{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"3.193 Fall and Rise of China: Chiang-Wang Divide","description":" Last time we spoke about the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact. In the summer of 1939, the Nomonhan Incident escalated into a major clash along the Halha River, where Soviet-Mongolian forces under Georgy Zhukov decisively defeated Japan's Kwantung Army. Zhukov's offensive, launched on August 20, involved intense artillery, bombers, and encirclement tactics, annihilating the Japanese 23rd Division and exposing weaknesses in Japanese mechanized warfare. The defeat, coinciding with the Hitler-Stalin Nonaggression Pact, forced Japan to negotiate a ceasefire on September 15-16, redrawing borders and deterring further northern expansion. Stalin navigated negotiations with Britain, France, and Germany to avoid a two-front war, ultimately signing the German-Soviet pact on August 23, which secured Soviet neutrality in Europe while addressing eastern threats. Post-Nomonhan, Soviet-Japanese relations warmed rapidly: fishing disputes were resolved, ambassadors exchanged, and the Chinese Eastern Railway sale finalized. By 1941, a neutrality pact was concluded, allowing Japan to pivot southward toward China and Southeast Asia.   #193 The Chiang-Wang Divide Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com\/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. After that lengthy mini series covering the battle of Khalkin Gol, we need to venture back into the second sino-japanese war, however like many other colossal events\u2026.well a lot was going on simultaneously. I wanted to take an episode to talk about the beginning of something known as the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, or much shorter, the Wang Jingwei Regime. It\u2019s been quite some time since we spoke about this character and he is a large part of the second sino-japanese war.    After the fall of Tianjin and Beiping, the government offices in Nanjing entered their annual summer recess. All of GMD\u2019s senior leadership, from Chiang Kai-shek down to Wang Jingwei, gathered on Mount Lu, a picturesque resort in northern Jiangxi, south of the Yangtze, famed for cliffs, clouds, and summer villas. Although Chiang had visited Mount Lu every summer, this was the first occasion that nearly the entire central government assembled there. Analysts suspected the gathering was a deliberate move to relocate government functions inland in the event of total war. Dozens of the nation\u2019s leading intellectuals were invited to Mount Lu to discuss strategies for countering Japan\u2019s ambitions. The forum was scheduled to begin on July 15 and to last twenty-seven days in three phases. The bridge incident caught them off guard. Unlike Manchuria, Beiping had long been the nation\u2019s capital, and the shock added urgency to the proceedings. When the forum, chaired by Wang, finally opened on July 16, speculation ran as to whether this signaled another regional conflict or the onset of full-scale war. The media pressed for a resolute stance of resistance from the government. To dispel the mounting confusion and perhaps his own indecision, Chiang delivered a solemn speech on July 17, declaring that if the incident could not be resolved peacefully, China would face the \u201ccrucial juncture\u201d of national survival and would consider military action; if war began, every Chinese person, from every corner of the country and from every walk of life, would have to sacrifice all to defend the nation.   Chiang\u2019s Mount Lu Speech was now commonly regarded as the moment when China publicly proclaimed its firm commitment to resistance. Contemporary observers, however, did not take Chiang\u2019s stance at face value. Tao Xisheng, a Peking University law professor who had been invited, recalled that after the speech, people gathered in Hu Shi\u2019s room to discuss whether a peace option remained. Chiang left the mountain on July 20, leaving Wang to chair the conference. The discussions continued upon their return to Nanjing, where a National Defense Conference was organized in mid-August. It was also Tao\u2019s first encounter with Wang Jingwei. A \u201cpeace faction,\u201d largely composed of civil officials and intellectuals, began to take shape around Wang, favoring diplomatic solutions over costly and potentially ineffective military action.   