The Last Empress

by Hannah Pakula

  “You can always change the name.”

  “I’m afraid that Mr. Kung is not qualified to assume this position, and such an appointment will be fought by the party.”

  “He… became a follower of Dr. Sun before you.… If you are reluctant to appoint him president, then you must take the position yourself,” Ai-ling said as she stood up, indicating an end to the conversation.

  “Madame, please sit down,” said Chiang. “Mr. Kung has not been in the government a long time, but I know that he is very capable of fulfilling such a position.”

  “Thirdly,” she added, “T.V. should be the financial minister in your government. No matter what other changes occur, his official rank cannot be lower than that of a minister.”

  “Certainly. T.V. will enhance the prestige of our government.”

  “How will you guarantee to make good on these promises?” Ai-ling asked.

  “I don’t think I need to sign a contract, do you? I swear with my good name and my life.”

  “The conditions we have discussed should not be put down in writing. We should keep them in mind and carry them out one by one,” she said.

  “Please trust me,” said Chiang. “If I do not keep my word, you can punish me in any way you choose, including killing me.”

  “I will, but I certainly do not want it to come to that.”

  When Chiang got home, he told Jennie that he was “desperate.” Ai-ling, he said, “struck a very hard bargain, but what she says is true… her offer is the only way for me to achieve my plans to unite China. I now ask you to help me. I beg you not to say no. After all, true love is measured by the size of the sacrifice one is willing to make!”

  When Jennie asked Chiang what he wanted her to do, he asked her to “step aside for five years” so that he could marry May-ling “and get the necessary help to carry on the expedition without the support of Hankow! It’s only a political marriage!” he told her. He then offered his wife a trip abroad “to study in America for five years.… By the time you return, the Nanking government will have become a reality and we can resume our life together. Our love will be the same. I swear to that. You know I love no other woman but you.”

  It was clear to Chiang’s second wife that matters had already “reached a point of no return,” and she returned home to her mother in Shanghai. When Jennie finished repeating her promise to her husband to “step aside so that he could realize his dream,” she reported that her mother embraced her and wept. “Oh, my dear daughter, you are such a good wife. Chinese history will one day record your sacrifice for our country!”

  Allowing for Jennie’s habit of giving herself full marks for selflessness, it is obvious that the idea of a marriage between Chiang and May-ling was anything but an ultimatum from Ai-ling. One can easily imagine the general and the lady sitting on the deck of the carrier, concoting a plan to rid Chiang of his current wife. What they both knew was that it would be easier for Jennie to believe this story than the truth. Jennie was no longer what Chiang wanted, and he certainly did not need Ai-ling to convince him of this.

  What Chiang did not tell Jennie, of course, was that he had already started seeing May-ling and that she had begun to be mentioned frequently in his diary, often disguised as “third brother”:

  May 4:

  “I telegraphed May-ling today.”

  May 11:

  “I sent my photo as a gift to May-ling.”

  May 18:

  “At 7:00 I reached Shanghai and then went to visit May-ling right away.”

  May 30:

  “I was thinking about May-ling the whole day.”

  June 7:

  “I woke up at 6:00 A.M. and wrote to third brother.”

  June 11:

  “I went to visit third brother at 3:00 P.M.”

  June 12:

  “I talked to third brother until midnight.”

  June 14:

  “I sent a letter to third brother.”

  June 25:

  “I receved third brother’s letter and then replied to her right away.”

  IT WAS JUST two months after these last entries, on August 13, 1927, that Chiang announced his “retirement,” mentioned at the end of the last chapter. Twelve days earlier, he had paid an unannounced call on Jennie at her mother’s home in Shanghai. “He came into the house alone,” Jennie reported, “leaving his bodyguards… standing in the courtyard.” Chiang brought Jennie three tickets on the SS President Jackson—one for her and two for friends. The ship was due to sail for the United States in a few weeks’ time. When she refused to accept them, he “pleaded nervously” with her: “Your departure for the United States is one of the demands of Ai-ling Kung. I know it is a great deal to ask of you, Chieh-ju, but it is entirely for the unification of China that I dare call upon your patriotism to help the country. As long as you remain in Shanghai, the deal is off. Don’t you understand my problem?”

