Word: sian
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While Red armies swept unchecked toward Canton, news came of a jolt to Communist hopes in China's far Northwest. Last month 120,000 Reds under General Peng Teh-huai had chased an old Nationalist adversary, moody General Hu Tsung-nan, from the stronghold of Sian (see map). The way to rich Szechuan province and its famed capital Chungking seemed open. Instead, Communist Peng's men, thrusting on from Sian, rushed into a trap; it was the Chinese Red army's first defeat since the start of their all-out offensive...
...Though I Die . . ." Many Chinese, especially northerners, could not accept this apparent detachment in the face of Japan's threat. In December 1936, the Nationalist garrison at Sian, facing Communist guerrilla forces, laid down their arms and refused to fight "fellow Chinese" any longer. Like their commander, Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang ("The Young Marshal"), most of them were from Manchuria, and they wanted to fight the Japanese, if anybody. Chiang flew immediately to Sian to investigate...
...Sian generals demanded that he fight Japan. When he refused to listen to "demands," they made him a prisoner. For two weeks, while the world wondered if he were dead, Chiang stonily refused to deal with his captors. "If you want to shoot me," he said, "do so at once." He raged because his government in Nanking did not blast Sian from the air. "Why don't they bomb us!" he repeated over & over...
...Sian generals released the Gimo, but not before he had read them a remarkable lecture: "You have not understood the principles of a revolution ... On the day that I sacrifice my life for the sake of principle, the revolution will be a success . . . and my spirit will live forever. Then multitudes of others will follow me . . . Though I die, the nation will live...
...always clear or consistent. The conflict between the old and new, unresolved in China, is also unresolved in China's Chiang. He had been right so often, when those around him were wrong, that taking advice did not come easily to him. Three times-from Canton, from Sian, and from Chungking-he had fought his way out of hopeless situations. Such an experience might breed arrogance, and many believe that Chiang is arrogant, narrow, unimaginative-the victim of his own frozen will...