Blue Sky, White Sun, And A Wholly Red Fort: Asia's Liberation Wars [EoD/Customized]

[AvatarOfKhaine]

I didn't say Bose was going to magically fix everything...
I was simply disturbed by the fervent claim of Ethnic Cleansing when he clearly didn't know the complex set of actors that contributed to the Partition of India -- Jinnai, Nehru, Mountebatten, Cyril Radcliffe's idiotic map drawing spree. I don't want to blame Mountebatten since he was the wrong man for the job in the first place and he was under a lot of political pressure from everyone involved, but he screwed the partition up royally.

The Princely States? No idea. Feel free to give pointers.

Also: I appreciate speaking on civil terms again. It's obvious that I hate the British Empire but I don't blame the fault of governments on the people; so it'd be nice if you don't simply presume I'm out to antagonize every Briton.

@Rifal:
Sorry, my fatigue last night made me trigger which is my wrong. And please avoid such blatant accusations in the future unless you can back it up well.

I wasn't trying to say he would, just curious if Gandhi made a difference one way that Bose would have done it another way.

 

[GulMacet]

Wow, I missed quite a bit!

Well, from what (little) I've read, many Chinese writers and artists during the revolutionary period were leftist to begin with.

Yes and no. They were leftist on social and cultural issues, but not necessarily on political issues. They wanted women's rights, alphabetization, industrialization, adjustment of official language & vocabulary to match the vernacular, and so forth. They were not very particular about the structure or name of the government that would bring about those changes. Quite a lot of them backed the Republic at first, but then the Warlord Era rolled around, and when Chiang seemed like a glimmer of hope, they quickly discovered that he valued personal loyalty over competence and honesty, and he was very quick to interpret even the gentlest of constructive criticism as a personal insult & treason, so they switched their support to the Communists, who were - at the time, I have to stress! - not looking for an assembly of spineless yes-men.

 

[zanaikin]

I wasn't trying to say he would, just curious if Gandhi made a difference one way that Bose would have done it another way.

I could dump entire pages on this topic, but personally my belief is that Gandhi, while still a spiritual leader, wasn't quite the political center anymore by that stage (the man is 77 by the time of partition). Gandhi's ideology is very good at inspiring people... not the best at getting jobs done since it emphasis restraint and moderation... say any more and my Indian friends might start throwing stones at me xD
I'll save the rest for when the topic does finally begin.

Wow, I missed quite a bit!

Yes and no. They were leftist on social and cultural issues, but not necessarily on political issues. They wanted women's rights, alphabetization, industrialization, adjustment of official language & vocabulary to match the vernacular, and so forth. They were not very particular about the structure or name of the government that would bring about those changes. Quite a lot of them backed the Republic at first, but then the Warlord Era rolled around, and when Chiang seemed like a glimmer of hope, they quickly discovered that he valued personal loyalty over competence and honesty, and he was very quick to interpret even the gentlest of constructive criticism as a personal insult & treason, so they switched their support to the Communists, who were - at the time, I have to stress! - not looking for an assembly of spineless yes-men.

lol Welcome back. Thing did get a bit explosive.

The one thing that's obvious to me is Chiang is too old fashioned. His personal sense of ethics feels like something that came straight out of the Han dynasty (even the Tang/Song could give him lessons on being more cosmopolitan xD). I would say though that he does value competence -- how he chooses his favorite pupils show this (as they're all competent in their own way). But he loves personal loyalty, which makes sense considering he himself is extremely dedicated to Sun Yat-sen -- that episode where Chiang rushed back from mourning his mother's death to guard the coup-deposed and powerless Sun personally for two months was just touching.

Part of the issue is that Chiang never truly solidified his control over the KMT government, and the consistently lingering insecurity forced him to rely on leaders that he could either browbeat or bribe -- whom are obviously not reliable. Meanwhile, most of the strongly-principled old KMT cadres (many of the best administrators and pre-Whampoa generals) were on Li Zongren's side ^^'

(In hindsight, I really should have spent more time writing about just how VITAL to this whole premise it was to align Li Zongren with Chiang.)

I'm curious: I've read that KMT scholars also wanted to simplify the Chinese language and did experiment with it, yet... they never did it (as Taiwan's use of traditional chinese shows). I never figured out the exact details behind that though. Because that would have been a nice megaproject event.

Communists, who were - at the time, I have to stress! - not looking for an assembly of spineless yes-men.

At least, until Ya'an, where Mao started centralizing power and purging/marginalizing his enemies.

 

[zanaikin]

Chapter 22 - Vanguards of the Revolution
"Give me BLOOD, and I will give you FREEDOM!"
- Subhas Chandra Bose​

Chiang Kai-shek had sent Guo Taiqi -- through Russia's trans-siberian railroad -- to officially sign the Sino-German Alliance. Guo, a conservative republican and old KMT cadre, found the job of meeting Hitler rather distasteful. Nonetheless, he agreed that Germany's war against the British Empire made them natural allies to China, and thus donned his tough negotiator hat as duty demanded.

("Paternal Autocrat" and "Facist" are apparently the 'same government type': I was receiving the cheaper deals bonus.)​

Under the terms of the alliance, Germany was to provide China with all the technologies the Republic could utilize to oppose the British Empire in the far east. German prototypes, blueprints, and technical documents soon began making their way to China through various channels. The train to Vladivostok was good for most instances. Though when that wasn't an option, the Abwehr could always make excellent use of Germany's friendship with Iran and Afghanistan.

Hitler even helped to negotiate an end to the Italian concessions in Tianjin and Shanghai.

As the sun rose on June 4th, Chinese troops began seizing British and French enclaves all across China. Chiang Kai-shek had declared a unilateral termination to all Unequal Treaties, and Chinese troops began their march on the leased territories of Guangzhouwan (Zhanjiang), Shamian Island (Guangzhou), Liugong Island (Weihai), Hong Kong, as well as the various foreign concession areas in Beiping, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankuo, and Kunming.

(Custom event! Wartime IC now up to 100%)​

In Shanghai, the most troublesome part was dealt with as the British, French, and American policing detachments acquiesced without a shot fired (as historically). The British Sikh soldiers were disarmed and sent to Bose's recruiters. The Americans were left alone. The Nanjing Government recognized American business interests in Shanghai and respected their 'special priviledges', but declare that the "Shanghai International Settlement" has henceforth ceased to exist. Its gates and walls were torn down as Chinese police officers assumed control of the entire city. Patrols into the former international zone were however not allowed to carry guns -- if an incident were to happen, the Americans would have to shoot first.

