China has published a series of historical documents on the notorious Nanjing Massacre in a bid to reflect history truthfully, objectively and comprehensively.

The series contains 28 volumes, with the first eight issued in July this year and the remainder issued Tuesday in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

Its compilers consist of more than 60 professors and scholars from Nanjing University, Nanjing Normal University, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, the Second China Historical Archives, Nanjing Municipal Historical Archives, Jiangsu Provincial Administrative College and Central China Normal University.

"It took us five years to complete the painstaking work," said Dr. and Prof. Zhang Xianwen of Nanjing University, also chief editor of the series, at Tuesday's launch ceremony in Nanjing.

The compilers went to the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany and Taiwan to collect historical materials during the past few years. Zhang added that they had collected, compiled and translated a total of 15 million words of original materials in Chinese, Japanese, English and German.

"The series contains many first-hand materials of inflicters, victims and third parties. It has a very precious historical value," Zhang said.

"Not a single sentence or word of compilers has been inserted into the content and the original appearance of the historical materials was thus kept," he said.

"In addition, many materials are being published for the first time," he added.

The last and also the 28th volume contains 880 picture and photos offered by former Japanese army officers and soldiers and by people from the United States and European countries, which truthfully record the atrocities committed by the Japanese troops in Nanjing 68 years ago.

Japanese troops occupied Nanjing on Dec. 13, 1937 and launched a six-week long massacre. Historical records show that more than 300,000 Chinese people, not only disarmed soldiers but also civilians, were slain in the holocaust.

Due to controversial shrine visits, history textbook distortions and unilateral oil field exploration, Japan has experienced chilly relations with China this year.

In 2005, the relations between the two countries reached a nadir since the bilateral ties were normalized in 1972, diplomatic observers said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2005)