No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
A Poet with the Northern Expedition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
Early on the morning of September 1 we set out from Chih-fang for Wu-ch'ang. Breakfast need not be mentioned. We were unable to purchase even any scraps that might fill our mouths and bellies. We had not been travelling long when we noticed a temple on a high piece of land among the fields. We then left the main road and walked in the direction of the temple, thinking to seek a little food there. [Li] Han-chün was with us too; Chan Ta-pei had gone on ahead by himself in the sedan-chair. I do not remember the name of the temple. When we arrived there, we found that it was only a ruined one; there was not the shadow of even a beggar.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1944
References
* The first installment of this translation appeared in the November 1943 issue of the Quarterly.
** It being considered an act of piety to give alms, beggars in China find temples profitable places to do business.
1 Ch'en Chia-mu was one of Wu P'ei-fu's generals who together with Liu Yü-ch'un (mentioned later in the text) commanded the Wu-ch'ang garrison during the siege. A native of Jen-ch'iu, Hopeh, he served in the Third Division of Ts'ao K'un, the onetime leader of the Chihli Clique and President of the Peking government. Advancing from the ranks, he later became commander of the Fiftieth Brigade of the Twenty-fifth Division. He was subsequently promoted to the command of the Twenty-fifth Division under Wu P'ei-fu, and in 1926 Wu made him his military governor of Hupeh. Ikki, Sonoda
Fen-sheng hsin Chung-kuo jen-wu chih [New biographical dictionary of Chinese, arranged by provinces] Translated into Chinese by Hui-ch'üan, Huang
and Ying-hua, Tiao
(Shanghai: Liang-yu T'u-shu Yin-shua Kung-ssu, translators' preface dated 1930), pp. 20Google Scholar, 69–70. See also Chapter XXVIII below.
2 
literally “one who is dog-mothered.” The expression when used a few paragraphs further on is 
literally “one who has been reared by a dog-mother.”
5 Kuo records that the prisoner used the word 
tsa for the first personal pronoun “I.” The use of this word is peculiar to the speech of certain provinces of North China, of which Honan is one.
4 Simultaneously with the Northern Expedition, Wu P'ei-fu, in alliance with Chang Tso-lin, was engaged in a war with the army of Feng Yü-hsiang. At the battle of Nan-k'ou, which took place just prior to the capture of Yüeh-chou (Yochow) by the Nationalist forces, Wu succeeded in pushing Feng's forces out of Hopeh into Inner Mongolia. His preoccupation with his northern campaign probably accounts in part for the weakness of his defense of the southern front. Berkov, Robert, Strong man of China (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938), p. 55Google Scholar; Mac-Nair, Harley Farnsworth, China in revolution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1931), pp. 62–63Google Scholar; and Tong, Hollington K., Chiang Kai-shek, soldier and statesman (Shanghai: The China Publishing Company, 1937), vol. I, p. 109.Google Scholar
5 Ch'en Ming-shu was born about 1890, a native of Kwangtung. He was educated at Kwangtung and Paoting Military Academies, and in Japan. In 1925 he participated in the Tung Chiang (East River) campaign against Ch'en Chiung-ming 
At the start of the Northern Expedition he commanded a division of the Fourth Army. He later was appointed garrison commander of Wuhan, following which he became Commander of the Eleventh Army. In 1933–1934 he was prominent in the Fukien independence movement, but was pardoned and reinstated in the Kuomintang in 1938. In addition to his many military commands, he has held political positions of considerable importance, among them the governorship of Kwangtung and the office of Minister of Communications. I-chün, Chia
Chung-hua Min-kuo ming-jen chuan 
[Biographies of famous people of the Chinese Republic] (Peking: Wen-hua Hsüeh-she 
1932)Google Scholar, vol. 1, chün-shih 
section, pp. 71–76; Who's who in China (5th edition, Shanghai: China weekly review, 1936), pp. 30–31; China year book, 1939 (Shanghai: North-China daily news & herald), p. 165.
