這張照片原來是我祖母和我父親

This photo turned out to be my grandmother and my father

When I scanned this picture, I noticed for the first time that this picture has a Japanese Kenpeitai* stamp on the back, it was dated June19,1916. I have thought this picture was my Grandma hold my big brother. But it was not. It was my grandmother, holding the about one year old my father. My father was born in 1915. One thing I do not understand is why there was this Japanese Kenpeitai stamp on the back side?

Later, my wife searched the Web and found out:

"In 1914 Japan used the excuse of declaring war with Germany, send troops to occupy Shandong**. Until 1922, China reclaimed the sovereignty of Shandong, the people in Shandong had been suffering excessively from the Japanese's Colonial rules. During that time, the japanese undermine China's sovereignty, establish military colonial ruling system, seize the power of administrative, consular jurisdiction, garrison, customs rights, police power, land management rights, etc. And monopolized the foreign trade. Politically, the colonial authorities used military and political means to enslave the people in the occupied territories; economically, pillage and plunder, Turning the  occupied area into a Jaoanese monopoly investment zone, commodity market and raw material supply base. The occupied area of ​​Shandong has become an overseas colony of Japan. The eight-year military and political colonial history is a history of crimes committed by Japanese imperialists.

After the relentless struggle of the Chinese people, the "Treaty to Solve Unsettled Issues on Shandong" according to the "Conference of Washington", China finally recovered the sovereignty of Shandong at December 1922.

However, since the use of military colonial control, the Japanese accumulated a large economic and political basis in those 8 years, resulting in even after the return from Japan, China still had no total control of the province. This situation lasted until the "Marco Polo Bridge Incident***".

During this period, the Japanese Kenoeitai controlled everything, even photo studios. They went through all the photos and stamped on the back.

*Kenpeitai

The Kenpeitai (憲兵隊, /kɛnpeɪˈtaɪ/)) was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was both a conventional military police and a secret police force. In Japanese-occupied territories, the kenpeitai also arrested those who were suspected of being anti-Japanese. While it was institutionally part of the army, the Kenpeitai also discharged the functions of the military police for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the direction of the Admiralty Minister (although the IJN had its own much smaller Tokkeitai), those of the executive police under the direction of the Home Minister and those of the judicial police under the direction of the Justice Minister. A member of the corps was called a kenpei (憲兵).[1]（Wikipedia）

**Qingdao, Shandong was German Concession at that time.

***The Marco Polo Bridge Incident, also known by Lugou Bridge Incident or Double-Seven Incident, was a July 1937 battle between China's National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army. It is widely considered to have been the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War,[5] and by extension, sometimes given as an alternative starting date for World War II (as opposed to the more commonly-cited one of September 1939).[6](Wikipedia)