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For the next ten years, until Chiang Kai-shek threw himself against the Japanese, most of his military strength was spent harrying the Communists from province to province. Chiang made the south too hot for the Communists, but in 1934, led by Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh, they marched 6,000 miles from the farthest point in Fukien Province to the red loess hills of Shensi, and set up a Communist capital at Yenan.
By this time Chiang had become a world figure. But to 80% of the Chinese people —the peasants—he was still little known. Their attitude could be expressed in the bitter story of the farmer whose homestead had been overrun by both the Nationalists and the Communists. "Which side," he was asked, "is better?"
"They are both good," deadpanned the peasant. "Only the people are bad."
Strictures & Sleeves. In the same ten years (1927-37), China's Westernization proceeded faster than ever. These were the years of new railways, roads, schools, flood control, famine-fighting agencies. Chiang himself struggled with the problem of how the old traditions (represented by Confucianism) could be blended with the new ideas. He married one of the three Soong sisters, Wellesley-graduated Meiling, a Christian and a daughter of famed "Old Charlie" Soong, who had made his first fortune in printing and selling Chinese Bibles. (Chiang's first wife, who was still living then, was sent back to her village, Chinese-style, to live on a pension.) Chiang himself became a Methodist, but the conversion did not end his study of Confucian principles; he added the Bible to his readings of the Chinese classics.
When it came to preaching to his army, his officials, and to a whole generation of students, Chiang seldom quoted the Bible. He stressed four old traditional ideas: Li ("regulated attitude"), I ("right conduct"), Lien ("honesty") and Chih ("integrity and honor"). Out of these came Chiang's "New Life Movement," which symbolized the new China; it included strictures against everything from bribery to wiping the nose on the sleeve.
He gave especially patient attention to the training of China's new army, lecturing his Whampoa Academy graduates like a Chinese father. There were good reasons. The Communists were still a constant threat to Nationalist China—and Japanese intentions were perfectly plain to Chiang. But in 1931, when Japan occupied Manchuria, Chiang was cautious. He was still building his Whampoa-trained army. Said he: "We exhort the entire nation to maintain a dignified calm."
"Though I Die . . ." Many Chinese, especially northerners, could not accept this apparent detachment in the face of Japan's threat. In December 1936, the Nationalist garrison at Sian, facing Communist guerrilla forces, laid down their arms and refused to fight "fellow Chinese" any longer. Like their commander, Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang ("The Young Marshal"), most of them were from Manchuria, and they wanted to fight the Japanese, if anybody. Chiang flew immediately to Sian to investigate.