The Development And Influence Of Sichuan’s Silk Industry(1937-1945)

Silk industry is one of the traditional agricultural industries in China,and has been an important part of domestic and foreign trade since ancient times.China is still the world’s largest cocoon silk production,processing and trade.During the Anti-Japanese War,China’s silk industry was nearly destroyed.Wherever the Japanese army went,they burned silk factories,destroyed mulberry groves,and controlled silkworms and silk cocoons.The silk industry in Shanghai,Zhejiang,Guangdong,and Shandong suffered this catastrophe.Only the Sichuan silk industry in the southwest hinterland was preserved.In May 1937,in order to control the silk industry and save the rural economy of Sichuan from bankruptcy,the Sichuan provincial government set up Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.by combining local silk merchants and entrusted the company with the power to purchase,weave,and transport the improved silk in Sichuan.Therefore,the development and decline of Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.can reflect the development and decline of Sichuan’s silk industry to a certain extent.With the relocation of the capital of the National Government to Chongqing,a large number of the top domestic silk scholars and technical workers have moved in,they take Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.as the main position,open schools,provide equipment,visit the countryside,improve the silk,so that the Sichuan silk industry in a very short time to achieve the raw material self-supply,technology leading,education and export increase,not only preserve the strength of China’s silk industry,stimulate the vitality of the silk industry in the western region,more importantly,with "smokeless military supplies" to support the war,to save the wartime economy made an important contribution.If the wartime economic interests driven the rapid formation and development of the Sichuan silk industry,the government’s control policy further concentrated the scale of the silk company,then the promotion of silk technology is to support the sustainable growth of Sichuan silk.Under the leadership of Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.,Sichuan mulberry has been scientific classification and breeding,not only to achieve the breeding of improved varieties,but also to optimize the quality of soil silkworm seeds in Sichuan,and according to the reality of the war,to design a silk car for local silk reeling in Sichuan,from this perspective,the silk company does comply with the Sichuan Provincial Government to give its production,distribution and sales of the privileges of the improvement and innovation of Sichuan silk has a certain promotion significance.At the same time,Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.from social education to vocational education and then to higher education of the stratified training and training mode,to a certain extent,the realization of the national government during the war of resistance against Japan required education task.In the limited time to form a virtuous cycle of industry education and training,not only through the social promotion of a certain number of employees,but also through the focus on the development of vocational education to obtain a large number of technical workers in the front line of production,at the same time in the "construction and education cooperation" policy,actively docking college training,to Sichuan University College of Agriculture as the base,trained a number of professional scholars,under the influence of the education of Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.,the experts and students left in Sichuan after the war,for the development of contemporary Sichuan and Chongqing silk industry laid a solid foundation.However,from the development of Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.itself,there is obvious compromise,and it has not successfully achieved the purpose of controlling the Sichuan silk industry.First reflected in the change of the company’s equity,with the change of the war situation,the national government moved the capital to Chongqing,more capital outside the province and the central capital equity company.Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.expanded capital through multiple capital increases and share expansions,but led to the continuous dilution of the equity of Sichuan provincial government and local silk merchants,and eventually Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.,jointly operated by local government and silk merchants,gradually left the management of local government.The joint-stock system concentrated the company more in the hands of several large capitals,which was not a thorough and healthy form of joint-stock company,and actually deviated from the development requirements of joint-stock companies.Second,the imbalance of local and national control policies.The control of Sichuan silk by Sichuan provincial government mainly relied on silk companies to exclusively undertake the whole Sichuan’s cocoon acquisition,raw silk spinning and distribution ring;while the completion of the national government’s control of Sichuan silk industry was based on the game with local government and the encroachment of the existing control institutions.As the control material of Sichuan silk,the unified acquisition,spinning and distribution of Sichuan Silk Industry Co.,Ltd.shortened the process of traditional Sichuan silk in the process of distributed trading,which further strengthened the government’s control of Sichuan silk.However,because of the improper implementation of the control policy by local government and national government,the smuggling of cocoons continued despite repeated prohibitions,and the black market transaction was frequent,which greatly increased the pressure of government financial input and increased the expenditure of silk companies themselves to fight against smuggling,and the result was actually to weaken the government’s control over raw silk.Therefore,the final result of the Sichuan silk industry not into the retreat,the problem fell out,after the victory of the war of resistance against Japan,nearly collapsed.