Carrying the “Nation’s Thousand-Jin Burden
Yiyun, the Relay Transportation System during the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6008387 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jennifer Yip (0000-0003-3788-7170), Jennifer L Y Yip (0009-0004-6413-9623, Clements Center for National Security, University of Texas at Austin, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 621-653 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern China (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00977004221147044 |
| OpenAlex | W4319791019 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 15 |
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Nationalist government established a system of relay transportation, called yiyun, to move military provisions and consumption goods across Free China. The Nationalists’ dependence on locally sourced porters, pack animals, and boats was a product of their unique challenge: waging protracted war within an agrarian economy. While yiyun had its own bureaucratic apparatus at the national level, its day-to-day operations throughout the provinces fell onto local actors, such as the baojia. Through these local agents of control and extraction, the Nationalist state channeled the exigencies of war into the remotest communities and the individual household. The yiyun system demonstrates the wartime Nationalists’ remarkable capacity for organizing resources in a time of crisis. However, its exploitative tendencies also reveal their willingness to trade civilian livelihoods for better odds of survival. Any recognition of the Nationalists’ success in maintaining China’s sovereignty must also accept its foundation in imposed civilian sacrifice
Agrarian society · Bureaucracy · China · Consumption (sociology · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Geography · Government (linguistics · Livelihood · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Product (mathematics · Sacrifice · Sociology · Sovereignty · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science · Transshipment (information security · Chinese history and philosophy · Engineering · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
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China Marches West
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From “Nourish the People” to “Sacrifice for the Nation”
China's Bitter Victory
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| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |