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Ten years before the war, the Kuomintang Central Government exhausted its financial resources and wanted to expand its area of governance. By 1937, half of China's territory had been under its leadership to varying degrees. However, the relationship between each province and the central government of Chongqing has its own characteristics. Some provinces, like Guizhou and Zhejiang, absolutely obey Chongqing. In other provinces, such as Guangdong, the loyalty of military chief Yu Hanmou was made up for by Chongqing’s trustworthy provincial chairman Li Hanhun. Yunnan is quite different, and it is difficult to say which of these relationships it belongs to.
1. Long Yun's rule in Yunnan
In the 1930s and 1940s, the warlord of Yunnan was Long Yun (1888-1962). Long Yun was born in the Yi nationality , one of the largest ethnic minorities in the province. He rarely set foot in his hometown outside Yunnan. When he was young, he participated in a semi-open secret club active in Yunnan. In 1910, the 22-year-old Long Yun joined the principal of Yunnan Wubei Academy Tang Jiyao . Tang accepted him as a student officer, and from then until 1927, the two of them were promoted at the same time. This well-behaved student finally launched a coup in 1927, ousted his teacher and replaced him as the chairman of Yunnan Province.
was brought down by Chiang Kai-shek in 1945. Long Yun has always been the emperor of Yunnan in politics.
There are different opinions on Long Yun's evaluation. In the eyes of some people, especially the pawns of the Kuomintang Central Government, Long Yun is simply a vicious warlord and opium ghost.
In addition to his own self-interest and self-examination, he is cold to everything, and his bureaucracy is also in decline and corruption. In fact, according to the standards of that era, Long Yun was still a local warlord who was self-denying and proactive.
Although he failed to create a prosperous Yunnan, he still eliminated the banditry that had long been harassing the people's livelihood. Although he himself was irretrievably drowned in the clouds and mists, , after the banning of drug cultivation and trading in November 1934, the smoking ban has achieved great results. From 1936 to 1937, the fiscal revenue of the Yunnan Provincial Government has mainly come from mining factories, not opium.
In addition to modern enterprises, Longyun has also made great contributions to urban environment and public health. He received a veritable honor in this regard. Therefore, in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, warlords' aggressive extortion is appalling, but it is rarely seen in Yunnan. Long Yun seems to have won the support of most of his people.
Before the War of Resistance, his army had only 30,000 or 40,000, and his economic foundation was very weak. He must be cautious and creep forward in the shallow reef where the warlord is in power. Be cautious, be patient, and do it for yourself, so that the neighboring province can live in peace and harmony with him, and be respectful and polite to him.
2. Chiang Kai-shek’s economic penetration and control of Yunnan
As the war broke out,As the Kuomintang government retreated to the mainland, the relationship between Yunnan and the central government has undergone substantial and fundamental changes. Prior to this, Yunnan was only a corner of the wall in the central government’s daily management of military and political affairs, and Nanjing did not need to force it to treat itself with respect and respect. Now it is extraordinary. Yunnan is one of the most important provinces in the Kuomintang ruled area. Its status is second only to Sichuan. It is a key production area for the central government's human, financial and material resources.
Therefore, in the eyes of the Kuomintang central government, the top priority is how to stabilize Yunnan and make it obey the emperor's orders. But by the middle of 1939, the relationship between Yunnan and the Central Committee of the Kuomintang was almost at the breaking point.
This kind of change happens in all kinds of things. For example, soon after the war started, Yunnan became the main gateway for the Kuomintang ruled area to the outside world. In 1938, Wuhan and Guangzhou fell one after another.
Unfortunately, it happened that the Myanmar highway was opened to traffic at this time, and the end of the road was in Kunming! This ensures that outside aid is not completely blocked. Soon, two all-weather routes connected Yunnan and Sichuan again. In this way, Kunming Airport was simply the busiest place in China during the war. It mainly handles all kinds of flights between Chongqing, Hong Kong (until the fall of 1941) and India. At the same time, it is also the place where the US Air Force flies over the "Hump" Himalayas.
Before the war, the only university in the province was the little-known Yunnan University , However, in 1938, the three most outstanding institutions of higher learning in the country, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University, forming Southwest Associated University, together with several other incomplete schools, scattered in and out of Kunming. In one night, Kunming emerged from the cultural desert into a center for intellectuals, cultural and politicians to display their skills.