Chiang had plenty of experience in this method, having used it to drive the British out of Hankuo, Jiujiang, and Xiamen in 1927-30. Without the backing of the other western powers, there was little the Americans could do to hold back the Chinese short of machine gunning people.

Although there was no open violence in Shanghai, the incident would mark a noticeable deterioration of Sino-American relations. Faced with a fait accompli and congressional pressure to stay out of "Asia's War of Independence", President Roosevelt authorized the recall of American presence weeks later.


-----


Most remaining concessions would see their tiny British and French garrisons capitulate swiftly. Only the port of Hong Kong -- with its garrison of three full British divisions -- held on stubornly. Churchill ordered that "every part of island must be fought over and the enemy resisted with the utmost stubbornness", leading to extensive loss of Chinese civilian life as they had nowhere to evacuate to. The NRA 4th Route Army had no choice but to assault the city. The ROCN's 30 destroyers and 2 light cruisers sallied from their fleet base at Haikou to provide fire support, but their low caliber guns proved largely ineffective at shore bombardment.

(Azad Hind Propaganda is a custom event that gives 10% dissent and -5% land morale.)​

Meanwhile, all across the 6,000 kilometer Sino-Raj border, over 80 Chinese divisions began their attack. Spearheading the assault in key sectors were detachments from Bose's Bahadur Group, infiltrating the British Indian Army lines and convincing units of Indians to defect.

The garrison at Gangtok (Nathu La Pass) was the first to fall after 8 hours. The elite NRA 200th division raced past using the few dirt roads available to them, followed by an seemingly endless stream of horses and men as 12 cavalry divisions marched through back-to-back-to-back. General Du Yuming would lead the dash to the Ganges River, with General Ma Hongkui's Muslim Cavalry Corps trailing behind in force.

In the west, two Indian divisions at Simla bravely withstood the assault of 17 NRA/INA divisions for 28 hours before capitulating. General Xue Yue's cavalry swept past towards due west while the southwestern roads were left open to Bose's INA 1st division. They would be supported by 3 NRA mountain divisions and 6 infantry divisions. However Chiang had left another directive -- the Indian National Army must have the honors of entering Delhi first and seizing the Red Fort, the symbol of British Imperialism in India.

"India is calling to blood! We shall carve our way through the enemy's ranks, or if God wills, we shall die a martyr's death! And in our last sleep we shall kiss the road that will bring our Army to Delhi! The road to Delhi is the road to Freedom! Dilli Chalo (On to Delhi)!"
- Subhas Chandra Bose

(The marching song of the INA, which today is the marching song of the Indian Army.)​

All along the road the Chinese could hear the singing of their Indian brothers -- whether it be their core infantry battalions or various detachments. Their vanguard carried not only the Azad Hind banner but even photos of Bose himself. Their leader would watch them in spirit as free Indians returned to the land of Gandhi and knelt down in prayer to their motherland.

Reports of Chinese victories soon radioed in all across the 6,000 kilometer front line. Chinese troops pushed forward with overwhelming numerical and equipment superiority. Yet despite all odds, many British Indian troops remained loyal to their oath and fought back valiantly -- especially at Mipi, where two under-equipped BIA divisions used the mountainous jungles to spring a bloody ambush.

Hong Kong fell in 5 days. Governor Mark Aitchison Young dutifully held on for as long as he could. 26,000 British troops were taken into captivity. Like most UK garrisons in East Asia, the majority were Sikhs whom the NRA handed over to Bose. The actually-British POWs were sent to Nanjing and paraded through the streets -- a display of how the government had washed away China's shame from the Treaty of Nanking.

In Srinagar, 23,000 troops of the Jammu and Kashmir Princely State surrendered. Many of the semi-autonomous states under the Raj had no intention of fighting for the Empire's glory. They put up only token resistance to uphold their honor, before abandoning the British cause. (Princely States forces have locked units which can't retreat.)

As the flag of the Azad Hind rose in each newly taken Indian town, Bose would immediately begin speaking to the newest citizens of his provisional government. His sheer charisma entranced Indians by the thousands. His words and deed saw no difference in ethnicity, religion, or caste. In his clear and honest gaze, all Indians stood as equals in the quest for not just India's independence, but India's rebirth and salvation.

(The Swaraj Flag, first adopted by the Indian National Congress in 1921)​

By the end of the first week, General Xue Yue reported that Bose's Indian National Army was inflating day by day, as they marched through Himachal Pradesh and towards Delhi. NRA officers sent to investigate discovered that civilians -- farmers, traders, shopkeepers, people of all backgrounds with zero military training -- were swelling its ranks. Many of them marched into battle with but a sidearm spared from another soldier or a captured Lee–Enfield rifle.

(Soldier from the Rani of Jhansi female regiment, fighting on the front with but a pistol.)​

"...I do not doubt the INA's bravery," Xue wrote. "But their few months of training is noticeably incomplete. Too often they charged straight into prepared enemy positions while screaming 'Jal Hind'. Their lack of coordination undermines our own Sturmtruppen assault companies. Bose has a soldierly spirit but he has no military experience. Yet he insists upon sending the INA to where the fighting rage fiercest..."

Chiang frowned. It has only been a few years since the NRA fought that way, yet the proud Xue Yue -- the 'War God' of the KMT officer corps who never liked inferior tacticians getting in his way -- seems to have forgotten.

Besides, green and enthusiastic were better than unreliable. The British 'GHQ India' was certainly a professional force, yet during the Burma Campaign (1942) in his other life, they withdrew from the Chinese right flank without even a word of warning. It forced the Chinese 'X Force' into a hasty retreat to avoid Japanese envelopment, losing their entire rear guard in the process.

Compared to such treachery, Chiang would gladly have an ally like Bose any day.

"Let Bose spearhead the advance as he wishes and give him support," Chiang messaged back. "The man is a true patriot. You would desire no different if you were fighting for China's independence."


...


Unknown to either of them at the time, Subhas Chandra Bose had just found more experienced military commanders from among the captured Indian POWs to lead the INA. Unlike the British Indian Army which segregated its units by ethnicity, religion, and region, the INA mixed everyone (except women) together to fight side-by-side. Bose would entrust the army's field leadership to a Muslim (Shah Nawaz Khan), an Atheist (Prem Sahgal), and a Sikh (Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon). Their culture and religion didn't matter; they were Indians, and that was good enough.

