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In 1938, with the full-scale invasion of China by the Japanese army, many cities fell under the force of the Japanese army.
Seeing that the Japanese army was preparing to attack southward, at this critical moment, the Kuomintang resorted to a trick of "replacing troops with water" and ordered the Yellow River dam to be blown up, in an attempt to block the Japanese army's southward attack.
However, this decision of the Kuomintang not only failed.
Completing the expected results made him infamous instead.
How many Japanese troops were drowned by the decision to blow up the Yellow River dam? Why did the decision to halt the pace of the Japanese offensive lead him to infamy?
Click on it and walk into the 38-year-old incident of blowing up the Yellow River dam.
The conflict escalated
After the July 7 Incident, the Japanese army began a full-scale invasion of China, and the Kuomintang and the Communist Party also stood up and cooperated to resist Japan.
However, the Japanese army had already captured a lot of land, and their power in China had already grown, and even if the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated, it would not be easy to deal with the Japanese invasion.
In order to occupy China as soon as possible, Japan even put forward an arrogant plan of "destroying China in three months." In their eyes, China's equipment is backward, and after the 918 incident, it is only a matter of time before they take China.
Between 1937 and 1938, Japan advanced southward at a really fast pace, and occupied the most important cities, Shanghai and Nanjing.
During this period, the important Battle of Songhu took place, and although this war did not directly defeat the Japanese army, the spirit of the Chinese sons and daughters who sacrificed their lives to defend the country is also infecting every Chinese. This war not only provided sufficient time for the transfer of Shanghai industry, but also shattered the Japanese army's arrogant plan to destroy China in three months.
After taking Shanghai, it was Nanjing, and after the Japanese army entered the city of Nanjing, it launched a terrifying "Nanjing Da**" in the city, after taking Nanjing and Shanghai, the Japanese set their sights on Xuzhou, as a place where soldiers must fight since ancient times, Xuzhou occupies an important position in the strategic deployment of the whole China.
If Xuzhou is successfully occupied, the Japanese troops invading China will form a north-south encirclement, so that China's anti-Japanese pressure will increase sharply, and the possibility of China being completely occupied by the Japanese will be greater, so holding Xuzhou is the key.
In order to prevent the Japanese North China Front from taking Xuzhou, Li Zongren personally led an army of 400,000 to defend the front line. The Battle of Xuzhou is roughly divided into 3 stages, the first stage is the Jinpu Railway Defense Battle, the second stage is the famous Taierzhuang Battle, and the third stage is the breakthrough of the squadron.
The Japanese army continued to advance to Xuzhou, and Li Zongren went to Taierzhuang to deploy in an emergency, after his careful deployment and the desperate bloody battle of the soldiers.
* Fighting on the frontal battlefield, and the guerrillas also in the rear through sports warfare, guerrilla warfare and other tactics, constantly attacking and harassing the enemy, and cooperating with the frontal battlefield, finally achieved a great victory in Taierzhuang.
The victory in the Battle of Taierzhuang was the first complete victory of our country in the frontal confrontation with the Japanese army, which greatly encouraged the determination of the Chinese people to resist Japan and also allowed us to see the dawn of victory.
However, the victory of Taierzhuang made Chiang Kai-shek more confident, and Chiang Kai-shek, who was originally afraid of the Japanese army, had a new idea, and he decided to send his 200,000 descendants to pursue the Japanese army by victory.
But the Japanese army suffered a big loss in Taierzhuang, and they were bound to not give up, so they sent 300,000 reinforcements.
These 300,000 Japanese troops frightened Chiang Kai-shek, worried that his descendants would be affected, he decided not to fight the 300,000 Japanese reinforcements head-on, and also ordered Li Zongren to withdraw from Xuzhou.
As a result, after the Japanese army gathered a large force into Xuzhou, they found that this was an "empty city", and taking Xuzhou was only a small joint in their plan, and for the Japanese army, their goal was Wuhan.
Due to the invasion of the Japanese army, the Nanjing Kuomintang ** had moved to Wuhan, and at that time it was in the period of the National War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang ** in Wuhan could be said to be the center of the anti-Japanese resistance, and after Xuzhou was Zhengzhou, the Japanese army could go straight to Wuhan through the Pinghan Railway.
Chiang Kai-shek's "war cowardice" was known to the Japanese army, and the Japanese mistakenly thought that we were afraid of the Japanese attack, so they sent Kenji Tohihara to lead 20,000 Japanese troops to force the Yellow River.
