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Eldest Daughter Ailing ("Pleasant") Soong is the Sibyl of the clan. She approved the hot haste in which Old Charlie married off Second Sister Ching-ling ("Happy") to First President Sun. Years later when Dr. Sun was dead and when Generalissimo Chiang, once a secretary of Dr. Sun, had conquered all China, "Pleasant" said: "We Soongs can make much of this man." Though he was a Buddhist with concubines and the Soongs are Christians, she approved when Chiang put aside his concubines and married Youngest Sister Mei-ling ("Beautiful"). Meanwhile "Pleasant" herself had married the 75th lineal descendant of Confucius, Dr. H. H. Kung. Her little Brother Tse-wen ("Scholarly Son") became Finance Minister and was to be known favorably in every chancellery in the world as T. V. Soong. Thus the tentacles of a single family linked China's late, sainted First President and her living Conqueror, and her greatest Finance Minister and the 75th descendant of her foremost sage.
Soong close harmony could not last forever. Last week Eugene Chen was seen to have picked, with his usual perspicacity, a highly opportune moment to assault the House of Soong, i. e. the Chinese Government.
Month ago Generalissimo Chiang and Brother-in-law T. V. quarreled (TIME, Nov. 6) with the result that Mr. Soong resigned as Finance Minister. He was replaced by the Generalissimo's other Brother-in-law, Dr. Kung. But in Chinese finance there is no such thing as replacing T. V. Soong. Dr. Kung is amiable and highly esteemed, less clever than his wife "Pleasant." Mr. Soong is the only man who ever balanced China's budget (TIME, Jan. 2), the only Chinese Finance Minister who ever held his country's extravagant militarists in check. Unfortunately Soong the Financier tried to make himself a popular figure by clamoring for Chinese efforts to wrest Manchukuo back from Japan. Chiang the Conqueror (of Chinese) knew that against Japanese his forces could not for the present win. He also resented the encroachment into politics of Soong, the money man. Cross current of intrigue and personal gossip further estranged T. V. and Chiang. Last week Mr. Soong was in effect gloating on the sidelines as Generalissimo Chiang found himself forced to meet the challenge of Fukien and Eugene Chen. Overnight seven steamers were filled with picked troops and dispatched to attack the rebels by sea. Martial law was declared in Shanghai's Chinese quarter. Troop trains roared off to the Fukien land front. From Nanking the Generalissimo sent up thun dering squadrons of airplanes which showered Fukien with bombs and with leaflets reading:
To the 19th Route Army:
Comrades!
Either clean up the bogus Fukien Government or the Nanking Government promises you utter annihilation.
Chiang, Commander-in-Chief.