Episode 150 Prisoner of War Crisis

On August 1, 1936, .

Western Hemisphere: The 11th Olympiad and the first modern Olympic Games opened in Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany. Based on his own ideas, Hitler pioneered the "Torch Relay", which has been retained for every subsequent Olympic Games.

Eastern Hemisphere: The former Qing prisoners, who had been released, took to the streets of Nanjing today to march and demonstrate, and sat in silence in front of the official residence of the capital, resolutely opposing the Ming government's return to the Manchus.

Supposedly, the Olympics and the parade-demonstration-demonstration in a certain city are not heavyweight events. After all, the Olympic Games have attracted global attention, and Nanjing is a city where there are people's parades, demonstrations, and demonstrations at both ends of the three days. But because the latter's "protagonist" is too special, or too ironic, coupled with the unusually large scale advantage, it has also become the focus of international attention that can compete with the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Half of the 150,000 Qing soldiers captured by the Ming army in the Ming and Qing wars half a year ago, that is, about 80,000 prisoners, have been released one after another a few months ago. The remaining 70,000 or so prisoners remain in prisoner-of-war camps and have not yet been released. According to the practice of the previous wars of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the two sides would exchange prisoners within half a year to a year after the end of the war.

Of course, this is only a tacit understanding between two hostile regimes, and there is no international convention to bind it. According to some international conventions that have emerged in recent times, it is certain that after the end of the war, both sides released all prisoners of war. After all, the captives in your hands are not your nationals, but foreigners, and it is useless to keep them in your hands. However, neither side of the Ming and Qing dynasties recognized the other as a sovereign state, and both sides tacitly agreed that this was a situation of political separation that had occurred many times in Chinese history, and the other side was not therefore a "foreign country". Moreover, the secession is temporary, and it is certain that one day reunification will be restored. It's just that both sides decided that it was up to them to "unify" the other.

Therefore, the two sides are generally limited to "equal exchanges", i.e. you exchange 10,000 captives for my 10,000 captives. But the number of prisoners in the hands of both sides is definitely different, and the remaining prisoners who are "not replaced" are usually not put back, and they are on their side as ordinary people. And this time in the Ming and Qing wars, the number of prisoners in the hands of the two sides was even more disparity, and the Manchu Qing only had a few thousand Ming prisoners in their hands, that is, the battle in the southern suburbs, the Qing army's Eight Banners Division ambushed and captured thousands of Ming troops. The Qing army in the hands of Nanming had as many as 150,000 prisoners.

At the beginning, the Ming Dynasty was more optimistic about the exchange of prisoners, and felt that all the thousands of soldiers could be exchanged back. If the Manchus were unbalanced and uncooperative, they would have to change it a little more. It's a big deal if I exchange two for one for you and three for you, it's not a big deal.

But what they didn't expect was that in the decades between this Ming and Qing War and the last Ming and Qing War, the Northern Qing Dynasty was far from the "normal" Northern Qing Dynasty it used to be. And Nanming is far from the Nanming of decades ago. If a few decades ago, before the two sides changed the law, the difference between the two sides was not so big, then now the two sides are simply worlds apart. In particular, the values and the ideas of the decision-makers are simply opposite, and the differences far outweigh the similarities. In addition to speaking the same language and using the same script, they are simply two countries.

After the war, the basic tone of Emperor Guangwu's internal propaganda was:

-- Our Celestial Empire's army won a complete victory, successfully completing His Majesty's strategic goal of "conquering Nanjing on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve." This southern expedition to our Celestial Dynasty has completed a complete victory, and all officers and men have successfully returned to Korea.

As for why they have already conquered Nanjing, but do not take advantage of the victory to pursue and take the entire south of the Yangtze River, but to "smoothly return to the dynasty", whether it is the "Daqing Daily" or the "Daqing Radio Station", they are all bypassed, but only overwhelmingly publicize how brilliant our Qing army conquered Nanjing and won, and how the Nanming army was so brilliant that it could not be defeated...... Also, since he has just beaten the "smooth class teacher", can it be called a "total victory"? …… So is it a "defeat" or a "victorious class"? …… Although these are common sense issues, if the Manchu propaganda machine does not mention them, the Manchu people, who no longer know how to turn in circles, will not think about it, and will directly and habitually accept it.

But it also brings out a problem: since it is a "total victory", since it is a "smooth return of the class to the dynasty", then it is naturally unreasonable to let the family capture 150,000 people. Moreover, Guangwu personally set the tone, emphasizing that if "all the officers and soldiers" returned to the DPRK smoothly, it would be even more unlikely that they would be captured in large numbers.

