http://city.udn.com/3011/3207266 ... ate_no=0#rep3207991
一九四七年春，蔣介石的軍心已經動搖，蔣軍軍官的士氣低落，全國後備力量日趨枯竭，而後方人民紛紛起來反抗，使得蔣軍窮於應付。蔣介石的前線部隊已經陷入人民戰爭的重圍，馬歇爾將軍已返回美國，並明確表示對蔣介石愛莫能助。然而，蔣介石坐在南京的總統府裡，未從其困境中學得謹慎一些，竟然鋌而走險，幹了一件極其傷天害理的事情。
他利用了黃河變化莫測的特點來達到自己的目的。黃河不斷地改道，有時經過山東有時經過江蘇北部流入太平樣。要使黃河改道，就像要改變中國本身一樣，在中國人看來是違抗天意的。一九三八年，蔣介石扒開大堤，放黃河水南灌企圖切斷日本侵略軍的道路，把他們擋在鄭州城外。雖然他擋住了日本人，但是，十一個城市和四千個村莊慘遭淹沒，兩百萬農民無家可歸。
IN IHE spring of 1947, though the loyalty of his troops was shaky and the morale of his officers low, though his reserves throughout the country were getting closer to the bone, though rebellions were springing up in his rear and devouring troops that he could ill spare, though a people's war was spreading around his front line troops and though General George Marshall had returned to the United States and given every indication of abandoning him to his fate, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, instead of learning caution from his straitened circumstances, at his headquarters in Nanking, rashly gave sanction to a plan of grandiose proportions, yet of a dangerous and terrible nature.
To his cause he summoned the treacherous nature of the Yellow River. The Yellow River over several thousand years has shifted its course from time to time, flowing now into the Pacific Ocean through Shantung, now through north Kiangsu. To tamper with the river is like tampering with China itself and, to Chinese, almost like defying God. In 1938, Chiang had cut its massive dikes and diverted the river south across the path of the invading Japanese to halt them before the town of Chengchow. In doing this he submerged eleven cities and four thousand villages and made two million peasants homeless, but he stopped the Japanese.
現在，蔣介石又想把他當年所決的堤堵起來，使黃河回歸北面的故道——即流進現在共產黨佔據的地區。不管這個行動的真正意圖是什麼，但它在軍事上的作用將是在華北兩支共產黨大軍——陳毅部和劉伯承部之間立起一堵水牆，將他們分割開來。要是劉伯承將軍的部隊被水攔阻不能前進了，蔣介石就可以抽調大量軍隊去攻打共產黨的都城——延安。最後，改變黃河河道還可給山東省共產黨的經濟以沉重的打擊，並造成一場悲慘的洪水災難。
一九四六年，聯合國善後救濟總署完全從為了治癒中國的戰爭創傷，必須使黃河回歸故道考慮出發，在修復決堤的必要工程方面與蔣介石進行了合作。甚至連共產黨也同意在工程上合作。但是，由聯合國善後救濟總署、共產黨、蔣介石三方達成的協議是；在對那些在乾涸的河床上耕種土地的農民做出安排以前，不能將黃河改回故道。這乾涸的河床就是一九三八年以前黃河流經的地方。約有四十萬山東農民在這裡耕種著八十萬英畝曾經是黃河河底的土地。他們中間的大多數人住在共產黨的地區裡。
一九四六年，河堤本來是可以堵口的，但是，國民黨的將軍們要利用經過河南境內黃河故道上面的鐵路往華北運兵，於是，他們干涉了聯合國善後救濟總署的工程計劃。可是，到了一九四七年，戰線已向東移，政府軍不再需要用這段鐵路了，他們就向「聯總」施加壓力要求堵口。
Now Chiang wished to repair the breach he had made in the dikes and to send the river back once again to the north - that is, into Communist-held areas. No matter what was the real intention of such a move, its military effect would be to place a wall of water between the two main Communist armies in North China - those of General Chen-Yi and Liu Po-cheng - and split them apart. If Liu Po-cheng's raiders were immobilized with water, Chiang could also release enough troops for an attack on the Communist capital at Yenan. Finally, the switching of the course of the Yellow River at this time would deal a heavy blow to Communist economy in Shantung Province and might create an environment of flood and misery.
UNRRA had been co-operating with Chiang Kai-shek in 1946 in the engineering work necessary to repair the broken dikes on the completely valid understanding that the. restoration of the old channel was necessary to heal China's war wounds. Even the Communists had agreed to cooperate in the work. But all three groups - UNRRA, Communists and Chiang's - were parties to an agreement that the river would not be diverted back to its old channel till provision had been made for the peasants who were tilling the dry bed where the river had flowed before 1938. There were some four hundred thousand of these Shantung farmers cultivating eight hundred thousand acres of land in what had once been river bottom - and most of them lived in Communist areas.
