The Soong Sisters

by Emily Hahn

  He paused and looked at the foregoing passages of the Anniversary Message. “Decidedly not Orthodox,” he repeated. “But this doesn’t surprise me. It wasn’t a departure exactly — I mean, the Communists during the Hankow period were as quiet as I ever knew them. They meant to play ball until the end of the war and then to collect, if you know what I mean. Madame Sun? Oh, I don’t know. You never did know for sure about Madame Sun.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Retreat from Hankow

  Toward the close of the first year of the war the world had to accustom itself to the practice of bombing open towns, a horror that later became an everyday story to the Chinese. When in June the Japanese began a series of night bombings of the enormous crowded city of Canton there arose a more articulate protest of foreigners to their own governments than there had been in the whole course of the war. This reaction was in part due to the fact that Canton is enormous, full of people and defenseless against attacks from the air, but the chief reason for the telegrams and cables that fled over the ocean was that many foreigners were in a position for the first time to see what bombing — and what being bombed — was like. Then, too, in Canton were represented many foreign property rights, and the city was uncomfortably close to the Crown Colony of Hongkong . . . .

  Madame Sun, who had a peculiarly strong feeling for Canton, cradle of her husband’s government, took a special interest in this development of the struggle. During the last days of Canton as a part of Free China she was there almost all the time, leading protest parades and urging her followers to greater efforts of resistance. Angry and disgusted at the spectacle of refugees pouring into Hongkong, she wrote to General Wu Teh-chen, formerly Mayor of Shanghai and now governor of Kwangtung, and called his attention to the number of able-bodied young men whose first interest seemed to be in obtaining safety for themselves. They should have been ready and eager, said Madame Sun, to fight against the invaders.

  In doing this Chingling was putting her finger on the sorest spot in the entire history of the war as foreign observers saw it. The safety of Hongkong and the treaty ports inevitably attracted all the more prudent types of Chinese manhood into whose psychology the principles of national defense had never penetrated; from the educated young elegant who said, “Bad iron for nails, bad men for soldiers, and why should we, the best of the nation, do purely mechanical work?” to the simple untutored coolie who did not care as much for his government as for his life. These people crowded the Shanghai streets and made housing conditions in Hongkong a misery for the poor. The dregs of the country, they made a bad impression on visitors who could not visualize the thousands of different quality who remained in the hinterland. A favorite retort from treaty port foreigners when asked for relief funds in those days was, “Why aren’t all these young men we see at the swimming pools and the movies doing something for their own country?”

  The answer lay in numbers. China’s army was not retreating for lack of man power, but because of her poverty in armaments. The fact that this truth was a good excuse for slackers made it none the less the truth. Whole regiments of reluctant languid young men, all subscribing to the Chinese maxim that soldiers are on the lowest social plane, would not have mattered in the progress of the war; what did matter was the impression they made as they toiled not and spun not in vaguely governmental posts. But they are learning; Japan is teaching them . . . .

  Canton was bombed; Swatow was bombed; Kiukiang was taken. The famous Eighth Route Army of guerillas continued to trouble the Japanese in the North. Kuling on Lu-shan, where Po Chu-yi and Madame Chiang, in different centuries, had found peace and beauty before the war became the scene of occasional flurries on the part of the missionaries and teachers in foreign schools who continued to live on their beloved mountaintop, stubbornly pretending as only a person who has lived in a besieged city can understand that all was yet right with the world, and that peace and beauty still existed in forgotten corners of the day. They were driven out at last.

  Guerillas all over China began to show just how effective they could be. Between Shanghai and Nanking the railroad, which was being operated by the Japanese, seldom ran smoothly. Rails were stolen; stations were blown up; now and then a small outpost of Japanese was isolated and conquered. A new element appeared: the Japanese army man who could be “fixed.” There were Chinese guerillas going in and out of Shanghai, relaxing for an evening with the family or at one of the restaurants and then carrying out a consignment of arms next morning, which traveled smoothly enough by waterways and overland to their destination, passed from one well-greased Japanese palm to another. Then the Japanese would go into the country near Shanghai, attack some village, and announce in the press that they had mopped up the district. Thousands of people were driven from their homes once again by floods along the Yangtze, and the Chinese characteristically found comfort in telling one another that these floods, proper homemade catastrophes, good old familiar Chinese floods, easily killed far more people every year than those picayune Japs could manage in the course of a whole war.

  The Japanese invaded Bias Bay on October twelfth.

  Ho Ying-chin and Pai Chung-hsi were sent to take charge of the defense operations in South China, and Li Tsung-jen also made his appearance on the Southern scene. The sudden turn of events bewildered most people, whose attention had been concentrated on Hankow. It now became evident that the Japanese would take Canton before they conquered the Hupeh capital, and many of those residents who had not been frightened out by the bombings now hastened to evacuate the city. The Chinese had learned a good deal from the air attacks on Canton. In a way they were prepared, though these preparedness measures could not compare with the arrangement of Chungking, later on: there were some dugouts, that is to say, and other people still trusted in the safety of reinforced concrete buildings. The Japanese airmen used more leisurely methods, also, than they applied later to the stubborn Chungking city; flights of from four to twelve planes would circle about and drop their bombs and go away again without much fuss, having done far more damage than the bigger nights were later to accomplish in the interior. It was easy to intimidate the immense sprawling city of Canton.

