In 1937, the Japanese invaders launched an all-out war of aggression against China, and the Chinese nation reached a critical juncture of life and death. At this moment, China's two major political parties, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Kuomintang, are determined to abandon their past grievances and jointly defend against foreign enemies. On September 22 of the same year, the Kuomintang News Agency issued the Declaration of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for promulgating cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. On September 23, Chiang Kai-shek issued a speech that actually recognized the legitimate status of the Communist Party, marking the formal formation of the anti-Japanese national united front based on the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Under the call of the united front, all strata of Chinese society, together with overseas Chinese compatriots, threw themselves into this great war of defending the homeland and defending the country, until 1945, after paying tens of millions of lives, finally ushered in this great victory.
However, not all of the Chinese compatriots who died died at the hands of the Japanese. Due to the huge battlefield casualties brought about by the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Nationalist government recruited Zhuang Ding on a large scale to supplement the army's posts, but due to the corruption of the Nationalist government that penetrated deep into the bone marrow and the imperfection of the grass-roots administrative system, a large number of recruitment funds were taken to eat, drink, or enrich themselves. As a result of a large number of conscription operations into a forced la zhuang ding tragedy, and even some zhuang ding died for various reasons in the middle, this dark history should not be forgotten, and the death of these zhuang ding should not be hidden under the huge aura of the victory of the war. Fortunately, there are many records from Chinese and foreign people at that time, and the deaths of these people will not be lost in the dust of history.
In old China, all the work of military service recruitment was handled by the government, so there was a lack of effective supervision, and the organization of the National Government was scattered, and corruption was rampant in grass-roots administrative organizations, and many military officials regarded the recruitment of Zhuangding as a way to make money. The country has reached the point of survival, but bureaucrats at all levels are eager for profit, and they use Zhuang Ding to make a fortune for the country.
After Zhuang Ding arrived at the replenishment of the troops, waiting to go to the front, Zhuang Ding's family was anxious to get their sons back, so they tried to dredge with the receiving personnel, and found soldiers to replace them, and five to ten silver dollars for one was the common market at that time. For example, Yibin's famous brother-in-law Zhuo Fuchen colluded with the resident team leader to use a note to change zhuang ding at any time and take the opportunity to accumulate wealth. At the end of 1942, Sichuan Nanchong received the 35th Regiment of Independent Transport Zhuangding, a total of 2160 people, imposters, the wind of trading and exchange swept in, the military quartermasters as usual exchanged a Zhuangding with 5 to 10 yuan, saw the money to change, followed by the exchange, so from the day of receiving Zhuangding to the day of the opening, only 5 months, there was an exchange of as many as 800, net more than 7000 silver dollars. ”
The above content is a way for military officials to use Zhuangding to get rich, as recorded by Zhao Jie, deputy commander of the Luzhou Division, and this is only a dime a dozen of the corruption of the National Government's military service, and selling Zhuangding for profit is only one of the most commonly used means by corrupt officials of the National Government at that time. At least this practice will not cause a large number of Zhuang Ding to die, and the impact is even worse is to withhold the grain wages of Zhuang Ding and take the grain that should have been issued to Zhuang Ding to enrich himself.
For example, Li Zhaoliang, who was then the commander of the Weinan Regiment District, recalled: "When I was the commander of the regimental district, I would never infringe on the interests of the following, that is to say, I would not share the income from the sale of Zhuangding below, and I mainly started with the collection fee, at that time, the Ministry of Military Affairs stipulated that each zhuangding was issued a collection fee of 2 yuan (later increased to 5 yuan), and I only paid to the township, the county's daily food expenses totaled 2 corners, and the office fee was 5 points per soldier; the food expenses sent from the county to the regimental district were 2 points per day for every 60 miles a day, so that each conscription of a soldier cost about 8 points. The remaining 1.2 yuan went into my private pocket, and the recruited soldiers could be paid monthly after they arrived in the regimental district. After the receiving troops arrived, I deliberately embarrassed them, saying that there were no soldiers to hand over now. Of course, they want to bring back the recruits immediately, and when they see me procrastinating, they will naturally talk to me. This month's grain is worth about 5 silver dollars. In this way, I have a few thousand yuan of income every month, of course, sometimes this income is divided into three or seven with the commander of the receiving troops. ”
In addition to the upper-level officials, the township, bao, and A chiefs are even more capable of extortion.
