The Sian Incident: a Pivotal Point in Modern Chinese History
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THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES MICHIGAN PAPERS IN CHINESE STUDIES NO. 26 THE SIAN INCIDENT: A PIVOTAL POINT IN MODERN CHINESE HISTORY by Tien-wei Wu Ann Arbor Center for Chinese Studies The University of Michigan 1976 Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. ISBN 0-89264-026-X Copyright © 1976 by Center for Chinese Studies The University of Michigan Printed in the United States of America Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Viking Press, Inc., for their permission to reproduce two photographs, "Generalissimo Chiang and the Young Marshal" (p. 132) and "Peasant Guards in Armed Procession in Sian" (p. 133), from First Act in China: The Story of the Sian Mutiny, by James M. Bertram, copyright 1938 by The Viking Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0-89264-026-3 (paper) ISBN 978-0-472-12814-3 (ebook) ISBN 978-0-472-90214-9 (open access) The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ To My Mother CONTENTS List of Tables and Maps . x Preface xi List of Abbreviations * . xiv I. Chang Hsiieh-liang and His Time 1 The Young Marshal . 2 The Student Response 8 A Nation in Awakening 13 II. The United Front in the Northwest 17 The CCP nUnited FrontM Strategy 17 The New Base for the Young Marshal 22 III. The Champion of a Cause 37 The Development of a Revolutionary Ideology ... 37 Alienation from Nanking 41 An Undependable Ally . 47 IV. An Inevitable Nemesis 51 The Chang-Yang Union. 51 The Gathering Storm 53 Chiang's Visits to Sian 57 The Layout of a Last Campaign 66 V. The December 12th Coup d'Etat 75 The Fateful Day 76 Chiang in Captivity 82 VI. Nanking: Divided in Intents and Policies 89 Two Opposed Groups 89 Donald, the Herald of Peace 94 viii VII. The CCP Stance: A Triumph of Reason 101 Chou En-laifs Mission to Sian 102 Consistency in Policy 105 VIII. Reaction of the Outside World 113 Warlords on the Fence 113 Public Opinion 120 Reactions of Great Powers 124 IX. Chiang's Release: The Success of Personal Diplomacy . 135 The Duo-Negotiators 135 An Unwritten Agreement 142 Christmas Day 148 X. A Second Coup d'Etat 155 A Recalcitrant Sian 156 The Rallying of Anti-Communist Forces 161 The Negotiation Impasse 165 The Tungkuan Conference and Its Aftermath . 170 The February Second Coup 175 XI. The Close of An Era 179 The Tungpei Army Disarmed 180 The CCP Overture 182 The KMT Third Plenum 185 XII. Conclusion 193 An Inevitable Course 193 The Release of Chiang 197 A Recalcitrant Sian 200 The Capitulation of the CCP 202 The Fate of the Young Marshal 205 Notes 209 Bibliography . 255 IX Glossary 273 Index. 281 LIST OF TABLES AND MAPS Table 1 Organizational System of the Tungpei Army 77 Map 1 Shensi and East Kansu Topography 33 Map 2 Military Situation on December 12, 1936 65 Map 3 Military Situation after December 12, 1936 160 PREFACE Almost forty years after the melodrama enacted at Hua-chfing- ch'ih, the hot-spring resort of the celebrated Chinese beauty Yang Kuei-fei, the Sian Incident still absorbs much attention from both Chinese and Western scholars as well as the reading public. The Incident is doubtless one of the most sensational episodes in modern history and many people still view the event with excitement, regret, and indignation. While the dramatic capture of Chiang Kai-shek and his abrupt release have already mystified many, the negotiated settle- ment and the aftermath of the Incident remain largely in speculation. Apart from the coup itself, the Sian Incident was the pivotal point in modern Chinese history, so crucial in fact to the survival of the Chinese Communist movement that even today Nationalist writ- ers and officials in Taiwan denounce the Young Marshal Chang Hslieh- liang for having done unforgivable and irreparable damage to the na- tion. They argue, as did Chiang Kai-shek himself, that the Red Army, then numbering approximately 30,000 men and cornered in the inhospitable North Shensi, would have been doomed to destruction, had the Sian Incident not occurred to ruin the whole plan for its ex- termination. In spite of so much that has been written, the Sian Incident— ranging from the CCP campaign for a "united front" against Japan, local suspension of civil war between the Red Army and the Tungpei- Hsipei Armies, the engineering of the coup, negotiations for a peace- ful settlement, the aftermath of the coup, and the fate of the two chief actors, Chang Hsiieh-liang and Yang Hu-chTeng—is only known in fragmentary forms. Writings either in the form of reminiscent account or from the approach of analytical study have continuously poured out from the Chinese