Chapter 30 The Kuomintang in a dilemma

In the last two months of 1935, the Nanjing government spent tense and flustered. On November 1st, the autumn mood in Nanjing is deep.The Central Party Headquarters of the Kuomintang is lined with military police and is heavily guarded.In the Central Auditorium, Wang Jingwei, President of the Executive Yuan, is presiding over the Sixth Plenary Session of the Fourth Central Committee. General Feng Yuxiang, a burly man, came from Taishan, Yan Xishan, who could not easily leave Shanxi, came from Taiyuan, and Guangdong and Guangxi also sent Zou Lu and other representatives.The serious situation requires the Kuomintang to concentrate its efforts to deal with it.As Wang Jingwei said in his opening speech, the Kuomintang has not been this lively for a long time.

Wang Jingwei admitted: It has been four years since the Autumn Fourth National Congress in 1931. The Kuomintang has only made great progress in "suppressing the Communist Party", but the national crisis has become more and more serious.The two most troublesome things for Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei's government at that time were the Japanese's advance in North China, and the social panic caused by the deepening financial crisis. At 7:05, the participants were preparing to take pictures in front of the central party department of the Kuomintang, when three gunshots were heard from the crowd of reporters, and Wang Jingwei, who was in the middle, fell down.Assassin Sun Fengming was wounded by guards.The venue suddenly fell into chaos.

Wang Jingwei was admitted to the Central Hospital for treatment.The hero who assassinated the regent with a generous elegy is now the target of assassination.This is a serious warning against Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei's blind compromise with Japan. The assassination of Wang Jingwei caused violent turmoil in the Shanghai financial market.Since the 2nd, all banks have been facing a wave of runs. Fortunately, the 3rd is a regular rest Sunday, so the situation did not completely get out of control. At 11:00 p.m. on the 3rd, the Ministry of Finance of the Nanjing government announced the currency system reform plan "Implementation Measures for the Legal Currency Policy", which stipulated that "silver is state-owned", and banks across the country should transport the cash deposited to the Central Bank of Shanghai in exchange for legal currency.

The banknotes issued by the Central Bank, the Bank of China, and the Bank of Communications are the "legal currency" that circulates uniformly across the country, and silver, which has been in circulation for more than a thousand years, has thus completed its mission. Due to the increasingly serious silver crisis, the legal currency policy was already in the making, and the British cooperated.British Chancellor of the Exchequer Chamberlain is very clear: If China's financial industry and economic system are destroyed, British business and huge assets in Shanghai will also suffer a serious blow.He sent the British government's chief economic adviser Sir Li Ziluo to assist Kong Xiangxi and Song Ziwen who presided over the reform of China's currency system.

The reform of the currency system has brought closer economic ties between China, the United Kingdom and the United States, which aroused the hatred of Japan.Japan's Bank of China held an emergency meeting to oppose currency reform. The implementation of the legal currency policy made the price of the legal currency no longer fluctuate with the fluctuation of the silver price in the world market, resulting in a sharp rise in market prices, and many companies began to make profits, which made the Chinese economy survive the most difficult period at that time. On November 12, when the Fifth National Congress of the Kuomintang was held in Nanjing, North China was already full of rain and wind.Public opinion across the country is nervously tracking the development of the situation.

At the end of 1935, in the suburbs of Nanjing, Zhang Zhizhong, the dean of education of the Central Military Academy of the Kuomintang, participated in the command of the autumn joint exercise. In addition to the students of the Central Military Academy, a large number of air forces and mechanized troops participated in the exercise.In this year, he also presided over the construction of three permanent defense fortifications between Shanghai and Nanjing.All these actions were clearly directed against Japan. Facing the aggressive Japan, China and the Soviet Union began to move closer. In October 1935, the Sino-Soviet Cultural Association was formally established in Nanjing.Sun Ke, president of the Legislative Yuan of the Nanjing Government, was elected as the chairman of the association, and the Soviet ambassador Bogomonov attended the inaugural meeting.As the envoy of the Soviet Union, he has always been welcomed and valued in China.China and the Soviet Union are consciously increasing mutual understanding.

After losing hope for the League of Nations, Feng Yuxiang, Sun Ke, and even Chiang Kai-shek realized that once the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the Soviet Union was a potential ally against Japan, and how it treated the Chinese Communist Party would also affect Sino-Soviet relations.