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Hungry people fleeing
大饥荒
"Henan in the midst of the great famine is thousands of miles of red land, and hunger is everywhere. Millions of peasants have been forced to leave their hometowns and go into exile; there are no rooms in the villages, and people have dismantled pots and stoves, some of which have even dismantled their door panels; refugees who cannot afford to flee rely on grain husks, wheat bran, elm bark, Guanyin soil, weed, mochi cakes, and even goose dung to feed on them; refugees who have fled to the west have formed an endless stream of refugees; in the face of famine, human nature has been distorted, and people's survival instinct has overwhelmed family affection. Men sell their wives and beards, their flesh and blood are separated, and abandoned babies are everywhere; Young women have been reduced to prostitutes, and the eldest girl of seventeen or eighteen years old has not been exchanged for a pound of bread; a starving corpse is exposed by the side of the railway and highway, in the ravines of the fields, no one has buried it, and even has been eaten by wild dogs; and what is even more cruel is that some people are so hungry that they eat their own flesh and bones...... In ancient books, the tragic scenes of the Great Famine, such as "mourning all over the wilderness", "starvation carrying the road", and "cannibalism", actually appeared in Henan in the 40s of the 20th century!"
——In May 1943, the "Qianfeng Daily" published a series of newsletters on the disaster area published by reporter Li Rui (Ruí), entitled "Silhouette of the Yu Disaster", signed by the pen name Liu Ying.
"The refugees were crammed into stuffy tank cars, flatbed wagons, dilapidated cars, crowds piled on top of each other, huddled on the canopy of the train, children, the elderly and women grasping at whatever might be caught off guard in the rush of the train. Sometimes they fall off because their fingers are unconscious in the cold. But the train will not pay attention.
What is the fate of these refugees who have fled to the "Western Province" with great difficulty? Whether they go to Xi'an or Lingbao, they still do not see any hope of life. Xi'an forbade Henan refugees to stay here, and only "transited" porridge and food at relief sites at one time, and many refugees had no choice but to dig a small ditch outside Xi'an, and their families crouched in the ditch like snakes. Continue westward, and the future is even more bleak. Many people starved to death, and some families committed suicide en masse. ”
American journalist photographed hungry children
——In March 1943, the article "Waiting for the Harvest" written by Bai Xiude, a reporter of Time magazine in the United States
At the official gentry meeting in Xingyang, the county magistrate Zuo Zonglian cried for fear that he would not be able to complete the task of requisitioning grain. In Zheng County, Lu Yan, the county magistrate, said that when the family surnamed Li committed suicide by throwing themselves into the river after handing over the little wheat they had, he could not help but weep bitterly, knelt on the ground, and kowtowed, begging for exemption from military rations. ”
——Zhang Zhonglu, former Minister of Construction of Henan Province of the Kuomintang, "Memories of the Henan Disaster in 1942"
"We were talking to the head of the group, does he have land? yes, 20 acres. How much grain can he harvest? 15 pounds per acre. What about taxes? 13 pounds per acre.
In a sparsely populated village, we met a man who was eating a terrible mixture of buckwheat husks, leaves, and elm bark, and who had collected 500 pounds of wheat in his own field last year, and who had to sell his cattle and donkeys to make up the difference, when the government had taken it all and decided that he had not paid enough taxes. ”
——Bai Xiude, 1946, "China's Thunder: Henan Famine"
During the Great Famine in Henan in 1942-1943, no less than 3 million people died due to man-made causes, which was almost equivalent to the total number of people lost by the Kuomintang army during the entire Anti-Japanese War, which was not only the most significant disaster during the Anti-Japanese War, but also one of the worst famines in the world.
Unlike other major powers embroiled in World War II, Chiang Kai-shek's China had neither the resources of the global colonies nor the astronomical amount of aid from the United States across the ocean, nor was its inefficient government able to effectively organize all of its national resources to tide over the crisis.
Natural disasters and man-made disasters, especially corruption and dereliction of duty, eventually led to this terrible famine, but these are not the real causes of this "man-made famine", the real root cause is actually that "the Kuomintang government is simply unable to effectively deal with agricultural and rural problems", especially since July 1941, the Kuomintang government began to implement the "land tax collection" system, that is, to collect land tax in the form of grain rather than currency - a fatal blow to China's rural economy.
Although the plight of the army's grain requisition caused by inflation was alleviated after the adoption of the "land levy and requisition", the price was that the living conditions of the vast number of peasants deteriorated dramatically, and it was these miserable rural people who paid for it, and the collapse of the Kuomintang rule began.