"It would not be wrong to say that I was hypnotized by his personality and his speeches.
He placed the true picture of India before us and for the first time in my life I saw India, through the eyes of an Indian."
- General Shah Nawaz Khan, new CO of INA 1st division​

-----


With the Chinese entry into what is now a true World War, Chiang Kai-shek and the ROC Legislative Yuan had a make an important decision. Over the past four years, Chinese economic growth had only been made possible by heavy German investment and the export of raw materials to Germany. However, since the beginning of the war in Europe and the British blockade, Chinese economic growth was forced to slow down as this supply of funds dried up. Now, with the 3 million strong National Revolutionary Army on the move and consuming ammunition/food at a staggering pace, the Nanjing Government had to find... new means of funding such massive expenditures.

Thankfully, China had built up a sizable foreign currency reserve during the interwar years of 1936-1939. There was enough to last the Chinese government for at least a decade of fighting. However, the Legislative Yuan had other ideas.

Why simply delay a disease when it could be cured?

The Nanjing Government's budgetary imbalance needed a true fix: one that was only possible through economic reform.

Chiang Kai-shek was wary at first. But as Li Zongren and even Chiang Ching-kuo pushed for the proposal, he hesistantly approved the plan.

(Custom event! This is the most detrimental event and is often pointed by historians as a core cause of KMT's downfall. The event triggers once per year while China is at war with any major power [or a post-WW2 CPC]. It forces China to either buy a year's time with money, or watch their industrial efficiency bleed away year after year, until they reform the economy which requires the end of Extraterritoriality. This event was designed too late for the Sino-Japanese War; as such, $1000 was removed from China to retconn its effects, leaving China with $3195.)​

With the Chinese concessions to foreign powers recovered and full Chinese control reasserted over the economy, Chiang Kai-shek signed the proposal for the Finance Ministry to begin rolling out new monetary and taxation reforms. The KMT government announced a new edict, demanding all citizens to turn in their old Fabi yuan currency in exchange for the new, more stringently-controlled Gold yuan. Hording of currency and supplies became prohibited, as the government required all major properties to be declared. The Shanghai 'Special Control Zone' -- including the capital of Nanjing and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui -- was chosen for the 'test' of economic reforms.

Chiang Kai-shek placed his son Chiang Ching-kuo in charge, with the goal of killing two birds with one stone. Ching-kuo, who did not trust any local administrators due to potential corruption, called in his personal army for the task.

The residents of Shanghai watched in anxious curiosity as the 6th Suppression and Control Brigade of paramilitary Sanmin Zhuyi Youth Corps (reorganized as the NRA 'Shanghai Defense A' force) marched into the city. The very atmosphere sparked with tension as another war, a different kind of war, was about to begin.

( Next Chapter - The Old Alliances Fracture )​

Notes:
1. There are historical footage of Bose's men carrying his photo-altar into battle. Asians' obsession with their leaders' photographs are routinely mistaken for cults of personality. But it's more often an effect of how Dharmic/Eastern religions view human spirituality.
2. British India GHQ blamed 'communication breakdown' for their sudden retreat in the Burma Campaign (1942). However Chiang never bought it, and KMT officers would bitterly remember that "the British used us as their sacrificial lambs."
3. Bose's patriotism and charisma impressed even the Japanese high command during our timeline, who called him a "true Samurai" and gave him a degree of autonomy that no other Axis 'puppet' government had.

 

[germandjinn]

I guess we should be calling Chiang's son the red general now

 

[Sir Dippingsauce]

As you can see, the KMT have gone off to a great start, overrunning the enemy's defences in India, and the end of the unequal treaties, but will they help Germany when they invade the Soviet Union? Will the US come to the aid of Britain?
Find out next time on
Blue Sky, White Sun, And A Wholly Red Fort: Asia's Liberation Wars [EoD/Customized]

 

[Colt556]

They have to help Germany because of the way the alliance system works in Hearts of Iron 2/Darkest Hour. Unless zanaikin writes a "bail out" event for China.

 

[Sir Dippingsauce]

They have to help Germany because of the way the alliance system works in Hearts of Iron 2/Darkest Hour. Unless zanaikin writes a "bail out" event for China.

Hoo boy, this'll be fun

 

[Thegreatgeneral]

They have to help Germany because of the way the alliance system works in Hearts of Iron 2/Darkest Hour. Unless zanaikin writes a "bail out" event for China.

I found a bug of states going to war by event while they have a NAP. They can't invade each other nor attack

 

[Aniknk]

Something extraordinary we have here. Awesome AAR!

 

[Rifal]

That Indian marching song is ridiculously catchy

 

[zanaikin]

I guess we should be calling Chiang's son the red general now

Though if I decide to rob Churchill of his spot in 1941, Bose is getting it =P

As you can see, the KMT have gone off to a great start, overrunning the enemy's defences in India, and the end of the unequal treaties, but will they help Germany when they invade the Soviet Union? Will the US come to the aid of Britain?
Find out next time on
Blue Sky, White Sun, And A Wholly Red Fort: Asia's Liberation Wars [EoD/Customized]

Bit bombastic with the fontsize =P

I don't think ROC's participation in Barbarossa has ever been in doubt, given that I spoke about it in the opening post, then built up the various border conflict incidents. There's also the ROC goal of reclaiming Mongolia and Tannu Uriankhai (Tuva), plus...
I'll leave some of the least known reasons for later.

Something extraordinary we have here. Awesome AAR!

Welcome! ^^

That Indian marching song is ridiculously catchy

Yeah I love it myself~
Its lyrics also send chills~

 

[zanaikin]

Chapter 23 - The Old Alliances Fracture
"We write our own destiny; we become what we do."
- Soong Mei-ling, Madame Chiang Kai-shek​

(After 3 inexplicable days of waiting, the Wehrmacht launched its final assault on Calais on June 12th)​

On June 14th, 1940, the Wehrmacht reports having scored a phenomenal victory on the European front. After a successful dash to the channel by General Guderian's XIX Corps, Germany drove the British Expeditionary Force and the French 1st Army all the way back to the port of Calais. There, hounded by Luftwaffe bombers and squeezed by the Wehrmacht, the British and French morale collapsed as their pocket was slowly crushed.

The Germans took over 180,000 British and 250,000 French prisoners of war.

On that same day, the French -- after seeing northern France overran and their Maginot Line flanked -- approached the Germans for an armistice. The French leadership already realized that there was no longer any point to continuing to the war.

