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1937, Fall - Nichevo
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[size=-2]December issue discussing Japanese aggression[/size]
1 October: Ma Bufang’s cavalry and I reached Chungking today. They are going to continue on to the south, but I will stay here for a while. His main role is to basically show the flag and secure the governmental and communication centers all the way down to Canton, but not to do any real fighting. Infantry is already on a train down here and will hold the line in case of a counterattack. But Bufang is pressed for time and will not even wait for them to arrive before continuing south. He will leave tomorrow and I will be here alone for a spell with just the few dozen soldiers that are left stationed at the city hall. It will be a potentially dangerous time, but there is no immediate sign of a response from Chiang anywhere on the horizon. I’ll be very sorry to see Bufang go; he and some of the other members of his staff turned out to be quite formidable bridge players... I consider myself lucky there was never any money going on the table.
[size=-2]Ma Clique troops reach Chungking,
the most important city in the southwest[/size]
Chungking is one of China’s oldest cities, and given how long Chinese civilization has been continuously extant, that says quite a bit. The city sits on the Yangtze River, which has its own origins high up in the Tibetan plateau, and was at the very edge of Chinese influence to the west for much of antiquity. It was mainly independent until conquered by the state of Qin at about the time that Alexander the Great was building his empire in the Middle East
[size=-2][1][/size]. Qin would end up being the first imperial dynasty to unify all of China and is also the source of the country’s name in English (Qin > Chin > China). Of course, the area occupied by Qin is far less than the lands claimed by China today, so I’m not quite clear as to what Chinese historians consider `all` of China when they refer to the Qin Empire. I assume they may mean being masters of both the Yellow River waterway in the north and the Yangtze River in the south... the Qin dynasty is predated by both the Shang dynasty and the even earlier Xia dynasty (so early it is ahead of the written record), but these kingdoms only flourished along the Yellow River I believe.
[size=-2]Peasants climb the streets of Chungking[/size]
This city is right up in the hills with a mountain range to be found at all of the cardinal directions. Although I haven’t been there myself, I would suspect that Chungking is even hillier than San Francisco. There are almost no motorcars anywhere to be seen, and many of the streets are actually just staircases, which mean this city has fewer bicycles than any other major urban area I’ve been to in China. Little plumbing is in existence, so most of the peasants have to keep hauling water up from the river and up the hills to the central part of the town. The river of course is also used as a sewer, so in between that and the pigs that are allowed to run free in the streets, it’s best to stay indoors when the heat of the day amplifies all the various smells. This city is also one of the foggiest I’ve ever been in, which draws another comparison to San Francisco. One of the locals told me it isn’t uncommon to have a whole month go by where there is fog every day. But getting back to the Yangtze, it is actually navigable all the way down to the coast from here, so if Shanghai at the river’s mouth can be kept out of Japanese hands, supplying the city directly should be a possibility in the long-term.
[size=-2]Peasants collect water from the Yangtze River.
I’ll take mine well-boiled, please![/size]
3 October: I’ve been spending my days at the city hall and my nights at a cheap flophouse nearby that Bufang’s men confiscated for a barracks. I feel fairly bad for the owners, and if I can work up the nerve I may try to speak to one of the Mas about getting them compensated. Most of my spare time consists of staying near the wireless to get news of what is happening. Once in a while we find that we can even get BBC broadcasts out of Hong Kong! Anyway, today there were definitely ‘news-worthy’ reports coming from the wireless. Japan finally took Peking, which made the military governor of Shaanxi province decide to surrender all forces under his control to the Japanese. So the Mas’ betrayal has certainly had an impact. Chiang has now sent enough men back by train to the west that his forward campaign in Manchuria has not only been beaten back, but the Japanese have pushed forward onto Han Chinese soil. So far there is still no sign of Chiang’s troops opposing the Ma Clique’s moves, but these areas are very far away from the Japanese front, and Chiang also now has a renewed war with the Communists to deal with over near Yan`an.
[size=-2]Peking has fallen; Chiang’s troops are now divided between
facing Japan, the Communists, and the Mas[/size]
It would also appear that the Japanese are wasting little time on the political front. They’ve announced that part of the areas of Shaanxi province they have occupied are being granted to the new state of Mengkukuo, which they have just `liberated` from the Han Chinese. This region was in fact carved off of Mongolia a long time ago, but it was so far back that the Mongols are now a minority in the region
[size=-2][2][/size]. The Japanese did manage to find Mongolian royalty hidden in the population; Mongol prince Demchugdongrub is now the putative ruler of Mengkukuo. I honestly wish him well... he can’t really expect to be treated well by the Japanese, and if he ever falls into Chinese hands, things will be even worse for him. The best he can hope for is to avoid offending his new overlords and hope he doesn’t get assassinated.
