Huangshan City
The opposing views on Wang Zhi came to a head in dramatic fashion in 2005, when a Nanjing Normal University professor and a teacher smashed a monument stele to the tomb of Wang Zhi in Huangshan City. The tomb had been erected in 2000 using donations by a Japanese group based in Fukue, with the apparent intention of promoting friendship between Fukue and Huangshan. The vandals claimed they were justified in defacing the tomb since the Japanese had disrespected China by building a monument to a race traitor. The monument was eventually demolished by provincial authorities for violating regulations governing tombs. The affair was widely reported as national news in China, bringing the debates surrounding Wang Zhi into public attention and sparking a new wave of research on the Jiajing "wokou" raids.