時報
- The Battle near Nanchang
- Zhang Xueliang Returns to Mukden
- Chiang Kai-shek Sends a Representative to Mukden
This partly legible 14 October 1926 Shibao page carried wire reports from the Northern Expedition's Jiangxi front and from northern politics. Dispatches from Beijing, Jiujiang and Shanghai said that the vanguard of the Second and Third Armies of Sun Chuanfang's Allied Army moved southwest of Nanchang on the 11th. They met Chiang Kai-shek's troops at noon, and the fighting broke off after two hours, with no decisive clash of the main forces yet. Shorter, badly damaged items reported that Zhang Xueliang left Beijing for Mukden on the morning of the 13th, that Ye Gongchuo and others had urged peace and a national assembly on Fengtian, and that a representative was heading to meet Zhang Zuolin on an "important mission." Fragments on naval movements and a notice about foreign merchant shipping followed.
This edition covers three news items from the dispatch columns, read only in part. The Nanchang report breaks off mid-sentence. The Zhang Xueliang and envoy items are fragmentary, and illegible characters are marked [?]. The envoy's name, the stated purpose of Zhang Xueliang's trip and the Ye Gongchuo proposal cannot be read in full or checked against the sources used here. Much of the small print in other columns, the advertisements and the rate tables is blurred or cut off and is not included.
Translation
The Battle near Nanchang
◉ The Battle near Nanchang (Beijing, 13th, 7 p.m. dispatch) ◎ The vanguard units of the Allied Army's Second and Third Armies began, from the morning of the 11th, to move into the area southwest of Nanchang. At noon they made contact with Chiang Kai-shek's army and fought for two hours, after which the Southern Army promptly withdrew. It has not yet come to a decisive battle between the main forc— (Jiujiang, 13th, Dentsu wire) ◎ According to a report dated Jiujiang the 12th and received by a certain quarter here, the forward troops of Sun's Second and Third Armies began operations southwest of Nanchang yesterday, made contact with Chiang Kai-shek's army before noon, and withdrew after two hours of fighting. The moment for a decisive battle between the main forces has not yet come. (Toho News Agency, Shanghai, 13th) ◎ Yesterday's fierce fighting near Nanchang, about two hou—
Zhang Xueliang Returns to Mukden
…army reorganization, essential… ◉ Zhang Xueliang Returns to Mukden ◎ Zhang Xueliang left for Fengtian at 9:20 [?] this morning. It is said that this trip of Zhang's [?] has a connection with… (Beijing, 13th [?], p.m. [?])
Chiang Kai-shek Sends a Representative to Mukden
…a plan for this matter. On the other hand, however, Ye Gongchuo and others have all already proposed to Fengtian that peace be made in the midst of the war and that a national assembly be convened. (Beijing, 13th, Toho wire) …sent a representative to Fengtian, to Fengtian, to make contact [?] with Zhang Zuolin… came from Shanghai to Beijing and changed to the Beijing [?]… This trip carries an important mission. (Beijing, 13th, 7 p.m. dispatch) ◎ The Navy Commander-in-Chief… the warship Yingrui from Shanghai… Shaokuan, still stationed… ◉ Large [?] ◎ On the 12th the Allied side said: "Within the guarded… foreign merchant steamers… points stopped sailing, except…"
Context
Whose "Allied Army" was fighting near Nanchang
The Nanchang dispatches name the attacking force both as "the Allied Army's Second and Third Armies" and as "Sun's army." Both labels point to Sun Chuanfang, a Zhili-clique commander who had built a regional power in the lower Yangtze and called his force the Allied Army of the Five Provinces. In 1926 his coalition controlled Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi. Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi, therefore lay inside his territory, and the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army, which the Beijing dispatch calls the "Southern Army," was the invader. The reports came through Beijing and through the Japanese agencies Dentsu and Toho, and they describe the clash from Sun's side: his vanguard advanced and the southerners withdrew after two hours. The newspaper does not give an independent account from the Nationalist side.
