Reality 1942: Farmers eat dead human flesh under the cover of night

　【Introduction】

　　Stories about hunger

　　Reporter Shi Chenlu

　　1942 Pacific War [Note: On December 8, 1941, the Pacific War broke out. The Japanese sneaked into the U.S. naval site at Pearl Harbor in the Pacific, and at the same time bombed British and American troops, launching the Pacific War. The United States and Great Britain declared war on Japan. Entering the second year, it was also the most arduous year of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Henan Province, as the front line of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, suffered a series of major droughts from the summer of 1942 to the spring of 1943, and most of the harvests were cut off in the summer and autumn. After the severe drought, there was a locust plague, and famine spread throughout the province's 110 counties, resulting in countless people who died of starvation, frostbite, and disease. This was the Henan catastrophe of 1942.

　　In 1993, writer Liu Zhenyun completed the investigative novel "Wen Gu 1942". Before starting the pen, he did not know that he was the descendant of the victims of the disaster, and when he returned to his hometown in Henan to investigate, he was shocked to find that both the witnesses in 1942 and their descendants seemed to have "forgotten" the disaster. In the same year, Feng Xiaogang, who had not yet made a movie at that time, read the novel on the recommendation of Wang Shuo and had the idea of putting it on the screen.

　　In 2012, from novel to movie, three ups and three downs, after the fourth launch, this story about hunger was finally released...

　　[1942, from top to bottom are "disaster victims"]

　　Feng Xiaogang: In 1942, down to the starving and cold victims, up to the ruler of the country [Note: the ruler tong zhi zhe 〖the ruler] The so-called ruler is the supreme ruler of an independent sovereign state, and the territory he rules has the nature of a country, and he is widely recognized at the same time and in later generations. ], all playing the role of disaster victims. The victims begged along the streets to survive, and the National Government begged the world's great powers to help.

　　Tens of millions of people fled from Henan to Shaanxi, and on the way, millions of people starved to death. What is this concept? Young people may know something about the fascist massacre of Jews in World War II, but through the performance of Hollywood movies, it attracted worldwide attention and made many Germans begin to reflect on this history. What about 1942? Before the official screening, we did some test screenings, selecting audiences of all ages, 60 people at a time, and maybe 20% or 30% of them were young people. Through several test screenings, I found that the people who touched the film the most were young people. They were so taken aback that they couldn't imagine that this was the life of Chinese 70 years ago.

　　Making this history into a movie, so that the audience can understand the disasters that occurred in the nation and people's performance in the disasters through the film, this is an important reason why I think the film must be made.

　　[1942, how the novel became a movie]

　　Liu Zhenyun: It was the summer of 1993, and it was particularly hot. Xiao Gang held a symposium, and a dozen people may not be able to agree on other issues, but on this issue they say "impossible" in an incomparably unified manner. After the meeting, I remembered that there was a locust tree outside, and I was still smoking at that time, so I squatted under the locust tree with Xiao Gang and smoked. I said, can't you get it? He said, get it! I said, everyone said that none of the sentences are wrong, there is no element of the movie, where to get it? There are two ways, one is that we find another group of people, open some rooms in the hotel, and we set up the story, the details, the characters, the ups and downs, and the structure. But this way can't be done, that's what smart people do. We both looked at each other's heads, and we weren't that smart, so we had to choose a stupid way. The stupid way is to hit the road.

　　We set off from Beijing and walked through Hebei, Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi, which took nearly 20 days. All the characters were not conceived in a hotel, but met on their way out in 1942. Some survived in 1942, and some met their souls. This is 1993. The year 2011 was the fourth time the project was launched. Before filming, because I had to choose scenes, Xiao Gang and I went to these places three more times.

　　Feng Xiaogang: We think we should take the most stupid way to create an adapted script, that is, don't be lazy, follow the path of the victims to escape the famine, follow all the clues where they happen. Only through interviews on the road, in-depth and continuous understanding, you can know that this is close to the truth. These are not things you can think of while sitting in a house.

　　【I】

　　As Feng Xiaogang said, "Only through interviews on the road and in-depth and continuous understanding can we get close to the truth."

　　So, what is the truth?

　　Yesterday's news, today's history. Let us go back to the "1942" reported by Chinese and foreign journalists at that time when they broke through the blockade.

　　For example, Bai Xiude, a special correspondent of Time Magazine in Asia, published "100,000 Fires and Great Escapes" in October 1942, and published a field trip report "Waiting for the Harvest" in March 1943, and said in his memoirs in his later years that "in all my memories, the Henan catastrophe is the most memorable";

　　Another example is Zhang Gaofeng, who was a war correspondent in Henan at the time of Chongqing's "Ta Kung Pao", published a newsletter on February 1, 1943, "Records of the Disaster of Yu" (formerly known as "Hungry Henan"), and the president Wang Yunsheng [Note: Wang Yunsheng (l901-1980), formerly known as Depeng, a native of Tianjin. Non-partisan patriotic democrats, our country's outstanding older generation of journalists. Wang Yunsheng was born on September 26, 1901 in the suburbs of Tianjin, and in his early years, he came to a poor family and worked as an apprentice in Tianjin. The next day, he published an editorial entitled "Look at Chongqing, Read the Central Plains!" Immediately, the Ta Kung Pao was ordered to suspend publication for 3 days, and Zhang Gaofeng was arrested on suspicion of being a "communist party";

　　Another example is the private tabloid "Qianfeng Bao", which is known as the "Small Bulletin" in Nanyang, Henan Province, in 1943 with astonishing courage to publish more than 10 series of newsletters in disaster areas and about 100 editorials and commentaries calling for disaster relief, covering a wider range and reporting for a longer period of time, and in May of that year, the series of newsletters was collected into a volume for publication as "Silhouettes of the Yu Disaster".

　　Apart from this, there is almost no news record.

　　【II】

　　Song Zhixin's mother, Song Yingxue, is 100 years old this year, and the most unfuzzable memory of the past is "1942". This history, which she witnessed firsthand, she said repeatedly, said it many times.

　　Song Zhixin's elder brother Zhao Zhizhen is a popular science writer and former director of Wuhan Television Station, and the reports on the Yu Disaster by Bai Xiude, an American journalist who are now circulating in China, are translated by him into Chinese.

　　Song Zhixin, a retired researcher at the Institute of Literature of the Hubei Academy of Social Sciences, published in 2005 with her dedication to editing "1942: The Great Famine in Henan", which collected almost all relevant articles by Bai Xiude, Ta Kung Pao, and Qianfeng Bao, and an updated edition of the book will be available next month.

Source: China History Network