Granting, requisitioning, and requisitioning
Since 1928, land levies and related surcharges have been levied and used by provincial and local governments. But as the war dragged on, the Nationalist governments that had retreated to the Great Southwest found that their sources of tax revenue had fallen by 67 percent while their expenditures had increased by 33 percent, and the Kuomintang government was in dire need of a new source of tax revenue.
Prior to this, in order to solve the food supply of the huge number of troops and civilian officials stationed in various places, the Nationalist Government had always adopted the method of market purchase, but the provinces of the Kuomintang were simply unable to solve the surging demand for grain through the market, and the only result of using fiat currency to buy was to make the local grain prices soar to the point that no one could afford it, so in the second half of 1939, the Shanxi government took the lead in adopting the method of using wheat to pay for the field tax, which not only ensured the sufficient supply of grain in the hands of the government, but also saved a lot of expenses。
At first, the Chongqing government was cautious, first because the land tax was not a tax attributed to the central government, and because it was much more complicated to collect a tax in kind than a cash tax. But the rapidly deteriorating economy leaves them with no choice. Finally, in the spring of 1941, the Chongqing government decided to nationalize the land and expropriate it in kind.
The Nationalist Government's original idea was idealistic, with the new tax rate setting a total tax in kind equivalent to the total amount of the pre-war formal land levy and all related surcharges.
When it came into effect in 1941, 2 buckets of rice were levied according to the tax of 1 legal tender (the next year, it became 1 yuan tax and 4 buckets of rice). But other provinces that do not produce rice must pay taxes according to the exchange rate of other grains and rice, for example, 1.4 buckets of wheat can be used to offset the tax of 1 fiat currency.
A rice vendor in the village
The most exaggerated is Gansu province, which has to pay for nine different crops, including beans, corn and millet. Until 1943, the farmers who grew cotton were forced to take on the double burden of land because the government did not consider cotton, a war material, to be a food crop.
In addition to the land tax, the peasants also have to pay the equivalent of 30% of the amount of "county-level public grain", 13% of the "grain" tax, in addition, there is also a 10% loss fee, these items add up, the peasants have 53% more land endowment out of thin air.
This is just a starting price, and if the land is collected by the central government, the provincial government will "forcibly expropriate" the peasants' grain, that is, the peasants must designate a specified share of grain to sell to the government, and the proportion is the same as that of the land endowment; although theoretically speaking, the objects of the forced expropriation can get the same amount of cash gains, but readers, guess what, will the Kuomintang government honestly pay for it?
From the very beginning (1941), the government would pay only 30% of the total price of the compulsory requisition in cash, and the rest would be paid in the form of various promissory notes (Treasury rice vouchers, national currency savings vouchers, US dollar savings vouchers).
The disgusting approach is that the compulsory requisition price recognized by the government has nothing to do with the market price, at most half of the market price, and due to the corruption and exploitation of government departments at all levels, the target of the compulsory expropriation does not even think of such a little cash.
By 1943, the Chongqing government could not even get the 30% grain money after the deductions, so the "requisition" became "requisition" - the peasants would get receipts for the "borrowed" grain, and after five years, the government would give the peasants back the same amount of grain - no interest!
From the beginning to the end, the Nationalist Government never accepted these IOUs for the requisition of grain or the promissory notes for the issuance of requisitioned grain.
The matter was far from over at this point - the peasants had to personally deliver the collected grain to the government-designated collection stations. According to the regulations, the government's collection station should be no more than a day's journey from any taxpayer, in fact, this distance is an average of 4-5 days' journey.
When they arrived at the collection station, the peasants had to stay there for at least 5-14 days to complete the entire payment process, and all the costs of transporting the grain, as well as the cost of room and board, had to be borne by themselves – and the cost of each link was not less than the official amount of the field endowment.
Under normal circumstances, the national government levied 100 catties of rice, and the actual burden on the peasants who paid the tax was 2-300 catties. Moreover, if we encounter the inevitable deliberate difficulties, the peasants' burdens will only be heavier.
When the grain was collected, the corrupt officials and corrupt officials in all links began a new round of feasting. Every stage of expropriation, storage, transportation and distribution is rife with terrible corruption:
For example, millers misreported losses during the milling and cleaning process, which cost an average of 10 per cent, government employees at all levels reported losses in the name of "scattered" to enrich themselves, and during transport, some simply reported that the ships carrying the grain capsized or were robbed by bandits – and the average rate of loss during the storage phase was 30 per cent.
