Quartermasters can also fight the devils

However, everyone in the Chinese delegation knew that the lack of evidence would seriously affect the Chinese delegation's efforts to fight for their country's rights and interests at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Moreover, since the trial was led by the United States, the court adopted the Anglo-American legal system rather than the Chinese continental legal system.

Influenced by the legal system, the rules of evidence in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East will adopt the "legal evidence principle", that is, whether the submission of evidence is legal and whether the evidence itself is credible will be debated by both parties, and then the judge will determine whether the evidence is credible.

This means that if the judge in charge of the trial believes that the evidence presented by the prosecution is illegal or the evidence itself is unreliable, he or she can reject it in court.

But even in the face of such a dilemma, no one in the Chinese delegation gave up. From 1946 onwards, members of the Chinese delegation began to travel back and forth between Japan and China to collect evidence, and many legal experts and enthusiastic young people in China enthusiastically provided all kinds of help to the Chinese delegation.

As the number of people helping to find evidence continued to grow, the work of finding evidence of crimes committed by the Japanese army in China began to bear fruit.

In order to search for hard evidence of the crimes committed by the Japanese army in China, the Chinese delegation went to the former Japanese-occupied areas to search for witnesses and material evidence. In addition, the Japanese mainland also became an important position for the Chinese delegation to search for evidence of the crimes committed by the Japanese army.

After contacting the Attorney General of the Chinese government, Mei Ruoyu, a judge of the Chinese government delegation, requested the Allied Headquarters to open the internal confidential files of the Japanese Army that had been sealed by the Allies. Then, the members of the Chinese government delegation braved the scorching heat and worked hard day after day in the archives of the Japanese Cabinet and the Army Ministry to search for clues of crimes committed by Japanese war criminals in China.

Then, the main job of the translators in the Chinese delegation was to convert a large amount of written evidence into English so that it could be presented at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

Xiang Zhejun, Gao Wenbin and others worked day and night to translate, extract and organize evidence. After nine months of hard work, they finally collected enough solid evidence to prove the war crimes.

As the evidence in the hands of the Chinese delegation became more and more sufficient, the prosecutors and judges in the delegation gradually gained confidence. After the chief judge of the Chinese government delegation, Mei Ruoyu, argued for it, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East moved the starting date of the prosecution of Japanese war criminals forward to the day of the "Huanggutun Incident" of Marshal Zhang in Northeast China, June 4, 1928.

In addition, the Chinese government delegation also made great contributions in providing the list of Class A war criminals. After the establishment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the first batch of Japanese war criminals proposed by the Chinese government delegation included 18 people, of whom nine were included in the list of Class A war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

On May 3, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East opened. The court executive officer read out the indictment, which was divided into three categories: crimes against peace, murder in peacetime, conspiracy to murder, ordinary war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The prosecution and defense debated the jurisdiction of the court. In the end, the court rejected all the defense's objections to jurisdiction.

On June 4, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East entered the stage where the prosecution advocated evidence. On June 18, the American prosecutor Jinan, who served as the chief prosecutor of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, announced that the Japanese emperor would not be held responsible for the war. Starting from July 1, the Chinese government delegation, as the prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, launched accusations of a number of incidents related to Japan's war in China.

These accusations made by the Chinese government delegation involved events such as "the situation from the Manchurian Incident to the Liutiaogou Incident in Fengtian", "the situation before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident", "atrocities related to China (ordinary war crimes) and the import of opium", and "the founding of the Manchuria".

In addition, it also includes "Japan's abuse of prisoners of war", "Japan's invasion of French Indochina", "Japan's ambitions in the Soviet Far East", "Japan-US negotiations", "the outbreak of the Greater East Asia-Pacific War", "atrocities in Burma and Thailand", "Japan-Dutch negotiations and sabotage of the Dutch East Indies", "Japan's atrocities in the Philippines", "Japan's atrocities in the Pacific islands", and "Japan's atrocities in its own country".

On February 24, 1947, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East entered the defense rebuttal stage. The defense submitted documentary evidence on "Japan's diplomatic agreements", "no joint conspiracy", "Manchuria and Manchukuo related", "Mukten Liutiaogou Incident", "Japan's occupation of Nanjing and its peace efforts", "Soviet Federation related", "Nomonhan Incident", "Pacific War", "the situation of prisoners of war and civilian arrested persons" and other events, and witnesses appeared in court to testify.

On September 10, 1947, the trial of the defense's "personal defense" began, which included the defense of the defendants Kenji Doihara and Seishirō Itagaki, who had committed numerous evil deeds in China. On January 12, 1948, the defense's rebuttal ended.

Next was the "Rebuttal of the Prosecutor". The International Military Tribunal for the Far East discussed the acceptance of documentary evidence at the stage of the prosecution's rebuttal. The president of the court finally decided whether to accept the evidence based on the specific evidence. The prosecutor of the Chinese government delegation, Xiang Zhejun, and the chief consultant, Ni Zhengyu, submitted the defendant Itagaki Seishirō's rebuttal evidence to the court.

Afterwards, the trial entered the "defense's rebuttal and evidence" stage. The defense again submitted documentary evidence in response to the prosecution's rebuttal and evidence against each defendant.

The final stage of the trial is the "Prosecution's Final Closing Statement," which includes "Opening Statement," "Crimes against Peace," "Ordinary War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity," and "Defense's Final Argument."

At this point, on April 16, 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East announced a recess.

On November 4, 1948, the President of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East read out the English version of the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and then several Japanese read out the Japanese version of the verdict. It took a total of seven days.

The judgment consists of Part A: the reasons for the judgment, which is the application of the law, Part B: the facts on which the reasons for the judgment are based, and Part C: the defendant's guilt and sentence, which is the main body of the judgment.

On April 29, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East formally indicted 28 Japanese Class A war criminals including Hideki Tojo, Kenji Doihara, Iwane Matsui, and Seishirō Itagaki.