Sure enough, Nanming contacted the Manchus through Japanese intermediaries to discuss the exchange of prisoners, and the Manchus claimed that none of their soldiers were captured.

Nanming's worst worry appeared: Emperor Guangwu really didn't plan to ask for his 150,000 soldiers for the sake of his own face and mouth.

However, at this time, the Ming and Qing dynasties only made tentative contact through Japanese intermediaries, and did not take it to the table, and it was not the focus of attention from the outside world at that time. At that time, Xiang Xiaoqiang happened to be in Europe and was not involved.

After the Ming army captured 150,000 Qing troops, they first conducted a survey to determine how many people were willing to return to the Northern Qing Dynasty and how many were willing to stay in the Southern Ming Dynasty after they were released. At that time, nearly half of them clearly expressed their willingness to stay in Nanming, and after seeing the treatment of the Nanming prisoner of war camp, more Qing prisoners asked to stay in Nanming. In this way, the number of Qing prisoners who asked to stay in the Southern Ming Dynasty reached about 80,000. The other 70,000 are not because they don't want to stay in Nanming, but because they already have wives and children in the north, they won't be afraid of being persecuted by their wives and children.

So, Nanming first released the 80,000 people who asked to stay behind. Another 70,000 people will not be released for the time being, retaining their prisoner of war status, waiting to exchange thousands of prisoners of war with the Northern Qing Dynasty.

For the 80,000 people who were released, the Nanming government gave each of them 100 yuan in settling-in allowance according to the treatment of those who fled south, and a total of 8 million Mingyang was spent. This huge amount of money caused a lot of criticism in China at that time, and many people in Daming were opposed to it, and it was also scolded in the newspapers and marched on the streets. However, after all, there are still a few people who oppose it, and more people still understand, thinking that this is also our compatriots after all, and since they yearn for the Ming Dynasty, they should have national treatment.

But just a few days ago, when public opinion in the Southern Ming Dynasty was focused on the two major events of the Spanish Civil War and the Berlin Olympics, Emperor Guangwu met with foreign reporters in Beijing, and changed his face and said that he was willing to exchange the prisoners of war of the Southern Ming Dynasty in his hands for prisoners of war of the Qing Dynasty. However, the two sides must exchange all of them, and they cannot exchange the same amount. In the words of Guangwu, it is "disrespectful to life, which is not a simple addition and subtraction arithmetic". Of course, this was only said in front of foreign journalists, and the common people in the Manchu Qing Dynasty did not know about it.

Emperor Guangwu's scoundrel face was clearly seen by everyone. He is taking the opportunity to blackmail Nanming and give the other party a problem. Nanming said earlier that he would exchange prisoners with the Northern Qing, but the Northern Qing said that it was not necessary, because we had won, so there were no prisoners. Now Nanming has released most of the Qing prisoners who voluntarily stayed, and paid them all settling-in allowances, and these 80,000 people have also got "green cards" and started a new life in Daming happily......

So, Beiqing saw the opportunity and overturned what he said earlier, saying that I will change with you, but I will change all of them. And I will exchange a few thousand in my hand for one hundred and fifty thousand in your hand. As for the 80,000 prisoners you have released, I don't care, anyway, if you don't give me all the 150,000 prisoners, you don't want to return the thousands of Ming prisoners of war in my hands. If you don't change it, the thousands of families in your country won't agree. See what you do.

As for those that sound good, for example, otherwise it is "disrespectful to life, life is not a simple addition and subtraction arithmetic"...... Everyone knows that he said it with a shy face. When did Emperor Guangwu respect life? Emperor Guangwu said respect for life, and both Qin Shi Huang and Genghis Khan laughed.

The 80,000 former captives who have become citizens of the Ming Dynasty have already opened their eyes during this time, and they have read more newspapers and come into contact with more news than in the past 20 years, and they are no longer cement heads like terracotta warriors. During this time, I was shopping in Nanjing, and I saw that there were people in front of Xinjiekou Square and Shoufu Mansion every day with different requirements, and I had already increased my knowledge and knew what was the best way to use in Daming.

What these 80,000 new citizens of the Ming Dynasty are most afraid of is that the Ming Dynasty handed over their tens of thousands of "post-children" in exchange for their thousands of "pro-children" and sent them back to the Northern Qing Dynasty. That's what they'd rather die than do. So, on August 1, nearly 30,000 former Qing prisoners of war who were still in Nanjing were connected, and began a mighty procession, marching, and sit-in in front of the official residence of the first assistant minister to exert pressure on the Ming government.

Although it has become the norm for citizens to march and give speeches on the streets of Nanjing every day, the number of people this time is too large: 30,000 people, which is the largest since the last Donglin student march. And their identities are so news-watching, so they suddenly became the focus of attention.