The Soong Sisters

by Emily Hahn

  Madame Chiang next spoke to the company in English. She read from the report of an impartial witness, testifying what had actually been accomplished in rehabilitating Kiangsi province . . . . She made a special appeal to the lady missionaries to co-operate with Madame Liu in initiating a better homes movement; for she felt that was the most fundamental of all needs . . . .

  Canon Simmons of the Canadian Church Mission, senior missionary in Kaifeng, responded most heartily. On behalf of the twenty-odd missionaries present, he assured them and Mr Liu of the eagerness of the missionaries to do everything in their power to co-operate in every genuine effort to uplift the people morally and spiritually as well as economically and educationally . . . .

  As the party continued on its way, the Chiangs found it most satisfactory to ask in each place for the oldest and most experienced missionary in the community. After he had been produced, everything went smoothly. On all the Generalissimo’s walks abroad he would be accompanied by Madame Chiang, the veteran missionary, and Donald. They talked about more than political reform during these expeditions; the industry of the region was studied, and plans were made for improvement wherever they went. Chiang got into the habit, unusual in Generalissimos, of asking questions on these matters of Chinese people, petty officials, even passers-by. The effect of all this upon the government officials will be discussed later; for the moment let us see what effect the officials had upon the populace. Their trip from Lanchow to Ninghsia was described in the Shanghai North-China Daily News as from October twenty-first:

  For 100 miles or more there is but one continuous mass of miniature sharp peaked, light-brown loess hills, eroded on all sides into gaping gulches and gullies, so crammed together that to the horizon on every side it looks like nothing else than the high steep waves of a petrified ocean-wide tide-rip. Millions of peaks, slashed and torn, of uniform height, barren, inhospitable and hopeless, jostle in every direction, and from an altitude of nine or ten thousand feet, which we were flying at, the limit of every direction is a long way off on a sparkling day . . . . It is all a gloomy land, and when you see vast blank spaces on the map do not imagine they are unexplored. They are there because the land cannot be lived upon, and has been able effectively to resist the pressure of the persistent march of man from the east and the south . . . . Down in the deep gulches no road or track is possible anywhere, for they constitute a labyrinth; and the camel road from Ninghsia is far to the north . . . the only sign of life from such a height is an occasional raft of inflated bullock or sheep skins rushing down the stream laden with wool or hides, the six great yulohs (oars), three each fore and aft, flashing in the sunlight . . . .

  About 100 miles out from Lanchow the gnarled loess gives way to a more open landscape but none the less wilderness . . . . We see our first and only camel caravan, camped for the day in the low hills, having just emerged from the sands of the Little Gobi, which now blaze into view, a creeping stream of rusty red sand waves . . . . “What a sand trap,” says the Young Marshal, as we see the red desert stretching into an ever-widening horizon in the distance . . . .

  Under the protection of the Ala Shan the earth begins to take on a more friendly and more natural appearance, habitations become more pronounced, farms appear, and in the distance tombs show up and we know that Ninghsia is somewhere near. We could see waterholes splashed about the plain, an unusual but a refreshing sight in this region of waste and arid land. Then came the gaunt and crumbling walls of the old-time Ching garrison, with its lone mud-coloured pagoda, and nearby was the airfield, with lines of soldiers drawn up, and cavalry swung round in an imposing circle. . . . As we banked down and roared lower towards the landing field we expected to see the line of cavalry jump out of its skin and jumble itself on the plain, but to our surprise those ponies stood stock still as if a monster plane was but a droning beetle swooping out of the sky.

  Bugles played, people cheered, a band or two started in to welcome the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang and Marshal Chang, General Ma Hung-kwei and his brother. General Ma Hung-ping, who one time was governor of Shantung, clutched the hands of the visitors as they stepped out of the plane, indicated that Ninghsia was theirs, and, after the inspection of the guard, piled them in cars and drove them a long way till the city was reached. At the airdrome they passed long lines of waiting soldiery and cheering citizens, and as they drew near the city another long line was also added to their welcome. The band played “Johnnie Comes Marching Home” with a vengeance, which brings to mind that at Sian the troops goose-stepped at the review to “John Brown’s Body,” and “Marching Through Georgia.” . . . The crowds of people craned their necks to an insufferable extent, apparently to catch a glimpse of Madame Chiang, judging by the way their eyes fastened upon her, and they seemed to regard her as being from another world . . . .

  In Shanghai the Chinese press waxed enthusiastic over the Generalissimo’s discovery of the Northwest, and the Sin Wan Pao said:

  Much talk has been in the air about the development of China’s Northwest. Actual development has been in process ever since the visit of Mr T.V. Soong to that region. Now Gen. Chiang Kai-shek has visited that region himself and there is every reason to believe that plans will soon be set on foot on a large scale for its development.

  At this moment when the whole country is focusing its attention on the Northwest we want to remind the public that the Northwest is the cradle of Chinese civilization and the home of mineral treasures. People who have visited those provinces can readily realize the greatness of Chinese civilization. But there is one thing which many people overlook, that is the unseen power and energy of its people.

