Nowadays, healthy diet is more and more popular, the world's delicacies can not be missed, food and clothing is no longer a problem, who can think that 78 years ago, famine swept through China's Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Anhui and other regions, because of the famine and uprooted people are not a minority, 1942 Henan famine is one of the famines during the anti-Japanese period, according to relevant information, famine led to about 3 million people starving to death, American journalist Bai Xiude witnessed this disaster.
Bai Xiude loved Chinese culture, so in 1938, after graduating from Harvard University, Bai Xiude stepped into the land of our country, when the revolutionary ancestors of our country were working hard for the War of Resistance, at first Bai Xiude had a feeling of respect and admiration for the old Chiang Kai-shek, but after a year, Bai Xiude found that any senior official in the National Government who was fluent in English was completely out of touch with his own people.
In 1941, there was already a drought in Henan, and the grain harvest was greatly reduced. However, due to the fact that Japan had secretly attacked Pearl Harbor in the winter of that year, and the United States and Japan had started a war, Roosevelt sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek and proposed the establishment of a Chinese theater of operations, with Chiang Kai-shek as the supreme commander of the theater.
But by the summer of 1942, it was supposed to be the harvest season, but the drought in Henan worsened, and the locust plague followed after the drought, and in June of that year, the old Chiang Kai-shek had not yet received a report of the disaster, and he presided over the National Grain Administration Conference in Chongqing.
In September, the Henan military, headed by Jiang Dingwen (one of Chiang's "Five Tiger Generals") reported the actual situation of the disaster at the Wang Qu Military Conference in Xi'an, and the relief work was only launched, but because of the words "if the people die, the land will still be the state, but if the soldiers starve, the Japanese will occupy these lands.", the old Jiang was criticized.
In February of the following year, Chongqing newspapers and periodicals published an article entitled "Looking at Chongqing, Remembering the Central Plains", revealing:
"The severity of the disaster in Henan and the tragedy suffered by the people are almost all known: but after all, how heavy it is, and what kind of situation it is tragic, everyone is very vague." Who knew that most of those thirty million compatriots were already trapped in the hell of starvation and death. Those who starved to death, who fled to help the elderly and children, whose wives and children were scattered, who were crowded, who were beaten with sticks, may not be able to obtain a registration certificate from the Relief Committee. Eating weeds poisons and dying, eating dry bark can't help but sting the throat and intestines. Transporting wives and daughters to distant human meat markets may not be able to exchange them for a few buckets of grain..."
This passage seems to be crying bloody and harsh, but many people still think it is exaggerated, and the newspapers and periodicals that disclose the truth have been punished by the relevant Departments of the Kuomintang for ordering them to suspend publication.
However, at the end of February, Bai Xiude got the approval of the relevant departments and came to the disaster area in Henan, at this time Bai Xiude knew that everything described in the newspaper was true, and it was more shocking to witness it than the text, and Bai Xiude took a photo in the disaster area.
Bai Xiude later also recounted his experience in the disaster area of Henan, saying: Whenever I have a little food in my hand, the refugees on the road will rush up, the men will kneel on their knees and constantly ask for alms, and the children will follow them, crying "poor, pitiful"!
"These men, who are so thin that they should be their eyes, are holes filled with pus; inadequate nutrition makes their hair dry; hunger swells their bellies; the weather blows their skin apart. Their voices have degenerated into cries of food. ”
After Bai Xiude returned to Chongqing, he met with Lao Jiang through Song Qingling's arrangement and help, and he did not talk to Lao Jiang much, but when photojournalist Harrison Foreman showed Lao Jiang the photo of the dog eating dead bodies on the side of the road, Lao Jiang's legs trembled involuntarily.
In addition, Bai Xiude also gave the news to the American "Time" magazine, which caused a lot of repercussions, as for what is the intention? There has always been debate.