ABSTRACT
The first three years of the Nanjing Decade were a time of terrible civil wars, debilitating KMT factionalism, and brutality. A study recently produced by the Seminar on Natural Disasters in Modern China makes clear the enormous scale of suffering. If adverse weather conditions may have played some role, the exactions of various military forces and the lack of government formed the main causes. Drought stuck north China in 1928. Four hundred and eighty-seven counties in the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, Suiyuan, Shanxi, Hebei, Chahar, Rehe, and Henan reported to have been affected, causing many millions of refugees. The situation worsened in 1929, when the Sino-Western Relief Association reported 20 million casualties, including 6 million deaths. The press reported instances of cannibalism. Storms, destruction by hail, plagues of insects, and epidemics were widespread. In 1930, in north China, 831 counties reported to have been affected by drought and the Yellow River burst its dikes in Shandong. The year 1931 proved a year of severe floods as well as earthquakes. The Yangtze, Yellow, Min, and Pearl Rivers, as well as the Grand Canal, all flooded. The east and central China provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Henan, and Shandong were all affected, with the worst hit areas being south Anhui, north Hunan, Henan, and north Jiangsu. In these areas alone, reports suggested, 420,000 people died and 5.5 million refugees took to the roads. 1
