Disaster relief!

This has been an eternal topic in China for thousands of years, and even the central government, which is rotten to the roots, must come up with a set of disaster relief plans when faced with large-scale natural disasters.

Throughout the ages, countless imperial dynasties have come to an end in the uprisings of displaced people caused by natural disasters.

History is a lesson to be learned, and it has to be treated with caution.

The nationwide flood of 1931 actually began in June and spread to the whole country in August. Not only that, but in Sichuan, Rehe, Shaanxi, Hunan, and other provinces, some places that have not experienced major floods have also encountered serious droughts and insect plagues.

This has led to a terrible phenomenon, in the same province, this half of the province is flooded, and the other half is drought. The two heavens of ice and fire have made the people in a dilemma of life and death.

According to the statistics of the Nanjing National Government, more than 80 million people were affected by the disaster. But in fact, there are hundreds of millions of victims along the Yangtze River and Huai River alone, and floating corpses, starving people, and orphans can be seen everywhere.

Chang Kaishen was busy with the struggle within the party and the implementation of the disaster relief plan. The central government has raised tens of millions of yuan through the issuance of public bonds, domestic and foreign fundraising, and tax item surcharges, and the final total amount raised (historically) is 70 million yuan.

Although some of this money was embezzled and some of it was misappropriated, it was still used for disaster relief.

There are two agencies responsible for disaster relief, one is called the Relief Committee, which is a permanent organization for disaster relief; The second is called the National Flood Relief Committee, which is an ad hoc agency for disaster relief.

Song Ziwen, Vice President of the Executive Yuan, Liu Shangqing, Minister of the Interior, Kong Xiangxi, Minister of Industry, Xu Shiying, Chairman of the Relief Committee, and Zhu Qinglan, head of the Northwest Relief Committee, were appointed as members of the National Flood Relief Committee. He serves as the chairman of the committee and is fully responsible for disaster relief in various places.

The committee has a total of seven units, namely: the Investigation Unit, the Finance Unit, the Accounting and Audit Unit, the Health and Epidemic Prevention Unit, the Transport Unit, the Disaster Area Work Unit, and the Liaison Unit. Generally speaking, the disaster relief agencies are relatively well-developed and have taken into account all aspects.

At the same time, the central government has taken into account the rampant corruption and introduced various regulatory and punishment measures.

Among them, the general affairs department, the fundraising department and the audit department are jointly responsible for handling the disaster relief funds, and the three departments check each other and strengthen the supervision of funds. Within each department, there are three procedures for withdrawing funds, and the chairman, the secretary general, and the section chiefs are responsible at all levels, and it is really difficult to embezzle.

For those who want to take advantage of the chaos to die, the central government has specially issued punishment regulations, including those who take kickbacks, use shoddy goods, abuse power for personal gain, traffick disaster relief materials, and fraudulently receive disaster relief money and goods, all of which will be sentenced in accordance with the criminal law's increase by one-third.

The central government was not at ease with this, so it set up special inspectors to supervise civil servants and disaster relief workers across the country, and sent 12 "messengers" to visit various places. With the cooperation of the Kuomintang Party departments in various localities, these "Qin Missions" ruthlessly exposed and dealt with a number of dereliction of duty, fraudsters, and embezzlementers, and played a role in striking the mountain and shaking the tiger.

In addition, the central government has set up an audit office, which is responsible for examining the funds of government agencies at all levels and localities, and fighting against those who are delusional about corruption in the accounts.

In terms of social supervision, all funds raised by the government and non-governmental relief organizations must be published in the public, and the public is welcome to report illegal acts.

It is a pity that the bureaucratic class of the Republic of China is too bad, and so many regulatory measures have been formulated, and the phenomenon of corruption and fraud is still endless.

For example, Wang Danhou, the county magistrate of Hubei County, received disaster relief funds but did not distribute them, and reported to his superiors that he had been robbed by bandits. After being exposed by the people, the county magistrate was imprisoned, and his official hat was taken off directly. There is also Li Siyi, director of the grain station in southern Anhui, who withheld 69 tons of grain for disaster relief, and 39 tons had been sold at half price when he was investigated.

There were even cases of foreigners being involved in corruption, and the Disaster Relief Committee sent the Briton Gutwin to serve as the director of the Yuezhou Grain Relief Station. The British, together with Liu Yisheng, the deputy director, colluded with profiteers and ruffians to falsely report the freight capacity to 100,000 yuan, and then took prostitutes to play after sharing the spoils. They also deducted the salaries of the relief workers and embezzled hundreds of yuan a month, all of which they used to spend their days and drinks.

