Chapter 23 Chapter 9: Sun Wen Searches for a Gun, the Kuomintang Revolts

Sun Yat-sen, the most famous revolutionary leader in modern history, has been in the revolution for more than 30 years and has suffered repeated defeats and battles.It's basically going from one failure to another, but that doesn't stop him from being great. A man may be knocked down a thousand times, but as long as he has the courage to stand before the enemy for the thousand and first time, he is not considered a failure.Obviously, Sun Yat-sen is the warrior who dared to stand in front of the enemy again, and the more he lost, the braver he became. Every time he stood up again, he would become stronger and make his enemies more awed.

Chen Jiongming's rebellion hit Sun Yat-sen hard.In his view, the path of using warlords to fight warlords is no longer feasible. After returning to Shanghai, although Sun Yat-sen was very tired, he started a new round of thinking.Where is the way out for the revolution? In fact, he already had the answer in his heart: find a reliable and powerful foreign aid.So the question he is thinking about now is: Which country can provide reliable and strong help, and can it actually do it?He thought it was Soviet Russia. At different times in his revolutionary career, Sun Yat-sen sought help from different big countries.In fact, as early as shortly after the October Revolution in Russia, he sent several pathfinders, hoping to cooperate with the Soviet Union, hoping that this new type of revolutionary country could help him and guide him militarily, but the Soviet Union did not agree to Sun Yat-sen. .

This is normal. After all, the strength gap between the two sides is too great, and cooperation is often carried out under the conditions of similar status or strength.It's like now you write a letter to Li Ka-shing, saying that you want to cooperate with him in business, and ask him to sponsor you some money first, and it's good if he doesn't sue you for blackmail. It was not until December 1921, when Marin, who had just attended the "1st National Congress" of the Communist Party of China, was entrusted by the Communist International, that he met with Sun Yat-sen, who was preparing for the Northern Expedition, and had some formal exchanges.

Marin introduced the situation of the Soviet Russian Revolution to Sun Yat-sen.From Ma Lin's mouth, Sun Yat-sen had a preliminary perceptual understanding of communism, and then he knew that China had a political party guided by Marxism-the Communist Party of China. Sun Yat-sen also talked about his class composition to Marin. He said that I was born in a poor peasant family and was completely a proletarian who could understand communism. Marin was very satisfied with this answer. Of course, Sun Yat-sen's hospitality and modesty also left a good impression on Marin. After returning, Marin said in a report submitted to the Communist International: Most of the leaders of the Kuomintang are intellectuals who sympathize with communism, and they always stand on the side of the workers, and they do not show any intention of shouting for the bourgeoisie.At the end of the report, he came to such a conclusion: We should support the Kuomintang. As for the currently weak Chinese Communist Party, the best way out may be to join the Kuomintang.

Although Marin has made a lot of efforts through the Communist International, Sun Yat-sen can't wait for Marin's reply. What he cares about is how to quickly get on the line of Soviet Russia. If he can win the aid of Soviet Russia, it should be a good way out . At this time, someone suggested that Sun Yat-sen could take the initiative to contact a person. This person was Yue Fei, the plenipotentiary representative of Soviet Russia in China. Joffe arrived in Beijing on August 12, 1922. The purpose of his visit to China was to establish diplomatic relations with China. The first task of a new country like Soviet Russia is to break the state of isolation from the world.Moscow's solution was to "give a big gift" diplomacy. To put it bluntly, it was to look for strong people who sympathized with Soviet Russia everywhere, and when they found them, they used benefits as bait to persuade them to become friends of Soviet Russia.

Yue Fei also brought benefits to the Republic of China - promising to give up Russia's privileges in China, concessions and the remaining "Boxer Indemnity" ("Xin Chou Treaty" indemnity), but this advantage is compared to the Sino-Soviet two countries in Outer Mongolia Territorial battles are not enough to watch. The Beiyang government believed that Outer Mongolia was China's territory, and it sabotaged Russia's plot to split Outer Mongolia several times.But it is a pity that Russia, Soviet Russia, and later the Soviet Union were determined to split Outer Mongolia, and vowed to carry out the tricks to the end.As a result, the Soviet Russian Red Army established a puppet regime in Outer Mongolia in July 1921.

