Lao Jiang is a stubborn person.

At the beginning, he believed that the Communist Party posed the greatest threat to him, so he would rather watch the Japanese invade the three eastern provinces, watch the Japanese send troops to Beijing and Tianjin, watch the Japanese encroach on North China step by step, and watch the Chinese army being driven out of Songhu, but he still resolutely wants to wipe out the Communist Party first. At that time, if he followed Mao Zedong's poems in the future, he really said, "It is advisable to chase the poor bravely, and not to become a famous overlord." In the future Liberation War, the Communist Party was unwilling to let him recuperate on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and I am afraid that one or two points were "learning" from him as an "example"!

Of course, whether it is the old Chiang chasing the Red Army at the beginning, or the People's Liberation Army chasing him and Jiang in the future, the reasons must be extremely complicated, not just one or two. But Lao Jiang's temperament can be seen from this.

In addition to being stubborn, Lao Chiang also had another characteristic, which was the same as many warlords of his time: they did not pay attention to the common people, or in other words, they did not care about the life and death of the common people at all.

Some people may wonder how a leader can not care about the life and death of the people of his country. Even if Lao Chiang is a reactionary, you can't talk nonsense like that. You must know that Lao Jiang even let go of many warlord leaders who had opposed him in the first place, and the most ruthless of these people almost removed him from the position of national leader. These people have been released, and they have been given high-level offerings, how can they not care about the common people? Although there are indeed many corrupt officials under Lao Chiang, there are historical reasons for that. After all, since the days of the Confederacy, there have been few really good people in the Kuomintang. Lao Jiang inherited such a political legacy, and naturally he also had to bear the consequences. Therefore, be kind, and don't attribute all the mistakes to Lao Jiang alone.

But the fact is that Lao Jiang is really not a kind person.

The Great Famine in Henan was tightly sealed by the Henan Provincial Government at the time from the very beginning. As a result, Jiang Dingwen, commander of the First Theater of Operations, reported the disaster situation in Henan to the central authorities, but because the Henan Provincial Government did not truthfully declare it, his declaration was reprimanded. According to Li Jingzhai, Henan's land minister at the time, later recalled in the magazine "Spring and Autumn" that Jiang Dingwen once called on his soldiers to save two taels of surplus food every day. For three months, the food was required to be used for relief to the victims. Not only Jiang Dingwen, but also the various armies in Henan at that time also hoped that the government would quickly allocate grain from other places. Li Jiayu, the commander of the 36th Group Army, also reported the disaster in Henan, but he was also beaten back by He Yingqin, because the disaster could not be reported casually. If the local government does not report it, the military report is invalid. Afterward. I can't hide the facts. In October 1942, when the central government sent Zhang Ji and Zhang Lisheng to Henan to inspect the disaster, a disaster report meeting was held in Mi County, and provincial dignitaries and counties should send representatives to attend. Unexpectedly, Li Peiji, then chairman of Henan Province, sent a message to the delegates from all over the country on the way to the meeting, telling them not to talk too seriously about the disaster. One participant recalled: "During the meeting, the delegates of each county bitterly reported the devastation of the disaster, and the officials turned a blind eye to it, and the people who died of starvation were all visible. Zhang Lisheng said at the meeting: "When we didn't come to Henan, we only knew that there was a disaster in Henan. I don't know how serious the disaster is. It was only later that I learned that the disaster in Henan was so serious, Chairman Li, you can't excuse yourself! Later, at a banquet hosted by the Henan military, Zhang Lisheng asked Li Peiji in person why he did not report the disaster. Li Peiji said: "At first, when I saw Ermai Miao Xiufeng, it would not rain without raining, but who knew that a yellow wind blew from the bastard of Emperor Dao and dried all the wheat seedlings overnight. Zhang Lisheng asked again: "With such a situation, why don't you report the disaster?" Li Peiji said: "I saw that the early autumn was growing well, but who knew that the emperor was a bastard with another neck drought!" (In the local dialect, it means to pinch the neck). According to Jin Handing's recollections, when the central authorities sent Zhang Puquan and Zhang Lisheng to Henan to investigate, "Chairman Li Peiji led the relevant personnel on the way to the meeting and told Commissioner Li Xingcun to tell the deputies: 'Don't talk too seriously about the disaster, the chairman has his own way.'" ’”