Since 1935, Yunnan has entered the most modern industrial development period. However, the war placed a number of new factories in and out of Kunming's urban and rural areas. The National Resources Commission, which is responsible for the development of defense industry and heavy industry, has particularly focused on this area, which is convenient for the Kuomintang’s nearby Burmese highway and far away from the frontline battlefield. Therefore, the Central Machinery Factory and the Electrical Assembly Factory were built here. The former of began to produce engines and machine tools in early 1940; the latter produced copper cores, iron cores , wires, light bulbs, batteries and telephones in July 1939. The Bank of China opened a cotton textile factory in Kunming, and the Military Order also established an optical instrument factory. By August 1939, a total of 49 companies had moved from East China to Yunnan.
Although the central government issued a monetary reform order in November 1935, it declared that legal tender (currency issued by the Kuomintang government) was the only legal currency circulating in the domestic market. However, the banknotes issued by the Xinfudian Bank, which is run by the provincial government, are mainly used in Yunnan. In December 1937, the Central Bank opened a branch in Kunming, and its business operations were limited to handling personal deposits and selling military bonds. It is difficult for this kind of activity to get involved in Xinfudian Bank's manipulation of the province's economy. Therefore, the Yunnan authorities do not take it seriously.
However, in 1938, the central bank borrowed from Kunming branch to begin issuing legal tender, which threatened Yunnan's status. As a result, Xinfudian Bank hurriedly announced the exchange rate of Yunnan banknotes and fiat currencies in an attempt to block the infusion of fiat currencies. In a few days in May 1939, Yunnan even refused to recognize legal currency at all. In the middle of 1939, Yunnan banknotes could be discounted to settle accounts. By 1942, the legal currency was dominating everything.
By the beginning of 1939, the four major Kuomintang banks, including the Bank of China, had opened banking operations in Kunming and other cities. Therefore, the rise of the major banks of the central government will irretrievably weaken Yunnan's control over the province's economy.
3, Wang Jingwei The crisis of trust brought about by defections
Just as the struggle against the Bank of China was intensifying, in December 1938, Wang Jingwei's defection intensified and added fuel to the fire. Dispelled the suspicion between Kunming and Chongqing. On December 18, Wang Jingwei gave himself the mission of negotiating with the Japanese to end the war. His first stop from Chongqing was Kunming. Long Yun is a well-known pro-Wang faction. Right now, Wang Jingwei certainly hopes to persuade Long Yun and several other southwestern military leaders, such as Zhang Fakui, to respond to his peace movement. On December 19, it is unknown what Wang Jingwei and Long Yun did in the secret room meeting.
Afterwards, Long Yun claimed that he warned Wang that his plan was not realistic at all. However, Chongqing was like sitting on pins and needles, because in the following months, Long Yun's words and deeds were enough to make people worry that he might have participated in Wang Jingwei's conspiracy. For example, on January 10, 1939, he blatantly refused to attend the provincial summit in Chongqing. A rich man from Hong Kong sent 3 million yuan to Kunming, which ostensibly supported the fiscal reform plan of Dian Province.
Finally, Long Yun made a speech to the press on February 10, but he was vague. He denied any connection with Wang Jingwei’s peace movement.Claiming to support the central government's policy of continuing to fight against Japanese aggression. At the same time, he added that if the Japanese agreed to treat China on the basis of ethnic equality, he would not oppose the peace movement. Wang Jingwei went to Hanoi, but Long Yun did not cut off contact with him. It was not until May 2 that Long Yun officially condemned him a week after Wang dived from Hanoi and returned to the domestic Japanese-occupied area. Although the farce of Wang Jingwei's defection quickly ended, it certainly left endless troubles. It exacerbated the disparity between Yunnan and the central government.
4. Struggle and negotiation around economic control
In order to compete for Yunnan's expanding foreign trade control, a new conflict broke out. Since Hankou and Guangzhou fell into enemy hands, foreign trade in the Kuomintang-ruled areas can only go through the channel of Yunnan. However, the Yunnan Provincial Government has openly interfered with the central authorities and levied a toll tax similar to lijin to and from the goods, and it was also called a special loss tax, which became the largest single item of fiscal revenue in Yunnan.