Li Zhaoliang recalled: "When we first started the conscription in Wuhu, the township, bao, and jia chiefs did not list the children of rich families in the investigation of the right age and strong men, and if ordinary peasants wanted to escape, they had to spend money to bribe the township, bao, and jia chiefs. Some township, security, and armor chiefs deliberately included those who should not be on the list of conscripts so that they could extort money, and there would be one extortion every time they passed in the future. At first, the military doctors were reluctant to take on the examination of zhuang Ding's physique, but later they scrambled to go, because as long as the military doctors proved that they were not qualified, they could be exempted from military service, so that they had the opportunity to accept bribes and extort money. ”
The same is true in other places, according to Huang Zhanchun, who was then the commander of the Chuanxi Division, who recalled: "After the allocation of recruits was established every year, the lottery of young zhuang dings was then carried out, and the zhuang dings who were selected were the recruits who should be recruited this year." As a result, the lottery process is fraught with extortion, extortion and exploitation. In fact, whether the lottery is completely controlled and manipulated by the county, district, township, and security chief, as long as he is willing to pay bribes, the winning lottery can become a non-winning lottery; without money bribes, the only son will also become a winning Zhuangding. At that time, in the Jia'e Division, the price of extortion by the district, township and baochang was determined by the economic situation of the extorted family. ”
The more affluent families extorted 50,000 to 500,000 french dollars, and the worse ones also had to extort 20,000 or 30,000 french dollars (this was the case from 1944 to 1945, when one or two gold was worth about 50,000 yuan). In addition to bribing the district, township, and security chiefs not to 'assess' themselves as recruits, those who win the lottery have a relatively good economic situation and have to be prepared to pay another sum of money to buy Zhuang Ding to replace their own conscripts. However, when buying Zhuang Ding to join the army in his place, he left a handle in the hands of the district, township, and security chief, and they could often use this handle to intimidate, extort, and repeatedly extort in the name of arresting deserters. A relatively wealthy peasant in Suji Township, Leshan County, was repeatedly blackmailed by the township chief six times after buying someone to replace him, and he did not dare not send gifts to honor the township and the mayor during the New Year's Festival.
There are also townships and baochang who use the settlement fees and Zhuangding fees of the greedy soldiers to enrich their own pockets: "During 1945, the settlement fees for each Zhuangding ranged from 50,000 to 70,000 yuan, and the townships raised according to the quotas allocated by the counties to recruit Zhuangding, and apportioned them one by one, and none of the people were spared." Districts, townships, and baochang took advantage of the opportunity to fish in muddy waters, spread as many distributions as possible, looted major issues, and even engulfed the settlement fees that should be paid to voluntary conscripts due to their poverty. ”?
Therefore, at that time, the people hated the township and the chief of the township and the chief of the village, and the folk song said: "In the past, there was the governor of the county of Quemen County, and now there is the governor of the township of the county", "The son who gave birth to the son was the old Jiang's, and with the silver it was the chief of the bao".
However, such corruption and disregard for the lives of Zhuang Ding people were still a bit of a conscience at the time, because this kind of corrupt trick was still some money to the Zhuang Ding after all. More commonly, zhuangding was bought and sold as a commodity in order to plunder the people of what little wealth they had, and this practice was even joined by the ministers of the nationalist government at that time. In "The Secret Story of The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in China," the American journalist Bai Xiude recorded that Zhou Enlai revealed to him the behavior of He Yingqin, minister of military affairs of the Nationalist government, and Kong Xiangxi, minister of finance, who used conscription to exploit the people's wealth: "They unanimously agreed that the method of conscription must be applied to all classes at the top, middle, and lower levels, and that every young person must perform military service, and those who pay thirty-five hundred yuan to the government can be exempted from the levy for one year. In this way, the minister of finance can receive billions of dollars in budget revenue, and the minister of military affairs can have 10 million troops to be conscripted. ”
With this high-level, the people below will naturally learn from it, and the suffering of the people can be imagined.