Word: chen
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Chinese censorship will rigidly suppress the facts and Chinese consuls abroad will loudly protest rumors, but what Canton, Shanghai and Nanking were saying last week boiled down to this: 1) General Chen took "silver bullets" from the Japanese and bought a good many lead bullets as a gesture to bring himself seriously to the notice of Nanking. 2) He then accepted "silver bullets" not to fight Nanking, which considered this a good investment as it thought he would never get away with the $30,000,000 in "small money" which would thus fall to them. 3) General Chen was shaken...
...frantic treasure hunt meanwhile was going on for some $30,000,000 ($105,000,000 in Chinese currency) in "small money." This had been "sequestered" by the province's former satrap, General Chen Chi-tang, who had majestically taken "flight" to British Hongkong with his movable treasures. The exciting question was: Could even smart Chen have moved the enormous weight of $30,000,000 in "small money"? He was said to have moved it in chartered British tramp ships which had displayed the Japanese flag as the emblem most likely to insure them against molestation in Cantonese waters before...
...this was largely rumor, only General Chen knowing in what shape he had actually left Cantonese finances. To straighten these out Generalissimo Chiang did not call for the financial commission of white experts which might have been sent for a decade or more ago. Honesty in the sense that Western bankers are "honest" and efficiency in the sense that they are "efficient" is now in China the function of the Generalissimo's in-laws, the Family of Soong. Since famed Mr. T. V. Soong, chairman of the board of the Bank of China, could not be spared...
When at last the soldiers in the ranks refused to fight, Chen knew he was beaten. He told Chiang, through an emissary, that he would quit if Chiang would give him a high-sounding title under which he could honorably travel abroad. That night his Second Kwangtung Army having surrendered, Chen scuttled to a British gunboat, headed for British Hongkong where he has a tidy investment in real estate...
This meant that if the rest of Chen's men ventured to stand and fight, they were obliged to fight fellow-Kwangtungese. At this the Kwangtung Army fell completely apart. Dozens of Chen's chief officers, civil officials, his entire Cantonese air force of 60 planes, two torpedo boats and even the man he had picked for president of an independent Southwest Government fled the province. Wired one officer to dismayed General Chen: "Despite the danger of having my heart dissected and my eyes gouged out by you, I hereby dare to send you this final word...