In addition, Yunnan has also exported a large amount of tea, raw silk , tung oil, various furs and bristles . Tin is Yunnan’s main export commodity, a cash cow for provincial taxes, and a source of bulk capital for Xinfudian Bank. Therefore, the Yunnan side kept a secret about this, and in October 1938 laid down rules to monopolize all tin exports. As a result, before the central government wanted to control all metal materials, Yunnan had already taken the lead.
In early 1939, the central government began to approach. In February, the State Foreign Trade Commission set up an office in Kunming and followed the Ministry of Communications to inform the provincial government that it will conduct inspections on all export materials in Yunnan except tin. until April,Chongqing expressly prohibits local governments from imposing special depletion taxes on goods exported from other provinces via Yunnan.
However, Longyun stipulates that any Yunnan products that have not obtained the new Fudian Bank trade license shall be prohibited from exporting. In this way, as long as the Yunnan Provincial Bank refuses to issue a license, the export channel of Yunnan will be completely blocked. So, the two sides started a round of marathon negotiations in Chongqing. The representatives from Kunming decided to resolve not only the dispute over foreign trade and tin, but also a package of issues between the central government and the province. At this time, the relationship between the two parties is like a tensioned string, which breaks as soon as it is pulled. As a result, in four months, no one tael of tin or any Yunnan materials were shipped out of Yunnan.
After the second batch of negotiators from Yunnan went to Chongqing, the two parties finally reached an agreement on October 12, 1939. From then on, all the export trade of Yunnan Province will be controlled by the Kunming Office of the State Foreign Trade Commission, but the office must be composed of representatives sent by both parties. The export of tin, tung oil, tea and bristles is monopolized by the central government: as compensation, the central government pays the Yunnan Provincial Government a subsidy of 1.6 million yuan each year. This amount may greatly exceed the price that Yunnan has sacrificed for giving up its export rights.
5. The accompanying military police entered Yunnan
In September 1939, the central government was determined to tighten the ropes around the necks of the provinces. As a result, the chairman of Sichuan Province Wang Zanxu was assigned a military post to fight in the province, and Chiang Kai-shek personally acted as the chairman of the province. In October, the central government ordered Yunnan to dispatch two armies to the front line in Hunan; at the same time, the Central Army was ordered to station in Yunnan.
This order directly threatened Long Yun's control of Yunnan. However, Long Yun couldn't twist his thigh after all. As late as the beginning of 1940, the first division of the Central Army was finally allowed to station in Yunnan. It was a kind of concession. This is a vacant position with duties and no powers. Except for the start-up fee of 100,000 yuan per month, it does not bear any military responsibilities.
One foot in Chongqing has reached the threshold, and of course the other foot must be brought over. By the second half of 1941, the Central Army had spread throughout Yunnan. By March 1943, they were also larger in number than and Yunnan Army , occupying a four-to-one advantage.
In September 1939, the Three Youth League established a preparatory meeting for the branch in Yunnan. However, Long Yun banned them from going to Sun Yat-sen University to organize sub-group activities in the second year. He even ordered the arrest of several responsible cadres of the Three Youth League, and only released them after Chongqing intervened. Indeed, the relationship between Long Yun and the Three Youth League was very bad. turned out that in April 1940, a arrogant Three Youth League member tried his best to persuade a chef of Long Yun to poison his meal.
It is impossible for Long Yun to drive the KMT central agents out of Yunnan. Because almost all central government enterprises, military institutions, or party organizations have "statistical investigation" services. They spy on intelligence in the province and even fan the flames within the Yunnan army, but they dare not go too far.
6. A free land for intolerable intellectuals
Under the high pressure of the central authorities,Especially after Hong Kong fell in 1941 and ceased to be a political asylum, Kunming became the garden of eden for Chinese liberal intellectuals. used to be a professor of Southwest Associated University and a member of the National Political Council Luo Longji. During the Anti-Japanese War, he violently attacked the Kuomintang government, so that Chongqing was so embarrassed in 1941 that he was relieved of his two positions. However, Luo Longji received the courtesy of Long Yun instead.
