Under Fire: Letters From the Manchurian Border

I

TIENTSIN, September 6, 1931.—The vernacular press is entirely occupied with reports of the daily happenings in a war now in progress between two factions of the Nationalist Party. President Chiang Kai-shek is opposed by the veterans Sun-Fo and Wang Ching-wei.

Neither Sun-fo nor Wang Chingwei maintains a personal army, as most other officials do. They have hired soldiers from the ‘wandering warriors’ (men and boys recruited and abandoned by a ‘government’ at some time), who work when they have employment and, when not in service, exist as best they can by banditry. These troops have been well armed, fitted with new uniforms and given new flags, and sent out from Canton. They are now advancing on Nanking by three routes across Hunan.

President Chiang’s army is reputed the most capable ever got together in China. His men have been selected, organized, drilled, and armed with the assistance of sixty German officers whom the President imported for this purpose immediately after he came into control at Nanking.¹ Formerly secretary to Sun Yat-sen, Chiang learned from his leader’s experience to hold his civil position with military force. Not because the people rebel, for they are only too eager to welcome a ruler and deputize authority to him, but because of disagreements which constantly arise with other members of the government. The President’s army has been educated by almost continuous warfare, and now his troops have been sent south to subdue the ‘rebels.’

My Chinese friends express great concern for the plight of the folk in territory over which either of these armies may pass. There is hardly a one of them who has not experienced the horrors of civil war with its attendant brutalities, the most frequent of which are rape and loot.

TIENTSIN, September 29, 1931.—The civil war continues, with ruthless destruction of life and property and a consequent undermining of the people’s faith. One body of troops is pushing northward from Canton while another marches southward from Nanking. Meanwhile provincial wars have been started by other officials taking sides in the dispute, or using it as an opportunity to settle their own personal grievances. A circular telegram has been sent to overseas Chinese asking them to use their influence to stop this internecine fighting because the country, already harassed by flood, is now menaced by Japan. Chinese living in San Francisco, New York, Honolulu, London, Paris, Berlin, Australia, and Malaya have replied by calling upon their ‘ brothers in the homeland ’ to desist, and these telegrams are published to comfort the people.

The strife, however, does not end. The Cantonese have spent $2,500,000 in Japan for the purchase of army equipment. Field guns, rifles, gas, and gas masks are dispatched to the front as soon as they arrive at Canton. The President’s army has bought supplies from the United States; twentyfive bombing planes and five hundred cases of machine-gun ammunition have already reached Nanking.

Hupeh Province has taken no part in the national issue because it is torn with internal troubles. The Residents’ Guild has charged Lin Wen-tao, until recently mayor of the provincial capital, with pocketing seven millions of funds from the treasury. The Guild is determined to punish him as the late Chu-pu, mayor of Tientsin in 1928, was punished — by burial alive with his head above ground and a long, narrow track of treacle to attract ants. Lin Wen-tao is even more determined to fight his way out of the province.

II

Since the nineteenth, refugees from Manchuria have been pouring into Tientsin’s East Station as fast as the railroad has been able to obtain rolling stock and engines to transport them. Huge banners have been put up on both sides of the approach to the station assuring the refugees that if they will continue on to Peking they will there find quarters to shelter them and be provided with two good meals a day. But most of these unfortunates appear anxious to return to their birthplaces. They are sullen and slow to speak. They carry their babes in their arms and their elders on their backs.

Aside from this, they bear little resemblance to the emigrants who, only a short time ago, were passing through Tientsin in a steady stream on their way to the Promised Land. They get off the trains at the East Station, buy a little food from vendors, and set out on foot for the distant homes from which they originally came. As the frequent trains come in, the refugees seem a large number, but when I recall the vast migration that has pushed northward through Tientsin in the past four years en route to Manchuria, my reason tells me that those who have returned are but a small proportion of the whole.

The Japanese occupation of Mukden, the seat of the Manchurian government, was accomplished quickly and quietly, and met with practically no opposition. The very quietness with which the whole thing was accomplished, as well as the swift flight of the familiar Chinese officials, alarmed the populace. But Japan, it seems, does not want the Chinese settlers to leave. Japanese spokesmen attempted to calm the people by assuring them that it would be best for them to remain in their shops and on their farms. When this proved insufficient to check the exodus, Japan decided to fight fear with fear, making the Chinese settlers more afraid to return than to stay. This strategy was carried out by having airplanes follow the refugee trains and drop bombs on them.

