時報
- Xia Chao fled at 3 p.m. yesterday
- Chen Yi takes up the Zhejiang governorship from afar
- Urgent notice of the Shanghai Bond Association
This Shibao page of 23 October 1926 carried late dispatches on the collapse of Xia Chao's revolt against Sun Chuanfang in Zhejiang. A report filed at 9 p.m. on the 22nd described renewed night fighting, Sun's troop trains carrying a brigade commander and a regiment to Jiaxing and on to Xiashi, Xia's men tearing down Bridge No. 115 on the Shanghai–Hangzhou line, and a supply train leaving Shanghai's North Station for Jiashan. It then reported that Xia, beaten at Wangdian, fled at 3 p.m., and that Chen Yi, Sun's appointee as civil governor, took up the post without being in the province. A partly legible notice from five Shanghai lottery-bond offices announced a postponed prize draw.
This edition translates three passages taken from a badly scrambled OCR of the page. The war dispatch breaks off mid-sentence, and the bond association notice is a fragment in which illegible characters are marked [?]. The Mixed Court notice, the small print in the date and rates boxes, and the book lists are not translated. The commentary does not explain how Shanghai's lottery-bond offices worked or why the fighting delayed their draws, because the gathered material contains no source on them.
Translation
Xia Chao fled at 3 p.m. yesterday
(Dispatch of 9 p.m. on the 22nd) After the armies of Sun and Xia made contact at Bridge No. 68 on the morning of the day before yesterday (the 21st), heavy fighting broke out again at midnight. At 1 a.m. yesterday (the 22nd), another detachment of Sun's army came up around the flank. The first train sent out carried Song Meicun, commander of the 15th Brigade and commander-in-chief; Song went to Jiaxing to inspect the units at the front and to direct and lead the advance. The second train carried soldiers of the 29th Regiment, military supplies and other items.
◎ Between 8 and 10 p.m. yesterday (the 22nd), Sun's army sent three troop trains out of Jiaxing station to Xiashi.
◎ Bridge No. 115 on the Shanghai–Hangzhou railway, between Chang'an and Xucun, was torn down by Xia's troops at 5 p.m. yesterday (the 22nd). Sun's army has ordered the engineering office of the railway administration to send workers to repair it with all speed. At 1:02 p.m. yesterday (the 22nd), a special train left the North Station, made up of eight covered iron wagons and one third-class carriage, loaded with military supplies and other items, bound for Jiashan.
◉ Xia Chao fled at 3 p.m. yesterday ◉ Chen Yi takes up the Zhejiang governorship from afar
◎ Yesterday (the 22nd) afternoon, Xia Chao, because the fighting at the front had gone against him at Wangdian, knew that all was lost, and at three in the afternoon …
Chen Yi takes up the Zhejiang governorship from afar
With Xia Chao having fled, Chen Yi, whom Sun Chuanfang had appointed civil governor of Zhejiang, was unable to decline the post and at once assumed it from afar.
Urgent notice of the Shanghai Bond Association
…Fang, Liji, Jiangnan and Zhongnan, the five lottery-bond offices, have jointly agreed that for all [?] bonds, beginning from the 17th of the lunar calendar, the prize draw is provisionally to be postponed by one [?]; when the date arrives …
Context
How Xia Chao's revolt fell apart within a week
Xia Chao was serving as Zhejiang's civil governor under Sun Chuanfang, a post Sun had given him for helping take over the province, and he timed his break with Sun to the Nationalist advance. He had promised to defect if the National Revolutionary Army defeated Wu Peifu at Wuchang, which it did on 10 October 1926, and on 16 October he declared Zhejiang independent with the backing of local commanders and civilian officials. His hastily raised troops, however, were not well trained or armed, and the uprising in Shanghai that Nationalist agents had promised did not materialize because local Communist and Kuomintang leaders were still debating it. Sun's counter-offensive was swift: about 6,000 of Xia's soldiers were captured after a short battle, and Sun's army took Jiaxing on the 21st and Hangzhou on the 23rd. The Shibao dispatch catches the moment in between, attributing Xia's flight at 3 p.m. on the 22nd to a defeat at Wangdian. Xia was captured soon afterwards and shot in the streets of a nearby town.
