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| The '''Century of Humiliation''' was the worst period in [[Chinese]] history, which stretched from the Opium Wars (1839-1860) to the victory of the [[People's Liberation Army]] in 1949. During this time, China was plagued by opium addiction; anarchic rule by warlords committing slavery and human head-hunting; foot-binding and child marriage for women; partial occupation by [[Imperialist Japan]]; extreme poverty; regular famines involving cannibalism and eating mud; despotic landlords who would rape and kill wives and children for missed payments; massacres of communists; and total corruption.
| | #REDIRECT [[Century of Humiliation]] |
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| ==Famines==
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| [[Mao Zedong]] is held responsible for the [[1958-61 Chinese famine|1958 drought and famine]], which killed 2-10 million - some allege 40 million or more. But no attention is paid to the millions of deaths in regular famines and disasters under the Century of Humiliation. Most of these deaths were preventable.
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| <blockquote>
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| In 1925, a massive famine struck the northwest, killing millions. From 1928 to 1930, famine struck eight northern provinces again, resulting in the deaths of 13 million people. In 1938, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the demolition of the Yellow River levees, directly resulting in the deaths of 890,000 people and leaving 3.9 million homeless. Vast tracts of fertile land were transformed into uncultivable barren land, leading directly to the Great Famine of 1942, in which three million people died in Henan Province alone. "One man eats all." This cruel description is not an exaggeration, but a true description. Furthermore, in 1920, the Xihai earthquake in Ningxia, the strongest earthquake in China in the 20th century, directly killed over 200,000 people. Warlords scrambled for relief supplies, and action was not taken until two years later. <ref name="Guancha">https://user.guancha.cn/main/content?id=1493231&comments-container</ref>
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| </blockquote>
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| ===1927-1931 Chinese famine===
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| This famine, resulting from drought in northwest China, killed 13 million people.<ref name="Guancha" /><ref>https://www.zhihu.com/question/654628198/answer/3484489171</ref>
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| The famine was influenced by the KMT's attack on the CCP in 1927 and the "good warlord" Feng Yuxiang's resulting war against the KMT, the Central Plains War.
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| In 1927, the price of crops began to increase. Some food theft occurred, by beggars, poor farmers robbing their rich landlords, and local armies.<ref name=":9">Master's thesis https://www.doc88.com/p-5933117114525.html</ref>
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| People began to eat everything they could, including bark, grass roots, tree leaves, bran, mud and livestock. Human cannibalism occurred, including young children and parents, as people thought if they did not eat their family, someone else would. Many dead bodies had no feet or arms.<ref name=":7">Master's thesis https://kns.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?dbname=CMFD2010&filename=2010119121.nh</ref>
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| People would eat kaolinite mud to fill their bellies and stop the ache of hunger, but ultimately ate so much that their bodies could not excrete it, and died.<ref>中国减灾 magazine. https://kns.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?dbname=CMFD201902&filename=1019673357.nh</ref>
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| Human and animal bodies were thrown into mass graves.<ref name=":9" /> People digging for valuables like gold and jewelry on rich people's bodies in these graves caused plague, killing even more people.<ref name=":7"/>
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| </blockquote>
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| ==References==
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