In 194, when the Kuomintang government insisted on expelling him from Yunnan, Long Yun rebuffed him, and replied not softly that he would closely monitor Luo Longji.
Luo Longji is one of the leaders of the Chinese Democratic Political League founded in 1941. In fact, it was precisely because the aim of the alliance was to oppose the KMT’s dictatorship, that Long Yun hit it off with him and made friends. In addition, most people know that half of Long Yun's residence in Kunming is used as the dormitory of Southwest Associated University. It is not the party members sent by the central government who can enjoy the care of food, clothing, housing and transportation here, but some professors and students with strong liberal habits.
In Yunnan, more political freedom is reflected in the local newspapers and magazines having a considerable say. The teachers and students of Southwest Associated University have published many small publications, such as "Student News", "Democracy Weekly" and so on. These things, whether in Chongqing or Xi'an, even if their political comments are objective, fair, and unshakable, they can never live for a week. In addition, the "Yunnan Daily", run by provincial government officials, sometimes opened the door and criticized the policies of the central government.
No one who knows Long Yun will believe his freedom and openness,In addition to acting on the spot and getting yourself a politically advantageous mask, there is nothing else to think about. In Yunnan, criticism of Long Yun himself cannot be tolerated. Nevertheless, in the eight years of the War of Resistance against Japan, if Guilin is not included, Kunming still enjoyed more political freedom than other big cities in the Kuomintang ruled area. One of the Kuomintang authorities’ biggest grudges against Long Yun is that he “harbored leftists and turned Kunming into a hotbed of communism”.
7. The final break- Kunming Incident
As early as April 1945, Chiang Kai-shek had decided to drive Long Yun away from Yunnan. Based on what knows so far, his first move is to recall General Du Yuming back to Chongqing. Du Yuming was the commander of the Kunming Garrison Command at the time and was one of Chiang Kai-shek's trusted generals.
Had it not been for the sudden surrender of the Japanese, Chiang Kai-shek’s coup d’état might have been reported in the middle of August. In May, Chiang Kai-shek summoned Li Zonghuang, who was originally from Yunnan but belonged to the backbone of the CC department, and asked him to prepare for the post of chairman of Yunnan Province. On August 9, Du Yuming once again returned to Chongqing for an interview with Chiang Kai-shek, probably accepting the last gold medal for launching the coup. However, at this time, Chiang Kai-shek learned that the Japanese had decided to surrender. In this way, the coup was postponed for 6 weeks.
During this period of time, various gossips have spread vividly, saying that Chiang Kai-shek is preparing to remove Long Yun from his post as chairman of Yunnan Province. Indeed, Long Yun also told an American in August that if Chongqing wants to force him to step down, he only needs to issue a piece of order, and he doesn't have to be supernatural, because he has no power to resist.
It is precisely because of this resignation attitude that Long Yun plunged into Chiang Kai-shek's tricks and could not receive effective military support. Perhaps he had already understood Chiang Kai-shek's intentions from various hints, so he asked Chongqing to send his four divisions, commanded by his trusted assistant, Lu Han, to Indochina to accept the Japanese surrender. In mid-September, after these troops set off, Long Yun completely lost his military backing. At this time, even the regular army plus the county security team, Long Yun had only 9,000 troops to escort him.
By the beginning of October, the play finally started. On October 2, when the sun was shining, Li Zonghuang and a group of selected officials, large and small, flew to Kunming with Chiang Kai-shek's handwritten instructions. Du Yuming handed over the manuscript to Long Yun and announced that he would be removed from all party and military positions in Yunnan and transferred to the chairman of the Military Senate.
At the same time, Du Yuming also conveyed another order to Long Yun, that is, he will take over all the Yunnan army units. At four or five in the morning on the 3rd, Long Yun was suddenly awakened by a burst of gunfire. He quickly got dressed, got up and took a look, only to find that the 5th Army, an elite unit of the Central Army, had surrounded his house completely.
In desperation, he had no choice but to disguise as civilians with two guards, sneak out through a side door, and absconded to the headquarters of the Yunnan Army guarded by fortifications and heavy soldiers half a mile away.