  Jennie’s mother came into the room, and Chiang explained that he wanted his wife “to go abroad for five years.”

  “When you say five years, are you telling the truth or are you merely saying it to deceive my daughter?” the mother asked.

  “I swear to it!” he answered. “When I say five years, I mean five years!”

  “Very well, then, let us hear you swear it before the Buddha!” said Jennie’s mother as she picked up three joss sticks and a pair of candles and lit them before the family altar. “Without hesitation,” Jennie reported, “Kai-shek stepped over to the shrine, stood at attention before the image, and swore, ‘I promise to resume my marital relationship with Chieh-ju as husband and wife within five years from today. Should I break my promise and fail to take her back, may the Great Buddha smite me and my Nanking government. And if within ten or twenty years I do not do my duty toward her, then may Buddha topple my government and banish me from China forever.’”*

  Jennie Chiang left Shanghai on August 19, 1927. When the boat reached Kobe, she was handed a newspaper announcing that “Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the former commander-in-chief of the Nanking Nationalists, sailed for the United States today.… Friends said that she expected to make a tour of the United States before reaching New York.” But by the time she had crossed the Pacific to San Francisco, the story had changed: “General Chiang Kai-shek, former Nationalist commander in chief, is quoted as declaring in a recent interview… that the woman who arrived at San Francisco aboard the liner President Jackson from China early this month is not his wife. He asserted that the report that she is his wife is ‘the work of political enemies’ seeking to so embarrass him. He added that he does not know the ‘Mme. Chiang Kai-shek’ mentioned in the dispatches.” And by the time that Jennie got to New York, the story had expanded to include May-ling. According to The New York Times:

  Political enemies are blamed by Chiang Kai-shek for what he denounces as false reports concerning the young woman now in the United States who is said to be his wife. The retired Nationalist leader returned to Shanghai… with Cupid, not Mars, as his patron deity. As previously announced, he hopes to wed Miss May-ling Soong and is on his way to Kobe, Japan, to see her mother and request parental sanction of the proposed marriage.… “The reports concerning my first wife and this young woman who recently went to America,” he said, “were circulated widely in order to discredit not only me but my proposed marriage to Miss Soong.… I divorced, in 1921, my first wife.* Since then I have set free two concubines. I was surprised to learn that one of them went to America as my wife.”

  After issuing the statement announcing his retirement, Chiang had left Nanking and returned to his home in the mountains of Chekiang. He chose as his retreat a Buddhist monastery 3,000 feet above his old village of Chikow, where he remained for a little over a month. From there, he apparently wrote May-ling a suitably touching letter, later reprinted in a newspaper in Tientsin:

  I am no longer interested in political activities. But thinking about the people I admire in this life, you, my lady, are the only one.
… Now that I have retreated to the mountain and wilderness, I find myself abandoned by the whole world, full of despair. Recalling the hundred battles fought on the front and my own type of heroism, I cannot but feel that the so-called achievement is just an illusion or a dream. And you, my lady, your talent, beauty and virtue are not things I can ever forget. The only question is: what does my lady think of this retired soldier who has been abandoned by the whole world?

  Shortly thereafter Chiang returned to Shanghai. On September 23, he had a long talk with May-ling, confiding to his diary, “We love each other and had a wonderful day. I think this is the happiest hour of my life.” The next day May-ling accepted his proposal of marriage, and two days later they became officially engaged. On September 28, he sailed for Japan. He wired her twice that night from the ship: “I’m not sure whether I can fall asleep tonight or not. How about you?” He also called her from Nagasaki; “It does not matter whether it is morning or night, you are the only thing on my mind. I cannot work or sleep. All I do is think about you.”

