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1938 Changsha fire

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133: 1122: 25: 1094:. More than 40 factories were burned. The one that suffered the most was the First Textiles Factory of Hunan. The damage to this factory include $ 270,000 loss due to burned workshops; $ 960,000 to raw materials; $ 600,000 to machinery. Of the city's 190 rice mills and storage buildings, only 12 survived the fire. More than $ 2 million, or about 80% of the total, were lost in the silk industry. Forty Hunan 1069:
More than 30,000 people lost their lives during the fire. Over 90%, or 56,000, of the city's buildings were burned. The fire also disabled commercial trading, academic institutions and government organizations throughout the city. The fire cost a total economic loss of $ 1 billion, which accounted
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At around 2 o'clock in the morning of November 13, 1938, there was a fire in a military hospital just outside the South Gate (to this day, it remains a mystery whether the fire was a signal or an accident). The arson team took it as a signal and started to set the fire at 2 o'clock in the morning.
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for 43% of the total output of the city. Government institutions that were destroyed include the provincial government headquarters, buildings housing the bureaus of civil affairs, construction, police, army mobilizations, security, telegraph, telephone, post as well as the courts,
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in the city, and the number of residents jumped from 300,000 to more than 500,000. Though the city had prepared for such a scenario for a long time, due to the limited transport capacity of Changsha, it still could not hold this amount of goods and people.
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False intelligence contended that Imperial Japanese forces would attack Changsha from the East. Chiang had already given a speech in Changsha about burning the city if it ever risked being captured. Because of a lack of confidence in holding the city,
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suggested that the city should be burned to the ground, so that Japan would gain nothing even if it chose to forcefully enter it. On November 10 (some say the 12th), the chairman of the Hunan government,
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Before the fire, Changsha was one of China's few major cities that had not moved its site in 2,000 years. The fire, however, annihilated all the cultural accumulations that the city retained since the
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The burning lasted for five days, also destroying several 2,500-year-old historical antiques. City residents tried their best to escape, resulting in a severe boat accident at a river ford on the
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In July 2005, the first memorial commemorating the event in Changsha, a memorial wall on an old lamp company site, was built. The memorial wall is located on the bank of the
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for 'wen'(文) in the term 'Wenxi Fire' refers to the telegraph abbreviation code for the day of the month, whereas 'xi'(怕) (meaning 'night') refers to the time of the fire.
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On November 18, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the executions of three accused in the case. Zhang Zhizhong, the chairman of the Hunan government, also subsequently resigned.
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On November 19, on the ruins of Changsha, food markets returned. By that time, there were 3 people selling meat and 2 selling vegetables.
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branches, chamber of commerce, central news agency, central radio station and several newspaper offices. More than 31 schools, including
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factories were completely destroyed. Except for the Hsiangya Hospital, every hospital in Changsha was burned to ground.
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were also present in the city during the fire. A verbal description of the fire was written by
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Chiang's fear proved wrong. The city repulsed three separate attacks by the Japanese in
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to prevent the Japanese from benefiting from its capture. The result of this fire made
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Tower of skulls : a history of the Asia-Pacific war, July 1937-May 1942
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just outside Changsha. The situation in the city became increasingly tense.
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The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Making of Modern China
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officials ordered the city be set on fire in 1938 during the
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fell. Soon, Chinese and Japanese armies faced off along the
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The Bell Tower and the Xiangya Hospital survived the fire.
1157:. The city did not fall until 1944 to the Japanese in the 1113:, who also happened to be in Changsha during the fire. 1263:. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p.  1078:, were also burned down. Banks destroyed include the 49:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. 1308:." MSN encarta. 6 Jan 2007. Accessed 15 Feb 2008. 1256: 1207: 1323: 200:To prevent wealth from falling to the Japanese 861: 296: 310: 1240:: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( 868: 854: 303: 289: 131: 1212:(First ed.). 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Chinese
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