by Liu Zhenyun
∆ I need not dwell on the drought in Henan. The lofty phrase, “Save the people of Henan,” has not only appeared in Chinese newspapers, but in Allied papers as well. I once felt “comforted” by those words, imagining three million people looking around desperately, the light of hope re-emerging in their eyes. But it was merely hope, and as time went by, all hope was once again buried in their sunken eyes.
∆ One hundred and ten counties (including those under enemy control) were affected, with varying degrees of severity that can be marked by rivers. The areas near the Yellow River and Funiu Mountain were worst hit, followed by the regions along the Hong, Ru, and Luo rivers, and by the area around the Tang and Huai rivers.
∆ Henan is a province of barren lands and poverty-stricken residents. Since the opening of war with Japan, the populace has faced the enemy on three sides. Then, when the war was at its most savage, a natural disaster struck. In the third and fourth months, western Henan experienced hail and frost, southern and central Henan suffered high winds, and eastern Henan was struck by locust attacks. Once summer arrived, not a drop of rain fell anywhere in the province for three straight months; rain in the early fall brought only a brief respite. A drought of disastrous proportions occurred. Before buckwheat in western Henan could be harvested, a heavy frost prevented the wheat berries from forming and the crop froze. In the eighth and ninth months, riverfront counties suffered a flood that turned the fields into oceans. A flood on the heels of a drought turned Henan into hell on earth.
∆ Now they have eaten all the leaves on the trees. Every day, people go to the public mortars at village entrances to grind peanut shells and elm bark (the only edible bark) before steaming it for food. A child in Ye County said to me, “Mister, that stuff scratches my throat.”
∆ At every meal, dozens of refugees come to our door begging and crying for help. We cannot bear to look into their sallow faces and lusterless eyes, because we have nothing for them to eat.
∆ Xiaosi died today, followed by Youlai, who was killed by a toxic weed, followed by Xiaobao on the outskirts of the village. Wretched, once lively members of the next generation are dying off.
∆ Recently I’ve noticed that the refugees’ faces are puffy and that dark patches have appeared around their nostrils and in the corners of their eyes. At first I thought that was caused by hunger, but then I was told that it was a result of eating a toxic plant called moldy flower, a dry weed with no juice that turns green when ground up. I tried it and detected a putrid, musty smell. Even the legs of pigs grow numb after eating the weed, so what makes people eat it? The refugees know it is bad for them, but they say to me, “Mister, some people can’t even get this. Now we have this stinging pain in our teeth and gums, our faces and limbs.” Yes, the people in Ye county cannot find this weed, so they eat a type of kindling, which cannot be pounded into powder; but at least they do not have puffy faces and numb limbs. An old man said to me, “In my worst nightmare I never dreamed I’d be eating firewood one day. It’s worse than death.”
∆ All the livestock was slaughtered long ago. The pigs are nothing but skin and bones, the chicken’s eyes droop from hunger.
∆ One jin of wheat fetches two jin of pork or three and half jin of beef.
∆ Primitive trade is in practice once again in Henan. No one wants the children. Men put their young wives or teenage daughters on mules and take them to Tuohe in eastern Hunan, Zhoujiakou and Jieshou, where they are sold into prostitution. Yet the price of a person is not enough to buy four bushels of wheat. A bushel of wheat costs nine hundred yuan, six hundred and forty-nine yuan for a bushel of sorghum, seven hundred for a bushel of corn, ten yuan for a jin of millet, eight yuan for a jin of steamed bread, fifteen yuan for a jin of salt, and the same for sesame oil. Without a solution to the famine, the price of food stays high, and the people have given up on finding food. The old, the weak, the women and children can only wait to be claimed by death. Young, strong men often take risks out of desperation. If the situation continues, instead of disaster relief, Henan will have to fight bandits to safeguard peace and maintain order.
∆ With the arrival of winter, snowflakes have begun to fall. With no firewood, rice, or clothes, the people suffer both hunger and cold. The flimsy snowflakes are a vivid symbol of their fate. Time is running out to save these people.
3
Signs of life appeared in the fresh air at the Huangshan residence in Chongqing, where the mountains are blanketed with red peach blossoms and fiery camellia flowers each spring. After the fall of Nanjing, the Republican government moved its capital to Chongqing, where the Huangshan residence became the Generalissimo’s official home. One of his four official houses, it was not affected by the nation’s peril or its strengths and weaknesses; it compared well with the residence in Nanjing, and was no worse than the White House or 10 Downing Street. Chiang was, after all, the leader of a nation. No matter what your skin color, once you become the leader of a nation, you enjoy world-class food and housing, even when the people under your rule live altogether different lives. That is why I have always been a proponent of world leaders shaking hands and chatting among themselves, for they are the true class brothers. People of the world’s nations need not unite nor have anything to do with each other. Even war is nothing to fear, because the leaders will not be hit until the last bomb falls, if then. If a nuclear war does break out, the few who remain standing will be the leaders of nations, for they will live above the earth with great views of the world below, their fingers on the buttons. The ones controlling the buttons will never be harmed.
