400 Million Humiliations

Four hundred million Chinamen seemed to be wrong last week, or at least totally incapable of setting right the affairs of their country.

On the north they suffered a supreme humiliation. Governor General Chang Hsueh-Liang of Manchuria Province capitulated through his emissaries at Nikolsk-Ussiriisk, Siberia, to the emissaries of Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maximovich Litvinov. Cowed by the Red Army's raid into Manchuria three weeks ago, Governor General Chang humbly agreed that the Chinese Eastern Railway shall again be placed under the management of Soviet citizens, as it was before China booted out the Reds last summer (TIME, July 22). In return the Soviet Government agreed to cease propagandizing in Manchuria, but no Chinaman believed that this promise will be more than technically kept.*

At China's onetime northern capital Peking (now called "Peiping," meaning "Northern Peace") a total of 39 generals signed a circular telegram to field commanders, last week, denouncing as incompetent their commander-in-chief, Chinese President Chiang Kai-Shek.

In the new capital, Nanking, no one knew whether or not to believe reports that President Chiang had resigned. Martial law was in effect. Several mutinous army divisions were menacing the capital. China was another name for Anarchy. In the vast city of Shanghai, peopled by nearly two million Chinafolk, it was impossible to take a train or send a telegram to Nanking, Peiping or Hankow, "Chicago of China." Wires and rails had been cut by men with guns who might be described as soldiers, mutineers, revolutionaries or bandits as one pleased. They all looted indiscriminately. Chaos grew so complete that leading Shanghai newspapers described one report of the President's resignation as "received from a trustworthy source in Paris."

Terror and chaos were worst in the far southern city of Canton. Originally this was the bailiwick of President Chiang Kai-Shek, and from it he sallied, three years ago, at the head of the Nationalist Army which proceeded to conquer all China (TIME, April 5, 1926, et seq.). Last week General Ho Ying-ching, whom President Chiang had sent to defend Canton, found himself so hard pressed that he adopted arriving measures. The first was to send out river workers and peasants to pick up the dead, bloated bodies of soldiers who constantly floated downstream from obscure engagements above. The corpses were searched for cartridges and small arms, General Ho paying a flat rate of $10 for every pistol or hundred cartridges recovered. "Some peasants are making $100 a day," cabled a U. S. eyewitness.

Next, General Ho removed his headquarters from the city he was supposed to be defending to a strongly built cement factory on the opposite side of the river. Finally he sent an airplane to drop leaflets over the principal enemy force, encamped only 25 miles upstream, the famed "Ironsides Army" of General Chang Fa-K'uei (TIME, Oct. 14). The leaflets shamelessly offered following itemized bribes:

$25,000 to an Ironsider who assassinates his commander, General Chang Fa-K'uei.

$500 to every field gun crew who desert with their gun to General Ho.

$10 to every man deserting with his rifle, plus one month's pay if the man is a private, or promotion up one grade if an officer.

*Technically it is not the Soviet Government but the Third International (consisting of almost exactly the same group of men) which spreads Communist doctrines abroad.

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