Chiang Kai-Shek

by Emily Hahn

  A magnificent tomb was planned on the slope of Purple Mountain, above the ruins of a Ming temple, ready to receive Sun Yat-sen’s sacred remains. Later in the year the body was installed with great ceremony. (Chingling wouldn’t play. She sent rude messages and stayed away from Nanking, but everyone pretended not to notice.) Then the remodeling of the city began. Old, narrow, stinking streets were cleared out and rebuilt. The town had possessed the beauty of antiquity, and there were many people to cry out and protest against vandalism when the destruction began, but no one could argue that a large part of Nanking was not overdue for reform. Besides, Chiang and his wife had no desire to emulate the raucous modernity of Tokyo. They visualized a compromise; a Chinese style of architecture in which characteristic sloping roofs, brilliantly painted ceilings, tiles, and courtyards need not disappear, but could be combined with clean, cool interiors and electric appliances. An American architect was called in and between them they worked out a style that blended well. It was Chiang’s first experience with building on such a scale—after all, not many people ever get such a chance—and he was fascinated by the whole business. When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was going up he went over to the site every day with his wife; his spare figure in its familiar cape was to be seen contentedly strolling through the workings, arm in arm with Mayling, checking up with bright-eyed interest, or pointing out something he had just been reading about.

  There were other advisers; the Generalissimo studied lists of foreign experts as farmers’ wives study the pages of Sears Roebuck’s catalogue, ordering this one from a university, turning down that proffered name because of the expense, and ending up with a list of German military advisers, American educational advisers, medical advisers, highway advisers—it was a golden time, a hopeful time.

  The climax to all this was that the Nanking government was officially recognized by the powers. The British Minister presented his credentials, not without a backward, regretful look at beautiful Peking, and other important diplomats followed suit. Interviews with these diplomats began to take up a portion of the working day; that is to say, of other people’s working days. As far as the Chiangs were concerned, they almost never stopped working, day or night. The Generalissimo was up at dawn and at his work table shortly afterward. He carried on all day, with breaks only for lunch and dinner, and one hour after lunch for relaxation. Mayling kept pace with him, for she was his secretary and it was her task to translate important messages, act as his interpreter in all interviews when English was necessary, and make a digest of foreign news.

  For a little while there was a notion in the family circle that Chiang ought to learn English and become less dependent on his wife’s help. During their lighter moments at home, when the Kung children were there and Eling and her sister joked and teased Chiang—a process he enjoyed, in a reserved way—the theory seemed sensible enough, and Mayling set about teaching him. He might have made good headway if it hadn’t been for a small accident. One day he attempted to try out his English on the British Minister. He got his signals mixed—it could happen to anybody—and instead of saying, “Good morning, Lampson,” he said, “Kiss me, Lampson.” He hasn’t tried to talk English with foreigners since then.

  All things considered, it was fortunate that Mayling never had children. There wasn’t time in her life for them. Theoretically, she adopted Chiang’s second boy, Wei-kuo, but he was unco-operative and resentful of the relationship, and they didn’t actually have much to do with each other. He was growing up to be a vigorous boy, inclined to wildness; perhaps he needed a regular family life that of necessity he had always missed. A conventional Buddhist family circle, or a conventional Christian one, would have filled the bill, but the Generalissimo’s son was between two worlds. As for Ching-kuo, nobody really knew. When last heard from he had been a student at the Chinese Institute in Moscow, the Sun Yat-sen University, and for all Chiang knew the boy was developing into an arrogant young Red like the ones who had attacked him that memorable day in Moscow. There wasn’t any word from him at all. Rumor said he had been killed in revenge on Chiang for the purge.

  In May, Nanking had its first taste of responsibility for the new acquisition, Manchuria, in an incident that might well have been disastrous. For some time the Young Marshal’s lieutenants had been aware that the Russians attached to the Chinese Eastern Railway, which they virtually controlled, were conspiring against the government. Emboldened, no doubt, by Chiang’s action in splitting with the Reds, Manchurian police suddenly raided the Harbin Soviet consulate and found ample proof of their suspicions. Arrests of the chief consular officials followed, and the C.E.R. was swept completely clear of all the Russians on the management staff, who were sent back to Russia and replaced by Chinese.