Where the Jiangxi campaign stood in mid-October 1926
The "no decisive battle yet" line reflects a pause after a reversal. By 19 September 1926 the National Revolutionary Army had taken both Jiujiang and Nanchang. Sun Chuanfang then arrived from Nanjing with reinforcements on 21 September and forced the Nationalist offensive back. The skirmish of 11 October therefore took place while Sun held the Nanchang area and Chiang was regrouping. The balance was shifting elsewhere. On 10 October the Canton–Hong Kong strike, which had strained Nationalist supply lines, was called off, and on the same day Wu Peifu's remaining garrison at Wuchang surrendered, which freed the Nationalists from the Hubei siege. By the end of October Sun's forces were again retreating across Jiangxi and Fujian. The brief contact the paper reported was thus an early move in the renewed struggle for Jiangxi.
Why Zhang Xueliang's movements mattered in Beijing
Zhang Xueliang, the "Young Marshal," was the son of Zhang Zuolin, head of the Manchuria-based Fengtian clique. He later succeeded his father as Fengtian leader. In April 1926, at the end of the Anti-Fengtian War, Zhang Xueliang's army had occupied Beijing, and by mid-1926 the Fengtian clique held the dominant stake in the Beiyang government. His departure from Beijing for Mukden (Fengtian) therefore suggested consultations at the clique's home base at a time when the Northern Expedition was pressing the northern warlords. The paper's account of the trip's purpose is illegible. Nothing on the page shows what was discussed in Mukden. In November 1926, however, Zhang Zuolin gathered his Fengtian commanders together with Sun Chuanfang and Yan Xishan, and this meeting led to the National Pacification Army, a northern coalition against the Northern Expedition.
Contacts between Chiang Kai-shek and the Fengtian clique
The third item reports a representative sent to Fengtian to meet Zhang Zuolin on an "important mission." The surviving text also says that Ye Gongchuo and others had urged Fengtian to make peace and convene a national assembly. The envoy's name and background cannot be read in the surviving text. The report fits the known strategy of the campaign. The Northern Expedition's initial plan, largely shaped by Soviet advisers, was to defeat Wu Peifu, appease Sun Chuanfang and leave Zhang Zuolin alone, so sounding out Mukden was consistent with the aim of keeping Fengtian out of the southern fighting. Chiang had already used envoys to win over northern commanders: in late 1925 he tried to persuade Sun Chuanfang to defect, and Sun refused and executed Chiang's emissaries. Talks between Fengtian and the Kuomintang did take place later. Zhang Zuolin declared himself Generalissimo in 1927 as those negotiations soured.
Original
南昌附近之戰
◉ 南昌附近之戰 (北京十三日下午七時電) ◎ 聯軍第二第三軍之先鋒部隊、 十一日晨起、 開始向南昌西南一行動、 正午與蔣介石軍接觸、 交戰二小時、 南軍即退、 尚未至主力決 (九江十三日電通電) ◎ 據本地某處所接九江十二日發告、 孫軍第二第三軍之前隊、 自昨起在南昌西南開始行動、 正午前與蔣介石軍接觸、 交戰二小時後退、 主力之決戰時機尚未到、 (東方社十三日上海消息) ◎ 昨日南昌附近之激戰、 約二小
張學良回奉
軍改要 ◉ 張學良回奉 ◎ 張學良今晨九時二十 [?] 赴奉天、 聞張此行 [?] 有關係、 (北京十三 [?] 下 [?]
蔣介石派代表赴奉
此事之策、 但一方面葉恭綽等皆先以乘戰和平及開國民會向奉天建議、 (北京十三日東方電) 派代表赴奉赴奉、 與張作霖接 [?] 由滬到京、 改乘京 [?] 此行、 有重大使命、 (北京十三日下午七時電) ◎ 海軍總司應瑞艦由滬紹寬、 仍駐 ◉ 大 [?] ◎ 十二日聯云、 「在戒外商輪、 點停止航除外、