There's a flow of refugees from Hebei and Shandong arriving in Nationalist territory these days. Sure, it's largely because of a policy we created. Even if the official Kuomintang narrative, enforced from top to bottom of the party, is that the Yellow River Flood is a tragic natural disaster. But anyway, it would be wrong to look a gift horse in the mouth--these peasants provide a potentially powerful weapon against communism!

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See, peasants are but simple folk. They may not believe the directives of their local party or pronouncements of the Republic of China government. But you know who they probably will believe when it comes to the horrors of communism? That's right, northerner refugees that are slowly traipsing through their villages headed south towards a better life. Thus, we're going to recruit refugee families to wander through Kuomintang territory; provided some government support in the form of "refugee documents" but asking for charity or settling as they go. Ideally, they have real grievances against the communists and stories of their abuse and suffering. But if not, no big deal as long as our recruiters think they can act sincere enough. Anyway, their job is to go around and tell the rural villagers of the KMT that, as shit as life here might be, it's basically paradise compared to what's going on in communist territory. Think the, idk, Four Minute Men, but peasants. Also any foreign journalists poking around.

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A Typical Peasant-Evangelist: Wang Min, Age 39, Mother

The communists took everything from us. What you see in this decrepit cart is everything that's left. I know life here isn't easy, either, but trust me, you don't want to be in communist territory. First they took our land, "collectivized" it. Then they took my son, Qian... I haven't heard from him since. He's probably dead. I still hope I'll see him again one day, but I can only hold out so long. Even then, we stayed. The communists told us that the Nationalists were even worse. That the communists were on the brink of conquering all of China. But they couldn't even keep the bandits out of our own home. We fled the bandits first, to Mukden. It's an awful, depressing place--every day you can hear the wails of the bereaved women marching out on the streets against the continued communist conscription. The slums outside have been built up over the years; and we were doing alright by those standards--we had enough food to survive. Trust me, that in itself is rare in communist territory.

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Ah yes, why we finally left. Well, little Yi was getting towards the age where the communists would scoop him up too for their war-machine. I couldn't bear to lose a second son. That, and the food was getting scarcer and scarcer. We made our way south, having heard rumors that in Nationalist territory the food was reliable, the soldiers were volunteers, and there was work and land for those whom were brave and ambitious enough to go there. Hebei was even worse than Mukden. There was no food. Compared to the people we walked by, we were fat. We guarded the precious rice we had squirreled away with zeal, but even then communist soldiers took much of it at various checkpoints. We crossed the new course of the Yellow River--the communists say the Nationalists did it, you know, but I don't believe them. Maybe the communists did it--through mismanagement or deliberate force, I don't know--but either way, we made it down into Shandong. There's no law there, not even communism. Complete anarchy. Bandits stole, raped, burned... and that's not even mentioning that bastard Fu Zuoyi's soldiers. When we made it to Nationalist lines, we knew we were saved. Sure, they made us rebuild canals. But at least we got rice! We've had enough to eat since we came here. Yi is going to grow up and make us proud one day. We might, god be willing, be able to find our own plot of land to farm.

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Anyway, if you see any communists around, don't listen to em. They're delusional, is what they are. Even if they do create their revolutionary paradise, instead of being massacred by the nationalists or just giving up and going home, it'll look like what communist China already is--a sinking pit of misery and famine.