  Specifically, the Generalissimo in Lanchow and Ninghsia visited woolen factories and spinning mills that had fallen into disuse through the vicissitudes of civil war, particularly because of Feng Yu-hsiang’s army and their recent visits. In Ninghsia he saw the Mint and a large factory that had been converted from one of Feng’s arsenals. He saw the coal mines; he was fascinated by the sheepskin rafts and investigated their manufacture and use. There was a railway being built to Sianfu, an extension of the Lunghai; the Chiangs examined it. Sin Wan Pao continued:

  Here [in Lanchow] are more Tang dynasty relics than in any other place in China perhaps. The party walked along the ancient city wall which for centuries has withstood the attack of the waters of “China’s Sorrow.” Gen. Chiang was amazed at the wonderful old architecture to be seen from this wall top . . . . The Generalissimo inspected the old steel bridge which here spans the Yellow River. It was built in 1907, each part being hauled from the rail head to far distant Lanchow on carts. The bridge is as good today as when it was built.

  At Kaifeng, Donald half-jokingly suggested that they lunch with Han Fu-chu, governor of Shantung, in his capital city of Tsinan. It had been a long jump from Sian to Kaifeng, but it was no longer to Tsinan. The Chiangs had tasted the joys of wandering, and they decided to do just that. From Tsinan it was a short way, comparatively, to Peking, and it occurred to Madame Chiang that this would be a good time for the whole party to be overhauled at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital there. The Generalissimo had been suffering for years from a mild indigestion, and spent several days with his wife in the hospital, where he learned that his illness was not serious. While he was still in Peking, the Princes Yun and Teh, of the Mongolian Political Council, telegraphed and asked the party to come on to Mongolia.

  They compromised by going to Kalgan in Chahar Province, and sending a good-will envoy to the Mongols. From Kalgan they went to Suiyuan, then to Taiyuan, where they were joined by Dr Kung, who had come to Peking. Here the party split up. The Generalissimo was recalled by urgent affairs that had been waiting for him a long time, and he went to Nanchang, about November ninth, while Madame Chiang, Dr Kung and Donald returned to Nanking by way of Peking, Tientsin, Tsingtao, and Shanghai. The most important tour of their lives had taken only a month, and they had seen places in China to which explorers journey many months and wear
y miles on foot.

  It was a most important trip for three reasons. In the first place, the Generalissimo had seen the country thoroughly, had got into touch with local problems in far-off places, and had learned that he need not be guarded like a priceless piece of brittle jade whenever he stepped outdoors. Many historians have noticed that as he increased his power, Chiang Kai-shek seemed to grow in moral stature, to take on more and more of a feeling of responsibility toward his work and his people instead of increasing in self-importance and vanity. The tour of the Northwest was partly responsible for this development, according to some of those people who are close to him. His particular interest in economic development dates from this time. As a hard-working soldier he had never before given much thought to the industries of peacetime.

  In the second place, Madame Chiang began to emerge in her own right into the public eye during her wanderings. The necessity of making speeches day after day cured her of shyness and toughened her against the fatigues of what might be called electioneering. In each city she took upon herself the job of marshaling the women and urging them to help in a nationwide reform. She talked against the old ways of China, the incarceration of upper-class women, the menace of opium and of dirt and poverty; she begged them to develop a sense of social responsibility. As leaders of this movement she appointed the wives of the leading officials in each community, a pattern to which she returned at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war. All of this energetic effort had its effect upon her, and she returned to Nanking with a sense of what she could do by her husband’s side. Incidentally, the long trips by plane were tests of her heroism. Madame Chiang gets planesick very easily, and takes some of her longest hops lying on the floor of the plane with smelling salts held to her nose. This weakness has never caused her to avoid a journey, however.

  Thirdly, the populace of China’s frontiers had had a glimpse of their ruler, and any amateur psychologist knows what a difference that can make. People who would have been passively indifferent to Chiang and his political position in Nanking now felt friendly toward him because of that moment or those few moments of personal contact. Leaders who had been disgruntled by habit with the proceedings at Nanking had had a chance to talk things out with the Generalissimo himself, and many were won over to his cause because of this. For the first time in history, men in the North, men in the West, men in the South and the East were all thinking of one person as their leader. It was not the long, weary years of civil war that had unified China under Chiang Kai-shek; it was that hastily planned journey through the air and over the mountains of the Northwest.

  CHAPTER XX

  Chiang Is Kidnaped

  The imperialization of Henry Pu-yi had not satisfied the Japanese as to their position on the mainland, and early in 1935 they attacked Sung Cheh-yuan, the governor of Chahar, after accusing him hastily of having sent Chinese troops into Manchukuo. They sent airplanes over the Great Wall and armored cars with their troops, and after only one day, January twenty-third, they were successful. Sung had to sign an agreement giving Japan a promise not to go into the disputed area of Tatan again. Nanking never admitted the validity of this agreement, but at the moment there was nothing more concrete that the Government could do than to deny it.

