1938 Changsha fire
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1938 Changsha fire | |
---|---|
Date(s) | November 13, 1938 02:00 – |
Location | Changsha |
Impacts | |
Deaths | 30,000 |
Damage | $1 billion |
Ignition | |
Perpetrator(s) | Kuomintang officials |
Motive | To prevent wealth from falling to the Japanese |
The Changsha fire of 1938 (
and others.Background
On October 25, 1938,
On November 8, the Imperial Japanese Army entered northern Hunan. On the 11th, Yueyang fell. Soon, Chinese and Japanese armies faced off along the Xinqiang River just outside Changsha. The situation in the city became increasingly tense.
False intelligence contended that Imperial Japanese forces would attack Changsha from the East. Chiang had already given a speech in Changsha about burning the city if it ever risked being captured.[1] Because of a lack of confidence in holding the city, Chiang Kai-shek suggested that the city should be burned to the ground, so that Japan would gain nothing even if it chose to forcefully enter it.[2] On November 10 (some[who?] say the 12th), the chairman of the Hunan government, Zhang Zhizhong, passed Chiang's idea to his subordinates in a meeting. An arson team was immediately organized. The team was dispatched to every part of the city and was ordered to set the fire once a signal fire was set off on the top of Tianxin Building in the southwest of Changsha.
Events
At around 2 o'clock in the morning of November 13, 1938, there was a fire in a military hospital just outside the South Gate (to this day, it remains a mystery whether the fire was a signal or an accident). The arson team took it as a signal and started to set the fire at 2 o'clock in the morning. The burning lasted for five days, also destroying several 2,500-year-old historical antiques. City residents tried their best to escape, resulting in a severe boat accident at a river ford on the Xiang River.[3]
Damage
More than 30,000 people lost their lives during the fire. Over 90%, or 56,000, of the city's buildings were burned. The fire also disabled commercial trading, academic institutions and government organizations throughout the city. The fire cost a total economic loss of $1 billion, which accounted for 43% of the total output of the city. Government institutions that were destroyed include the provincial government headquarters, buildings housing the bureaus of civil affairs, construction, police, army mobilizations, security, telegraph, telephone, post as well as the courts,
Future Chinese leaders such as Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying were also present in the city during the fire. A verbal description of the fire was written by Guo Moruo, who also happened to be in Changsha during the fire.[citation needed]
Aftermath
In Chinese, the
On November 18, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the executions of three accused in the case. Zhang Zhizhong, the chairman of the Hunan government, also subsequently resigned.
On November 19, on the ruins of Changsha, food markets returned. By that time, there were 3 people selling meat and 2 selling vegetables.[citation needed]
The Bell Tower and the Xiangya Hospital survived the fire.
Chiang's fear proved wrong. The city repulsed three separate attacks by the Japanese in
In July 2005, the first memorial commemorating the event in Changsha, a memorial wall on an old lamp company site, was built. The memorial wall is located on the bank of the Xiang River. In the same year, there was also a huge alarm clock carving erected as a tribute to the fire.
Lost history
Before the fire, Changsha was one of China's few major cities that had not moved its site in 2,000 years.[citation needed] The fire, however, annihilated all the cultural accumulations that the city retained since the Spring and Autumn period.[citation needed]
See also
References
- OCLC 1141201603.)
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ISBN 9780674033382.
- ^ jie, feng (May 4, 2016). "Chen Cheng and Zhang Zhizhong: A Misunderstanding Caused by the Changsha Fire". thepaper (in Chinese).
- "1938 China." MSN encarta. 6 Jan 2007. Accessed 15 Feb 2008. Archived August 29, 2009, at the Wayback Machine 31 Oct 2009.