The Blip Report for Tuesday, April 23rd 2024
Taiwan and the opium war - part 13
Part 13 - what is under heaven, is for all
By September 1924, after narrowly avoiding a threatened British naval attack during the strike of the Merchants Corps, Dr. Sun had decided that the long-delayed Northern Expedition against the warlords in Beijing, must be started immediately.
In a letter to Chiang, Dr. Sun stated his reason that:
“During this strike, if we had delayed a day longer a conflict would surely have emerged, and the objectives of the English gunboats would have been my headquarters, the gunboat Yung Feng, and Whampoa - which could have been pulverized in a few minutes. We absolutely do not have the power to resist them … we cannot continue to stay in this place another moment; therefore it is best to relinquish it quickly, leave completely, and plan a different road to life. The very best road to life now is through a Northern Expedition.” [Sun Yat-sen, by Martin Wilbur, pg. 254-5]
Chiang’s response to Dr. Sun’s northern expedition would be ‘to petition to resign his position as commandant of the military academy’. [ibid. pg. 256]
Note: The late author, Lee Ao, whose books were banned in Taiwan [!!!], showed of the 14 times, from July 31st 1918 to February 21st 1924, that:
“Chiang Kai-shek had either quit the jobs, or deserted the posts, or resigned his work, with the first occurrence being the 7/31/1918 quitting the ‘tactician’ job under Chen Jiongming [after four months' service] and the last occurrence being the 2/21/1924 quitting the Whampoa academy preparatory committee due to Sun Yat-sen's plan in assigning the ‘principal’ job onto Xu Chongzhi.”
[Could this be called number 15, perhaps?]
Meanwhile, during the current war between the Zhili warlord clique (backed by Britain and America) and the Fengtian warlord clique (backed by Japan), a Zhili general, Feng Yu-hsiang, switched sides, and carried out a successful coup to capture the capital, Beijing. Feng arrested Cao Kun, the president, kicked the emperor PuYi out of the forbidden city, dissolved the National Assembly, set up an interim administration, and invited Dr. Sun to come to Beijing to help with national reunification and to meet with him and with Chang Tso-lin (Fengtian clique warlord), and Tuan Chi-jui (Anhui clique warlord) - the new interim chief executive.
Note: When Feng died in 1948, Mao would classify Feng as a ‘good warlord’, and allowed Feng to be buried at Mount Tai, Shandong.
Now, Dr. Sun’s ‘Northern Expedition’ was stopped, and his ‘Northern Trip’ was begun. Dr. Sun proposed the convening of a newly elected National Assembly and the ending of all the un-equal treaties.
Before he left Guangdong, he appointed Hu Han-min as Acting Grand Marshall of the Revolutionary Government, Tan Yen-kai in charge of the Northern Expedition, and Hsu Chung-chih as head of the Military Affairs, with (lowly) Chiang as his secretary.
Dr. Sun did not meet with any of the the British or Americans, but instead he sailed to Kobe, Japan for six days of meetings – to try to convince Japan of the correct policy of abolishing the un-equal treaties, and of helping China to gain its independence.
Dr. Sun would say to Japan that:
“Now, the question remains whether Japan will be the hawk of the Western civilization … or the tower of strength of the Orient.” [Soong Dynasty, by Sterling Seagrave, pg. 199]
One could perhaps ask Japan the same question again today – 100 years later!!!.
The other foreign powers were demanding the recognition of the un-equal treaties as the price to pay for international recognition of a new government, and also demanding they take a stand against Dr. Sun’s ‘pro-Bolshevik’ activities.
But upon arriving back in China from Kobe, the 58-year-old Dr. Sun fell very ill but never recovered, dying on March 12th 1925. As he had wanted, he would be buried in Nanjing, near the tomb of the first Ming Emperor, at Zijin Shan [Purple Mountain], with Dr. Sun’s motto – ‘What is under heaven is for all.’
Dr. Sun had been the one person could command the respect of the various political personalities and factions within the Kuomintang party and the Guangdong revolutionary government, and also within the various warlord military personalities and factions - as he attempted to point them in the right direction. With his death and the loss of his genius, the intricate balancing-act might again rest upon military power.
At Guangdong, that rested on the military forces under Hsu Chung-chih, Tan Yen-kai, Chu Pei-te and the small force from the Whampoa Academy, that was loyal to Commandant Chiang Kai-shek.
Without Dr. Sun’s leadership, the interim government in Beijing under Tuan, would bow down to the foreign powers and agree to honor the old un-equal treaties. And in obedience to the foreign powers, a purge would soon be launched against the small group of communists in the Kuomintang, who had committed no crime, except perhaps the crime of being in the way?
And what would become of Dr. Sun’s brilliant ‘United Front’ strategy to defeat colonialism?
Note: I find it very curious and intriguing to look at China’s Belt and Road Initiative of today as a new ‘United Front’ strategy to defeat the continuing colonialism of the North Atlantean opium-war banksters.
[end of part 1]