Chinese Court Orders Apology Over Challenge to Tale of Wartime Heroes

For decades, the “Five Heroes of Langya Mountain” have been presented as courageous examples of how the Communist-led Eighth Route Army fought for the Chinese people against the Japanese invaders in World War II. The tale of how the five men fended off Japanese troops atop a mountain peak in Hebei Province, choosing to smash their weapons and leap — three of them to their deaths — rather than surrender, has been memorialized in museums, school textbooks, paintings, plays and movies. They were celebrated across China until a historian, Hong Zhenkuai, challenged the official narrative in two articles published three years ago.

But his questioning of what actually happened in 1941 landed him in a lawsuit, and on Monday, a court in Beijing ruled against him. Read more