money player

Chapter 142 Not a silkworm farmer

Although the female high school student looked good, the bottle of milk in her hand attracted Xian Yaowen's attention even more.

In 1945, just after the Japs surrendered, they encountered a double blow from typhoons and floods. Rice production dropped to the lowest point in 30 years, less than one-third of the previous five years.

During the war, the little devils could still play tricks on the enemy. Once the war was over, a large number of soldiers and expatriates returned to the country, adding millions of mouths to eat. Every time they came back, every good and bad, the East was already If we are not self-sufficient in food, there will be even less food to eat, and famine is imminent.

After the U.S. military occupied Japan in the name of the Allied Forces, the Allied Occupation Headquarters (Allied General Headquarters) established became the de facto supreme leadership body of Japan. MacArthur, the top commander of the United Nations, became the emperor of Japan, and the Japanese people became his subjects. Ordinarily, as the Emperor, MacArthur should not watch his people starve, and he could not ignore the impending famine.

However, both the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Far East Committee, including China, advocated that Japan remove all production equipment except those necessary to maintain "minimum living standards."

The meaning is obvious. The wars in the past few years have been so painful, but they finally won. As an enemy, Japan should suffer some economic hardships. Therefore, the Far Eastern Committee agrees with the White House's instructions to the Allied General - Allied General The Supreme Commander assumes no responsibility for the revival or strengthening of the Toyo economy.

That is to say, MacArthur does not assume the responsibility of improving the living standards of the Japanese people, and the Japanese people cannot rely on imported supplies, but can only rely on and make full use of their own resources. Famine is the problem of the Japanese people themselves, and the alliance can help tap the potential within Japan. , there are no foreign materials.

In the winter of 1945, the residents of Eastern cities were miserable. There was no fuel for heating or food to feed their stomachs. The officials of the League were drinking red wine, smoking cigars, eating steaks, and watching with cold eyes as famine enveloped the city. Disdainful of the hungry corpses being eaten by wild dogs on the roadside.

The Alliance General Assembly held several meetings and reached a consensus at the meeting: sit back and watch a large number of Japanese people starve to death in order to reduce the population size to a level consistent with local resources.

According to the White House, Japan must take responsibility for its own suffering and must find its own way out. The United States is not obliged to do anything beyond its authority. MacArthur should not provide relief assistance unless the safety of the occupying forces cannot be guaranteed. .

From the autumn of 1945 to the beginning of 1946, Dongyang experienced a difficult march. The Japanese people who had no food to eat meekly requested and protested, but radically engaged in riots and robbed the US military of food.

Seeing this situation, in the Moscow Kremlin, a middle-aged man took a few puffs from his pipe, stared at the map of East Asia on the table for a long time, and said meaningfully: "Comrade Xiao Zhu, please, Vladimir Putin." The Divostok seaport should be buffered forward. I think it would be good to buffer it as far as Yokohama. Send a few comrades to Tokyo, Osaka, and Hokkaido to ignite the fire of revolution. Do it quickly and don't show off. .”

As soon as the order was given, a few little devils who dug potatoes in Siberia and dug sacks of them until they were as skinny as a stick hit the jackpot. As the old saying goes, there is no harm in reading more. A few of them just because they had read "Das Kapital", I know something about communism, no, I eat red sausages, drink borscht, and do the good job of leading the way for comrades in the political commissar.

Vodka in the left hand, Bobosha in the right hand, shouting "Panzai" in the front and "Ula" in the back. In less than two or three months, the Communist Party of Japan, which had no sense of existence at all, grew like a balloon. At this time, the officials of the League were no longer He calmed down, scolded the Soviet Union for not practicing military ethics, and immediately held a winter tea party.

At the meeting, MacArthur gave instructions: "The key for us now is to find the key problem, ah, how to seize the key problem? That is to find the key to the problem. How far have the Soviets developed in the East? Is there no possibility of armed rebellion? If the Japanese continue to be hungry, will it develop from possible to relatively likely, or even very likely?"

A young major who was not afraid of tigers made a speech at the meeting: "Your Majesty, all leaders here, in accordance with President Truman's request, our alliance must do a good job in democratization in Japan. This time there are many Japanese people The Soviets were deceived into taking the wrong path, and it is our alliance's responsibility to urge them to return to the right track.

I suggest that we make suggestions to the White House that our country provide humanitarian relief to the Japanese people and take action to solve the famine problem in Japan, so that the Japanese people feel grateful to our country, and stabilize the social order in Japan as soon as possible, so that our alliance can gain a firm foothold in Japan. Protect the fruits of our country’s victory, and then implement democratization in the East and support its economic revival..."

Initially, the U.S. occupation policy aimed to achieve two goals: first, to transform Japan into a peaceful and democratic country; and second, to limit the development of communist forces in Japan.

