In general, in the early twentieth century, China was a semi-colony in dire straits, while Japan was a normal country with high eyebrows; By the end of the twentieth century, China was finally able to become independent and return to normal, while the Japanese themselves had sent themselves into the fire pit of semi-colonies.

At the most intuitive level, one of the most important characteristics of a semi-colony is that it is nominally independent within the territory of a sovereign state, but there are foreign troops stationed there, and government agencies are infiltrated like a sieve.

To put it bluntly, in terms of national dignity and independence, Japan after World War II may not even be as good as the Qing Empire in the era of the Empress Dowager Cixi, and it will probably be similar to the Kuomintang comprador government with Jiang Guangtou -- for example, in diplomacy, no matter how well Li Hongzhang fights, after all, he can still stand up in international diplomacy, and even if he doesn't use his words, he can at least theorize; As for post-war Japan, diplomatically it was okay with other countries, but it didn't say anything to the United States, but it was simply a slave who knelt down to the American master and felt that he was kneeling late and wanted to slap himself. When it comes to finance, even the Empress Dowager Cixi only has to pay compensation after losing the battle, and she does not have the habit of sending money to foreigners to congratulate her on New Year's holidays. As for the Japanese after World War II, when the American master fought a war 108,000 miles away, he didn't do anything at all, but he just stuck a hot face to a cold buttocks, and paid money to the master out of his own pocket, and when the spoils were distributed after the war, there was no share of the Japanese. Even for an international climate conference in Copenhagen, the Americans have to pay for the Japanese money......

No way. No matter how difficult the family is and how aggrieved the heart is, the American master must please Haode -- although the Americans may not be able to make their favorite candidate the prime minister (there are many things that are not on the wall). But there is definitely a way to make the Japanese prime minister who is not pleasing to their eyes obediently step down!

As for the military, not to mention, the so-called well-equipped and advanced Japanese Self-Defense Forces, whether they should be regarded as the army of the Americans or the army of the Japanese, the Japanese government is afraid that it is also beating the drum in its heart, and can only comfort itself by saying that we are one with the United States of America, and what the United States has is equivalent to having its own home. Even if he is bullied by the United States, it is just a father teaching his children a lesson, and there is no need to make a fuss......

So. Despite Japan's considerable economic success after the war, it did not receive a commensurate political and military status, and this contrast made Japan, no matter how fat it was, a cash machine for the United States. Sheep were sheared over and over again. And there is no power to resist.

In the same way, in semi-colonial China, the survival, growth and decline of various regimes depended to a large extent on the support of the imperialist masters behind them. And even if a regime is supported by imperialism, it will inevitably suffer the tragic fate of being sheared and bloodletted - because the imperialists support them with the aim of squeezing the blood and sweat of the people through these semi-colonial regimes.

For example, during the silver boom of the past two years, Chiang Kai-shek was stabbed by the US imperialism that had always supported him -- Roosevelt decoupled the dollar from the gold standard in order to increase exports to China and pass on the economic crisis. In order to facilitate the printing of money "quantitative easing", the "Silver Purchase Act" was introduced. From China, which is the only country in the country that adopts the monetary policy of the silver standard, and hoards a large amount of silver, it has aggressively purchased silver, resulting in a large loss of silver dollars and silver taels in the Chinese market, forming a serious deflation. In the words of the U.S. State Department, "we drained China's money."

At that time, it was the silver dollar era, and China did not produce much silver, so the outflow of silver meant that there was less and less money in circulation, which was called "money shortage" in ancient times, and "deflation" now. Money is the medium of the flow of goods, without money, goods can not flow, market exchange can not be carried out, the ancients called "department stores die", that situation is much more terrible than inflation. After the rise in the price of silver, coupled with the influx of foreign goods, domestic prices plummeted, and the decline in agricultural products was particularly tragic. Ye Shengtao's novel "Three or Five Buckets Overharvested" is famous for describing the "harvest disaster" of farmers during the Republic of China, and the background is this silver trend. The damage was no less than that of the collapse of Japan's bubble economy in later generations.