[size=-2]Prince Demchugdongrub (left, front) and his Japanese masters[/size]
I honestly don’t know why the Japanese waste their time with these kinds of political games. Nobody with half a brain is going to think anything but that the Japanese are really in charge, so pretending otherwise is just insulting. Their culture is extremely honor-bound, however, so perhaps they feel they will lose less face by telling a blatant lie than they would by giving the brutal truth.
20 October: Spent the day schmoozing with General Alexei Kolnigin and his staff at the city hall. He commands the infantry detachment that has been in the city for a short while now. The General has a fairly interesting history. He served in the Tsar’s army in the Far East and was living with his family in Port Arthur when the Japanese captured it during their 1905 war with Russia. His family was killed, but he was taken prisoner and later released. He remained in the army but fled to Harbin in Manchuria when the Reds took over. Later, he fled for a second time to China after the Japanese turned Manchuria into Manchukuo, finally finding a home with the Mas. He has a very fancy samovar that his staff brings with him into the field so he can always have his daily tea. I joked with him that Russians were only supposed to drink vodka. He said that was true, until he moved to Golmud and was forced to dry out as no vodka was there to be had. His staff all make for terrible bridge players, so it’s my turn to have somebody to victimize until Ma Bufang returns from his mission in the south. But I do have to be careful not to be lured into a chess game...
24 October: I caught my first sight of troops still loyal to Chiang today. They came up the main road to attack Chungking, but were repulsed fairly easily. I do have to give Kolnigin a great deal of credit. He may be old, but he knows his craft. Due to Chungking’s position in the hills, the only real practical axis of attack is the main road coming up from the east. However, the General has men patrolling up and down the Yangtze in small riverboats, plus there are small detachments on every hilltop around the city. Kolnigin doesn’t plan on being surprised by anything. His planning has paid off, as there was some gunfire exchanged last night between his hilltop pickets and some small enemy force that came down from the north. The suspicion is that they were merely attempting to gather intelligence on the defenses of the city. If so, they would have only learned that the General has all his bases covered, to borrow a baseball term.
[size=-2]Chiang’s troops start a battle, if you can call it that[/size]
The attack came up this morning via the main road and consisted of two infantry brigades. General Kolnigin has six brigades in total at his immediate disposal, plus he can send to Ma Bufang in the south if a serious problem erupts. So Chiang’s troops had no chance really, but they attacked anyway. The attack consisted mainly of a mass charge up the steep grade of the road that was quickly beaten off with rifle fire and a small amount of artillery support. Neither force had anything more available aside from some small field pieces, but the enemy’s didn’t have the range to fire up into the hills. The charging troops quickly became disorganized and scattered and broke off the attack just a rapidly as it began. I watched the battle (such as it was) from the comfort of the General’s position near the rear and was able to get a few close-ups of the action thanks to my zoom lens. I was curious to ask the General why he thought that Chiang’s commander would order an attack that appeared to be so clearly hopeless.
`For them, it is
nichevo, it can not be helped. Since we drove off their patrols last night, they may be gambling that we have fewer troops here than we do. And Chungking is the key city of the southwest... we cannot be allowed to keep it, or Chiang’s position will be gravely weakened. His best option will be to start a massive artillery bombardment or aerial attack that will keep us pinned down long enough to buy his men time to advance up the hills. Or, he could try an encirclement to starve us out. But the terrain around the city will make it difficult to completely seal us off, and he would also have to blockade the Yangtze somehow. This would all take many more men than I see here at present. If they wish to properly reduce Chungking, they need far more troops and the time to employ them properly, neither of which they have, if they don’t want to further erode the front against the Japanese in the northeast. Our enemy is in a desperate position, and will make many mistakes. I am sure they will feel compelled to attack us again, but for now it is
dos vedanya! `
I should point out that aside from the odd Russian word that he dropped in, all my conversations with the General took place in Mandarin. And after the enemy had pulled out, he showed me a map that had markings of troop positions all the way back towards Golmud.