As the Cold War intensified, the second goal became more and more prominent. In the eyes of the American ruling elite, in the East, like in Europe, hungry and helpless people with no hope for the future would not be interested in liberal democratic systems. Rather, it seeks to overthrow this system, so the long-term depression of the East Asian economy will help its domestic Communists and communists gain power and expand their influence, and communism is synonymous with hunger, poverty, and despair. U.S. diplomat Edwin Clark mentioned in a letter to the White House that one of the core contents of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was the competition and control of resources. Among all resources, the most important was food. If the Soviet Union took the lead If the communist group obtains sufficient food security, it will greatly strengthen their economic and military strength. At the same time, they can also expand their power through famine and bring shame to the "free world".

After the defeat of the war, the living standards of the Oriental people dropped significantly, domestic food production stagnated, and raw materials were scarce. After Toyo's defeat, it lost all its overseas colonies, and these colonies provided 20% of Toyo's food consumption before Toyo's defeat.

Millions of Japanese people were repatriated to their countries, which undoubtedly made Japan's already sluggish food supply even more stretched. Under such circumstances, if the United States provides food aid to the East, it can gain the support of the East's people, stabilize the East's society, and encourage the East to pursue pro-American policies and stand on the opposite side of the Soviet Union.

The United States did not want to see the various reforms of the Allied General in Japan leading to a break in Japan's traditional society, and it was even less willing to see Japan turn to the Soviet Union. Therefore, after the White House received the Allied General's suggestion, Truman summoned his own think tank to discuss it and attended the meeting. Among those who discussed the meeting was a rather special being, George Kennan, an international relations expert who had a profound understanding of communism and the Soviet Union.

In 1946, he proposed a containment policy against the Soviet Union, known as the Cold War. In 1947, an article he published in Foreign Affairs also predicted the collapse of Soviet communism. The time was slightly broader, roughly 1985-1995. between years.

Kennan advocated that the reform of the East should handle the relationship between change and stability. Change is to realize private property rights, and stability is to realize the smooth transition of the East society. He believed that radical changes would only help the Soviet Union to fish in troubled waters and profit from it.

Since Toyang is the most developed country in the Far East, it has a huge influence on surrounding areas. Occupying and transforming Toyang is a golden opportunity for the United States. The United States can take the opportunity to plant "seeds of democracy" in the Far East and Toyang through Land reform, Eastern farmers have private property rights, and become more conservative in politics, causing communism to lose its existence and spread in the countryside.

Based on Cold War considerations, the United States adjusted its strategy against the East. At the beginning of 1946, a freighter loaded with flour arrived from the United States, thus kicking off post-war food imports from the East.

After that, a continuous flow of food arrived from the United States to the East, basically maintaining the survival needs of the East Asian people. At the same time, the Asian Relief Alliance, composed of 13 religious and labor groups in the United States, provided food to the East Asian people with the help of the government relief fund in the occupied territories. The cumulative value of daily necessities such as cheese, rice, wheat, canned food, clothes, medicines, etc. exceeds 400 billion yen.

The food aid from the United States alleviated and shortened the suffering period of the Japanese people, and also had other effects. The Japanese people lost trust in their own governments. They witnessed the United States delivering relief food and daily necessities to the East, thus deepening their relationship with the U.S. military. Due to the closeness to American culture, and under the intentional guidance of the League President, the dietary structure has undergone subtle changes - the intake of rice has been reduced, and various types of pasta have appeared more frequently on the table.

In the process of importing grain to the East, the United States deliberately controlled the amount of rice imported, but did not impose any restrictions on the amount of flour and corn. It also implemented a compulsory grain requisition policy, stipulating that farmers should not only need seeds for the coming year and family needs for the current year, but also the rest. All food must be handed over to meet the needs of urban residents.

The price of rice collected by the government from farmers is 28.9 yen/kg, while the average planting and processing cost for farmers is 33.46 yen/kg. Farmers’ income cannot make ends meet, and because of the price difference and the existence of the black market, smart people naturally use their talents. , to tap the business opportunities, some farmers can't even keep their own food rations. During the lean period, some farmers will form groups and go to the city to beg.

Due to the adjustment of the U.S. strategy, Japan's industry has room for survival, and its industry has slowly begun to recover. However, the existence of the policy of compulsory grain requisition has created an invisible scissor gap between Japan's industry and agriculture. Urban residents are eating both the United States and their own countries. Suddenly, the admiration for Song poetry became popular in Eastern rural areas. When farmers met on the ridge of their fields, they would say nothing and say something, and then they would immediately understand each other.

A: "Dongpo Sang, entered the city yesterday."

B: "I came back with tears streaming down my face."

Together: "Hey, hey, it's not a silkworm farmer~ It's a silkworm farmer~ La la la..."

(End of this chapter)