defence Force, more than a year, this rural armed team repeatedly beat the Japanese invaders.

In 1945, the war entered a counter-offensive, with the Japanese losing ground and planning to withdraw from the Chinese battlefield. In May of the same year, Japanese troops in southern China were eager to open up the main transport route from the Leizhou peninsula to Guangzhou and prepared to retreat by water.

The Tan River, which flows through Kaiping, became a necessary route for the Japanese to retreat, and Nanlou in Chikan by the Tan River, located next to the section of the river from Chikan town to Kaiping Sanbu, could be considered the lifeline for the Japanese to "run away".

In July 1945, the Japanese at Kaiping Sanbu decided to open up the Chikan waterway to meet the remnants of the retreating enemy from Yangjiang and Yangchun, and on July 16, two Japanese and fake troops stationed at Sanbu, plus the Japanese from Enping, attacked Chikan in three directions and were heavily attacked by the Nantou Self-Defence Force, with three enemy boats hit and the enemy diving for their lives, drowning nearly 100 people.

But a small Nanlou could not stop the Japanese from capturing Chikan. Early in the morning of 17 July, Li Jiang, the commander of Guangyang stationed in Chikan, and his men ran away to Zhishui to avoid the enemy without firing a single shot, and the town of Chikan fell that day, with the three enemy forces meeting at Chikan, with over 3,000 infantry and 200 cavalries.

In the situation where the enemy was outnumbered, some people proposed to save their strength, turn into pieces and wait for reinforcements to arrive before organising their forces to besiege the enemy. At this time, the Self-Defence Force, led by Situ Xu, advocated defending the village to death and vowed to live and die with Tengjiao. This plan eventually gained the support of the villagers, and they prepared to transport military supplies, food and ammunition to Nantou and Beilou in order to hold on to the war.

Who expected that the ammunition and food had not yet arrived, the Japanese invaders have surrounded Tengjiao village from all sides, the self-defence team fighters Situ Xu, Situ met, Situ Chang, Situ spin, Situ Yao, Situ C, Situ Nong and other seven people retreated into the south building. At this time, in order to open up the waterway as soon as possible, the Japanese also spared no expense to pull out the "nail" of Nantou.

The battle for Nanlou began on the night of 17 July 1945, and after the second night of the day, the Japanese adopted the strategy of attacking the west with a few steamers from the waterway, while actually moving a large number of land forces from Chikan to encircle the village behind Nantou. But on this late night of thunder and rain, both groups were repelled separately by the brave men of Nantou.

On 18 July, the enemy occupied the Tengjiao Temple and tried to rely on it to further breach the South Tower, but still failed to do so, as the strong concrete blockhouse was difficult to even get a machine gun into.

At this time, the seven-strong men inside the building made common causes and left their names on the wall after beating back the enemy, vowing to fight the Japanese to the death. The South Tower became a thorn in the side of the Japanese, seriously affecting the retreat plan.

In order to pull out the South Tower as soon as possible, on July 21, the Japanese dug in the east side of Tengjiao to build a gun position, installed artillery, began shelling at noon, the North Wall of the South Tower was pierced several holes. The enemy thought they had eliminated the South Building Self-Defence Force, so they got carried away and went in the direction of the Tengjiao Temple, unaware that at this time, the South Building Self-Defence Force members were firing through the eyes of their guns, killing two enemies immediately.

A small watchtower, a self-defence team of only seven people, coupled with obsolete firearms, actually disrupted the military plans of the "Imperial Army". The battle of Nanlou reached the Japanese command in Guangzhou, the chief was furious and immediately called the Japanese army in Chikan and Sanbu to conquer Nanlou within two days by any means necessary.
At this time, the soldiers had been defending Nanlou for several days, and the little food and ammunition they had had had been depleted, and the only water they had left had been used up. The letter reads: "Hsu, Xuan, met, Chang, Yao, Nong, C, we held on to Tengjiao for four days, but no rescue was seen. The enemy has repeatedly urged us to surrender, but although we are not very good at reading poetry, we can understand the word "loyalty for our country and countryside". Now we have killed 16 of them, and we have paid a considerable price. Now we are all of one mind, on June 15, 1945 (July 23, 1945), we committed suicide at Tengjiao Nanlou, leaving a message to our clan, praying that after the enemy retreats, this information will be published in the newspaper, then we will be willing to die with the same heart."