`Here in the west of China there are many such places that are as easy to defend as this city. Our men are now already in place and were dug in long before Chiang was able to pull his own divisions off the line with the Japanese. It will be impossible for Chiang to launch a massive attack all along our front here. At best, he can try to make a local concentration of force somewhere that will break though our lines and allow him access to the empty terrain behind...` here, he made a sweeping gesture with his hand across the western half of the map. `As you can see, we have no strategic reserve available if there is a breakthrough, but this is nichevo again. There are enough divisions ready that we can secure the route down to Chungking and a little beyond, but no more. If Chiang looks to be reshuffling his men to get local superiority anywhere, at best we can reposition our own lines to respond. But the strategy of Ma Hongkui is sound. It requires far less to hold than it does to take. `
`Doesn’t that mean that now that these lines are established, the Mas won’t be able to advance either? ` I felt obligated to point this out.
`Da, da, but this is more nichevo. Our positions here give us the best areas of the west. Simply holding it is enough, as Chiang will not be able to carry on alone against the Japanese without it- too much of his industrial power has been built up here. Ma Hongkui is convinced Chiang will see the futility of continued resistance and agree to place the Mas in charge. `
Something was still bothering me about this scheme, but it took me a while to place my finger on it. `What about the Generalissimos in Yunnan and Canton? If they throw in fully with Chiang, then this plan all comes crashing down, right? `
This got me a big booming laugh. `Excellent! You are good at finding all the nichevo in life, da? We will make a proper Russian of you yet. It is true that this is a worry, but not a worry for simple generals like me. We shall have to hope that Ma Hongbin does what he promised and keeps them sitting on their hands as long as possible. Come, let us celebrate the day’s events. We only have tea and not proper vodka, but you know the answer to that already I suspect. `
`Nichevo? `
Naturally this triggered another laugh.
27 October: I found out that Ma Hongbin tried to negotiate Chiang’s capitulation today, but he refused to cede power to the Mas. It’s not clear to me how he could hope to quash this rebellion in the west and hold off the Japanese, but he either has some plan or will insist on fighting out of spite. There is also going to be a big meeting tomorrow of all the big-wigs from Szechuan province, of which Chungking is a part (the capital being Chengdu, a little father west of us). Most of the warlords in Szechuan are known to be staunch Chiang allies, such as Liu Xiang. We certainly caught a major break, as Liu Xiang normally uses Chungking as his base of operations, but his troops were all out to the northeast supporting Chiang. All that remain in the area are lesser warlords, like Xiang’s deposed uncle Liu Wenhui. These types of men are fairly easy to recruit since they have a strong sense of vengeance to repay any real or imagined slights from the hand of Liu Xiang or Chiang Kai-shek. Szechuan is fairly famous for its cuisine, maybe they will have Kung Pao chicken served during the meeting... ha!
1 November: Odd news from the front. Word came from Golmud that Ma Bufang has been accused of having improper relations with the wife of one of the other officers on the General Staff, back before all hell broke loose in July
[size=-2][3][/size]. Nobody takes these allegations seriously and it would appear to be a power play by one of the lower-ranking commanders, but just to show that he doesn’t tolerate such impropriety, Ma Hongkui has officially relieved Bufang from his post as Head of the Navy. Of course, this is even less than a slap on the wrist as there were no major duties assigned to that posting anyway.
4 November: Another probing attack today from Chiang’s men, making this the second in as many weeks. By the time the news of these battles trickles back up to the city and I can hop out of bed, it’s already over and the enemy is in retreat. These battles are so short they don’t even really qualify as an annoyance.
7 November: Chungking attacked again today; no other battles were reported along the front. General Kolnigin seems to be correct, both sides appear to have found a defensive line where no side will get advantage over the other, but the Japanese are continuing to advance slowly from the northeast. Chiang is basically playing a game of chicken on who will cave in and unify China against Japan, but since Hongkui has the fastnesses of western China to fall back on, you can be sure it won’t be him.
[size=-2]Japan is still slowly on the advance[/size]
16 November: Another attack on Chungking, I didn’t even bother to try and leave the hotel for this one.
24 November: Yet another poorly conceived assault on Chungking, I’m starting to lose track of them all. Chiang is using more brigades than before, but there are still fewer men on the attack than we have here to defend.
11 December: The Mas have had their first setback today. Ma Bufang was back in Chungking to have a briefing with Alexei over the state of things in the southwest. They had finished their meeting and we were drinking tea and playing bridge. I had hoped I could partner up with Bufang, but I was placed with Alexei instead... well, that does him a bit of a disservice, since his game has improved somewhat. Bufang was paired up with a Major on Alexei’s staff... Sharapov I think. Alexei gave a 2 club opening that I had planned to respond with 4 hearts, but a messenger interrupted us.