Nevertheless, Yue Fei contacted two people one after another in Beijing. After all, they all came to China, and the travel expenses were spent. Yue Fei first contacted Gu Weijun, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China. Gu Weijun and Tang Shaoyi have similar temperaments, and both Weng and his son-in-law are very tough.Gu Weijun said to Yue Fei: You first withdraw the Red Army from Outer Mongolia, and then we will talk about the establishment of diplomatic relations. Of course, Yue Fei would not agree to Gu Weijun, so he contacted Wu Peifu instead, and Wu Peifu directly rejected Yue Fei's proposal.After all, Soviet Russia and the West are enemies, and the direct line already has two major sponsors, Britain and the United States. It is not worth losing the existing check for an invisible pie.

Just when Yue Fei was disappointed, Sun Yat-sen's envoy came to his door. The mission of the envoy is not to persuade Yue Fei to agree to establish a formal cooperative relationship between the two parties. After all, the KMT doesn’t even have a base right now, so why should they cooperate with the Soviet Union?The most practical task for the envoy was to invite Yue Fei to send a representative to Shanghai to communicate with Sun Yat-sen. Of course, there was no problem with this request, and the Soviet Russian envoy arrived in Shanghai on August 25.Unexpectedly, not long after the Soviet Russian envoy arrived, the old acquaintance Marin also came.

Sun Yat-sen regarded it as sweet rain, and personally ordered Chiang Kai-shek to entertain him, and soon met with the Soviet Russian envoy, Ma Lin and others. The two sides conducted in-depth exchanges and talked about some important details.The Soviet Russian side taught that the reason why they were able to seize power was because they possessed two magic weapons. The first magic weapon is firm mass support.They used a language that the working masses could understand, and told the truth that the other party was willing to accept, mobilizing the broadest grassroots masses. The second magic weapon is the loyal army support.Only an army armed with "ism" and "theory" will know why and for whom it fights, and such an army will be an invincible army.Revolution is actually the establishment of the party's armed forces, the mobilization of the masses, the violent seizure of power, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the experience they paid for with blood.

These words were like a flash of lightning tearing apart the dark sky, which not only dazzled Sun Yat-sen, but also woke him up completely! Sun Yat-sen had an epiphany. The KMT takes the elite route and rarely contacts ordinary people. Naturally, it is difficult for ordinary people to reflect their aspirations, so how can they win the support of the people?Wasn't the anti-Yuan "second revolution" misunderstood by the common people as an armed rebellion? Moreover, I have never paid attention to the revolutionary education of the army and the ideological transformation of love for the party, so that I do not have a loyal revolutionary army, and I am forced to use one warlord to fight another warlord. The two are purely driven by interests, so there is no such thing as Half loyalty, how can you be undefeated!

