Chapter 4 1.3 Anti-blockade

Anti-blockade is a war without gunpowder. Chen Yun was resourceful, and even the Kuomintang officers and soldiers who blocked the border area became the transport team of the border area. Although the production in the border area had greatly developed, the scale of the border area economy was small, and the strength of the border area economy alone could not be completely self-sufficient.Many important materials still have to rely on imports from the Kuomintang ruled areas.Native products from the border areas also need to go to the Kuomintang-controlled areas to find markets.Therefore, in the struggle to stabilize financial prices in the border areas, in addition to correctly handling the relationship between border currency and legal currency, another most important task is to carry out trade struggles and break the blockade.

Since the economic scale of the border area is weak compared with the Kuomintang-controlled area, to gain the initiative in the economic struggle, it puts forward very high requirements on the leadership art of the financial and economic departments.However, in the past, the Border Region did not have a good grasp of the management of trade outside the region, and there were many things that were taken at a loss, and the work seemed to be very passive. After Chen Yun took office, he greatly strengthened the border region's management of foreign trade, actively expanded the scope of foreign trade, and initiated trade struggles.The border area not only established an economic united front with import and export merchants and porters, but also took advantage of various contradictions within the Kuomintang to carry out open, secret, upper-level, and lower-level struggles in various forms to establish a broad economic united front. Develop trade relations around, expand the scope of trade, and break through blockades.At the same time, through in-depth investigation and research, mastering the economic situation, studying the laws of various economic struggles, and adopting various methods to carry out flexible and tit-for-tat trade struggles, the situation of being passively beaten was quickly ended, and the initiative in trade struggles was obtained.

At that time, salt was the largest commodity exported by the border area, accounting for 37.16% of the export value in 1944 alone; cotton was the largest commodity imported by the border region, and cotton and cotton fabrics accounted for 68.58% of the import value in 1944.Both have a great impact on prices in the border areas.The Kuomintang blocked and seized these two supplies tightly, and launched a war without gunpowder in the border area. In the season when there is a lot of salt transport in the border areas, the diehards of the Kuomintang take advantage of controlling the market to raise salt taxes, lower salt prices, control transportation, restrict or even prohibit salt merchants in the Kuomintang-controlled areas from selling salt in the border areas, in an attempt to crush the salt industry in the border areas.Salt was one of the main sources of financial income in the border areas, and most of the salt was exported to Xi'an and other areas ruled by the Kuomintang.If the price is too low, it will have a great impact on the economy of the border area.

Chen Yun advocated striving for the initiative.Beginning in the spring of this year, the Kuomintang-controlled area was affected by the war, and the way of Haiyan was blocked.Chen Yun instructed the salt industry department of the border area to raise the price of salt while the Kuomintang-controlled area was short of salt. On June 24, he told the Standing Committee of the Northwest Bureau that the key to salt sales is whether the price of salt can be raised when it is exported to the Kuomintang areas, and the struggle to increase the price of salt must be carried out.The current price of 13,000 yuan per catty of salt is just to protect capital, and it will increase to 14,000 to 16,000 yuan in the future.

The Kuomintang diehards did not mention the damage caused by their blockade to the border area, but immediately slandered the border area government's act of raising the price of salt.In order to resist the rise in salt prices in the border areas, they deliberately did not come to the border areas to buy salt, but used the salt on hand to supply the market. Chen Yun ordered the Border Area Salt Company to increase the price of salt by 20%.To stockpile salt, you must have funds, and you can't issue too much currency. Chen Yun decided to use the trading company's sales of local products to stockpile salt.

As soon as the news spread, salt merchants came to the door within a few days, demanding to buy salt from the border area at the original price.However, the salt industry department in the border area was very firm and did not agree with it.Seeing that there was no way out, the salt merchants thought in their minds that even if the price of salt in the border areas had risen, it would be more cost-effective to sell salt in Qinghai than to sell salt in Qinghai. Within two months, salt merchants flocked here.The table salt in the border area has achieved continuous brisk sales amid the price increase, fully grasping the initiative in the market.The diehards of the Kuomintang could not gain the upper hand in the salt confrontation, so they had to follow the price of salt in the border area. After that, the blockade of salt had to be relaxed, and some ports were blocked openly and secretly.

On October 13, Chen Yun happily reported the situation of the struggle to the Standing Committee of the Northwest Bureau, saying that the price of salt had been raised nine times in five months, and an exchange of equal value had been achieved in exports.In terms of salt sales policy in the future, the national economy and the people's livelihood will be put first, not suffering a loss second, and making a lot of money third. On December 3, when Chen Yun gave a report on financial issues at the Second Session of the Second Session of the Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Senate, he also devoted himself to the fight against salt distribution, exposing the Kuomintang diehards' plot to destroy the border region's economy, and countering their slander.

Cotton buying season has arrived just as Salt's fight against the blockade has been victorious. In September and October of 1944, Guanzhong New Flower came into the market.On the one hand, the Kuomintang called for loans from cotton farmers, and on the other hand, it lowered the price and forced purchases. In order to break the cotton blockade of the Kuomintang diehards in the border area, we must find a way to win over cotton farmers and merchants.For this reason, Chen Yun led the finance and economics department to adopt a flexible tactic: attract customers from far away at a high price.

At that time, the purchase price of cotton in the Kuomintang area was only 1,100 yuan per catty.The border area was bought at 2,800 yuan, and the price difference was as high as 1,700 yuan.Cotton farmers and cotton merchants saw the high purchase price of cotton in the border area, and tried every means to break through the blockade and trafficked cotton to the border area. Attracted by the high purchase price of cotton in the border areas, cotton in the Kuomintang-controlled areas continued to flow to the border areas.In the Kuomintang army on the blockade, the company platoon leaders took entire companies and platoons of soldiers to carry flowers, and some ran three times a night.In just two months, the border region fought to import more than one million catties of cotton, successfully breaking the blockade.

When the Kuomintang diehards woke up, it was already too late. Not long after, the price of flowers in the Kuomintang ruled area more than quadrupled, and the plan to force the purchase of 600,000 tans of cotton went bankrupt.In this way, the high price of cotton harvested in the border area at the beginning not only did not suffer a loss, but also took advantage of it in the end.Due to the receipt of enough cotton, the border area was not only able to guarantee its own use, but also had spare capacity to support other base areas.After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in the second year, when a large number of cadres set off from Yan'an to the front line, they were issued brand new cotton clothes inside and outside.