時報
- Sun and Xia Armies Made Contact at 4 p.m. Yesterday
- Wang Yazhi Goes to Meijianong to Direct the Fighting
- Li Baozhang Leads One Battalion to Shanghai
This partial reading of the Shibao for 18 October 1926 covers three linked reports from the first full day of fighting in Xia Chao's revolt against Sun Chuanfang on Shanghai's southwestern edge. Citing transport sources, the paper reported that the two armies made contact at 4 p.m. on the 17th, with gunfire northwest of Xinlonghua, Sun's line between Meijianong and Xinzhuang, and dozens of railway cars waiting to carry troops forward; a second report placed contact at Qibao that night. Further items described a 4 a.m. war council at the Longhua office with Ding Wenjiang, Wang Yazhi's two trips to the front to direct the fighting, a train at Hangzhou waiting for troops, and the arrival of Meng Zhaoyue's and Li Baozhang's units from Nanjing, Zhenjiang and Wusong. The paper did not yet know who was winning.
This reading covers only three news items from the Shibao of 18 October 1926. The OCR was badly scrambled, so the excerpts were checked against the page images; [?] marks illegible characters, and several items break off mid-sentence at the edge of the readable area. The list of companies after the 3rd Battalion in Report 1 is ambiguous and may be misread. The masthead issue number was not reliably legible, and the advertising-rate and prize-number tables were not read.
Translation
Sun and Xia Armies Made Contact at 4 p.m. Yesterday
◉ The Sun and Xia armies yesterday afternoon [?]
(Report 1) According to information from transport circles, at 4 p.m. yesterday (the 17th) the Sun and Xia armies made contact. Unbroken gunfire was heard northwest of Xinlonghua, and it had not stopped by 6 p.m. Sun's front line lies between Meijianong and Xinzhuang. It consists of the whole 2nd Battalion of the 13th Regiment and the 9th, 10th, 12th and 3rd Companies of the 3rd Battalion, led by Battalion Commander Hao of the 2nd Battalion. It is reported that the troops of the 1st Battalion of the 13th Regiment, led by their battalion commander Liu Guocai, together with one platoon of the machine-gun company of the 2nd Battalion of the 76th Brigade and the artillery of the 12th Company, are all concentrated at Xinlonghua awaiting orders. Sixty or seventy railway cars are standing at the station, ready to leave for the front. It is further reported that Xia's front line has advanced to between Songjiang and Xinqiao. The two sides have engaged; the outcome is not known.
(Report 2) Last night the Sun and Xia armies made contact in the Qibao area. At 9:45 last night the International Settlement police sent Western detectives by motorcar, taking the road through western Shanghai via Hong…
Wang Yazhi Goes to Meijianong to Direct the Fighting
◎ A train has been readied at Hangzhou, waiting to load two thousand five [?] troops, and is to leave on the [?] day.
◉ Wang Yazhi goes to Meijianong to direct [?]
◎ Song Meicun, commander of the 15th Brigade of Sun's 8th Division, went at 4 a.m. yesterday (the 17th) to the Songhu [?] Office at Old Longhua. After an important military conference with General Manager Ding Wenjiang, Regimental Commander Wang Yazhi and the other officers, Regimental Commander Wang went by special train to Meijianong at 9 a.m. to reconnoiter [?] the positions held by the various units at the front. He returned to the Commissioner's Office at Longhua at about noon, and at 3:30 p.m. went again to Meijianong to inspect the troops at the front and direct the fighting in person.
◉ Meng Zhaoyue's troops reach Xinlonghua
◎ The 15th [?] of Meng Zhaoyue's 8th Division at Nanjing
Li Baozhang Leads One Battalion to Shanghai
◉ Li Baozhang leads one battalion to [?]
◎ At about 9 p.m. last night Ding Wenjiang went to the North Station to meet Li Baozhang, commander of the 76th Mixed Brigade, and at 10:45 that night took a borrowed special train [?]
◎ The 1st Battalion of the [?]2nd Regiment of the 76th Mixed Brigade, stationed at Zhenjiang, was led yesterday by brigade commander Li Baozhang [?] the train left at 3 p.m. and reached Shanghai at 10.
◉ More troops transferred from Wusong to Shanghai
◎ The 12th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the [?]1st Regiment of the 76th Mixed Brigade, stationed at Wusong, [?] Shanghai on the day before yesterday (the 16th). The battalion's 13th Company also reached Shanghai yesterday (the 1[?]) and is now temporarily quartered at a certain [?] opposite the North Station.