6 Chang Fa-k'uei is a native of Shih-hsing, Kwangtung. He attended a military school in Hupeh and graduated from Paoting Military Academy. He served as Vice-Commander of the Eleventh Army and was a divisional commander of the Fourth Army during the first phase of the Northern Expedition. He then became Commander of the Fourth Army, the famous troops that were known as t'ieh-chün 
“ironsides.” In 1932, after an abortive revolt against the Central Government, Chang went abroad on a “tour of inspection.” On his return he was given a command against the communists. In 1937 he distinguished himself against the Japanese on the Shanghai front and in the Yangtze valley. In 1939 he became Commander-in-Chief of the Fourth War Zone, in south China. Min-kuo m'mg-jen t'u-chien 
[Biographical dictionary of famous people of the Republic] (Nanking: Tz'u-tien Kuan, 1937), vol. I, p. 5–27; Who's who in China (Supplement to the 5th edition, Shanghai: China weekly review, 1940), p. 4; Tong, , op. cit., pp. 290–292.Google Scholar
7 A mountain one and seven-tenths miles due east of the wall of Wu-ch'ang.
8 An interesting contrast to the statement made in Tong, , op. cit., p. 115Google Scholar: “At the entreaty of missionaries, Chiang had agreed for humane reasons not to bombard Wuchang, though to have done so would have caused its early fall.”
9 The exact functions of this organization are not known to the translator. Possibly the phrase is a contraction of Kuo-min-tang Hung-shih-tzu Hui 
“Kuomintang Red Cross Society.”
10 In Chinese cooking there are two basic methods of stewing, hung-tun “brown stewing,” in which soy sauce and sometimes sugar is used, and ch'ing-tun “clear stewing,” in which salt is used rather than soy sauce and sugar.
11 A lake, part of which is contiguous to the northeast corner of the city of Wu-ch'ang.
12 i.e. the Nationalist Army.
13 An elliptical quotation of the last sentence of p'ien 11 (Chiu ti 
) of Sun 
famous Chinese military classic. The full form of the quotation might be translated: “Therefore if at first one is like a maiden, the enemy will open the door; and if then one is like an escaping hare, the enemy will be unable to resist.”
14 A town on the southeast bank of the Yangtze about three and one-half miles southwest of Wu-ch'ang.
15 On the Peking-Hankow Railway at the border between Hupeh and Honan.
15a The Chinese text here and in Chapter 23 does not make clear whether it is one or more than one plane.
16 Campaign of the Kuomintang forces under Chiang Kai-shek against Ch'en Chiung-ming in eastern Kwangtung in 1925. Ch'en Chiung-ming, a former supporter of Sun Yat-sen, had revolted against him in 1922. The suppression of this revolt in the Nationalists' home province of Kwangtung was a necessary preliminary to the Northern Expedition of 1926. Leang-li, T'ang, The inner history of the Chinese revolution (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1930), p. 227.Google Scholar
17 Ching K'e 
(d. 227 B.C.) had been commissioned by the ruler of the state of Yen with the hazardous task of assassinating the ruler of the state of Ch'in, the later famous Ch'in Shih Huang, first emperor of the Ch'in dynasty. The ruler of Yen and a few friends escorted him on his mission as far as the River I, where a tearful farewell was said and Ching K'e sang this song: “Desolate the wind, cold the River I; the hero once gone will never return.” And, the story goes, he did not return, but died in an unsuccessful attempt to accomplish his mission. Shih chi 
chüan 86 (Tz'u-k'e lieh-chuan 
) Giles, Herbert A., A Chinese biographical dictionary (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1898 and Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1898), pp. 156–57.Google Scholar
18 Chou En-lai was born in 1898, a native of Huai-an, Kiangsu. He attended Nankai University in Tientsin. He was imprisoned for a year as a result of activities in the student movement of 1919. In 1920 he went to Europe and studied in France and Germany. While in Paris he helped found the Chinese Communist Party. On his return to China he became prominent in political affairs, becoming secretary of Whampoa Military Academy and later chief of its political department. In early 1927 he preceded the Nationalist armies to Shanghai and helped organize a successful workers' revolution there. After the split between the Kuomintang and the communists he was arrested, but managed to escape to Wuhan. Thereupon he participated in the Nan-ch'ang uprising and in that at Swatow. Thence he went to Canton and took part in the Canton Commune. In 1931 he succeeded in entering the communist area in Kiangsi and Fukien, where he became Chu Te's political commissar. He participated in the long march of the communists to the Northwest, 1934–1935. He then became vice-chairman, under Mao Tse-tung, of the Eighth Route Army's Military Council. After the outbreak of war between China and Japan in 1937 he became the communist representative to the Central Government. Snow, Edgar, Red star over China (New York: Random House, 1938), pp. 45–49Google Scholar; Who's who in China, supplement to the 5th edition, pp. 14–15; China year book, 1939, pp. 170–71.
