Record of resilience

Wounded soldiers pulled back from the front are taken care of in January 1938.[Photo provided to China Daily]

From 1937-39, the Chinese fought the Japanese military on their own without help from other countries. Compared with the advanced weapons used by the Japanese in the war, the Chinese forces had limited modern weapons purchased from Italy and Germany.

Some photos show Chinese people using broadswords to fight.

During the three years, Chinese from different walks of life contributed to the resistance. A series of photos taken in Chongqing, for example, show a rickshaw puller and a paper-delivery boy both donating their respective daily incomes and a kung fu teacher giving away his broadsword handed down from generations.

In another image, some female factory workers are seen sewing cotton-padded clothes for soldiers in the frontlines.

There are other photos of utter distress: One shows how residents of Guilin in South China hid below a massive rock when the city was being bombed by the Japanese military.

"People tried to live normal lives. When they heard the alerts for air raids, they would rush to hide. Once the raids ended, they would get back to work," Li says.

Besides the resilience of the Chinese people, Li says he is impressed with major Chinese manufacturers' ability to continue producing goods despite the war.

"I've seen very little reporting about economic life at the time, and how Chinese capitalists worked for the good of the country," he says.