Chiang Kai-shek orders the destruction of flood-control dikes of the Huayuankou, Henan section of the Huang He (Yellow) River, in order to flood areas threatened by the Japanese army. West of Kaifeng, dikes are destroyed with dynamite, spilling water across the flat plain. Even though the flood destroys part of the invading army and mires its equipment in mud, Wuhan, the headquarters of the Nationalist government is taken by the Japanese in October. Floodwaters cover an area variously estimated as between 3,000 and 50,000 square kilometers, and kill Chinese estimated in numbers between “tens of thousands” and “one million.”