  Before leaving China, Chiang gave an interview to George Sokolsky, saying he had come to Shanghai “to arrange, if possible, for my marriage with Miss Soong May-ling.” When asked about the lady who had left for America, he dodged the question and lied:

  Foreigners perhaps do not understand all the intricacies of the Chinese family system. That lady has been divorced in accordance with Chinese customs. I am at present married to no one and am free to marry in accordance with the most monogamous practices. Miss Soong would not consent to a marriage in any other circumstances and I should not dare ask a lady of her character to marry me in any other circumstances. Please make it clear that this marriage is in no way a political marriage. It is accidental that we are all so prominent in politics.… I have been courting Miss Soong these many years without a thought of the political bearing of such a marriage.

  Ten days after her arrival in New York, Jennie went to the Chinese Consulate to collect her mail and was turned away by a very cold and what must have been a very frightened vice consul acting on “instructions from Nanking.” Realizing that she had become “an outcast,” the young woman tried to commit suicide by jumping into the Hudson River but was stopped by an old gentleman who walked her back to her apartment and extracted a promise from her not to try again.*

  AFTER ARRIVING IN Japan, Chiang had some difficulty getting to see the mother of his proposed bride. The Soongs had rented a house in Kobe, but when May-ling’s mother heard that Chiang was on his way to see her, she got sick and left with Ai-ling for the other side of the island. Once there, it was apparently Ai-ling who convinced Madame Soong that she should hear him out.

  Chiang knew that Madame Soong disapproved of him as a mate for her youngest daughter. In the first place, he was already married. In the second, he was a soldier. In China, soldiers ranked very low on the social scale— certainly below the Soongs, who had long risen above mere mercantile status, and far, far below that of May-ling’s mother, who was descended from Chinese aristocracy. Moreover, Chiang was not a Christian. No one followed her religion with more devotion than the mother of the Soong family, and this was his greatest drawback in the eyes of Madame Soong.

  There was nothing May-ling’s mother could do about Chiang’s profession. He was a soldier—and the most successful one in the country. As to his previous entanglements, Chiang brought a document proving that he had divorced his village wife, and he had already lumped Jennie with the concubine he had paid off some years earlier, refusing to admit that they had ever been married. That left the biggest drawback, the problem of religion. Madame Soong asked him if he would become a Christian. He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no. He said that he would read the Christian Bible and decide. She was impressed with his straightforwardness, decided that she liked him, and said she would accept him as a son-in-law.

  Chiang saw her on October 3. “I reached Kobe at 8:00 A.M.” he wrote in his diary. “…I took a car with T.V. to visit Madame Soong. She has recovered from illness, and she has generally agreed to our marriage. But she does not wish third brother [May-ling] to come here, because she is worried that third brother and I will stay in Japan and marry right away. I was feeling rather disappointed, and therefore wired third brother to ask her to fly to Japan as soon as possible.” May-ling refused, and Chiang returned to China.

  The would-be groom announced his and May-ling’s engagement to the gaggle of journalists gathered on the dock to meet him when he returned to Shanghai. In his diary he noted, “At 1:30 P.M. the steamer reached Shanghai, and most of my close friends came to greet me. I heard that third sister* was ill, so I went to see her right away. She looked emaciated and weak, and I believe it was because of too much stress and worry.… After dinner third sister and I had a long and good chat. I had mixed feelings of grief and joy.”

  IN SPITE OF a telegram from Ching-ling urging her not to marry “that blue-beard,” May-ling and Chiang were married on December 1, 1927. There were two ceremonies: a private Christian service conducted at the bride’s home on Seymour Road by the general secretary of the YMCA† and a public ceremony at the Majestic Hotel, attended by 1,300 family, friends, members of the diplomatic corps, the commander in chief of the American Pacific Fleet, Big-Eared Du, and everyone else who could get an invitation. It was the social event of the season, as indicated by the crowds of people outside the hotel on Bubbling Well Road, trying to get a look at the principals and their guests. Unlike the Christian rite, this was a traditional Chinese wedding—a civil ceremony made up primarily of formal bows between the bride and groom. The only non-Chinese elements were May-ling’s white satin gown and lace veil (Chinese brides wore pink or red) and the playing of “Here Comes the Bride.” T.V., recently married himself, gave his sister away. May-ling and Chiang bowed three times to a life-size portrait of Sun Yat-sen, which had been placed over a platform in the middle of the ballroom and draped with the flags of the Chinese Republic and the Kuomintang. The marriage certificate was read to the assembly and sealed. May-ling and Chiang then bowed to each other, to the official witnesses, and to their guests.