During this period, both Chiang and Wang publicly called for resistance, while both harbored hopes for a peaceful solution. Yet their emphases differed. On July 29, Wang Jingwei delivered a radio address from Nanjing titled \u201cThe Critical Juncture,\u201d echoing Chiang\u2019s slogan. He likewise asserted that after repeated concessions and retreats, the critical juncture had come for China to rise against Japan. It would be a harsh form of resistance, since a weak nation had no alternative but to sacrifice every citizen\u2019s life and scorch every inch of land. Yet toward the end, Wang\u2019s speech took on an ironic turn. He stated, \u201cThe so-called resistance demands sacrificing the whole land and the whole nation to resist the invader. If there is no weakness in the world, then there is also no strength. Once we have completed the sacrifice, we also realize the purpose of resistance. We hail \u2018the critical juncture\u2019! We hail \u2018sacrifice\u2019!\u201d The sentiment sounded almost satirical, revealing his doubt about the meaning of total sacrifice.   The hope for containment was crushed by Japan\u2019s ongoing advances. On November 12, Shanghai fell. Chiang\u2019s gamble produced about 187,200 Chinese casualties, including roughly 30,000 officers trained to German standards. Japanese casualties were estimated at a third to a half of the Chinese losses, still making it their deadliest single battle to date. The battered Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, long convinced of their invincibility, were consumed by vengeful bloodlust. The army swept from Shanghai toward Nanjing, leaving a trail of murder, rape, arson, and plunder across China's heartland.   With the fall of Nanjing looming, the central government announced on November 20 that it would relocate to Chongqing, a city upriver on the Yangtze protected by sheer cliffs. Plans for Chongqing as a reserve capital had already begun in 1935, with Hankou as the midway station. To preserve elite troops for the future while saving face, Nanjing was entrusted to General Tang Shengzhi and his roughly one hundred thousand largely inexperienced soldiers. Nanjing fell on December 13. Despite this victory, Japan\u2019s hopes of ending the China Incident within three months were dashed. The carnage produced by the war, especially the Rape of Nanjing, left a profound moral stain on humanity. A mass exodus from the coastal provinces toward the hinterland began. People fled by boats, trains, buses, rickshaws, and wheelbarrows. Universities, factories, and ordinary households were moved halfway across China, step by step. The nation resolved to persevere, even in distant mountains and deserts if necessary. In Sichuan alone, government relief agencies officially registered about 9.2 million refugees during the war years.   Chiang Kai-shek, after paying respects at Sun Yat-sen\u2019s mausoleum, flew to Mount Lu with Song Meiling. The so-called Second Couple chose a more modest path: like most refugees, the Wang family traveled upriver along the Yangtze. On November 21, they left Nanjing, abandoning a recently renovated suburban home and thirty years of collected books. Coincidentally, the ship carrying Wang Jingwei from Nanjing to Wuhan was SS Yongsui, the former SS Zhongshan that had escorted Sun Yat-sen to safety and witnessed Wang\u2019s ascent and subsequent downfall from power. Ironically renamed \u201cYong-sui,\u201d the ship\u2019s new title meant \u201cpeace,\u201d while the compound term suijing denoted a policy of appeasement. This symbolism\u2014Wang being carried away from Nanjing by a ship named \u201cEternal Peace\u201d\u2014foreshadowed his eventual return to the city as a champion of a \u201cpeace movement.\u201d   After the Mount Lu Forum, Hu Shi and Tao Xisheng could not return to Beiping, now under Japanese occupation. They joined the government in Nanjing. Beginning in mid-August, Japanese bombers began attacking Nanjing. Air power\u2014an unprecedented weapon of mass destruction\u2014humbled and awed a Chinese public largely unfamiliar with airborne warfare. By striking a target that did not serve its immediate interests, Japan demonstrated its world-class military might and employed psychological warfare against the Chinese government and people. Because Zhou Fohai\u2019s villa at Xiliuwan had a fortified cellar suitable as an air-raid shelter, a group of like-minded intellectuals and civil servants sought refuge there. They preferred a peaceful approach to the conflict, subscribing to the idea of trading space for time\u2014building China\u2019s industrial and military capabilities before confronting Japan. Tao Xisheng and Mei Siping, old allies of Zhou Fohai, lived in his house. Another frequent guest was Luo Junqiang, an ex-communist. The former CCP leader Chen Duxiu, recently released from prison, joined their gatherings a few times. Gao Zongwu hosted another meeting site. Hu Shi, as a guest himself, jokingly called this circle the \u201cLow-Key Club\u201d (Didiao julebu), a label that underscored their pragmatic defiance of the government\u2019s high-flown rhetoric urging all-out resistance. Many members of this group would later become central figures in a conspiracy known as the \u201cpeace movement,\u201d with Wang Jingwei as its leader and emblem.   