Chapter 4 prices

Chen Yun took the military control committee to Shenyang by special train, and the trip from Harbin to Shenyang took five full days. Chen Yun and his core leadership team entered Shenyang on the evening of November 2, and went straight to the meeting room of the Military Control Committee in the lobby of the Yamato Hotel.This seven-story European-style building built during the Japanese Puppet Period was once the tallest building in the annex area at that time. It is located in the downtown area and next to the big turntable. It is easily identifiable and it is very convenient for people to come and go.The whole city of Shenyang was not powered on that day, so Chen Yun and Tao Zhu held a meeting overnight with candles to arrange the next day's work.Because there is no running water in the city, the first notice issued by the military control committee to the people entering the city is that all personnel are not allowed to use the resident flush toilets.

Chen Yun has just recovered from his illness.A year ago, he reported in a telegram to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that his body resistance was weaker than before, "Since autumn and winter, the number of colds has increased, and every time he catches a cold, he has a fever and sweats (there was no such symptom in Yan'an). To prevent continuous colds in the severe winter, and to prepare for the busyness of next spring and summer when the battle begins, we plan to take a rest for a while."Before Shenyang was liberated, Chen Yun's body gradually recovered, and his mental state improved significantly. Sometimes "he can still hear the sound of him playing the erhu".

Chen Yun was already very familiar with the city of Shenyang.At the end of the Anti-Japanese War, Chen Yun traveled between Shenyang and Changchun several times at the end of 1945 in order to open up the situation in the Northeast, negotiate with the Soviet Union to relax restrictions on the activities of the CCP troops, and prevent the Kuomintang from airlifting troops to major cities before the Soviets retreated. between.Although he has been working in the base area for a long time, he has never stopped observing the city.Even before 1948, the entire Northeast's major cities and major transportation routes were in the hands of the KMT, but Chen Yun did not believe that the CCP's rural bases could exist independently of the cities.

In the countryside, the Communist Party has plenty of food, but if the agricultural products cannot be exchanged, the countryside will be overwhelmed by the cities.When he was in "Northern Manchuria", Li Fuchun, member of the Standing Committee and Deputy Secretary of the Northeast Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, once said one thing: A Kuomintang agent who surrendered told him that if the Communist Party's base areas had no salt and no cloth, if they wanted to break the peasants' control of the Kuomintang Fantasy is impossible.Now, cities can't leave the countryside. The Communist Party has entered the cities, and it wants to help urban people solve their needs.The rural areas can just in turn save the cities.

Chen Yun said that three things are the key to the successful takeover of Shenyang: one is financial balance, the other is the balance of currency issuance, and the third is the cycle of train transportation and the number of vehicles running.The three things come down to one point, that is, whether prices can return to a reasonable level.If prices are not resolved, industry and commerce cannot be opened, and urban and rural areas cannot be connected.It is the "bull nose" of the whole Shenyang. The economic system of the Kuomintang-controlled areas is completely different from that of the liberated areas. In the liberated areas, grain is cheap and cloth is expensive, while in the Kuomintang-controlled areas, grain is expensive and cloth is cheap.To stabilize prices, we must first control the commodities that play a leading role in prices. In "Northern Manchuria" in 1946 and in the border areas in those days, cloth prices took the lead. Cloth prices rose, pork rose, and millet also rose. Because cotton didn't come, food couldn't go out, and people called it "full, cold to death." ".Now in Shenyang, the food price leads the commodity price.What the Communist Party did in the Liberated Areas was to use grain to trade with the Soviets in exchange for enough cloth and salt, and then use some of the imported cloth and salt to buy grain for the peasants in Jiang’s area, restricting the flow of surplus grain to the big cities in enemy-occupied areas. Strengthen its economic blockade.Now, the rural areas need to completely open the food ban to the cities.

Food in the Northeast countryside is abundant. Before the liberation of Shenyang in 1948, in order to curb violent price fluctuations, Chen Yun proposed that the liberated areas need to purchase 400,000 tons of grain in addition to expropriating 2 million tons of public grain. The method was to exchange salt and cloth for grain from farmers.At a high-level meeting of the Northeast Bureau, Chen Yun said, "We must have a certain amount of necessary materials." These materials include, "In addition to various expenditures and exports, we must always maintain 400,000 to 500,000 tons of grain. In addition to In addition to the grain, there is also an additional one million bolts of cloth in hand.”These materials became Shenyang's backing at the critical juncture in the winter of 1948.

