Word: sian
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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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...
...trap was sprung by hard-riding horsemen of Ma Pufang, the Moslem boss of China's Northwest. First, retreating Hu Tsung-nan made a stand some 75 miles from Sian. Then, swooping from the mountains in the Communist rear, Ma's cavalry, about 20,000 strong and led by Ma's 29-year-old son, Major General Ma Chi-yuan, took the Reds by surprise, cut them up, forced them into ragged retreat. Last week, Ma's cavalry were still carrying on the fight against four Communist armies in the vicinity of Sian. For awhile...
...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...