Chapter 771 770 [Grain Grabbing]
On the occasion of a major disaster in Sichuan, the Nanjing government not only failed to provide disaster relief, but instead sought compensation from the Sichuan provincial government.
The cause is-the Chengdu incident!
In early August, Foreign Minister Zhang Qun informed Liu Xiang that the Japanese would resume their consulate in Chengdu. At the end of that month, four Japanese diplomats arrived in Chengdu. After the citizens heard about it, they began to demonstrate. More than 10,000 people blocked the four Japanese diplomats in the hotel.
Chengdu Police Chief Fan Chongshi failed to stop him, and the angry crowd beat two of the four Japanese diplomats to death and injured two more.
Chang Kaishen, a cadre of the Fuxing Society and CC in Chengdu, sent a telegraph report saying that Liu Xiang secretly sent people to kill the Japanese in order to increase the difficulties of the central government's diplomacy with Japan. He suggested that Liu Xiang be removed from the post of provincial chairman as a comfort. Japan, and recommended Kang Ze, the leader of the Fuxing Society, to succeed Liu Xiang.
Liu Xiang's statement was completely different. He sent a telegram to complain to Chiang Kai-shek, saying that in order to seize classes and power in Sichuan, Kang Ze instructed patriotic students to kill the Japanese. All this was a conspiracy by the Fuxing Society and the CC Department.
The demonstration of more than 10,000 people must have been secretly organized by someone, but it was difficult to tell who was behind it.
Logically speaking, Liu Xiang had agreed with Chiang Kai-shek to send people into Sichuan, and Kang Ze's Rangers were stationed at the traffic arteries throughout Sichuan. There was absolutely no need for him to provoke the Japanese anymore. After all, he was just setting up a local consulate. Although Liu Xiang was nicknamed Liu Mangzi, he was not really Mangzi.
On the other hand, people from the Kang Ze and CC factions were more suspicious. They were assigned to Sichuan by Chang Kaishen, and their ultimate goal was to encroach on Sichuan's local political power.
When Zhou Hexuan and Liu Xiang were discussing the disaster relief plan, the Nanjing government also made a decision on the Chengdu incident: first, to remove the Chengdu garrison commander and police chief from their posts for investigation; second, to compensate the deceased with 30,000 taels of silver each as pensions, and the injured with 30,000 taels of silver each. 3,100 taels, advanced by the Nanjing government and ordering the Sichuan provincial treasury to immediately remit the money to Nanjing; third, the Nanjing government and the Sichuan provincial government apologized to the Japanese government and promised that similar incidents would not happen again; fourth, the Sichuan provincial government was asked to ban Qiu Japanese publications and boycotts of Japanese goods are prohibited.
When Liu Xiang received the results from the Nanjing government, he was so angry that he yelled again: "Mama sells the batch."
The total compensation for Japanese pensions was 66,200 taels of silver, which was equivalent to 100,000 oceans. However, the Sichuan Civil Affairs Bureau only managed to get 100,000 oceans for disaster relief. The rest could only be borrowed from local banks.
Are Japanese people that valuable? Two people died and two were injured, and they had to pay 100,000 yuan. How many victims could be saved with this money to buy food?
What's the most annoying thing?
The Nanjing government has just held the 288th meeting of the Executive Yuan to discuss relief for floods, droughts and banditry in eight provinces. These eight provinces are Gansu, Henan, Qingkang, Guizhou, Hebei, Jinning, and even the territory of Song Zheyuan are targeted for relief. Only Sichuan, which was the most severely affected, was deliberately left out.
Not only that, the Kuomintang-affiliated newspapers across the country avoided mentioning the drought in Sichuan. Private charities such as the Red Cross and the Red Swastika Society were also misled by the central government's information (it was rumored that there was no famine in Sichuan), resulting in the total charitable donations to Sichuan from all provinces being less than 2,000 yuan.
It was not until 1937, when millions of people in Sichuan starved to death and the lid could no longer be kept, that the Nanjing government began to discuss disaster relief in Sichuan.
Why does this situation occur?
due to the power struggle between the central and local governments.
After Chiang Kai-shek conquered Guangdong and subdued Guangxi, he set his sights on Sichuan. He first set up party headquarters in various cities and counties in Sichuan, and then sent the Blue Clothes Society to Sichuan for surveillance. The Blue Clothes Society's special forces still control the main routes into Sichuan, and have also bribed some small Sichuan warlords, including Fan Haer.
Chang Kaishen's intention was very clear, which was to let Liu Xiang hand over local military and political power. In the face of the disaster in Sichuan, Chiang Kai-shek's original words were as follows: "Foods and droughts require the central government to provide relief. How can the central government, with its limited financial resources, make up for you Sichuan people?"