At the time of running out of ammunition, the seven-strong men jointly wrote a suicide note, ready to kill themselves en masse to die for the country. But after thinking about it, Situ Xu decided to give up the idea of suicide, saying to his team, "We can't kill ourselves! If we kill ourselves, the Japanese will think we are afraid of them. Although we have no bullets, we still have bayonets, lime, even if the Japanese attacked the South Tower we can still resist for a while, we have to persevere to the end, even if we die, we have to die worthy!" The men were determined not to die easily until the last moment.


On 25 July, the Japanese army, eager to take the South Tower, brought in more powerful steel cannons from Jiangmen and openly used poison gas bombs, which were banned by the International Convention, and frantically shelled the South Tower for nearly an hour.
On 26 July, the Japanese interrogated the seven brave men, cutting off their flesh, fingers and toes, cutting off their ears and noses, and chiselling all their teeth. They refused to give in to the Japanese.

The Japanese tied the seven brave men to the railings in front of Situ's library, tortured them and then dismembered them and threw their bodies into the Tam River.

News of the brutal murder of the Seven Strong Men spread quickly through Tengjiao village, and villagers searched for their remains along the riverbank, eventually finding five of them, except for Szeto Hsu, the deputy leader who organised the resistance, and Szeto C, an 18-year-old ammunition soldier, whose bodies were not found whole, but only scattered and broken.

Situ's four townspeople, in order to remember the heroic deeds of the seven brave men, prepared a coffin to coffin the remains of the brave men, buried in the side of the gazebo in Gaozui village, so that they face the South Tower, forever lying on the land of Tengjiao.

On August 15, 1945, 20 days after Nanlou was breached, the Japanese announced their surrender and the end of World War II. On August 25, 1945, the four patriarchs and enthusiasts of the Situ clan held a large-scale memorial service in the auditorium of Kaiping First Middle School, attended by tens of thousands of people from all walks of life and the four townspeople of the Situ clan, with more than 2,000 elegies sent from all over the world.

In 1946, Kaiping also published a book entitled "The Seven Martyrs of Nantou, the National Heroes of the War".

After the memorial service, a procession of people from all walks of life marched to Tengjiao Temple in Chikan, where the memorial plaque was placed in San Ling Gong, which was transformed into the Seven Martyrs Shrine.

More than 70 years have passed, the story of the South Tower is still being passed on, the tragic past, but also make the South Tower has become thousands of Kaiping towers in one of the most valuable historical value.

The watchtower, which has a history of nearly 100 years, is still standing on the banks of the Tam River, telling the story of this tragic past without words.


Remember these seven 18-38-year-old "seven brave men of Nanlou", they are: deputy captain Situ Xu (34), squad leader and machine gunner Situ met (30), staff sergeant intelligence Situ Chang (38), team clerk Situ Xuan (21), staff sergeant machine gunner Situ Yao (24), machine gunner Situ Nong (28), ammunition soldier Situ Bing (18).
Some may say that the Japanese surrendered after more than 20 days, so what was the point of resisting, otherwise the seven of them would not have died tragically, but in fact, this is typical of hindsight, as long as the Japanese did not surrender, the resistance would not have ended. The so-called national heroes are those who sacrificed their lives to defend themselves against foreign invasion, Yue Fei and Wen Tianxiang, Lin Zexu and Deng Shichang, Zhang Zizhong and Xie Jinyuan, and the Seven Heroes of Nantou