Did Chiang Kai-shek ever join the Allies?
What are some facts about Chiang Kai-Shek?
I assume you will have plenty serious answers, so I’ll give you some “fun facts”:
*edited and added more interesting fact about his name, his wife, and his early life before the KMT.
Chiang Kai-Shek in symplified Chinese spelling should actually be Jiang Jieshi, and Jieshi is the “字” or “courtesy/style name” of Chiang, his real name was “Chiang Chung-Cheng”.
Chiang does not speak mandarin, or at least not in the modern standard. His speech in the old record shows that his tone is a heavy, mixed accent of many different southern accent.
Chiang was an investor and a bad one. He lost most of his money in the stock market. He later was involved with the most powerful mafias in Shanghai, the Green Gang.
Chiang was a gambler, he was later bankrupt again because of that. When he left Shanghai to follow Sun Yat-sen, he couldn’t even afford a train ticket. The godfather of the Green Gang, Du Yue-sheng (“Big-eared Du”) paid for his tickets from Shanghai to Nanjing.
Green Gang was also a supportive power later to Chiang against the communists.
Chiang preffered German military system and weaponaries than that of US, until the breakout of WW2.
Chiang then became a firm ally of the US, but he sent one of his son to Soviet Union for education.
Stalin personally preferred Chiang than Mao. But Mao was the communist so he supported Mao.
Chiang was the first president of the Huangpu Military Academy. Zhou Enlai was the director of political department. The first became the second president of ROC while the latter became the first prime minister of PRC.
Many of Chiang’s general as well as some of the Communist leaders still addressed him as “校长” as the president of a school but not the “委员长/总统” as the chairman of the central committeo/the president of the country for that reason.
In the revolution against the Beiyang warlords, Chiang was defeated in a battle and one of his student, Chen Geng, carried him out on the back. Chen Geng was later one of the founding generals of the PRC.
After Chiang’s defeat in the civil war, he never gave up going back to the main land. He set up Project National Glory and tried to launch a counter attack in the 1960s. It was eventually ended because of the re-establishment of China-US relationship and the recognition of One-China policy in 1972, 8 years before the Opening Reform of the PRC.
In his late years, Chiang was invited by PRC to go back to his hometown in mainland to visit his family grave and pay respect to his ancestors. He never went, however unwilling.
Chiang ordered his grave to be “temporarily” placed at Tzuhu, as the surrounding landscape resembles his home town Fenghua, and move back to his real hometown when time is right. The time was never right due to Lee Teng-hui’s interference and his Taiwan independence position, and refused to acknowledge the Chinese identity of the past leader.
Chiang’s wife, Soong Mei-ling, always called Chiang as “darling”.
Soon Mei-long was one of the representative figure of the early feminist movement in China.
Chiang’s wife was the youngest among three sisters of Soong family. Her eldest sister (Soong Ai-ling) married to Kung Hsiang-ahi, the 75th generation of Confucius’ descendant, and her second eldest sister (Soong Ching-ling) married to Chiang’s predecessor, the first president of ROC Sun Yat-sen, and became the honorary Vice President of PRC; Soong Ching-Ling joined CCP later in her life and was a founder of China Women’s University. This university still opens today.
I would say “Eastern accent”. Chekiang accent and Kwangtung accent sounds very different from one another at least to me as someone of “Southern” ancestry….
That’s true for us less sensitive northern mandarin speakers, but to linguistics and outside view, Wu is a legit dialect, so I guess he was referring to that as the ‘eastern’.
Another of the Soong sisters married San Yat Sen, the father of post imperial China, and the third sister married a Chinese multi millionaire. The sisters are more interesting than Chang , who was a crook. If the KMT were a better governing party, maybe Mao would not have won.
He probably spoke better Japanese than Mandarin.
No. That’s Wang not Chiang.
Chiang went to school in Japan; OTOH, Wang Jingwei never showed affinity toward Japanese culture, despite his “traitor” status.
If you want to know more about Chiang, please read the "Diary in the Prison" that many people assume the author was Ho chi Minh (Vietnamese ??? ). In the poem 讀蔣公訓詞 / Reading the speech of Headmaster Chiang, the author re-read the main theme of headmaster Chiang described himself.
Who was really the true author of Diary in the Prison / Ngục Trung Nhật Ký ?
