The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

Disaster relief!

This has been an eternal topic in China for thousands of years. Even the rotten central government must come up with a disaster relief plan when faced with a large-scale natural disaster.

Throughout the ages, countless imperial dynasties have come to an end in the refugee uprising caused by natural disasters.

With history as a mirror, we have to be cautious.

The nationwide flood in 1931 actually started in June and spread to the whole country in August. Not only that, in Sichuan, Rehe, Shaanxi, Hunan and other provinces, some places without floods also encountered severe drought and insect infestation.

This caused a tragic phenomenon. In the same province, one half of the province suffered from floods, while the other half suffered from drought. The two heavens of ice and fire have made the people in a dilemma of life and death.

According to statistics from the Nanjing National Government, more than 80 million people were affected by the disaster nationwide. But in fact, there are hundreds of millions of disaster victims along the river and Huai River alone, and floating corpses, starved people and orphans can be seen everywhere.

While Chang Kaishen was busy with inner-party struggles, he was also busy implementing disaster relief plans. The central government has raised funds through the issuance of public bonds, domestic and foreign fundraising, and additional tax items. It has temporarily raised tens of millions of yuan, and (historically) the final total amount of funds raised was 70 million yuan.

Although some of the money was embezzled and some was embezzled, it was generally used for disaster relief.

There are two agencies in charge of disaster relief, one is called the Relief Committee, which is a permanent agency for disaster relief; the other is called the National Government Flood Relief Committee, which is a special agency for disaster relief.

Song Ziwen, Vice President of the Executive Yuan, Liu Shangqing, Minister of the Interior, Kong Xiangxi, Minister of Industry, Xu Shiying, Chairman of the Relief Committee, and Zhu Qinglan, head of Northwest Relief, were appointed as members of the National Government Flood Relief Committee. Among them, Song Ziwen served as the chairman of the committee, fully responsible for disaster relief in various places.

The committee has a total of seven units, namely: Investigation Unit, Finance Unit, Accounting Audit Unit, Health and Epidemic Prevention Unit, Transportation Unit, Disaster Area Work Unit, and Liaison Unit. Generally speaking, disaster relief organizations are relatively complete, and all aspects have been considered.

At the same time, the central government has introduced various supervision and punishment measures in consideration of rampant corruption.

Among them, the disaster relief funds are jointly handled by the General Affairs Section, the Fundraising and Relief Section, and the Audit Section. The three departments restrict each other and increase the supervision of funds. Within each department, there are three procedures for withdrawing funds. The chairman, secretary-general, and heads of various departments are responsible at various levels. It is really difficult to embezzle.

For those who want to take advantage of the chaos, the central government issued special punishment regulations, including taking kickbacks, shoddy goods, using power for personal gain, trafficking in disaster relief items, and falsely receiving disaster relief money and goods.

The central government was still worried about this, and set up a supervisory office to monitor civil servants and disaster relief personnel across the country, and sent 12 "imperial envoys" to visit various places. These "imperial envoys", with the cooperation of the Kuomintang Party headquarters in various places, severely exposed and dealt with a group of dereliction of duty, fraud and corruption, which played a shocking role.

In addition, the central government also has an audit office, which is responsible for reviewing the funds of government agencies at all levels and places, and fighting wits and courage with those who want to embezzle in the accounts.

In terms of social supervision, regardless of whether the government or non-governmental relief organizations, all fundraising must be published in newspapers, and ordinary people are welcome to report illegal activities.

It's a pity that the bureaucracy of the Republic of China was too bad. With so many regulatory measures in place, corruption and fraud still emerged in endlessly.

For example, Wang Danhou, the magistrate of a county in Hubei Province, received disaster relief funds but refused to distribute them. He reported to his superiors that he was robbed by bandits. After being exposed by the public, the county magistrate was imprisoned and his official hat was taken off directly. There is also Li Siyi, the director of the grain station in southern Anhui, who withheld 69 tons of relief food, and sold 39 tons at half price when he was investigated.

There were even cases where foreigners were involved in corruption. The Disaster Relief Committee appointed Gutwin, an Englishman, as the director of the Yuezhou Food Relief Station. The British guy, together with Liu Yisheng, the deputy director, colluded with profiteers and hooligans, lied about the freight and transportation capacity to 100,000 yuan, and then took prostitutes to play with prostitutes after dividing the spoils. They also withheld the salaries of disaster relief workers and embezzled hundreds of yuan every month, all of which were spent on extravagant spending and drinking.

The irony is that in the first two cases, the local officials were investigated and punished according to law, but in the latter case, because foreigners were involved, even the "imperial envoys" sent by the central government did not dare to take care of them, and only secretly transferred the officials involved.

