The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

Returning to Chongqing again, Zhou Hexuan only had one intuitive feeling - the traffic is too congested!

Especially Chaotianmen Wharf, densely packed with black human heads. Countless government officials and ordinary people are planning to return to their hometowns, not to mention the passenger ships on the river are crowded, and even fishing boats have become means of transportation. This situation has been going on for two months, including war refugees from Chengdu who are gathering in Chongqing, because the Yangtze River is the most convenient way out of Sichuan.

Many people who came from other cities and counties in Sichuan lived in Chaotianmen Wharf for more than half a month. They eat and sleep in the open, and get up and line up before dawn every day, working so hard just to get a boat ticket.

Although life is hard, there is joy and anticipation on everyone's face. They are joyful because of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, and look forward to returning home soon.

The day Japan announced its unconditional surrender was undoubtedly the brightest moment in Chang Kaishen's life. When he went to the Victory Building to deliver the victory broadcast, crowds of people celebrating the victory were crowded along the way. When people saw Chang Kaishen appearing, they burst into cheers and rushed to shake his hand.

At that moment, people supported Chang Kaishen from the bottom of their hearts, and his personal prestige reached its peak.

The common people are so happy, not only the Anti-Japanese War was won, but also the prices in Chongqing plummeted by 50% in one day, it seems that driving away Little Japan will usher in a happy life. In fact, it took only one day for the price to plummet, and it quickly rose back the next day, but the overall price is still falling.

Chang Kaishen's glorious and stalwart image did not last long, and the civil war caused him to quickly fall from the altar.

Especially in the "January 1st Massacre" not long ago, 30,000 Kunming students went on strike and marched against the civil war. As a result, 4 teachers were killed and more than 60 students were injured by military special agents. The news spread all over the country, and students from Chongqing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Yan'an, Zunyi and other places organized spontaneously to support the Kunming students through parades, and the voices of all walks of life against the civil war became even louder.

Now Chang Kaishen is taking Song Meiling to inspect Beiping, and his portrait is hung on the Tiananmen Gate tower. When Lao Jiang returns to Chongqing, he will accept the mediation of the US special envoy.

Marshall has come to Chongqing in person, and his task is to mediate the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and help China establish a democratic coalition government.

A few years later, both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cursed Marshall.

The Communist Party believes that Marshall's military mediation is just a cover, and the real purpose is to help Chang Kaishen prepare for the civil war, assist the Kuomintang troops to invade the liberated areas, actively train and equip the Kuomintang troops, and provide Chang Kaishen with a large amount of arms and strategic materials .

The Kuomintang believes that the government mistrusted Marshall's mediation and sent the most elite national army to the northeast, leaving the interior empty and weak on all battlefields, giving the Communist Army an opportunity to take advantage of it.

(Marshall: Is it all my fault?)

...

Zhou Hexuan did not go home directly by boat, but went to the urban area along Chaotianmen Wharf. He walked here and there, and came to a rice shop and asked casually, "How much is a catty of polished rice here?"

The store clerk didn't recognize Zhou Shenxian, so he replied, "Plastic rice is four yuan and twenty cents a catty, how much do you want sir?"

"I'll just ask." Zhou Hexuan left the rice shop with a smile.

The recovery of prices is not bad. When Zhou Hexuan left Chongqing half a year ago, the price of rice had risen to more than five yuan a catty, and it had dropped by one-fifth in just a few months. (By the way, when the procurement policy was the most terrifying during the Anti-Japanese War, the government bought rice from landlords and farmers at a price of 10 cents, and it became 5 yuan a catty of rice in the market. This is why farmers have put The reason why the land was returned to Zhou Hexuan.)

If the national government does not make foolish moves, the legal currency can slowly recover its purchasing power. At the beginning of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the government owned 6 million ounces of gold, 900 million U.S. dollars in legal currency, received 10 trillion yuan in legal currency from the Japanese counterfeit industry, and the remaining US aid supplies to China were worth about 2 billion U.S. dollars.