I had heard Manchurian refugees tell about this at Tientsin’s East Station, and I had also read it in the papers; still I was doubtful. Then Madame Accurti arrived to confirm the story with direct testimony. She is the Frenchwoman who owns and manages Fleurette, the only good dress shop here. She goes to Paris by the Siberian route each spring and autumn, and is entirely depended upon to purchase complete outfits suitable to the needs and personalities of her customers, and at prices proportionate to their means. She returned by train No. 102 out of Mukden on the twentysixth. She had with her two English children whom she had agreed to fetch from London and escort to their parents in Tientsin. At the Mukden Station she conversed with the nephew of Tientsin’s principal Indian silk merchant, who told her that he had been closing up his uncle’s Mukden branch.

She noticed a Japanese airplane flying overhead shortly after the train pulled out of Mukden, but thought nothing of it. Then about thirty miles out the plane began to drop bombs. Even then she supposed that they were blanks, and was so completely unaware of the danger that she let the children lean out to observe how skillfully the pilot manœuvred back and forth, right over the cars. Almost immediately the train was hit and came to a halt, while bombs continued to explode. A Chinese mother with a babe in her arms was struck and decapitated; her head rolled one way and the infant the other. The Indian merchant’s nephew was killed. Madame Accurti covered the English children’s eyes with bandages to keep them from seeing the horrors.

As quickly as it began, it was over. The bombing stopped. Madame Accurti leaned from the car window and saw the airplane flying back toward Mukden.

After a while the train went on, the unhurt passengers doing what they could for the injured.

III

Ever since the Japanese authorities in Manchuria made their investigation of the disappearance of Captain Nakamura, of the Japanese General Staff, and presented their lengthy report to the Chinese authorities, tension has been acute here and the activities of the Anti-Japanese Society more extravagant. According to what I hear, Captain Nakamura, accompanied by an ex-warrant officer named Isugi, a Russian named Shroekoff, and a Mongol guide, left Pokutu on the western section of the Chinese Eastern Railway to take a holiday journey through the Khingan territory to Taonaufu.

They had two sets of passports. One was issued from Mukden, and stated that the district they desired to cross was infested with bandits, ex-soldiers, and ruffians. The other, issued at Harbin, gave no warning about these dangers. The district is the territory where China is making the only serious attempt yet instituted to put disbanded soldiers on the land. Most of the funds have been raised in the Western world, and the import of motor machinery and tractors has been widely advertised. From the beginning, Western visitors have been welcomed, but Japanese forbidden. Yet these Chinese passports were issued to Captain Nakamura.

According to the Japanese official report, the Captain reached Manachen. While eating in a restaurant, he and his companions were arrested as spies by Chinese soldiers and locked up. Then they were executed, their bodies mutilated and burned to keep the matter secret. Japan demands explanation and satisfaction. The gentry, merchants, and craftsmen of Tientsin, I find, are in general agreement with one of the highest officials of the National Government, who, in a speech about the incident, is said to have put the matter thus: the disappearance of Captain Nakamura, if true, is similar to the unfortunate disappearance of other aliens in China. Therefore there is no way to account for the nationwide indignation in Japan, except on the ground that Japan wants to make it an excuse for clutching Manchuria in a firmer grip.

In support of this view, Chinese count upon the fingers of both hands other aliens who have disappeared, and they say that neither America nor England has tried to punish China by seizing provinces, but instead both countries are now gradually giving up all the special rights and claims for protection which they secured in the past. These lists of aliens who have met violent deaths in China are not identical, but all of them include the following six: the young English captain who went out from the British legation at Peking for a holiday in the Western Hills, and, according to the report of a Chinese farmer, was last seen with Chinese soldiers; John Hays Thoburn, an English youth of eighteen who was last seen in the hands of Chinese soldiers at Soochow, who were then treating him roughly and are reputed to have executed him and burned his body; the two American women chopped up by marauding ex-soldiers near Kalgan; the Reverend J. W. Vinson of the American Presbyterian Mission; and Father Sands, who was taken while distributing charity to flood victims near his church.

