The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

New Year's Day in 1944 was not a good one.

Zhang Mouzhi took out a stack of reports, threw them on the table and sighed: "Oh, these factories have to be closed. It's impossible not to close them."

"Shut it down," Zhou Hexuan said without looking at the report, "the workers' severance pay must be sufficient, and I will pay for the rest. I purchased the goods hoarded in the warehouse at full ex-factory price and donated them to the people affected by the disaster in various provinces. "

"Donate my share, too," Zhang Mouzhi felt a little discouraged. He turned to look outside and whispered, "Mingcheng, do you think the National Government can be saved? When the Anti-Japanese War is won, I'm afraid it won't be the Communist Party." Take over the world."

"Don't worry Taishan, I have my own arrangements." Zhou Hexuan said.

"I believe in your vision," Zhang Mouzhi whispered, "How about we secretly send some supplies to the Communist Party and establish a good relationship in advance? You should be able to contact the Communist Party."

"The Communist Party is well-organized, so I can only contact through the Democratic League." Zhou Hexuan said.

Zhang Mouzhi said: "I have donated all the backlog of goods in the warehouse. Please help me contact them."

"Okay." Zhou Hexuan nodded.

In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the number of factories in the rear area was less than 100. By 1942, it reached its peak with more than 1,000 factories. However, it declined sharply in 1943, with only more than 900 factories remaining.

Now that we have just entered 1944, the rear area is once again facing a wave of factory closures, and hundreds of them have been closed at once.

One-third of the factories Zhou Hexuan originally invested in Sichuan have now been closed, one-third have been suspended for a long time, and the remaining factories are struggling to maintain themselves.

The reasons for the large number of factory closures mainly include the following aspects:

First, the legal currency has devalued, factories have insufficient funds, and triangular debts are everywhere.

Second, prices have skyrocketed and social purchasing power has declined. The goods produced by factories cannot be sold, and people want to buy them but cannot afford them, resulting in a large number of scarce goods rotting in warehouses.

Third, the government limits prices. This was originally a policy used to control prices, but it resulted in factories losing money based on the products they sold.

Fourth, government control. Many daily necessities and industrial products are government-controlled materials, and these are often raw materials. Government control has caused a large number of factories to be unable to obtain raw materials.

Fifth, transportation is inconvenient. The war caused various disruptions in transportation, greatly increased the cost of transporting raw materials, and often could not be shipped to the factory on time.

Sixth, government monopoly. Daily necessities such as cigarettes, sugar, salt, matches, etc. are all sold and purchased by the government. They are forced to purchase them at low prices. Corruption is rampant, and the factory has no profit at all.

Seventh, taxes are too heavy. In order to alleviate financial pressure, the central government canceled the unified tax policy and replaced it with commodity tax, which was a virtual surplus tax. The government stipulates that companies whose profits exceed 60% of their capital will be subject to a 50% commodity tax. In the case of depreciation of the legal currency, the profit of almost all factories reaches this standard, but they are actually losing money. The government only looks at book data and imposes a 50% commodity tax on more than 90% of factories. Others include stamp duties, donations, grain donations, and public bonds, all of which are forcibly assessed.

Eighth, malicious hoarding and speculation. The slightly smarter capitalists no longer engage in industry or open factories. A large amount of hot money is frantically hoarding necessities and scarce materials. They collude with government collection agencies to buy at low prices, then sell them at dozens of times. The market has been controlled by speculators.

As long as two or three of the above factors are present, it is enough for the factory to drink a pot. How can it be possible to survive if all of them are encountered?

As an entrepreneur, Zhang Mouzhi was completely disappointed with the National Government. With his very limited political vision, he can also see that the current government is bound to collapse because the government has completely lost its prestige in the business community. The same was true for the common people, who were starving to support the Anti-Japanese War. They could not see the hope of victory in the Anti-Japanese War. All they saw were corrupt officials.

We can tolerate the devaluation of the legal currency, we can tolerate the inconvenience of transportation, and we can even tolerate excessive taxes.

What is Zhang Mouzhi intolerable the most?

The government imposes price limits on commodities, purchases them uniformly at low prices, and then sells them to speculators. This is equivalent to the fact that the factory is working hard to produce, but all the profits are taken away by speculators, and the factory owners have to pay various taxes to the government.

Zhang Mouzhi has been in business for half his life and has never encountered such a vicious thing.

We often say that steel and coal are the soul of modern industry. However, now there is a situation where a large amount of steel and coal are unsalable. During the war, steel and coal were unsalable, and a large number of workers in related industries were unemployed!

At the end of 1943, the machinery manufacturing industry was also in trouble. Countless precious engineers and senior technicians could only rest in empty factories all day long.

Let’s talk about the “China Industrial Cooperatives”, hereafter referred to as “Gonghe”.

The "Gonghe" organization was launched by Snow and his wife in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War. Its purpose was to develop the inland economy, solve social problems, provide financial assistance, integrate industrial resources, and support the Anti-Japanese War. The Snows persuaded the Englishman Alley, who formulated a set of industrial cooperative plans suitable for rural and underdeveloped areas in Asia.

This plan was not only realized in China, but was later adopted by India, Myanmar, Japan and other countries.

Mrs. Sun, Soong Meiling, Song Ziwen and Kong Xiangxi initially supported the "Gonghe" plan and claimed that it promoted Sun Yat-sen's people's livelihood doctrine. However, because "Gonghe" received help from international democrats, and the founders, Snow and his wife, were obviously pro-communist and supported the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army with some supplies, the government suddenly began to suppress "Gonghe" after the Wannan Incident.

The "Gonghe" organization that once helped China's wartime economy flourish has since declined. On the other hand, the Communist Party, led by Taizu, actively supported the development of "Gonghe". A large number of "Gonghe" members in the Kuomintang-controlled areas were invited to the Communist Party base area, which significantly improved the industrial strength of the base area - many factories in the base area are located here. It was established with the assistance of "Gonghe" at that time.

Zhou Hexuan really felt that Chang Kaishen was mentally ill and would not give up until he gave all the power that was beneficial to him to the Communist Party.

By the Spring Festival, only seven of Zhou Hexuan's factories in Sichuan were still producing, and another four were in a semi-stop state. The Spring Festival has just passed, and due to the raging wave of factory closures, there has been an even greater shortage of supplies. Coupled with the government printing another wave of legal currency, prices across Sichuan have risen to unbearable levels.

Kong Xiangxi, who is in charge of managing money, was so anxious that he suggested to Chang Kaishen last year to tighten military expenditures and hoped that Chang Kaishen could find out the actual number of troops.

But there is no way to check...

According to Chen Cheng's later recollection, the national army's budgeted strength was 5 million, but the actual number of people eating military food was 7.2 million. It would be great to have 3 million combat troops. In other words, at this time, more than half of the national army's troops were empty-paid or old, weak, sick and disabled.

Kong Xiangxi wanted Lao Jiang to investigate these troops to save military expenses. However, Lao Jiang did not dare to investigate at all. He did not have the courage to investigate! It can be said that all the generals of the national army are eating their pay at this time. To check the number of soldiers is to offend all the generals, and it is equivalent to Chiang Kai-shek digging his own grave.

In the year 1944 that has just ushered in, the Chinese people will have an extremely difficult time.