What is ridiculous is that the domestic officials in the first two cases were investigated and punished according to law, but in the latter case, because they involved foreigners, they did not even dare to take care of the "Qin cha" sent by the central government, and only secretly transferred the officials involved in the case.

We cannot deny that Lao Chiang made great efforts to this disaster relief, because the nationwide floods have seriously affected his rule. However, the bureaucrats in various places are really rotten, and not only the corruption of foreigners cannot be managed, but the corruption of high-ranking officials is also difficult to deal with.

For example, there was a nest case in northern Anhui, and the relief commissioner took the lead in corruption, which caused great public indignation. Due to the seriousness of the case, the Central Supervisory Court personally accepted the investigation and transferred the results of the investigation to the judicial department.

Then a strange scene appeared, the Central Supervision Yuan personally accepted it, and the evidence was conclusive, the court actually dared to drag it out and not judge, and finally the case was closed.

Such an absurd situation is nothing more than the fact that the backers of corrupt officials are very hard, so hard that even Lao Jiang has to give face.

Rule of law?

It's nothing more than the rule of man!

……

Song Ziwen has been exhausted these days, and with such a serious flood, he needs to be fully responsible for disaster relief affairs. Not only is it difficult to raise money, but even more difficult is food and medicine, and even if you have money, you can't buy enough supplies.

Nanjing, Sanpailou, U.S. Legation in China.

Song Ziwen put down the pen in his hand, showed a relieved smile on his face, and shook hands with the US Minister to China Jensen: "Mr. Jensen, thank you so much, the Chinese people will remember the friendship of the US government." ”

"Helping AIA, that's what we should do." Jensen smiled.

After more than half a month of bargaining, Soong Ziwen finally succeeded in signing a contract for the purchase of wheat from the United States. Moreover, it was a contract on credit, because Song Ziwen could not come up with the money for the time being, so he bought 450,000 tons of American wheat on credit at one time.

Don't look at what the US minister said so righteously, this guy is smiling secretly, credit is also a sale, and the United States wishes it could sell more agricultural products.

According to Fortune magazine, there are 34 million adult men, women and children in the United States, accounting for 28% of the total U.S. population. But this report is very watery, because the vast rural population of the United States is not included in the statistics.

The Great Depression not only made life difficult for the city dwellers, but also for the peasants.

Today, the price of wheat in the United States is only 25 cents per bushel, which translates to a unit price of $0.046 per kilogram. Well, to buy 200 catties of American wheat, it only costs $4.6. Corn is even cheaper, 200 pounds of American corn is worth 12 cents. Apples are sold directly in boxes, and 200 apples in a box are all in good condition, and they are sold for only 40 cents.

U.S. farmers now lose $1.50 per acre of wheat, making it the most lucrative food crop. Money-losing goods like corn, hehe, farmers directly use corn as firewood, which is more cost-effective than selling corn to buy coal.

A rancher in Montana took out a loan to buy a batch of bullets, killed all the animals in two hours, and threw them into a ravine to rot because the money from selling them was not enough to cover the fodder.

Now it is very cost-effective to buy land in the United States, and a quarter of the pastures in the United States are listed for sale, all at the price of cabbage, but unfortunately no one buys it.

Both sides are satisfied with the 450,000-ton wheat purchase contract signed between the Nanjing government and the US government.

The Yankees sold wheat at a unit price of $0.046 to China at a price of $0.1 (plus freight), which directly doubled the price and cleared the domestic stock. As for China, not only can it buy wheat at a price far lower than that of China, but it can also pay on credit, which is simply a lot of money.

Song Ziwen said: "Mr. Jensen, I hope that your country can speed up and get these relief wheat to China as soon as possible. ”

Jensen smiled and said, "Mr. Song, within a month at the latest, you will be able to see these wheats at the Shanghai dock." ”

Thanks to the development of technology, the fastest ships can travel from the West Coast of the United States to Shanghai, China in just 15 days. Combined with the procurement and transshipment in the United States, a month is about the right time.

However, we will have to wait another month!

Song Ziwen's mood became heavy again, there were countless telegrams urging food every day, and he now had a headache as soon as he received the telegram. A month is enough time to drive him crazy!

Before he could walk out of the U.S. Legation, the secretary suddenly came over with a telegram: "Minister, Shanghai is in an emergency!" ”

Song Ziwen's head exploded and said, "Where is the disaster again?" ”

The secretary said happily: "It's grain, the grain of the three ocean-going freighters was bought by Mr. Zhou Hexuan from the United States, and he wants to donate all of them to the Flood Relief Committee!" ”

Song Ziwen, who had been worried about food for many days, was like hearing the gospel of heaven in hell, he was stunned for a long time, and suddenly laughed and said: "Zhou Mingcheng is really timely and rainy!" ”

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