The two centers of the Huangshan residence were Yunxiu Tower and Song Hall, where Chiang and the alluring Madame Chiang stayed separately; hard to say what the arrangement was at night, if they felt like some activity. Air-raid shelters beneath the two structures afforded them the opportunity to escape air attacks by their class brother, the Emperor of Japan. How they lived day to day is difficult to ascertain, but they probably ate and drank as often as they wished, faring much better than one-point-nine-nine billion of the two billion Chinese living in the nation fifty years later. Anything beyond that is hard to imagine. Chiang could be assured that the Chinese and Western food served him was perfectly edible, but not elm bark and moldy flower; he drank water, not alcohol, did not smoke, had false teeth, and believed in Jesus. In 1942, Chiang had an argument with his advisor, an American named Stilwell. When they were about to part in anger, Madame Chiang tried to save the day with a pretty smile:
“You’re an old friend, General, please don’t be upset. Come to my villa for a cup of delicious coffee.”
I read that somewhere. I wasn’t interested in the argument, since both men were no longer with us. What caught my attention was that “delicious coffee” was still available in China in 1942, while people in my hometown were eating bark, firewood, straw, and toxic, moldy flowers that caused dropsy. Three million starved to death. Of course, contrasts like that show only that I was into something meaningless, vulgarizing everything. I also knew that for the head of a major state, the issue was not that his wife had coffee, just as long as they did not drink human blood (I heard that the emperor of the Central African Republic did that every day). No matter what they drank, he would be a national hero and a great historical figure as long as he managed the country well. I read somewhere else that, in order to get on the good side of the local militia, Chiang once said to Dai Li, the head of the secret service,
“Go take care of the problem. Remember, you can spend as much as you need.”
Where did the money come from?
What I want to say is, he should not have disregarded the news of a famine in Henan when it reached the official residence in 1942. Of course he probably believed it, just not entirely. He said, “There may be a famine, but it can’t be that bad.” He even suspected the local officials of embellishing the crisis in order to get more relief money, like the army inflating the number of soldiers to get more supplies. Several decade
s later, his attitude was criticized in books whose authors condemned him for ignoring the people’s suffering, for not caring enough, or for being obstinate. I was affected by how the authors wrote about the people as if they were their own children, and by their scathing comments about a heartless dictator. But I had to laugh when I calmed down, for it dawned on me that it was not he who deserved to be condemned, but these presumptuous authors who wrote decades later. Who had his head in the clouds, the attendant or the prime minister? The attendant, for sure. How could anyone understand what he was thinking without putting himself in his shoes, a man in an exalted position? Weren’t all these authors useless scholars? How could he not be smarter than scholars—he was the Generalissimo! Who was the leader, a scholar or the Generalissimo? Who was more knowledgeable? Once again, the Generalissimo, naturally. It all rested with him—he cared about everything in the world, including the billions of people who inhabited it. Back then his thought processes were profound, far-reaching, and intricately complex, making it impossible for us to understand. Would he really dismiss news of drought and famine in Henan out of hand? Of course not. Unlike Madame Chiang, he came from an impoverished background. As he once wrote:
“My father died when I was nine. It is impossible to describe the miserable situation of my family at the time. Left completely alone, with no support, we were the targets of insults and abuse.”
Someone with that sort of background had to know the hardships facing the masses on the lowest rungs of society. He could not possibly have been ignorant of the severity of the drought in any of the provinces. The scholars were mistaken in thinking that he was only a bureaucrat, while in fact they were the ones with their heads in the clouds. He knew what was happening. Then why did he not say what he was thinking? Why did he say it was not serious when he knew it was? Because before him lay many more serious and more complex issues that he had to solve carefully so as not to commit a grave historical error. We must realize that history will not be affected by the starving deaths of three millions; the Generalissimo was no longer a country bumpkin, but the leader of a nation. As a leader, he knew his priorities.
Here were some of the factors that could have changed the direction of history at the time:
First, China’s status within the Alled forces, which included the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China. Chiang might have been the leader of China, but when sitting down for a meeting with these leaders, he was reduced to the status of an ordinary person, a little brother, someone of no importance. None of them—Roosevelt, Churchill, or Stalin—thought much of him. If he meant nothing to them, that was a sign that China meant nothing to them. As a result, China was often the victim of aggression on the world’s battlefields. As the poorest nation, it needed foreign aid to fight the war, and that was controlled by others; he could not complain about ill treatment. Chiang suffered insults and abuse, a loathing that roiled him deep down.
Second, the war with Japan. Chiang’s army engaged most of the Japanese forces within its borders. Though losses of territory were substantial, by slowing the Japanese advances he delivered an incalculable edge to the other Allied nations, in terms of global strategies. But the leaders of those nations either did not note his contributions or decided to humiliate him in spite of them. The task of containment demanded far more from the Chinese Nationalist army than the aid it received. Most of the Nationalist army was engaged in a fight with Japan, giving the Communists respite in their base area; this influenced Chiang’s policy toward the Communists. He was convinced that internal peace must be achieved before one can fight an external enemy. In terms of national interests, that concept was too narrow and could easily infuriate the populace. But from the perspective of a leader, it was essential. Focusing on fighting off invaders would make it easier for an internal enemy to grow strong enough to deal a fatal blow. He suffered tremendous international and domestic pressure over this policy.
