Chapter 3 third chapter

Huangshan official residence in Chongqing.The place is full of vitality and the air is fresh. In spring, the mountains are full of pink and flame-like camellias.After the fall of Nanjing, the national government moved its capital to Chongqing, which was the residence of Chairman Chiang Kai-shek.At that time, Jiang had four official residences in Chongqing, and this was one of them.The official residence of the leader has nothing to do with the fall of the country or the strength of the country; it is not inferior to several official residences in Nanjing, nor inferior to the White House in the United States or No. 10 Downing Street in the United Kingdom.A leader is always a leader. As long as one can be a leader, no matter what skin color or nationality one is, one can enjoy world-class clothing, food, housing, and transportation.Although the people ruled are very different.Therefore, I have always been in favor of shaking hands between leaders of various countries, because they are the real class brothers; between the people of various countries, there is no need to unite, and there is nothing to talk about.Even if there is a war, it is not terrible. The last shell in the world fell on the head of the leader.In the event of a worldwide nuclear war, the last remaining people are the leaders of various countries, because they live above the beautiful earth and hold the nuclear button.He who holds the button has always been invulnerable.Huangshan official residence is centered on Yunxiu Building and Pine Hall.Of course, it's hard to say at night, if the two are interested.In the valley between the two residences, an air-raid shelter was dug specially for Jiang and Song to hide from the plane of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, their class brothers.As for the daily life of Jiang and Song, this is beyond what we can imagine. Anyway, eating and drinking all day long is better than that of 1.19999 billion of us among the 1.2 billion people fifty years later. It's unimaginable.Although Jiang only drinks plain water, does not drink alcohol, does not smoke, wears dentures, and believes in Christianity, he must also know that elm bark and "mildew flowers" are not edible, and what can be eaten are Western and Chinese cuisines.In 1942, Jiang had a conflict with his chief of staff, American Stilwell. They quarreled in the Huangshan official residence and wanted to break up. Soong Meiling turned the tide and said with a beautiful smile:

"General, we are old friends, so there is no need to be so angry. If the general pays you the honor to come to my Pine Hall villa, you will have delicious coffee!" This is what I read in a book.After reading this, I am not interested in whether they quarreled or not. Anyway, both parties who quarreled have gone to the ball and are no longer in this world.I noticed: In 1942, China still had "delicious coffee", although the people in my hometown were eating bark, firewood, straw and "mildew flowers" that poisoned and swollen people, and finally starved to death 300 million people.Of course, making a deliberate comparison like this shows that I am boring and make everything vulgar.I also know that what is required for the head of the government of a large country is not whether his wife has coffee, but as long as they don’t drink human blood every day (it is said that the emperors in Central Africa drank human blood every day), no matter what they drink or eat, As long as the country can be governed well, it is a national hero and a great man in history.I read in another book that in order to win over a local armed force, Jiang said to Dai Li: "Go and do it. Remember, it doesn't matter if you spend a little more money." Where did the money come from? I just I want to say that in 1942, when the news of the severe drought and starvation in my hometown reached the Huangshan official residence, Chairman Jiang should not have believed the news.Of course, it's not that he doesn't believe it, nor does he believe it completely. He said: There may be a drought, but the situation will not be so serious.He even suspected that local officials had falsely reported the disaster situation, just like the army falsely reported its soldiers in order to eat up the empty quota, hoping to get more relief food and relief funds.This attitude of Generalissimo Chiang has been denounced by many books today, decades later.They think that the chairman of the committee does not understand the feelings of the people, does not love the people like a son, and is stubborn.Their attitude of loving the people like their own sons and being cold-hearted towards the people and thieves also infected my emotions.But when I calmed down, I smiled lightly again.At this time, I suddenly understood that it was not the chairman who was to blame, but the clever authors of these books decades later.Is the servant in the dream, or the prime minister? The servant is in the dream.How can you understand the mind of the chairman without putting yourself in the shoes of others? Aren’t the authors of the books all useless scholars? The chairman is the chairman, and the mind is not smarter than a scholar? A scholar Leading the chairman, or the chairman leading the scholars? Is the chairman well-informed, or the scholar well-informed? Everything depends on the chairman——everything in the world, fifty million people, all in the heart of the chairman.However, the thoughts and thoughts of the chairman at that time were so profound and intricate that we did not understand them.Does the chairman really not believe that there is a severe drought in Henan, and that the drought will starve to death? No.Because looking at the chairman's background, compared to Ms. Song Meiling, the chairman is from a bitter background.The chairman himself wrote:

I lost my father when I was nine years old... the tragic circumstances in my family are indescribable.My family was helpless and powerless, and soon became the target of everyone's humiliation and abuse. A person of such a background would not be ignorant of the sufferings suffered by the lower classes.A severe drought has occurred in the entire province, and he will not be at a loss as to how serious the situation is.But he thinks: there may be a drought, but not so severe.So the scholars were fooled, thinking that the Chairman was a bureaucrat.In fact, it was the scholar who was in the dream, and the chairman who was awake.Then why can’t you explain it clearly in your heart? Knowing that the situation is serious, but deliberately saying it is not serious? This is because there are more chaos and ambiguities in front of him, which are more serious than this drought, and he needs to sort them out and deal with them properly so as not to make mistakes. Big problem with historical mistakes.It should be noted that starvation of three million people in the East will not affect history.At this time, the chairman of the committee was no longer a bumpkin, but a leader.Standing in the position of leader, he knows the priorities.At that time, the things that could lead to the development of history in different directions were roughly as follows: 1. The status of China's allies.At that time, the allies included the United States, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China.Although Jiang was the leader of China, when the leaders of the allied countries sat together for meetings, such as the Cairo meeting, Jiang became an ordinary person, a little brother, and an insignificant person.When everyone was together, it seemed that Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin did not take Jiang seriously.If you don't take Jiang seriously, you don't take China seriously.Since then, China has often been a victim of strategy in the distribution of world wars.And China is the poorest, and it can only fight this war with foreign aid, so it is often controlled by others and suffers from being dumb; what it brings to Jiang personally is still "insulted and abused."This is what he secretly hates personally and psychologically.2. The issue of the war against Japan.On the frontal battlefield in China, Chiang's army attracted most of the Japanese troops in China; although they continued to lose land, from an international strategic point of view, this containment itself brought great benefits to other allies; but other leaders of the allies did not recognize that Knowing this point or recognizing this point and deliberately bullying others, the war materials given are far from the containment tasks undertaken by the Kuomintang troops. Domestically speaking, the Kuomintang troops contained the Japanese army on the frontal battlefield, making the Communist Party in the front line. It was Chiang's confidant to recuperate and recuperate his base area, which involved the policy towards the Communist Party.Jiang had a famous theory, "to fight against the outside world, we must first settle down at home."From the perspective of national interests, this slogan is narrow and easily arouses public indignation; if it is based on Chiang's ruling interests, it may not be an attitude that a ruler must adopt.If it is just fighting against the outside world, isn't the enemy in the rear developing more directly to the heart than the enemy in the front? Regarding this policy, he is under tremendous international and domestic pressure.3. Struggles among factions within the Kuomintang and within the National Government.Jiang Zeng said regretfully: After the Northern Expedition, I should not have accepted so many warlord troops; after 1949, he said: I was not overthrown by the Communist Party, but by the Kuomintang; this shows his daily mood.Fourth, he had serious strategic and personal conflicts with his chief of staff, General Stilwell of the US Army, which involved aid to China and Chiang's personal prestige in the United States.Stilwell had begun to shamelessly refer to the leader of the Chinese nation as "Peanut" behind his back—all of these problems, including some that we were not aware of but that Chiang was aware of in his place, It is possible to change the direction and writing of history. At this time, the drought in a local province (more than 30 provinces in the country at that time) appeared, which seemed so insignificant.The death of some useless people who are social burdens will not change the direction of history; but if he is a little careless in handling major issues in upper-level politics, history may develop in a direction that is not conducive to him. The five years to 1949 proved this point.Which of the above-mentioned major issues is more direct and more relevant to a leader than the impact of three million people on him and his ruling position.From a historical perspective, three million people are not as important as one "peanut".Therefore, he knew the drought in his heart, and still wanted to say: There may be a drought, but it will not be so serious.So he hates those who treat him as a fool and a bureaucrat, who think he doesn't know the truth and take the trouble to provide him with the real situation, especially those foreigners who are nosy and like to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.This is the state of mind of Generalissimo Jiang at this moment.Of course, this is looking at the issue from the standpoint of Jiang; if we look at it from the standpoint of tens of millions of disaster victims, we feel that Jiang is undoubtedly a lone husband and a traitor to the people, disregarding the lives and deaths of the people.There is such a truth in the world: Once we get along with the leaders, we ordinary people are bound to be unlucky.With Jiang's attitude, tens of millions of people affected by the disaster had to eat bark, straw, dry firewood and "mildew flowers" instead of the relief, adjustment and assistance obligations that a government should undertake.As a result, the population died on a large scale.But that's not the most important part of the thing, the most important part of the thing is:

In the case of large-scale disasters and starvation, the government's in-kind tax and military ration tasks in this area remain unchanged. Chen Bulei said: The chairman of the committee did not believe that there was a disaster in Henan at all, saying that the provincial government had falsely reported the disaster.Chairman Li (Pei Ji, Chairman of the Henan Provincial Government) reported disaster telegrams, saying that "the land is thousands of miles away", "sorrows are everywhere", "waiting for food" and so on. reprieve. This actually means that the government has taken a knife again to accompany the disaster, directly slaughtering those disaster victims with gray eyes and staggering like animals.As a result, those who died died; those who did not die, there was a large-scale fleeing from their hometowns.Today, fifty years later, we will still say like Chairman Jiang: the situation will not be so serious, right? This is a kind of inertia of things, especially when we think about things after a long period of time. Thinking: It can’t be that serious, right? But at the time, we can see that history is not forgiving.In order to prove this point, we have to cite sources again.I think this kind of report-style text that salvages events in history and quotes is more scientific than the author's random fabrication.Although the latter can make readers feel like they are on the scene, the environment is false; the information may also be false, but the information fifty years ago is always more real than the imagination fifty years later.In 1942, John S. Xie Weisi, the American diplomat in China, wrote in a report to the US government:

The biggest burden for the disaster victims in Henan is the ever-increasing tax in kind and the collection of military rations.The burden was compounded by the fact that, before the fall of Zhongtiaoshan, the province had to provide supplies for the troops stationed in the southwestern part of Shanxi and in the poorer Shensi Province.The main task of the 400,000 garrison in Shaanxi Province was to "warn" the Communists. Estimates I have gotten from many sources are that total grain taxes collected range from 30-50% of farmers' total harvest, including local government levies, national land taxes in kind (collected through provincial governments), and various, unpredictable military needs.The tax rate is set according to the normal year, not according to the actual harvest of the year.Therefore, the worse the harvest, the greater the proportion collected from the farmers.Wheat should be paid for grain requisition, so a larger part of the wheat they harvested was used for grain.

There is very good evidence that the peasants were levied more rations than they actually needed.It is a long-standing, and still prevailing, practice of Chinese officers to report to their superiors the number of troops in excess of the actual number in possession.In this way, they can eat up the empty quota and seek personal gain.A large batch of grain on the Luoyang open market comes from this aspect... There are also widespread complaints that the burden of grain collection and taxation is not distributed fairly.These matters are handled through Baojia Chiefs, who themselves are squires and landlords.They usually want to keep themselves and their relatives and friends from paying too much food and tax.Power was still based on wealth and property: poor peasants were often expropriated more of their food, just as their sons, rather than the sons of Jiachang and landlords, were drawn into the army.

The situation in Henan was so bad that people fled to Shaanxi, Gansu, and northern Sichuan for several years... As a result, the population of Henan decreased relatively, while those who remained had relatively increased human and tax burdens.In the frontline areas, where the peasants had the hardest life, it was also the hardest hit.Therefore, there is also the greatest flow of people from there.A missionary from Zhengzhou said that long before the famine hit, many farmlands in that area were deserted. This situation has come to a head this year.The most blind government officials also recognized that, after the wheat crop failure, there would be severe food shortages in the early spring.As early as July, about 1,000 refugees fled Henan every day, but the food requisition plan remained unchanged.In many areas, the total harvest is not enough to cover food needs.There have been some protests in the countryside, but they have been weak, scattered and ineffective.In a few places, the military was clearly used against the people.Victims ate elm bark and dried leaves and were forced to hand over their last grain seeds to tax authorities.Farmers who were too weak to walk had to pay horse feed to the army.The feed has far more nutritional value than what he stuffs into his own mouth.

The above is Xie Weisi's report.Why do I quote Xie's texts but not other books? Because Xie is a foreigner, he is not in the complex world, so maybe he can be more objective.But what Xie Weisi said is not the most serious, that is: the victims of the disaster are not exempted from taxation, but are strictly ordered to still collect taxes according to the normal year, so the tax has actually exceeded the normal year. What is more important is that some officials who ruled over these disaster victims also took advantage of the disaster victims to speculate and make a fortune.According to the American reporter Bai Xiude, the commanders of some troops sold their surplus food to the victims and made a fortune.Merchants from Xi'an and Zhengzhou, petty government officials, military officers, and landowners who still had grain savings in hand, desperately bought the land left by the peasants' ancestors at criminally low prices.The concentration and loss of land proceeded simultaneously, with an intensity proportional to the degree of starvation.

When we are ruled by such people, from the chairman of the committee all the way down to the petty officials and landlords, and our fate is in their hands, can we be very assured of their manipulation? Later, there will inevitably be a large number of victims who have left the land, and a large-scale map of refugees from east to west will appear.Among these refugees are my second grandmother and my third grandmother's family in Laozhuang Village, Wanglou Township, Yanjin County, Henan Province, as well as many other elders and folks in the village.Although they have never met the chairman in their entire lives, many young and middle-aged people still consciously stand at attention when they hear the chairman, but the attitude of the chairman in the magnificent Huangshan villa, every frown and smile, will directly determine their life, death and fate.The Chairman pondered: Where is China going? Where is the world going? They pondered: Where are we going to escape famine?