War Environment

In January,1938, the Japanese invading armies branched out into two columns. They were marching along the Jinpu Line and Jiaoji Line to invade Shandong province. After the battle of Xuzhou finished in May,1938, most areas of Shandong province was occupied by the Japanese invading armies.After occupied Shandong province and in order to strengthen its domination, the Japanese invading annies set up a unified puppet regime consisted of the systems of the provincial level, the city level, the county level and the basic level. Meanwhile, in order to enforce the policy of "nourish war with war", the Japanese invading armies made a so-called "development plan", the purpose of which is to get coal, iron, salt, cotton, grain, and so on and turn Shandong into its base of exporting resources to serve its invading war. The plans include:a railway development plan, a Qingdao Port extension plan, a coal exploitation plan, an agriculture development plan, a plan for increasing the production of cotton, an industry development plan, etc.As for the industry and economy, during the early period of the invasion, the Japanese invading armies adopted the form of "army management" and "management on a commission basis" to control the industrial and mining industrial departments in the occupied areas. In addition, they redeveloped the damaged industry and mining industry by increasing investment, updating the equipments, improving the producing techniques. However, the purposes of taking those measures were to get more resources, to monopolize capital and to grab more benefits. After the broke up of the Pacific War, the Japanese armies suffered a series of defeats in the battlefield which resulted in an increasing serious problem in supplying the strategic materials. Therefore, the Japanese annies plundered in the occupied areas to supplement its military supplies. For example, in order to get more coal resources, the Japanese invading armies adopted the extremely destructive direct-predatory exploitation way which greatly decreased longevity of the coal mine. The Japanese invading annies also set up relevant institutes and organizations to set the price for and to purchase compulsorily the raw materials and the productions. Such prices are against the market rules and are greatly destroyed the market economy. According to the post-war statistics, because of the plundering and destruction to Shandong's economy by the Japanese invading annies, by September,3rd,1945, the losses in Shandong has reached 313749289 Yuan. The invasion by the Japanese invading armies destructively blew the production and transportation of the agricultural products in the occupied areas. The rural society was greatly shocked, the output of the agricultural products continually decreased, the normal circulation trades were destroyed and the occupied areas were in great shortage of grain. In order to change such conditions, the Japanese invading armies made a so-called "agricultural development plan" which was to develop the grain crops, cash crops and animal by-products based on the original agricultural bases and characteristics. However, the Japanese invaders took those measures were not for developing the agricultural production in Shandong, but for obtaining more agricultural products. Therefore, the increase in the agricultural production was turned into an agricultural plunder. Under such conditions, the plan for increasing production was not realized and the agricultural economy was still in decline. In addition, the Japanese invading armies recklessly slaughtered the peasants, compulsively recruited the workforce, drew a circle on the ground and occupied the farm lands, killed the farm animals, destroyed the farm tools which greatly damaged agricultural production environment in Shandong province.Except for the plunder and damages to the economy, the savage acts by the Japanese invading armies also brought endless disasters to the people in Shandong province. They started to slaughter the innocent people since the first day of their invasion. During the eight years of invasion, the Japanese invading armies has made more than 200 cases of massacres. They also captured common people to do the microbial and emphatically tests to spread the choleric microbes in the west of Shandong province which has caused more than 400 thousand people died or injured. They successively used gas weapons for more than 90 times during the war. They took the "comfort woman" system, compulsively asked the women in Shandong province to be the "comfort women" to carry out sexual abuses to them. All of those acts left the people in Shandong with lingering shadow in their minds.The Japanese invaders also conducted ideological warfare which greatly damaged the cultural and educational career in Shandong province. They successively set up such organizations as "Xuanfu class" and "Xinmin Hui" to propagate enslaving thoughts. They used and controlled the reactionary "Dao, Hui and Men" to assist the enforcement of its enslaving policies. They set up traitor schools to enforce enslaving education for the teen-age students with a purpose to eliminate the national spirit of the Chinese people in their minds and to collapse their anti-Japan conception and attempted vainly to make people in Shandong into their "abjectly obedient citizens"During the eight years' colonial domination, the Japanese invading armies has greatly damaged the social environment in Shandong province. The economy in Shandong was nearly collapsed, and the people there have suffered unprecedented disasters. From all those deeds, we can see the destructive power of war. Therefore, we should be against all kinds of aggressive wars and to safeguard world peace and promote the development.