However, if Li Peiji does not report, and even suppresses lower-level officials from reporting, can he hide from Lao Jiang? There are many spies under him, hundreds of thousands of military commanders, nearly 100,000 central commanders, and generals at all levels...... Isn't there anyone who has a little conscience and a little bit of a sense of the big picture? Millions of people starved to death, and he didn't know it? Later, when the affairs in Henan could not be covered, the Henan Provincial Relief Association elected representatives to Chongqing and asked the Kuomintang Central Committee to exempt the amount of grain levied in the disaster areas, but Lao Chiang not only did not see them, but also did not allow these representatives to openly operate in Chongqing. Later, at the first session of the third national political participation meeting held in Chongqing, Guo Zhongkui, a member of the Henan National Political Participation, also expressed sympathy for the plight of the victims in Henan and demanded that measures be taken, but Lao Jiang still ignored them. Before that, Zhang Ji and Zhang Lisheng, two senior officials he sent to Henan for inspection, returned to Chongqing, and also told him about the disaster situation in Henan, hoping that he could take measures to relieve the disaster as soon as possible, but he also did not say anything. The appeals from many quarters did not seem to arouse Chiang Kai-shek's slightest attention to the disaster in Henan. The only thing he did during this period was to convene an urgent "forward military ration meeting" after learning the news, and took some measures to reduce the amount of grain requisitioned in Henan on the one hand, and to transport the grain reserves from Xi'an to Henan for the army's use on the other hand. However, these extraordinary measures were only aimed at solving the food problem of the Henan army, and no effective disaster relief measures were taken; as for the amount of grain to be exempted or exempted, Li Peiji, chairman of Henan Province, said something like this: "Only the rich can pay all the taxes." For the poor, we will not expropriate more than what can be produced on the land......"

In 1943, the climate in the disaster area was still arid, and the situation worsened. In early February, the Chongqing edition of Ta Kung Pao published a report on the Great Famine sent back by a reporter from the Henan disaster area, but was severely punished by the relevant departments of the Nationalist Government for immediately suspending publication for three days.

Bai Xiude, a reporter for Time magazine in the United States, went deep into the disaster area and found that there were corpses everywhere on the roadside and in the fields, and wild dogs were gnawing on the dead corpses everywhere. He was deeply shaken. It was decided to get these reports out of the way. But he had been in China for a long time, and he knew that if he just wanted to report the news in China, he might not even be able to pass the review level, so he passed the news directly to the other side of the ocean through the telegraph office.

So the news first spread in Time magazine, where Bai Xiude worked, which, as mentioned earlier, was the most sympathetic to Chinese in the whole of the United States. Luce has always been a very strong supporter of China's anti-Japanese cause. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek's wife, Soong Meiling, was visiting the United States, and when she heard the news, she was immediately furious, believing that it would damage the image of the Chinese government. Thanks to her relationship with Henry. Luce is an old friend, so he strongly asks Luce to dismiss Bai Xiude. As a result, this unreasonable demand was rightly rejected by Luce. As a result, this news of the great famine in Henan caused a huge repercussion in the United States, and the US government and opposition were greatly dissatisfied with the Chinese government's practice of disregarding the lives and deaths of the people at that time, and even felt very angry.

Bai Xiude returned to Chongqing under such circumstances. and immediately asked to meet Lao Jiang and asked to present the disaster to Lao Jiang. The result? Old Jiang refused!

The most rear. "Mother of the Nation" Song Qingling couldn't help but come forward. She found Lao Jiang. repeatedly told Lao Jiang that this was a matter of millions of lives, and insisted that Lao Jiang meet with Bai Xiude. Lao Jiang couldn't help it, and finally agreed to meet. But when they met, Lao Jiang did not hide his dislike for Bai Xiude at all, and resolutely denied that people ate people and wild dogs eating dead corpses. Bai Xiude had no choice but to take out a photo of a wild dog eating a human corpse that he had taken. Lao Jiang saw these photos. Finally conceded defeat. He embarrassedly asked Bai Xiude where he had taken these photographs, asked him to provide a complete report, and thanked Bai Xiude, saying that Bai Xiude was a better investigator than any investigator he had sent.