Somewhat tricky is the rate of supply.The year 1948 in Shenyang was a poor harvest year, and the counties around Shenyang failed to harvest sorghum grains.There are as many as 300,000 troops entering Shenyang and concentrated around Shenyang, plus about 100,000 Shenyang citizens, needing 7,500 tons of food every month.Although Shenyang's citizens' grain storage is much higher than that of Changchun, the government's grain storage is almost zero.Before the Kuomintang army retreated, they sold all the military rations, so the troops only seized 3 million catties of grain after entering the city.In order to prevent the reserve grain from being transported to the city and the grain stockpiled in an emergency situation, before entering the city, Chen Yun arranged for relevant personnel to gather a batch of grain at a suitable location near Shenyang City. After November 2, the Military Control Commission mobilized all the vehicles that could be dispatched to rush to transport grain into the city. About 3,000 to 5,000 large vehicles were put into it every day, transporting 2,000 tons of grain a day.Even so, after all the emergency food has been shipped, the food gap in Shenyang City still exists.Zhu Qiwen, the mayor of Shenyang at the time, called merchants to collect grain, and Lu Guangji, chairman of the Shenyang Chamber of Commerce, went out to borrow 2,000 tons of military grain from large grain companies around Shenyang.The other most important route for food supply was to transport food from Kaiyuan and Andong to the city, but the broken railway became a bottleneck during the war.

Fortunately, Chen Yun had foreseen the importance of the railway.Northeast China is the area with the most dense railway network in the country, and Shenyang is the railway center of the entire Northeast. Before Shenyang's receiving work was fully deployed, Chen Yun mentioned the strategic value of the railway issue several times.He said: "A large area around Shenyang is severely famined. To shorten the time of chaos, the basic problem is to repair the railway." , and concentrate on repairing the railway from Siping south to Shenyang.This bought time for Shenyang to restore order.

The military control committee also has to deal with those speculators who make war money.In order to prevent speculators from taking advantage of the opportunity to snap up goods, local businessmen hoarding supplies, and prices falling first and then rising rapidly, the Military Control Commission announced the prices in Harbin, Jilin, Kaiyuan, and Andong in the Liberated Areas close to Shenyang, and at the same time announced the purchase and sale of goods in Shenyang department stores. The price is low, so that merchants are prepared for the price and dare to open the market. "Although supplies are mainly supplied by the government, as a city, the resumption of market transactions can truly restore its vitality." Wang Qizhi, who was in charge of financial takeover, recalled, "In order to attract more grain from the market into the city, we stipulated that the price of grain in Shenyang should be higher than Grain-producing area. At that time, sorghum rice was set at 3,000 yuan per catty, and the market price was always below 3,000 yuan, which was just the opposite of the phenomenon that the price was always lower than the market price during the Kuomintang rule. This was the best thing that impressed Shenyang citizens.”

There was a small incident in the middle: in order to reduce the burden, the army released all the prisoners in Shenyang's prisons when they entered the city, and then one-half of the thefts were committed by some released habitual criminals.Chen Yun talked about this when he provided experience to the cadres taking over in Tianjin and Beiping. He said: "Only political prisoners should be released quickly, but old thieves should continue to be detained. The situation should be investigated and dealt with separately." As the "center" of the entire city, it is impossible for Chen Yun to only be in the conference room and lounge of the Yamato Hotel every day.He needs to strategize.But Chen Yun's personality is not someone who likes to guide work and issue instructions over the phone.From November 1948 to June 1949, almost all matters in Shenyang had to be brought together to the Military Control Commission, and finally got approval from Chen Yun. He set his office for handling affairs in the reception room of Zhongshan Plaza Hotel.There were two rows of seats in front of Chen Yun's desk. Those cadres who reported the situation and waited for instructions would leave quickly after getting Chen Yun's opinion, and give their seats to the next person who entered the door.

"Every day these two rows of seats are full of people." Cao Muyao, who was the political commissar and secretary of the Party Committee of the Sixth Division (Artillery Division) of the Military Industry Department of the Northeast Military Region, once went to report an emergency situation, from reporting the problem to solving the problem It took less than two hours in total.He deeply admired Chen Yun's astonishing speed in handling things, "When I entered the door, I saw Chen Yun sitting in the middle of the crowd, with a very serious attitude, every sentence was very concise, sonorous and powerful, like a sharp knife cutting through messy hemp, and the answers were intricate When interviewing everyone, he first asks, what is the matter? Please explain the reason in a few sentences! Then limit the reporter to finish speaking within a few minutes. Put forward your personal opinion on how to deal with the problem first.” Liu Baiyu is one of the members of the Foreign Reporting Committee of the Military Control Commission. According to the memory of this military reporter who became famous for reporting "Brightness Shines on Shenyang", "Comrade Chen Yun held a meeting every night to receive reports from people from all walks of life. He asked me to participate in the progress and situation of the reception. After everyone reported, he instructed what to do the next day. My task was to go to the street and report to him every night how many shops were open. At first, no I didn’t dare, I was afraid. Later I reported to him bit by bit, I said that one opened, and two opened... Later, there were probably more than a dozen. Comrade Chen Yun clapped his hands and said, “Shenyang, It's settled safely'." By this time, 1948 was almost over.On another battlefield of the War of Liberation, the People's Liberation Army has reached Xishan, from which you can overlook the whole city of Peiping.