On June 9, 1938, Chiang Kai-shek issued a terrible order: break the embankment at the mouth of the Garden in Zhengzhou, Henan.
According to the information currently found, more than one person has suggested to him "replace the soldier with water":
As early as 1935, Chiang Kai-shek's German adviser Falkenhow proposed: "... The final front is the Yellow River, which should be flooded artificially in a planned manner";
After liberation, Yan Xunfu, a participant in the incident, confessed that when he was chief of staff, he and Zhang Chenxing and others raised it again."
During the Sino-Japanese war, the embankment of the Yellow River could be broken to isolate the enemy from eastern Henan
", Jiang approved;
Xiong Xianyu, the direct executor of the incident, mentioned in his post-war memoirs that he had in his hands a letter and telegram from Chen Guofu, Wang Ruoqing, and others suggesting to Chiang Kai-shek to "replace the soldiers with water."
It can be seen that Chiang Kai-shek began to plan "replacing soldiers with water" very early on.
This incident alone directly led to floods in the Yellow River Basin and huaihe river basins, nearly ten million people were homeless and became refugees, known in history as the "Huayuankou Incident", and the Chongqing air raid shelter massacre, the Wenxi fire, and called "the three major tragedies in the history of China's War of Resistance".
Afterwards, Chiang Kai-shek announced to the outside world that he would blow up the yellow river embankment and let the Yellow River flood with water in order to prevent the Japanese army from continuing south. At that time, the situation was critical, and this strategy of "replacing soldiers with water" could only be adopted.
In fact, is it really like he said?
Time has passed, and we can do this by looking through the notes of the participants in the event and reading other official materials
Let's learn the truth before and after the "Garden Mouth Incident" tragedy.
(Ruins left after the bombing of the bombing of the bombing)
First, Chiang Kai-shek made blind decisions and the whole army retreated
In 1938, the Chinese army fought fiercely with the Japanese army in Taierzhuang for a month, annihilating a large number of japanese troops.
This campaign struck a blow at the arrogance of the Japanese army,
The biggest victory since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was achieved - known in history as the "Great Victory of Taierzhuang".
(Taierzhuang Battle Monument)
The Battle of Taierzhuang boosted the morale of the whole army, and at the same time strengthened the belief of the people of the whole country in the victory of the War of Resistance.
Chiang Kai-shek decided to take advantage of the victory and pursue, and planned to take this opportunity to take advantage of the high morale and the strong support of the people of the whole country for the War of Resistance to expand the results of the war.
He quickly mobilized more than 600,000 troops to the Xuzhou area to prepare for a decisive battle with the Japanese army.
The Japanese army did not suffer setbacks in the Battle of Taierzhuang, and held a meeting at the base camp of Jinan, Shandong Province, and formulated a battle plan for Xuzhou. After the meeting, the Japanese side quickly gathered more than 10 divisions to participate in the battle, and decided to first cut off the connection between the Chinese troops in the Central Plains.
In mid-May of the same year, in just two days, the Japanese army marched from Anhui, Shandong and other places to the longhai railway line, cutting off and blowing up the railway line, and blocking the retreat of some Chinese troops.
At this point, the Japanese army not only occupied a favorable military position in the Central Plains, but also had nearly 300,000 people surrounding the main combat force of the Kuomintang in Xuzhou.
Three days later, in order to preserve the strength of the army in the Fifth Theater, Chiang Kai-shek ordered that all troops must withdraw from Xuzhou.
After that, the Japanese army fully captured Xuzhou and further attacked westward.
(Battle map of the Battle of Xuzhou)
In order to prevent the Nationalist army of the First Theater from implementing the reinforcement plan, the Japanese general in eastern Henan led the 14th Division to cross the Yellow River and engage in a frontal confrontation with the First Theater.
Chiang Kai-shek believed that Tu Feiyuan was fighting alone and had nothing to be afraid of, and that by taking advantage of this favorable battle situation, he could annihilate it in one fell swoop.
He immediately got up from Wuhan and flew to the headquarters of the First Theater and told Cheng Qian, then commander of the First Theater and chairman of the Henan Provincial CPC Committee, that he would personally command the Battle of Eastern Henan.
