Carl Crow - A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai

12. Fear in Shanghai, the Generalissimo and Three Stripes on the Arm

12 Fear in Shanghai,the Generalissimo and Three Stripes on the Arm 1I矽/ Chiang Kai-shek, Heading North and Confusion in Shanghai Through chance and his work for the China Press, Crow had grown to know Sun Yat-sen on a personallevel, and he also followed the eventful rise of Chiang Kai-shek, though from more of a distance. Even after Chiang secured control of the KMT, Crow still saw him as essentially an outsider in Chinese political circles,“a southem rice eater,"1 as opposed to the apparent1y stronger northem noodle eaters who dominated Nationalist China's politics and warlord circles. Sun had also been a southemer but a more overt revolutionary than the Generalissimo (the title he was officially granted in 1932), which endeared him more to the northem political elite. Chiang rose to prominence in China through his involvement in Nationalist politics as a result of his time as a student and his study of the 1905 RussoJapanese War. The defeat of Russia, a great European imperialist power whose 162 CARL CROW - A TOUGH OLD CHINA HAND empire stretched from the Baltic to V1adivostok, had had a profound effect on many Chinese intellectua1s who saw the possibilities for Asian countries emerging from seclusion to stand up to the seeming1y invincib1e Europeans. However, the progress Japan had made from iso1ated nation to strong mi1itary power under the Meiji reign a1so highlighted the continuing backwardness and weakness of China in comparison. It a1so didn't escape the notice of men like Chiang that the Russo-Japanese War had actually been fought 1arge1y on Chinese soil. At the time the strength of Japan seemed revo1utionary, but many did not know the ro1e ofAmerica in the war and President Theodore Roosevelt's efforts (for which he received the Nobe1 Peace Prize) in convening the Portsmouth Peace Conference in 1905 to prevent the defeat of Japan in an attempt to limit Russian eXpanSlOll1Sm. What the Russo-Japanese War did do in China was 1ead a generation of intellectua1s, including Chiang, to decide on military careers rather than the more traditiona1 path of intellectua1 pursu恥 Chia時 had rejected his fami1y's ancestra1 occupations of farming or small business, cut off his queue and 甘ied to emo1 in a Japanese military school. He wasn't accepted, being to1d that he needed some training in China first before the Japanese wou1d take him. Consequently he ended up moving north and emolling in China's Nationa1 Military Academy in Baoding, south of Beijing. In a twist of fate, it was the Qing govemment which provided him with the opportunity to go to Japan to study the military tactics he wou1d eventually use to he1p overthrow it and conso1idate a Repub1ic. Chiang made it to the Tokyo Military Staff College in 1907 and spent time stationed in the freezing port town of Takada where he met Sun. Crow likened Chiang's 1ater defence of the Qing against Japanese invasion to George Washington's support for the British Red Coats against the French. Patriotism made strange bedfellows and 1ed to temporary truces in the name of saving China.2 In many ways Sun and Chiang were strange bedfellows too. The “... quiet, persistent and persuasive revo1utionist，"的 Crow called Sun,3 was 20 years older than Chiang at the time oftheir first meeting but had an irmnediate and profound effect on the younger man, appealing to his fierce sense of patriotism. Sun convinced Chiang that China cou1d best resist foreign encroachment and engender nationa1 recovery by removing the Qing rather than s FEAR IN SHANGHAI , THE GENERALISSIMO AND THREE STRIPES 163 publishing and joumalism for a time after 1911, publishing a magazine on military science. He 100ked quite dapper in photographs of the time in a Westem three-piece suit, tie and cane. He was just 25 years old and continued to drift about in a somewhat restless way, considered attending a German military academy, and then became a stockbroker in Shanghai for a time. Though still fierce1y patriotic, Chiang a1so needed to be financially independent. Thus began his 10ng-term links with many of Shanghai's wealthier Chinese business community and their tips 1ed him to quick1y amass a decent sum of money to fund his other activities. As chaos wo叮ied many wealthy Shanghainese families, they increasing1y invested in overseas Chinese ventures such as Ma1ayan and East Indies rubber p1antations as well as in the London...