We found out that the cavalry unit that Bufang and I had ridden down with had been bombed repeatedly from the air and forced to retreat. Strategically, this retreat was unimportant, as the division was at the very tail end of the territory the Ma Clique was trying to guard, and the loss of the area didn’t open any holes in the lines. Of more significance was the realization that Chiang had no intention of giving up the reins of power and was positioning himself to strike back. We had known already that his troops were fighting both the Japanese and his fellow Chinese, and the Communists had been driven from Ankang a couple of days ago, but that area was in the theatre of operations of major combat. The bomber wing that attacked the cavalry is one of the old SB-2s that Chiang was given by the Soviet Union and represents the bulk of Chiang’s air power. Knowing that he felt it more vital to use that wing in the west instead of against the Japanese is a matter of no small consequence. Bufang was forced to leave to try and wire Golmud for consultations, so needless to say there were no further attempts at bridge that night.
[size=-2]Relentless air attacks were required to rout Ma forces[/size]
14 December: Alexei dispatched General Mirkin, another of his White Russian compatriots, to launch a counterattack out of Chungking. Chiang’s aggressiveness has caused Ma Buqing to respond in kind by ordering a general push along the front, but Chungking is just as hard to attack *from* as it is to attack into. I watched the attack from relative safety for a few hours, but it had to be quickly called off. The roads out of the city are just too easy to blockade.
[size=-2]The Ma Clique launches attacks to varying degrees of success[/size]
31 December: I sent some wires back to Golmud to find out how things were going for the old gang there. Konrad tells me that Jie has sunk into melancholia since I’ve left. Perhaps I should get back soon. And the last few months have been pretty hard for Konrad... which in turn means things are hard for his regulars, too. As expected, the minute trouble broke out with Japan, the flow of Tsingtao beer dried up. Since this was Konrad’s major source of booze (Golmud is a teetotaler Muslim society, remember), he hasn’t been able to get anything in to replace it yet. Peter did manage to get a small flow of non-alcoholic drinks running up through Hanoi and Yunnan, but this is barely enough to keep his regulars’ tongues wet. He’s mainly be keeping the business going by showing movies, but the supply of new ones is also not the greatest. Even the most die-hard Marx Brothers fan can only watch
A Day at the Races so many times! He did manage to get a very special treat, however, that should help keep him solvent over the next few weeks. The Walt Disney Co. back in the States has released a feature-length cartoon to be shown in theatres. This is the same company that produces the short films with the mouse character that I’ve seen a few times out here, as they are sometimes included with other movies. These cartoons have gone over well back in Golmud, as they don’t rely on dialogue to be amusing, so they are easy to understand. I don’t follow cartoons much myself (I prefer the newsreels) but I think the duck character is also pretty popular. Every time he goes into one of his tantrums it gets a pretty big laugh at The Americaine.
Disney is going out on a limb by gambling that the public will wish to see a feature-length cartoon
[size=-2][4][/size]. I would expect that it is children who would really want to view this movie, but since the parents are the ones who have to pay for the tickets, he has to craft a film that can be enjoyed by both young and old alike. The story is based on The Brothers Grimm’s
Snow White, so he’s already played it safe by picking a topic that will be familiar to most of the audience. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t pay twenty-five cents to see a duck have a fit for an hour! Hmmm... of course, it only takes a couple of minutes to tell the story of
Snow White, so they must be doing something to pad the story out to feature-length. Well, if I ever get back to Golmud in the next couple of months, Konrad will probably still have the reels and I can find out. In the meantime I’m off to the city hall to celebrate the New Year with the troops there.
[video=youtube;0txTv40HZbk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txTv40HZbk [/video]
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[size=-2]Editor’s Notes:
1. Conquered approximately 316 BC
2. Much of Inner Mongolia (the current nation of Mongolia informally being `Outer` Mongolia) was taken by the Manchus right before their conquest of the Ming dynasty in the 17th century, and the Manchus greatly encouraged Han Chinese settlement of the region. Speaking roughly, the eastern 1/3 of Inner Mongolia made up the western half of Manchukuo
3. When interviewed later, Theriaux would say `At the time I wrote that, I had no idea how much worse things could get. `
4. The film was produced with great difficulty and was known in Hollywood as ‘Disney’s Folly’. The estimated production cost was a quarter million; the final cost was nearly one-and-a-half million. However the success of the film won Disney an honorary Oscar and turned out enough profit for the studio to build a $4.5 million facility in Burbank, California, where they are still located in 2012[/size]
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