AN ODD feature of my old family house in Jiangshan City, Zhejiang Province, is a wooden pillar with a section cut out.

The groove is about one meter from the floor and runs the full width of the pillar. This curious groove tested my imagination ever since I began to memorize things: Why on earth is there a groove?

The groove was a reminder of a period after June 10, 1942, five years into China’s War against Japanese Aggression and six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Fire raged through Jiangshan as invading Japanese troops burnt down its towns and villages. The onslaught ravaged the landscape and left the populace destitute.

To escape the marauding Japanese, my father and his brother decided to seek refuge in a sibling’s home in a nearby village.

At the height of the tensions, my parents were displaced from their home, trailed by two sons — one aged 5 and the other 3 (I had not been born yet) — and an ox they owned. Together, they headed for their sibling’s home, which was 10 kilometers from the town center.

One morning, crowds thronged the entrance to the village, and someone was heard screaming, “The Japanese are coming!” Word quickly spread of imminent danger. My father had just returned from a morning’s pasturing job and he commanded the family to hide in the mountains with the rest of the village. The Japanese had by then barged into the village. They brandished their bayonet-tipped rifles, chasing people like a band of hungry wolves setting upon a herd of sheep.

Panicked, the villagers ran for their lives. My mother and her younger son joined others in hiding in a mine pit. My father dashed toward the mountains behind the village, past rows of houses and vegetable plots. My uncle fled with him.

When the duo emerged at one end of the lanes, they spotted two Japanese soldiers in the distance. The Japanese saw them too, and after some barely intelligible murmuring among themselves, they rushed toward my father and uncle, gun in hand. My father sprang into full flight, carrying his eldest son in his arms, while my uncle struggled to drive the ox along, gripping the yoke and whacking the animal’s behind for extra speed. The sprint continued until they reached the foothills, where the two parted ways and ran in different directions.

The Japanese didn’t go after both men. They hunted my father and had closed the gap. At this critical point, my father left his son in a wooded hideout and told him to keep quiet. Desperate as he was, he didn’t have time to utter another word. Then he started running again. He made occasional stops and deliberately brushed past tree branches, producing the rustling sound to draw the assailants away. He was aware not to flee into the woods, where children, the elderly and livestock were hiding. The Japanese would show no mercy if they ever crossed paths.

My uncle was not so lucky. The ox slowed him down and he had to abandon it for his own life. The Japanese ransacked homes and rounded up villagers for hard labor. In the afternoon, they forced their abductees to transport the loot to the town center. Disobedience would mean severe beatings with the butt of a rifle.

Complacency about the first looting spree bred greater greed. Pillages became more frequent. Villagers had to retreat deeper into the mountains. Among them were my parents, who settled in a temple and were cut off from relatives. Life was harsh and food quickly ran out. In nice weather my parents and brothers could still scrape by on a modest meal cooked with edible herbs harvested in the wilderness. On rainy days they went hungry.

Such misery and destitution lasted about three months, until the Japanese withdrew from Jiangshan after encountering heavy resistance from the Chinese army. Villagers returned home thereafter. Our house was a mess. The Japanese had torn apart the wooden partitions and bed in the eastern room for firewood. The floor was covered with horse manure. The aforementioned pillar had a piece missing and a crossbar knocked into the empty space. (The crossbar is now gone.)

The Japanese were billeted in wealthy households and our home was converted into a stable. But why did they saw a block off the pillar and install a crossbar in its place? My eldest brother who was to join the militia offered an explanation.

“The horse is tethered to the pillar with its behind facing the walls.” he said. “If it kicks backward or rubs itself against the wall to relieve an itch, the flimsy wall will come down and collapse on the beast. The crossbar is the only buffer between its hooves and the wall.”

“The Japanese were ruthless to us, but see how kindly they treated their horses,” he added.

Bad things happen to all families in war. My family’s plight is not unusual.

In April 1942, people in Jiangshan risked their own necks in saving five American pilots whose plane was shot down on their way back from a mission to bomb Tokyo. The Japanese avenged this by going on a rampage in Jiangshan. During their occupation, the Japanese carried out the “Three alls” — kill all, burn all and loot all. Within four months, more than 10,100 people were killed or wounded in Japanese attacks.

Japanese sexual violence was also egregious. More than 3,000 Jiangshan women were raped during the war, with the youngest victims aged 5 to 10 and the oldest victims in their 60s. Fifty women died from such barbarous assaults.

In a brazen violation of international conventions, the Japanese even used biochemical weapons against Chinese troops and civilians in Jiangshan, resulting in a death toll of about 550. My elder brother, who was full of childish vigor before the war, died of the epidemic spread by Japanese biobombs that contained bacteria causing bubonic plague, cholera and diarrhea.

My father died in 1989 and the old family home was renovated the following year. But the eastern room was left intact.

I treated the pillar with great care. Whenever it snowed, I would climb onto the roof to remove the blanket of snow, lest the pillar succumb to the weight. Next to the pillar I erected another post, to support the roof. In my post-retirement life I always stare at the “mouth” in the pillar, as though it had a story to tell.

The author is a retired engineer from Jiangshan, Zhejiang Province. Ni Tao translated the article from the Chinese version.