  Just why the Chinese troops put up such a poor show against the Japanese is nevertheless not yet clear. There have been as many rumors as ever, perhaps even more than the usual number, if this were possible. The supreme commander, Yu Han-mou, has been accused in the market place of accepting bribes, and Pai Chung-hsi and Li Tsung-jen, who had formerly been on more or less friendly terms with Japan, were also under suspicion in the public eye. They were all supposedly executed by the Kuomintang officials at one time or other; the Chinese are always ready to believe their officials crooked: this is an aftermath of the corrupt Manchu regime. One truth of the matter is, however, that the Chinese troops were of insufficient strength, both in men and equipment. The main body of the army was fighting in the Hupeh-Kiangsi sector. Time must tell the rest because nobody else can. It is not always easy to be wise even after the event; certainly not in wartime.

  From the China Weekly Review’s record:

  Japan’s War in China: Oct. 22. — Japanese troops enter downtown sections of Canton at 2 p.m. today. A few hours previously, starting at 2 o’clock in the morning, all Canton was shaken by tremendous explosions, when Chinese High Command ordered systematic blowing up of Government offices, bridges, industrial enterprises and other public buildings. As dawn broke, the city reverberated to the thunder of heavy artillery, tanks and marching feet as the Chinese began to evacuate Canton towards the west. The military withdrawal was signal for last-minute evacuation of civilians. Following the explosions, many buildings were set on fire and soon large sections of city were ablaze. Canton evacuated by its population first time in history of city. The Japanese, upon entering the city, found streets quiet and completely deserted.

  (In March 1940 it was estimated that the population of Canton, including the Japanese who had settled there, was still only one third of it
s normal figure before the invasion.)

  CHINA WITHDRAWS FROM HANKOW

  Oct. 25. — Spokesman of Military Affairs Commission announced withdrawal of Chinese forces from Wuhan area; evacuation explained as strategic move and in accordance with policy of prolonged war and resistance on all fronts . . . .

  Gen. and Mme Chiang Kai-shek left Hankow for unknown destination. Unconfirmed Chungking report stated that Madame Chiang arrived at Chengtu. Gen. Chiang believed to have gone to Hunan.

  . . . Japanese occupation of Wuhan cities completed; 26 Japanese warships arrive at Hankow to control the river. Incoming Japanese soldiers first greeted by Italian sailors . . . .

  Night was falling when one aviator, a Chinese who had been trained in America, was sent back to Hankow to take away the last of the coolies and mechanics who had not yet been evacuated. His plan was to spend the night on the field and to take off early in the morning, since he had never done any night flying. He saw what he thought were Chinese planes hovering near the field, made his landing in perfect calm, and was hailed by one of the mechanics.

  “Jesus, man,” said the mechanic, or the Chinese equivalent for “Jesus, man”; “Hurry up! Those are Jap planes!”

  The refugees tumbled in; in the dark the aviator made his first blind flight, his take-off lit only by the fires of the blazing city.

  The Chiangs took one of the last planes out of Hankow that same night. The field was already mined when they flew off. The evacuation of the city was not a hit-or-miss panic, for most of the people had moved out weeks before, by water, by road, by boat. There were, of course, many tragedies. Madame Chiang describes one that occurred when the War Orphans were being moved, in “A Letter From Madame Chiang to Boys and Girls Across the Ocean”:

  From Hankow and down-river ports we used to use steamers, until one day Japanese planes saw a steamer which was full of them and blew it up with bombs, killing lots of the little ones outright, and pitching the others into the brown waters of the great river, 600 miles from the sea. They, too, were never seen again, having mounted the dragon, which took them far, far away. And we did not use steamers any more

  From Japan’s War in China:

  Nov. 1. — Resolution affirming its faith in Gen. Chiang Kai-shek and China’s determination to stand by him in war of resistance adopted at People’s Political Council now in session at Chungking. Council’s action followed issue of General Chiang’s message, in which he reiterated China’s determination to fight to bitter end.

  CHAPTER XXX

  Digging in at Chungking

  The last month of 1938 was made memorable by Wang Ching-wei’s actions, among other things. After a disastrous mention of peace terms earlier in the year following the fall of Canton he retired behind the scandalized excuses of his colleagues and continued to live in Chungking, to all appearances happily enough, until December. During the first week of that month he even made another declaration full of self-determination and united front against Japanese aggression. This was just before he fled.