To me, the author was a Chinese Kuomintang captain who was accused being a spy for Japanese army. He defended his innocent by showing his close relationship with his former headmaster Chiang Kai Shek /Tưởng giới Thạch, his comrade General Liang Huasheng / Lương hoa Thịnh and his spirit to fight against Japanese invaders through his poems even in the prison cell. He compared the Chinese textbook poems Qianjiashi 千家詩 Thiên gia thi "Poems of one thousand writers" only praising the beauty of nature that were taught in Chinese elementary school with the poems he created to promote patriotic fighting against Japanese invaders. He was angry being caught during the national holiday celebrating the birth of Republic of China. He proved that he dedicated his life for motherland China, his beloved country. He showed the administrative knowledge about managing a district or a region in China under Kuomintang party.
Through the Chinese newspapers that reported China news: In the " 越有騷動 / Việt hữu tao động / The Yue region has fighting ", many thought the term 越 Yue Việt in the diary was used for Vietnam of Indochina but actually the author was talking about Zhejiang / Chiết Giang (浙江). See also the term Việt in Hán Việt tự điển trích dẫn. This was the place where it had a fighting between Chinese Nationalist army and Japanese invaders. The author wanted to go to this battlefield: 上戰場 / thướng chiến trường. The author showed exactly where was the fighting. In another poem talking about his major sickness, he was comparing his hot and cold sickness as the fighting between Wu vs Yue / Ngô vs Việt, but some Vietnamese thought he was talking about Vietnam of Indochina. The term " .越地舊山河 / Việt địa cựu sơn hà" is the term of old country / cựu sơn hà in China. That was the old country of Goujian / Việt vương Câu Tiễn.
Yue (state) - Wikipedia
Yue (state) - Wikipedia
This is the military life of General Liang Huasheng / Lương Hoa Thịnh, (Republic of China / Trung Hoa Dân quốc) according to Western records. In one of the poems, the author of Prison Diary considered this General as a Kuomintang comrade / đồng chí Trung Hoa Quốc Dân Đảng. Since 1935, General Liang had the records eradicating communist rebels in Nanchang, Kunming and other places.
Biography of Lieutenant-General Liang Huasheng.
http://www.generals.dk/general/Liang_Huasheng/_/China.html
1940-XX-XX Chief of the Political Section, 4th War Area
1943-XX-XX Deputy Commander in Chief 11th Army Group
http://www.hoplite.cn/Templates/hpjxwwg0015.html
http://www.baike.com/wiki/梁华盛
In 1943, he left the 4th war area to take the deputy commander of 11th army group.
In the Diary of Prison, there was a poem congratulating this new promotion and admiring him about winning the wars against Red Chinese rebels and Japanese invading army. In other poem, <b>the author re-read the cadet speech of headmaster Generalissimo Chiang</b> Đọc lại lời huấn từ của hiệu trưởng học viện quân sự Hoàng Phố, thống tướng Tưởng giới Thạch. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was the first headmaster of Whampoa military academy. That means <b>the author disclosed himself as a military cadet of this academy</b> Tác giả tự tiết lộ, ông là học viên của trường quân sự Hoàng Phố. Interesting enough that the author re-quote the phrase Chiang Kai-shek described himself as 辜臣孽子/ gū chén niè zǐ / Cô thần nghiệt tử. It meant Chiang was lonely growing up without parents help. Actually, Chiang's father died early when Chiang was only 8 years old. So far in Vietnam, no Vietnamese translators can explain the real meaning of this above phrase that Chiang Kai-shek spoke. Read the 3rd poem below.
Bài thơ: Lương Hoa Thịnh tướng quân thăng nhậm phó tư lệnh - 梁華晟將軍升任副司令 (Hồ Chí Minh - 胡志明)
Bài thơ: Tặng Tiểu Hầu (Hải) - 贈小候（海） (Hồ Chí Minh - 胡志明)
Bài thơ: Độc Tưởng công huấn từ - 讀蔣公訓詞 (Hồ Chí Minh - 胡志明)
Bài thơ: Mông ưu đãi - 蒙優待 (Hồ Chí Minh - 胡志明)
Bài thơ: Khán “Thiên gia thi” hữu cảm - 看千家詩有感 (Hồ Chí Minh - 胡志明)
留言
張貼留言