Sun Yat-sen realized that he must now learn from Soviet Russia, establish an armed force belonging to the party, and seize power violently. This is the only feasible way. But he also knew that this was a big project, and it would be difficult to complete it without external assistance.But he understands better that even though he needs Soviet Russia's help, if he doesn't show the value of the Kuomintang with good results, Soviet Russia will not cooperate with forces that have no use value. Even if they can cooperate, the other party will propose very harsh terms of cooperation. Therefore, after discussing with Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin, Chiang Kai-shek, Zhang Jingjiang and others, Sun Yat-sen decided to take a risky move-drive away Chen Jiongming, win Guangdong, and then invite Yuefei to go south to discuss formal cooperation. Sun Yat-sen was not sure of victory, but he had to do so if he wanted to get aid from the Soviet Union without harming his reasonable interests. There was no other choice but to take risks!Taking risks is not Sun Yat-sen's hobby, but his nature, just like the blood flowing in his veins. However, Sun Yat-sen only had the two Northern Expeditionary troops who were resting in Guangxi and Fujian after being disabled by Chen Jiongming. How could this defeat Chen Jiongming? Sun Yat-sen thought for a while, but he still had no choice but to follow the old path, buying warlords to be mercenaries.After Sun Yat-sen's investigation, he found that it was more realistic to buy troops from Guangxi and Yunnan. So Sun Yat-sen sent envoys to contact these potential customers. Fortunately, good news came back soon. Many Guangxi and Yunnan warlords, represented by Liu Zhenhuan and Yang Ximin, were willing to accept bribes, and they were willing to form a Yunnan-Guangxi coalition army to crusade against Chen Jiongming.This coalition army has about 35,000 people, poorly equipped and poorly trained. Fortunately, the Cantonese army under Chen Jiongming's command, which lost too many talents, can't be called elite. , it should be almost enough to deal with Chen Jiongming. Everything is ready. In mid-October 1922, Sun Yat-sen changed the name of the Northern Expedition Army to the "Tiege Army". He appointed Xu Chongzhi as the commander of the East Army, Jiang Zhongzheng as the chief of staff, and Liu Zhenhuan as the commander of the West Army. Crack down on the revolutionary traitor Chen Jiongming!Set off! The army of begging thieves on the east road is fighting with their backs, and they can only win but never lose, while the army begging on the west road is also for their own survival, so the will to fight is very strong.But Mr. Chen Jiongming was different. He was completely unprepared, and he never thought that Sun Yat-sen would dare to fight back: just such a bunch of defeated soldiers dared to offend his own prestige? Sun Yat-sen did mental calculations but did not intend to, so he caught Chen Jiongming by surprise, and the bandits from the east and west marched smoothly into Guangdong. Three months later, the thieves' army finally opened the door to victory after a hard fight.Seeing that the situation was not good, some members of the Cantonese Army quickly pointed their guns at their former comrades in arms. On January 15, 1923, Chen Jiongming announced his surrender, resigned from all positions, and led the defeated soldiers to retreat to their hometown in Huizhou. Mr. Chen Jiongming, who hid aside to recuperate, was obviously not convinced by the defeat, but Sun Yat-sen did not intend to relentlessly kill the dog in the water, because he had more important things to do. After driving Chen Jiongming back to his hometown to be an otaku, Guangdong was nominally returned to Sun Yat-sen's hands.Why is it in name? Because the Guangdong that Sun Yat-sen can really control is only the surrounding area of ​​Guangzhou, which accounts for about one-third of the entire province of Guangdong.There are two reasons for this situation: one is that Chen Jiongming is still panting because the thieves have not been eliminated; the other is that the mercenaries—Yang Ximin of the Yunnan Army and Liu Zhenhuan of the Guangxi Army have their own selfish intentions. In any case, this is a gratifying progress, because Sun Yat-sen finally has a real revolutionary base of his own. What is even more gratifying is that although Comrade Yuefei had a very correct working attitude and worked very hard, he failed to negotiate a treaty for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the then Beiyang government. So disappointed, Yuefei came to Shanghai and got in touch with Sun Yat-sen. The two sides had a heated and in-depth discussion on the cooperation. While clarifying the general direction, they also paid great attention to small details.All in all, Sun Yat-sen expressed his willingness to take Soviet Russia as a teacher, and Soviet Russia also felt that Sun Yat-sen's conditions were acceptable and worthy of investment. In this case, both parties can cooperate. On December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with Soviet Russia as the main body was established, referred