Looking at the 20,000 Japanese troops, Chiang Kai-shek was determined to fight against the Japanese army, he couldn't beat 300,000, could he still beat 20,000? So Lao Chiang gathered an army of 200,000 against the 20,000 Japanese troops of Kenji Dohihara.
After crossing the Yellow River, Kenji Tuhihara came to the Shangqiu Minquan area, where he arranged for the destruction of part of the Longhai Railway, cutting off the connection between Zhengzhou and Xuzhou.
Regarding the information that Chiang Kai-shek gathered an army of 200,000 troops, Kenji Dohihara naturally got the news, he only brought 20,000 troops, and in the face of ten times his own troops, Kenji Dohihara knew that he was definitely not the opponent of **, so he decided to change his plan and go to Lanfeng.
There are more than 200,000 ** garrisons in Lanfeng, and it stands to reason that there is no need to be afraid of this mere 20,000 Japanese troops, but Gui Yongqing, the commander-in-chief of the Lanfeng Campaign, was so happy that he was stubborn and self-serving, and he reported his exploits when he annihilated a small group of enemies, which made people mistakenly think that the Lanfeng Battle was very smooth.
As a result, when Gui Yongqing was arrogant, Tu Feiyuan led his troops to break through Gui Yongqing's fortifications and directly cut off the traffic of the Longhai Railway.
Gui Yongqing found that he had made a big mistake, and in desperation, he could only order Long Muhan to rush to Lanfeng for reinforcements, but after Long Muhan arrived in Lanfeng, Gui Yongqing was already frightened by the Japanese army, but he did not dare to take the responsibility of escaping, so he handed over all the defensive tasks to Long Muhan.
Blow up the Yellow River dam
Gui Yongqing's arrogance led to the reversal of the Japanese army, and he handed over the defensive task to Long Muhan, but Long Muhan's troops had already suffered a heavy battle in front of him, and they were not the elite opponents of the Japanese army at all.
Faced with such a situation, Long Muhan could only move closer to the direction of the Red Temple, so that the troops of Lan Feng City were empty, and the Japanese army quickly took Lan Feng City. Long Muhan was court-martial for losing the battle and was shot dead by Chiang Kai-shek.
Similarly, the Kuomintang ** stationed in Shangqiu was also afraid of the Japanese army, and abandoned the city and fled when they saw their fierce attack, and the Japanese army took Shangqiu again.
Lanfeng and Shangqiu were lost one after another, and Kaifeng City was in front of them. The Japanese army is about to attack Kaifeng, Chiang Kai-shek is really panicked this time, after Kaifeng is Zhengzhou, and it is about to hit the front of the gate.
At the meeting, Chen Guofu put forward a suggestion, that is, when the Japanese army moved south, blow up the embankment of the Yellow River, replace the troops with water, increase the defense capability of our army, and achieve the goal of preventing the Japanese army from moving south.
The Yellow River, China's second largest river, flows through most of the northern provinces of China, many of which are steep and prone to flooding during the rainy season.
The successive failures of defensive wars in various places made Chiang Kai-shek unable to think of a better idea for a while, and if he was allowed to continue to send troops to fight against the Japanese army, he would not know the bottom of his heart.
Chiang Kai-shek knew that blowing up the Yellow River embankment had advantages and disadvantages, and that this move would definitely bring devastating disasters to the people, but seeing the trend of the Japanese army moving southward, and the Kuomintang soldiers were beaten to the ground and fled, there was no resistance to the Japanese army at all, and Lao Chiang still decided to blow up the Yellow River embankment.
After many meetings and discussions, the Kuomintang set the location of the embankment at Zhaokou in Zhongmu County, where the flood would flow along the Jialu River to Fugou, Xihua and other places, which happened to be the main force of the Japanese army, and the nearby people lived less, so the losses could be minimized.
However, there was too much sediment accumulation in Zhaokou, and the ** people dug for two days and still did not see the water flow, even if they used bombs, it was still useless, Chiang Kai-shek saw that the Japanese army was constantly approaching Kaifeng City, and he ordered the embankment to break but there was no movement.
Knowing that Zhao Kou could not achieve the expected goal, Lao Jiang was so angry that he scolded because the Japanese army had threatened the safety of Zhengzhou. He hurriedly telegraphed the commander of the new 8th Division, ordering him to find out the cause and come up with a solution as soon as possible.
After the inspection, it will take some time to destroy Zhaokou, but the Kuomintang obviously can't wait, so he truthfully reported the situation in Zhaokou and put forward a proposal to change the embankment.
This was already the quickest solution, and Chiang Kai-shek agreed to the proposal to change the embankment that night, and Cheng Qian immediately convened a military conference to set the new embankment point at Huayuankou, west of Zhongmu County.
