I woke up to find the guards washing me with cold water, and fanning me. One of them went out to see what he could… when suddenly there came a tattoo of rifle shots. The guard indoors rushed to shut the door; he told me that the other one had been struck by a bullet, and was probably dead by this time. When the firing subsided I disguised myself as an old countrywoman, and with the guard in the guise of a pedlar we left the cottage. I picked up a basket and a few vegetables on the way, and carried them with me. At last we reached the house of a friend which had already been searched that morning. To go on was absolutely impossible, so we spent the night there. Shelling never ceased the entire night, and our relief was enormous when we heard cannon shots at last from the gunboats. Dr. Sun, then, was safe.… Next morning… another friend, a foundry worker, arranged for a small motor-boat for me.… The river was thronged with boats full of booty, both girls and goods.… It was reported that two women unfortunate enough to answer to my description had been thrown into jail. That same afternoon I left Canton; the house in which I had stayed the night was searched again. At last, that night, I succeeded in meeting Dr. Sun on board ship, after a life-and-death struggle.
Sun had boarded a gunboat anchored at Whampoa, where he was joined by Chiang and Chiang’s new wife, Jennie. This proof of Chiang’s loyalty to Sun had a profound effect on their future relationship, and the trio remained on the boat for fifty-six days. When news arrived that the Hakka General had beaten Sun’s forces, they convinced the captain of a British warship to escort them to Hong Kong, where they were joined by Ching-ling. A week or so later, Ching-ling wired May-ling for $500 to secure passage on a boat back to Shanghai. “Small, slight, very pale, and altogether the loneliest thing I have ever seen” was how one of May-ling’s friends described Ching-ling when she arrived at the Suns’ home on Rue Molière.
In an attempt to disclaim personal responsibility for turning on his former leader, the Hakka General sent news releases to papers all over China declaring that Sun’s policy was “pro-Russian and Bolshevik.” The general claimed that his soldiers had found “important papers in his [Sun’s] locked iron safe at his Presidential Palace” giving “documentary proof of a far-reaching plan to communize China as a first step to usurping the legal Peking government.” Sun, who had retreated to Shanghai once again, issued his own statement, declaring that the treachery of the Hakka General was worse than that of even his “bitterest foe.” Disgusted and discouraged, Chiang settled down for a time into a job he had held on and off since 1917, trading stocks in Curio Chang’s brokerage firm. Successful at first, he was finally ruined by a tendency toward inordinate speculation and a crash in the market, after which he returned to military life.
Fortunately, not everyone believed the propaganda released by the Hakka General, and a certain amount of sympathy for Sun swept over the country. On October 13, 1922, part of Sun’s army, which had remained loyal to their leader and to their general, a man named Hsu Chung-chih, captured Fuchow, a former treaty port and the capital city of Fukien province. Sun immediately rewarded General Hsu by making him commander in chief of his forces with Chiang as his chief of staff, a position that held little appeal for Chiang. Joined by other soldiers, Sun’s supporters reached Canton in the middle of December, and the Hakka General went into hiding. By February of 1923, conditions in Canton were calm enough for Sun to make a triumphal return. He wired Chiang to “come quickly,” but as usual, Chiang procrastinated. Heading off for Shanghai instead, he explained that he was having eye trouble—illness being an acceptable alternative to saying no, a breach of manners in China.
“What rubbish you talk!” Sun wrote Chiang. “Since I could not go… I entrusted you with the responsibility of punishing the traitors. How could you so hurriedly think of giving it up like that?… To ensure success, it always depends upon your fortitude and persistence, your disregard of jealousy and hard work.… Don’t you, my Elder Brother, remember the days when we were in the gunboat? All day long we could only sleep and eat, hoping to hear good news.… Whatever difficulties you meet, whatever hardships you suffer, do stay in the Army as long as I am struggling here.” To sweeten the invitation, Sun allowed Chiang to resign as chief of staff to General Hsu and reappointed him as his own chief of staff: “The need for your assistance here is urgent,” he wired. “Anxiously request your immediate arrival. Do not delay. Your appointment as chief-of-staff has been announced.”
Chiang left Shanghai three months later, arriving in Canton in time to help deal successfully with two traitorous generals: his old enemy, the Hakka General, and a new would-be warlord. Whether he felt insufficiently rewarded for these efforts, he resigned again “in anger” two months later and left Canton. “If I return to Kwangtung [Canton’s province] I will not be able to control my despicable habit of violence,” he claimed. Not possessing “the natural gifts to be a staff officer,” Chiang said of himself that he might be better in a position that permitted him “to act summarily without interference from anyone.” He asked to be assigned to an investigative mission to Russia, since “in my opinion there is nothing to which I can contribute” at home.
Chiang left China for Russia in the middle of August 1923. The nature of his mission was laid out by Sun in a letter to the Russian ambassador in Peking: “Some weeks ago I sent identical letters to Comrade Lenin, Tchitcherin [Chicherin], and Trotsky introducing General Chiang Kai-shek, who is my Chief of Staff and confidential agent. I have dispatched him to Moscow to discuss ways and means whereby our friends there can assist me in my work in this country.… General Chiang is fully empowered to act on my behalf.”
