The Great Famine in Henan occurred in the summer of 1942 or 1941 to the spring of 1943, and a major drought occurred in Henan Province, and most of the harvests were cut off in summer and autumn. After the great drought, there was a locust plague, due to the Kuomintang government's ineffective disaster relief, inflation, grain production and other reasons, between 1942 and 1943, Henan broke out a terrible famine, 30 million people were affected, 3 million people died of hunger. Another 3 million people fled to Shaanxi, Gansu and the western region. Such a great national disaster was then obscured in the depths of history by the news blockade of the Kuomintang government.
The movie "1942", everyone should have seen it, the movie is based on the 1942 Henan famine as the background. I believe that many people will be shocked by the plot, but what I want to tell you is that the real scene is more like purgatory than the movie plot.
The following set of old photographs truly reflects the Great Famine in Henan in 1942.
However, 80 years later, this extremely tragic major historical event is rarely recorded in the history books, and people today know very little about its truth.
Drought burned their wheat, locusts ate their sorghum, hail killed their buckwheat, and in autumn the last hope withered with the dying autumn seedlings. They were caught on the road to death.
The torn cotton jacket without cotton was his only support
Their childhoods experienced starvation and death.
In the tide of refugees, almost all of them are old and weak women and children
Because of the war, millions of Henan Zhuangding left their villages and fields in batches and went out in droves. Because of hunger, the old, weak, women and children who remained behind also left their hometown after their husbands, carrying burdens and bags, day and night, day and night, day and night, and embarked on the journey of life.
Under the heavy military service and taxes year after year, there is little left of young and middle-aged laborers in rural Henan.
First, they changed from three meals to two meals, from two to one, no vegetables, no oil, no salt, and then eat grain, bran, and livestock, dreaming that as long as they can maintain their lives and survive the famine years, they will be lucky.
However, the grain and bran were gone, and they began to eat grass roots, peel the bark of trees, chew leaves, and fill their stomachs with things that ordinary livestock do not eat and can only make fertilizer.
Starvation and mass graves everywhere
Since ancient times, there has been no good way to provide disaster relief, either immigrants or millets. Both are very difficult.
The river dried up, and the villages along the river became ghost villages, and you can smell a dry smell through the photos
Dry hillside fields
Farmland that once depended on survival became a dead land
Railways and roads were blown up in the war, and it was extremely difficult for both "immigrants" and "millet transfers".
The main means of transportation used by the fleeing victims were their own legs, and they still had a long way to go to Luoyang.
The Longhai Line, west of Luoyang, was the only intact fugitive railway line at that time
Railroad to the Great Northwest
Even if you escape, in the same arduous western road, there is little hope of survival, but it is better than waiting for death
One by one, there were few living beings, and in the end, I don't know how many people survived
The pictures in this article are all from the Internet, the author and source of some photos are unknown, and the copyright of the pictures belongs to the original author.
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