Chapter 6 Chapter Six

Henan started disaster relief.Because the chairman has acted.The chairman of the committee said that disaster relief was needed, and of course he did.However, in 1942 and 1943, it was still foreigners who were the first to rescue people in dire straits.Although we hate foreigners and don't want to thank them all the time, when it comes to critical times, they really come to help us. What should we do? At this time, the concept of disaster relief is no longer holistic, macroscopic, from spiritual to material. It is just to fill the stomachs of people who are about to starve to death, and pull people back from the life and death line.The foreign bishops—who were originally here to invade us spiritually—had already begun to act on their own before the chairman's action.This action does not involve any political motivation, does not contain any government will, but proceeds purely from religious teachings.They are pastors appointed by Christ to come to China to preach and do charity work.There are Americans and there are Europeans; there are Catholics and there are Protestants.While Americans and Italians are cannibalizing each other in Europe, their priests are working hand in hand in my homeland in charitable endeavors to save the lives of my countless fellow countrymen.People are opposites on the battlefield, but in front of my fallen folks, their hearts are connected.From this point of view, my fellow countrymen cannot say that starving to death is worthless.Churches generally set up porridge farms; places with churches are generally in cities such as Zhengzhou and Luoyang.Several of my relatives, such as the second grandma's family and the third grandma's family, have all had porridge made in large pots by Americans and Europeans.My Uncle Huazhao was captured by General Hu Zongnan on his way to the porridge market in Luoyang to get porridge.Where does the charitable organization get the food to cook porridge from? Because the US government no longer trusts Chiang, the foreign relief supplies are distributed through missionaries; and these Chinese victims who fled, although illiterate, also came from instinct. Departure, losing trust in the government of their country, feeling that the only savior is the foreigner, the white man.Bai Xiude records:

Priests leave their yards only when necessary.Because only a white man walking down the street can give hope to refugees.He would suddenly be surrounded by emaciated men, frail women and children.They knelt, prostrated themselves, kowtowed their heads, and cried out, "Have pity!" But what they begged was really nothing more than a little food. After reading this, I don't blush for my fellow countrymen at all.If it were me, in the situation at that time, I would rather kowtow to foreigners.Around the courtyard of the church, there were people fleeing everywhere.As soon as the missionaries came out of the yard, they were surrounded by water.The folks gathered around the foreigners.I think at this time, if the foreigners raise their arms, the folks will definitely rise up with them, march forward courageously, and see death as home, and the situation of resisting foreigners during the Eight-Power Allied Forces will never happen again.Children and women sit at the door of the church every day; every morning, the missionaries must send the babies abandoned in front of the church to a temporary orphanage to be raised—even the offspring are entrusted to foreigners.Only these few foreigners made my folks realize that life is precious.I read from a yellowing newspaper fifty years ago that a foreign Catholic priest said when talking about the motivation for setting up a porridge market:

At least let them die as human beings. The church also opened a mission hospital.The mission hospital was full of horrible gastroenteritis patients.The cause of the sickness is: they all ate something filthy.When many refugees were starving, they desperately stuffed mud into their mouths to fill their stomachs.If the hospital wants to revive these people, it must first find a way to get the dirt out of these people's stomachs. The church also set up orphanages to take in children left behind by their parents who died of starvation.But the admission must be kept secret.Because if there is a big fanfare to take in children, there are too many orphans in the world; some parents have survived, and they have abandoned or resold their children.There are too few foreigners and too many Chinese orphans; in other words, too many Chinese children want to recognize foreigners as their fathers, and even foreigners can't do it.A document states:

Hunger destroys even the most rudimentary of human emotions: a frenzied couple tied all six of their children to a tree as they went out to find food so they wouldn't have to go out with them; A baby and two older children went out to beg for food. The long and difficult journey made them very tired. The mother sat on the ground and took care of the baby. She asked the two older children to go to another village to find food. When the two children came back, the mother Babies sucking on the dead man's nipples were dead; a parent killed two of their children because they would rather do so than hear their cries begging for food again.The missionaries did their best to pick up abandoned children along the way, but they had to do it secretly, for as soon as the word got out, countless children would be dumped at their doorsteps, overwhelming them.

Children are the barometer of a country or a government.Just like if children's schoolbags are too heavy, and the artificially prescribed homework is not finished and the children are overwhelmed, it proves that the country is faltering. For foreigners, it is doubtful how long this government can survive.Even foreigners think that if they are in good health, Chinese children are very beautiful, their hair has a very beautiful natural luster, and their almond-like eyes are shining with a clever light.But now these thin, shriveled scarecrows had only two pus-filled slits where their eyes had been, their bellies swollen from hunger, their skin parched from the cold and dry climate, and their voices Exhausted, only the faint whine of begging for food—does this only represent the children themselves? No, it also represents the National Government.If Generalissimo Chiang, who was sitting in the Huangshan villa, was sitting on the head of such a group of children, wouldn’t his self-confidence not be affected? When he was in front of Roosevelt and Churchill, would Luo and Qiu think highly of him?

