Prior to 1949, China functioned as a semi-feudal society. The vast majority of Chinese peasants were landless and lived in the countryside. Peasants were kept in a de facto slavery through high rent to landlords and taxes to the local government, stifling any chances of upward mobility.
When Japan launched its full scale invasion of China in 1937, the relationship between the landlord class and the tenant peasants was temporarily interrupted in some occupied regions of the country. In the face of the Japanese advances, some landlords took their wealth and fled, abandoning their properties, and leaving their tenants to fend for themselves.
This disruption provided a window for peasants to autonomously self-govern. In some places, with support from Chinese Communist elements, land reform was implemented to distribute land among the landless. In areas where landlords remained, they faced pressure to participate in land reform efforts. However, in 1945, with Japan’s defeat and the gradual restoration of Chinese Nationalist authority, the landlords initiated a violent backlash against land reform.
In 1946, the Nationalist (Kuomintang) Government permitted the creation of a “Landlord Homecoming Corps” (还乡团) , which would consist of mercenaries hired by landlords, trained by the Nationalist Army, and authorized to carry weapons, for the purpose of defending the interests of the rural landlords.
From 1946 until the defeat of the Nationalists in 1949, the Homecoming Corps followed behind the movement of the main Nationalist army. Once the main force of the Nationalists secured a territory, the Homecoming Corps in the corresponding area, under the direction of the local landlord class, would administer the local community. This usually meant kidnapping suspected communist sympathizers, collecting overdue rent, and rolling back earlier land reform programs. Peasants who failed to cooperate were punished, or in some cases, tortured and murdered. The Homecoming Corps had little checks and balances on their power and massive atrocities were committed against the civilian population during this time.
According to the records of Linqu County, located in Shandong province, the Homecoming Corps murdered 96 peasants and threw the bodies into the well of the nearby Confucian Temple.
In Weixian County, Shandong Province, 70 people were buried alive in Lijiaying Village, by the Homecoming Corps.
In 1947, a reporter from the Central Daily News named Weng Xianhao followed the Nationalist Army’s 74th Division during its campaign in Shandong. On the way, he was disgusted by the atrocities of the Homecoming Corps and took hundreds of photographs. Afterwards, Weng submitted a formal complaint to Nationalist General Zhang Lingfu, the commander of the 74th Division.
Weng Xianhao was a dedicated Chinese Nationalist and feared that these atrocities would damage the Nationalist war effort. Weng asked Zhang Lingfu to intervene.
General Zhang replied:
“They [the Communists] are stealing other people’s lands and confiscating their homes, just like bandits. Of course they [the landlords] want to vent their anger! What’s all the fuss about? You journalists are a bunch of jerks.”
Weng Xianhao was fired as a journalist after returning from the front line for suspected Communist sympathies.
The poor behavior of the Nationalist authorities resulted in the majority public opinion siding with the Communist Party of China, enabling the Communists to win the civil war. During the 1947–1948 Huaihai campaign, the Communists were able to mobilize an additional 5 million irregulars, recruited from the masses, to join the Communist cause. This 5 million strong force was in addition to the 600,000 strong People’s Liberation Army in the region. In Shandong province specifically, Zhang Lingfu’s 74th Division was encircled and wiped out by the Communists in May 1947.
As the Chinese Civil War progressed, the Nationalist government gradually lost ground to the Communists, and the Homecoming Corps disintegrated. With the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, a massive purge was conducted, and many of the former members of the Homecoming Corps were caught and liquidated.