IV

On Monday last President Chiang Kai-shek sent word to Mo Teh-lui, who is now at Moscow, instructing him to bring Russia over to China’s side in the dispute with Japan. This has caused general indignation among the gentry, merchants, and craftsmen, who still remember Russia’s former ‘friendship’ and do not trust an alliance with her. Neither do they believe that China’s two million men in arms constitute an adequate force with which to make war against Japan. They quite openly voice the opinion that if the National Government is unwary enough to be led into a war which it is in Japan’s interest to provoke, China will be reduced to vassalage in two weeks.

The students, rallied as the AntiJapanese Society, are the only group here which wants war. In considering the prestige and license of these student groups in China, we of the West must temper our judgment by remembering that through all the annals of the dynasties the scholars have always held first place among the four classes into which Chinese society is divided. Until very recently, the nation’s governors have been appointed from the scholars, who were chosen on the basis of written examinations open to the sons of all classes, with the places of first preferment always going to the students who wrote the most perfect essays. China is now proclaimed a republic, but this preciousness still clings to the scholars.

On the Moon’s Birthday two thousand students, delegates from different schools all over China, went to Hangchow to punish the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. C. T. Wang, because he had not obeyed their dictation and declared war on Japan. They assumed as a matter of course that he would celebrate the festival with his wife at their lakeside home. The students assembled in full force and broke open the ‘To and From the World’ Gate of the most beautiful old Chinese homestead by the West Lake. They went through the courts ripping up treasured flowers and shrubs, and through the ‘Hall of Family Gathering slashing ancient portraits to ribbons with their knives. In the library they tarried to destroy precious books and manuscripts which it had taken centuries to collect, and then surged into the adjoining rooms, sweeping aside by their superior numbers and youthful energy the women and servants who attempted to bar the way.

The vandals were busy smashing priceless porcelain when the aged, feeble Family Elder was brought from his bed to speak to them. As he appeared, the students greeted him with shouts: ‘Mr. Wang, come out and be bambooed!’ The old gentleman quieted the mob by telling them that the homestead of Mr. Wang was on the other side of the lake. ‘Very sorry,’ the scholars apologized; ‘our mistake.’ Then they hurried around the lake and demolished the beautiful Wang home. But they failed to find the Minister for Foreign Affairs. While they were wrecking his house and terrifying his kin, a telegram arrived from a scholar in Nanking announcing that the Minister was spending the festival at his desk.

Our neighbors, who are relatives of Mr. Wang’s wife, received a message this evening giving us the sequel of this outrageous attack. It states that Mr. Wang, while working at his desk in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to-day, was set upon by three thousand students who beat him with bamboos and almost killed him by hurling inkpots, electric light bulbs, chairs, and mirrors. His faithful servants climbed through a window and succeeded in dragging him out after he had been rendered unconscious. There is yet some hope that he may live.

Mr. Wang is forty-nine years old. He was educated in classical Chinese by tutors at home. Later he took complete courses and won degrees at Peiyang University, Tokyo University, and Yale. Returning to China from Yale as a secretary of the Y. M. C. A., he resigned in 1911 to fight in the revolution. In the first republican government he was Vice Speaker of the Senate, and in the years that followed has held a succession of important posts. In 1918 he was sent as an envoy to the United States to secure recognition for Sun Yat-sen’s government. The next year he was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, where he advised against signing the Versailles Treaty because he thought the Shantung clauses gave too much to Japan. Since June 1928 he has been Minister for Foreign Affairs; he has managed to induce every Western nation which enjoyed special exemptions to sign treaties recognizing China’s autonomy in tariff matters, and has also entered into conversations by which every country has conditionally agreed to consider relinquishing all extraterritorial rights.

I ordered a copy of The Life of George Fox for the ex-Emperor, Mr. Henry Pu-Yi, and when it came I presented it personally. I found that he and his wife are much perturbed by callers who are using every possible means of persuasion and pressure to force him to be crowned Emperor of Manchuria. The ex-Emperor has sold his ivories and disposed of the house in the Japanese Concession which was provided for him as a sanctuary when Feng Yu-hsiang drove him out of the palace in the Forbidden City.² He realized $25,000 and gave the money to flood relief, but now he and his wife have nowhere to go. They have written and telegraphed to both the President at Nanking and Chang Hsueh-liang at Peking, asserting their loyalty and asking for sanctuary, but have had no reply.

V

TIENTSIN, November 13, 1931. — The rumble of field-gun fire and the rat-atat of rifle shot have been incessant all night. Unable to sleep, I sat up thinking about the difficulties that have attended the establishment of a peaceful republic here through the nineteen years that have followed the formal declaration of independence from monarchial rule. This train of thought led me to take out and reread my old file of Philadelphia newspapers, wherein were recorded twice a week the dangers and pitfalls that beset the orderly workings of our own Constitution nineteen years after the American Declaration of Independence.