During 1946, the dike might have been closed, but Nationalist generals were transporting troops north through Honan on a railway over the dried-up river bed and they interfered with UNRRA's work.(1) By 1947, however, the front had shifted to the east, the government troops no longer had need of the railway, and they brought heavy pressure on UNRRA to close the gap.
原注一：聯合國善後救濟總署１９４６年１１月報告：〞今年春季，由於國軍要通過原黃河河道上的鐵路向新鄉運兵，黃河歸故被迫推遲。現在，他們又跳出來，急吼吼地要求趕快堵口歸故。〞黃河歸故必然牽扯到土地復墾，這一點報告中沒有提到。
(1) Cf. UNRRA monthly report for November 1946. "Military objections which had hampered the work in the spring [1946] because of the danger to the Nationalist military supply line to Hsien Hsiang by rail across the dry bed, were withdrawn and replaced by demands for rapid closure." What military demands had to do with a land reclamation project the report does not disclose.
共產黨獲悉蔣介石的意圖之後；就要求「聯總」履行三方協議。「聯總」還在猶豫的時候，蔣介石的將軍們立即動手堵口。同時，蔣介石的空軍轟炸往山東運送築堤和救濟物資的「聯總」船隻，美制蔣機還掃射那些在自己村莊附近修築河堤的農民們。
每轟炸一次，運輸工作就得停頓數周。山東人民面臨著洪水的威脅，卻被有意地剝奪了抗洪的手段。「聯總」雖然也對蔣介石的轟炸提出抗議，但並末與蔣斷絕關係。蔣介石本人是否考慮過他這個行動的政治後果，我們不得而知。
這位中國獨裁者作戰一意孤行，從不計算這些悲慘的細節。他對自己的行動可能導致的後果似乎不以為意。他像一個神仙擺弄花園裡的水管似的擺弄黃河。他居然下令黃河堵口。
多少世紀以來，農民們都把黃河叫做「中國的憂患」。一點也不錯。有近五百個村莊被淹沒，十多萬人民無家可歸。據共產黨稱，大約五百萬畝莊稼地被毀。
Informed of Chiang's intentions, the Communists requested UNRRA to stick to the tripartite agreement. UNRRA wavered. Chiang's generals immediately moved to close the breach. At the same time, his pilots bombed UNRRA ships carrying dike-repair and relief materials to Shantung and his American fighter planes strafed farmers erecting dikes near their native villages.
Each time a bombing occurred, shipping was paralyzed for weeks. The people of Shantung, under the threat of flood, were deliberately deprived of means to fight that flood. Though protesting Chiang's bombings, UNRRA did not break off relations with the generalissimo.
Whether Chiang himself meditated on the political effects of what he was to undertake is something we do not know. China's dictator was accustomed to gaze steadily at war, he never added up the sorrowful details. He seems to have suffered no alarm at the possible consequences of his act. He played with the Yellow River as if he were a god playing with a garden hose. He gave the order for the breach to be closed. (2)
"China's Sorrow," the peasants of many centuries have called the Yellow River, and China's Sorrow, indeed, it is. Within a short time of the closure of the breach, nearly five hundred villages were inundated, over one hundred thousand people were rendered homeless and, according to the Communists, almost five million mow of crop land were destroyed.
原注二：１９４７年三月，聯合國善後救濟總署農業部提交了一個更加冷血的報告。報告中說，整個黃河堵口歸故是在「（國民黨）黃河水利委員會主持下、聯合國善後救濟總署裝備、糧食、建材、工程設計人員的大力支持下完成的。……最後的堵口在國民黨要求下提前，違背了同共產黨邊區代表達成的協議。……黃河歸故最直接的效果是分隔了共軍的運動，而同時國軍正在大舉進攻。此時水位很高，回歸故道後直接沖毀了農田。聯合國善後救濟總署、國民黨行政院善後救濟總署、邊區代表共同制定的減輕黃河歸故破壞的計劃完全放棄。黃河故道的河堤修築進行得十分困難，因為國民黨軍用飛機反覆轟炸掃射築堤工人。」
(2) March 1947 report of UNRRA's Agricultural Division gives a more cold-blooded account of this whole affair. In part it declares that the closing of the breach "was carried out by the Yellow River Commission with UNRRA equipment, foodstuffs and construction materials and with the assistance of UNRRA engineering and mechanical personnel. . . . The final closure operations had been rushed under strong Nationalist military pressure and in disregard of agreements previously made with UNRRA and Border Region representatives. . . . Its immediate effect would be to divide the movements of their armies Concurrently with Nationalist military drives in that province, and in the high-water season would flood the agricultural lands in the river bed. Plans which UNRRA, CNRRA and Border Region personnel had made to alleviate the adverse economic effects of the river diversion . . . had not been carried out. Dike work was made difficult by frequent Nationalist air attacks upon the dike workers."