19 One of the titles of Kuan Yü 
(d. 219 A.D.), famous hero of the period of the Three Kingdoms. He and Chang Fei (see note 27 below) were fast friends and loyal followers of Liu Pei, ruler of Shu. Long celebrated as one of China's great military heroes, he was at a later time elevated to the position of God of War, and temples were erected in his honor all over China. The Kuan Ti Temple mentioned in the text is one of them. Giles, , op. cit., pp. 383–84.Google Scholar
20 Two retainers of Kuan Yü, Kuan P'ing being his son. The three are commonly represented as a group.
21 Tao te ching, chapter 21 (hsü hsin 
).
22 The name of the temple, Ch'ang-ch'un, literally means “long-lasting spring.”
23 Yeh T'ing was born in 1898, a native of Hui-yang, Kwangtung. He received his training at military schools in Kwangtung and at Paoting Military Academy. In 1922 he, together with Chang Fa-k'uei and Hsüeh Yüch, served as battalion commanders in the Guards Regiment of the Generalissimo's (at that time Sun Yat-sen's) headquarters at Canton. In 1924 he visited Soviet Russia. The following year he organized an independent regiment, the one he commanded during the campaign against Wuhan. On July 30, 1927, Yeh and Ho Lung, commander of the Twentieth Army, staged an anti-Wuhan coup in Nan-ch'ang. Following its suppression a few days later he and Ho marched to Swatow, Kwangtung. He was in Canton at the time of the Canton Commune later in the year. Following its failure he left China and the Communist Party. He returned to China from Germany after the Mukden Incident, 1931. In 1938 Chiang Kai-shek gave him command of the New Fourth Army which operated with success against the Japanese in the lower Yangtze valley. But in January, 1941, after a battle between part of the New Fourth Army and Central Government troops, Yeh's army was disbanded and Yeh himself taken prisoner. Asiaticus, , “Autobiography of Yeh Ting,” Amerasia, 5 (March, 1941), 24–29Google Scholar; Who's who in China, supplement to the 5th edition, p. 67; Snow, Edgar, The battle for Asia (New York: Random House, 1941), pp. 134–35Google Scholar; Gunther, John, Inside Asia (1942 war edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942), p. 243.Google Scholar
24 One of the names of Chao Yün 
(d. 229 A.D.), famous hero of the Three Kingdoms period and champion of Liu Pei.