In the face of such a critical situation, like the future Japanese and Asian tigers, the first reaction of the Kuomintang comprador regime was to beg the United States for mercy -- on August 30, 1934, Kong Xiangxi, secretary of finance of the Nanjing government, sent a telegram to Roosevelt, imploring the United States to consider China's plight and that "China will express its gratitude." The U.S. government refused.

By the beginning of December 1934, China's finances were on the verge of collapse, and even the US Treasury Secretary could not stand it anymore, wanting to "help these poor fellows" and advised Roosevelt to suspend the purchase of silver. Roosevelt still refused to adopt it. At this time, the Nanjing government can be said to be extremely miserable and embarrassed. European and American journalists commented: "The Chinese are not capable of dealing with the Japanese army and are facing a financial crisis. The world speculated that they would have to submit to Japan because they could not find any help. ”

In the original time and space, China would have flowed 60,000 taels to 80,000 taels of silver, and the precious metal wealth accumulated for thousands of years would be wiped out in one fell swoop.

However, in Shanghai, the largest gold and silver trading center in the Far East, the huge amount of silver that the foreign banks had worked so hard to hoard was caught up by the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which happily blew open the vaults and snatched them all, and hanged the bank manager on a street lamp, which was tantamount to cutting off a piece of meat from the Wall Street tycoons...... It is no wonder that the attitude of the US Government has become so angry, and it can even do something that is completely out of the historical trajectory such as "US-Japan joint aggression against China."

It is also for this reason that since Chiang Kai-shek's performance is so incompetent, he can't even let China obediently lie down and shear the sheep of the American and British masters, then he will naturally be abandoned without hesitation -- imperialism is unreliable!

And with the fall of Chiang Kai-shek, since the Great War in the Central Plains. China's short-lived reunification came to an end.

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“…… The Kuomintang is finished! The Nanjing Nationalist Government has lost some of its Zuihou legitimacy......"

Listening to the news on the radio that Wang Jingwei's government had been formally established in Nanjing, and that Chen Jitang, Bai Chongxi, Yan Xishan, Liu Xiang, and other powerful local factions had announced one after another that they would "break away from the puppet central government." Wang Qiu, who was sitting at the headquarters of the Red Army on the outskirts of Hangzhou, couldn't help but sigh and said.

-- Originally, after the end of the Great War in the Central Plains, China had barely achieved formal reunification politically due to Zhang Xueliang's change of banner in the northeast. The leaders of the warlords of all stripes joined the Kuomintang at least formally, and were all "members of the Central Executive Committee"; Militarily, after several warlord scuffles, Chiang Kai-shek had basically controlled the situation militarily; Warlords everywhere began to degenerate from traditional feudal warlords to a kind of secessive blockade economic circle, and even began to independently introduce foreign capital to confront the central government in Nanjing. Like Chen Jitang in Guangdong. Bai Chongxi and Li Zongren in Guangxi, and Song Zheyuan in Hebei. Fu Zuoyi in Suiyuan, Han Fuyu in Shandong, Yan Xishan in Shanxi, Liu Xiang in Sichuan, Long Yun in Yunnan and other local powerful factions. Although it is still against the central government. However, it is basically impossible to have a "big war" with the central government at every turn, as it was in previous years.

Now, however, with the fall of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist government in Nanjing, which had become a puppet of Japan, had once again lost the legitimacy of its rule and its deterrent effect against local warlords – precisely because the warlords had their own fragmented blockade of the economic sphere, and thus the financial collapse caused by the fall of Shanghai. The impact was far less than that of the areas directly under the Nanjing government, and it still had the operational ability to send troops to fight. The shili of both sides has already reversed in an instant. It's just that there's still a lack of a suitable excuse...... And Wang Jingwei is equivalent to giving the most perfect excuse to both hands!

As a result, Guangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, and Shanxi successively declared independence under the banner of resistance against Japan, and other provinces were de facto separated...... Even those pro-Japanese warlords will only directly seek refuge with the Japanese if they want to sell themselves, so why should they let Nanjing have another hand?