Rice market
When it was time to transport and distribute it, the officials would sell some of the new grain, and then replace it with stale grain or rotten grain that had been bitten by insects and rats, and if they had no scruples, they would simply mix it with bran, rice husks, straw, and gravel, and if the weight was not up to the mark, they would water the grain.
The grain that was peeled down layer by layer and finally distributed to the soldiers was hard to swallow, because the rice was mixed with so much debris that the Kuomintang soldiers called this pig food "Eight Treasure Rice".
Assessments, exorbitant taxes, and levies on military rations
Before the outbreak of the war, the peasants in China were responsible for a large amount of taxes, assessments, and labor in addition to the land tax, and after the land tax was unified and returned to the central government, the provincial government's fiscal revenue fell sharply, and in 1941, the central government returned 50% of the land to the local government, and from the following year, the central government changed to assign a certain percentage of the various taxes to the local government—such as 15% of the land tax, 30% of the business tax, and 25% of the inheritance tax.
But the shrewd central government collects grain and gives money to the local governments, and the result is that the subsidies promised to local governments fall short of expectations, but rather increase inflation.
Naturally, local governments will dig out their minds and devise clever names to exhaust all kinds of alternative ways to supplement their financial resources, and this kind of illegal but tacitly approved by the higher authorities is collectively referred to as apportionment.
The content of the apportionment is not static, some places are levied on a monthly basis, some places are levied on an annual basis, and some types are still one-time. About one-quarter of the central and provincial governments set the rules, and the landlords and gentry in each region set the most, and the largest types of apportionments came from the actual controllers and chieftains of the villages.
Although illiteracy is everywhere, it does not affect the tricks of all kinds of ghosts:
For example, there is a tax on "donating straw sandals for recruits," a tax on condolences to military dependents, a tax on "training air defense cadres," and a tax on "fuel for garrison troops." In addition, there are national salvation bonds, telephone poles, road repairs, rice allowance for teachers, school equipment, food and oil for the chief's meeting, administrative subsidies for the chief, tax on funeral expenses for military families, and so on.
According to the Nationalist Government's own rough statistics, there are as many as 616 types of assessments in the Kuomintang under different names, but many of them are just similar assessments with different names.
Of all the types of apportionment, the one involved the raising of funds and supplies for the army was undoubtedly the heaviest, and often such apportionment orders came directly from the central government, which oppressed the local governments for a long time, because the higher authorities were only responsible for issuing tasks, and never considered whether the local government could bear them.
Civilians at war.
In addition to funds, the troops stationed in various places will also constantly put forward all kinds of material needs to the local government, from timber, canvas and iron nails for building fortifications and barracks, to chicken, duck and fish to improve their lives, the national army troops want everything - the only way to solve the problem is new assessments.
If the endless apportionment is a dense collection of leeches lying on the body to suck blood, then the collection of military rations is an out-and-out cannibal beast:
The Kuomintang troops in the theaters had the right to collect military rations directly from the local government in areas where the allocation of tax and grain was not in place, or where it was difficult to allocate grain because of the long distance.
The price of military rations has never changed, and the process of requisition is the same as that of local governments, and the so-called requisition money has been withheld at various levels, and it can hardly reach the peasants. However, the task of military food requisition can be made to the local government at any time and in any number of requests.
From 1940 to 1944, the exact amount of military rations levied by the Kuomintang army was always a mystery, no one could count it clearly, and the collection data in various places were basically not credible, and even in the flawed records of the Nationalist government, some shocking figures could still be seen: Sichuan, for example, provided 25%-50% of the military rations of the local garrison, while in the Fifth Theater and the Sixth War In 1942, the amount of military rations requisitioned by Hubei Province, where the regional troops were assembled, reached 77% of the total amount of grain requisitioned by the fields and localities!
Hu Zongnan's Central Army, which had been stationed in Shaanxi for a long time to defend the Communists, only received a full amount of military rations in 1941, and the rest of the time, all the shortfalls were "solved on the spot", but there is no record of whether they paid according to the regulations.
During the great famine in Henan, military rations were levied
At the end of 1942, when the great famine in Henan Province reached its peak, the commanders of the local garrison, Jiang Dingwen and Tang Enbo, not only did not provide disaster relief, but forced the Henan Provincial Government and the Food Administration Bureau to collect three months' worth of military rations from the victims. In order to collect grain, Jiang Dingwen, as the commander of the theater of operations, also detained the then director of the Henan Finance Department and the director of the Food Administration. If you don't take food, you won't let people go.