Ever since the Japanese took over Mukden, the rumor has been voiced innumerable times a day that ‘ to-night Japan will march on Tientsin.’ The American, British, French, Swedish, Belgian, German, and Italian Consuls have taken the rumor sufficiently seriously to meet together frequently and make plans for such an emergency. Several times they have jointly advised both the Japanese Consul General and the general in charge of the Japanese forces here that they think such action unwise, if ‘contemplated.’

Among my acquaintances at Tientsin, all the Chinese people of every class, except the students, are united in favor of non-resistance against Japan. They trust in the League of Nations to investigate and effect a fair settlement. General Wang, in charge of Chinese provincial military forces, Chang Hsueh-liang, and his brother, Chang Hsueh-ming, our Mayor, have repeatedly reminded the Tientsin populace, by posters and by criers, that the Japanese who reside here are guests of China and must be treated accordingly. Stern warnings have been issued against creating incidents that may stir up trouble in these unsettled times.

In spite of these official utterances, no action has been taken against the students, who, as Anti-Japanese Scouts, continue to seize goods made in Japan and sell them at public auction in the streets, shouting that their purpose is to raise money for uniforms and arms to fight Japan. On November 3, the principal of the Middle School attempted to read President Chiang Kai-shek’s mandate forbidding students to agitate against Japan and commanding teachers to enforce discipline, whereupon two hundred students set upon the principal and injured him so seriously that he is now in the hospital. No move has been made to punish the rioters. Many students carrying megaphones, like American football cheer leaders, board the trains en route to Nanking to demand an immediate declaration of war against Japan. They go through the cars yelling their slogans against the Japanese and shouting defiance against the President and other members of the government, whom they accuse of ‘ selling China to her enemies.’ Nothing whatever is done to put a stop to these activities except to publish some new official statement of disapproval.

Proclaiming themselves patriots on their way to save the nation, the students are descending upon the capital in large numbers, demanding free transportation in the best carriages and free food in the diners. On November 5, a station master argued with a group of them, who retaliated by wrecking his house. Two days later such a large company of students boarded the south-bound evening train that about fifteen hundred of them were unable to find scats. They demanded more cars, but the traffic managers said it would be impossible to enlarge the train. The students then lay down on the tracks to prevent the engine from starting, and shouted that they would stay there until their demands were met. They lay on the tracks four hours. When no argument succeeded in getting them up, a Westerner suggested turning the fire hose on them, but this was not done. In the end, additional cars were found.

I have a letter from a Chinese friend at Nanking who says that there are now many thousands of students at the capital from all parts of China. The problem of housing and feeding them has become very serious, particularly since the resources of the city have already been heavily drawn upon to take care of the flood refugees. Iron gates have been erected to safeguard all government offices, and no official dare step beyond the bars to speak to the students, who come in platoons and regiments to present their demands.

VI

Ever since Japan took possession of Mukden in September, I have been unable to go out for an hour without meeting Japanese with notebooks in their hands, earnestly jotting things down. They move about in groups of two or three. At the railway stations, by the bridges, on the Bund, in the food markets, in the streets, in the shops — everywhere they are to be seen industriously setting down their mysterious observations. They are quiet enough, but I do not like their being here.

One of them stared at me so hard while I sat talking to my friend, the coppersmith, that I contrived to see what he was putting into his book, and found that he had done a sketch of me with some Japanese writing under it. He was a little man, not as high as my shoulder, so when I came upon him making other notes farther up the street I reached out suddenly and took the book from his hand. He sputtered his surprise, but made no complaint when I tore out the page bearing the sketch of me. I handed the book back, and he bowed politely.

According to the vernacular press, up and down trains between here and Mukden are delayed several hours each way by Japanese officials at Hsinminfu and Hsinglungtao. Chinese men and women are ruthlessly disrobed to the waist and vulgarly searched for any letters or papers that may be concealed in their clothing or luggage. The reason given is that all communication has been forbidden between individuals at Mukden and Chang Hsueh-liang at Peking or his brother, Chang Hsueh-ming, Mayor of Tientsin,³ but people, often disguised as women of good family, go in and out of Manchuria carrying messages.

