On the night of March 2, the entire Batavia police system was activated. Trucks were speeding through the streets and alleys, and they began to arrest people.
Most of the police officers involved in arresting people were Dutch, supplemented by a small number of Chinese policemen recruited temporarily. None of the local policemen were useful. They carried pistols, batons, handcuffs, and ropes, broke in, and knocked down the policemen.
They were handcuffed and then dragged out and stuffed into the truck. If anyone resisted, they would be beaten with batons until they were paralyzed and then dragged away. If they escaped, they would be shot and killed. The entire operation was under strict surveillance by the Ming army.
Next, the Ming army piled sandbags and set up heavy machine guns at every intersection. Every street was patrolled by Ming troops armed with live ammunition. Each group of patrolling Ming troops had at least one submachine gun.
There were Chinese policemen holding loudspeakers in the streets and alleys, shouting in Chinese and Malay: Batavia is under martial law. In order to cooperate with the police in performing official duties, everyone must stay at home and not go out on the streets. If you violate the ban,
If you take to the streets without permission, you will be arrested together.
In fact, this ban is applied differently to Chinese and local people. If the local people go to the streets against the ban, they will definitely be tied up and stuffed into a truck. The Chinese are usually advised to go home. If the Chinese are really in an emergency, such as going to the hospital,
If so, there will be military police escorting them there.
For a time, Batavia fell into a "white terror".
In the quiet night, I could only hear the sound of trucks speeding by on the street from time to time. Often the trucks were driving and suddenly stopped, followed by the sound of chaotic footsteps on the street, followed by the sound of a house being broken into.
Accompanied by a burst of shouting, the cries of women and children, the roar of men, and the sound of being beaten with blunt instruments, finally a bunch of things were thrown into the truck, the engine started, and it sped away, and the streets returned to silence.
From time to time, one or two gunshots were heard on the street, accompanied by screams. It was someone trying to escape and was shot dead on the spot.
Every local native was so frightened that they dared not sleep all night, for fear that their door would be smashed next.
On the first night, more than 500 people were arrested. These 500 people are the best to arrest. They are all the most "showy" people in the two riots. They are all the leaders of large and small gangs of thugs. They are attacking Chinese people door to door.
When they ransacked shops and gang-raped women, they made the most noise, and their appearance was remembered by many people. Moreover, most of these people were usually gangsters and bullies. Whether they were Chinese or locals, you could tell who they were by just opening their mouths.
Anyone on the street can be arrested directly without checking.
Once you catch the first group of people, the rest will be easy to handle.
In the next few days, in every cell, interrogation room, and even yard of every police station in Batavia, torture, forced confessions, and prisons were everywhere.
It is not easy to recruit more than 3,000 people from these more than 500 people. On average, one person has to recruit six people. Once these locals were arrested, they all knew that they would not get out alive. During the interrogation,
They were all uncooperative and had to resort to some tricks to get them to speak. Secondly, it was really difficult for one person to accurately recall so many people. During the riots at that time, there was chaos, and many locals did not know them.
People who impromptuly gather together to commit violence often rob, burn, and kill a Chinese family, then disperse with their belongings and go looking for their targets.
But that doesn't matter. Xiang Xiaoqiang doesn't require the same accuracy as usual in solving crimes. He mainly wants to arrest three or four thousand people to pay for their lives, which is about enough. The specific operation is still the classic old method of setting up a prison in ancient times: catch a person and torture him to extract a confession.
Ask him to confess two, and then capture those two people, and ask them to confess four, and then capture those four, and ask them to confess eight... If you do it this way, not to mention 3,000, but 30,000 people will be captured.
What the Ming occupying forces did was much more advantageous than the Nazi occupying forces who often randomly arrested local people to save their lives. First of all, from the beginning to the end, the occupying forces did not directly intervene.
The local police did it. Secondly, this is not a massacre, but a law enforcement agency solving the case. Everyone arrested has evidence and "testimony" with fingerprints of others. Although it is a forced confession,
It is also a witness statement, and it can still be used to arrest people.
Within a few days, several items were in short supply on the Batavia market: chili peppers, benches, cowhide, bamboo toothpicks, fire tongs, charcoal, and iron basins. Chinese shops selling groceries were buying these items in large quantities every day.
People from the police station came to buy them, and they bought a lot of them. Many Chinese almost made back their losses before they even got the compensation.
In the Batavia Police Department, many offices were vacated and converted into interrogation rooms.
