Chiang Kai-shek also spoke to the students, but in an entirely different vein: “You must memorize, step by step, your duties so that there is no way for you to forget them. First is discipline. Your leader’s orders must be obeyed unconditionally.… Secondly, whatever your individual task, you must do your utmost to complete it to the best of your ability.… Thirdly, you must regard death as glorious. It is an honor to give one’s life for one’s country. So, do not be afraid to die. Only cowards are afraid of death. The ancients had a saying. ‘One must regard death as going home.’ “
The academy was located in a newly renovated, two-story building on Whampoa, an island in the Pearl River fourteen miles from Canton, where Chiang and Jennie were given a three-room apartment. According to Jennie, her husband rose promptly at five every morning. After his usual half hour of meditation, he headed for the barracks at the back of the main building where the cadets were lodged, admonishing those who were not up and about. He was, in the words of his wife, “a very exacting commander.” He demanded exemplary behavior—no gambling, no whoring—and cadets learned to fear his penetrating gaze, “which seemed to pierce through as if from an inner head behind a mask.” Those who were caught with their tunics partly unbuttoned or shoes unlaced were reprimanded in his blasting, high-pitched voice or sent to the brig. In one instance, when a cadet was giving a patriotic reading before an audience of three thousand people, he forgot a line and reached into his pants pocket to retrieve his speech. “Stop!” Chiang shouted. “You should know better than to put a folded paper in your trouser pocket where it would get crumpled! It should be placed in your shirt pocket! Remember that, you blockhead!”
“The audience,” according to Jennie, “sat agog and exchanged glances with one another. Meanwhile the orator turned red for having been so publicly ridiculed.” According to Jennie, Chiang himself was “sensitive to criticism and quick to anger. He seldom praised anyone.… And he only cultivated those friendships that might be useful to him in furthering his aims. Once that usefulness was outlived, however, most of the friendships, regardless of how close they had been, died a natural death.”
“Each Sunday morning for four uninterrupted hours he [Chiang] would lecture to the three thousand cadets, drawn up in ranks before him on the drill grounds,” according to Han Suyin, who eventually married one of those cadets. “Bareheaded under the intense sun of Nanking, Marshal Chiang expounded; rigid at attention the cadets listened. Though he talked of history, of politics, of military tactics, the emphasis of his teaching was ethical… more important than learning and technique was the development of character. He used the term tso jen—‘to be man’—defining all the pride and dignity inherent in the word. No one who heard him could ever forget.”
Funded largely by the Russians, Whampoa employed about fifty Soviet military instructors who had been sent to China along with guns, ammunition, and various other kinds of military equipment. The chief Russian military adviser was a red-haired, neatly mustached man who called himself Galen but was really the Russian general named Vasily Konstantinovich Blücher, who had joined the Bolsheviks in 1916 and risen to a high position in the civil war that followed their revolution. Unlike the other Russian instructors, Galen got along well with Chiang.
The six-month course at the new academy was patterned after the military schools Chiang had visited in Russia, which included large doses of Communist indoctrination. Along with drilling and instructions in warfare, the Chinese cadets studied military and political science and the history of the KMT. “The aim of the academy was not only to train good soldiers but also to cultivate staunch supporters of the Kuomintang,” said Jennie. “…Most of the academy’s planning was done by Kai-shek.… He made a draft of the curriculum, decided on the length of the course, set salaries for teachers and officers as well as the pay and rations for the cadets, and selected a board of examiners. He knew exactly what he wanted and was very thorough in his planning, telling me time and again: ‘Once I have decided on my plans, I don’t want anything changed.’ “
Intransigence aside, it should be noted that one of Chiang’s problems was a basic ideological division within the KMT, a schism that was bound to be reflected in its military academy. On the left were the political commissar of the academy; Wang Ching-wei, Chiang’s longtime rival and the current head of the KMT’s Propaganda Department, soon to be succeeded by Mao Tse-tung; and Chou En-lai, Deputy Director of the Political Department; Chou, who described himself as “an intellectual with a feudalistic family background,” had returned from France after founding a French branch of the Chinese Communist Party. Opposing this stellar trio was Hu Han-min, a conservative who hated the Left and was loathed by them. Chiang’s position in the middle of these factions was an ambivalent one. Few people knew about his trip to Russia and his subsequent disillusionment with the Soviets, and the fact that he now worked hand in hand with Russian military advisers did nothing to change his reputation as a supporter of the Communists.