to as the Soviet Union. On January 26, 1923, Sun Yat-sen and Yue Fei, the plenipotentiary representative of the Soviet Union, signed the "Sun Wen Yue Fei Declaration" in Shanghai.The manifesto promises: the Soviet Union will not apply communism and the Soviet system to China, the Soviet Union is ready and willing to abandon all unequal treaties with China in the Tsarist Russia era, the Soviet Union has no intention of making Outer Mongolia independent of China, and the Soviet Union will work together with the Kuomintang to promote China Unification... Also, the aid of the Soviet Union is very reliable. Although the words are beautiful, almost none of the promises have been fulfilled, except for one thing-the three major aids promised by the Soviet Union in the declaration, namely, people, money, and guns, were basically in place. Among them, the specific material assistance before and after the Northern Expedition from 1923 to 1926 is roughly as follows: Arms support: about 50,000 rifles, 50 million rounds of bullets, about 1,000 machine guns, and a small amount of heavy artillery, aircraft and tanks. Financial support: about 10 million rubles. It is a pity that Comrade Yue Fei, who was the linker of Sino-Soviet cooperation, committed suicide four years later, that is, at the end of 1927, and gave up his life by being implicated in the struggle within the party.However, he will always leave a heavy mark in the history of Sino-Soviet cooperation. After the declaration was signed, Sun Yat-sen breathed a sigh of relief: he would no longer be alone in the future, and finally had a strong backer. A month later, Sun Yat-sen returned to Guangzhou for the third time to take charge. The situation remains difficult. Sun Yat-sen's control over the Guangdong base area was not reliable, not only because warlords such as Yang Ximin, Liu Zhenhuan, and Chen Jiongming were engaged in armed separatist regimes everywhere, but also because he had no money in his hands, and because he was 56 years old at the time and was plagued by illness, and there was not much time left. Well, in two years he will die of cancer. However, Sun Yat-sen still organized a government in Guangdong, and the name changed from "Government of the Republic of China" to "Generalissimo of the Army and Navy". It is worth mentioning that Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as the chief of staff of the headquarters. It seems that Sun Yat-sen really cultivated Chiang Kai-shek. In addition, Sun Yat-sen gave up the slogan of "protecting the law". To put it simply, Sun Yat-sen made a gesture that he would not become an enemy of the Beijing government in a short time. From these actions of his, we can see that Sun Yat-sen has understood this truth: to create the conditions is to practice internal strength first. Only when the comprehensive strength including politics, economy and military is improved, can the Northern Expedition have a chance of winning. However, he only gave up confrontation in name. In fact, the Guangdong government is still a separatist regime. Sun Yat-sen's office is naturally in Guangzhou.Guangzhou is a rich city, and the mayor is Sun Ke, the 31-year-old son of Sun Yat-sen.There is also a police force of decent quality in Guangzhou, whose head (the director of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau) is Wu Tiecheng, Sun Yat-sen's fellow villager and old subordinate. Municipal government finance is the main source of military expenditure.Because Sun Yat-sen can only collect taxes from some areas in the province.The reason why taxes can only be collected from some areas has been mentioned earlier: Sun Yat-sen really only controlled the surrounding areas of Guangzhou. However, to feed the Guangdong government and the army, this money alone is far from enough! Therefore, Sun Yat-sen "migrated" the Guangdong salt tax from the great powers.Although this salt tax managed by foreigners should be collected by the Beijing government to repay the indemnities of the great powers, Sun Yat-sen could not control so much.He is a doctor, and he knows that his time is short. He must use every minute and every second to consolidate the fruits of victory by taking advantage of the good situation supported by the Soviet Union. Of course, the British and French powers with interests protested, but they failed to stop this "misappropriation". The situation in the south gradually became clear, but the situation in the north rose again. "Transitional President" Li Yuanhong couldn't go on. President Li, who came out again, only worked for less than a year, and had numerous conflicts with Cao Kun and Wu Peifu. He was led by the nose everywhere, had no leading ability, and made a fool of himself.Li Yuanhong, who was at the end of his life, was finally disheartened. After leaving a telegram of "announcement of voluntary resignation", he lived in seclusion in Tianjin, never talking about state affairs, and spent his old age quietly. When Li Yuanhong resigned, the happiest person must be Cao Kun, Cao Sanye, because he can safely implement the plan to climb the presidential throne. This man believes that as long as you are willing to