On 9 June 1938 , during the Second Sino-Japanese War , Nationalist troops under Chiang Kai-shek broke the levees holding back the river near the village of Huayuankou in Henan , causing what has been called by Canadian historian , Diana Lary , a " war-induced natural disaster " . The goal of the operation was to stop the advancing Japanese troops by following a strategy of " using water as a substitute for soldiers " ( '' yishui daibing '' ) . The 1938 flood of an area covering took some 500,000 to 900,000 Chinese lives , along with an unknown number of Japanese soldiers . The flood prevented the Japanese Army from taking Zhengzhou , on the southern bank of the Yellow River , but did not stop them from reaching their goal of capturing Wuhan , which was the temporary seat of the Chinese government and straddles the Yangtze River
broke the levees
1938 Yellow River flood
Yellow River