From Chang Kaishen's point of view, his actions seemed to be excusable. Everything was due to Liu Xiang, a local warlord who was greedy for power. The local government did not pay taxes to the central government, and only thought of asking the central government for money after a disaster. Liu Xiang was indeed very unreasonable.
However, when the central government discussed relief for eight provinces in the north and south of Jinan, it only left out Sichuan, which was the most severely affected, and it also controlled public opinion and prevented private donations. This went too far!
Lao Jiang just wanted to make Sichuan more chaotic, the better, and it would be better to kill more people, so that Liu Xiang, the king of Sichuan, would lose his prestige. When the time comes, if Liu Xiang is forced out of office, the central government will be able to control Sichuan's military and political affairs without any bloodshed.
Faced with this situation, Zhou Hexuan must first let the people know that Sichuan was really hit by a disaster.
After returning to Chongqing, the first thing Zhou Hexuan did was to airlift the Sichuan disaster situation collected by Libao, including the content about cannibalism, to major newspapers in the north and south. Kuomintang-affiliated newspapers will definitely not be able to publish it, but private newspapers and periodicals such as Shenbao, Xinwenbao and Yishibao are willing to help publish such news.
Not only that, some foreign newspaper reporters were even willing to raise their own travel expenses to come to Sichuan for interviews after learning about the tragic situation.
The latest issue of "Fei Gong" magazine, which has moved its headquarters to Wuhan, devoted 12 pages to reporting on the disaster. It also left the magazine's address and solicited donations from the public in the name of "Zhou Hexuan."
At the same time, Zhou Hexuan, in his own name, contacted the Red Cross Societies of Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei provinces to set up Sichuan disaster relief points in the cities along the rivers in the three provinces. Zhou Hexuan made a personal donation of 500,000, and cooperated with private donations to purchase grain, and transported grain from other provinces to Sichuan by water.
After all, the journey to the United States is far away, and the Sichuan victims can't wait.
Next, Zhou Hexuan began to travel to various counties and cities in eastern Sichuan to investigate and determine the purchase of land and construction of houses.
Due to the continuous wars and famines in Sichuan, more and more wasteland has been vacated. Even the local rich gentry are too lazy to reclaim the land without owners, because the warlords' tax collection is too damn horrible. One collection is tax for ten or twenty years, which is the most outrageous. has been received 80 years later.
Under such circumstances, the rich farmers, small landlords, and even middle-level landlords in Sichuan had a very difficult time.
To paraphrase a line from "Party A and Party B": The landlord has no surplus food!
There is a very important reason why Liu Xiang emerged from among the many warlords in Sichuan, and that is that his taxes were lower than others. Especially in the late 1920s, Liu Xiang used Chongqing as his hometown. Mayor Pan Wenhua abolished dozens or hundreds of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes in one go, making Liu Xiang's base quickly stable and prosperous.
By early October, Zhou Hexuan had selected more than 30 wastelands in counties around Chongqing, totaling more than 80,000 acres, and bought them all at cabbage prices.
Even when local people heard that Zhou Hexuan wanted to buy land, they came one after another and were willing to sell their farmland at a low price. Due to excessive drought, all the cultivated land has become hardened and cannot be cultivated at all. It is better to use it in exchange for some money.
Naturally, I dare not buy farmland, and there will be too many troubles in the future.
Just when Zhou Hexuan had determined the address and was about to invite the Zhang family's construction company to build a house, the first batch of 60 tons of disaster relief grain bought from the Lianghu area arrived in Chongqing. Although the Lianghu area encountered floods this year, it had no impact on the summer grain harvest. , Hunan and Hubei are experiencing great harvests, and the price of freshly harvested rice is relatively cheap.
Zhou Hexuan was very happy to get the news, but he soon became unhappy.
At three o'clock in the middle of the night, Liang Xuzan, a cadre of the Sichuan Disaster Relief Association, hurried to knock on Zhou's door and said, "Mr. Zhou, it's bad, our disaster relief food has been withheld!"
"Who in Sichuan would dare to deduct disaster relief food after eating a bear's heart?" Zhou Hexuan was shocked and angry.
Liang Xuzan said anxiously: "It's Kang Ze's son who said that there is opium in our disaster relief food. I have sent a telegram to Chairman Liu, and Chairman Liu is sending someone to solve it."
"Kangze!"
Zhou Hexuan gritted his teeth, went back to his room, took a flashlight imported from the United States, and ran to the home of Li Gengu, the Chongqing garrison commander next door. When he met, he said: "Brother Li, bring someone with me to grab food! If you are a few minutes late, I don't know." How much is Kang Ze’s bitch going to swallow!”