Nanjing Massacre Museum

14. Unknown Dead

In 1928, the Chinese Nationalist Government moved the capital of China from Peking to Nanjing. The city normally held about 250,000 people, but by the mid-1930s its population had swollen to more than 1 million. Many of them were refugees, fleeing from the Japanese armies that had invaded China since 1931. On November 11, 1937, after securing control of Shanghai, the Japanese army advanced towards Nanjing from different directions. In early December, the Japanese troops were already in the proximity of Nanjing.