After all, Jiang is still a human being—when it comes to who is still a human being, whenever I hear this sentence, for example, a wife says her husband or a husband says her wife: "You are also a human being!" I feel great in my heart sorrow.What a disparaging remark! This is the end of the world! But Chiang is still human, when a foreign reporter puts a picture of a dog eating a man in front of him (what a small motive), he has to care after the foreigner after all There are 30 million victims in my hometown.After a group of heads fell to the ground, he was also going to rescue the disaster.Namely: China will also provide disaster relief.But China's disaster relief is also different from that of foreigners.Foreign disaster relief is based on human sympathy and Christian principles, not orders issued by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Mussolini after they got angry; China has no sympathy and no religious teachings (why does Jiang believe in Christianity? It is purely for marriage and sexual intercourse Or a political marriage?), some are just an order from Chiang—this is another difference between China and the West.

So how did the Chinese government provide disaster relief? Let me quote a few more passages.Maybe readers are tired of my tireless quoting of materials, but there is no way, in order to maintain the authenticity of history, this must be done, there is no way to be troublesome, and it is not my responsibility to be troublesome, this is not writing a novel, this is a friend handed over The biggest difference between my tasks and my daily tasks.I also don't want to quote the data, the data bound me so that I have no freedom, like being tied with a rope.But my friend sent me a large bundle of materials.I was a little apprehensive:

"Do you have to read so much information?" friend: "To prevent you from trusting the horse and making it up!" So, I had to quote these sources.As for these materials appearing too much in my texts due to friends, please forgive me for my implied grievances. Information on the Chinese government's disaster relief in 1943: △The chairman issued an order for disaster relief. △However, stupidity and inefficiency are the hallmarks of relief work.The horrific tragedy has been exacerbated even further by the egregious behavior of local officials everywhere. △Originally, Shaanxi Province is adjacent to Henan Province, and Shaanxi has relatively abundant grain reserves. As a strong government, it should order that grain be transported from Shaanxi to Henan immediately to avoid disaster.However, to favor Henan at the expense of Shaanxi would upset the delicate balance of power that the government deems essential, and the government would not allow it. (Politics has always been higher than people in China. Who created politics? What is politics for?) In addition, food can be transported from Hubei to Henan, but the commander of the war zone in Hubei does not allow this.

△Relief money was sent to Henan very slowly. (What's the use of paper money? Can money be eaten when there is no more food to buy there?) After several months, only 80 million yuan of the 200 million yuan in relief funds allocated by the central government has arrived here. Even the money that has arrived has not played a disaster relief role.Government officials deposited the money with the provincial bank, which accrued interest, while at the same time bickering over how to spend it most effectively.In some areas, relief money was distributed to famine-struck villages.After local officials received the relief money, they deducted the taxes owed by the farmers, and the farmers actually got very little.Even Bank Negara is profiting from it.The relief funds allocated by the central government are all in 100-yuan banknotes.Such a denomination is small enough, since a pound of wheat sells for ten to eighteen yuan.However, grain hoarders at the time refused people to buy grain with hundred-dollar bills.Farmers who want to buy grain have to change that bill into five and ten dollar bills, which has to go to the central bank.The National Bank discounted the exchange, and charged a 17% handling fee for exchanging large banknotes for small banknotes.What the people of Henan need is food, but until March, the government only supplied about 10,000 bags of rice and 20,000 bags of miscellaneous grains.The 30 million Henan people who have been starving since the fall have an average of only about one pound of grain per person.

△(At the time of disaster relief), the farmers were still dying. They died on the road, in the mountains, beside the train station, in their own mud huts, and in the barren fields. Of course, not all government officials are so black-hearted, watching the people die and still exploiting the people.There are also people with a conscience who want to do something good for the people or build a monument for themselves.I have always believed that as ordinary people, as long as we can do some good things for us, big or small, we will not pursue the motives of officials. Or to prove anything to a lover, we don't care, as long as do good for us.The benevolent General Tang Enbo stepped forward at this time, followed in the footsteps of foreigners, imitated foreigners, and opened an orphanage to take in the remaining orphans.This is a good thing.General Tang is a good man.But what kind of orphanage is this? Bai Xiude wrote:

