一九四七年春，蒋介石的军心已经动摇，蒋军军官的士气低落，全国后备力量日趋枯竭，而后方人民纷纷起来反抗，使得蒋军穷于应付。蒋介石的前线部队已经陷入人民战争的重围，马歇尔将军已返回美国，并明确表示对蒋介石爱莫能助。然而，蒋介石坐在南京的总统府里，未从其困境中学得谨慎一些，竟然铤而走险，干了一件极其伤天害理的事情。

　　他利用了黄河变化莫测的特点来达到自己的目的。黄河不断地改道，有时经过山东有时经过江苏北部流入太平样。要使黄河改道，就像要改变中国本身一样，在中国人看来是违抗天意的。一九三八年，蒋介石扒开大堤，放黄河水南灌企图切断日本侵略军的道路，把他们挡在郑州城外。虽然他挡住了日本人，但是，十一个城市和四千个村庄惨遭淹没，两百万农民无家可归。

IN IHE spring of 1947, though the loyalty of his troops was shaky and the morale of his officers low, though his reserves throughout the country were getting closer to the bone, though rebellions were springing up in his rear and devouring troops that he could ill spare, though a people's war was spreading around his front line troops and though General George Marshall had returned to the United States and given every indication of abandoning him to his fate, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, instead of learning caution from his straitened circumstances, at his headquarters in Nanking, rashly gave sanction to a plan of grandiose proportions, yet of a dangerous and terrible nature.

　　To his cause he summoned the treacherous nature of the Yellow River. The Yellow River over several thousand years has shifted its course from time to time, flowing now into the Pacific Ocean through Shantung, now through north Kiangsu. To tamper with the river is like tampering with China itself and, to Chinese, almost like defying God. In 1938, Chiang had cut its massive dikes and diverted the river south across the path of the invading Japanese to halt them before the town of Chengchow. In doing this he submerged eleven cities and four thousand villages and made two million peasants homeless, but he stopped the Japanese.

现在，蒋介石又想把他当年所决的堤堵起来，使黄河回归北面的故道——即流进现在共产党占据的地区。不管这个行动的真正意图是什么，但它在军事上的作用将是在华北两支共产党大军——陈毅部和刘伯承部之间立起一堵水墙，将他们分割开来。要是刘伯承将军的部队被水拦阻不能前进了，蒋介石就可以抽调大量军队去攻打共产党的都城——延安。最后，改变黄河河道还可给山东省共产党的经济以沉重的打击，并造成一场悲惨的洪水灾难。

　　一九四六年，联合国善后救济总署完全从为了治愈中国的战争创伤，必须使黄河回归故道考虑出发，在修复决堤的必要工程方面与蒋介石进行了合作。甚至连共产党也同意在工程上合作。但是，由联合国善后救济总署、共产党、蒋介石三方达成的协议是；在对那些在干涸的河床上耕种土地的农民做出安排以前，不能将黄河改回故道。这干涸的河床就是一九三八年以前黄河流经的地方。约有四十万山东农民在这里耕种着八十万英亩曾经是黄河河底的土地。他们中间的大多数人住在共产党的地区里。

　　一九四六年，河堤本来是可以堵口的，但是，国民党的将军们要利用经过河南境内黄河故道上面的铁路往华北运兵，于是，他们干涉了联合国善后救济总署的工程计划。可是，到了一九四七年，战线已向东移，政府军不再需要用这段铁路了，他们就向“联总”施加压力要求堵口。

Now Chiang wished to repair the breach he had made in the dikes and to send the river back once again to the north - that is, into Communist-held areas. No matter what was the real intention of such a move, its military effect would be to place a wall of water between the two main Communist armies in North China - those of General Chen-Yi and Liu Po-cheng - and split them apart. If Liu Po-cheng's raiders were immobilized with water, Chiang could also release enough troops for an attack on the Communist capital at Yenan. Finally, the switching of the course of the Yellow River at this time would deal a heavy blow to Communist economy in Shantung Province and might create an environment of flood and misery.

　　UNRRA had been co-operating with Chiang Kai-shek in 1946 in the engineering work necessary to repair the broken dikes on the completely valid understanding that the. restoration of the old channel was necessary to heal China's war wounds. Even the Communists had agreed to cooperate in the work. But all three groups - UNRRA, Communists and Chiang's - were parties to an agreement that the river would not be diverted back to its old channel till provision had been made for the peasants who were tilling the dry bed where the river had flowed before 1938. There were some four hundred thousand of these Shantung farmers cultivating eight hundred thousand acres of land in what had once been river bottom - and most of them lived in Communist areas.