Neither of the two warlords whose private armies were occupying Canton at the time was kindly disposed toward Chiang’s academy, which was in the process of creating the kind of soldier who, they realized, would eventually make trouble for them. Outside the citadel of Whampoa, in the city of Canton itself, matters were in serious disorder. At the end of 1923, Sun, who was still being refused permission to keep the Canton customs surplus for his government, had announced that he would seize the money by force. In response, an international flotilla, led by the British, steamed into the harbor. In May of 1924, just about the time that Chiang arrived, the Cantonese merchants, responding to Sun’s proposal to levy taxes on them, were threatening to strike. A few weeks later, word reached Sun that these merchants had raised an army of 9,000 men and that a Norwegian ship carrying 9,000 rifles for their use was heading for Canton. At this point, Sun turned to Chiang for help.
First Chiang countered the machinations of the wily General Yang, who had suggested to Sun that he give the merchants their rifles in exchange for a fine of $1 million, which he, of course, would collect for the little doctor. After warning Sun not to pursue this, Chiang declared martial law and sent armed cadets to board the Norwegian ship and bring the rifles to Whampoa. Meanwhile, the British consul general threatened to bombard Canton if Chiang fired on the merchants. In a state of high alarm, Sun wrote an open letter to his followers:
Kwangtung [Canton’s province] is now a place of death, the causes of which are three… (1) the pressure of the British… (2) a possible counteroffensive by our enemy Ch’en [the Hakka general]… (3) the waywardness of so-called friendly armies [of the two warlords, Yang and Liu] in Canton.… With these worries, we cannot stay here a moment longer… the best outlet is the Northern Expedition.… We will use battlefields as the training school for the cadets; this will yield wonderful results. Comrades of our party, you must not hesitate, but heed my call!
Sun escaped with his guards, a small air force, and all available soldiers to a base in northern Kwangtung province, while Chiang, who refused to follow him, was left to face the armies of the warlords and the angry Cantonese merchants. He wrote Sun to ask for reinforcements. On October 9, 1924, Sun wired back, saying that he was “concentrating on the Northern Expedition only. Since you feel there is danger in Canton, I hope you will leave Whampoa and come at once with all the arms and ammunition. Also, bring the cadets. We will gamble everything on the Northern Expedition. Act immediately, as soon as this telegram reaches you. You must not be reluctant to leave. I will never go back to relieve Canton. So do decide instantly and hesitate no more.”
“I have determined to defend this isolated island until death,” Chiang wrote back, “so I still await your early return with your army to relieve us. We will never give up our base, without which our party will lose its foundation forever.… If you return, our army can launch a counteroffensive… we can wipe out all opposition and make Canton a safe and solid base for our revolution. I will not go even a step from here,
and I earnestly entreat you to return soon.”
Before Sun left, the Cantonese merchants had begun haggling with him over the release of their rifles, offering Sun a “loan” of $200,000 in exchange. Sun had agreed and told Chiang to turn the arms over to the merchants. Furious, Chiang did as he was ordered. The next day was the Double Tenth (October 10), the anniversary of China’s independence from the Manchus. The celebration ended in tragedy when the merchants turned their newly acquired rifles on Chiang’s soldiers, several of whom were killed. Sun, who finally realized that Chiang had been right about defending the KMT’s authority in Canton, sent reinforcements from his base in the north of the province. With these additional men, Chiang was able to rout the merchants in two days and restore order in the city. According to the North-China Daily News, Chiang was now known as the “Protector of Canton.” According to his wife, success had made him arrogant.
