Front Matter

Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-14463-7 — General He Yingqin Peter Worthing Frontmatter More Information

General He Yingqin

A revisionist study of the career of General He Yingqin, one of the most prominent military officers in China’s Nationalist period (1928– 49), and one of the most misunderstood figures in twentieth-century China. Western scholars have dismissed He Yingqin as corrupt and incompetent, yet the Chinese archives reveal that he demonstrated considerable success as a combat commander and military adminis- trator during civil conflicts and the Sino-Japanese War. His work in the Chinese Nationalist military served as the foundation of a close personal and professional relationship with Chiang Kai-shek that lasted for more than two decades. Against the backdrop of the Nationalist revolution of the 1920s through the 1940s, Peter Worthing analyzes He Yingqin’s rise to power alongside Chiang Kai-shek, his work in building the National- ist military, and his fundamental role in carrying out policies designed to overcome the regime’s greatest obstacles during this turbulent period of Chinese history.

  is Associate Professor of History at Texas Christian University. He is the author of Occupation and Revolution: China and the Vietnamese August Revolution of 1945 and A Military History of Modern China: From the Qing Conquest to Tian’anmen Square.

General He Yingqin The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China

Peter Worthing Texas Christian University

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107144637

C Peter Worthing 2016 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2016 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data ISBN 978-1-107-14463-7 Hardback ISBN 978-1-316-50781-0 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of maps page vi Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1 1 Life and death in a Kunming teahouse 12 2 “Like Bao Shuya and Guan Zhong” 35 3 The Eastern Route Army in the Northern Expedition 58 4 “Without Chiang Kai-shek, there is no He Yingqin!” 87 5 Reorganization and its discontents 113 6 Trading reputation for time 137 7 “A force for a hundred-year war of resistance” 177 8 “Maybe now the ﬁre is hot enough to fry Ho Ying-ch’in!!!!” 206 9 “A tall building on shifting sands” 240 Conclusion 273

Bibliography 279 Index 295

Maps

1 Southwestern China page 23 2 Guangdong during the Eastern Expeditions 45 3 Eastern China during the Northern Expedition 67 4 The Yangzi valley and the battle at Longtan 103 5 Central China during the Central Plains War 126 6 North China in the 1930s 146 7 China during the Sino-Japanese War 216

(All maps created by Carol Zuber-Mallison of ZM Graphics, Inc.)

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of more than ten years of research on He Yingqin and Nationalist China. Like all authors of such works, I have accumulated a number of debts to those who have helped along the way. At my home institution, Texas Christian University, I am grateful to my colleagues in the department of history who supported this project. Alan Gallay in particular provided valuable feedback and sound advice. Andy School- master, Dean of the AddRan College of Liberal Arts, supported this project in a number of ways. Beyond providing additional resources for research trips and a mid-career research grant, he arranged for me to take a one-semester sabbatical despite the fact that I was serving as department chair at the time. Jill Kendle, Kay Edmondson, and Clare Taylor of the interlibrary loan department of the Mary Coutts Burnett Library at TCU assisted with a steady stream of materials from libraries across the country. Without their help, I could not have completed this project. I would also like to acknowledge the help of two graduate students in our department, Jessica Webb and Shawn Devaney, who provided research support. Harold Tanner of the University of North Texas and Parks Coble of the University of Nebraska read portions of the manuscript and offered important suggestions and corrections. At Cambridge Uni- versity Press, I must acknowledge the help of Asian studies editor Lucy Rhymer and two anonymous readers, who also made suggestions for strengthening the manuscript. Karen Anderson Howes provided ﬁrst- rate copy-editing, improving the prose and saving me from a number of missteps. I have beneﬁted from institutional support from the Research and Creative Activities Fund at TCU, which funded early research trips to archives and libraries. In the United States, I am indebted to Hsiao- t’ing Lin, Curator of the East Asia Collection at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Xue Zhaohui and the staff of the Stanford East Asia Library, and Vicky Fu Doll, Chinese and Korean Studies Librarian at the University of Kansas Library. In Taipei, I relied on the help of director Lu Fangshang and the staff of the Guoshiguan (Academia Historica)

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viii Acknowledgments

and the staff of the Taiwan National Library. In the People’s Republic of China, the staff of the Second Historical Archives in Nanjing provided help in locating materials. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my friends and teammates on the Whalers Hockey Club, especially Vance Carter, who never tired of asking, “Hey, Professor, is the book done yet?” In the end, it is perhaps the people closest to us who provide the most important sources of support and inspiration during long periods of research and writing. My deepest gratitude and thanks go to my wife Mona Narain and daughter Tanushri. They made it all possible.