Two Americans, Ben Dorfman of the University of California and Edward Hunter of Peking, have confirmed these reports. The railway authorities, seeing that these examinations were discouraging traffic and cutting down receipts, hoped to put a stop to them by making the matter public, and commissioned the two Americans to make an investigation. On October 21 they managed to take photographs of such an examination, but were immediately arrested, at the point of bayonets, by Japanese soldiers. They were held an hour before the American Consulate secured their release.

The tension and uncertainty here have been so great the last few days and so upsetting to everybody except those of us who have lived in China a long time that it has been almost impossible to get together enough people for two tables of bridge. Mrs. Campbell, whose husband is with the Standard Oil Company, referred to this state of things last Thursday and said she thought matters would soon come to a head, because her amah’s son had gone to work for the Japanese at the fabulous wages of one dollar a day and a long, warm coat. When I got home, I queried Chang, our house steward, about this. He said he had heard in the fruit market that there were jobs for two thousand men at a dollar a day and a full-length, wadded coat to keep forever. The work was light, since it consisted of nothing more than stirring up enough unrest to prove that Chang Hsueh-liang and his brother, the Mayor, are not competent to govern.⁴

VII

Captain and Mrs. Harris had us, in a party of ten, to dine at the Country Club on Saturday evening. There was a rumor that there would be trouble that night, but we had dinner comfortably and five dances afterward before Brigadier Burnell-Nugent and Colonel Ponsonby of the British Army were called from the party. About the same time messages came for Colonel Taylor, in command of the American troops, and the French and Italian commanders. So we all went home, but the night was quiet.

Sunday morning, Old Nurse insisted that I go to the wool shop in the Japanese Concession and get the wool she needed to finish my daughter’s skating sweater; she thought that the barricades might soon be up, and then we should be unable to get it. We went, and we were both astonished to see Chinese men, in ordinary long coats, walking about in the Japanese Concession carrying guns. Neither of us had ever before seen an armed Chinese in a concession, except those in police uniform.

On Sunday afternoon Lucy Tsai and Chang Hsueh-tseng, the third Chang brother, were married by the new Chinese civil rites ceremony. She was lovely in her rose draperies and pearl headdress. The service was simple but impressive. Up to the hour of the ceremony there was discussion as to whether it was wise to go on with the festivities, since the expected trouble might start while the officials were all at the celebrations. But Lucy Tsai is much loved by all the official community, by Western consuls and commanders as well as the Chinese, and it is bad luck to postpone a wedding. Since the Chinese thought they were as well prepared as possible, and had the further assurance that the Western officials had perfected their joint arrangements to help protect Tientsin, the celebration was held as planned.

Firing did not start until that night. was awakened at five minutes after twelve by the rumble of the guns, and got up to let in my cocker spaniels, which were whining with fright. Shortly after daybreak the firing ceased, except for intermittent shots in widely separated directions.

The Fifteenth Infantry of the United States Army is assisting the Mayor by guarding this section of Tientsin, which is called the First Special Area. The soldiers have erected barricades of sandbags and barbed wire, and have entrenched themselves in dugouts. The men are stationed all around below our garden and behind the Mayor’s house, which is just across the Nuchang Road from us, and they have a canteen and sleeping tents down by the river. The British are helping by guarding the section to the north and east. Neither corps has had to do anything except let its men be seen. Strict martial law has been proclaimed, and people must stay in their houses except for intervals when food can be bought. Even then they are not permitted to collect in crowds, and may not go from one section to another at any time.

Since Sunday night the firing has been sporadic — not much in the daytime, and occasionally it grows slack even after dark. Then again there will be incessant firing from sunset till dawn, as there was last night. On Monday morning nine Tong gown’ men were publicly beheaded on the Bund Road to warn other Chinese against taking employment with the Japanese forces.

There has been some trouble between the Japanese and Chinese over matters relating to the barricades that separate their territory. The situation is being handled just as carefully as possible. The Mayor’s house is the scene of continuous conferences. He and his Chinese officials are asking for, and acting upon, the advice of the sanest Western business men, consuls, and commanders, in a sincere attempt to prevent this from becoming the tinder that will set war ablaze between Japan and China.

The ex-Emperor never received from the National Government any reply to his request for a sanctuary. He has now been taken away under a Japanese escort. But he has sworn a pact with his wife to commit suicide before he will consent to be King of Manchuria.⁵