In addition to the successive independence of the provincial warlords, there was also a new round of land grabbing that took place simultaneously in late February.

First of all, Chen Jitang of Guangdong, who gathered 30,000 Cantonese troops in Shantou and Chaozhou, and then, with the assistance of hundreds of Japanese advisers and Japanese instructors, invaded Fujian under the banner of "aiding Fujian", trying to compete for this piece of unclaimed territory that originally belonged to the 19th Route Army but was later suppressed and suppressed by the Central Army. In order to make the march smooth, Chen Jitang also specially sent people to Hong Kong to invite Cai Tingkai to go out of the mountain, hoping that he would help recruit rebels in Fujian.

At the same time, Chen Yi also led the Red Army to launch a fierce offensive from western Fujian in an attempt to restore the eastern territory of the Central Soviet Region. Although the fortress defense line built by the Kuomintang with huge sums of money is still strong, the officers and soldiers no longer have a boss who can pay themselves, and they need to fight at their own expense, and there are still Cantonese troops behind them...... Therefore, in order to prevent losses, the commanders of various units fled without a fight with their troops in front of the Red Army, or directly mutinied and dispersed.

Then it was He Jian from Hunan who made the move - although He Jian was more loyal to the central government than ordinary warlords, but in the face of the current chaos, he had to plan for himself first...... The first task is to "invite" Xue Yue's Central Army stationed in Xiangxi out, so that Hunan can truly become his He Jian's Hunan, otherwise with such a big time bomb buried around him, He Jian really can't sleep well in Changsha.

But the problem is that He Jian here wants to drive Xue Yue away, and Xue Yue over there still wants to kill He Jian and become the "King of Hunan" himself! As a result, after Xue Yue's Central Army completed the purge, it quickly seized Changde, an important town in western Xiangxi, looted military supplies on a large scale, and then engaged in an armed conflict with He Jian's main force of the Hunan army. It happened that He Long's Xiangxi Red Army came from behind again...... So a three-way melee broke out, and the fight was a chicken feather......

The next person to do it was a long-forgotten big man, Zhang Xueliang, a "general of non-resistance" who has gained a notorious reputation in recent years -- he has not yet gone to Shaanxi to accompany Yang Hucheng, but is serving as deputy commander of the "anti-bandit" headquarters in Henan, Hubei, and Anhui provinces, and is stationed in Wuchang...... However, his 200,000 Northeast Army mainly lived in Henan and northern Anhui, and relied on the central government to pay for it.

Now that Chiang Kai-shek has fallen, the Northeast Army, which is living in a different place, will naturally be cut off, and Zhang Xueliang's most urgent priority at present is to immediately grab a piece of land to loot money to survive. In view of the strong Huangpu system in Hubei, there are also naval remnants controlling the Yangtze River. The newcomer Northeast Army was afraid that it would not be tenable, so Zhang Xueliang gave up Wuchang and went north, announcing in Xiangyang to "aid Henan to resist Japan". In the name of "helping" to resist the Japanese army in Xuzhou, he was going to do something to seize the territory of Henan, so as to gain fame and fortune, and sweep away the infamy of "non-resistance generals" in the past.

However, although Zhang Xueliang thought well, he took a fancy to Shili, the fertile land of Henan, the Central Plains, and it was not only the Northeast Army - except for Song Zheyuan, who was directly under the huge pressure of the Japanese army in North China and could not be separated for a while. The other three parties around Henan, Han Fuqu in Shandong, Yang Hucheng in Shaanxi, and Yan Xishan in Shanxi also announced that they would send troops to "aid Henan" and poured into Henan from all directions. And the Japanese army left behind in Xuzhou. It seems that he also has some ideas about moving west to the Central Plains along the Longhai Railway...... For a while, it was really a storm in all directions, and it was very lively.

Later, with the "help" of the Japanese bayonets, He Yingqin completed the purge and reorganization of the Nanjing garrison. I couldn't wait to give the Japanese the military task of clearing out the red bandits in the east. Then he led his troops west to Anhui in an attempt to expand the territory of the Nationalist Government in Nanjing.

