n.
or Rape of Nanjing
(December 1937January 1938) Mass killing and rape of Chinese people in Nanjing by Japanese soldiers after the Japanese had captured the city on Dec.
13, 1937. The Japanese commander ordered the destruction of Nanjing, which had been the Nationalist Chinese capital. Estimates of the number killed range from 100,000 to more than 300,000, and tens of thousands of rapes were committed. Japanese wartime brutality in China contributed to cool relations between the two countries into the 21st century. See also war crime ; World War II .