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During a world upheaval with bombs dropping from the sky and bursting all around, one is apt to wonder what caused these terrible things to happen.
What has happened in the world in the last decade is not something that merely dropped from the sky. Events have their causes. In the last years of the war, as I cast my mental view beyond the horizons of Kunming, where most of this volume was written, I saw how one event had led to another, with consequent social and political changes. Musing over the past in that scenic city on the Burma [1] Road overlooking tranquil, historic Kunming Lake, with bomb-shattered houses standing around me like the remnants of Pompeii, the scenes of what had happened during my lifetime unfolded themselves like a dream clearly and vividly before me; and I set pen to paper to put down what I had seen with my own eyes during the last half century of rapid change in the life of my country.
As I began to write we were in the midst of heavy munitions traffic coming in by truck from Burma. The fighting planes of the American Volunteer Group known as the "Flying Tigers" droned over our heads. War profiteers and truck drivers roamed the streets by hundreds and thousands with their pockets full of bank notes, while the price of commodities soared sky-high.
A British friend remarked to a professor of our university that we ought to have controlled prices at the beginning of the war. "Well," said the professor with a tinge of humor, "we will know better in the next war." He went on to remark that if he had had the capital he might have followed the example of the Greek philosopher who cornered olives in ancient Greece in anticipation of a poor olive crop. When the crop failed, he was rich. But the professor had no capital and too little of that sort of foresight, and in addition, too much of patriotism in his way.
After Pearl Harbor came waves of bad news of the Allies. Hongkong, the Malay States, and Singapore fell one after the other. The enemy headed for Burma. China rushed troops there; they retreated, after a stubborn resistance, through the mountains and swamps of Upper Burma, living on banana roots. They were greatly annoyed by the leeches that dropped on their heads from trees, suckers that hooked onto you and drank your blood. If you tried to tear one off, it carried away in its mouth a piece of your flesh. The best way of getting rid of these nasty parasites was to rub salt on them, but salt there was none. The next best way, in the circumstances, was to slap at them until they gave you up.
Chinese nationals in Burma left by tens of thousands, and made their way back to China by the Burma Road. Enemy planes bombed and machine-gunned them. Three thousand people, men and women, young and old, died on the way. A torrent of refugees flowed along the road into Kunming. Streets were crowded with thousands of distressed people and public buildings were set aside for their temporary lodging. After two or three months they gradually melted into the neighboring provinces; many went back to their native provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung.
The Burma Road, built in eight months by the hands of some eighty thousand farmers, men, women, and children, was now cut at the other end and rendered useless. Kunming, once on the high-way of international traffic, was now an isolated city, and only by air could one travel to India. The Yunnan-Burma Railway, under construction by 250,000 men, was to be finished within twelve months; it was partially built, then suspended. China was cut off from the world, with the enemy on three sides and only the faintest trickle of supplies remaining. In this isolation she held out, fighting for her national existence every inch of the way, until the end of the war.
Let us forget recent history for the moment and look back to the past to see what we can learn from it.