Table Of ContentA SHORT HISTORY
OF NATIONALIST CHINA
1919-1949
A SHORT
HISTORY OF
NATIONALIST
CHINA
1919-1949
GEORGE F. BOTJER
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York
For Adrian
Copyright" 1979 by George F. Botjer
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Published simul
taneously in Canada by Academic Press Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Botjer, George F
A short history of Nationalist China, 1919-1949.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
I. China-History-Republic, 1912-1949.
I. Tille.
DS777.47.B67 1979 951.04 79-10S25
ISBN 0-399-12382-2
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Prologue 7
Chapter I: From May Fourth to the Three People's Principles 15
Chapter II: The Northern Expedition 43
Chapter III: From the Northern Expedition to the Mukden
Incident: The Attempt to Govern, 1928-1931 84
Chapter IV: The Mukden Incident 117
Chapter V: The Best Years, the Fatal Years: The Paradoxical
Zenith of Nationalist China 134
Chapter VI: The War with Japan, 1937-1945 168
Chapter VII: The Fall 238
Afterword 277
Notes 283
Bibliography 299
Index 307
Prologue
ON THE MORNING of October 9, 1911, as the first light of dawn
broke on the distant horizon, a terrible explosion reverberated
through the Russian Concession of the city of Wuchang, in the
Central Yangtze River Valley. Investigating police officers, sifting
through the rubble of what had once been a worker's house, found frag
ments of a homemade bomb. More important, they also discovered a
ragged but still legible list of names inside a smoke-blackened and half
destroyed wooden chest.
Some of the names were familiar to officials at police headquarters. The
list contained the names of certain junior officers in the local military gar
rison (the defense of Wuchang, Hanyang, and Hankow-collectively
known as Wuhan) and of several workers in the Wuchang munitions fac
tory. The factory, which was jointly owned by a Russian company and
the Chinese government, was known as a hotbed of revolutionary activ
ity. The police had no difficulty in matching many of the names on the list
to those included in their intelligence files on radical activities.
Little did the authorities realize that the suspect soldiers and workers
had laid careful plans for a general uprising. This uprising was set to begin
only a week after the premature and, as it happened, accidental explo
sion. The bomb was eloquent testimony that dissident activism at Wuhan
was on the verge of escalating to unheard-of levels. The police, using the
telltale list, set about on a lightning-fast roundup of the radicals.
Quickly realizing that a counter-revolutionary dragnet was about to en
gulf them if they did not take decisive action, the radicals decided to im
plement without delay their detailed plan for rebellion. That night, even
as some of their comrades were being interrogated and tortured at police
headquarters, two army lieutenants threw hand grenades into the offices
of the military governor. This marked the real commencement of the Chi
nese Revolution, although it was an inauspicious beginning. The two offi
cers were captured and shot within minutes. The grenade bursts in the
7
8 A SHORT HISTORY OF NATIONALIST CHINA
doorway of military headquarters functioned as a clarion call to all dissi
dent elements in the city. Generalized pandemonium broke loose: govern
ment buildings were captured and sacked, and running gun battles began
in the streets as workers endeavored to erect barricades. By the evening
of October 10, even the military headquarters had been wrecked by a mob
of rebellious laborers, many of them aroused to fever pitch after they wit
nessed the curb-side executions of fellow workers carried out by the po
lice.
The rebel movement was very loosely organized, even if the young
officers' plan for seizing the city was carefully worked out and, as events
would prove, ultimately successful. The movement was informally con
nected with the United League of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a Cantonese physician
living in exile. The Wuhan rebels were inspired by Dr. Sun's republican
ism and his advocacy of the violent overthrow of the imperial govern
ment. When a group of young officers, noncoms, and workers' represen
tatives met on October 10 to proclaim the founding of the Republic of
China, they were clearly setting forth the sentiment of the men and wom
en who were at that moment wresting Wuhan from the grasp of the im
perial regime.
Sun's radical organization was rather small and loose-knit, and it was
the only one of any significance at all in China. Thus, the chain reaction of
revolt that immediately followed events in Wuhan was essentially an out
pouring of long-smouldering hostility against the established order. Re
publicans seized control of Nanking, Shanghai, Canton, and various other
commercial centers in the southern half of China. In these places, imperi
al soldiers either joined the rebels or gave way without a fight. Police
forces, generally, were even less resolute in establishing order than they
had been at Wuhan.
In stark contrast to events in these places, North China-the vast terri
tory north of the Yangtze River-apparently was unmoved by republican
blandishments. History seemed to be repeating itself. The abortive but
long-lasting Tai-ping Rebellion of the 1850's, had also been centered in
the southern half of China. Like the republican movement of 1911, it too
was aimed at the overthrow of the emperor. Nanking, which would even
tuaJly become the republican capital, had served as the Tai-ping capital
for ten years. But there the historical parallel ends. The Tai-pings were
farmers; the republicans were city people. The Tai-pings were opposed
by the foreign powers; the republicans were tolerated. The Tai-pings were
defeated by great generals, like Tseng Kuo-fan; in 1911 and 1912, the em
peror was finally abandoned by his generals. The later defections were the
decisive difference between the two historic uprisings.
PROLOGUE 9
* * *
The defection of the generals was led by the top man of the military hi-
erarchy, Yuan Shih-kai. Yuan had distinguished himself by driving an in
vading Japanese army away from Peking, the capital, in 1895. Although
the Japanese won the war, which brought them Taiwan and a dominant
influence over Korea (the chief bone of contention between Japan and
China), Yuan's reputation was made nonetheless. He was placed in
charge of an army modernization program. Away went the conical straw
hats, the umbrellas, and the jackets with bull's-eyes painted on their
backs. The bow-and-arrow, spear, and scimitar gave way to rifles and ma
chine guns.
Not all Chinese soldiers were affected by these reforms. The progress
of the modernization program was hampered severely by lack of revenues
and by palace intrigues. Yuan's slow but steady progress was carefully
watched. Dynasties had been overthrown by successful generals before,
and virtually every new dynasty had been the work of ambitious generals.
No matter that Yuan had once exposed a plot to remove the Empress
Dowager, the young emperor's great-grandmother and the power behind
the throne. Yuan was now perceived as a latent threat to the status quo.
History spoke for itself. History would speak for itse. lf again.
The eunuchs of the imperial household in the Forbidden City at Peking
forced Yuan into retirement. Indirect evidence that he had withheld
weapons from the siege of the legation quarter (the diplomatic communi
ty) of Peking during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 was the basis of their
move. The general left behind five fully equipped and modernized divi
sions. Although the modernization program leveled off, foreign military
observers were impressed by what they saw at summer maneuvers. The
units were in fact trained with the aid of German and Japanese advisors,
and many of the younger officers went to foreign military academies.
The more proficient these men became in the skills of modern warfare,
the less satisfied they became with the imperial government. They did not
all become republicans, although a number of them were proselytized by
Dr. Sun's secret society. Regardless of their political sympathies, they
had one thing in common: a high regard for their discomfited leader, Yuan
Shih-kai, the father of the modern Chinese army.
The Forbidden City decided to take a calculated risk and recalled Yuan
to active command of the armed forces. The government, headed by a
boy emperor and his uncle Prince Chun (the Empress Dowager had died
in 1908), was not at first disappointed. Despite the fact that one of his
modernized divisions had played a decisive role in seizing Wuhan for the
republican cause, Yuan was able to recapture the city after a bloody