In fact, Huayuankou is not a good choice, Huayuankou here perennial sediment accumulation, has been nearly 3 meters above the ground, is very dangerous "above ground river".
Although the excavation of the garden mouth is not difficult, if the embankment bursts, it will carry a large amount of sediment to the nearby villages, and the people will suffer devastating disasters.
Chiang Kai-shek was already very anxious at this stage, and looking at the advancing Japanese army, he demanded that the Yellow River embankment be blown up as soon as possible.
Faced with such a situation, Chiang Kai-shek came up with the theory of "national righteousness" and told them that this was a step that needed to be taken to resist the Japanese invaders.
Under Chiang Kai-shek's strong pressure, the Yellow River embankment was blown open in a few days, and the rolling Yellow River water rushed down, and a few days were simply not enough time for the nearby people to evacuate, and for a time wails were everywhere.
After the dam was blown up, a torrential rain followed, and the water level of the Yellow River rose sharply for a while, and even the embankment burst near Zhaokou, which had not been shaken before.
For a time, the flood was everywhere, and all the nearby villages and towns for dozens of miles turned into an ocean. It took years to build the dam near the Yellow River, but it was blown up in a matter of days at the sound of Chiang Kai-shek's order.
The result of the embankment bursting
Chiang Kai-shek, in order to prevent the Japanese army from moving south, ordered Chiang Kai-shek to blow up the Yellow River embankment, what was the result?
The flood rushed down, which indeed blocked the process of the Japanese army's southward movement, and the flood spread to the areas of Zhongmu and Shangshui, and the 14th and 16th divisions of the Japanese army stationed in this area were indeed affected.
The 14th Division was trapped in the flood, and the 16th Division was also hit by the flood, and the plans of the two Japanese advance units to move south were blocked by the flood.
After the Japanese troops were blocked by the flood, they organized a team to rescue the trapped Japanese troops overnight, and the Japanese army sent a boat bridge engineer wing and six engineer squadrons to use boats to transfer the trapped Japanese troops as soon as possible.
As for the 16th Division, which was hit by the huge impact of the flood, the flood caught them by surprise, and in order to escape for their lives, they gave up a lot of heavy equipment and quickly retreated. At the same time, the Japanese military also sent a large number of transport planes to drop supplies to them.
The flood delayed the convergence of the Japanese forces in the direction of Henan and Anhui, and forced the troops directly to Wuhan to interrupt their journey, but the main force of the Japanese army remained intact, and the flood only caused them to lose a thousand men.
But the losses of the people far exceeded that of the Japanese army, the flood inundated a large number of farmland and houses, millions of ** people were lost, and some refugees did not even have a complete set of clothes in the ranks of the fleeing people.
Ironically, this move did not prevent the Japanese army from attacking Wuhan, but only bought a few months for the military transfer from Wuhan, and a few months later, the Japanese army occupied Wuhan, and Chiang Kai-shek and other Kuomintang ** fled to Chongqing.
Instead of being punished, innocent people suffered. The damage caused by the blowing up of the dam to the Japanese army was not great, but it was a catastrophe for the common people.
They were displaced by the floods, nearly a million people suffered in the accident, and more importantly, more than 12 million acres of arable land were destroyed, directly cutting off farmers' food rations.
After the flood, there is a plague, there is no food, not even a mouthful of food, peace talks to resist the plague? The Kuomintang was too busy resisting the Japanese invasion to resist the disaster, and the plan they put forward was to reduce taxes so that the people could pay less taxes but not quit paying them.
In the spring of 1942, a drought broke out, and the destruction of the embankment could not function, and the peasants did not harvest any grain that year, and the great famine in Henan broke out that shocked China and the world, and millions of people starved to death.
Even though the people were already facing such a predicament, the Kuomintang still did not give up on the decision to let the people pay taxes.
In the following years, this land still bears the fault of the Kuomintang, and the Kuomintang's internal evaluation of the blowing up of the Yellow River dam is that "the credit lies in the country, and the harm lies in the locality."
They also knew that this would definitely lead to disasters for the people, but they didn't care, thinking that this was the only way to deal with the Japanese invaders, but Chiang Kai-shek still failed to prevent the Japanese invaders, and the Japanese army attacked Wuhan a few months later, so the plan to blow up the embankment was fundamentally a failure, and a large number of innocent lives were paid.
After the defeat of the Liberation War, Lao Chiang always blamed others for his failure, believing that his generals were not able to fight, but he never thought about the root cause, that is, he was unpopular with the people.
Water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize a boat, and whoever cares about the people will naturally support him.
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