As Gerald Bunker noted, the peace scheme did not originate with Wang but with certain associates of Chiang, elements in Japanese military intelligence, and members of liberal-minded Japanese political circles who were linked to Konoe. Zhou Fohai belonged to the Chiang-loyalist CC faction, named for Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu. Zhou believed that resistance under current conditions was suicidal. He sought to influence Chiang through people around him, including Wang Jingwei, whom he found impressionable and began visiting at Wang\u2019s salon. Gao Zongwu, head of the Foreign Ministry\u2019s Asian Department, felt sidelined by Chiang\u2019s uncompromising stance. They shared the sense that Chiang might be willing to talk but feared the price, perhaps his own leadership. They were dismayed by the lack of a long-range war plan beyond capitulation. Their view was that China\u2019s battlefield losses would worsen the terms of any settlement, and that the war\u2019s outcome seemed to benefit Soviet Russia and undermine the GMD more than China itself. The rapid collapses of Shanghai and then Nanjing vindicated their pessimism. Chiang\u2019s autocratic decision-making only deepened their dissatisfaction. They feared China was again at risk of foreign conquest from which it might not recover.   Wang Jingwei became the focal point for these disaffected individuals, drawn by his pacifist leanings, intellectual temperament, and preference for consensus-building. After the government relocated to Hankou, he lent guidance to the Literature and Art Research Society (Yiwen yanjiu hui), a propagandist body led by Zhou Fohai and Tao Xisheng. Its purpose was to steer public opinion on issues like the war of resistance and anticommunism, and to advocate a stance that the government must preserve both peace and war as options. Many believed it to be Wang\u2019s private organization; in truth, Chiang supported its activities. For much of 1938, Chiang\u2019s belligerent anti-Japanese rhetoric and Wang\u2019s conciliatory push were two sides of the GMD\u2019s broader strategy.   Among the society\u2019s regional branches, the Hong Kong chapter flourished under Mei Siping and Lin Baisheng. In addition to editing South China Daily News, Lin established Azure Books and the International Compilation and Translation Society (Guoji bianyishe) as primary propaganda organs. Ironically, Mei Siping had himself been a radical during the 1919 student protests, when he helped set fire to the deputy foreign minister\u2019s house in protest of perceived capitulation to Japan.   Wang Jingwei also actively engaged in international efforts to broker peace between Japan and China, including Trautmann\u2019s mediation by the German ambassador. Since the outbreak of war, various Western powers had contemplated serving as mediators, but none succeeded. Nazi Germany, aligned with Japan in an anti-Soviet partnership, emerged as China\u2019s most likely ally because it did not want Japan to squander its strength in China or compel China to seek Soviet help. Conversely, Japan\u2019s interest lay in prolonging the war or achieving a swift settlement. Ambassador Trautmann met with Wang Jingwei multiple times from October 31 to early November 1937 to confirm China\u2019s preference for peace before negotiating with Japan. The proposal Trautmann carried to Chiang Kai-shek on November 5 proposed terms including autonomy for Inner Mongolia, a larger demilitarized zone in North China, an expanded cease-fire around Shanghai, a halt to anti-Japanese movements, an anti-communist alliance, reduced tariffs on Japanese goods, and protection of foreign interests in China. Although Japan did not specify territorial gains, these terms deviated significantly from Chiang\u2019s demand to restore pre\u2013Marco Polo Bridge status. After Shanghai fell, Chiang\u2019s rigidity softened.   On December 5, at Hankou, the National Defense Conference agreed to begin peace negotiations based on Trautmann\u2019s terms, a decision Chiang approved. But it was too late: Nanjing fell on December 13, and a provisional Beiping government led by Wang Kemin was established, signaling Japan\u2019s growing support for regional separatism. On December 24, Japan issued an ultimatum for a harsher deal to be accepted by January 10. In response, Chiang resigned as chairman of the Executive Yuan on January 1, 1938, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Kong Xiangxi. Chiang declared that death in defeat was preferable to death in disgrace and refused to yield under coercion. The Konoe Cabinet announced on January 16 that Japan would not negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek. Trautmann\u2019s mediation had failed.   