Why bridges were being cut on the Shanghai–Hangzhou railway
The railway joined Shanghai, Sun Chuanfang's center of power, with the Zhejiang capital at Hangzhou, and both sides attacked it during October 1926. Before rising, Xia cut the line from Zhejiang to Shanghai and dispersed the Hangzhou garrison to weaken Sun's grip on the province. When Xia then advanced toward Shanghai, Sun, with few troops to spare for the city's defense, ordered the track from Hangzhou torn up. By 22 October the situation had reversed. The Shibao reports Sun's trains carrying a brigade commander, the 29th Regiment and supplies to Jiaxing and further troop trains on to Xiashi, a supply train leaving Shanghai's North Station for Jiashan, and Xia's troops tearing down Bridge No. 115 between Chang'an and Xucun, which Sun's command ordered the railway's engineering office to repair at once. In the paper's account the side that was winning needed the line repaired, and the side that was losing tried to slow the pursuit by breaking it.
Chen Yi and governing Zhejiang from afar
Chen Yi was a Zhejiang native, born in Shaoxing, who in 1926 served as a lieutenant of Sun Chuanfang. The Shibao states that Sun had already named him civil governor of Zhejiang and that, unable to decline, he took up the post from afar, that is, before he could exercise it in Hangzhou, which Sun's army did not take until 23 October. The sources describe what followed in different terms. The biography of Xia Chao says that Sun appointed Chen as the new governor but that Chen soon declared independence as well, with more success than Xia, while Chen's own biography records that he defected to Chiang Kai-shek's army in 1927. On either account, the appointment reported in this issue did not keep Zhejiang under Sun's control for long.
Zhejiang's place in Sun Chuanfang's domain
Sun Chuanfang had extended his rule over Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Jiangxi, and Zhejiang was one of those five provinces. He had made Xia Chao civil governor in return for his cooperation in taking over the province, but relations soured when Xia and the local gentry rallied against Sun, declared Zhejiang's autonomy and adopted a new constitution. Sun answered by sending his subordinate Lu Xiangting to Hangzhou on 25 January 1926. Xia's October rising was therefore his second attempt to break Zhejiang away from Sun, this time with Nationalist backing. The troop and supply trains reported in this issue were the means by which Sun moved to restore his control over the province.
Original
夏超昨日下午三時出走
。 （二十二日下午九時消息） 孫夏兩軍、 前 (二十一) 日上午在六十八號橋接觸後、 至晚十二時、 又復劇戰、 昨 (二十二) 晨一時、 孫軍另一隊抄至、 開第一列車爲十五旅旅長兼總指揮宋梅村乘坐、 宋至嘉興視察前線各軍、 並督率指揮前進、 其第二列、 係二十九團兵士及軍用品等件、 ◎ 孫軍昨 (二十二) 日下午八時至十時、 由嘉興車站開出兵車三列、 至硤石、 ◎ 滬杭路長安與許村間之第一百十五號橋、 昨 (二十二) 日下午五時、 被夏軍拆斷、 孫軍已飭路局工程處派工前往趕修、 昨日 (二十二) 下午一時零二分由北站開出專車一列、 計挂鐵蓬車八輛、 三等車一輛、 裝載軍用品等件、 運至嘉善、 ◉ 夏超昨日下午三時出走 ◉ 陳儀遙領浙省長 ◎ 昨 (二十二) 日下午、 夏超因前方軍事在王店失利、 知大勢已去、 於下午三
陳儀遙領浙省長
夏超出走、 孫傳芳所委之浙省長陳儀辭不獲、 即行遙領、
上海債券聯合會緊要啟事
方利濟江南中南五券局公議所有 [?] 券自陰歷十七日起暫擬展期一個 [?] 開獎屆期