Political debates raged across the British Parliament as opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Churchill of not doing enough to save the British Expeditionary Force. "Where was the Royal Navy!?" Labor Party leader Clement Attlee demanded in a furious speech, "our brave troops stood there, waiting on the piers of Calais for days while bombs and shells rained upon them! Yet only a handful of destroyers and flotillas of small boats arrived to take the few to safety! Were our ships off chasing yet another adventure as senseless as Gallipoli!?"

The Royal Navy, as it turned out, had been distracted by two other endeavors:

In the south, German intelligence reports that large qualities of British shipping had been devoted to ferrying reinforcements to both Egypt and to India. These troop convoys -- passing through the Meditereanean Sea where Italy could join the war on Germany's side at any moment -- had to be heavily escorted.

In the north, the Royal Navy Home Fleet had dispatched many of its ships to Norway under strict radio silence. On June 16th, the aircraft carrier battlegroups of HMS Courageous and HMS Furious sprang their ambush from the Norwegian fjords, scoring a perfect victory where they sank the new German battleship Tirpitz and carrier Graf Zeppelin without losing a single sailor. For this complete and total disaster, Hitler fired Grand Admiral Raeder from the position of commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine. His replacement was the commander of U-boats Karl Donitz.

However, the sinking of two German capital ships was poor consolation for the hundred thousand British POWs and their families.


-----


Guo Taiqi, ROC ambassador to Germany, symbolically attended the French surrender and armistice signing at Compiègne on July 17th. There, he spent most of his time sneering at the French delegation led by General Charles Huntziger. As a member of the Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1918, Guo still remembered those days when the Entente completely ignored the Chinese as if they were insects, while happily presenting cities in China as a gift to the Japanese.

Karma had ensured a perfect revenge... especially in Germany's case, as Hitler even prepared the exact same rail wagon on which the Germans once surrendered to the French in 1918. Then, before General Keitel could even read the preamble, Hitler walked out in disdain as if the French were not even worth his time.

It was the Treaty of Versailles that allowed China and Germany to become friends. Now, this new Sino-German alliance was on its way to destroying the British and French Empire. Though to Guo's surprise, Hitler wasn't terribly excited by this. The Führer seemed to actually prefer British domination overseas, and it took great effort for Guo to persuade Hitler that China's dismantling of British India would only help convince the belligerent Churchill to see reason and sue for peace.

Then, just as General Huntziger was about to sign the final document, the wagon's doors swung open and a young officer dashed in:

"Italy has declared war on France and Great Britain!"

Every occupant in the wagon stared back in awe. None of them even noticed as Huntziger finished his signature.

The Italians were forced to acknowledge that their declaration against France had been nullified on the same hour. The Duce had finished his war preparations all too late, and -- on Hitler's advice -- would have to settle for British Egypt as a consolation price.

Surely, the British would sue for peace soon?

Every German and French general seemed to believe it. The French didn't even object that their prisoners of war would remain in POW camps until the cession of all hostilities.

...However long that took.


-----


June 18th, 1940: The elite 200th NRA division (motorized) successfully descended from the Himalayan foothills and crossed the Ganges River. To secure his flank, General Du Yuming launched a lightning assault on Jamshedpur to disperse the Indian division assembling there. His troops also attempted a probing attack against the port of Calcutta (Bose's hometown), and discovered that three Australian divisions had just disembarked from ships there.

Following his orders, Du's troops resumed the drive to Bombay. Calcutta would be left for General Ma Hongkui's cavalry corps to deal with.

June 19th: NRA cavalry in western India breaks through the British defenses at Ludhiana, capturing another 8,000 prisoners as the Princely State of Patiala surrendered.

On the same day, NRA 2nd Route Army troops captured the Tashichho Dzong, the buddhist monastery and seat of power in Bhutan's capital Thimphu. Bhutan's Druk Desi (the "Dharma Raja"), Jigme, refused to switch sides with the situation in India in flux. However, he agreed to order a general surrender for all Bhutan forces as the tiny country came under Chinese occupation.

With the defeat of the Entente in the west, the 1939 UK/French guarantee of Romanian independence has lost its meaning. Stalin decides to flex his diplomatic muscles and force the Romanians to give up Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Seeing no choice in the matter, the Romanians capitulated.

Churchill, deciding that British guarantees were still worth something after Poland and Romania, offered support to Greece against the Italians' claims. He also recognizes the Polish government-in-exile, highlighting his determination to fight on regardless of the war's costs. The fact that the British Empire was now stretched thin by wars across three continents did not seem to matter to him.


...


June 22nd, 1940: Two Chinese transports were torpedoed between the mainland and Taiwan by British submarines. 2nd War Zone commander Li Zongren ordered the convoys' escorts significantly boosted, and for Admiral Chen Ce to begin sweeping the area with his destroyers.

In North Africa, the Italians finally push the British army back from the Egyptian border after five days of bitter fighting. The Battle of As Sollum saw Italy outnumber its foe by more than four-to-one, yet the Italians somehow ended up losing more equipment than the British...

ROC generals are puzzled by just now incompetent this European 'major power' could be.

-----


Meanwhile in Shanghai, Chiang Ching-kuo had taken his gloves off, revealing the deep, Trotskyite influence that he had suppressed for years.

To control the inevitable market instability brought by the new fiscal reforms, Ching-kuo strictly enforced the temporary government sanctions to ban all hording of currency, silver, gold, and daily commodities such as food. His paramilitary Youth Corps raided the warehouses of Shanghai's capitalists, arresting all violators from public officials to foreign merchants to the notorious Green Gang leaders (his father and Dai Li's old revolutionary allies). At first Ching-kuo targetted the entire market district, but the seizure of goods from small shops caused a public outcry that made him focus on the 'big fish' instead. Local commanders and administrators discovered of accepting bribes were given swift and merciless trials. Foreigners who refused to comply with government demands were exiled and their possessions confiscated.

The rich and powerful figures of Shanghai complained to the government, and China's wealthiest man -- Chiang's stepbrother H.H.Kung -- angrily phoned Chiang Kai-shek with blackmail in hand. Ching-kuo had raided his Shanghai warehouses and arrested his son, David Kung. Now, the elderly Kung demanded release or he'll expose all of Chiang's dirty secrets.

The Generalissimo's gaze narrowed. His headquarters was already on Indian soil, and he had a war to run. He could hardly fly back to Nanjing now. But just as he was about to make a decision, he received another phone call, this time from his wife.

