Cheng Benhua: The Smile That Haunted a Commander
Cheng Benhua was born in 1914 in Gaoxiang village, Hexian County, Anhui Province, China. She grew up in a poor farming family led by her father, Cheng Chihe, and her mother, whose surname was Liang. The household included five children, and from an early age Cheng stood out for her strong will and sense of responsibility.
As a teenager, she attended middle school, where she received basic survival, discipline, and leadership training through the Scouts of China, working with the 1194th Regiment. This experience shaped her confidence and resilience—qualities that would define her short life.
In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War reached Cheng’s home region. Like many young Chinese at the time, she felt a deep sense of duty to defend her country. She joined the local resistance forces, taking on roles that included carrying messages, gathering information, and supporting fighters. That same year, she became engaged to Liu Zhiyi, another resistance member. Their engagement was brief. In early 1938, Liu was killed in combat, a loss that strengthened Cheng’s resolve rather than breaking it.
In April 1938, during fighting in Hexian County, Cheng was captured by Japanese forces from the 13th Regiment of the 6th Division, commanded by Koichi Yamashita. While in captivity, she was subjected to severe mistreatment and intense interrogation. Despite this, she refused to provide any information about her comrades or resistance activities.
Several days later, the unit received orders to relocate. The captured resistance members were sentenced to death. As a final attempt to intimidate her, Cheng was forced to witness the execution of others. Even then, she remained composed and silent.
When Cheng Benhua was brought forward for execution, she did something unexpected. She stood calmly, with dignity, and showed no fear. A Japanese journalist accompanying the unit took a photograph at that moment. In the image, Cheng appears young and steady, with a faint, peaceful smile on her face—a powerful contrast to the situation she was facing. She was 24 years old.
The photograph deeply affected Commander Yamashita. He ordered the execution, yet Cheng’s expression stayed with him for the rest of his life. On the back of the photograph, he wrote her name and age: “Cheng Benhua, 24.” He kept it as a reminder of the woman whose courage he could never forget.
For more than fifty years, Cheng’s fate remained unknown to her family.
In 1992, Chinese author Fang Jun was studying in Japan and staying with a host family that included Isamu Kobayashi, a World War II veteran who had served alongside Yamashita. Kobayashi and Yamashita were working with Fang on a research project examining wartime actions in China. During this time, Yamashita shared Cheng’s photograph and spoke about how her face had haunted him for decades.
The photograph eventually returned to China. In 2005, it was published in a magazine in Shandong Province. In 2009, a local editor from Hexian began searching for Cheng’s relatives. The investigation led to Xu Renzhen, Cheng’s 92-year-old sister-in-law, who confirmed that the woman in the photograph was indeed Cheng Benhua.
For the first time in more than seventy years, her family learned what had happened to her.
On December 25, 2012, Cheng Naifu, the oldest surviving member of the Cheng family, carried a framed copy of the photograph into the family’s ancestral hall. It was a symbolic burial—an act of remembrance and honor for a woman who had been denied a proper farewell.
Today, Cheng Benhua is remembered not only for how she died, but for how she lived. A statue of her stands in Nanjing, honoring her as a symbol of resistance and courage. Her final smile has become a lasting image of human dignity in the face of cruelty.
Cheng Benhua’s story is not just a story of war. It is a reminder that even in the darkest moments, courage, dignity, and quiet defiance can leave a mark that lasts far longer than violence ever could.