Although Sun’s advisers urged him not to go north, he left on November 12, 1924, taking an entourage that included his colorful bodyguard known as Two-Gun [Morris] Cohen,* a petty crook and self-promoter from Canada whose best trait was his unswerving devotion to Sun and Ching-ling. Before leaving for the North, Sun, Ching-ling, and their oddly assorted retinue stopped at Whampoa Island and spent the night at the Military Academy. While Jennie entertained Ching-ling, Chiang led the cadets in a formal review before Sun. Before he left, Sun told Chiang that he was going to Peking and was “not sure” he would return. The truth was that Sun, who was not feeling well, must have guessed that he did not have long to live and wanted to start his long-dreamed-of Northern Expedition while he still could. He arrived in Kobe at the end of November. The high point of his Japanese visit was a speech in which he appealed for racial solidarity against the West and reminded his audience of Japan’s victory over the Russians in 1905. Ching-ling also delivered a speech, on the emancipation of women. The Japanese government, which ignored the Suns’ presence in the country, did not invite them to Tokyo.
Sun was in considerable pain by the time he sailed for Tientsin. Arriving on December 4, he was confined to bed two days later. On the last day of the year he finally got to Peking, where he was taken to the Grand Hotel de Pékin and then moved to the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, considered the best hospital in China. He was operated on by the head of surgery on January 26 and diagnosed with incurable cancer of the liver.
Two weeks earlier, Emma Mills, who was still in Peking but leaving for home the following month, received a letter from May-ling, enclosing a letter for Ching-ling and asking her to deliver it in person. Emma ended up by joining Ching-ling for dinner in the Sun suite: “The doctor [Sun] is getting better she [Ching-ling] thinks, but the general opinion around town is that he is not going to survive,” Emma wrote home. “… I haven’t seen him, of course. They have two nurses on the job, and all the doctors.… There is hope of Mayling coming up some time, but not till after I go, I am afraid.”
By the time Emma left for the United States in February, Sun was much worse. After the Western doctors gave up on him, it was decided to try old Chinese remedies. Since it was not considered ethical to practice herbal medicine in a Western-type hospital, Sun was moved to the home of Wellington Koo, a famous diplomat and former minister of foreign affairs. Koo’s home in Peking, sprawling over ten acres of gardens and comprising an eastern and western palace, had once been the home of a singsong girl, mistress of the father-in-law of the last Ming emperor.
During his last illness, Sun was attended by his devoted Ching-ling, his grown son and daughter (without their mother), and various members of his political entourage, including Borodin. Also present were May-ling and Ai-ling, who had taken the train up from Shanghai. There was no food, nothing to drink, and no heat on the train. Even the water was frozen. “We felt thirsty, hungry and cold,” May-ling wrote the son of one of the KMT leaders many years later. “Before we left Shanghai, we knew that trip would be full of hazards, and it was hard to estimate when we would reach Peking. However, we went out of love for the premier, and it was our way of giving material and spiritual support to our elder* sister.”
Along with the relatives gathered at Sun’s bedside were old friends and KMT associates, who, under the direction of Borodin, decided to use the iconization of Lenin as the pattern to be followed for Sun. To keep him in the public eye, the leader of the party was encouraged during his final illness to sign messages to his followers, along with a highly publicized will, drafted by Wang Ching-wei and read to him for his approval. According to Sun’s brother-in-law H. H. Kung, “one day when we thought Dr. Sun was strong enough, some of us gathered before his bed to read him the will. Madame Sun… broke into the room and began to weep. This interrupted the reading. But we had to have Dr. Sun’s signature. Later, Dr. Sun became too weak to write, so we asked Madame Sun to support his hand in signing the will.” This scene occurred on March 11, 1925, and Sun died the next day.
After his death, Sun Yat-sen became what he had not been able to achieve in life—the glorification of “Revolutionary Saint.” Boy children were named for him, as were streets, hospitals, colleges, even racehorses. Pictures of him hung everywhere—in fine homes and peasant huts, offices and factories. His image was reproduced on huge posters and plastered on city walls. Even his last will and testament became the basis for a quasi-religious ceremony conducted in barracks, factories, and union halls, where celebrants would gather bareheaded, bow three times to his picture, and stand in total silence for the reading of the document. “No one whispers or even dares to cough as the oft-repeated words of the dead leader are pronounced,” said a journalist who observed one of these ceremonies. After the reading, there was always a three-minute silence set aside for “self-examination and revelation,” for “consideration of the doctrine,” and for “self-determination of fitness for participation in the work of the Kuomintang.” As one observer put it, “Sun Yat-sen, as it turned out, was worth more to Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang dead than alive.”