(Chiang Kai-shek and the three Soong sisters: Ai-ling [Kung's wife] in middle, Ching-ling [Sun's widow] right, Mei-ling [Chiang's wife] left. The Soongs rose to the spotlight of Chinese politics due to the friendship between Charlie Soong and Sun Yat-sen.)​

Soong Mei-ling persuaded, pleaded, begged for him to intervene. Chiang's expression softened over time, his mind clouded with indecision.

In the end, he could only promise "let me think about it," as he hung up the phone.

Opening his diary, Chiang Kai-shek thought back to his past life, to his changes in the recent years. Everything had gone so much better this time. Would he risk it all now?

He read the passage he once wrote, when Stalin offered to trade Chiang Ching-kuo for a Communist general:

"I would rather have no offspring than sacrifice our nation's interests!"​

Did he lose his fervor and daring again, in the coming of old age? Would he make the same mistake as before, compromising his nation's interests for the sake of 'family' and old 'comrades'? Kung's blackmail was also dangerous. But this time, with the Communists crushed and most of his political opponents brought under control, Chiang could be sure that any damage would be limited.

Fifteen minutes later, Chiang telephoned Li Zongren, commanding officer of the 2nd (Coastal) War Zone, which included the garrison at Nanjing:

"Raid the foreign ministry," he ordered. "Arrest Kung and his followers. Let Ching-kuo's men clean up the aftermath."

His son would now have a free hand in what must be done.

(Custom event! Historically, Chiang made the other choice: see footnotes)​

Ching-kuo -- having learned from Stalin the meaning of political control -- did not hesitate to pass the death sentence on his cousin David Kung. The Chinese had a saying: 'kill one to warn a hundred'. If even the Generalissimo's nephew could face the firing squad, then whom would dare stand against the law now?

H.H.Kung did not escape the purge either. He was not only the Republic's wealthiest man. He was also the Republic's most corrupt man. Worse yet, he was now too dangerous, knew too much to be left alive. Perhaps Chiang Kai-shek might have kept him alive, as the Director-General did see Kung as family until now. But Ching-kuo? The son had always termed his uncles "Big Bourgeoisie" in a most disparaging manner and held no such sympathies.

The destruction of the Kungs would permanent render the Soong-Chiang-Kung extended family asunder:

• Chiang's wife, Soong Mei-ling, always had a rocky relationship with her step-son Chiang Ching-kuo. She sided with Soong Ai-ling and Kung, yet her words fell on her husband's deaf ears. The death of the Kungs led to a permanent rupture in their marriage. Before anyone could attain the authorization to stop her, the 'First Lady of the Republic' would set aboard the next ship to the United States with her sister, never to return.

• T.V.Soong, Chiang's other stepbrother and the only son of Charlie Soong, was heading the ROC embassy to the United States at the time of the incident. He defected to the Americans, giving them invaluable insider information on the structure of ROC politics. Worse yet, Soong had access to Kung's personal intelligence network, which both Dai Li and Ching-kuo now had their hands full in dismantling. An unusual alliance developed between the fascist BIS/Juntong and the socialist Youth Corps, as the two launched a series of White Terrors to cleanse the ROC government of Kung's faction.

(Custom event! T.V.Soong's defection gives the USA +0.5% IntelOp success chance.)​

• Only Soong Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen and a leader in the Kuomintang's left wing, sided rather awkwardly with the Chiangs. Having always held sympathy for the Communists, Ching-ling's relationship with Chiang Kai-shek had been rocky for years. She even left China for Moscow between 1927 and 1931. Ching-kuo's handling of the Kungs did not improve their relationship any, and its aftermath made Ching-ling swear off politics for life. She focused herself on her welfare activities within China instead, and many began to call her the true 'Lady of the Republic'.

(Final dissent from events: 9%)​

To keep the political turmoil from spinning out of control, Chiang ordered a tightening of laws across the Republic of China. As a result, what little Democratic progress had been achieved since the 6th National Congress of the Kuomintang (1939) had been undone. The Chinese media were strictly forbidden from discussing any leaked secrets about Chiang's past shady dealings. Instead, they were to portray the purging of the Kung-Soong faction as a major government anti-corruption drive (which was not untrue), allowing it to gain a degree of public acceptance unseen in any of Chiang's White Terrors before.

To appease the Legislative Yuan, Chiang Kai-shek promised that the new restrictions would only be temporary -- a necessity to maintain national solidarity as China faced off against the British Empire in this global war.

(The economic slider changes hurt the most.)​

Chiang's Internal Housekeeping Record:
- 1933: unreliable NRA officers purged.
- 1935: Wang Jingwei's faction purged/exiled.
- 1936-1939: Ching-kuo's steady cleaning of internal corruption.
- 1940: Kung-Soong faction purged.

( Next Chapter - The Partition of Indochina )​

1. Due to the alt-history nature of this AAR, I start the habit -- after German AI launched a '1938 Invasion of France' -- of running ahead by 2-3 months on max simulator speed to see if any anomalies appear in the German AI. During the run where ROC did not join the war, the British AI extracted their troops from France with ease.
2. I force-relocated multiple Australian divisions to Rangoon prior to war's start. Australia is safe with its bigger navy right now, and it made sense UK would want to beef up Raj's defense, but it seemed the AI would rather be in Calcutta.
3. Chiang's decision on the Shanghai Economic War was undoubtly one of his worst mistakes. Not only did he doom the ROC economy and ruin all of Ching-kuo's hard work at internal reform, but he flew down to Shanghai during the middle of a military conference to interfere, which demoralized his top commanders as it showed that "family was more important than nation" to their leader. This utter failure sealed the CPC victory in the Chinese Civil War.
4. For more on the Shanghai Economic War, see "The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan (2000)".

 

[germandjinn]

Somehow the government is RadSoc and PatAut at the same time. I guess that would be a good way to describe the ROC IOTL and ITTL.

 

[Sir Dippingsauce]

"Muh corruption"
H.H Kung, maybe

 

[zanaikin]

Added Dai Li to the list of ROC generals. This guy... is a rather unusual sociopath. They call him the 'Himmler of China'; though Himmler, like most sociopaths, loves the feeling of self-empowerment. Dai seems addicted to mindless devotion (and not to himself).

Somehow the government is RadSoc and PatAut at the same time. I guess that would be a good way to describe the ROC IOTL and ITTL.