And then. Disaster relief begins. A large amount of grain from Shaanxi entered Henan, and the disaster situation was quickly alleviated.

This is Lao Jiang, stubborn to the point of almost being cold-blooded, or in other words, he didn't take the people to heart at all.

……

And now, Lao Jiang is still dissatisfied with Qin Wei and Zhu Kezhen, he is very unhappy that these two people "forced" his behavior, and he does not think that just starting a famine for a short time can last long...... Even with the so-called research information and results provided by Zhu Kezhen. Therefore, he categorically decided not to provide disaster relief. However, in the face of Zhu Kezhen, the president of the university, he didn't act too coldly, and he didn't want to be held by others, so he found another reason.

"The famine in northern Shaanxi has lasted for two years, but the government has been at war with the Japanese army, which has caused huge consumption, and northern Shaanxi has always been a communist bandit...... That is occupied by the Communist Party, and the Central Committee can only watch anxiously, but there is nothing it can do. Now, because the Communist Party could not stand the disaster, it found an excuse to go to Khalkha, leaving only one northern Shaanxi with the more serious disaster to the central government...... But the central government can't let those victims in northern Shaanxi go unchecked, right? Compared with the people of Henan, they have been affected for a longer time. Principal Zhu, don't you say? ”

Lao Jiang's tone was both cordial and compassionate. If not everyone present knew him very well, maybe they would have been moved. And Zhu Kezhen obviously does not belong to these people who know Lao Jiang.

"Chairman of the committee, you are right, in recent years, natural disasters in northern Shaanxi have been very frequent, and it is indeed far more serious than the drought in Henan." Zhu Kezhen didn't realize the meaning behind Lao Jiang, and thought that Lao Jiang was really embarrassed, but his words still made everyone in the room, including Lao Jiang, feel a burst of scalp tingling: "Northern Shaanxi is known as 'nine droughts in ten years' and 'two droughts in three years, and no drought in one year'. According to our survey, northern Shaanxi has experienced a variety of natural disasters such as drought, hailstorm, flood, frost, and sandstorm disasters in recent years, among which drought is the most serious. I remember ......"

Rubbing his head, Zhu Kezhen made a look of trying to think about his memories. When He Yingqin and the others saw him like this, they were about to open their mouths to stop him from continuing, but at this time, Zhu Kezhen suddenly clapped his hands:

"Remember! According to the relevant data sent by Shaanxi, we have calculated that in the past 100 years, Yulin alone has suffered 46 droughts, 25 hailstorms, 11 frosts, 28 floods, 12 wind disasters, 10 pests and diseases, 10 earthquakes and landslides, a total of 242 times. The frequency of damage is 0.45...... The government should have bailed out a long time ago! ”

"One, more than a hundred years, this ......"

Kong Xiangxi's face turned pale. He didn't remember what Zhu Kezhen said, he only remembered the sentence "Yulin area has been affected by disasters 242 times in the past 100 years"! But that's all there is to it. In 100 years, there have been 242 disasters, an average of two or three disasters per year...... How much sin did the people of Yulin have to do to endure this kind of suffering? But Kong Xiangxi was not most concerned about this, he was concerned about the reason provided by Lao Jiang just now in order to shirk the request for relief from Henan...... Relief in northern Shaanxi!

Can you save this place that is affected by disasters two or three times a year on average?

"A hundred years is a bit longer. But northern Shaanxi is really bitter. Zhu Kezhen couldn't help shaking his head and sighing, "Especially in recent years, starting from the 17th year of the Republic of China (1928), northern Shaanxi has suffered a major drought that has not been encountered in a century, and it has been a drought for 5 years!" During this period, plague and other epidemics were also prevalent. Since the beginning of the previous year, northern Shaanxi has once again suffered from drought, water, snow, freezing, wind, frost, insects, plague and other disasters, and we do not know the area of cultivated land and food losses affected by the disaster, but according to our calculations of the population in various places, even if many people are taken away by the Communist Party, the affected population is at least one million! Chairman of the committee, Henan wants to be saved, but if northern Shaanxi is not saved, I am afraid there will not be a few living people! ”

"......" (To be continued......)