After Zhou Hexuan and Yin Changling left, Liu Xiang asked Gan Jiyang: "Your expression was a bit wrong earlier. What did you want to say?"
Gan Jiyong took out a large pile of documents from his wallet and said with a bitter face: "There were two outsiders here just now. It's hard to say something in person. Commander, please read these documents first."
Liu Xiang first turned to a summary of the disaster report, and saw what it said: Since this spring, there has been a long drought and no rain in all parts of Sichuan. The fields are cracked, people die of hunger, food is exhausted, and dead bodies are stolen. There are 125 people in the province.
County No. 3 and Tun No. 1 were affected by the disaster. Except for the counties in the Chengdu Plain, all other places were disaster areas, with more than 37 million people affected..."
During the Republic of China, there were two main sources for Sichuan population statistics, one was customs data and the other was postal data.
There is a huge difference between these two data, which are more than 70 million and more than 40 million respectively. The actual population of Sichuan should be around 50 million (including Xikang and Chongqing). The 37 million people affected by the disaster have already accounted for 10% of the total population of Sichuan.
70%.
According to the "Sichuan Rural Economy" published by the Commercial Press at the beginning of the year: "(Since 1928 to the present,) disasters in Sichuan have been endless, and the deserted areas have become increasingly widespread." In other words, Sichuan has suffered from eight consecutive years of major disasters.
Coupled with the warlord wars that lasted for more than 20 years, Sichuan's population barely increased from the late Qing Dynasty to the all-out Anti-Japanese War. It was not until Liu Xiang unified Sichuan that the population grew rapidly in the past two or three years. As a result, it is now facing the whole nation.
Large-scale drought in Sichuan.
Liu Xiang was not very clear about the disaster situation before, thinking that it was only serious in northwest Sichuan. Now after a rough look at the disaster report, he finally became sad, sighed and asked: "How many people have starved to death?"
Gan Jiyong answered cautiously: "It is difficult to make accurate statistics. Not only the disasters in northwest Sichuan, but also in northern and northeastern Sichuan are getting more and more serious."
Liu Xiang casually pulled out a disaster report in Xuanhan County, and saw that it read: Starvation is everywhere in this county...According to the statistics of the previous 20 days, more than 10 people died of hunger per day in each case, and the number has gradually increased in recent years, with more than 10 people dying in each case per day.
About 20 people.
Liu Xiang opened the report of Wanyuan County again: The population of Wanyuan has dropped by one-third... There are only a few thousand people in Wanyuan City. If you travel a long distance, there will be no smoke all day long, and many hungry people will die along the way.
There is no place for it.
Liu Xiang looked at the report from Nanjiang County again: the total number of people dying of starvation in urban and rural areas reached more than a thousand people every day... Since February 1, no less than 80,000 people have died of starvation in this county.
Liu Xiang was shocked when he saw the data one by one. He asked with anger and horror: "With so many people starving to death, how do you become the director of the Civil Affairs Department?"
Gan Jiyong complained: "God is blind, what can I do? Sichuan is hit by disasters every year, and it has to develop internal affairs. The money of the Civil Affairs Department is simply not enough. So far, I have only managed to get 100,000 yuan. Where can I save it?"
There are so many people."
Liu Xiang remained silent.
The Sichuan Provincial Government's money has been used to build roads in recent years. The Sichuan-Guizhou Highway was just completed last year, and now it is also building the Sichuan-Hunan, Sichuan-Hubei and Sichuan-Shaanxi highways. These few roads alone can wipe out Liu Xiang's old age.
Because the road to Shu is too difficult and full of mountains and hills, the cost of road construction is sometimes more than ten times that of plain areas. Even with private financing and business partnership, Liu Xiang and the provincial government still have to spend money.
Gan Jiyong suddenly said: "A few days ago, Mr. Huang Yanpei, the Central Senator, came to Sichuan for an inspection. He passed by Jianyang County and saw people dying of hunger everywhere. He asked me, Jianyang is a model county of the New Life Movement, why are there so many people dying of hunger in the streets?
?As for no one collecting the bodies!”
"What! Are people in Jianyang starving to death?" Liu Xiang was immediately shocked.