We cannot deny that Lao Jiang made great efforts in this disaster relief, because the nationwide flood has seriously affected his rule. But bureaucrats everywhere are really rotten. Not only are the corruption of foreigners uncontrollable, but the corruption of senior officials is also difficult to deal with.

For example, there was a nest case in northern Anhui, and the relief commissioner took the lead in corruption, which aroused great public anger. Due to the seriousness of the case, the Central Supervisory Council personally accepted the investigation and handed over the findings to the judiciary.

Then a strange scene appeared, the Central Supervisory Court personally accepted the case, and the evidence was solid, yet the court dared to procrastinate, and finally the case was settled.

Such an absurd situation is nothing more than the fact that the backing of corrupt officials is very strong, so hard that even Lao Jiang has to give face.

Rule of law?

Nothing more than the rule of man!

...

Song Ziwen has been physically and mentally exhausted these days. With such a severe flood, he needs to be fully responsible for disaster relief. Not only is it difficult to raise money, but food and medicine are even more difficult. Even if you have money, you can't buy enough supplies.

Nanjing, Sanpailou, US Embassy in China.

Song Ziwen put down the signature pen in his hand, with a relieved smile on his face, shook hands with the US Minister to China Jason and said: "Mr. Johnson, I am very grateful. The Chinese people will remember the friendship of the US government."

"Helping friends, that's what we should do." Jason smiled.

After negotiations between the Nanjing government, the U.S. government, the Chinese embassy in the U.S. and the U.S. embassy in China, and after more than half a month of bargaining, Song Ziwen finally successfully signed the contract to order U.S. wheat. And it was still a credit contract, because Song Ziwen couldn't afford the money for the time being, so he bought 450,000 tons of American wheat on credit at one time.

Don't look at what the U.S. envoy said so righteously, this guy is secretly laughing, credit is also a business, and the U.S. hopes to sell more agricultural products.

According to the statistics of the American "Fortune" magazine, there are 34 million adults, men, women and children in the United States without any income, accounting for 28% of the total population of the United States. But this report is very watery, because the vast rural population of the United States is not included in the statistics.

The Great Depression not only made life difficult for urbanites, but farmers also lived in hell.

Today, the price of wheat in the United States is only 25 cents per bushel, which is equivalent to a unit price (kilogram) of US$0.046. Well, it only costs $4.6 to buy 200 catties of American wheat. Corn is even cheaper, with 200 catties of American corn worth 12 cents. Apples are sold directly in boxes, and a box of 200 apples, all in good condition, only sells for 40 cents.

American farmers are now losing a net $1.50 per acre of wheat, the most profitable food crop. Money-losing goods like corn, hehe, it is more cost-effective for farmers to directly use corn as firewood than to sell corn to buy coal.

There was a rancher in Montana who bought a batch of bullets on loan, killed all his livestock in two hours, and threw them into the ravine to rot, because the money from selling the animals could not cover the fodder.

It is very cost-effective to go to the United States to buy land now. A quarter of the pastures in the United States are listed for sale, and they are all at the price of cabbage. Unfortunately, no one buys them.

Both parties are very satisfied with the 450,000 tons of wheat credit purchase contract signed between the Nanjing government and the U.S. government.

The Yankees sold the wheat with a unit price of 0.046 US dollars to China at a price of 0.1 US dollars (plus shipping costs), which directly doubled the price and cleared domestic stocks. As for China, not only can it buy wheat at a price far lower than that in China, but it can also be credited on credit, making a lot of money.

Song Ziwen said: "Mr. Johnson, I hope your country can speed up the delivery of these relief wheat to China as soon as possible."

Jason smiled and said, "Mr. Song, within a month at the latest, you will be able to see these wheats at the Shanghai pier."

With the development of science and technology, today's fastest ship can reach Shanghai, China from the west coast of the United States in only 15 days. Coupled with the financing and transshipment in the United States, one month is almost exactly right.

However, we still have to wait another month!

Song Ziwen's mood became heavy again. There were countless telegrams urging food every day, and now he had a headache whenever he received the telegrams. One month is enough to drive him crazy!

Before he could leave the American Legation, the secretary suddenly came over with a telegram: "Minister, urgent call from Shanghai!"

Song Ziwen's head exploded and said, "Where did the disaster happen again?"

The secretary said happily: "It's food. Mr. Zhou Hexuan bought the food for three ocean-going freighters from the United States. He wants to donate all of it to the Flood Relief Committee!"

Song Ziwen, who had been worrying about food for many days, seemed to be in hell and heard the gospel of heaven. He was stunned for a while, and suddenly laughed loudly: "Zhou Ming is honest and timely!"