01
Four pests in Henan: water drought locust soup
In 1942, Henan, starvation was everywhere.
The horrors were so great that the strong scattered in all directions, and the old people turned into ravines: 3 million people died in the famine and 3 million people were displaced.
It is not only natural disasters that have caused such a tragic situation.
There is such a saying: "Water drought locust soup, Henan four pests."
Floods, droughts, locusts and old soup.
In the old days, the people of Henan called bandits "Lao Tang". But this old soup is a more ruthless and cold-blooded Tang Enbo than the bandits.
Tombaugh
Tang Enbo (Tang Enbo), Zi Keqin, was a second-class general in the Kuomintang Army, a backbone general of the Huangpu clan, and one of Chiang Kai-shek's most favored three favorite generals (the other two being Xue Yue and Dai Kasa). In 1942, he was appointed deputy commander of the First Theater of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and commander-in-chief of the Lusu-Anhui-Yu Border Region.
The Central Plains were famine and the people were not happy, but the Tang Enbo troops stationed in Henan had exhausted their empty salaries, levied and rioted, and complained bitterly, and everyone hated them to the bone.
Li Zongren, a general of the Gui clan, once said:
"Tang Enbo's biggest shortcoming is that he cannot govern the army and the military discipline is abolished. Under the pretext of guarding against espionage, all the adult men in the villages where they were stationed, except for the old and weak women and children, were forced to leave the villages and stay elsewhere. The village is also tender, and grain and livestock are not allowed to be transported. When the prime-aged people are gone, the women and property are at the disposal of the garrison. The Tang army passed by, and the people's resentment boiled over. Later, the people of Henan had an anti-Tang slogan: "I would rather the enemy army come to burn and kill than the Tang army to garrison."" As far as I know, this is not a slanderous remark against Tang Jun. (Tang Degang's Memoirs of Li Zongren)
Jiang Dingwen, commander-in-chief of the First Theater, also said this anecdote:
At one point, he took a few guards out. On the way, hundreds of desert-fleeing victims suddenly hula surrounded.
"I am Chief Jiang, why do you hate me?" Jiang Dingwen saw that the situation was not good, and hurriedly reported himself to the door.
When the victims heard this, they dispersed in sorrow: "We thought it was Tang Enbo." ”
Look at that formation, if it is really Tang Enbo, he will not bite his teeth and drink his blood and eat his flesh!
Many years later, the American "Time" magazine reporter Bai Xiude wrote in his memoirs:
"No matter where you are interviewing, whether you are in Chongqing or abroad, the conclusion is that government agencies, hospitals, army headquarters, universities, provincial governments and all other institutions are useless or about to collapse." The process of this collapse takes place in silence. ”
02
Natural and man-made disasters are shocking
White Shudder
White Hugh, real name Theodore H. White was born in 1915 in Boston, USA, in a Jewish ghetto.
In his youth, the Great Depression coincided with the Great Depression in the United States; the early death of his father made the family even worse.
Fortunately, White was diligent and self-motivated, admitted to Harvard, and studied under the famous American sinologist Fei Zhengqing.
It was also under the recommendation of Fairbank that after graduating from college, White came to Chongqing, China, named "Bai Xiude", and began his journalism career.
Bai Xiude visited Yan'an and wrote the influential "China's Thunder" and is considered to be one of the most inclined Chinese Communist Party correspondents in China.
In 1942, the Central Plains was devastated.
In order to gain an in-depth understanding of the disaster situation, Bai Xiude traveled to many places, went to the countryside and villages, and recorded the tragic scene at that time with a pen and a lens.
refugee
Children among the victims
Eat the bark
Eaten bark
Hungry and helpless victims
Mother among the victims
In an urgent message sent back to the United States from Chongqing, Bai Xiude said this:
"Twenty thousand square miles of northern Henan province is starving. Men and women were eating bark and grass roots, and children with swollen abdomen were sold for food. Thousands have died, hundreds of thousands are cornered, and tens of millions face the torment of a great famine throughout the long winter. ”
"We were only in this village for two hours and couldn't tell the right or wrong... We have to admit the fact that in Henan, humans eat humans. ”
"The causes of this catastrophe are: First, the Japanese. They destroyed the crops in the fields before retreating; second, God. He refused to rain the wheat fields. ”
And, of course, there's the National Government and the old Tang Enbo.
In the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain the year before (May 1941), the Nationalist army was defeated, killing 42,000 people and capturing 35,000 prisoners, which Chiang Kai-shek called "the greatest shame in the history of the War of Resistance.".
Immediately afterward, Chiang Kai-shek changed generals. Tang Enbo replaced Wei Lihuang and took office.
In the case of the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain and the loss of more than 30 counties north of the Yellow River, Tang Enbo did not reduce the 1942 requisition task at all, but greatly increased the per capita requisition!
It was also from the spring of this year that the heavens were mighty, and the whole province of Henan did not rain, and the grain withered on the straw.
After the great drought, the locust plague came again, and the grain production was almost out. The Chiang Kai-shek clique was already ineffective in providing disaster relief, and the damn old soup came again.
Thus, a great apocalyptic famine, which affected 30 million people and starved 3 million people, suddenly descended on this land ravaged by the Japanese.
For the people in suffering, there are only three ways to go:
The first is to take risks and rise to resist;
The second is to leave the country and flee;
The third is to be trapped in the homeland and sit still.
Hungry victims
flee from famine
beg
Hungry children
03
Famine kills people, and harsh government is like a tiger
In October 1942, the Nationalist government was "worried about the country and the people" and announced that it would allocate 500 million yuan of French tender for disaster relief.
Among them, 200 million yuan was used to open a porridge farm for emergency relief in the disaster area; 300 million yuan was used to purchase relief grain.
However, a large number of refugees flocked to the farm, and in just a few days, the porridge farm was shut down;
As for the 300 million yuan of legal tender used to buy grain, from top to bottom, it was embezzled and embezzled, and it was completely divided. It was not until 1943, when the new wheat was ripe, that the first batch of relief grain came belatedly.
Oh, according to the price at that time, 300 million yuan of French tender could probably buy 30 million catties of wheat. On average, on the heads of the victims in Henan, each person can only receive 1 catty!
How long can I eat 1 pound? One day? One month?
Officials of the National Government's disaster relief agencies "shouted loudly": If we persist for half a year, we will get better!!!!
And just in the summer and autumn of 1942, when the harvest was almost extinguished, Lao Tang also forcibly requisitioned 10 kilograms of "zhengshi" per person!
In the interview, The explanation received from the relevant officials was:
"If the people die, the land will still be Chinese." But if the soldiers starved to death, the Japanese would occupy the lands. ”
How grandiose. Proper famine kills people, and harsh government is fiercer than tigers.
Fortunately, in June 1943, as the new wheat matured, the Great Famine in Henan, which starved 3 million people, finally became a thing of the past.
Poster of the international edition of the movie "Nineteen Forty-Two"
Poster of the domestic version of the movie "1942"
04
Remember history and cherish the good
The years pass, the times change, and 80 years are fleeting.
Today, the great China and the industrious people are walking on the road of creating a happy life with their heads held high under the leadership of the party and the government.
However, the past is not forgotten, and the teacher of the future is the teacher.
Please remember that suffering, cherish the stability of the present, cherish every grain, cherish the hard-won beauty.
Only by remembering history can we better create the future.
Resources:
[1] Liu Zhenyun, "Wen Gu 1942"
[2] Bai Xiude's "China's Thunder"
[3] People's Daily Discovery of the Great Famine: 1942 through the Eyes of an American Journalist
[4] Song Zhixin, 1942: The Great Famine in Henan