Henan is located in central China, bordered by Anhui and Shandong to the east, Hebei and Shanxi to the north, Shaanxi to the west, and Hubei to the south. It has always been known as the hinterland of Kyushu and the thoroughfare of ten provinces, and is an important comprehensive transportation hub in the country, and has always been a place where soldiers and families must compete. The ancients had clouds, and those who won the Central Plains won the world, and this Central Plains refers to Henan. But a few decades ago, because of its importance, it became a hell on earth. The story begins in April 1938, when Li Zongren commanded the Battle of Taierzhuang and the Great Victory.
This was a great victory in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and it was also one of the greatest victories in the entire frontal battlefield, which was of great significance to both domestic and international. It even boosted the morale of the whole nation, but what I did not expect was that this made Lao Jiang have a wrong judgment. Long ago, the military scientist Jiang Baili gave a prediction of the future, and in his theory of national defense, he proposed: The anti-Japanese resistance must be based on the people and fight a protracted war. He also said: Not afraid of whale swallowing, only afraid of encroachment, all-round resistance.
Unfortunately, although old Jiang had a good relationship with him, he did not listen to it at all, and earlier put forward the theory of "three days of national subjugation" in the defeat. Seeing this great victory in Taierzhuang, the theory of "three days of national subjugation" has been transformed into the theory of quick victory. Out of the idea of the theory of quick victory, he hastily transferred 200,000 central troops to the Xuzhou battlefield, planning to use the residual power of this victorious battle to fight a decisive battle with the devils in Xuzhou. This is exactly what the Japanese Kou thought, and they could use it to eliminate the main force.
On May 15, Old Jiang realized that something was wrong, and the main force was likely to be surrounded in Xuzhou. Therefore, it was decided to abandon Xuzhou, and the troops were pulled around like this, and it was useless to say that it consumed energy. At this time, Kenji Toihara forcibly crossed the Yellow River with 20,000 people, and the Battle of Eastern Henan broke out. Lan Feng lost less than a day, and the Shangqiu defenders fled without a fight, and 150,000 people did not fight more than 20,000 people. Cheng Qian also had to retreat, but this retreat faced the loss of Kaifeng.
Kaifeng is only fifty kilometers away from Lanfeng, and Zhengzhou is also in danger, and the consequences are likely to be the fall of the rear area and the destruction of the country. On June 3, when Kenji Toihara attacked Kaifeng, old Jiang came up with an idea in a hurry. In the early morning of June 9, 1938, Zhongmu, thirty kilometers from Zhengzhou, was lost, and the Yellow River broke its banks. It was dug up by the defenders themselves, in order to stop the Japanese and protect the rear. To some extent, it did disrupt the Japanese army's plans, and Zhengzhou did not fall until 1944.
It also bought time for Wuhan to retreat, but this move was a move to kill a thousand enemies and lose eight hundred. Wuhan was still lost four months later, and the hidden dangers brought by the water of the Yellow River indirectly led to the subsequent famine. More than 300,000 square kilometers of land in the three provinces and forty-four counties have become yellow pan areas of successive disasters, and countless houses, cultivated fields, and people have been submerged, and tens of millions of people have been displaced. Indirectly led to the Great Famine of 1942, which was very wide at that time, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Hebei and other places.
But the burst of the Yellow River is only one of the reasons, and there are other factors that have been so badly damaged in the end. For example, local officials did nothing, this area belongs to the first theater of operations, the commander is Jiang Dingwen, and the provincial chairman is Li Peiji. It was Li Peiji who did nothing, and in 1941 there was a drought in parts of Henan, but he did not report the difficulties. Jiang Dingwen, Li Jiayu, Tang Enbo, and other officers, commanders of the 36th Group Army, did report it, but He Yingqin said that the local government did not report it, and the army's report was invalid.