　　During 1946, the dike might have been closed, but Nationalist generals were transporting troops north through Honan on a railway over the dried-up river bed and they interfered with UNRRA's work.(1) By 1947, however, the front had shifted to the east, the government troops no longer had need of the railway, and they brought heavy pressure on UNRRA to close the gap.

原注一：联合国善后救济总署１９４６年１１月报告：＂今年春季，由于国军要通过原黄河河道上的铁路向新乡运兵，黄河归故被迫推迟。现在，他们又跳出来，急吼吼地要求赶快堵口归故。＂黄河归故必然牵扯到土地复垦，这一点报告中没有提到。

(1) Cf. UNRRA monthly report for November 1946. "Military objections which had hampered the work in the spring [1946] because of the danger to the Nationalist military supply line to Hsien Hsiang by rail across the dry bed, were withdrawn and replaced by demands for rapid closure." What military demands had to do with a land reclamation project the report does not disclose.

共产党获悉蒋介石的意图之后；就要求“联总”履行三方协议。“联总”还在犹豫的时候，蒋介石的将军们立即动手堵口。同时，蒋介石的空军轰炸往山东运送筑堤和救济物资的“联总”船只，美制蒋机还扫射那些在自己村庄附近修筑河堤的农民们。

　　每轰炸一次，运输工作就得停顿数周。山东人民面临着洪水的威胁，却被有意地剥夺了抗洪的手段。“联总”虽然也对蒋介石的轰炸提出抗议，但并末与蒋断绝关系。蒋介石本人是否考虑过他这个行动的政治后果，我们不得而知。

　　这位中国独裁者作战一意孤行，从不计算这些悲惨的细节。他对自己的行动可能导致的后果似乎不以为意。他像一个神仙摆弄花园里的水管似的摆弄黄河。他居然下令黄河堵口。

　　多少世纪以来，农民们都把黄河叫做“中国的忧患”。一点也不错。有近五百个村庄被淹没，十多万人民无家可归。据共产党称，大约五百万亩庄稼地被毁。

Informed of Chiang's intentions, the Communists requested UNRRA to stick to the tripartite agreement. UNRRA wavered. Chiang's generals immediately moved to close the breach. At the same time, his pilots bombed UNRRA ships carrying dike-repair and relief materials to Shantung and his American fighter planes strafed farmers erecting dikes near their native villages.

　　Each time a bombing occurred, shipping was paralyzed for weeks. The people of Shantung, under the threat of flood, were deliberately deprived of means to fight that flood. Though protesting Chiang's bombings, UNRRA did not break off relations with the generalissimo.

　　Whether Chiang himself meditated on the political effects of what he was to undertake is something we do not know. China's dictator was accustomed to gaze steadily at war, he never added up the sorrowful details. He seems to have suffered no alarm at the possible consequences of his act. He played with the Yellow River as if he were a god playing with a garden hose. He gave the order for the breach to be closed. (2)

　　"China's Sorrow," the peasants of many centuries have called the Yellow River, and China's Sorrow, indeed, it is. Within a short time of the closure of the breach, nearly five hundred villages were inundated, over one hundred thousand people were rendered homeless and, according to the Communists, almost five million mow of crop land were destroyed.

原注二：１９４７年三月，联合国善后救济总署农业部提交了一个更加冷血的报告。报告中说，整个黄河堵口归故是在“（国民党）黄河水利委员会主持下、联合国善后救济总署装备、粮食、建材、工程设计人员的大力支持下完成的。……最后的堵口在国民党要求下提前，违背了同共产党边区代表达成的协议。……黄河归故最直接的效果是分隔了共军的运动，而同时国军正在大举进攻。此时水位很高，回归故道后直接冲毁了农田。联合国善后救济总署、国民党行政院善后救济总署、边区代表共同制定的减轻黄河归故破坏的计划完全放弃。黄河故道的河堤修筑进行得十分困难，因为国民党军用飞机反复轰炸扫射筑堤工人。”

(2) March 1947 report of UNRRA's Agricultural Division gives a more cold-blooded account of this whole affair. In part it declares that the closing of the breach "was carried out by the Yellow River Commission with UNRRA equipment, foodstuffs and construction materials and with the assistance of UNRRA engineering and mechanical personnel. . . . The final closure operations had been rushed under strong Nationalist military pressure and in disregard of agreements previously made with UNRRA and Border Region representatives. . . . Its immediate effect would be to divide the movements of their armies Concurrently with Nationalist military drives in that province, and in the high-water season would flood the agricultural lands in the river bed. Plans which UNRRA, CNRRA and Border Region personnel had made to alleviate the adverse economic effects of the river diversion . . . had not been carried out. Dike work was made difficult by frequent Nationalist air attacks upon the dike workers."