Ching-kuo is often described as a socialist revolutionary AND a fascist autocrat AND a democratic reformer...
Maybe we should call him a Democratic National Socialist

"Muh corruption"
H.H Kung, maybe

I'm wondering what @GulMacet thinks of this, as he has read The Soong Dynasty and some other sources I probably hadn't touched.

The sheer amount of clashing information, disinformation, and propaganda in regards to corruption within the KMT is bit crazy.

 

[der Kriegsherr]

@germandjinn

Well...yeah. Chiang's ROC didn't become BFFs with NS Germany purely out of economics, ya know?

@zanaikin

Excellent update as always, my friend. How much effort are the British putting into defending the subcontinent? In my games, that's always been their major defensive axis in Asia. Not that I ever got that far in WIF/EOD, but nonetheless.

@Sir Dippingsauce

Yeah, the ROC really shot itself in the head with the factionalism, infighting, wanton brutality, and corruption, eh? Not to mention how they and Tokyo managed to bluster themselves into a war that neither was really ready for.

 

[GulMacet]

Okay, this is going to be a longer post, so please bear with me. Lecture Mode: ON!

I'm curious: I've read that KMT scholars also wanted to simplify the Chinese language and did experiment with it, yet... they never did it (as Taiwan's use of traditional chinese shows). I never figured out the exact details behind that though. Because that would have been a nice megaproject event.

Our topic for today: The most important event for Chinese culture during the Republican period that most people have never heard of - The May Fourth Movement!

In order to understand its necessity, we first have to look at the Chinese Imperial Examination system (科举，keju). In order to achieve any high-ranking official post, you would have to go through a series of exams - county level, provincial level and finally national level, giving you the coveted title of Advanced Scholar (進士，jinshi). The number of winners for each exam level was fixed, so even as candidate numbers increased over the centuries due to population growth, there was no 'oversupply' of officials. The ones who did not make the cut were still of a high social rank, even someone who failed the higher levels would easily find a job as assistant to an official or a rich merchant.

So far, so good. But what did the exam actually entail? You had to write an essay, about 500-600 characters, about a topic concerning Confucian morality. Ideally, you would sprinkle your work with lots of quotes and allusions to the Four Books and Five Classics to show off how cultured you are. Since the topic was Confucianism, you were not allowed to use events that happened after Confucius' time as example - or even use characters created after his time! Also, the exam was in Classical Chinese, which is a whole different language altogether. Like Classical Latin (nearly all surviving Latin texts stem from the social and political elite - only the graffity at Pompeii show the massive difference between educated written Latin and Vulgar Latin, the language actually spoken by the people), no one actually spoke Classical Chinese - it was a written language only, based on the grammar and vocabulary of Kongzi, Mengzi, Zhuangzi, Laozi; created for and by the literate elite. It skipped/ignored 20 centuries of language evolution and was DELIBERATELY unintelligible to the average Chinese, as a means for the elite to distinguish themselves from the masses.

Imagine if you wanted to become a civil servant in today's UK, you had to write an essay in the same Old English that Beowulf was originally written in. You would not be allowed to use any words added after Beowulf's time - so no Shakespeare, no Chaucer, no Wordsworth, no Byron, no Tennyson! Also, all government business, including public information and forms, would be in Old English. THAT is the level of disconnect between government and society China was suffering from in 1911.

What was the goal of the exams, then? The widespread impression seems to be 'recruiting the best and brightest'. This is incorrect - learning does not mean the same thing everywhere. In China, even today, learning - the meaning shaped by two millenia of Confucianism - means memorizing information without any reflection, whereas in Europe - the meaning shaped by the Enlightenment and the scientific method - learning means understanding the cause behind events. The importance of this difference cannot be overstated! When I was in China, a university student asked me the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. I replied that I did not know. He told me, then asked me how many ships participated in the battle. Again, I replied that I did not know, and continued to ask him the causes behind the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This time, he was stunned - not because he did not know the answer, but because the question hadn't even occured to him. For him, studying history meant memorizing what happened when, and certainly not asking any questions!

In short, the Imperial Examination system was not designed to select people according to competence, but according to Conformity, Orthodoxy & Elitism. For centuries, the literary and cultural life of China was built on those values. This is the cultural atmosphere at the beginning of the Republic, and this is where the May Fourth Movement comes in, spearheaded by one man I personally admire very much: Hu Shi. Here are his Eight Demands, shamelessly copied from Wikipedia:

1. Write with substance. By this, Hu meant that literature should contain real feeling and human thought. This was intended to be a contrast to the recent poetry with rhymes and phrases that Hu saw as being empty.
2. Do not imitate the ancients. Literature should not be written in the styles of long ago, but rather in the modern style of the present era.
3. Respect grammar. Hu did not elaborate at length on this point, merely stating that some recent forms of poetry had neglected proper grammar.
4. Reject melancholy. Recent young authors often chose grave pen names, and wrote on such topics as death. Hu rejected this way of thinking as being unproductive in solving modern problems.
5. Eliminate old clichés. The Chinese language has always had numerous four-character sayings and phrases used to describe events. Hu implored writers to use their own words in descriptions, and deplored those who did not.
6. Do not use allusions. By this, Hu was referring to the practice of comparing present events with historical events even when there is no meaningful analogy.
7. Do not use couplets or parallelism. Though these forms had been pursued by earlier writers, Hu believed that modern writers first needed to learn the basics of substance and quality, before returning to these matters of subtlety and delicacy.
8. Do not avoid popular expressions or popular forms of characters. This rule, perhaps the most well-known, ties in directly with Hu's belief that modern literature should be written in the vernacular, rather than in Classical Chinese. He believed that this practice had historical precedents, and led to greater understanding of important texts.

You can see that he wanted literature to be something understandable for all Chinese, something that brings joy to all instead of being a vehicle for a chosen few to show off how much better they are. Why did the government not jump on that, then? They wanted to, but with the corruption and infighting - both of the bureaucratic and the actual armed kind - cultural issues very quickly took a back seat. To answer your original question:

a) Almost all language reforms during the Republican period were carried out by private citizens such as Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Chen Duqiu (a Communist! - and a highly interesting person to boot) and Guo Moruo (this is by no means an exhaustive list, feel free to add your own research!).
b) Those reforms were aimed at breaking the stranglehold of the 2000-year old corpse of Classical Chinese on Chinese culture, and concerned themselves with vocabulary and grammar, not the characters themselves.
c) The character reform of the Communists was NOT due to those cultural reasons. It was of political nature. In Chinese history, all new dynasties compiled character dictionaries after their accession to power, to legitimize their rule and unite the country by uniting the script. In this, Mao was far more traditional than the KMT - the simplified characters take less strokes to write, yes, but the simplification does not follow any clear objective. It was based mostly on Maos personal preferences in his calligraphy. Making the written language follow him was a political move to legitimize his regime.