He also reprimanded Jiang Dingwen, and he had no choice but to call on the soldiers to save food and take the extra to relieve the victims. So until June 1, 1942, when Lao Jiang presided over the National Grain Administration Conference, he did not know that there was a drought in Henan. It was not until September that Jiang Dingwen directly reported the incident to the old Jiang, and the relief work began, but the intensity was still not large. On October 30 of the same year, Guo Zhongkui took the elm bark and Guanyin soil eaten by the victims to Chongqing, and Chongqing knew how serious the matter was. Of course, it is also because of the influence of another person, that is, the American journalist Bai Xiude, who once went to take photos and found that local officials downplayed the disaster and tried to cover up the truth.
So when he was entertained by officials, he didn't eat a mouthful of food, because he couldn't eat it because he thought that there were still people who were dying of hunger. Later, he sent the matter to New York, and Time Magazine specially published the news, which caused a great response. Because of Li Peiji's failure to report it, Henan not only had to endure the disaster, but also had to collect military food. This undoubtedly caused a great burden on the local people, and it is ridiculous that when Chongqing sent people to investigate, Li Peiji tried to conceal it.
But people all have eyes, and after the two senior officials saw it with their own eyes, they said bluntly: Only then did they know that the disaster in Henan was so serious, Li Peiji, you can't blame it! Subsequently, Lao Jiang ordered that Henan's talent be reduced and 200 million yuan was allocated for disaster relief expenditure, but at this time, the disaster relief work could not catch up with the spread of the disaster. According to the daily newspapers at the time, the drought affected 82 percent of the cultivated land in Henan Province, and more than 12 million people needed relief.
There were also nearly a million troops in the area, which broke out again in the spring of 1943 due to the forced expropriation of grain. Grain prices soared, a large number of victims died after eating the winter stock, and it was not uncommon to sell wives and children, change children and eat. How serious was the disaster at that time? There is a passage in the "Memoirs of Song Renqian": Many places are almost 'new graves are added to every family, and there are cries in villages and villages'. There is no food in every household, and people often starve to death, mostly eating bark and hay.
Even a random weed on the side of the road has countless people to scramble, and the old, weak, sick and disabled can only starve to death. Guanyin soil can be eaten, but if this thing is eaten too much, it will kill people, because it cannot be digested at all. Others had to flee the wilderness in order to survive, and many villages in Henan had become uninhabited villages. Even if you flee the wilderness, you may not survive because there is no land to go. It is impossible for the provinces to take in too many victims, let alone the occupied areas, and the devils directly shoot and drive people away.
Some people fall to the ground directly on the road, and no one will help collect the body. It is no exaggeration to describe the scene at that time with corpses strewn across the field, and the eyes of the people are only to live. There is no accurate record of the number of deaths at that time, but two statistics can be seen, one is an archive of Henan Province in 1943. It is recorded in the number of people in 82 counties in Henan, the number of deaths 288006, and the number of people fleeing the wilderness is 1526662.
However, this data is problematic, because Chongqing was already aware of the situation at that time and was very angry. Disaster relief work is classified as one of the examinations of county chiefs and others, and those who fail to provide disaster relief will be dismissed from office or shot. In order to save their positions and small lives, all counties try to report as little as possible, so this number may have to be added upwards. And there is a point, the number of people fleeing the wilderness is 1526662, and how many people are really successful in escaping from the wilderness? Another data comes from Zhang Guangsi, the Disaster Relief Committee, which was counted on September 27, 1943, but there were only 29 population deaths in the hardest-hit counties.
The total number of them is 1484989 people, which shows that the previous data is not credible, but no one knows how Zhang Guangsi's data came from. Overall, the death toll in Henan during the 1942 famine remains a mystery. However, as the saying goes, the disaster did not kill tens of thousands of people, but the death of one person, which happened tens of thousands of times. Now that many years have passed since the disaster, our generation does not need to endure such pain anymore, but we should also cherish the good life now and not forget the pain of that year.