A Study On The Construction Of Bamboo Fence Which Was Used In The Japanese And Wang Ching-wei Regime’s "Rural Pacification" Movement In Central China (1941-1945)

The so-called "Rural Pacification" movement meant that after the beginning of strategic stalemate,in order to completely eliminate the Anti-Japanese armed forces in the enemy occupied areas of Central China,consolidate the rule of Wang’s puppet regime,achieve the goal of "establishing public security and improving economic life",including the military suppression,economic plunder,political deception and ideological enslavement as a comprehensive action.It was essentially different from the temporarily military action of "sweeping".Because of the status of the "Rural Pacification" movement in the history of Wang ’s puppet regime,the Chinese mainland scholars started extensive research on the "Rural Pacification" movement from the beginning of 1980 s,and achieved fruitful results.However,for the blockade system built by the Japanese puppets in the "Military Rural Pacification" to separate the "Rural Pacification Area" from the "Peaceful area" and the people in the occupied areas from the guerrillas,there are only a few dissertations on the "Rural Pacification" movement from the perspective of regional history,The blockade system represented by bamboo fence is briefly described as the specific measures for the Japanese puppet to carry out the "Rural Pacification" action,and no research monograph has been found by the writer.This research starts with the construction,function and breaking of bamboo fence blockade,its purpose is to explore the operation of the blockade system of the Japanese puppets in the area of Rural Pacification,and the suffering life of the people in the enemy occupied areas under the blockade of Rural Pacification.As a space isolation facility,bamboo fence had long been widely used in the pre-war Yangtze Delta because of its simplely construction and low cost.After the Japanese puppets launched the "Rural Pacification" movement,even in Northern Jiangsu,which had never produced bamboo,they had to transport a large number of bamboo poles from the south of the Yangtze River,and spent a lot of manpower to build a blockade with bamboo fences as the main body.The bamboo fence blockade,which often stretcheed for hundreds of miles,cooperated with the Japanese and puppet’s military and police that patrolled along the blockade and stationed in large and small "inspection stations",strictly controlled the personnel and materials entering and leaving the "Rural Pacification area",blocked the normal economic exchanges of various regions,and seriously affected the livelihood of the people on both sides of the blockade.The various bloodshed cases created by the Japanese puppet’s military and police to maintain the blockade made the conspicuous bamboo fence a symbol of the Japanese puppet "Rural Pacification" tyranny in the eyes of the people at that time.However,due to the limitations of human and material resources and natural conditions,the bamboo fence for blockade in some sections could not be completed in the end.The Communist Party of China actively mobilized the people in the enemy occupied areas to carry out effective destructive actions against the built bamboo fence.In addition,the war situation was becoming increasingly unfavorable to the Japanese puppets,so it gradually lost its ability to maintain the remaining bamboo fence.The few remaining bamboo fences decayed and collapsed under the power of nature,symbolizing the bankruptcy of the "Rural Pacification" action,which was highly expected by the Japanese puppets.Moreover,with the awakening of China’s national consciousness and the increasing change of the war situation against Japan,the nature of the puppet regime and its military force were also changing: from the capable accomplices of the Japanese occupiers to the strangers who secretly seeked their own way out.However,Japan,already mired in the mire of war,could not give more strength to maintain its rule over the occupied areas,even its deterrent to the puppet regime was losing gradually.On the contrary,the grass-roots cadres of the Communist Party of China who persisted in fighting in the core area of "Rural Pacification" have not only survived,but their own military and political literacy had also been effectively trained and improved,and won the broad support of the people in the guerrilla areas.This change meant that the War of Japanese aggression against China was bound to be a complete failure.