25 Now President of the Chinese Republic, commonly known as “the Generalissimo.” For full biographies see, among others, Tong, op. cit., Berkhov, op. cit., and Linebarger, , The China of Chiang K'ai-shek (Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1941), pp. 254–72.Google Scholar
26 An alias of Vasili Konstantinovich Blücher (itself an assumed name, his real name being unknown), famous Russian general. Born in 1889, he participated in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 in Russia. After the Russian Revolution he fought in the wars against the anti-soviet forces in the Far East. As commander of Russian forces in the Far East, he had a part in ousting the Japanese from Vladivostok in 1922. From 1924 to 1927 he served as chief Russian military adviser to the Chinese revolutionary movement. In this position he is credited with having a large part in the organization of the famous Whampoa Military Academy, of which Chiang Kai-shek was president, and with being in some measure responsible for the remarkable military successes of the Northern Expedition. Following Chiang's split with the communists he returned to Moscow in 1927. In 1929 he was given the eastern Siberian command. In 1938, subsequent to a visit to Khabarovsk by Soviet War Minister Voroshilov, he was dismissed from this position and mysteriously disappeared. Webster's biographical dictionary (First edition, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1943), p. 161; Gunther, , op. cit., pp. 160–61.Google Scholar For an interesting photograph of Galens together with Chiang Kai-shek and Borodin, see Berkov, , op. cit., opposite p. 50.Google Scholar
27 Chang Fei (d. 220 A.D.) was another famous hero of the Three Kingdoms period and supporter of Liu Pei. Among his many reputed exploits was an occasion when he took a stand on a bridge and alone defied an entire enemy army.
28 A strong liquor, white in color, made from kaoliang, wheat, or rice.
29 Scientific name: citrus medica, subspecies limonum.
30 Scientific name: citrus medica, var. sarcodactylus. The fruit is fragrant and yellow with wrinkled skin, shaped like a man's hand.
31 Evidently a misprint for Li Te-mu.
32 Sergeius Aleksandrovich Esenin (1895–1925), famous Russian poet and known as “poet laureate of the Revolution.” He called himself the “last peasant poet” and deplored the invasion of the land by the town. He married Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, and, after a divorce, a grand-daughter of Count Leo Tolstoy. Becoming insane, he committed suicide December 28, 1925. Encyclopedia Britannica (1941 edition), vol. 8, p. 706; Webster's biographical dictionary, p. 489.
33 Literally, “Lone Army Group.” The phrase seems intended to convey the idea of self-reliance and independence. Yang Yu-chiung 
Chung-kuo chevg-tang shih 
[History of Chinese political parties] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1937), p. 224 lists a Shanghai periodical published under the title ku-chün by T'ai Tung Shu-chü. This may possibly have been the organ of this group.
34 A native of Szechwan, Tseng Ch'i graduated from Central University in Japan. In 1923, while studying in France, he founded the rightist China Youth Party (also known as La Jeunesse) among Chinese students there and published its organ, the Hsicn-sheng chou-pao 
On his return to China in 1924 he became a professor at Ta Hsia University in Shanghai and published the periodical Hsing shih, referred to below in the text. In 1927 the headquarters of his party at Southeast University in Nanking was suppressed by the government, and he was imprisoned. In the following year, with the connivance of Wu P'ei-fu, he made good his escape to Manchuria, where he persuaded Chang Hsüeh-liang to allow him to re-found his party. In 1935 he joined the popular front movement, later becoming a member of the People's Political Council. Tokio, Hashigawa
Chükoku bunka-kai jimbutsu sōkan 
(Peking: Chung-hua Fa-ling Pien-yin-kuan, 1940), pp. 580–81Google Scholar; Linebarger, , op. cit., p. 181Google Scholar; Shen, James, “Minority parties in China,” Asia, 40 (February, 1940), 139.Google Scholar
35 A reference to Dr. Fong Foo Sec (Mandarin romanization: K'uang Fu-shao). Born in 1869, a native of T'ai-shan, Kwangtung, Fong came to America at the age of 12 as a railway laborer. He studied at Pomona College, University of California, and Columbia University. On his return to China in 1906 he became professor of English at Canton College of Foreign Languages and later dean of studies of a school in Shanghai. From 1908 to 1929 he was English editor of the Commercial Press. He died in 1938. Well known for his educational and philanthropical activities, he was also the author of many English language texts. China year book 1938, p. 164 and Min-kue ming-jen t'u-chien, vol. 1, p. 2–66.