In order to form a two-sided offensive against the Nationalist army with the Xuzhou Front, Tufeiyuan began to carry out a breakthrough plan on May 23 of the same year, and focused the breakthrough on Lanfeng.
(Toihara)
At this time, on the battlefield of eastern Henan, Chiang Kai-shek planned to completely annihilate more than 20,000 people in Tufeiyuan.
Therefore, he quickly mobilized more than 200,000 elite troops across the country and sent Cheng Qian to actively carry out combat deployment.
The strategic deployment is complete, "everything is ready", and it is only waiting for war. This time, Chairman Jiang directly sat in command, and Cheng Qian publicly issued a bold statement: "Even if you eat it, you can eat the soil and fertilizer plains."
The number of troops was about 10 times that of the other side, and Chiang Kai-shek, who had the victory in his hands, never expected that this battle would be lost.
Due to the chaotic operational command and the fact that the various armies blamed each other in order to preserve their own strength, the Chinese army not only missed the encirclement and annihilation of the Japanese 14th Division, but was held back by the enemy army.
During the retreat, the Japanese army did not spare, pursued the Chinese army and fought fiercely, vowing to annihilate the main force of the Chinese army.
(Yan Xunfu)
The following month, at the supreme military conference held in Wuhan, multiple threats from the Japanese army were discussed, such as the defeat at the Battle of Lanfeng, the fall of Kaifeng, the occupation of the Longhai Line by the Japanese, and the destruction of some sections of the road.
At the meeting, Chiang Kai-shek proposed, "
The Yellow River broke through and blocked the enemy's westward advance
。 ”
Second, the garden mouth broke the embankment and paid for the loss of the battle
On June 6, 1938, Xiong Xianyu, who had just completed the task of blowing up the Great Iron Bridge of the Yellow River four months ago, did not expect that he had received an even more terrible task: to preside over the matters related to the breaking of the embankment at the mouth of the Garden.
After receiving the task, the Zhengzhou Front, represented by Xiong Xianyu, has been busy preparing for the bombing of the Yellow River embankment.
And the combat headquarters in Wuhan is not idle, and has been staring at Zhengzhou: When will the Yellow River break its banks?
Two days later, Shang Zhen, commander-in-chief of the 20th Group Army, could not withstand the pressure from Chiang Kai-shek and sent Wei Rulin to the scene of the huayuankou embankment.
On the one hand, to check how the progress is, on the other hand, the reward notice reads, "If the water is released at 24:00 this night, the prize will be 2,000 yuan; if it is completed at 6 o'clock in the afternoon tomorrow, the prize will be 1,000 yuan." ”
Then, Xiong Xianyu led a group of people to blow up the sloped stone foundation inside the embankment with explosives.
This means that the strongest part of the has been destroyed.
At 9:00 a.m., Wei Rulin, with the expectations of his superiors, announced that "the project of breaking the mouth is completed and the water is released."
(Yellow River Garden Mouth)
The garden mouth section of the Yellow River levee broke the embankment, and the water of the Yellow River rushed down.
Xiong Xianyu, the on-site commander of the incident, wrote in his later memoirs:
The flood rushed into the breach, just like two yellow dragons leaping and rushing...
He clearly remembers the scene when he blew up the embankment with his own hands, but he didn't know it at the time:
The four villages that once existed near Huayuankou, Shaoqiao, Shijiadi, Wangjiadi and Nancuizhuang, disappeared forever after the breach was washed away.
After the was blown, the water was already fierce.
The sky was not beautiful, and the next day the suddenly began to pour down, day and night.
The heavy rain once again aggravated the breach, and the water directly washed away the 50-meter-long river channel between the two breaches, and the river gushing out of the breach formed a monstrous turbid wave and surged south along the Jalu River.
The villages and towns of the Jalu and Vortex rivers quickly became a vast ocean.
Within a short week, Weishi, Fugou, Taikang, Zhoukou and other places in Henan Province were flooded one after another, and soon Taihe and Fuyang in Anhui were also flooded.
The water rushed into the Huai River, and then rushed into Hongze Lake and the Grand Canal, and the Huai River Basin was completely flooded.
