Moving on from Yichang, it was another high speed rail ride eastwards towards the coast, this time 6h from Yichang to Nanjing, the capital of the province of Jiangsu. Nanjing is also known as Nanking, and is probably most well known amongst foreigners as the city that was subjected to some horrendous rape and pillaging by Japanese soldiers just prior to WWII. The Rape of Nanking, which saw hundreds of thousands of civilians brutally murdered, continues to deeply rankle Chinese sentiments, and is a highly sensitive topic, especially in view of Japan's sometimes indignant revisionist-leaning tendencies. Distrust, indeed even hatred, of the Japanese runs deeper in no other country, especially amongst the older generation, and continues to be a very prickly thorn in the relations between both countries. Alas, fortunately the history of Nanjing is more
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