Under such circumstances, if Chiang Kai-shek, who was camping in Nanchang, could raise the banner of resistance against Japan and even declare war on Japan in a high-profile manner, then perhaps he could unite some people's hearts and organize a relatively stubborn resistance...... But the problem was that the support of the American and British imperialist powers for Japan had completely frightened Chiang Kai-shek and his staff. There was no way to raise the banner of resistance against Japan on the moral high ground, and there was no way to resist He Yingqin's persuasion and bribery. As a result, the troops of the Whampoa descendants defected one after another. Anhui quickly fell, and all major cities were subordinated to Wang Jingwei's Nationalist government in Nanjing......

Taking advantage of the disintegration and collapse of the Nationalist Government and the lack of time to "suppress bandits," the Central Red Army, which had successfully captured Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou, reiterated its declaration of war against the Japanese invaders in Jiangsu in late February, thousands of miles across the three provinces of Hunan, Jiangxi, and Anhui.

In addition, what makes people feel more strange is that this declaration of war actually used the name of the "Chinese Soviet Republic":

“…… Since 1931, two regimes of very different natures have emerged on the territory of China at the same time: one is the Nanjing National Government, an imperialist tool for exploiting and oppressing the Chinese people; One is the government of the Chinese Soviet Republic, which represents the revolutionary power of all the toiling masses.

In the past years, the two central governments have been fighting each other for a long time, but the government of the Chinese Soviet Republic is too weak and in an unfavorable state of being blockaded and encircled, so it has been ignored by many people. The imperialist shili never regarded this revolutionary government, which represented the broadest masses of the people, as an equal party to the Nationalist government in Nanjing, but only as a local opposition to the shili.

Now, with the occupation of Nanjing by the Japanese invaders, the Nanjing National Government, which helped imperialism oppress the Chinese people, no longer exists! Until then, the Nationalist Government of Nanking had been a reactionary Chinese government, a target that we would strive to overthrow. Today's Wang Jingwei traitorous clique is not worthy of the word "China" at all, not even a reactionary government, it can only be said to be a puppet government! Then, since the Nationalist Government had already committed treason and surrendered its own zǔihou shredded its legitimacy, the Chinese Soviet Republic automatically became the sole central government in the whole of China!

Indeed, last year, our party's revolutionary cause suffered a tremendous setback, a large number of base areas were lost, and at one point it even had to take the risk of organizing a field army to jump out of the central Soviet area and carry out a strategic shift, and it paid very heavy sacrifices.

However, it is gratifying that the great turning point representing the revolution to victory will come in a flash in the following month, and our heroic and fearless Red Tenth Army Corps will successively break through the encirclement, suppression, and obstruction of the Kuomintang reactionary army, and bravely wipe out the British, French, American, and Japanese imperialist garrisons in China, and capture the bridgehead and base camp of imperialism in China in one fell swoop, Shanghai! Thus sounding the death knell of the exploiting class and imperialism! At this moment when the crisis of the whole Shijie revolution has become serious, the Chinese revolution and even the Shijie proletarian revolution have been pushed to a new peak!

Although the Japanese invaders who invaded China today are supported by British and American imperialism and are extremely arrogant, this is only the madness of imperialism. With the proletariat of the whole country and the oppressed people fighting hand in hand, the Chinese people will surely repel the aggressors and win the victory of Zuihou!

In view of the current grim situation in which the imperialists are jointly invading China and the Japanese invaders are trotting through the north and south of Beijing, the Chinese Soviet Government and the Revolutionary Military Committee once again appeal to the whole of China: As long as all armed forces in China agree to stop attacking the Soviet areas and the Red Army, and to give the broad masses of the people freedom of speech, opportunity, association, strike, demonstration, and bearing of arms, our Party and our army are willing to conclude an agreement with them to fight together and join hands to expel Japanese imperialism and all other imperialists from China. Defend the integrity and unity of China's territory and achieve complete victory in Zuihou!

-- President Mao. Runzhi ......" (to be continued......