  According to The Shanghai Star, “Throughout Chinese history, the marriages of the prominent, famous or notorious were often marriages of convenience—by marrying they formed alliances that would benefit each other. So it was with Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling.” The Shanghai Times was less blunt and more descriptive: “It was a brilliant affair and the outstanding Chinese marriage ceremony of recent years. It unites on the one hand the former all-powerful leader of the Nanking armies, and on the other the family of Dr. T. V. Soong, brother of the bride, in addition to the family of the late Dr. Sun, founder of the Kuomintang.… Contrary to the Christian custom, the bride was not embraced or kissed by the bridegroom, minister or others. The ceremony itself was brief and simple.” The wedding even hit the front page of The New York Times, which noted that Chiang and Kung had both worn cutaway coats, giving the celebration a “foreign atmosphere, as far as outward appearances were concerned.”

  The journalist covering the occasion for the North-China Herald chose to describe the bride and her attendants:

  The bride looked very charming in a beautiful gown of silver and white georgette, draped slightly at one side and caught with a spray of orange blossom. She wore also a little wreath of orange buds over her veil of beautiful rare lace made long and flowing to form a second train to that of white charmeuse embroidered in silver which fell from her shoulders. She wore silver shoes and stockings and carried a bouquet of palest pink carnations and fern fronds tied with white and silver ribbons. She was followed by four bridesmaids… wearing peach charmeuse.… After the bridesmaids followed little flower girls… dressed in ribbed peach taffeta and carrying little baskets laden with flower petals, and the train was ended by two small pages… in black velvet suits with white satin vests.

  As for the groom, he made the following entry in his diary on the day of his wedding: “In the morning
I wrote a love composition for my beloved wife. At 1:00 P.M. I went to H. H. Kung’s house to dress up. At 3:00 P.M. I went to Soong’s house for a religious service, and at 4:00 P.M. to the Dahua Assembly Hall for the official wedding ceremony. When I saw my beloved wife slowly walking in just like a floating cloud in the glow of evening, I experienced such an unprecedented feeling of love that I hardly knew where I was. After the wedding ceremony we went for a ride. In the evening we held a banquet at the Soong home. At 9:00 P.M. we went back to our bridal chamber in our new house.” The following three sentences were deleted. “Today I stayed at home,” he wrote the next day, “holding my beloved wife and chatting together. At that moment I realized that nothing can compare with the happiness of being newly married.”

  Their honeymoon lasted only a week or so before the government called Chiang back to resume his position as head of the National Revolutionary Army. Shuttling between the capital in Nanking and Shanghai, the Chiangs lived in a rental house until T.V. purchased a home for them in the French Concession in Shanghai as May-ling’s dowry. Chiang dubbed it Ai Lu, the Avenue of Love, which May-ling inscribed on a huge rock. A large home on the Route Garnier, built in the French style with outside walls pebbled in black, white, and yellow, it reminded Chiang of Sun Yat-sen’s home, which, as Sun’s successor, he considered entirely appropriate—so much so that, according to one of May-ling’s biographers,* he sent a statement about his marriage to a Shanghai newspaper, portraying their union as a milestone in the road toward reform and May-ling as the more determined partner. “When I first saw Miss Soong,” Chiang wrote, “I felt she was my ideal wife, and she vowed that if she could not win Chiang Kai-shek as her husband, she would rather die a spinster.… Our wedding is more than a celebration of our happiness in marriage; it is a symbol of the reconstruction of Chinese society.”