Chiang Kai-shek was thirty-six years old when he traveled to Russia for Sun Yat-sen. It was a trip that would turn out to be highly significant for him personally, as well as for the country he would one day lead.
10
Psychologically, all the Soongs are Americans.
—GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY
WHILE HER future husband was working his way up the political ladder, May-ling was coming to terms with a life of ease that seemed to be leading nowhere. Headstrong and pampered, the youngest Soong sister would occasionally join other wealthy young women for an afternoon of mahjongg but could not bring herself to observe traditional protocol. She inevitably got bored before everyone else and instead of waiting until the polite moment to depart, which depended on the score, she would simply jump up and leave. She was apparently no different in the evening. “Miss Soong was serious minded even in those care-free days,” said one of the young party-goers, “and I remember that she made no move to join our silly group which laughed and joked throughout the evening. I was very much aware of her vibrant, beautifully modulated voice and her faultlessly proportioned feet.”
Like many young woman in the process of figuring out who they are, May-ling started with her appearance. Just as she had gradually become more and more Chinese-looking in America, she now took plenty of time giving up her Western attire. Meanwhile, she caused a great deal of comment by appearing in clothes nipped in at the waist (Chinese women always wore straight dresses), hats of all descriptions (Chinese women never wore them), jodhpurs for horseback riding, and tennis clothes.
Once back in China, May-ling realized that she was not as familiar as she should have been with her own culture and, in an attempt to make up for her years abroad, engaged an old-fashioned scholar to fill in the gaps in her education. She studied with him for years, learning to recite the Chinese classics, chanting and moving her body back and forth in the traditional manner. At the same time, she enjoyed life in Shanghai, which was exceedingly pleasant for the rich after the end of the First World War. As one American phrased it, “When she went back at nineteen it was to lead the life of a Newport set in Shanghai.” Businesses were thriving. Everyone with money had cars and chauffeurs, entertained lavishly with parties that lasted not hours but days and featured elaborate entertainment by troupes of famous actors. “The streets are crowded with hungry, sullen, half-starved peop
le and among them roll the sedans and limousines of the wealthy Chinese, spending fabulous sums on pleasure, food and clothes, wholly senseless to the others,” wrote author Pearl Buck in disgust. If May-ling was not insensitive to others, she was still full of youthful energy, vivacious, and a popular guest at both Chinese and foreign parties. She was also smart enough to ration her appearances and seemed in no hurry to find a husband. She kept busy learning Chinese and working for her charities, but also attended the races at the Kiangwan International Race Club and helped plan fashion shows.
The story is told that when she came home, May-ling asked her father to buy a mansion on Seymour Road in place of the old family house on Avenue Joffre. “Don’t send your children abroad,” Charlie laughed to a friend. “Nothing’s good enough for them when they come back. ‘Father, why can’t we have a bigger house? Father, why don’t we have a modern bathroom?’ Take my advice; keep your children at home!” It is hard to know whether Charlie really disapproved of his daughter’s request or if he was showing off his ability to provide anything for his children that they wanted. And, as it turned out, May-ling moved into the home she wanted—after her father’s death in 1918.
Charlie, who had been suffering for some time from the cancer that eventually killed him, had the good fortune to see and entertain his old benefactor, General Julian Carr, while he was still well enough to enjoy a visit. In 1917, the American Trade Commission asked Carr to go on a fact-finding tour of the Orient to assess business opportunities, and he arrived for a five-day visit to Shanghai in March of 1917. While he was there, Charlie escorted him on sightseeing trips and to meetings with educators and missionaries. On March 31, May-ling’s father gave Carr “a great reception attended by a great crowd,” and when the visitor left a week later, there were three mammoth porcelain vases, carefully packed and placed in the hold of the ship—gifts from Charlie “in appreciation for all kindnesses.”
A year later, in the middle of March, May-ling wrote Emma that her father had “become very thin, and the doctors tell us to expect the worst at any time.” Although she admitted that it was hard for her to appear “cheerful” and control her “hot temper” in the face of Charlie’s growing irritability, May-ling gave him nightly massages with olive oil. The family moved him to a hospital, but a week later, when the doctors told Madame Soong that her husband had only a 20 percent chance of recovering, she moved him back home. “Mother says she does not believe in doctors, & that no one could cure him but God. Hence she refuses to let him be sweated to throw off the poison,” May-ling wrote Emma Mills. “… I am almost going crazy with the tension and mother’s refusal to follow the doctors’ directions. At the hospital, he was forced to drink water; here at home he hasn’t drunken [sic] any water at all. With two babies in the house* under three years old, it is impossible to keep the house quiet.… The doctors say that the poison has gone to Father’s brain. He sleeps most of the time, and his face is swollen.”
