What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
"Four Crossings of the Red Water Surprise Soldier" is the fourth song in the Long March group song, in which the lyrics read: "The Wujiang River is dangerous and dangerous, and the soldiers are forced to Kunming in Guiyang." The enemy abandoned his armor and threw away his smoking guns, and our army took advantage of the victory to hurry away. This refers to the Guizhou warlord's "double-gun soldiers" (the enemy army with rifles and opium smoking guns) were vulnerable to one blow, and fled as soon as they hit, and the Red Army took advantage of the victory to march in a hurry and marched towards the intended target. However, the reputation of the "two-gun soldier" Sichuan warlord troops will be louder and better.
The cultivation of opium in Sichuan began at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and because of its high profits, the Sichuan rulers of different eras used it as a method to open up financial resources.
During the Daoguang years, the wind of opium cultivation in Sichuan began to burn. In 1858, the Qing government signed the "Treaty on the Aftermath of the Treaty of Commerce and Trade" with Britain, France and the United States in Shanghai, the fifth paragraph of which stipulates that "foreign medicine, copper coins, rice grain, dengshi, nitramine, white aluminum and other things have not been allowed to trade; now it is set to be slightly more prohibited, and the merchants obey the tax and trade"; "Foreign medicines are allowed to be imported, and it is agreed that 30 taels of silver per 100 tax payments will be agreed." Since then, the Qing government has recognized the legalization of the opium trade, and for a time the whole country began to widely cultivate baby millet, especially in the southwest.
Sichuan is commonly known as the "country of heaven", the climate is suitable, the soil is fertile, especially suitable for the growth of crops, baby millet in Sichuan has a unique natural geographical conditions. More importantly, the profits from growing opium are much higher than the profits from growing other foods. According to statistics, the profit from planting wheat on a carton of wheat is 6,000 yuan, while the profit from growing opium is 11,000 yuan, which is almost twice the profit of wheat. Moreover, the price of opium in Sichuan is slightly lower than that of opium in other places, which leads to a broader market in Sichuan, with small profits and high sales, driving the people to be willing to engage in opium cultivation.
In 1906, sichuan soil production was 238,000 cartons, accounting for 40.5% of the total amount of opium in the country. 7 %o" is more than the combined production of yunnan, shaanxi, guizhou and gansu provinces in second to fifth place2. 80,000 cartons. The sown area of infant millet was 756. 90,000 mu, accounting for about 16.4% of the province's cultivated land area, much higher than the national average proportion of infant millet land.
Sichuan is not only a big tobacco producing province, but also a big smoking province. Fifty percent of men and twenty percent of women smoke in cities in Sichuan Province. Twenty-five per cent of men and five per cent of women smoke in the countryside. For a while, smoking became a pastime for ordinary people and a way to release stress to escape reality, and even relatives and friends exchanged tobacco soil as a fashion. Even if the head of the household does not smoke opium, if a guest visits, he will also prepare smoked soil for guests to smoke.
Opium is rampant, endangering the national economy and people's livelihood, and people of insight have vigorously advocated smoking bans. Non-smoking activities have promoted the government's anti-smoking campaign. During the New Deal period at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government, under the pressure of domestic public opinion, implemented a relatively strict policy of smoking bans. Sichuan conformed to the trend of anti-smoking, and under the rule of the governors of Sichuan, Xi Liang and Zhao Eryi, a strict anti-smoking policy was implemented. After the founding of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai both advocated smoking bans, but unfortunately this situation did not last long.
After Yuan Shikai's death, China fell into a period of warlord division and chaos, and the situation of warlords dividing each other and fighting among themselves was particularly serious in Sichuan. The situation in which the warlords in Sichuan were divided and fought had a lot to do with the "defense zone system" implemented in Sichuan at that time.
In essence, the "defense zone system" is a form of division in which the warlords of various factions in Sichuan oppose the reunification of the whole province, resist the annexation of other warlords, and ensure their own territory and military strength. Since no warlord could control the whole of Sichuan, after the great warlord captured Chengdu and seized the nominal hegemony of Sichuan, he still had no control over other places, so he could only make the various armies stationed in place, divide the defensive areas, and strive to maintain peace for the time being. Over time, the warlords gradually controlled the various powers in the area, not only extracting grain in the defensive area, but also interfering in political affairs, appointing officials and pre-levying taxes, resulting in the various defensive areas becoming "independent kingdoms" divided by the warlords.
In order to raise military funds, the warlords invariably focused their attention on opium. The warlords of various sizes in Sichuan have a total of 200,000 troops, and they need at least 24 million yuan in military expenditure every year. In order to raise military funds, warlords large and small competed to ban smoking, and even forced the people in the defense zone to plant baby millet. Since then, opium has been openly prohibited, cultivation, trafficking, marketing and smoking have become legal, and tobacco has become the focus of competition among warlords. From the east of Sichuan to the south of Sichuan and the north of Sichuan to the west of Sichuan, the smoke disaster in Sichuan has surged up, and the previous anti-smoking achievements have been instantly destroyed by the warlords.
In order to force the peasants to plant baby millet, the warlords also imposed heavy rewards on the people who insisted on growing grain: one year of grain cultivation, three years of field endowment, and if the second year still insisted on growing grain and did not want to grow tobacco, this year they had to pay five years of field endowment. If you still insist on growing grain in the third year, you must pay seven years of land.
In 1934, Liu Xiang defeated Liu Wenhui with the support of Chiang Kai-shek, became the provincial chairman, and launched a "six-year anti-smoking plan." When the War of Resistance Broke Out, Chiang Kai-shek's forces entered Sichuan in an all-round way. In order to weaken the power of the Sichuan warlords and at the same time create the image of the leader of the War of Resistance, Chiang Kai-shek advocated smoking ban in Sichuan. The opium epidemic had improved considerably, but it was far from being eliminated, and opium remained an important source of finance for local forces.
It was not until the liberation of Sichuan and the basic reunification of the whole country that the local forces lost the space for survival, and under the efforts of the people's government, Sichuan's opium finally disappeared.