Chapter 68 This year's general trend

At the end of 1941, China rejoiced because of the United States' participation in the war, believing that victory was not far away.Only one year later, in 1943, sentiment plummeted.Inflation has been out of control, the working class is malnourished, and pessimism and disappointment have become difficult to hide. In March 1943, a reporter from the American "Vogue" magazine took a salon photo for visiting Ms. Song Meiling.She wears an elegant tight-fitting cheongsam and speaks fluent English.She stood with Chiang Kai-shek at the pinnacle of glory, and she received warm applause from members of Congress during her speech in the US Congress.At the Cairo Conference this year, Chiang Kai-shek sat with Roosevelt and Churchill as the leader of a major power.This is the culmination of the glory of the Chiang Kai-shek couple, but fatally, their weaknesses in domestic governance have been revealed this year.In this way, the light and the shadow came together, which seemed extremely disharmonious.

This year, due to the death of Lin Sen, the chairman of the National Government, in a car accident, Chiang Kai-shek succeeded the chairman of the National Government.So far, he has won all the highest positions, and is still desperately strengthening his personal power, but the incompetence of the government does not change.He faced many problems: his political opponents, the Communist Party, were constantly raising the terms of negotiations; his chief of staff, Stilwell, demanded more military power from him; American diplomats in China took the initiative to contact the Communist Party; the Japanese army was preparing to launch a desperate final offensive; the opposition parties demanded that the KMT end its political training and implement constitutionalism. They intensified their political activities and demanded political openness.Chiang Kai-shek's power began to encounter unprecedented challenges since the War of Resistance, and the prestige he had accumulated in leading the War of Resistance had been offset by political inaction.

Americans in Chongqing were aware of the tense social atmosphere. In the future, the American expert on China issues, John Fairbank, was doing intelligence work in Chongqing at that time, and had many contacts with the local intellectual circles. In August 1943 he wrote: "There is little hope for the existing regime, because it cannot be emotionally dependent on the masses of the people, and its administration is too inefficient to actually do anything good for the people, while appalling suffering and Misfortunes always follow in its tracks." The good impression established by the National Government and Chiang Kai-shek in the United States also began to collapse, like an over-inflated balloon, which was in danger of exploding. The disillusionment also occurred in the summer of 1943.Pearl Buck, who lived and grew up in China, won the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature for her book The Great Earth, which is based on the Chinese countryside.Chiang Kai-shek and his wife liked Mount Lushan, and Mount Lushan was also the place where Pearl S. Buck lived.But Pearl Buck didn't like Song Meiling's once popular talk in the United States. She commented that Song Meiling, as Roosevelt's guest, behaved like a wayward princess.Once she received a call from Song's attendant, saying, please come right away, Madam wants to see you.Pearl Buck hurried from the town of Perkathy, Pennsylvania, only to find that she was not invited.It was Soong Meiling's entourage Chen Zhenzhu who was looking for her, and she just said "I'm sorry" and it was over. "New York Times" reporter Baldwin reflected the long-standing disillusionment of the US military stationed in Kunming in the "Reader's Digest" No. 8 as a military reporter.

For the Chongqing government, red flags have been sent out.The Chinese government has been governed especially on moral prestige, because the Chinese central government has historically been nothing more than a thin class of administrative and judicial officials sparsely and dispersedly over the broad masses of the people.As a ruler, relying less on strength than on prestige and its public image, the fate of the regime hangs in the balance as people move from suspicion to conviction that it is an immoral government. The Chongqing government wanted to control rising prices, but by 1943 the situation had not improved, but worsened.Since the second year of the Pacific War, prices have risen sharply. The living index in 1943 has increased by 410 times compared with July 1937. Workers, civil servants, and teachers in the city can hardly live normally.Among all residents, urban residents feel the threat of inflation more strongly than rural peasants. Among urban residents, the life and survival of soldiers, low-level civil servants, and teachers are most seriously threatened. It is an important foundation of national government power.The profiteers, corrupt officials, smuggled military officers, and dignitaries who control the exchange of foreign exchange in the rear of the country are living a life of debauchery, resulting in extremely low and chaotic social order and morality.

A strange thing happened in 1943. This year was already the seventh year of the Anti-Japanese War, and the war was the top priority. However, the Chongqing government issued an order to tighten military production, reduce funds, and lay off one-fifth of the personnel.Li Chengqian, the factory director of the Jinling Arsenal, took out the roster and told the people above: "I have no idlers here, everyone has a job, one is not too many, and one is not less, everyone on the roster has a guarantor and a photo. This year, American consultant Nelson came to China to investigate and found that the standard of China's ordnance production was so low that some soldiers were given less than one bullet within a year.

Intellectuals gradually lost their loyalty to the government, and archaeologist Li Ji felt that Chiang Kai-shek's action in support of the price limit was almost ridiculous, as if the economic law would be changed by personal request.In Kunming, scholars scathingly mocked Chiang Kai-shek as both a hero and a sage.Jin Yuelin refused to read Chiang Kai-shek's new work "The Destiny of China".Intellectuals believe that if they are truly valued, or if the upper and lower classes share the joys and sorrows when the country is in crisis, then even if they are poor and hungry, there will be no loss and resentment.But after witnessing such horrific inequality and extravagance at the top of society, sincere and sensitive intellectuals are finally beginning to lose heart.The arrogant and insensitive government seems indifferent to the starvation of teachers, but it is very interested in strengthening political and spiritual control, and the party-oriented education will not relax.