13
If I control the army, I will have the power to control the country. It is my road to leadership.
—CHIANG KAI-SHEK
THE STRUGGLE for the top position in the Kuomintang broke out immediately after the death of Dr. Sun. Among the contenders—but way down the list—was Chiang Kai-shek. In spite of the fact that the Whampoa Military Academy was a major player in the politics of south China, Chiang, according to his wife, “stood at the bottom of the ladder” of power—number seven among the remaining leaders of the KMT.
There were three men at the top. The first was Wang Ching-wei. A “humbler of female hearts” married to an heiress, Wang had been with the leader in the hospital and at his deathbed, where he had taken down—some say composed—Sun’s will. Called “brilliant and erratic” by one source, indecisive by others, Wang, who had tried to assassinate the prince regent in 1910 and been sentenced to life imprisonment, had been released only after the success of the revolution in 1911. At the age of forty-two, Wang was the youngest of the likely contenders. Number two was the former editor of a revolutionary newspaper, Hu Han-min, who represented the right wing of the party. He and his brother Hu Yin were old associates of Sun. Another contender, listed by Chiang’s wife, Jennie, as number four in order of importance, was Liao Chung-kai, a friend of Chiang’s. An extreme leftist, small, thin, and “dapper to the point of being a dandy,” Liao was in charge of the finances of the KMT.*
While Sun was heading north to Peking, Chiang had been doing his best, as he wrote the leader, to “make Canton a safe and solid base for our revolution.” His major objective—and personal obsession—was the elimination of his old enemy, the Hakka General, now in the stronghold of Waichow, a city ninety miles from Canton. When the first class of 2,000 cadets graduated from the academy, Chiang, who had never before had his own army to command, stormed the town of Tamshui, the Hakka General’s first line of defense, twenty miles south of Waichow. Aided by troops from Canton, Yunnan, and Kwan
gsi, Chiang and his men occupied Tamshui after a day and a half of fighting. “The defeat of the enemy at Tamshui was due to your brave attack,” Chiang told his soldiers. “With but 2,000 revolutionary cadets we have defeated 6,000 soldiers… [and]… taken prisoner more than 2,000 officers and men.… I have telegraphed this report to our leader Dr. Sun in Peking, who will certainly be cheered by the news.… I congratulate you on your bravery!”
The bastion of Waichow, however, was not so easy. Waichow’s city walls were protected with four lines of barricades—a row of barbed-wire loops on the outside, a wooden expanse riddled with nails protruding three inches above the flooring inside the barbed wire, rows of sawhorses with more barbed wire, and finally, the wall itself, which was covered with electrically charged netting fifteen feet high. As Chiang’s soldiers ran or crawled through this torturous jungle, they were easy targets for enemy sharpshooters. Once they managed to cut through the first barrier of barbed wire, those who survived had to get across the wooden expanse, where their feet stuck on the nails. As they fell under a barrage of bullets, another wave of soldiers climbed over their bodies to reach the third barrier, while more soldiers advanced with dried straw to set fire to the electrically charged netting. With the netting breached, the attackers blasted the wall with dynamite. As the city fell to Chiang and his men, the Hakka General and his officers escaped on their gunboats, which were waiting at anchor in Waichow Bay.
Chiang occupied Waichow, reorganized the soldiers who had surrendered, and returned to Whampoa, leaving General Hsu Chung-chi in command of the city. Hsu was number three in seniority in the Kuomintang, currently serving as commander of the Kuomintang army—a position that gave him nominal command of the soldiers Chiang had led to victory. As commander of the town of Waichow, he was installed in a “most aristocratic” mansion with a green-tiled roof, red lacquer columns, and many servants. But Hsu, who liked the bright lights and diversions of the big city, soon grew restless. After a month of monotonous splendor, he handed the seal of office over to his friend Lieutenant General Hoong Lok and headed for Canton. Hsu, who did not consult with anyone about this move, apparently did not know that Hoong Lok was a cousin of the Hakka General’s chief assistant. Within forty-eight hours of Hsu’s departure, Hoong Lok had opened the city gates to the Hakka General, who moved back in with his soldiers and set about repairing the city’s fortifications.
The Last Empress Page 18