  Evidently the Japanese had decided to take all North China by degrees, first persuading the five provinces to declare independence from Nanking. Chiang could not yet go to war with any hope of success. He knew that the governing body of Hopei was worrying the Japanese, chiefly because of the Young Marshal’s Northeastern Army, which was as strong as ever and very resentful of their expulsion from Manchuria. The Young Marshal himself was heading bandit suppression activity and was stationed at Hankow, but his army remained in Hopei, and the Japanese feared it. Chiang decided to make certain concessions in order to avoid giving the chance to Japan’s secret agent, Doihara, to carry out his plans for a northern autonomy. He moved quickly, sending Chang Hsueh-liang’s army out of Hopei, and removing Governor Sung from his post in Chahar. Later Sung was sent back at the request of Japan — Chiang had to take this high-handed behavior and like it; he was playing for time. For the moment, however, he had avoided Doihara’s plan and the five northern provinces were still part of China.

  Sung Cheh-yuan was made chairman of a Hopei-Chahar Political Council, and the Kuomintang branches in these provinces were done away with at the behest of the Japanese, and though the Council was at best a trouble spot, it was also an exhaust for the whole Sino-Japanese question and saved a crisis.

  Now that he had breathing space, the busy Generalissimo turned his attention again to the Communists, some of whom were in Kweichow. He followed them there and drove them out. He set to work to reorganize the provincial government and from there went to Szechwan after more Communists. The Chiangs’ visit had an important effect upon both provinces, which because of their position and comparative inaccessibility were very badly damaged. Szechwan in particular was a scandal, overrun with war lords and bandits; conditions there were years behind those of Chekiang or Kiangsu. The peasants were badly oppressed. Here with Madame Chiang the Generalissimo followed the pattern of their days in the Northwest, inquiring of missionaries and honest officials whereever they could be found, and taking a special interest in the old city of Chungking, at the top of the Yangtze, hidden in rocky mountains. The Szechwanese were astonished at this unusual behavior of the great, and reforms began in that year which have continued ever since.

  Madame Chiang, writing to the students of the School for Children of Revolutionary Heroes, describes in Messages in War and Peace her first impressions of the southwestern provinces which she was later to know well:

  You know that Kweiyang is the capital of Kweichow Province, a province that is mostly mountains and is poor and very difficult to reach. Or it used to be difficult. Now there is a motor road from Kwangsi, and soon there will be one from Changsha and another from Chungking, in Szechwan. Soon, too, there will be an air-mail service. Only a short while ago all travel was over stone paths climbing the mountains and descending the valleys. It took seventeen days to get from here to Chungking, and about the same time to get to Canton or Yunnan, and one had to travel by chair or walk. There are mountains everywhere. Not great ranges, but a higgledy-piggledy mass of cone-like hills, some very curious to look at. When we were flying from Chungking here we saw these cones lying in long rows as if some giant had put them there to play with, as children make little hills of sand . . . .

  Around about us are bandit bands. It is to try and suppress them that the Generalissimo came here. At present they are but twenty miles away from us, but they will be defeated in the end, and then we will really be able to do something to help all the people and make our country strong and great. And that is what you students always must remember — that you are being educated solely to be of help to your country and your fellow men . . . .

  . . . To get here we used steamers, motor cars and aeroplanes. From Kiukiang I went by steamer to Chungking, which is in Szechwan, and is some 1,350 miles from Shanghai, and some 600 feet higher than Nanking. Really the steamer climbs up that height through the rapids of the Upper Yangtze. Up to Ichang the river is just a great body of water running strongly and eating its way into the fields on either side and carrying lots of good earth out to sea, making the ocean yellow for some 60 miles out, so strong is the current of the river, so great is the quantity of silt (that is earth) that it carries . . . .

  When we got to Chungking it was raining, the first rain since leaving Nanchang. We had to climb high flights of wide stone steps to get to the roadway. We went to live in a big house which the Generalissimo and I did not like because it was not built from honest money. It belongs to a militarist, like many others here. It is sad to say that Szechwan, which is one of the richest provinces in our country, is made poor by the greed of men who get into power and rob people for their own profit. They are ignorant, and do not know what patriotism means. That is what you students must learn and
understand. If you do not, then China will never recover. You must always try to teach others what the country is, what the flag stands for, and what all good citizens should do — that is, work honestly to help the country become strong and great.

  In Szechwan, and in Kweichow, as in several other provinces in the West, the people are made poor by opium. The bad officials have poppies, from which opium is made, grown and by shipping opium out, make great profits from it. This evil will kill China if it is not stopped. Therefore, the Generalissimo and I, wherever we go, speak strongly against the evil and we work to educate the people to do their best to have the opium stopped so that our race shall not become slaves.

  In Chungking we persuaded the high officials to shut up the opium shops, and I am trying to organize the women to work against the evil. The difficulty is that they do not know how to organize anything, or have meetings, and this is one thing I want the girl students to remember. They must try their best to prepare themselves to grow up competent to form societies to do good, to hold meetings, and get things done. At present the illiterate women think that they have to talk about this and that and everything except the one thing they ought to talk about and do. That is not their fault so much as it is their misfortune. They had no chance to be educated, as you girls have, and therefore, they are more to be pitied than blamed. But you can learn a valuable lesson from it, for as time goes on, our women are going to do their share in saving their country. You must, therefore, try to understand things so that you can teach others what to do and how to do it when you get the chance.