  The Young Marshal must have expected to get away with this drastic action, but he didn’t. Moscow’s reply was prompt. An ultimatum arrived on July 13: unless the Manchurians restored the railway to its former status within three days, further action would be taken. Chang Hsueh-liang thereupon forwarded the whole quarrel to Nanking to negotiate for him. It could not have been a welcome present to Chiang’s Foreign Office, but the Foreign Minister did the best he could, stalling and counterdemanding. In vain: Moscow withdrew all consular officials from China, stopped her end of the railway, and sent a concentration of troops to the Manchurian border. The Young Marshal dispatched an equal number of troops, as heavily armed as possible, to meet the threat, but before they had got very far the Russians attacked, crossing the eastern border with bombers and the western with infantry led by China’s old friend, General Galen. Soon they had occupied a large part of Manchuria, and by the end of November the Young Marshal was forced to give in and accept the original Soviet demands. The railway went back to Russian management, conspirators continued to conspire, and Chang Hsueh-liang was left smoldering, with Russian encroachment as well as Japanese to worry about.

  Though Wang Ching-wei prudently remained in France, he was still the acknowledged leader of the Kuomintang Left. Now his coterie was being edged into a position of very minor importance, and Chiang was holding hands with Hu Han-min. The exiled man could not bear it. In March 1929 he raised his voice in protest and sent out a manifesto accusing Chiang of illegality and one-sidedness. His followers took up the cry and announced that they were quitting altogether. And quit they did, taking with them when they left the capital a veritable prize, Feng Yu-hsiang. Feng had a grievance. The Japanese had just departed a year after they had occupied Tsinan, but the Generalissimo wouldn’t let him move in and take over Shantung. Therefore the Christian general left Nanking and retired to the country, where he did have power, in the Northwest, and there waited balefully for events.

  This was the opening move in a civil war that was to last until the end of 1930, the fiercest yet fought in China. Thousands of men were to die, and thousands of civilians to be driven from their homes. Traditional war, in comparison with this nightmare of planes and bombs and armed transport, seemed a gay, harmless affair of banners and drums and generally operatic sound and fury. Unfortunately, its day was over.

  The first phase was that of the Kwangsi revolt. The Kwangsi faction, headed by Pai Chung-hsi and Li Tsung-jen, had won their point in the subcouncil argument and still held control of the Hankow zone of influence, which comprised Kwangsi and Hupei but not Hunan. The generals felt they should have Hunan too—and Hunan’s revenues—because this province lay between the other two. But the governor of Hunan insisted that the taxes he collected were the property of Nanking. Pai and Li thereupon drove him out of Hunan, and relations between Hankow and Nanking, as the newspapers put it, rapidly deteriorated. Chiang sent troops to the Hupei border.

  Pai Chung-hsi happened to be away from his home base when all this took place, in the North. He chose the discreet way out and went to Japan, later making his way by roundabout route to South China. But his colleague Li Tsung-jen continued talking back to the Generalissimo. By the end of March the Nationalists were across th
e border, led by Chiang himself. Frightened by his planes, the rebels evacuated Hankow and the Nationalists entered the city on April 4. So far, it had been easy.

  The rush of events of the past five years had changed Chiang Kai-shek but left him no leisure to examine the change. Here at the rising of the curtain, the start of one of China’s bloodiest dramas, we might stop for an arbitrary breathing space—a purely imaginary one: actually there was no surcease—and look at the man who was beginning to make an impression on the Western world.

  He had been, and still was, self-confident in a way that would strike us as youthful. He looked like a young man, though he was forty-two. It was not only that his frame was strong and spare as a youth’s; there was something direct about his expression, a look of simplicity. The tortuous self-questionings of the intellectual had not marked his face. He looked guarded but peaceful, if one can use that word about a man whose business was war—and I don’t really see why one can’t.

