Chapter 96 fourth quarter

Another test comes. On July 7, 1937, the Anti-Japanese War broke out in an all-round way.Ten days after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, on July 17, 1937, Chiang Kai-shek delivered a speech at Lushan Mountain, announcing the rise of resistance.He said: "We hope for peace, not peace; we are ready for war, but never for war. We know the situation after the whole country goes to war, and we can only sacrifice to the end, and there is no reason to be spared by luck. If the war starts, it will be There is no distinction between the north and the south, no distinction between the old and the young, no matter who you are, you all have the responsibility to defend the land and fight against the war, and you should have the determination to sacrifice everything."

In August, military and political officials from all provinces gathered in Nanjing for a meeting to respond, and Long Yun arrived by special plane.In the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, Long Yun tried his best to stay out of the matter in order to preserve his strength and maintain the relatively independent status of Yunnan under his rule; but on the issue of the War of Resistance, although he often had doubts and precautions, he did put the country before himself.Chiang Kai-shek asked Yunnan to send two armies, and Long Yun said on the spot: "It can be done. But only one army can be sent first, and the other army will depend on the situation of the war." Chiang Kai-shek replied very happily.During the talks in Nanjing, the two agreed that the coastal areas were difficult to protect, and the southwest international traffic line must rely on the southwest.Long Yun proposed to rush to build the Burma Highway and the Burma Railway directly to the Indian Ocean. The construction of the road would be borne by Yunnan and subsidized by the central government; the construction of the railway would be under the responsibility of the central government and assisted by Yunnan.Chiang Kai-shek even claimed it was good.

As soon as Long Yun returned to Yunnan, he held a meeting of military and political personnel to report the situation. He said, "Japan has really started to do it." "The situation is very critical, and we must quickly and fully prepare." As promised, after returning to Yunnan, he sent Lu Han to lead an army to fight against Japan; in early 1938, he sent Sun Du to lead an army out of the province.All the elite soldiers of the Yunnan Army were sent to participate in the war of resistance. They fought thousands of miles and fought bloody battles in Taierzhuang, Yuwangshan and other battles. , disregarding life, is really rare."

According to statistics, during the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War, the Yunnan Army experienced more than 20 major battles, with a total of more than 100,000 casualties.Yunnan is located in the rear, and Long Yun knew that once the war broke out, Yunnan would become an important city. Food supply was the top priority, and Yunnan had never been self-sufficient in rice.As early as the Northeast Incident in 1931, he began to handle "Jiangu", that is, to store grain. By the summer of 1937, Jigu had reached a considerable scale. During the Anti-Japanese War, large armies gathered in Yunnan, and the troops that entered Yunnan included the Second Army, Fifth Army, Sixth Army, Eighth Army, Fifty-second Army, Fifty-third Army, Fifty-fourth Army, and There are more than a dozen armies including the 60th Army, 66th Army, 71st Army, and 93rd Army, with hundreds of thousands of people; there are also more than 20,000 American and technical personnel.At the same time, agencies, schools, and factories in the interior moved here one after another; after the fall of Burma, a large number of overseas Chinese returned to China.The population of Yunnan increased sharply by more than one million, accounting for one-tenth of the original total population.Due to Long Yun's early preparations, there was basically no crisis in food supply.Even the U.S. military, which has a strong spending power, needs a lot of pigs and chickens, but also consumes more than 60,000 eggs and more than a hundred vegetables every day. With the assistance of neighboring provinces Sichuan and Guizhou, the supply is basically sufficient.

Many years later, when talking about the merits of accumulating valleys, Long Yun was gratified and complacent.The construction of the Yunnan-Burma Highway is another great contribution made by Yunnan to the country during the Anti-Japanese War.By the early 1930s, Yunnan did not have a road leading to other provinces; in 1937, the East Yunnan Road leading to Sichuan and Guizhou was opened to traffic. On August 20, 1937, the Japanese Navy Ministry announced the blockade of China's coast to prevent the entry of materials from other countries that aided China in the war of resistance. December 1937, the crucial

Construction of the Burma Highway started. The Yunnan-Burma Highway starts from Kunming in the north and ends in Lashio, Myanmar in the south, with a total length of 1,146 kilometers, including 959 kilometers in Zhongtong.Under the harsh geographical conditions of undulating mountains and criss-crossing rivers, people of all ethnic groups in Yunnan fought day and night, with an average of 100,000 workers a day, sometimes reaching 200,000.They brought their own dry food and tools, and only relied on their hands to dig and carry them on their shoulders, so that this lifeline of the Anti-Japanese War quickly extended overseas.Due to the hard work and the prevalence of epidemic diseases on the construction site, tens of thousands of migrant workers were injured or killed during the road construction process.

In just eight months, in August 1938, the Chinese section of the Yunnan-Burma Highway was completed.Only for the 550 kilometers from Xiaguan to Wanding, more than 11 million square meters of earth and more than one million square meters of stone have been completed; this section has five large bridges, two middle bridges, and 230 small bridges. Sixteen, 1,789 culverts. After the opening to traffic, the international community was skeptical about whether the Yunnan-Myanmar Highway was really built in such a short period of time. US President Roosevelt sent Ambassador Johnson to China to investigate in person.Looking at the five to ten meters wide mud-bound gravel road that winds between treacherous mountains and treacherous waters, Jensen lamented that this is really a "miracle of the world" and "comparable to the Panama Canal".The British "Times" published reports and photos for three consecutive days, saying that the repair of this road "only Chinese people can do it."

After receiving the report from Johnson, the U.S. government decided that in the future, aid materials to China will be imported through this route.In 1941 alone, 132,000 tons of materials were transported to China from the Burma Road; at the beginning of 1942, before the fall of Myanmar, another 80,000 tons of materials hoarded in Myanmar were rush-shipped to China through this road; The 100,000 expeditionary troops who fought were also exported from this route. During the Anti-Japanese War, Long Yun did his best regardless of the cost, and even the cost of going to the Yunnan Army was borne by the local finance of Yunnan.He said: "Every shot and bullet of the Yunnan Army came from the people of Yunnan."