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On no issue was T.V. more outspoken than Japanese aggression in Manchuria and Jehol. But the Generalissimo believed that China was not yet ready for full resistance. Soong was for fighting the Japanese at once. The brothers-in-law no longer saw eye to eye. In 1933, T.V. was relieved of the Finance Ministry and the Vice Presidency of the Executive Yuan. His successor was another brother-in-law, suave Shansi Banker H. H. ("Daddy") Kung, who recently retired from the Finance Ministry, but is still Vice President of the Executive Yuan and now in the U.S. T.V. went abroad to represent China at the London World Economic Conference and to negotiate a $50,000,000 commodity loan in Washington.
Education by Kidnapping. Later he came back to Shanghai, serving as chair man of the powerful Bank of China, building up a personal fortune, collecting rare Chinese paintings, bronzes, jades. One day history knocked dramatically on his door again. This time history had two faces —the face of the "Young Marshal," War Lord Chang Hsueh-liang, whom the Japanese had driven out of Manchuria, and the old familiar face of Communism.
It was December 1936. In a high-walled temple at Sian, in far-western China, Chiang Kai-shek found himself surrounded by the troops of the mutinous "Young Marshal" Chang Hsueh-liang. The "Young Marshal"— like the Chinese Communists —demanded that Chiang make open war on Japan. Clad in his nightshirt, the Generalissimo tried to escape. He fell down a 30-ft. wall, hurt his back painfully — an injury from which he still suffers. The "Young Marshal's" soldiers closed on him. Chiang cried: "I am the Generalissimo. Don't be disrespectful. If you regard me as your prisoner, kill me, but don't subject me to indignities." The mutineers answered: "We don't dare."
No one could say what the impetuous "Young Marshal" might not dare. The indomitable Generalissimo scolded his kidnapper for disobedience, sought com fort in his Bible, made entries in his diary. In dazed Nanking, Madame Chiang summoned T.V. "He'll never get out alive!" cried T.V.'s friends as he hurried to the plane waiting to carry him to Sian.
T.V. flew to Sian twice — once with Chiang's famed Australian adviser, William Donald, the second time with Mad ame Chiang. In that tense, life-&-death atmosphere, Madame soothed the Generalissimo by reading the Book of Psalms. T.V. strode from parley to parley, patched frayed tempers, allayed fears, argued, suggested, promised. Suddenly the "Young Marshal" called off the mutiny. Leaning on his wife's arm, the Generalissimo walked from the house of captivity. Behind him strode the penitent "Young Marshal"* and jubilant T.V.
Within seven months the Japanese invaded North China. Chiang decided that the nation could no longer delay, led it into full resistance.