  The quietude of his face was not, of course, a purely natural phenomenon. Chiang practiced restraint in his emotions, and he finally succeeded in achieving the outward manifestation of it. Even in involuntary anger, he didn’t allow his features to distort themselves. Voluntary anger—that which he felt he should display for purposes of oratory or to evoke an answering enthusiasm—was a different thing: even he could not always give the impression of being completely frozen. But he usually looked calm, as Confucius’s gentleman is supposed to do.

  It was this expression that stirred the imaginations of the foreign newspapermen who interviewed him, or watched him addressing public meetings or celebrating new buildings. They found it strange, even repellent, that a rather slightly built man who looked like that, so quiet and nongiving, should be the inflexible Generalissimo who had led the purge against the Communists and outguessed Feng Yu-hsiang and continued to defeat Wang Ching-wei. Westerners do not trust a poker face: they like to know what goes on behind the brow, and when they don’t, they suspect the worst. Chiang Kai-shek personally wasn’t good copy. He had none of the engaging warmth, for example, of the Christian general. (And then, too, it was vaguely bad of him not to speak English.) If it hadn’t been for Madame with her sparkle, her petite dignity, and her pretty speech, Chiang would have had a worse press than he got. Not that a Confucian gentleman cared what sort of press the world outside might read.

  Actually, behind the smooth face he was emotional enough. In 1929 Chiang Kai-shek was beginning to feel his oats. His rise had been too rapid for conceit to have overtaken him before, but now the thought must have begun to stay with him as a certainty, instead of in the occasional flashes felt by every soldier, that he was something important in history. Did he reflect sometimes as he looked at himself in the glass, in full panoply, that Fate must surely be on the side of this fine fellow with his brilliant wife? If so, it was only for a moment. His austere past, the austere religion he was studying, all the austerities of a war-obsessed existence were enough to smother pagan exaltation. What remained was a heightening of assurance, that quiet cockiness that made him accept, as a foundation of philosophy itself, the lightness of his aim and the wrongness of his enemies.

  In Hankow the Generalissimo took charge and put reforms into practice: Pai Chung-hsi and his boys had had a heavy hand with the taxes, and the change was welcomed by the local businessmen. It was from an atmosphere of relief and good feeling that Chiang went back to Nanking six weeks later. Peace was what he wanted, he declared, peace and unity for China. As soon as he could be assured that these were safe, he would resign his posts and go abroad for a holiday. He was always saying that: it was the conventional thing to say.

  But the unrest had simply been shifted to other regions. In the always turbulent South were Pai Chung-hsi and his allies; in the Northwest was Feng Yu-hsiang, who had helped to stir up the trouble; scattered here and there, biding their time and building their strength, were the Communists. Chiang could not really have expected to make that trip abroad for a long time to come.

  The Kwangsi clique could not bring themselves to settle down in their home province. They started one or two campaigns against Canton, but Nationalist soldiers chased their troops back across the border. It was the first time such severe action had ever been taken against the war lords. They were surprised and offended; they were also defeated.

  But Nanking had neither time nor cause for jubilation. Almost before he had achieved the victory Chiang was summoned to a new outbreak in the North, where Feng Yu-hsiang was acting up. The Christian general now began making overtures to Yen Hsi-shan, Governor of Shansi, and was not repulsed. An alliance, or at any rate an understanding, was quickly attained. The two generals were a formidable combination, because each in his own way was a strong man, firmly entrenched in the affections, or loyalty, or feudal respect—call it what you like—of his followers. Feng with his theatrical affectation of rustic simplicity, Yen with his record of benevolent dictatorship, were types their soldiers felt they understood and could depend on. The name of their combined forces was “the People’s Army.”