The treatment of the soldiers in the front is getting lower and lower, which is inversely proportional to the price.They live a half-starved life, and they are wrapped in single clothes in the middle of winter.The monthly salary income of generals in the army is even lower than that of ordinary workers in some industries. If calculated by the living index, it is only equivalent to the income of a clerical sergeant before the war.The treatment of soldiers is not only low, but they are often owed military salaries, and the military salaries are often deducted by some officers after they arrive in the army.The deterioration of the food led to the deterioration and weakness of the soldiers' physique. In 1943, China airlifted 1,800 recruits to Ramgarh, India for training, and 68% of them were eliminated due to their unqualified physique.The difference in the physique of the soldiers can be seen from this.A military commander at the time admitted, "Today, if you get your salary in a regular manner, you will be hungry, and if you can't do things, you are bound to fail; It’s friendly enough to say so, and everyone forgives any problems. This is not doing well, but doing bad is good, justice is discredited, and right and wrong are reversed.” Some military officers are engaged in business, and some even take risks to carry out smuggling activities, embezzling and deducting soldiers’ salaries, and eating empty allowances. The phenomenon has formed a general trend, the spirit of senior officers is depressed, and the corruption is serious.Chiang Kai-shek did not deny this fact. He admitted, "Since the end of the Anti-Japanese War, the content and reality of corruption in our National Revolutionary Army are so bizarre that it is unimaginable." But except in a paternalistic tone He did not take strong steps to change the situation.These harsh facts cannot but affect the morale of the soldiers.Due to the above-mentioned reasons, there are so many deserted soldiers in the army, so that each army cannot carry out effective combat skills training for soldiers in a planned and systematic manner.This vicious cycle led to the decline of the combat capability of the troops, and the large number of soldiers fleeing increased the already serious attrition in the army beyond combat casualties.Another consequence is the loosening of military discipline in the army, and the increase in violations of discipline among soldiers that disturb the people, which arouses resentment among the local people.The weakness of the national government's army was finally exposed to the world in 1944 when the Japanese army launched the Battle of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi.

An aging, ossified, family-oriented government is unconsciously hollowing out its own political base, and mistakenly believes that it can really be independent. On June 10 of this year, the Communist International officially announced its dissolution.The news caused great repercussions in China.The Kuomintang took the opportunity to propose that since the Communist International had been disbanded, the CCP, a branch of the Communist International, should also be disbanded.There are two opinions within the Kuomintang: one advocates that the Communist Party hand over military power and political power, and then the organization can be legal; the other advocates the merger of the Communist Party and the Kuomintang.The Kuomintang army also concentrated 16 divisions near the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, threatening Yan'an and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region with force.These actions were largely a form of psychological warfare, re-creating tension and anxiety in the relationship between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

On September 18, Zhang Lan, chairman of the China Democratic Political Group Alliance, published the paper "China Needs True Democracy", severely criticizing the one-party dictatorship of the Kuomintang, and demanding that the Kuomintang immediately abandon the one-party dictatorship, end party rule, and cancel partyization. Immediately prepare to implement constitutional government.He asked the government to first do the following: (1) Immediately set up an open and legal agreement agency to accommodate political senators from all parties and people outside the political council to jointly review the Constitution and promote constitutionalism; Freedom of assembly, association, residence, and body; (3) Immediately recognize the legal existence and activities of parties outside the Kuomintang; (4) Before the implementation of constitutional government, quasi-public opinion organs at all levels, such as the National Political Council, provincial and county councils, etc., Should have the right to review the budget and final accounts of the government at the same level and to impeach unjust officials of the government at the same level.This outspoken paper was printed as a pamphlet and widely circulated in the society.

The Eleventh Plenary Session of the Fifth Central Committee of the KMT held in September responded to the demands for constitutional government.The meeting stated that a National Assembly would be held one year after the end of the Anti-Japanese War to promulgate a constitution and implement constitutional government.Chiang Kai-shek pointed out at the meeting that the CCP issue "is a political issue and should be resolved using political methods." On October 5, Mao Zedong, the leader of the Communist Party of China, also expressed his goodwill, saying that "under the condition that Mr. Jiang and the Kuomintang are willing, we are willing to resume the negotiations between the two parties at any time."He asked Dong Biwu, the representative of the Communist Party of China, to adopt a moderate attitude when contacting the Kuomintang. On the 15th, Dong Biwu, the representative of the Communist Party of China, re-attended the Second National Political Council of the third session, and the deadlocked relationship between the KMT and the Communist Party began to ease.

The truncation of the Burma Road in 1942 made Japan's economic blockade against China complete, and the import and export trade in the rear was interrupted.Only the Hump route can get China a little help from its allies. In 1943, there were 5,266 factories in the rear, with a total capital of 487 million yuan.But from this year onwards, all industries in the rear have gone into depression.The number of new factories has decreased year by year, and the original factories have closed down one after another.For example, there were 871 original factories in Chongqing, but by 1943 270 factories had stopped working. With the weak industrial base and backward agricultural production in the rear to maintain a huge army and war expenditures, and to support a huge bureaucratic organization composed of numerous administrative and party personnel, the national government's finances will inevitably be unsustainable.