Charlie Soong’s wife, two of his sons, and all three daughters were with him when he died on May 3, 1918. One writer† hints at foul play, suggesting that since none of his immediate family mentioned his illness to friends and the customarily long eulogies were absent from the funeral, Charlie’s fatal cancer might well have been a “grand euphemism” for some sort of sinister plot. This seems to be nothing more than an ill-considered charge by someone who disliked the Soongs. Like many of his countrymen, Charlie was known for his reticence in discussing matters he felt should be kept within the confines of the family (a trait the family retains to this day), and certainly his failing health would have fallen into this category.
During her father’s last illness, May-ling came down with influenza. “I took to bed with the world looking like winter, and came down to see that it has blossomed into bewitching spring,” she wrote Emma three weeks later, “a soft, delicate mass of apple blossoms, cherry blossoms, tender willow shoots, silky magnolia buds and nodding daffodils.” Asking forgiveness for the general listlessness of her letter, she told her friend that she felt “even too weak to lose my temper—a fact which did not by any means escape my sharp-eyed maid.”
After Charlie’s death, May-ling’s mother moved into one of their other houses for a while and, in the middle of the summer, took her two younger boys away for a short time. May-ling and T.V., who loved to give parties, were left alone at the home on Avenue Joffre. “We certainly did have a good time,” she wrote Emma, “giving dinners and card parties. Then we went out for long midnight rides.… We had our cousins come up, and so had a regular house-party. I am afraid though the servants did not enjoy themselves as much as we did, for we kept them hopping busy doing one thing after another. For instance one day we had them make ice-cream three times during the day. And as the rain comes off and on during the day, they had to put up and put down the tennis net and lines constantly.” Not surprisingly, two weeks later May-ling found herself “wrestling with cooks—we’ve had six cooks in ten days!” Still, she found time to write an article on “Women’s Colleges in America,” which was picked up by The Shanghai Gazette. Her success led her to think about writing articles about needed social reforms in Shanghai. “I wish you were here to help me sort out the essentials from the rest of my thoughts,” she wrote Emma. “…I am starting a course in Macauley for my sole benefit. I want to get the swing and rhythm of analytical writing.”
Part society belle, part would-be reformer, May-ling moved with her mother and brothers into the house she had fallen in love with before Charlie’s death. Huge solid iron doors and a thickly woven bamboo wall still suround the property, making it impossible for passersby to catch even a glimpse of the big yellow, green-roofed home or the beautiful garden planned around a giant magnolia tree. Built like a European country house with plenty of balconies and porches, May-ling’s new home boasted an attached two-car garage and was, in the words of one observer, “really a rich man’s house.”
“The inside is beautifully finished in teakwood with carved doors, double flooring, and a wonderful tiled conservatory, and a tiled kitchen!” May-ling wrote Emma before the move.
Downstairs, there is a medium sized hall, a lavatory, a smoking room, a large dining room with panelled ceiling carved, the butler’s pantry and the kitchen. On the second floor are three bedrooms, a large living room, a large square hall and a wonderfully spacious bathroom. There are also two large closets for clothes—and closets in Shanghai are so rare. On the third floor is the roof garden where we are going to spend our afternoons… by the house is a green house where I and the gardener are going to cultivate roses for the flower shows. We are going to build the garage three stories high, as the second floor is for the servants’ quarters, and the third floor for a trunk room….
This house on Ave. Joffre is too large for our needs,” she continued, “… and we think of Father every time we turn around.… It looks spacious and elegant, but not cosy or “homey.” With both my sisters away, and their servants and children gone, Mother and I should feel lost in this big house all by ourselves… and we need a horde of servants about this place. At the other house we shall be quite comfortable with a cook, a boy, a coolie, a chauffeur, a gardener and the two amahs for Mother and myself. Father left everything in order, and as Mother knew all about his affairs, we have had no trouble. Speculations by people outside as to whether Father died a millionaire or only mediumly well off would be amusing at any other time. As for the past seven years, Father has been “a gentleman of leisure,” no one outside the family knows how he stands regarding property.… He has been such a wonderful Father to us! And we love him even though he is no longer with us.
Unlike other well-to-do Chinese, including her eldest and youngest daughters, Mrs. Soong did not succumb to the money fever that infected Shanghai society during and after World War I. As Western industrialists returned home to take part in the war, the Chinese compradores, who had learned Western business techniques, now applied them to replenishing the stores of European
goods diminished by the war, investing in everything from cement plants to textile concerns and starting their own banks. Sensing opportunity, Chinese who had been living overseas came home to work, opening the first two department stores in the city—concrete “towers” set firmly into the Shanghai mud. Getting and spending became the newest way of life, “one that was brash, flashy, and unapologetically luxury-loving.” Even Wallis Simpson, who danced around the fountain of the Majestic Hotel on the famous Bubbling Well Road—one of the places where foreigners first mixed with the newly rich Chinese—found the life highly seductive: “the moonlight, the perfume of jasmine, not to mention the Shangri-la illusion of the courtyard, made me feel that I had really entered the Celestial Kingdom,” sighed the twentieth-century icon of the upward social scramble.
A former Shanghai correspondent for the London Times, J. O. P. Bland, marveled at the scene. “The evidence of Shanghai’s wealth… abounds on every side,” he wrote in an article for London’s National Review.
The Last Empress Page 14