  The other members of the Government were settling in nicely. The militarist’s house that Madame Chiang had so disliked in 1935 because it represented war-lordism had been made over into the official residence of the Minister of Finance; Dr Kung lived in what had been “the concubines’ house” and the smaller residence was full of A.D.C.’s and secretaries and offices. The Chiangs rented an impersonal sort of house higher up on the hill. All of the Government officials gathered in a district outside the old City, northwest of it. Madame’s Advisory Committee and Training School found quarters in a middle school, and the Publicity Bureau was placed in the spacious grounds of another campus, which was soon to fill up with mushroom growths of huts and one-story office buildings. Nearly all of the new buildings were temporary structures of lath and plaster, the exteriors of which were brusque, hasty adaptations of Western style. This fact was very distressing to many of the foreign diplomats, who had learned their Chinese in the old school and were happiest outside their offices, buying curios and dreaming of Li Po. Some of them went to great trouble to acquire genuinely Chinese houses, but it was not easy. War lords had been modernizing Chungking architecture for some years, and the more desirable residences, the really big ones, were liver-colored outrages reminiscent of English suburban villas grown up and surrounded by enormous walls.

  A house was built high on a hill further from town and presented to the Chiangs, but they refused it. “We have a house,” Madame explained. “We mustn’t use money just now for unnecessary things.” There was indeed great pressure upon all the living conveniences of the ancient town, and no house went empty for more than a few minutes. Generals, Ministers, Vice-Ministers, Ambassadors, Chargés — they had all to be accommodated. Moreover, the incoming mobs were not greeted with open arms by the Szechwanese. The ruling caste had been severely joggled in 1935 when the Chiangs first visited the West, and a lot of reform had taken place, but the leaders were still the leaders until the Nanking government arrived, and could not be expected to give way graciously. Even so, the newcomers to Szechwan did not meet with the opposition offered to those refugees who went to Yunnan, where the natives accused them openly of ruining their provincial virtue, and mobbed hapless co-educated students who walked arm-in-arm or had curled hair. Nevertheless moving into Chungking called for plenty of settlement and even more tact. Still, by the end of 1938 it had been accomplished.

  On the sixteenth of December it was announced that the United States was extending credits of $25,000,000 to China, and that Great Britain was expected to make a similar gesture. Three days later Wang Ching-wei, Chairman of the Central Political Council, Deputy Chief Executive of the Kuomintang, and one of the Generalissimo’s most long-standing contemporaries, aside from being, in the estimation of some people, Sun Yet-sen’s spiritual heir, suddenly left Chungking and flew to Yunnan. Most of the public paid no attention to this departure. A few people did.

  On the twenty-first of the month Wang Ching-wei continued his trip to Hanoi. The general public began to take more interest in his actions. A few days later, the day after Christmas, it was announced that he had merely flown to Indo-China for medical treatment. A friend of his departed from Szechwan and joined him there.

  It was not long before everyone knew, however, that Wang had taken the irrevocable step. He was gone from Chungking, and for good. The bad boy of government circles who had sinned so often and so often had been taken back into the fold was at last out of things forever. The Government itself said so, and indeed after more than a year of waiting, just to be sure he meant it this time, put a price on his head. The Chinese do not like to do this to their officials. There is always the chance, as John Gunther has observed, that the absconders may still be useful, and Wang had had many followers. Moreover, a decade of association with Chiang Kai-shek, interspersed with periods when Wang was playing at treason, had given the two men a sort of companionship. They were practically schoolfellows. It is peculiarly significant of the enormity of Wang’s action that Chiang himself crossed him off the list at last.

  Wang Ching-wei’s behavior is interesting both in view of the workings of his own mind and those of the Chinese public. For years he had been a specimen of the “young man who will amount to something”: his amazingly youthful appearance, his energy in spite of his alleged ill-health, his persistence in turning up at what could have been the right moment, were typical of the more attractive sort of successful politician. He has great personal charm.

  His adherents are inspired with a sort of unreasoning loyalty that has often carried them into unpopularity and danger. The entire setup of the Wang faction is of the war-lord era; Wang wanted to be head of China because he was bitten by that mysterious insect that infects people with ambition, and his followers wanted him to be head of China because he was Wang, because they, in reflection, were Wang, and because it would pay better: these reasons are arranged in a descending scale of importance. All Wang’s actions had been governed by t
his ambition, from the old days when he aligned himself with the Southerners and Yen Hsi-shan until now when he did the same thing by joining the Japanese. To his mind it was the same thing; Wang may have been the “spiritual heir” of Sun Yat-sen, but he had not inherited the little Doctor’s selfless ideal of a united nation, and the later years of China’s development were to him only the record of a long duel between himself and Chiang Kai-shek. Joining the Japanese was a natural step in the game. With the Japanese behind him — especially after Canton fell — he had a good chance, he thought, of becoming head man at last.

  “Wang feels sincerely that peace should be made, that it will be best for China,” said one of his followers. Of course: people always feel these things sincerely. Dictators are very sincere; so are Communists; so are United States Presidents, bandits, and messiahs. Wang also felt sincerely that what China needed was Wang Ching-wei, with a few Japanese to help him at first, and after that no Japanese. The Japanese believed with heartfelt sincerity that China needed Japan, with a little Wang Ching-wei mixed in at first, and afterwards . . . . They were delighted to get a man of Wang’s reputation. For many months they had tried to catch a big Chinese to act for them, and without avail. The governments they had set up in the occupied areas were made of small fry. There had been rumors that Wu Pei-fu, the old scholar-general in Peking, would come over to them, but Wu was coquetting and had not committed himself.