The money can be used to rectify taxes, balance revenue and expenditure, and curb inflation.

But what did the national government do?

First of all, the national government set the exchange rate between the central reserve certificates issued by the Wang puppet regime and the French currency at 200:1, which means that 200 central reserve certificates can only be exchanged for 1 legal tender, which seriously underestimated the purchasing power of the central reserve certificates and directly made the people in the enemy-occupied areas The assets of ordinary people have shrunk by 200 times.

The people in the occupied areas looked forward to the stars and the moon, and finally hoped for the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, and then suddenly found themselves poor.

As a result, the central reserve certificates became waste paper, and people lined up to exchange for legal currency. The French currency in the rear of the Anti-Japanese War crazily flowed into the enemy-occupied areas, resulting in a shortage of legal currency in the rear.

When the national government found that there was not enough legal currency, it was overjoyed and worked overtime to print legal currency. A large amount of legal currency filled the market, causing prices to soar again. During the Anti-Japanese War, the legal currency that did not completely collapse, actually collapsed directly after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War. Take the capital Nanjing as an example, the price of rice has soared more than 500 times in eight months, and the French currency has become a waste of paper.

Later, Chen Lifu summed up the reasons for the failure of the Kuomintang and blamed Song Ziwen. He said: "After Japan surrendered, the people in the recovered areas naturally welcomed the use of legal currency, but the financial authority Song Ziwen actually stipulated that 200 yuan of counterfeit currency should be exchanged for 1 yuan of legal currency... After a rich man went through this war, his property depreciated hundreds of times. Isn’t this paving the way for the Communist Party? We have turned the people into the proletariat for the Communist Party.”

No one knew what Song Ziwen was thinking at the time.

Zhou Hexuan wandered leisurely in the streets of Chongqing, and only returned to Zhou's mansion in the evening.

"Brother Mingcheng!" Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin lived in the Zhou mansion.

The two came to Chongqing last fall, and Liang Sicheng specially sent Lin Huiyin to a large hospital for treatment. Historically, doctors judged Lin Huiyin's condition to be able to live for up to five years, and it was almost impossible to see the founding of New China.

As a result, two years later, Lin Huiyin took the special medicine to treat tuberculosis, and only then did he have the opportunity to participate in the design of the national emblem and the Monument to the People's Heroes.

Thanks to the help of sulfonamide provided by Zhou Hexuan, Lin Huiyin's condition was better than in history, but not much better. She was already too thin.

Seeing the couple, Zhou Hexuan smiled and took out a box of medicines and said, "Streptomycin is the latest special drug developed in the UK."

"Special medicine for tuberculosis?" Liang Sicheng was both surprised and delighted.

"That's right," Zhou Hexuan took out the syringe again and said, "Intramuscular injection, you should give Huiyin an injection first."

Streptomycin was discovered by Waxman and Sartz, who was a student of Waxman and the main discoverer of streptomycin. Waksman tricked the student Saci to hand over the patent to the school, and then asked the school to share the patent rights aside from Saci, and then contacted the pharmaceutical company to develop drugs.

Historically, this new drug passed clinical trials in 1944 and was officially released in 1945.

But now it is a little different. After Saci knew that he had been duped, he immediately contacted Zhou Hexuan's Royal Pharmaceutical Company, and authorized the Royal Pharmaceutical Factory to produce as long as he helped him win the lawsuit. The wrangling lawsuit lasted for more than half a year. Due to the unclear ownership of the patent right, streptomycin was also ordered by the court to temporarily suspend production.

In desperation, everyone could only reconcile privately, and the two pharmaceutical companies jointly obtained the patent authorization, while Waxman and Sachs each owned 20% of the patents, and the remaining 60% of the patents belonged to the school.

Until Zhou Hexuan left the UK, streptomycin had not yet passed the clinical trials. After waiting in Hong Kong for more than two months, officials from the British military government in Hong Kong finally brought the medicine.

Streptomycin is not popular in the UK now, and the Chinese have never heard of it. Lin Huiyin may live several years longer if he takes the drug two years in advance.