東亞日報
- Zhang Zuolin's Assumption of the Presidency Takes Concrete Shape
- Urging the Propertied Class to Awaken
This partial reading of the Tonga Ilbo for 6 November 1926 covers the opening lines of two pieces. A news report said the Fengtian faction had begun preparing repairs to the Presidential Palace, work expected to take fifty days, and its headline presented this as a sign that Zhang Zuolin's assumption of the presidency was taking concrete shape. An editorial urging the propertied class to awaken began by observing that the cry of the propertyless masses' movement was worldwide and had already reached Korea. It then mentioned Britain's Labour Party and a Russian party whose name is partly illegible, at which point the legible text breaks off. Most of the page's small print cannot be read, so neither piece is followed beyond its first lines.
This reading covers only the opening lines of two articles on the Tonga Ilbo page of 6 November 1926. The machine OCR was unusable, and most body text is small, faint or blurred, so the rest of these two articles and the page's other columns were not transcribed. A [?] marks a character that could not be read, and neither excerpt has been continued from outside knowledge.
Translation
Zhang Zuolin's Assumption of the Presidency Takes Concrete Shape
The Fengtian faction has begun preparations to repair the Presidential Palace, and it is said that fifty days will be needed before these repairs are finished; Zhang Zuolin …
Urging the Propertied Class to Awaken
The cry of the movement of the propertyless masses is worldwide, and that movement has already reached Korea as well. As yet, in the manner of Britain's Labour Party or Russia's Com[?] Party …
Context
Why the Fengtian clique was in Beijing in late 1926
Zhang Zuolin led the Fengtian clique, one of the most powerful factions of China's Warlord Era. After the Fengtian side won the Second Zhili–Fengtian War and the Anti-Fengtian War, it rearranged its civil-military system in 1926 around the Anguojun, or National Pacification Army, whose headquarters closely resembled the earlier Three Northeastern Provinces Defense Headquarters but was located in Beijing. The Tonga Ilbo's report that the Fengtian faction had begun preparing to repair the Presidential Palace therefore concerns a group that, that same year, reorganized its military command around a headquarters in the capital. The estimate that the repairs would take fifty days is the paper's own report.
The title Zhang Zuolin actually took in 1927
The headline speaks of Zhang taking the presidency (大總統), but the office he eventually assumed carried a military title. Having fought wars against the Anhui and Zhili cliques, Zhang had become the most powerful figure in the Beiyang government, and in June 1927 he was appointed Grand Marshal (Generalissimo) of the Republic of China. The preparations the paper described in November 1926 thus point toward a bid for supreme office that was realized about seven months later, not as president but as Grand Marshal.
How the Northern Expedition ended Zhang's rule in Beijing
Zhang's dominance in Beijing proved short-lived. The Fengtian clique's power began to decline amid the Kuomintang's Northern Expedition, and in 1928 Zhang's troops were defeated by that campaign. During his retreat he was assassinated by officers of Japan's Kwantung Army, although the Japanese had supported him because they saw him as best representing their economic interests. Seen against this outcome, the palace repairs reported in 1926 belong to the brief period when the Fengtian clique stood at the top of the Beijing government.
Kim Seong-su and the Dong-A Ilbo's ties to Korean business
The editorial calling on the propertied class appeared in a newspaper closely tied to Korean enterprise. The Dong-A Ilbo was one of a limited number of Korean-owned newspapers that the colonial government allowed to be established. Its founder Kim Seong-su had set up the Seoul Spinning and Weaving Company with his brothers in 1919, and from November 1922 he spearheaded the Goods Encouragement Movement through the paper. After leaving the Dong-A Ilbo in April 1924 he returned and eventually became its president, holding his posts until October 1927, so he was at the head of the company when this editorial ran. The paper's appeal to propertied Koreans, made while it acknowledged that the propertyless masses' movement had reached Korea, thus came from a paper led by one of the country's leading Korean industrialists.
Censorship and readership around the time of the editorial
The Dong-A Ilbo published under close colonial control. In March 1926, a few months before this issue, it printed a speech on the anniversary of the March First Movement, which brought another suspension. The paper was nonetheless highly popular as a venue for sharing foreign ideas, a role that fits an editorial referring to Britain's Labour Party and a Russian party when discussing the movement in Korea. According to colonial government statistics, it had a circulation of 40,968 in 1928, and the new office building it had raised money to construct was completed in front of Gwanghwamun in December 1926, the month after this issue appeared.
Original
張作霖大總統就任具體化
奉天派 는 大總統府 의 修繕準備 에 着手 한바 此修理 가 終了 하기까지에는 五十日 을 要 한다하며 張作霖
有産階級의覺醒을促함
無産民衆 의 運動 의 絶叫 는 世界的 이어니와 朝鮮 에도 이미 그 運動 이미첫다 아직 英國 의 勞働黨 이나 露國 의 共 [?] 黨 모양으로