Third, the Nationalist Party and the government were plagued by serious factional infighting. Chiang had once said ruefully that he should not have taken in so many warlord armies after the Northern Expedition of 1926. After 1949 he said, “My defeat was dealt not by the Communists, but by the Nationalists.”
Fourth, serious strategic and personal conflicts arose between Chiang and his chief-of-staff, the American General Joseph Stilwell, which problematized American aid and Chiang’s credibility in the US. Stilwell had already begun to refer to the Chinese leader behind his back as a “peanut.”
These issues, as well as some that only Chiang knew as a result of his position, could easily have changed the direction of history and the way it was to be written. At a moment like this, drought in one province (there were more than thirty provinces at the time) must have seemed insignificant. Those who perished were mainly useless individuals, burdens on society, and could not possibly change the direction of history. By contrast, if Chiang dealt carelessly with his major political issues, history could very well have developed in a direction detrimental to him. What happened between 1945 and 1949 proves that that is what happened. For a national leader, any one of these issues would have a more direct and more consequential impact on him and his leadership position than three million people. From the perspective of historical importance, three million people were indeed of less consequence than a Peanut. So he was aware of the drought, but said it wasn’t as severe as people said. As a result, he hated those who treated him as a fool or a bureaucrat and tirelessly provided him with data while mistakenly believing that he did not know what was happening, especially those meddling foreigners who were given to interfering in the internal affairs of other nations. This is what was going through Chiang’s mind, how he saw the situation. But viewed from the perspective of the millions of drought victims, we cannot help but feel that he was a heartless, cruel dictator who did not care about the people’s livelihood. One rule of thumb in this world has it that we common people will always suffer if we somehow get tangled up with a national leader. Owing to Chiang’s attitude, thousands of victims were reduced to eating bark and other inedible, even toxic things, with no aid, no relief, and no assistance from the government. And so, a huge portion of the population died of hunger. But this was not the most important aspect of the situation; what made it worse were the taxes and provisions for the army exacted by the government while people were dying of hunger.
Chen Bulei said,
“Generalissimo Chiang does not for a minute believe there is a famine in Henan, claiming it has been faked by the provincial government. Chairman Li Peiji (of the Henan provincial government) said in a telegram that death was everywhere, that people were crying out for help, and so on. The Generalissimo condemned this as a fake report and ordered the collection of taxes from Henan as usual.”
It was as if the government had picked up a knife to assist the famine by slaughtering people who, like dumb animals, stumbled around with glazed-over eyes. As a result, many died, while those who managed to survive formed a mass migration out of the area. Fifty years later, we can share the Generalissimo’s view that the situation could not have been so bad, for that is the nature of the things. When we view a problem years after it has occurred, we are usually more broad-minded and wonder just how severe it could have been. But as the event unfolded, history was not so forgiving. In order to prove my point, once again I have to cite reference material, as I am convinced that it is more scientific to cite information trawled from historical reportage than for a writer to fabricate a story. To be sure, the latter can give a reader the feel of firsthand experience, but it is not factual and the data can be inaccurate; fifty-year-old material is more trustworthy than something conjured up through our imagination five decades later. In 1942, the American diplomat John S. Service wrote in a report to the US government:
The greatest burden on the Henan farmer has been steadily increasingly in kind and requisitioning of military grain. This burden has been made heavier by the requirement that the pro
vince help to feed armies in South Shanxi (before the loss of the Zhongtiaoshan), where the main task of some 400,000 troops is to ‘guard’ the Communists.
From numerous sources I was given estimates that total imposts are from 30-50 of a farmer’s crop. These include a local government tax, the national land in kind (collected through the provincial government), and military demands which are varying and unpredictable. The taxation rates are based on the normal crop, rather than the actual yield for the year. Therefore, the poorer the crop, the larger the proportion which is taken from the farmer. And as the farmer does not devote all his land to wheat, which is demanded for the tax, the percentage of this crop which he must turn over is much higher.
There is considerable evidence that the amount of military grain taken from the people is unnecessarily large. The time-honored custom of Chinese military, of reporting a larger strength than their units actually have, still holds good. By drawing full rations for his supposed strength the commander has a surplus to be disposed of for his profit. A large part of the grain on the open market in Luoyang comes from this source …
There is a common complaint, also, that the impositions are not evenly and fairly distributed. Collections are made through the baojia [public security] officials, who are themselves the gentry and landlords, and who often see that they, and their friends, do not suffer too heavily. Influence is still based on wealth and property; the poorer farmer sees a larger proportion of his grain taken—just as he sees his sons, rather than those of the jiazhang [village leaders] and landlord, taken for the army drafted.
Conditions in Henan have been so bad that for several years there has been a flow of population into Shaanxi, Gansu, and north Sichuan … The result is a partial depopulation of Henan and relatively greater imposition on those who remain behind. This movement has been heaviest from the ‘front-line area,’ where life for the farmer was hardest and which is now hardest hit by famine. A missionary from Zhengzhou says that many farms in that district had already been abandoned last year—before the present famine.