After Konoe\u2019s announcement, mediation became even more precarious, as it placed the already deadly, no-win situation between the two nations in deeper jeopardy. Secret contacts between the two governments persisted through multiple channels\u2014sometimes at the direction of their own leaders, other times at the initiative of a cadre of officials and quasi-official figures of dubious legitimacy. Many of these covert efforts were steered by Chiang himself. In late 1937, Wang Jingwei even sent Chen Gongbo to Rome to explore the possibility of Italian mediation between China and Japan. After meetings with Mussolini and Foreign Minister Ciano, Chen concluded that Italy had no genuine goodwill toward China and favored Japan. His conversations with other Western leaders (Belgium, France, Britain, and the United States) proved equally fruitless. In diaries, Zhou Fohai and Chen Kewen recorded a pervasive mood of pessimism among Hankou and Chongqing\u2019s national government factions. Although direct champions of negotiating with Japan were few, many voices insisted that China was on the brink of collapse while secretly hoping peace talks would begin soon. Gao Zongwu\u2019s mission emerged from this tense atmosphere.   With Konoe\u2019s cabinet refusing to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek, many regarded Wang as the best candidate to carry forward a diplomatic solution. Yet Wang remained convinced of his loyalty to Chiang and to Chiang\u2019s policy. The Italian ambassador visited Wuhan to offer mediation between Wang and the Japanese government, an invitation Wang declined. Tang Shaoyi\u2019s daughter traveled to Wuhan to convey Tokyo\u2019s negotiation intent, but was similarly turned away. Even Chen Bijun, then in Hong Kong, urged Wang to join her and start peace negotiations; he again declined. Tao Xisheng remembered a quiet night when Wang confided in him: \u201cThis time I will cooperate with Mr. Chiang until the very end, regardless of how the war unfolds.\u201d His stance did not change when Gao Zongwu reported that the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office wanted him to head the peace talks.   Gao Zongwu\u2019s bid was brokered by Dong Daoning, head of the Japan Affairs Section in the Foreign Ministry. Shortly after Konoe\u2019s statement, Dong traveled to Shanghai to meet Nishi Yoshiaki, representative of Mantetsu, and Matsumoto Shigeharu, a D\u014dmei News Agency journalist. Nishi and Matsumoto then introduced Dong to Kagesa Sadaaki, head of the Strategy and Tactics Department in the General Staff Office. Kagesa introduced Dong to Deputy Director Tada Hayao and colleagues Ishiwara Kanji and Imai Takeo, who agreed that a peaceful resolution to the China crisis aligned with Japan\u2019s interests. It would be inaccurate to paint these figures as pacifists: Ishiwara, who helped build Manchukuo, also recognized that further incursions into China could jeopardize Japan\u2019s hard-won gains. They proposed a temporary resignation by Chiang to spare Konoe from having to retract his refusal to negotiate, thereby allowing Wang to lead the talks. In short, the scheme aimed to save face for Konoe.   Dong returned to Hong Kong and delivered the proposal to Gao Zongwu, who had been stationed there since February under Chiang\u2019s orders to oversee intelligence and liaison with Japan. Luo Junqiang, Gao\u2019s contact, testified that Gao was paid monthly from Chiang\u2019s secret military fund. Gao went back to Hankou twice, on April 2 and May 30. On the second trip, he personally conveyed Japan\u2019s terms to Chiang. Gao later admitted that Chiang never gave him explicit instructions, but rather cultivated an impression of tacit approval. At no point did Gao view the deal as Chiang\u2019s betrayal. As long as Chiang retained control of the military, Wang\u2019s leadership could only be nominal and temporary. Unbeknownst to Wang, Gao\u2019s personal ties to Chiang remained hidden from him; he learned of them only through Zhou Fohai. Startled, he handed the information to Chiang Kai-shek and told Tao Xisheng: \u201cI cannot broker peace with Japan alone. I will not deceive Mr. Chiang.\u201d Given Tao\u2019s later departure from Wang\u2019s circle to rejoin Chiang, Tao\u2019s recollection could be trusted.   Two months later, Wang left Chongqing to pursue a peace settlement. A key factor may have been persistent lobbying by Zhou, Gao, Mei, Tao, and especially his wife Chen Bijun. Luo Junqiang recalled that Kong Xiangxi objected that Gao acted without him, prompting Chiang to order Gao to halt his covert efforts, an order Gao ignored. Gao and Mei Siping continued to press for a deal. Gao even spent three weeks in Japan in July, holding extensive talks with Kagesa Sadaaki and Imai Takeo. Their discussions produced the first substantive articulation of the Wang peace movement as a Sino-Japanese plot to end the \u201cChina incident.