Context
Why Xia Chao turned against Sun Chuanfang
The clash the Shibao reported on 17 October was the first fighting of a revolt declared only the day before. Xia Chao, Zhejiang's civil governor under Sun Chuanfang, publicly declared Zhejiang independent on 16 October with the backing of local commanders and civilian officials. Resentment of Sun, an outsider ruling the province, had been growing, and Xia's move came while Sun's armies were locked in bloody fighting with the Nationalists in Jiangxi. The Zhejiang-born Chiang Kai-shek persuaded Xia to side with the Kuomintang, and Xia had promised to defect once the National Revolutionary Army defeated Wu Peifu at Wuchang, which it did on 10 October. The paper's reports call the two sides simply the Sun army and the Xia army; the Kuomintang connection behind Xia's rising does not appear in these columns.
Ding Wenjiang and the Songhu office
The war council that the paper places at Old Longhua brought a brigade commander and a regimental commander together with Ding Wenjiang, styled general manager (zongban). Ding was a geologist and essayist by profession. In 1926 he served as general manager of the Songhu Commercial Port Supervision Office, the Shanghai–Wusong administration whose director-general was Sun Chuanfang himself, and he had earlier represented the Jiangsu provincial government in negotiations with foreign delegates in Shanghai. The Shibao's reports show this civilian administrator at the centre of the city's defence: hosting the 4 a.m. meeting with Song Meicun and Wang Yazhi, and going to the North Station late at night to receive Li Baozhang of the 76th Mixed Brigade.
Where Sun's reinforcements came from
Sun Chuanfang ruled Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Jiangxi from a headquarters in Nanjing, and in October 1926 much of his strength was committed in Jiangxi. Shanghai itself was thinly held: Sun had few troops to spare for its defence and ordered the railway from Hangzhou to the city torn up. The Shibao's columns show the gap being filled by rail from the north and east of his territory. Units of Meng Zhaoyue's 8th Division came from Nanjing to Xinlonghua, a battalion of Li Baozhang's 76th Mixed Brigade left Zhenjiang at 3 p.m. and reached Shanghai at 10, and companies of the same brigade were brought in from Wusong. The sixty or seventy railway cars the paper reported standing at the station were part of this movement toward the front.
How the advance on Shanghai ended
On the morning of 18 October the paper could only say that the outcome was unknown. Xia had attacked Shanghai with 2,500 troops, a figure that matches the legible part of the troop number the paper gives for the train waiting at Hangzhou. By late on 17 October his force was within about 5 kilometres of the city, but Sun then received reinforcements and Xia's advance was blocked; those reinforcements likely included the units these columns describe arriving. Sun's army went on to capture Jiaxing on 21 October and Hangzhou on 23 October, which marked Xia's final defeat. The skirmishes at Xinlonghua, Meijianong and Qibao were therefore the high-water mark of the Zhejiang revolt.
Original
孫夏兩軍昨日下午四時接觸
◉ 孫夏兩軍昨日下午 [?] (報告一) 據交通界消息、 昨 (十七) 日下午四時、 孫夏兩軍接觸、 在新龍華西北角聞得槍聲不絕、 至下午六時未息、 孫軍前線在梅家弄莘莊間、 係十三團第二營全營及第三營九、 十、 十二、 三連、 由第二營郝營長率領、 聞第十三團第一營軍隊、 由該營長劉國才率領、 並七十六旅第二營機關槍連一排、 及第十二連砲兵、 均在新龍華集中候命、 車站停靠車輛六七十輛、 預備開往前線、 又聞夏軍前線開至松江與新橋間、 雙方接戰、 勝負未詳、 (報告二) 昨晚七寶方面孫夏兩軍已接觸、 公共租界捕房、 已於昨晚九時三刻、 派西探乘坐汽車、 取道滬西虹
王雅之赴梅家弄督戰
◎ 杭州備車一列、 待裝兵二千五 [?] 日開出、 ◉ 王雅之赴梅家弄督 [?] ◎ 孫軍第八師第十五旅旅長宋梅村、 於昨晨 (十七) 四時、 至老龍華淞滬 [?] 辦公署、 與總辦丁文江、 團長王雅之及各軍官開軍事重要會議後、 王團長於上午九時、 專車至梅家弄、 偵 [?] 前線各軍防地、 十二時許返龍華督辦公署、 下午三時半又赴梅家弄、 視察前線軍隊、 親自督戰、 ◉ 孟昭月部抵新龍華 ◎ 南京孟昭月之第八師第十五 [?]
李寶章率一營來滬
◉ 李寶章率一營來 [?] ◎ 丁文江於昨晚九時許、 到北車站迎候七十六混成旅旅長李寶章、 當晚十時四十五分即借乘專車 [?] ◎ 駐紮鎮江之七十六混成旅第 [?] 二團第一營、 昨日由旅長李寶章率 [?] 車于下午三時開出、 十時抵滬、 ◉ 吳淞兵續調來滬 ◎ 駐紮吳淞之七十六混成旅第 [?] 一團三營第十二連、 於前 (十六) [?] 海、 該營之第十三連、 亦於昨 (十 [?] 抵滬、 現在暫駐在北站對面某 [?]