I'm wondering what @GulMacet thinks of this, as he has read The Soong Dynasty and some other sources I probably hadn't touched.

The book focuses on Song Ziwen, for reasons given in the title, so I am afraid I don't know all that much about Kong Xiangxi. From what I do know about him, the two of them were certainly fighting hard for the title of Most Corrupt Chinese Man - currency manipulation, embezzling, war profiteering, abuse of government offices, racketeering, fraud - you name it, they did it!

At least, until Ya'an, where Mao started centralizing power and purging/marginalizing his enemies.

Exactly. Here is another fun story about Mao (and Chiang too, to stay on topic at least slightly):
You probably have never heard of Anyuan (安源，literally Peaceful Spring). It used to be a small, sleepy village. It featured small-scale coal mining with primitive technical means for several centuries, until at the turn of the century, German surveyors and engineers came to town and determined that it was sitting on one of China's larger coal deposits. A foreign-built mine complex and railway access followed soon. The number of workers and miners grew quickly, and attracted the Communist Party's attention. They sent a European-educated intellectual, who had absolutely no success whatsoever, because between his Classical Chinese and the local population's Hunan dialect (if you look at the map, Anyuan is located in Jiangxi Province, but at its extreme west at the border with Hunan - culturally, it belongs to Hunan), he and the workers both literally and metaphorically had no common language!

So, the Communist Party sent Mao and Liu Shaoqi next. Mao was a great choice - as a Hunan native, he spoke the language and he was canny enough to adapt instead of preaching Karl Marx when the people he was talking to had no idea what Germany was, let alone Marx! He quickly realized that he had to dress Communism in terms familiar to the Chinese masses, so he presented the Communist Party as a semi-secret society (semi-secret meaning that their existence and their goals are public knowledge, but their members are not). Those societies have been around for centuries in Southern China, partly as legitimate business organizations, partly as crime syndicates, and partly as revolutionaries against the Qing, with the three blurring together. In fact, the predecessor of the KMT, the Tongmenghui, started out as one of those!

He also realized that the people had no way to relate to Communism whatsoever, so he presented Marx and Engels as "foreign sages", Teacher Ma (马老师) and Teacher En (嗯老师), giving spiritual support to their endeavour. You see, "Communism with Chinese Characteristics" is not a new thing! With those modifications, Union membership expanded rapidly and the people quickly took to the new teachings. Side note: The KMT mayor of the town was initially an enthusiastic supporter of the project, since Confucianism -> Education = Good, and the union was quick to present itself as an "Adult Education Society". In 1922, things came to a head when the union organized a strike to force negotiations with the company. Of course, the later propaganda presented Mao as the mastermind behind it all, but this is not true - he was caught by surprise just like the company and had to rush back from Shanghai, where he was attending to Party business. The strike was a complete success, the miners and railway workers had prepared well and could sit out a couple of weeks without wages, but the company could not stomach the loss of income. They caved in on all demands.

Soon, the Anyuan mines and railyards had the 8-hour workday, a pension fund, health insurance, mandatory employee safety training and equipment, cutting down fatalities due to mining accidents from about 20 per year to zero. And that in 1922! European workers could only dream of such rights! Anyuan quickly gained nationwide fame (or notoriety, depending on who you asked). Of course, it was not to last... in 1925, the union was forcibly disbanded by the authorities because the company bribed the right people. Chiang himself visited the town, held a KMT rally and gave a bombastic speech trying to win over the workers. He failed spectacularly, because of two main reasons:

a) He was from Zhejiang on the coast and had a thick Zhejiang accent. The locals found it very hard to understand what the hell he was going on about.
b) He tried to out-radical the Communists with his demands, calling for Nationalization of the mining and rail companies to remove Imperialist influence from China - I am not an economist, so I don't know if this makes economic sense or not, but I know that the workers didn't really care about whether their boss was employed by the state or a private company, they cared about their hard-won rights being taken away from them, and Chiang certainly failed to deliver - or even promise - on that front.

This story shows one of his principal flaws - complete and utter disconnect from the actual needs and worries of the people - very well. Because of Chiangs incompetence in handling the situation, Anyuan remained a Communist stronghold and many miners joined the Red Army when the Communist Party evacuated Jiangxi through Anyuan on the Long March. I think it is even conceivable that they would not have made it to Yan'an without this local support.

 

[zanaikin]

Excellent update as always, my friend. How much effort are the British putting into defending the subcontinent? In my games, that's always been their major defensive axis in Asia. Not that I ever got that far in WIF/EOD, but nonetheless.

Yeah, the ROC really shot itself in the head with the factionalism, infighting, wanton brutality, and corruption, eh? Not to mention how they and Tokyo managed to bluster themselves into a war that neither was really ready for.

I have never seen the UK AI send significant reserves to India, even if India is already under heavy attack by Japan. Prior to the war's start, I've force-relocated (via savefile) every Australian and New Zealand division that's not defending an important beach province over, as well as the British "Bombay Division" corps. Be interested to see if the British do send any more divisions over.

To be fair, China has always been extremely factionalist... and still is. For example, this wonderful (and long) BBC article about infighting in the modern PRC government:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Murder_lucky_hotel

So far, so good. But what did the exam actually entail? You had to write an essay, about 500-600 characters, about a topic concerning Confucian morality. Ideally, you would sprinkle your work with lots of quotes and allusions to the Four Books and Five Classics to show off how cultured you are. Since the topic was Confucianism, you were not allowed to use events that happened after Confucius' time as example - or even use characters created after his time! Also, the exam was in Classical Chinese, which is a whole different language altogether. Like Classical Latin (nearly all surviving Latin texts stem from the social and political elite - only the graffity at Pompeii show the massive difference between educated written Latin and Vulgar Latin, the language actually spoken by the people), no one actually spoke Classical Chinese - it was a written language only, based on the grammar and vocabulary of Kongzi, Mengzi, Zhuangzi, Laozi; created for and by the literate elite. It skipped/ignored 20 centuries of language evolution and was DELIBERATELY unintelligible to the average Chinese, as a means for the elite to distinguish themselves from the masses.