After a day of fierce battle, Long Yun has been outnumbered. His only hope is to obtain reinforcements from the outside world. So he called the county heads of the nearby counties and asked them to march towards Kunming. At the same time, Long Yun's son also led a brigade of troops back to Kunming from Zhaotong, two hundred miles away. Before these reinforcements arrived,Long Yun used the tactic of slowing down. He told the attackers that he was willing to go to Chongqing, but he hoped to wait for General Lu Han to return from Hanoi to take over his chairmanship.
However, Long Yun's delay caused Chiang Kai-shek's dissatisfaction. He was afraid that if the resistance continued, it would stimulate the leaders of other provinces. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek set October 5 as the deadline for Long Yun to arrive in Chongqing. At the same time, the reinforcements Long Yun expected did not arrive. Because Du Yuming has cut off all telephone lines. Long Yun's son was also surrounded by the Central Army forty miles away from Kunming. After understanding the above situation, especially through negotiations with Song Ziwen and He Yingqin , Long Yun had no choice but to surrender. Because He Yingqin once told him that Chiang Kai-shek's patience was very limited. On the afternoon of October 6, Long Yun flew to Chongqing.
8. The sequelae of the Kunming Incident
In November 1945, when there was a clear breakdown in the negotiations between the KMT and the Communist Party, Kunming teachers and students began to protest against the civil war. They hate the KMT's monopoly; in addition, after a long period of war, they are very eager for a peaceful and stable living environment. Therefore, their accusations against the Chongqing government far exceed those of the Communist Party.
The thugs of the central government have their own set of high-handed methods against these protests and the subsequent demonstrations. In the famous "One Two One" incident, agents killed four students with grenades, assassinated another with a dagger, and injured countless classmates. Seven months later, the leaders of the Democratic League Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo were assassinated again (June 1946).
will not be long,The sequelae of forcing Long Yun to go were also revealed in the northeast. The Yunnan troops dispatched to Indochina in August 1945 soon discovered that they had been fooled by the central government. Because they were transferred out of Yunnan, only to clear the way to move Longyun away. And now, in the eyes of the Kuomintang government, these 50,000 soldiers from Yunnan are already homeless, and the commander-in-chief who swore allegiance to the death has been imprisoned in Chongqing. Therefore, when they completed their mission in Indochina, instead of returning to their hometown triumphantly, they were sent to the Northeast to fight a civil war with the Communist Party.
In the Northeast, the Communist Party took advantage of the resentment of the Yunnan troops and took the trouble to tell the Yunnan people that Chiang Kai-shek had bad intentions and used them as cannon fodder, but Yunnan’s people’s livelihood was dying under the control of the central government, and their fathers and elders. The folks are "unbearable". These propaganda are very effective. In March 1946, the 184th Division of the 60th Army of the Yunnan Army all rushed to the Communist Party. Since then, the Kuomintang generals have been hostile to the remaining officers and soldiers of the 60th Army, and they have sent special agents to the troops, and they have been mixed with the Kuomintang's direct divisions.
In spite of this, in the October 1948 Changchun battle , the 60th Army made a major mutiny and surrendered to the Communist Party.
General Zeng Zesheng, the commander of this unit, made a public statement during the surrender power-up:
"After the victory of the War of Resistance, Chiang Kai-shek set up a scam to accept the surrender of the Japanese and sent our army to Hanoi, and he took the opportunity Initiating the Kunming Incident, in order to eliminate his political opponents, he could sacrifice the people of Yunnan."
At the last moment of the civil war, when the Kuomintang fell apart,The main leaders of Yunnan completely sided with the Communist Party rather than the Kuomintang. In December 1948, after three years of prosperity, Long Yun mysteriously and miraculously fled from Nanjing to Hong Kong. Then, he came to Beijing in 1950 and served as the vice chairman of the National Defense Commission.
From December 1945 to 1949, Lu Han served as the chairman of Yunnan Province and the commander of the provincial garrison. On the surface, he was trying his best to flatter the Kuomintang government. However, when Chiang Kai-shek was preparing to establish the last anti-communist base in the southwest at the end of 1949, Lu Han refused to cooperate.
As a result, Chiang Kai-shek had to give up his last foothold in the mainland and retired to Taiwan. After the Communist Party's victory, Lu Han stayed on the mainland. Like other heroes, he was awarded the First Class Liberation Medal as a reward for his contribution to the Chinese revolution.
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