![]() The flood achieved the above strategic intent along with casualties and damages.īelieving that the civilians would help them, the Chinese Communists turned the flooded area into a recruiting ground, directing survivors' anger towards a common enemy to bring them into their ranks. Secondly, to shut the Japanese Army out of Shaanxi, thereby preventing them from entering the Sichuan basin, where the wartime capital of Chongqing was located. Firstly, to safeguard the Shaanxi section of the Longhai railway, where the Soviet Union sent their military supplies to the Chinese National Army from August 1937 to March 1941. The flood had two long term strategic intent. Subsequent repairs succeeded and were eventually completed in March 1947.Įffect on the war Long term Work began in March and was completed in June, but the dams were again destroyed by large summer flows. Īttempts to seal the breach and return the river to its former course were made in 1946 by the KMT with assistance from UNRRA. The floods covered and destroyed thousands of square kilometers of farmland, and shifted the course of the Yellow River hundreds of kilometers to the south. The original plan was to use explosives to destroy the dike (levee) of Zhaokou, but due to difficulties at that location, the dike of Huayuankou, on the Yellow River's south bank, was destroyed on June 5 and June 7 via tunneling, with waters flooding into Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. The Chinese National Army implemented the flood plan. The goal of the operation was to stop the advancing Japanese troops by following a strategy of "using water as a substitute for soldiers" (以水代兵 yishui daibing). After the Chinese were defeated in the Battle of Xuzhou, the Zhengzhou junction of the Beijing–Wuhan Railway was within reach by the Japanese. On 1 June 1938 in a military meeting, the Commander-in-chief Chiang Kai-shek sanctioned to open up the dikes (levees) on the Yellow River near Zhengzhou. The suggestion of the use of flood was floated among various officers throughout May 1938. Many of the officers in the Chinese National Army were familiar to the use of flood as the warlord Wu Peifu used it against them in the 1926 Northern Expedition. Falkenhausen's report recommended the use of a Yellow River flood and was adopted into the annual National Defense Strategy of 1937. ![]() In 1935, Alexander von Falkenhausen were commissioned by the Chinese to write a report on the strategic planning of the upcoming Sino-Japanese War. The military history of China saw numerous man-made destruction of dykes. Soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army fighting in the flooded area of the Yellow River Inspired by the strategic outcome, dykes elsewhere in China, especially along the Yangtze, were later destroyed by the Chinese and the Japanese. ![]() Five million civilians lived on such inundated land until 1947. The Yellow River was diverted to a new course over swathes of farmland until the repair of the dykes in January 1947. ![]() ![]() However, the flood came at a cost: in the immediate aftermath, 30,000 to 89,000 civilians drowned in Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, while a total of 400,000 to 500,000 civilians died from drowning, famine and plague. The flood achieved the above strategic intent in particular, the Japanese Operation 5 never captured Shaanxi, Sichuan or Chongqing. The short term strategic intent was to buy one to three months of time for the Battle of Wuhan by preventing the Japanese from sending troops and supplies via the Zhengzhou junction of the Beijing–Wuhan Railway. The long term strategic intent was, firstly, to safeguard the Shaanxi section of the Longhai railway, where the Soviet Union sent their military supplies to the Chinese National Army from August 1937 to March 1941, and secondly, to shut the Japanese Army out of Shaanxi, thereby preventing them from entering the Sichuan basin, where the wartime capital of Chongqing was located. The flood acted as a scorched-earth defensive line in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first wave of floods hit Zhongmu County on 13 June 1938. The 1938 Yellow River flood ( Chinese: 花園口決隄) was a man-made flood from June 1938 to January 1947 created by the intentional destruction of dikes (levees) on the Yellow River. ![]()
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