In my memory, the orphanage run by General Tang Enbo of the central government was a place that stinks to the sky.Even the military officer who accompanied us on the tour couldn't stand the stench, so he took out his handkerchief and covered his nose in apology, please forgive me.Orphanages house all abandoned babies, four together in a cradle.Those that can't fit in the cradle are simply put on the straw.I can't remember what they ate.But they reeked of vomit and feces.When the child died, he was carried out and buried. That's it, we still say that General Tang is good.Because General Tong is already the best of many government officials and generals.Even such an orphanage is better than no orphanage. There are also good people doing fundraising and charity performances.The so-called fundraising and charity performances are fundraising from the people, and actors perform charity performances. The money raised from the charity performances is handed over to the government, and the government then distributes it to the victims of the disaster.The "Henan Republic Daily" in 1942, in November, was full of reports on disaster relief performances, disaster relief concerts, calligraphy and painting charity sales, and so-and-so donations.Secretary Han of the county government in my hometown county once hosted a charity performance.I believe that those who participated in the fundraising and charity performances have sincere hearts and warm blood, blood is thicker than water, and they shed many tears of sympathy for us.But the problem is that the proceeds from donations and charity performances cannot be handed over directly to us, but must be handed over to the government in an organized way, and the government will distribute them to the disaster victims in an organized way.In this way, there are many intermediate links between government agencies—from province to county, from county to township, and from township to village—so many intermediate links make us very worried.The central government’s relief money is still exploited layer by layer, put in the bank to generate interest, and when it is in the hands, the big bills are exchanged for small bills, and a 17% handling fee is charged; this donation and the money earned by several actors, when passed through Will they be able to reach us safely and quickly when they are in hand? We are not at ease. I won't talk about these.The government is the father and the mother. Beating and cursing us is like knocking out our teeth, and we can swallow it. The serious problem is that some people with lofty ideals and special talents also stand up at this time.But instead of standing on the side of our victims—what use is it to him to stand on our side? Instead, he stands on the side of the government and researches ways to deal with hunger for the government.For example, "Henan Republic Daily" published on February 14, 1943: Liu Daoji, a member of the financial department, has invented and prepared food for famine relief. The simple food will not be hungry for seven days, and the simple food will not be hungry for a day. For any Chinese, fifty years later, when reading this short news, I think the emotions are very complicated.It seems that not only the government can't be relied on, but even a staff member, our own lower-level brothers, can't be counted on.If this kind of invention is real and feasible, it is of course good; the government welcomes it, and there is no need to provide disaster relief; we also welcome it, and there is no need to kill people.Not only did the government at that time welcome it, but in the following decades of Chinese history, people starved to death. If there were such artificially prepared food that would not be hungry for seven days, China would be able to maintain peace for generations to come.But this kind of preparation has not been passed down to today, so it can be seen that it only played a role of propaganda and stabilizing people's hearts at that time, and it did not save us alone.Maybe Mr. Liu Daoji is out of kindness, sympathy, patience and carefulness, and maybe he wants to get promoted, but no matter what his personal motivation is, this preparation is useless to us.We were starving to death day by day as usual, on the roads, in the fields, and by the railway stations. ——This was the disaster relief campaign under the leadership of Mr. Chiang Kai-shek in 1943.In summary terms, this is a farce, a farce that is only used for propaganda or just for the world to see, for everyone to see, for foreigners and foreign governments to see.The chairman ordered disaster relief, but he had no intention of disaster relief. He was still thinking about world and national affairs, and the balance of various political forces.This is the crux of acting in farce.There are many roles in the farce, and the victims of the farce are still us victims.This reminds me of Mao Zedong's words: Ask the vast land, who is in charge of the ups and downs? I said: Who cares if we die or not? As the victims of disasters that are about to die, what is our attitude? "Ta Kung Pao" reporter Zhang Gaofeng record: Henan people are good men, seeing that they are going to starve to death, they even uttered bold words: "Die early and never die, die early and be reborn sooner!" Mother, what a great word! Who said that our nation has no religion? Who said that our nation has no centripetal force and is a mess? I think the Buddha faced this situation, and he just said this sentence.Why did the chairman believe in Christianity? What did Christianity help you? It helped you find a wife; and the Buddhist teachings that penetrated deep into the soul of the Chinese people helped you in politics from 1942 to 1943. busy. Of course, in this disaster, not all the 30 million Henan people died of starvation, but only a small number: 3 million.one tenth.Fleeing famine escaped three million.There are more than 20 million Henan people left.What are these 20 million immortal people counting on? The government can’t count on it, and people can’t count on it. They can only hope for the land after the severe drought. Of course, the land is also full of exorbitant taxes and oppression.But after all, this is the only thing you can count on.According to records, in the winter of 1943 after the severe drought (referring to the winter at the beginning of the year), there was heavy snowfall in Henan, and heavy rain fell again in July.This is a good sign.We hope that under God's care, there will be a good harvest in summer and autumn.As long as there is enough food to satisfy our hunger, everything is easy to talk about, even a government full of darkness, ugliness, filth and exploitation, we can tolerate it.We believe that the national government at that time can communicate with us on this point, and hope that God will open his eyes, the catastrophe will pass, the weather will be smooth, and there will be a good harvest.Otherwise, if the situation continues and people starve to death, where will the government be built? Who will provide the heads of the government and officials at all levels with warm accommodation and delicious food, and then let their minds think about the system against the people And the solution is politics? People are gone, who will it rule? But God did not buy the account of more than 20 million people from the government to the people. Misfortunes never come singly in 1943. After the severe drought, it came again. Locust plague.This makes the fate of us disaster victims even worse.