東亞日報
- Chiang Kai-shek Dead?
- Zhang Zongchang's Army
This partial reading of the Dong-A Ilbo's front page for 5 November 1926 recovers short wire items on China's Northern Expedition. The first, headlined with a question mark, passed on a report that Sun Chuanfang's army headquarters in Shanghai said it had received directly from Sun himself. The report cited the director of a hospital run by American missionaries in Changsha, but the legible text breaks off before it says what the director reported about Chiang Kai-shek. The second item said that Zhang Zongchang, military governor of Shandong, had in the end chosen to back Wu Peifu with seven divisions. Both items show a Korean paper following the war between the Nationalists and the northern warlords, the first through a report from a warlord's own headquarters. The other articles on the page, including items on the northern and southern armies and on Soviet Russia, could not be read.
This is a partial reading. Only the opening fragments of two China items, 蔣介石氏死去？ and 張宗昌軍, could be transcribed from the page images, and both break off mid-sentence. The bodies of 南北兩軍, 勞農露國, 更生의道 and 重大事實發見, the editorial columns and all budget figures were illegible, because the OCR output was badly garbled.
Translation
Chiang Kai-shek Dead?
According to a report that the Sun army headquarters in Shanghai received directly from Mr. Sun Chuanfang, the director of the hospital run by the American missionary group in Changsha …
Zhang Zongchang's Army
Mr. Zhang Zongchang, Military Governor of Shandong, has in the end chosen to assist Mr. Wu Peifu with seven divisions …
Context
Sun Chuanfang's position when his headquarters relayed the report
The death report reached Seoul through Sun Chuanfang's camp, and in early November 1926 Sun badly needed good news. Sun had been a subordinate and protégé of Wu Peifu in the Zhili clique. From his base in Nanjing he had extended his rule over Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Jiangxi. When the National Revolutionary Army struck into Jiangxi that autumn, Sun hit back hard, and his forces crushed the rebellion of his own subordinate in Zhejiang by 23 October. Even so, by the end of October his armies were again retreating across Jiangxi and Fujian. The article traces its information from Sun's Shanghai headquarters back to Sun himself, and only then to a hospital director in Changsha. The paper put a question mark in the headline. That chain of sources put a claim damaging to the enemy commander into print just as Sun's front was giving way.
Why Changsha mattered, and what became of Chiang
Changsha had fallen to the Nationalists early in the campaign, so a report about Chiang coming from there carried weight. The Nationalist government made Chiang Kai-shek commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army on 5 June 1926. His forces then advanced from Guangdong into Hunan, which Wu Peifu held, and captured Changsha on 11 July. After that, the city lay behind the Nationalist front, and a hospital run by American missionaries there could plausibly be presented as a neutral witness. The report printed on this page was nevertheless false. Chiang survived, and when the second phase of the Northern Expedition began in January 1928, he took command again. The paper's question mark therefore marks a rumour that the war's later events disproved.
Zhang Zongchang, the Fengtian bloc and a weakened Wu Peifu
The report that Zhang Zongchang would send seven divisions to help Wu Peifu describes a reversal in northern warlord politics. Zhang belonged to the Fengtian clique and had become military governor of Shandong, which he ruled until May 1928. In 1926 the Fengtian coalition, led by Zhang Zuolin, controlled Manchuria, Shandong and Zhili. Earlier in the campaign, the Fengtian clique had offered Wu its support, but Wu refused it because he feared northern troops would undermine his position. Sun Chuanfang also stayed out while Nationalist forces pushed deeper into Wu's territory. Wu was then left alone, and his last troops in the walled city of Wuchang surrendered on 10 October. The paper's item therefore reported northern help arriving only after Wu had lost Hubei. Independent records show that Zhang stayed loyal to Fengtian and later briefly retook Shanghai before his army was driven north. They do not show whether the seven divisions named here actually went into action for Wu.
Original
蔣介石氏死去？
上海孫軍司令部 가 直接孫傳芳氏 에게서 接受 한 報道 에 依 하면 在長沙米國宣敎師團經營病院長 은
張宗昌軍
山東督辦張宗昌氏 는 七個師團 으 로써 畢竟吳佩孚氏 를 援助 하기로