To slow the enemy advance, Chiang Kai-shek gave orders for the Yellow River dikes to be breached, or, in the words of the high command decision, to ‘use water as a substitute for soldiers’. This drowned-earth policy delayed the Japanese by about five months, but the destruction and civilian deaths that it caused over 70,000 square kilometres were horrific. There was no high ground on which people could seek shelter. The official death toll from drowning, starvation and illness reached 800,000, while more than six million people became refugees.