At this point, the Yellow River diverted to the south,
Affecting Henan, Anhui and Suzhou, affecting 44 counties (cities), a total of 290,000 square kilometers, resulting in 12 million people affected, 3911354 displaced, 893303 deaths, and economic losses of 1,091.76 million yuan.
Third, rush to escape and frame the Japanese army
The devastating floods were created, and the Kuomintang, up and down, did not have any guilt or compassion.
Instead, they're busy with how to get out.
This incident is recorded in the Archives of the War History Compilation Committee of the Military Command of the Nationalist Government, and on the second day of the explosion, Cheng Qian sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek at the Wuhan headquarters.
He has already found a scapegoat for Chiang Kai-shek:
"After the Japanese army occupied Kaifeng, it continued to attack the west, because our army swore to resist to the death, and the position was strong, the enemy did not succeed in the end, so they dug a mouth on the south bank of the Yellow River in an attempt to destroy our position and drown our army."
。
At the same time, Shang Zhen forged evidence of the Japanese plane blowing up Huayuankou and the surrounding areas according to Cheng Qian's instructions.
The New Eighth Division used explosives to blow up houses and trees near the garden entrance, and even the temples were not spared, in short, as much as possible.
They believe that the more tragic the scene, the better, and the more they can prove the cruelty of the Japanese army.
(Shang Zhen)
On June 11 of the same year, Chiang Kai-shek made three demands on Cheng Qian:
"1. Vigorously publicize to the masses that Japanese aircraft blew up the Yellow River embankment.
2. It is necessary to carefully inspect the flooding of the Yellow River, take the flood as an obstacle, and improve the deployment and defense line of our army.
3. All departments of the First Theater of Operations must cooperate with the people to build embankments, divert water to the southeast, and enter the Huai River to ensure the smooth flow of traffic on the Pinghan Line. ”
On the same day, the Kuomintang Central Committee's newsletter published for the first time that "the Japanese army blew up the Yellow River embankment" and announced the ins and outs of the matter.
Under the guidance of this remark, newspapers such as the "Declaration" and the "Ta Kung Pao" condemned the Japanese army for losing its conscience and blowing up the Yellow River embankment, causing flooding of the Yellow River and bringing deep disasters to innocent people.
Fourth, the Flood of the Yellow River, the Japanese Army adjusted its combat deployment
According to Xiong Xianyu, the main purpose of Chiang Kai-shek's order to blow up the Garden Pass at that time was to let the water of the Yellow River form a ground barrier to stop and delay the enemy's attack and buy time for our army to prepare for battle.
So, has this military objective been achieved?
When the flood occurred, the Japanese army in eastern Henan did not have time to react.
Some were directly swept away by the flood; some were abandoned by large troops because of their wounds and illnesses, and others were annihilated by the Chinese army; and finally the scattered troops who escaped by chance were gathered east of the Huangpan area.
According to the old man An Qingfu, a local resident of Zhengzhou, he once witnessed the Japanese army soaking wet during the escape.
Some wounded soldiers really couldn't run, and after being caught, they would be punished by the Kuomintang troops.
As a member of the fugitive, Higashi Shiro, who was then a senior soldier of the 20th Wing of the 16th Division of the Japanese Army, described in detail the situation of the Japanese army besieged by water in his "Diary of Higashi Shiro":
"It was a river formed by the bursting of the Yellow River, and we crossed the river in the night, and I followed the soldiers in front of me. After crossing the river, after crossing the river, I don't know which direction to go. I don't know where the shoals are, where the deep water is, but in short, we must cross the river as soon as possible..."
"Whenever the soldiers found a little food, they would hide in a corner, secretly hide, afraid of being discovered by others, and enjoy it alone. We looked everywhere for food, and at first there were potatoes in the field, but within a few days we were quickly eaten. The pumpkin seedlings were picked and boiled to eat, but because they were hungry, as soon as they were seen by other detachments, they would immediately run out. Soon there was nothing to eat in the field. The flood cut off the road, leaving us stranded where we were, where the material from outside never came in, and for several days we had no food to eat."