Imagine if you wanted to become a civil servant in today's UK, you had to write an essay in the same Old English that Beowulf was originally written in. You would not be allowed to use any words added after Beowulf's time - so no Shakespeare, no Chaucer, no Wordsworth, no Byron, no Tennyson! Also, all government business, including public information and forms, would be in Old English. THAT is the level of disconnect between government and society China was suffering from in 1911.

What was the goal of the exams, then? The widespread impression seems to be 'recruiting the best and brightest'. This is incorrect - learning does not mean the same thing everywhere. In China, even today, learning - the meaning shaped by two millenia of Confucianism - means memorizing information without any reflection, whereas in Europe - the meaning shaped by the Enlightenment and the scientific method - learning means understanding the cause behind events. The importance of this difference cannot be overstated! When I was in China, a university student asked me the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. I replied that I did not know. He told me, then asked me how many ships participated in the battle. Again, I replied that I did not know, and continued to ask him the causes behind the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This time, he was stunned - not because he did not know the answer, but because the question hadn't even occured to him. For him, studying history meant memorizing what happened when, and certainly not asking any questions!

In short, the Imperial Examination system was not designed to select people according to competence, but according to Conformity, Orthodoxy & Elitism. For centuries, the literary and cultural life of China was built on those values. This is the cultural atmosphere at the beginning of the Republic, and this is where the May Fourth Movement comes in, spearheaded by one man I personally admire very much: Hu Shi.

I know the Imperial Examination is very heavily biased towards using Confucian classics and has become obsolete by 1900s (to be fair, it's been in use for over 2000 years, and has stagnated alongside the rest of Qing dynasty). Though isn't it a bit extreme to claim that it ignored several thousands years of history? From what I know of Chinese dynastic history, many of their better emperors' reigns (such as Tang Taizong) are required studies for princes and bureaucrats, and officials are expected to cite past policies, laws, projects, undertakings, battles, etc from previous dynasties during court discussions on how to tackle present problems. With that in mind, wouldn't those who know only the classics would be hilariously lacking in their repertoire of sources to make their case?

Furthermore, unlike most modern exam material, the examination was a freeform essay -- and good monarchs usually used serious, current societal problems as topics -- this made its grading highly subjective. Thus the quality of the examination could be expected to vary hugely between different reigns. IIRC, some of the most active Emperors such as Han Wudi personally read many of the exams so he could pull out the essays he liked and hire the individuals as close advisers.

a) Almost all language reforms during the Republican period were carried out by private citizens such as Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Chen Duqiu (a Communist! - and a highly interesting person to boot) and Guo Moruo (this is by no means an exhaustive list, feel free to add your own research!).
b) Those reforms were aimed at breaking the stranglehold of the 2000-year old corpse of Classical Chinese on Chinese culture, and concerned themselves with vocabulary and grammar, not the characters themselves.
c) The character reform of the Communists was NOT due to those cultural reasons. It was of political nature. In Chinese history, all new dynasties compiled character dictionaries after their accession to power, to legitimize their rule and unite the country by uniting the script. In this, Mao was far more traditional than the KMT - the simplified characters take less strokes to write, yes, but the simplification does not follow any clear objective. It was based mostly on Maos personal preferences in his calligraphy. Making the written language follow him was a political move to legitimize his regime.

The Communists generally cite their Chinese simplification as for improving literacy. I'm not familiar enough with the topic to know if that's the primary cause, but it certainly did the job of making Chinese easier to learn by a wondrous degree.

I do know some of those names and read about some of the small-scale language reforms. However, they're also extremely different from a nationwide literary reform -- which requires mass mobilization, nationwide standardization, and serious political clout (still, interesting to hear that the CPC was even more traditionalist than the KMT on something). All tasks become astronomically hard once the scale grows sufficiently large. "Scalability" is a problem that I tackle professionally so I know xD

The book focuses on Song Ziwen, for reasons given in the title, so I am afraid I don't know all that much about Kong Xiangxi. From what I do know about him, the two of them were certainly fighting hard for the title of Most Corrupt Chinese Man - currency manipulation, embezzling, war profiteering, abuse of government offices, racketeering, fraud - you name it, they did it!

Mmmmh, that's interesting. Only thing I'm really sure about T.V. Soong's character is that he's an arrogant prick, and that he spent pretty much the entire war outside China (first in the USSR then in the USA). This makes me wonder how much of that was actually Soong's intentions. Both Kung and Soong are known to surround themselves with capitalists who -- as the 2008 Financial Crisis highlights -- will try to get away with anything to make a killing.

Soon, the Anyuan mines and railyards had the 8-hour workday, a pension fund, health insurance, mandatory employee safety training and equipment, cutting down fatalities due to mining accidents from about 20 per year to zero. And that in 1922! European workers could only dream of such rights! Anyuan quickly gained nationwide fame (or notoriety, depending on who you asked). Of course, it was not to last... in 1925, the union was forcibly disbanded by the authorities because the company bribed the right people. Chiang himself visited the town, held a KMT rally and gave a bombastic speech trying to win over the workers. He failed spectacularly, because of two main reasons:

a) He was from Zhejiang on the coast and had a thick Zhejiang accent. The locals found it very hard to understand what the hell he was going on about.
b) He tried to out-radical the Communists with his demands, calling for Nationalization of the mining and rail companies to remove Imperialist influence from China - I am not an economist, so I don't know if this makes economic sense or not, but I know that the workers didn't really care about whether their boss was employed by the state or a private company, they cared about their hard-won rights being taken away from them, and Chiang certainly failed to deliver - or even promise - on that front.

This story shows one of his principal flaws - complete and utter disconnect from the actual needs and worries of the people - very well. Because of Chiangs incompetence in handling the situation, Anyuan remained a Communist stronghold and many miners joined the Red Army when the Communist Party evacuated Jiangxi through Anyuan on the Long March. I think it is even conceivable that they would not have made it to Yan'an without this local support.

Chiang is hilariously incompetent when it comes to persuading people or making any kind of populist argument XD
Probably part of the reason why he disliked Democratization -- he wouldn't be able to win an election campaign for the village elder, let alone president XD
Mao, on the other hand, is generally accepted as a genius of propaganda.

Also, wow, I am now fairly certain you know this topic of China in the Republican era better than I do =P Thanks for sharing all that information. Was certainly worth the wait~

 

[Sir Dippingsauce]

Wow, I'm learning a lot of the Republican era.
Thanks dudes!