give, you will gain, and the more you give, the more you will gain.So he spared no expense, regardless of heartache, and clearly marked the price to buy votes - 5,000 oceans per vote, and finally invested nearly 10 million yuan to become the third official president of the Republic of China. Although Mr. Cao has accumulated a lot of family property by relying on open and secret greed, this hemorrhage almost emptied his family property.Fortunately, he successfully bribed the election, otherwise he would have to jump into the Yellow River. But then again, "bribing elections" is still far more advanced than "no elections" to some extent. After all, "bribing elections" is far better than "no elections" in black box operations in terms of political transparency. On the National Day of 1923, that is, on October 10, Cao Kun rushed back to Beijing from Baoding excitedly and became the president of the Republic of China. Cao Kun's success in bribing the president became the headline news of the year. Of course, such a hot inside story also aroused common criticism at home and abroad.Among them, Wu Zhihui, "the God of the Republic of China", performed most brilliantly. Comrade Wu Zhihui is a veteran of the Kuomintang. He is very eloquent. He is known as a "mad dog" in the world. His reputation is far and wide, and no one can provoke him. His strengths lie in two main points: First, he catches and bites whomever he catches. From the elder Cixi to the junior Wang Jingwei, Chiang Kai-shek and Dai Li, he has "bitten" to his heart's content, almost torn to pieces.The second is that his taste is quite strong, and his firepower always hovers about three inches below the opponent's navel. It is difficult for people who cherish face to scold them back. Like this time, he thought of a "money-saving" trick for Mr. Cao - if all the sperm of a man can be transformed into a human being, then Cao Kun and his wife can have 40 million children in one encounter. If you choose Lao Tzu, you don't need to spend so much money to bribe members. Yellow jokes have always had a strong vitality, especially in the marketplace, so Mr. Wu's dirty jokes are deeply loved by the common people. According to legend, Cao Kun won the non-honorary title of "Sperm President". As a result, Mr. Cao’s personal prestige has seriously declined. What’s more serious is that his behavior of bribing the president wiped out the political capital accumulated by Marshal Wu over the years.This is a very bad signal for the future of Zhili. Mr. Sun Yat-sen was very unhappy that Cao Kun bribed the election of the president, but he also knew that he could not shake the Zhili with his own strength. Fortunately, he was walking on the right road and would kill the Beiyang warlords sooner or later, but it would take some time. In order to better use the strength and experience of the Soviet Union to strengthen himself, Marshal Sun decided to learn from his predecessors. Therefore, in August 1923, as the most capable person in Sun Yat-sen's mouth, Chiang Kai-shek led the "Dr. Sun Yat-sen Research Group" to the Soviet Union for investigation. When did Sun Yat-sen have a doctoral degree?In fact, Sun Yat-sen is just an undergraduate student at the University of Hong Kong, and his doctorate title is probably caused by people mistranslating Dr. (doctor) into doctorate.Although he did not obtain a doctorate in medicine, Sun Yat-sen was still a famous doctor in the late Qing Dynasty. There are many stories about his practice and his medical ethics are well-known. There are two main purposes for Sun Yat-sen to send Chiang Kai-shek to the Soviet Union for inspection. First, communicate face-to-face with the top leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist International to enhance mutual understanding, learn more experience, and strive for greater sympathy and assistance. Second, before Chiang Kai-shek set off, the Central Committee of the Kuomintang Party and the General Staff, in view of the unfavorable situation of repeated failures in the Northern Expedition, came up with a seemingly fast and effective plan for the Northern Expedition—to move the battlefield as much as possible to a location that is more conducive to receiving Soviet supplies and aid and is also far away from Beijing. Northwest China, which is closer to the road. Specifically, Sun Yat-sen hoped that the Soviet Union would help the Kuomintang to set up an officer academy in Kulun (now Ulaanbaatar) in Outer Mongolia, and then help the Kuomintang to train an army, and then launch an attack from Outer Mongolia to kill Cao Kun and others He headed the Beijing government. Regarding this military plan of the Kuomintang, Trotsky, chairman of the Soviet Military Commission, clearly rejected Chiang Kai-shek: You should focus most of your attention on propaganda work and minimize military activities.You should launch military operations from your own country's mainland instead of Outer Mongolia, and give up military adventures as soon as possible. Despite Chiang Kai-shek's efforts to argue, the Soviet Union firmly did not support the KMT's military plans for Outer Mongolia. This made Chiang Kai-shek very