  Yen Hsi-shan, called “the Model Governor,” was a sincere and capable man. But in this adventure he and Feng had similar aims, two Chinese war lords with a power drive. “Militarist!” they said scornfully of Chiang Kai-shek; considering the source it seems an unreasonable accusation. Between themselves, the pair lacked the political fervor to raise their struggle above its original level. Wang Ching-wei now joined them, hopeful that they might dethrone Chiang: he supplied them with loftier motives and a more stylish vocabulary. He declared that Chiang Kai-shek had departed from the original spirit of the revolution and betrayed it; that he was that scourge of democracy, a military man who had pre-empted the powers of civil government. Wang, who had no army of his own, expounded the evils of military power to the war lords and they piously echoed his words. The Generalissimo must be overthrown.

  There followed a period of telegram bombardments between Nanking and the North; long, leisurely, and doubtless costly messages. While the authors at both ends droned on about duty and republicanism, the People’s Army started on their march toward Nanking.

  The weeks dragged on. Now the Young Marshal in Mukden joined the telegraph-wire conference and urged the northern generals to think better of the whole matter. But a few days later Yen Hsi-shan’s army moved into the government offices in Peking. Kuomintang troops were disarmed. Two weeks after that, on April 1, 1930, Yen assumed command of the “National Forces,” and the Christian general was appointed deputy commander.

  With stronger backing, Chiang would have gone to war against them long before this, but he was reluctant to do so. The terrain was the difficulty; he would have to fight in Shantung, where local sympathy was likely to be strongly pro-Feng. Instead, he continued to battle with words and diplomatic action as long as he could. But the issue was at last joined in Shantung and Honan and the war was on.

  The ins and outs of the struggle are too confusing to attempt to recount them in detail. In August the deadlock was broken. The rebels evacuated Shantung in a sudden rush.

  The scale of these operations had ravaged old China, and she was never to be the same again. The nation was now clearly divided into a few big blocks: the Nationalists in Central China, the Feng-Yen sphere of North and Northwest, and the occasional insurgents of the South. The Communists had no fixed territory and they blurred the outlines of the struggle: their activity was obscured by the greater war. Yet they had actually captured Changsha at the end of July and held it for a few days, burning the city as they retreated.

  The part of the map that did catch the eye, Chiang’s as well as the outside world’s, was Manchuria. Save for his ineffective telegram in March, the Young Marshal had not made a move in either direction with his enormous army. Where did his sympathies lie? Everyone waited to see. As long as Chiang offered the only strong leadership it had been logical to approve of him and support the government. Chances seemed remote that the young man should grow
ambitious himself for more power. If he had been a chip off the old block it might have been different, but he was no Chang Tso-lin. Hsueh-liang was a thinker, an idealist, and—which is perhaps most important—a morphine addict. Morphine makes philosophers, not men of violent action: the Young Marshal sought his ideal outside himself. It looked as if he had found it in Chiang Kai-shek when he pledged himself to Nanking’s future constitution. But here was Wang Ching-wei, a rival of respectable proportions, promising a better constitution in Peking. Would Chang Hsueh-liang prefer this new look?

  Nanking didn’t wait to find out, but hastily announced that the Young Marshal had been appointed deputy commander-in-chief of the National forces. Feng and Yen followed this up with their bid, a place for him on the Peking State Council, then in the process of formation. Still the Young Marshal held his hand until the middle of September. Chiang now had the enemy on the run to such an extent that Yen Hsi-shan was thinking of pulling out of his alliance.

  He was still thinking when, on September 18, came the long-awaited word from Mukden: the Young Marshal wanted to arbitrate. First he suggested a relaxation of the Kuomintang monopoly in government. The Generalissimo readily agreed, though this same proposal from his foes in the Northwest had been indignantly turned down just a short time before. His march toward dictatorship, if that is what it was, had been deflected.

  Chang Hsueh-liang then sent out a circular telegram to the generals, calling for a cease-fire. Problems should be settled peaceably, he declared, by the Central Government in Nanking. To bolster up his plea the Young Marshal sent troops to Peking from Shanhaikwan. By the time they got there, not a trace remained of the Wang Ching-wei government.

  With Tientsin and Peking safely occupied by Mukden soldiers, Chiang’s forces found it easy to wind up hostilities in their own terrain, Honan. The war was over, but it had taken its toll—hundreds of thousands of casualties.