30,000,000 Uprooted Ones

The measure of China's tragedy is not Shanghai's soaring inflation, nor the tide of battles lost & won. It is the horde of refugees streaming southward, 30,000,000 starving, diseased, despairing people. They stand for the breakdown of Chinese society under Communist hammer blows which caught China in the difficult and disturbing transition toward Western progress. The Communist attack has not only halted such progress; it is sweeping away the village, the family--all the ancient pillars of Chinese society which endured despite primitive economics and decadent politics. TIME China Correspondent Fred Gruin last week headed the following report with a quotation from Tu Fu, great 8th Century poet of suffering:

For an eternity my entire household stumbled forward on foot; The people we met were all coarse and brazenfaced. The land rose, uneven, irregular; birds called in the ravines; We did not see a single traveler returning whence we had come . . .

Today there is another generation of refugees, stumbling for another eternity from the battlefronts of Manchuria and North China. The scale of this exodus beggars Western feeling and experience. It is overwhelmingly one-way--from Communist into Nationalist territory.

Each month, from beleaguered Changchun and Mukden, 140,000 people press through the opposing military lines and cruel no man's land toward Tientsin, Peiping and the hope of a living. The distance they cover is upwards of 800 miles. The ordeal they undergo, as culled from my own observation in Manchuria and North China and from the press in Nanking, would need a Tu Fu to compass it.

"Faster Ahead." Not even ten catties of gold, say refugees from Changchun, can buy an air ticket from the dying northeastern capital. The emergency planes that bring in supplies for the Nationalist garrison take only highest priority people out.

Even so, those who can flee by land are looked on as far better off than those who cannot leave at all. The travelers go by foot or by horsecart. The cart and horses (usually two) are a risk. At best they can be sold along the way for part of the original cost. At worst they will be confiscated by the military; when that happens, the owner had best be humble and pretend he is giving them up as a gift.

There are three lines of pillboxes around Changchun. At the outermost, Nationalist soldiers subject every departing refugee to rigid inspection. The authorities are glad to see civilians leave, since there will be fewer to feed, but no one may take anything metallic such as pots or pans (scrap for bullets), gold or silver (representing forbidden speculation or flight of currency) or salt (vital commodity).

They go fastest in the region just beyond Changchun's perimeter. There, between Nationalist and Communist lines, is one of the no man's lands known as "san-pu-kuan" (three-don't-care), signifying territory where neither Nationalist, Communist nor local authority bothers to exercise control. This is a dark and bloody ground for bandits, usually army deserters, who prey on the passing crowd. They have guns, horses and passwords.

Only the most skillfully concealed jewelry, fountain pens, watches or spectacles will escape pilfering from these ruffians. If they should discover an earring or a bracelet hidden in a seam of clothing they not only will take it but also angrily shoot the owner. They snatch all clothing but what is threadbare. Some refugees save their best garments or other belongings by bundling them deep within a burlap bag full of dirty rags, including urine-soaked baby clothes. The foul smell repels the bandits.

The Honest Youths. This san-pu-kuan stretch is nearly ten miles long. Then the refugees enter Communist lines. They are inspected by the Communist Children Corps, grim-eyed, incorruptible teen-agers clad in drab uniforms and armed with red-tasseled spears. The juvenile corpsmen reject all wheedling words or hints of bribes. "We Communist youth are honest," they chant. "We don't go for sly words in our liberated territory."

The travelers hit the Nationalist lines again at Kaiyuan on the Mukden perimeter. They have been on the road five or six days. They have slept in their rags, sometimes on boards in wayside inns, more often on unsheltered ground, blessing themselves that it is not the icy Manchurian winter. They have eaten the food they brought along--mostly wheaten cakes.

Within the Mukden siege ring the refugees are registered again, inspected again. Since horsecarts are not allowed beyond Kaiyuan, they must be sold for whatever price the racketeering army men may offer. Communist currency is confiscated. The wheaten cakes are broken by inspectors looking for concealed opium. Then the authorities hustle the travelers on to rugged refugee trains--a sort of slow-moving human cattle car jampacked with unwashed, heartsick bodies.

Under the Willows. From Tiehling to Hsinmin it is two days, via Mukden, where, as refugees note, "faces are bitter and prices even higher than in Changchun." At Hsinmin the Nationalist lines end again. South of that rail city lies the most terrible san-pu-kuan stretch of all, the notorious Liu Ho Ko, or Willow River Ditch. This no man's land belongs to bandits who dress in yellow jackets and black pants, carry white knapsacks and oiled-paper umbrellas. They lie in wait along a willow-lined ditch, jump up with drawn revolvers, shout, "Don't make trouble! Hand over your money!" Those who have no money are cursed and beaten.

One of the most formidable hazards of the whole journey looms at the banks of the wide Taling River. Here the Communist line ends. On the river's opposite shore Nationalists stand guard. Whoever tries to wade, swim or boat across will be shot. This is a precaution against possible over-water attack by disguised Communists. The only unmolested transit is by way of the blasted railway bridge, a fearful half mile catwalk of twisted girders.

For the exhausted refugees this is a final test of stamina. Those who somehow have managed to save a few dollars from the bandits and the inspectors may hire coolie bearers to carry them across. These local peasants have developed an incredible technique. With straw ropes they lash their human burdens on their backs. They cry, "Please close your eyes and don't be scared. We've done this many times before." Then they pick a nimble passage over the broken bridge, while their passengers look down in terror and vertigo at the swirling waters far below. Safe on the opposite shore, many break down in sobs.

To the Gardens of Delight. From Chinchow the Nationalists run refugee trains to Shanhaikuan, where the Great Wall meets the sea. Here, for the first time, three weeks from Changchun, the wayfarers find a center set up to receive them.

By American standards the center is crude indeed. Its restroom is bare earth covered with canvas to keep out the rain. The washroom is one pipe of running water. The cloakroom will mend patched garments, or exchange better rags for those beyond mending. A free milk line serves half a bowlful to each child under five; then, if the child does not vomit from an unaccustomed stomach, he may have another half bowlful.

Below Shanhaikuan the Communists have been raiding the railway on & off. When it runs, the refugees pour down toward Tientsin and Peiping, hard-pressed, pinched and depressed cities themselves but veritable gardens of delight and luxury to the people from the north.

The authorities watch the incoming flood of misery with a feeling of helpless dismay. The refugees cannot be housed or adequately fed. They add to the misery, starvation and chaos of Nationalist China. In the North, the Reds still tighten the screws, drive more millions on to the bitter roads of China.

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