Contest to kill 100 people using a sword

The contest to kill 100 people using a sword (百人斬り競争 hyakunin-giri kyōsō) is a wartime account of a contest between two Japanese Army officers during the Japanese invasion of China over who could first kill 100 people with a sword. The two officers were later executed on war crimes charges for their involvement. Since that time, the historicity of the event has been hotly contested, often by Japanese nationalists or revisionist historians seeking to invalidate the historiography of the Nanking Massacre and by descendants of the two officers.

Contest to kill 100 people using a sword

The contest to kill 100 people using a sword (百人斬り競争 hyakunin-giri kyōsō) is a wartime account of a contest between two Japanese Army officers during the Japanese invasion of China over who could first kill 100 people with a sword. The two officers were later executed on war crimes charges for their involvement. Since that time, the historicity of the event has been hotly contested, often by Japanese nationalists or revisionist historians seeking to invalidate the historiography of the Nanking Massacre and by descendants of the two officers.