A Brief History
On June 7, 1938, the government of Nationalist China, at war with the Japanese invaders in the Second Sino-Japanese War, destroyed the embankments of the Yellow River, creating a massive flood in order to halt the advance of the Japanese Army.
Digging Deeper
The event called “The 1938 Yellow River Flood” was part of a war strategy of “scorched earth” policy, leaving little or nothing for the invaders to use in their conquest. Described as the “largest act of environmental warfare in history,” the resulting flood killed between 500,000 and 900,000 Chinese civilians and created about 3 million homeless people.
An unknown number of Japanese troops were killed, although probably not many. The Japanese were inconvenienced, but the long-term damage to farmland and housing lasted years. The brutal tactic certainly cost Chinese president Chiang Kai-shek popular support and may ultimately have contributed to the success of the communists in China.
Question for students (and subscribers): Was the flooding a legitimate tactic by the Chinese government? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Captivating History. The Second Sino-Japanese War: A Captivating Guide to Military Conflict That Began between China and Japan, Including Events Such as the Japanese Invasion … Nanjing Massacre. Kindle, 2020.
Charles Rivers Editors. The Second Sino-Japanese War: The History and Legacy of the Deadly Conflict that Lasted Through the End of World War II. Charles River Editors, 2018.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army fighting in the flooded area of the Yellow River, is now in the public domain in China because its term of copyright has expired.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