angry. He wrote a paragraph in his diary that day: It is better to ask for yourself than to ask for others. Seek for yourself. No matter how close your relatives, friends, and allies are, you must not be outside of your own interests. And your own foundation, no matter how big or small it may succeed or fail, should not be underestimated. If you want to succeed, you have to do it yourself. External forces are the most important. Something that cannot be trusted. - Yang Tianshi "Looking for the Real Chiang Kai-shek"). Chiang Kai-shek studied in the Soviet Union for three months, but "Jiang Seng" is different from Tang Seng, he found that the Soviet Union is not a paradise. He said in his diary: Before I went to the Soviet Union, I believed that the Soviet Union’s assistance to us was out of sincerity and was absolutely selfless and malicious. The territorial ambitions of the Northeast completely wiped out my ideals and confidence.I feel that the strategy and purpose of the so-called "world revolution" of the Soviet Union are more dangerous to the national independence movement in the East than to colonialism in the West. amazing!Chiang Kai-shek, who has no deep political experience, can actually smell "hegemonism". As a result, the nationalist Chiang Kai-shek felt that the Soviet Union's assistance to the Kuomintang was entirely out of territorial ambitions and bad purposes. Although Comrade Chiang Kai-shek had seriously studied Marxism-Leninism works before, and believed that the Chinese revolution could be divided into two steps—communism is the next stage of the Three People's Principles, when the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist International invited him to join the Chinese Communist Party, he thought that The excuse of "must ask Mr. Sun" declined. Chiang Kai-shek went to the Soviet Union to learn from the Soviet Union with full expectations, but he failed to achieve positive results, but he was not without gains. Through careful observation and communication, he summed up two revolutionary experiences: Experience one, must be independent, automatic, and not dominated by outsiders. Experience two, "one doctrine, one party", the revolution must be "dictatorship and autocracy by one party". It can be said that it was this trip to the Soviet Union that caused Chiang Kai-shek to make a 180-degree turn in his attitude towards the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, and laid the groundwork for his forceful purge of the Party four years later. Although Chiang Kai-shek felt that the Soviet Union was dangerous, Chiang Kai-shek knew that the Kuomintang at this time could not do without the assistance of the Soviet Union. This is politics, and politics is always about maximizing interests. On October 6, 1923, Soviet advisor Borodin arrived in Guangzhou.In the next seven weeks, Sun Yat-sen and Borodin regularly discussed the Kuomintang reorganization plan. On January 20, 1924, the first National Congress of the Kuomintang was held in Guangzhou. After hard work, Sun Yat-sen suppressed different voices in the party and resolutely reorganized the Kuomintang. He wanted to transform a group of "scholar-bureaucrats" into a qualified political party with the participation and support of the people. It is worth mentioning that Marin's proposal of "members of the Communist Party joining the Kuomintang" was supported by the Communist International, so the Communist International ordered the members of the Communist Party of China to join the Kuomintang in their personal capacity. Under the mediation of Sun Yat-sen and Li Dazhao, the Chinese Communist Party began its honeymoon period with the Chinese Kuomintang. Of course, this is also due to the fact that the Communist Party of China at that time did not have its own independent and distinct political ideas. As a branch of the Communist International, it was not authorized to operate independently and had no ability to act independently. Therefore, the official thinking of the Communist Party of China at that time It is to follow the order of the Communist International and sincerely assist the Kuomintang. As a result, the three major policies of "uniting with Russia, uniting with the Communist Party, and supporting agriculture and industry" were formally established. And Sun Yat-sen's next main task is to create an army loyal to the party and himself.To have such an army, there must be schools for training officers.So he decided to establish two schools, one civil and one military - National Guangdong University and the Chinese Kuomintang Army Officer Academy.The former is now Sun Yat-sen University.So, where is the well-known Whampoa Military Academy? In fact, there has never been a "Whampoa Military Academy". It was just because the Chinese Kuomintang Army Military Academy was later located on Changzhou Island, Huangpu District, Guangzhou City. People called it "Whampoa" instead of the place name, but its real name was ignored by the world. Let's talk about this cradle that has cultivated countless generals of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and talk about this greatest military academy in modern China.