Shantung's War
So thundering big is China that a single one of her 18 provinces sufficed to stage the biggest war being fought in the world last week, a major conflict on an 80-mi. bottle front.
China's war was staged in China's best known province, Shantung, once dominated by Germans (1897-1914), later by Japanese (1914-22) but always the everlasting pediment of Confucius' "Sacred Mountain," Taishan. What made Shantung's war authentic and hair-raising last week was the fact-that China's two best & boldest younger War Lords were pitching into each other with such fury that they were actually paying their troops. In China, where thousands of unpaid soldiers wander around with oilpaper umbrellas (their only tents), stealing handfuls of rice and waiting for their officers to be bribed, such energy as the two armies displayed by fighting each other in earnest is as rare as a Chinese epicure's 200-year-old egg. The two battling War Lords:
Han. Appointed Governor of Shantung Province in September 1930, lithe, redoubtable War Lord Han Fu-chu has slashed through the snarl of official extortion which had made Shantung the worst governed province in China. Today Shantung is called China's best-governed province. Han stands for no nonsense. In his capital, Tsinan (see map), there is snap, discipline, morale. When the War Lord stalks with swift strides about his headquarters, ceaselessly puffing cigarets and ripping out orders in short-chopped Chinese, things get done.
There is, however, the usual Chinese paradox. Shantung is a maritime province and Han is a model governor but he has never held Shantung's vital seaports, Tsingtao and Chefoo.
Liu. In June 1929, 15 months before Han became Governor of Shantung. Chefoo was taken by War Lord Liu Chen-nien, who should later have considered himself subordinate to Governor Han of Shantung, Chefoo being merely a Shantung port.
All last summer War Lord Liu was popular with U. S. bluejackets whose ships lay anchored off his port. At the cry (in Chinese) of "The fleet's in!'', smart Liu extorted $100,000 mex. from Chefoo establishments most apt to be patronized by sailors. Pocketing perhaps half this money, Liu nevertheless spent at least $50.000 mex. to improve Chefoo's police force, to push his superb street paving program and to encourage his new Institute of Silk Culture. Liu, frankly a bandit who worked up into the roles of petty statesman and local philanthropist, had only one real fault during the summer. He did withhold (steal) all of Chefoo's local revenues from Governor Han of Shantung.
War. Standing for no nonsense. War Lord Han took the field last week with 40,000 picked soldiers to collect the arrears of revenue from Chefoo's Liu who mustered perhaps 30,000 troops, by no means picked.
First by train and next by forced marches up Shantung's best motor road, War Lord Han rushed Chefooward, then spread out his forces in an 80-mi. offensive front, aiming to envelop and crush Liu's troops among the mountains of Chefoo.