Wu Songqing's Wartime Military Expenditure Diary (1948-1950)
by Written By Wu Songqing And Edited By Wu Xingyong
About This Novel
In December 1947, General Wu Songqing became the director of the Finance Department, in charge of the national military expenditures, and was also involved in the "Shanghai Treasury Gold Transfer to Xiamen, Taiwan Incident." In the spring of 1949, gold yuan coupons depreciated greatly, and the Kuomintang army had no choice but to start supplying troops with gold and silver yuan. Wu Songqing won the trust of Chiang Kai-shek and was responsible for the use of gold military expenditures. This diary records the military expenditures of the Kuomintang government from 1948 to 1950. Before August 1948, military expenditures were in legal currency; from then until April 1949, they were gold yuan coupons; from May to the end of 1949, until the Kuomintang army retreated to Taiwan, gold and silver yuan were used for military expenses. During this period, a small amount of silver yuan coupons were also mixed in from July to December; in 1950, gold continued to be used to supplement military expenditures in Taiwan, which contributed greatly to stabilizing Taiwan's finances. Military spending had a huge impact on the Civil War, accounting for more than three-quarters of the government's total budget at the time. After the gold yuan notes were devalued into "waste paper", due to limited gold and silver, the Kuomintang's non-lineage and minor units were unable to obtain the minimum food payment. This may be one of the reasons for their frequent defections before the battle, and one of the main reasons for accelerating the Kuomintang's defeat on the mainland. The diaries of these three years detail the inside story and the government's most confidential military expenditure secrets, especially the historical events in which Chiang Kai-shek controlled gold and silver military expenditures as a subordinate and continued to command the Kuomintang army in operations. The editors and annotators use the latest declassified files to make detailed annotations, providing readers with first-hand information on modern history.
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