When asked why he was so persecuted, Jiang Dingwen replied unashamedly: "I am only in charge of the military, and the requisition of grain is a matter for the provincial government." ”
The county government went to the countryside to force grain, but the peasants could not hand over the grain, so they "took the people to the county government for a few days without food, and beat them up and put them back to sell their land."
Or they sent the regiments of the self-defense regiment to the peasants' homes to "sit and urge," live with the peasants, eat the peasants', and force the peasants to sell everything to pay for grain.
In January 1943, Henan Province collected 1.7 million bales of military rations, and Lu Yuwen, director of the Henan Grain Administration Bureau, who completed the task of requisitioning grain, was commended by Chiang Kai-shek. The Kuomintang Central News Agency also sent a telegram saying: "The people in all parts of Henan are well aware of the great righteousness, and they have exhausted all they have and contributed to the country." It is a good "chime to have everything", and the blood, tears, bones and flesh of the people in the disaster area have all been knocked out and devoured.
Endless conscription
In the view of the Chongqing government, China, which is mired in the war of modernization, is not a developed country, and the only capital that can be used is abundant human resources.
A large number of ordinary people were conscripted to serve in labor, which was not a new thing during the Republic of China, but after the start of the Anti-Japanese War, it became a huge burden for the people.
Men, women, and children were requisitioned to build forts, trenches, roads, and airfields: 200,000 each on the Burma Highway and the Burma Railway, and at least 500,000 more for the construction of large airfields for B-29 bombers.
In Hunan, 500,000 people were laying roadbeds for the Hunan-Jiangxi Railway; when the famine was at its peak, Tang Enbo requisitioned hundreds of thousands of laborers to build a new embankment of the Yellow River and dig hundreds of kilometers of anti-tank trenches; and in all parts of the country, millions of people were forcibly requisitioned to transport tax and military rations from the collection centers in various localities to the distribution stations.
All labor has its own hardships, but there are only two points that have achieved a uniform standard across the country:
The first is the extremely poor living and sanitary conditions, and the second is the exploitation of labor and the erosion of labor remuneration.
According to the compulsory labor law promulgated by the Chongqing government, labor should be paid or a certain amount of grain, oil, and salt, and that such labor should be limited to the slack season – not so much a law regulation intended to be implemented as a science fiction novel written by the Chongqing government.
Today, we can sing the praises of the people who forged the international lifeline with their flesh and blood during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and built a large airfield for taking off and landing B-29 Super Fortress bombers with the most primitive tools, but for the working people at that time, this terrible experience was something they could not avoid, thousands of people died and were wounded, and many people were forced to flee the land in order to escape hard labor.
Crushed countryside
If we only look at the tax rates announced by the Nationalist Government, even in 1942 and 1943, when taxes were at their peak, the levy, purchase, and requisition of land taxes accounted for only 8 percent of the country's rice and wheat production.
However, the tax burden borne by the peasants far exceeds the regulations of the Chongqing government, and in 1943, for example, the 1 legal currency for 4 buckets of rice was exchanged, and the exchange standards in various localities changed according to whether the province was a major grain producer, or the actual control of the central government. For example, at that time, Yunnan implemented 1 fiat currency for 1.2 dou, while Sichuan was 1 fiat currency for 7 dou.
What is less well known is that throughout the Anti-Japanese War, the ability to govern the countryside in the Kuomintang was essentially not much different from that of the late Ming Dynasty, and a large amount of land – at least more than one-third – was not registered on the tax rolls. After the war, the Nationalist Government conducted land surveys in 6 provinces and 108 counties, and was astonished to find that the area of taxable land had increased by 56%:
54% in Anhui, 37% in Henan, 27% in Zhejiang, 17% in Hunan... In a few counties, only 5% of the land is included in the tax register.
Photograph of rural China during the Anti-Japanese War – Bishan County, Chongqing.
Even if the land survey was conducted, the government could not collect the tax grain, because the vast majority of the land was in the hands of the big landowners and high-ranking officials, who should be called the wealthy members of the big landlords and gentry clique, who had always resisted cooperating with the government's tax collectors. And, in fact, "not bound by the law, and exempt from taxes and conscription".
The Chongqing government is well aware of this, but there is nothing it can do – the only thing that can change this deadlock is a complete revolution.
All the tax burden fell on the small and medium-sized landowners and tenant farmers. These people ended up paying an average of five times the government-imposed tax rate, and when the working people were crushed by endless exploitation, the KMT's prestige and influence had already fallen to its lowest point.
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