"When is the takeaway coming, I'm going to starve to death!" This is a sentence that young people often blurt out at the time of meals, but when they eat a few bites of rice, some people will say: "It's too hard to eat, white look forward to so long, waste time and money." Forget it, just lose weight and don't eat it. ”
Immediately put down the chopsticks, tie the takeaway bag, an elegant parabola threw it into the trash can, turned away with a look of displeasure.
In the era when food and broadcasting are prevalent and waste is common, how many people have really experienced the feeling of about to "starve to death", and how many people understand how miserable the real famine is? Let's go back to Henan sixty years ago and see the real tragedy.
Sorrow is everywhere and hunger is everywhere
In 1942, the whole province of Henan was hit by drought, there was not a single grain harvest in the autumn, and there were locusts everywhere, and after the locusts crossed the border, there was no green on the ground.
In an instant, the beings of this land seemed to have been abandoned by Mother Earth, with no food, no hope, day by day. This year, in Henan Province alone, the number of people starving to death was as high as 1.5 million, and the situation was very tragic.
American journalist Bai Xiude went deep into the Henan disaster and recorded a large number of photos, allowing us to see this history, and his descendants always show these photos that are unbearable.
Zhang Gaofeng, a reporter for the Ta Kung Pao, wrote in "Hungry Henan": "Thousands of victims of Henan on the Longhai Road fled to Shaanxi, and the train carried men and women like mountains of people. ”
The bustling streets of Luoyang in the past are now full of old beggars begging with old hands like dead branches, holding skinny children behind them, their eyes are blank, their voices are weak, and the humming sound of teasing when they ask for food is like a moan that the last breath is divided into several times.
Some people did not even have the strength to speak out loud to beg, or even to support their bodies to sit up, but had to lie down along the base of the wall, open their mouths, close their eyes for a long time, and only the faint rise and fall of his chest proved that he was a living creature.
Along the way, I met people wearing tattered cotton clothes, and some even cotton clothes were used to change a bite to eat, only to be untidy and nestled in a corner.
Some children follow their mothers to cut down tree bark, dig grass roots, chew peanut skins, and even do not tell whether the rhizomes are poisonous or not, or hope that poison can also die a happy death, freed from this living sin. When the children dig up the soft tubers, they stuff them into their mouths and chew them, and if they can't chew it, they suck it in their mouths fiercely.
Everyone's face was puffy, muscles were weak, and the seven knots were blackened.
War rages and man-made disasters continue
The real cause of famine is not just a natural disaster.
In 1938, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in order to block the Japanese invasion, Chiang Kai-shek secretly ordered the explosion of the Yellow River embankment at the mouth of the garden, forming a yellow pan area of more than 400 kilometers. Henan's fertile land was suddenly submerged, people were displaced, and the names of 890,000 people who died were carved on both sides of the Yellow River with the 1938 garden mouth breach.
The huayuankou embankment broke the embankment militarily disrupted the deployment of the invading Japanese army, won a breathing space for the Nationalist government, prevented the Japanese army from advancing westward, and made the Central Plains area hold out for another six more years without falling, ensuring the safety of the rear area.
This flood also directly leads to food harvest failure, insufficient supply and inflation. For the people of Henan, suffering has only just begun. The flood blocked the Japanese army at the same time, but also blocked the land on which the peasants depended.
After four years of homelessness, landlessness, and starvation, the great drought and locust plague of 1942 snuffed out the last vestiges of life on the land.
After the war and natural disasters, resident officials did not actively respond to disaster relief, but began to suck the marrow and exploit the people.
The reduction in grain production during the war, the destruction of agricultural areas after the yellow river broke its banks, the soaring grain prices caused by inflation, and the transportation difficulties caused by the Blockade of communication lines by the Chinese and Japanese armies in Henan caused the central government's disaster relief funds to be delayed.
Land depreciation was so rapid that farmers could not survive even if they sold their land, and dereliction of duty, such as the misappropriation of grain for disaster relief by local officials, aggravated the disaster and intensified it.
At the same time, Tang Enbo, deputy commander of the First Theater, went so far as to forcibly conscript military grain with the people to supply the army in Henan, causing tens of thousands of people to die in the process of pretending to provide disaster relief.
Therefore, during the anti-Japanese war, there was a saying among the people of Henan: The four major pests of Henan are "water, drought, locusts, and soup."
Sobbing and weeping, the tragedy ended
On October 30, 1942, Guo Zhongkui, a member of the Yu national suffragette, wept and expressed his feelings at the National Political Participation Conference held by the Kuomintang, reported the disaster in Henan according to the truth, and wrote an article entitled "Henan Disaster Was Tragic, Please Ask the Government to Give Relief Quickly, and Use the Lives of the Whole People to Benefit the War of Resistance.".
The National Government was implored to confirm the famine in Henan, and at the meeting it was decided to send someone to survey the disaster situation and provide relief to the victims.
The henan catastrophe, a famine and catastrophe, ended tragically, ending in the starvation of more than a million people.
Taking history as a mirror can be righteous and virtuous
Seeing this, I believe that in addition to mourning for the deceased, we have more of an exhortation to ourselves.
Living in an era of peace, without the invasion of war, we should cherish the hard-won peaceful life, and thank every hero who has exchanged his flesh and blood for a peaceful life for us;
Living in the era of material abundance, without suffering from hunger and cold, when thanking Grandpa Yuan Longping and Grandpa Li Zhensheng, we can not only eat enough, but also have grain;
Living in the era of advanced science and technology, although there will be disasters coming, we should be grateful to the most lovely people who rushed ahead to help us cover the wind and rain.
At present, maintaining a hard and simple style is not a shameful thing, but it is more necessary to have spiritual strength, more personal persistence, and more admiration. After all, it is easy to go with the flow, and it is not so simple to restrain yourself. Take history as a mirror and cultivate virtue: cherish resources, cherish life, and cherish yourself.