Chapter 7 Chapter VII

The locust plague occurred in the autumn of 1943.Regarding the description of the locust plague, I know that the editor-in-chief of "A Hundred Years of Disaster History" has other arrangements. In this article, the focus is not on locusts.There are larger battles in Chinese history about locusts; another friend, whom I respect, is writing about them.But this does not affect my mention of them, because we are describing locusts of different ages.He wrote about the locusts in Shandong in 1927, and I wrote about the locusts living in my hometown in 1943. The locust plagues are similar, but the locusts are different.According to my grandma, the locusts in 1943 were big, some were green (I think they were young), some were yellow (I think they were elders), they were in groups, covering the sky, like what happened later Like the bomber fleet during the Pacific War or the Normandy landing, the sound of "buzzing" was heard from afar, and everyone swooped down, covering a crop field; within an hour, the crop field was gone.In the spring of 1943, the wheat was hit by the wind, but there was no harvest;Locusts have come, people have died, and are continuing to die one after another.According to my father and my grandmother, locusts do not eat mung beans, sweet potatoes, peanuts, cowpeas, but beans, corn, and sorghum.In order to protect their own lives, the refugees in my hometown, who had not yet died, fought against the locusts.We have nothing to do with the government, its exploitation and exploitation often go through a crazy machine, not to mention they have guns; but we can fight locusts face to face, and there is no suspicion of rebellion.This is the difference between locusts and governments.How to fight? Three ways: 1. Tie the bed sheet to the bamboo pole and wave it around to drive away the grasshoppers.But this is a way of benefiting oneself at the expense of others. If you drive away the grasshopper, if it is not in your field, it will go to someone else's field; what's more, if you drive it away today, it will come again tomorrow.2. Dig large ditches between fields to block the progress of grasshoppers.When the grasshoppers finish eating this field and move to another field, they have to go through a big ditch. At this time, they smash the grasshoppers with a rice pounding pestle and smash them into mud; or burn them with fire; More thorough; I think there must be as many grasshoppers killed by villagers as there were people who starved to death back then.3. Pray to God.My grandmother went to burn incense at the incense altar set up by Niu Jinbao's aunt, and prayed to God to protect her employer's land from grasshoppers.But according to the data, all the folks have done are in vain.There are too many grasshoppers. Relying on cloth sheets, ditches, or God did not solve the problem, and the locusts still ate most of their crops.The disaster victims were disaster victims in 1942, and they were still disaster victims in 1943.

The tyrant of nature began to shake the lifeline of farmers in Henan again. The drought burned their wheat, the locusts ate their sorghum, and the hailstone killed their buckwheat. The last hope withered with the dying autumn seedlings. and drive them on the road to death.Nine out of ten Henan people at that time were trapped in hunger. If things go on like this, I think the Henan people in my hometown will starve to death one day.This is what we and our government do not want to see.Facts later proved that not all the people in Henan were starved to death, and many people were still handed down and multiplied. Fifty years later, it seems to be the second largest province in China in terms of population.Why didn't they die at that time? Did the government take any measures? No.Did the locusts fly away on their own? No.What was that? The Japanese came—in 1943, the Japanese entered the disaster-stricken area in Henan, which saved the lives of my fellow villagers.The Japanese committed heinous crimes in China, killing people like hemp, and blood flowed like rivers. We are inseparable from them; , Saved the lives of many of my fellow villagers.They gave us a lot of rations.We ate the rations of the imperial army, and our lives were maintained and strengthened.Of course, Japan’s motives for distributing military rations are absolutely bad. They have strategic intentions and political plots. They are trying to buy people’s hearts and occupy our land. In other words, does our own government have no strategic intentions and political conspiracy in dealing with our disaster victims? They just let us go.Under such circumstances, in order to survive, if you have milk, you are a mother. If you eat Japanese food, you are a traitor to the country and a traitor. What can you not sell in this country? What can you miss? In order to fight against the Japanese army, you, In order to fight against the Communist Party, for the Allied Powers, for the Southeast Asian War, and for Stilwell’s excessive levies on us, we turned around and supported the Japanese army and the aggressors to invade us.So, at that time, my fellow countrymen, my relatives and friends, who led the way for the Japanese army, supported the Japanese army, carried stretchers, and even joined the team to help the Japanese army disarm the Chinese army, countless.Fifty years later, it is time to track down the traitors. There are so many traitors everywhere, and we are all descendants of the traitors. How do you trace them? According to records, during the few weeks of the Henan campaign, about 50,000 Chinese soldiers were killed His compatriots disarmed.Let's take a look at the data in full:

In the spring of 1944, the Japanese army decided to carry out a large-scale raid in Henan Province in preparation for a larger-scale offensive in the south.The nominal commander of the Henan theater is a man with piercing eyes named Jiang Dingwen.In Henan Province, he is best at intimidating administrative officials in his jurisdiction.He had scolded the chairman of Honan province, causing him to co-operate with him in a panic to formulate a plan that deprived farmers of the last morsels of food.The Japanese army used about 60,000 troops when they attacked Henan.The Japanese army launched an attack in mid-April and broke through the defense lines of the Chinese army with such force.The Chinese army, which ravaged the peasants in the famine years, was itself sick and demoralized by years of indolence.Due to the needs of the front line and for the officers' own self-interest, the army began to forcibly requisition farmers' cattle to supplement transportation.Henan is a wheat-growing area, and cattle are the main means of production for farmers. The forced expropriation of cattle is unbearable for farmers.

Farmers have been waiting for this moment.For months they endured the torment of famine and brutal military extortion.Now, they don't take it anymore.They armed themselves with shotguns, broadswords and rakes.They began by disarming individual soldiers and eventually progressed to disarming entire companies.It is estimated that some 50,000 Chinese soldiers were disarmed by their own countrymen during the few weeks of the Henan campaign.Under such circumstances, it would be incredible if the Chinese army could last for three months.The whole countryside is in a state of armed insurrection, and resistance is hopeless.Within three weeks the Japanese had captured all their objectives, the railroads to the south were in Japanese hands, and three hundred thousand Chinese troops had been annihilated.

Why did Japan use 60,000 troops to annihilate 300,000 Chinese troops in one fell swoop? It is because they distributed military rations and relied on the people.The people are vast and exist.From 1943 to the spring of 1944, we helped the Japanese invaders.Traitors? People? When Bai Xiude interviewed a Chinese military officer before the battle, accusing them of expropriation and extortion, the officer said: "When the common people die, the land still belongs to the Chinese; but if the soldiers starve to death, the Japanese will take over the country." I want to express my thoughts to the Chairman.When this question was put before those of us who were about to starve to death, the question became: Would we rather starve to death as a Chinese ghost? Or not starve to death as a subjugated slave? We chose the latter.

This is the final conclusion I have come to after reviewing 1942.