In an interrogation room, five local men were hung up naked. Next to them were two local policemen. One rolled up his sleeves, rounded his whip and whipped his compatriots, and the other policeman squatted.
On the ground, I was cutting a piece of cowhide with a knife to make a whip. I cut one piece and soaked it in the basin.
Among the people who were hanged, three were silent and two were still screaming.
Seeing that the five people hanging were all torn to pieces, the executioner policeman wiped the sweat from his head, threw the whip in his hand into the basin, and said to his companions:
"It's your turn."
Then he sat down tiredly, grabbed a glass of water and drank.
Another policeman stood up, fished out another water-soaked cowhide whip from the basin, walked up to a hanging man with a gloomy face and asked:
"Have you remembered?"
After waiting for two seconds, without saying a word, he whipped him. A soaked leather whip was the most effective, and the interrogation room immediately erupted with heart-rending screams.
…
In another interrogation room, a local man was tied to a tiger bench with three bricks placed under his heels. This guy was seen by several people. He once led a group of people to ransack Chinese homes several times, and at least participated in
He was gang-raped three times. This guy is already dead, but what he wants now is the list of the brothers who followed him. This guy is still relatively hard-boned, with a "kill or cut into pieces, whatever you want, we won't betray our brothers"
"The style.
Two policemen were dealing with him alone. One policeman was setting up a stove to boil chili pepper water, while the other policeman opened his mouth, inserted a leather pipe into it, and then turned on the faucet.
The guy was immediately choked until water spurted out of his nose, and he struggled endlessly. The policeman turned off the faucet and shouted:
"Say it or not? Say it or not?"
After waiting for two seconds, he turned on the faucet again. After drinking for a while, he pulled out the leather tube and started to press on his stomach. Every time he pressed, water spurted out of his mouth and nose. After this torture for a long time, the police became impatient.
, shouted:
"Is the pepper water ready? Bring on the pepper water!"
Holding his nose, he poured a large vat of hot pepper water in. The thug choked until his eyes almost popped out. There was heartbreaking pain in his nose, trachea, esophagus, and stomach, and he finally let out a scream like a pig being killed.
Howl:
"Okay, okay, I said - I said -"
…
The third interrogation room was even more terrifying, with a burning smell permeating the door. Heart-rending screams could be heard from time to time, as well as the "hissing" sound of a soldering iron.
In the fourth interrogation room, in addition to screams, someone would send a bamboo toothpick in from time to time, and then take out a bamboo toothpick stained with blood. Every once in a while, a unconscious local would be dragged out of it.
The fingers on both hands were bloody and bloody.
In a few days, under the guidance of Xiang Xiaoqiang, the Batavia police station has become a terrifying "devil's cave", which makes the locals become angry. Every day, locals are arrested and many are tortured to death.
come out.
Over the past few days, the local police officers who conducted the interrogation were almost mentally broken. Many people went to their Dutch superiors to complain, but without exception, they were scolded by their Dutch superiors.
"What else do you have to complain about? Ah? Do you want to be like them? The deadline is coming soon, look at how many people you have arrested! Don't you know who Xiang Xiaoqiang is? I will be unlucky then.
You are even more unlucky! Then it won’t be them lying there screaming, but you! Go back to work!!!”
…
Thus, by March 9, when the one-week deadline expired, there were already 4,025 locals still alive in the Batavia cells.
The Batavia Dutch Police Chief wiped the sweat from his head and stood tremblingly in front of Xiang Xiaoqiang's desk, looking at the Emperor behind the desk.
Xiang Xiaoqiang flipped through the file, said "hmm" several times, and smiled with satisfaction:
"That's right! Isn't your police station very capable? You are really a competent police chief."
The police chief forced a laugh twice, then rang the bell to Xiaoqiang, calling in a People's Guard officer and asking him to lead someone to follow the police chief to check.
After verification, the number was correct, and indeed every criminal had their fingerprints stamped on their confession of crime.
"Very good!" Xiang Xiaoqiang paced with satisfaction and said with a smile, "I said the upper limit was 4,000, but now we have arrested 4,025. We can't keep our promises. Therefore, I will pardon 25 of them."
As a result, 25 of the most seriously injured locals were singled out. These people were tortured to the point of dying and could no longer live for a few days. Following Xiang Xiaoqiang's order, these people were released home.
That night, Xiang Xiaoqiang summoned several of his closest People's Guard officers, closed the door, and held a "Wanhu Meeting" to discuss the "final solution" to these 4,000 people.