Are there any historical stories in Changchun, Jilin?

China’s modern times are a history of humiliation and also a history of struggle. It seems that every city in China has experienced the farewell of life and death in its development process. War has made some cities become battlegrounds for military strategists and merchants in the long history; it has also made some cities littered with corpses and become places where ghosts have nowhere to hide. Today we are going to talk about an area that has been oppressed by Japan for the longest time, and the city that emerged in this area is today’s Changchun, Jilin.

Changchun is the capital city of Jilin Province and the best-developed city in Jilin Province. But before 1954, the capital of Jilin Province was not Changchun but Jilin, because Changchun's overall strength was better than Jilin at that time. In 1932, Changchun was just a small town in the Northeast with a population of less than 120,000. It was an extremely ordinary town. After it became the capital of the Puppet Manchukuo in 1932, this place began to become no longer ordinary.

In the following 10 years, according to historical records, Little Japan still spared no effort to build this so-called "central city of the Greater East Asia's Prosperity Circle", so it also spent a lot of manpower and material resources. and financial resources. Later, the city was liberated, and the population expanded nearly 10 times to more than 1.2 million people after the founding of the People's Republic of China. For China in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was already a large city that was beginning to take shape. Moreover, the economic foundation built by Little Japan is still there, and its influence can even reach the three northeastern provinces.

Although this city has a long history of humiliation, its later construction also promoted the development here. Therefore, in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was designated as another municipality directly under the Central Government in China. Although it died in less than a year, it later resurrected and became the provincial capital of Jilin, making it the fastest dying municipality. But fortunately, the development foundation laid in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China is still there, and what we are reminded of is the nominal difference between municipalities and provincial capitals.

Let’s take a look at today’s Changchun City. It is currently one of the most important old industrial bases in China. It is also known as the “Detroit of the East” because of its leadership in automobile manufacturing and other industries. In addition, Changchun has also made great achievements in the optoelectronics, pharmaceutical and other industries. In 2017, Changchun's GDP reached 653 billion yuan. Its performance is indeed good among similar second-tier cities in China. Because there are many scenic spots here and it is the "Spring City" for northerners, it attracts many tourists every year. Although the urban development of Changchun is inseparable from the initial construction of Little Japan, the subsequent decades were built by Jilin Province with the efforts of the entire province, so it has little to do with Little Japan.

In this matter, what do you think of Little Japan?