press in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In one way or another, these publications have revealed crucial infor- mation which would otherwise have remained hidden, but few of them are without partisan bias, and at the same time they fail to give a conceptual framework to the subject. Conversely, Western study of the Incident is somewhat one-sided, tending to place undue emphasis on the role of the CCP. To a great extent, Western scholarship has suffered from Edgar Snow's author- itative, pioneering works. As is well known, his account of the Incident is Communist-centered, partly because of his keen concern xi Xll with the CCP and partly because of his journalistic account which relied heavily on interviews with a few people, particularly Chou En- lai and Miao Chien-ch'iu. This is by no means to minimize the im- portant contributions Snow made to our understanding of many events involving the Chinese Communists. Admittedly, the importance of the Sian Incident lies primarily in its influence on the course of the Chinese Communist movement; it is viewed as a distant cause for the Communist takeover of China. It is easy to overlook the fact that eight years of the Sino-Japanese War and four years of the Chinese civil war had intervened between the Sian Incident and the Communist triumph in China. True, the Sian Incident led to the temporary sus- pension of the KMT campaign against the Red Army; yet there was no guarantee that the KMT or Chiang Kai-shek would not resume the campaign in spite of a verbal promise given to his captors upon leav- ing Sian. The forces that upheld the Sian accord must be scrutinized and assessed before a justifiable conclusion concerning the effect of the Sian Incident on the KMT-CCP relations can be reached. In writing this book, I have attempted to bring together whatever information has been thus far gleaned about the subject, and to cover all aspects and controversies involved in it. This undertaking grew out of both personal concern and scholarly interest for many years, and it is built upon the labor of many scholars and writers from James Bertram to Lucien Bianco. In addition to the revelations made by the captive and his captor, Generalissimo Chiang and the Young Marshal, as well as by the two negotiators, Madame Chiang and William Donald, three participants of the Incident revealed valuable information in their interviews with me. They are Miu Cheng-liu, Commander of the 57th Tungpei Army, Wan Yao-huang, army com- mander who was detained at the Sian hostel, and Mao Ching-hsiang, Chiang's secretary who was with him at Hua-chfing-chTih. Further, Mr. Mao has generously provided me with two pictures related to the Sian event, which have been reproduced and inserted in this book. At various stages of this study, many scholars gave great help and criticism that improved the quality of the work beyond the reach of my ability. Among those whose help should be specially mentioned are: Professors C. Martin Wilbur of Columbia University, Eugene Wu of Harvard University, Knight Biggerstaff of Cornell University, Lucien Bianco of Sorbonne of the University of Paris, and Eugene Trani of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. I am deeply indebted to Mrs. Beth Haas and Mrs. Jennie E. Calonne of the xiii Department of History at Southern Illinois University for improving the style and typing the manuscript. Special thanks is due the Pub- lications Committee of the Center for Chinese Studies at The Univer- sity of Michigan, particularly its Director, Professor Albert Feuer- werker, without whose interest and support, this book may not have been published. Finally my profuse thanks to Jeannie Lin for pro- viding me with invaluable editorial assistance and to Dorothy Perng for her excellent calligraphy. T. W. Wu New York November 1975 xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CCC Ch'en Ch'eng Collection CCP Chinese Communist Party CCWH Ch'uan-chi wen-hsueh [ Biographical literature] CEC Central Executive Committee Comintern The Third Communist International CTTC Chiang Tsung-t'ung chi [Collected works of President Chiang] CWR China Weekly Review KMT Kuomintang KWCP Kuo-wen chou-pao [ National news weekly] MPYK Ming-pao yueh k'an [ Ming-pao monthly] NHBS Northwestern Headquarters of Bandit Suppression. I. CHANG HSUEH-LIANG AND HIS TIME After the epic "Long March," the worn, nervous, beaten, but not annihilated Communists at last reached their temporary destina- tion, North Shensi, in the fall of 1935. It took another year for the two separated Communist groups—the one under Mao Tse-tung reach- ing North Shensi and the other under Chang Kuo-tTao and Chu Teh remaining in Inner Tibet--to be reunited.