　灾难不是到此结束了。洪水除了立即淹没大片土地以外，还威胁着一千三百个座落在干涸河床上的村庄及其四十万人口。更惨的是，正值收割小麦的季节，农民们不得不抛弃他们的麦收而去抗洪。

　　华北已经奋起反抗蒋介石军队，但现在似乎无法对付黄河了。这里有两件事情是很重要的：一是共产党的组织能力，二是山东人民的感情。下面是“联总”的一位官员对当时他旅行住过的一个地方，在解放区政府领导下进行抗洪战斗的描写：

　　“无论走到哪里，给我的印象是都把修复黄河堤坝作为最重要的任务，仅渤海地区就动员了十万民工。在河北南部和山东西部，三十万人在二十五天内修筑了一座堤坝。由于遭到飞机扫射和大炮的轰击，死亡了九十六个民工。所以，白天人们只好隐蔽起来，晚上再回来修。政府官员们决不允许谈论万一修堤工程失败了该怎么办。工程非完成不可。要不是民工缺乏粮食，堤坝本来还会筑得更高一些。严重的问题是修筑工程占用太多农业劳动力，这样就必须尽可能地组织妇女和小孩来弥补。”

　　至于洪水对老百姓的情绪方面的影响，我本人有充分的机会进行现实。真是无巧不成书，一九三八年蒋介石决堤的时候，我正和他的部队在一起，一九四七年“黄河归故”的时候，我恰好在共产党的地区。不同的是，头一次水灾给农民们带来悲哀，这一次水灾却激起了农民们的愤怒。中国农民是世界上待人最和气的，可是见了我甚至拒绝同我交谈，因为他们知道在他们修筑河堤的时候，轰炸他们的是美制飞机。

　　有一位妇女，她的一个九岁的儿子被洪水淹死了。当我请她谈谈她的遭遇时，她答道：“俺恨你们，为啥要把俺的苦难对你们说呀？”

　　在黄河口开垦土地达八年的另一些农民们，他们较为友好较为世故一些。他们对我说，“这是老蒋造的孽。你说俺们会咋想？”

　 The tale of disaster was not finished at one blow. Besides those districts immediately flooded, the rising waters threatened to engulf twelve hundred river-bed villages and the four hundred thousand people living in them. Worse, still, it was just the time of the wheat harvest and the people had to abandon their fields and turn to halting the flood.

　　North China had stood up against Chiang's armies, but now it seemed about to fall to the Yellow River. Two things, however, were of importance here: the Communists' organizing ability and the feelings of the Chinese people in Shantung Province.

　　A picture of the fight the Liberated Area governments waged against the flood is given by an UNRRA official traveling through the region at the time.

　　"Everywhere, I had the impression that dike repair was by far the most important concern. . . . One hundred thousand workers were employed in the Po Hai region alone. In south Hopei and west Shantung, three hundred thousand men built a dike within twenty-five days. Ninety-six workers were killed by planes and artillery, but the people, chased away in the daytime, came back at night to build the dikes. Government officials would never allow discussion in terms of what the situation would be if the dike repair were unsuccessful. It simply had to be successful. They would have built the dikes higher but for lack of food for the workers. . . . A major problem has been that the enormous amount of dike work has been a drain on their manpower for agricultural work and it has been necessary to organize women and children to fill the gap as much as possible."

　　As for the effects of the flood on civilian morale, I myself had ample opportunity to observe them. By a curious coincidence, I was with Chiang's troops when he broke the dikes in 1938 and I was in Communist territory when the river was sent back again in 1947. But whereas the first flood had been for the peasants a cause of sorrow, this last flood was a cause of rage. Chinese peasants, who are among the most friendly people in the world, even refused to talk to me because they knew it was American planes that had bombed them while they were repairing the dikes.

　　One woman, whose nine-year-old boy had been drowned in the flood, when I asked her to tell me her story, answered: "I hate you. Why should I tell you my bitterness?"

　　Other farmers, more friendly and more worldly, who had labored eight years to reclaim the land around the river mouth, said to me: "Old Chiang did this. How do you think we feel?"
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