In the end, Higashi Shiro and some Japanese soldiers boarded the train and retreated all the way to Anhui.
(Old photo of the Yellow River Garden Mouth Breaking Embankment)
The head of the Japanese army, who had experienced the flood like Higashi Shiro, admitted that the garden mouth broke the embankment, causing them a large number of casualties.
According to the materials released by China and Japan, the casualties caused by the breach of the embankment at the mouth of the Garden ranged from 7,000 to 20,000.
The Flood of the Yellow River became a disaster, and the Japanese army fled the Battle of Eastern Henan.
The New Yellow River, which crossed the Eastern Henan Plain, became a military demarcation line, blocking the Japanese army in the area east of the Yellow Pan Area.
It is undeniable that to a certain extent, it blocked the pace of the Japanese army's advance and won a breathing space for the Kuomintang army.
After the Huayuankou embankment broke, the Chinese army quickly launched a counter-offensive against Japan, and the Japanese army in eastern Henan was basically eliminated.
The heavy damage caused by the breakthrough of the Huayuankou embankment to the Japanese army on the one hand reduced the area occupied by the Japanese army and the sharp reduction of troop personnel.
On the other hand, the more far-reaching effect was that the original offensive route of the Japanese army was broken, especially the plan of the Japanese mechanized troops to attack Wuhan along the mountain road and along the Yangtze River.
However, in October 1938, four months after the huayuankou embankment was broken, Wuhan was still lost.
In 1944, Japan again rebelled in Henan and launched a campaign to open up the mainland communication line, and Zhengzhou was once again captured.
Fifth, the vicissitudes of the sea and the mulberry fields, the people of the "Yellow Pan Area" do not have a good life
The Garden Mouth breaks the embankment, and the water of the Yellow River flows freely, flowing through eastern Henan, northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu, following the small river, the Huai River, and finally merging into the Yangtze River.
Until the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Yellow River became a tributary of the Huai River, and the Huai River became a tributary of the Yangtze River.
The water of the Yellow River rushes in, silts the water channel of the Huai River, causing the Huai River to flow back during the flood season, flooding farmland and swallowing lakes.
All this has led to the blockage of waterway traffic, forming a flooding area of the Yellow River across 44 counties in the three provinces of Yuwan and Suzhou, referred to as the "Yellow Pan Area".
(The red area in the figure is the "yellow pan area")
In 1939, the Japanese army also "imitated" the behavior of the Kuomintang.
In order to prevent the water of the Yellow River from returning to its hometown and flooding the New Railway, the Japanese army decided to expand the entrance gate of the Garden Pass.
Same
In July, the Japanese again took the opportunity to invade the Garden Pass, and Sugiyama ordered his troops to dig another gate east of the current Garden Pass.
Later, this was called the "East Exit Gate" by the locals.
After the breach was widened, the distance between the east and west gates was more than 100 meters, leaving only a section of the embankment in the middle.
In August 1944, the Yellow River flooded heavily, and the remnants of the embankment in the middle of the breach were washed away.
The two entrance doors were merged into one, and the Garden Entrance Gate was eventually 1460 meters wide.
Since then, the flooding of the Yellow River has intensified again.
The people of the Huangpan region have experienced one disaster after another, with poor harvests, no food, no livelihood and displacement.
Friends who have watched the film "1942" directed by Feng Xiaogang should remember that Fan Dianyuan, played by Teacher Zhang Guoguo, was originally a big landlord.
During the Great Famine, the landlord's family had no surplus food, and finally was forced to drag the family and flee.
In the process of fleeing, the family was lost and scattered.
(Poster of the movie "1942")
Reality is more tragic than film and television.
According to the data,
Between 1942 and 1943, after the severe drought in Henan, there was another plague of locusts, and a great famine broke out due to the reduction of grain production, the serious inflation of the national economy, and the ineffective relief of the National Government and the forced requisition of military grain.
According to statistics, 30 million people were affected by the disaster at that time, and 3 million people died of starvation.
The people, who did not want to endure the famine any longer, began a great escape.
In today's Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Hebei, the footprints of Henan refugees at that time can still be found.
Edit: Peter Pan
Editor-in-Charge: Thalia