All last week men killed each other in northeastern Hunan. They were fighting for no new victories to write on regimental records. They were fighting simply for rice.
Hunana round-bellied province that hangs like a bubble suspended from the lake country of the middle Yangtze* is famous for the most beautiful women, the most peppery food, the most savage fighting peasantry in China. More than anything else it is famous as the rice-bowl province of China. Its lush wet fields produce nearly 10% of Free China's stupendous annual 47-million-ton rice harvest.
All through August, under the blue skies of Central China,...
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