The disaster reports I saw earlier all came from the impoverished northern Sichuan, northwest Sichuan and northeastern Sichuan. Those areas reported disasters every year and people died every year. Liu Xiang has become numb to it. But Jianyang County is different, Jianyang is in Sichuan
Next to the provincial capital, it is also a model county for Chiang Kai-shek's New Life Movement!
Zhou Hexuan passed through Jianyang on this trip, but in order to rush for time, he did not go into the city to have a look, otherwise he would have seen many corpses lying on the road.
Gan Jiyong explained: "Jianyang has been hit by disasters for four consecutive years. People's lives are already miserable, and they still hope that they can harvest more food today to fill their bellies. As a result, the summer grain harvest has failed again, and food prices have soared. How can ordinary people still have food in their homes?
?”
Liu Xiang had a splitting headache after hearing this. He slumped back on the chair of the Grand Master and murmured: "Many people have starved to death. How can I, the chairman of Sichuan Province, have the honor to see the elders in my hometown?"
Liu Xiang flipped through the report with blank eyes, and it was another one from Nanchuan County: Resident Xiong Dahu brought back two tanks of soju, and the bottom of the tank cracked, and the wine flowed all over the ground. The hungry people nearby came to eat in large numbers, and drank all the wine with the mud.
Jing. The hungry people, who were already dying of hunger, immediately died of drunkenness and lay horizontally and vertically on a large dam. The number of dead was 48.
This method of drunkenness to death is already very rare. At least you don't starve to death, which is called suffering.
"Where is the central government's disaster relief food?" Liu Xiang asked, holding his forehead.
Gan Jiyong shook his head and said: "We haven't seen him yet. Only Huang Yanpei from the Central Senate came, but it was not for disaster relief. Now he has left Sichuan for Luoyang via Jiange. He did write a lot of good poems along the way."
"Mom sells batches!"
Liu Xiang suddenly grabbed the disaster report and cursed loudly: "Brother Ge, hurry up and provide relief. If you don't have money, go to the bank to borrow money. Also, anyone who hoards food and speculates on food prices will be given a serious warning. Anyone who disobeys again will be arrested and shot."
!”
"I humbly obey my orders!" Gan Jiyong quickly stood at attention and saluted the military salute.
After sending Gan Jiyong away, Liu Xiang asked his adjutant to send a telegram to Lu Zuofu, and mobilized all the large and small ships of the Minsheng Company to go to Shanghai at any time to meet Zhou Hexuan's shipment of grain from the United States. As for freight, Liu Xiang said nothing about the cost price before, but now he doesn't.
It’s about withdrawing money.
The entire northern Sichuan is now severely affected by the disaster. Liu Xiang has nothing to do about it. He can only provide some symbolic relief, and the rest can only be left to fate. But eastern Sichuan, southern Sichuan and central Sichuan must go all out to rescue, otherwise something big will happen to Sichuan.
Maybe some people will rise up and rebel.
In fact, when the famine was at its worst in the spring of 1937, Sichuan was in complete chaos. It was normal to kill officials and release grain to eat the big households. The most terrifying thing was the boxing bandits, where all the demons and monsters came out and gathered in crowds under the pretense of deities descending to earth.
When the incident broke out, many innocent people suffered.
Under Liu Xiang's order, various departments of the Sichuan Army quickly mobilized. The main purpose was not to provide disaster relief, but to suppress possible rebellions.
Gan Jiyong went to major banks every day, begging his father and grandma to raise disaster relief funds. In the end, he got 1.6 million oceans for his life and death. Sichuan was really poor, the government was poor, the people were poor, and only those in the opium trade were the richest. Liu Xiang had to
Increase the "anti-smoking tax" again.
As for stabilizing food prices, administrative orders alone cannot suppress them. Only when Zhou Hexuan's disaster relief food arrives can some relief be achieved.
Now the disaster has spread from northwest Sichuan to northern Sichuan and northeastern Sichuan. It is more serious in other places, but generally it can be sustained. If there can be a few rains after autumn, and when crops such as sweet potatoes and wheat are harvested, it will not be enough.
As for millions of people starving to death.
But God is deliberately trying to make things difficult for Sichuan. No one could have predicted that the drought in Sichuan will continue for more than half a year.