\u201d On November 26, Mei flew from Hong Kong to Chongqing with a draft of Japan\u2019s terms and Konoe\u2019s planned announcement. The proposal stated that the Japanese army would withdraw completely within two years once peace was reached, but it demanded that China formally recognize Manchukuo. Wang was to leave Chongqing for Kunming by December 5, then proceed to Hanoi. Upon Japan receiving news of his arrival in Hanoi, the telegram would reveal the peace terms. This pivotal moment threw Wang into intense inner turmoil. Zhou Fohai visited Wang daily, and Wang delayed decisively each time, much to Zhou\u2019s frustration. Ultimately, it seemed that Chen Bijun rendered the final judgment on Wang\u2019s behalf. As in earlier episodes, Wang found himself trapped by an idealized image of himself held by family, followers, and loyalists, seen by them as a larger-than-life figure who must undertake a mission too grand to fail.   Yet Wang\u2019s stance was not purely involuntary. As Imai Takeo noted, he fundamentally disagreed with Chiang\u2019s strategy of resistance. The so-called scorched-earth approach caused immense suffering. Three episodes stood out: the 1938 Yellow River flood, ordered by Chiang to impede Japan\u2019s advance, which destroyed dikes and displaced millions, yielding devastating agricultural and humanitarian consequences; the subsequent epidemics and famine that followed, producing about two million refugees and up to nine hundred thousand deaths, while failing to stop the Japanese advance toward Wuhan (which fell in October); and the Changsha fire, ignited in the early hours of November 13, which killed nearly thirty thousand people and devastated most of the city. These events sharpened Wang\u2019s doubts about Chiang\u2019s defense strategy, especially its reckless execution and cruelty. By late November, Wang began to openly challenge Chiang\u2019s approach, delivering a series of speeches advocating his own war-weariness and preference for limiting resistance to preserve national strength for future counterstrikes. He argued that guerrilla warfare burdened the people and wasted national resources that could be saved for a later, more effective defense. He urged soldiers to exercise judgment and listen to their consciences, and he attributed much of the civilian suffering to the Communists; nonetheless, with General von Falkenhausen, Chiang\u2019s German adviser, now urging a shift toward smaller-unit mobile warfare, Wang\u2019s critique of Chiang\u2019s strategy took on a more pointed, risksome tone. If resistance equaled total sacrifice, Wang was not prepared to endorse it. As Margherita Zanasi noted, Wang Jingwei and Chen Gongbo had long shared a vision of a self-consciously anti-imperial \u201cnational economy\u201d, the belief that China\u2019s economy had not yet achieved genuine nation-power and that compromising with the foe might be necessary to save the national economy.   Wang and Zhou also worried that continuing resistance would strengthen the Communists and that genuine international aid would not arrive, at least not soon. After Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia, Wang briefly hoped for the formation of an antifascist democratic alliance. Yet the Munich Agreement disappointed him. Viewing Western democracies as culturally imperialist, he doubted they would jeopardize their relations with Japan, another imperial power, on China\u2019s behalf. This view was reinforced by Zhou Fohai and other China specialists who had recently joined Wang\u2019s circle; they argued that China would fall unless the international situation shifted dramatically. Their forecast would prove accurate only after Pearl Harbor.   In the end, Wang longed for decisive action. He had been sidelined since the government\u2019s move to Wuhan. At the GMD Provisional National Congress in Hankou (March 29\u2013April 1), the party resolved to restore Chiang Kai-shek to near-total control by reasserting the authoritarian zongcai system. The Congress also established the People\u2019s Political Council as a nominal nod to democracy, but it remained largely consultative. Wang was elected deputy director and chairman of the council, yet he clearly resented the position. Jiang Tingfu described Wang\u2019s Hankou mood as \u201csomewhat resentful,\u201d recognizing the role as largely ceremonial. More optimistic observers attributed his dismay to the return of dictatorship, and he likely felt increasingly useless. Since the Mukden Incident, Wang had prioritized party unity and been content to play a secondary role to Chiang, but inaction did not fit his sense of historical purpose. It was Zhou Fohai who urged Wang to risk his reputation for a greater cause, presenting a calculated nudge to someone susceptible to idealism. A longing to find meaning through action may have finally pushed him toward a fateful decision. As Chen Bijun bluntly told Long Yun, her husband \u201cwas merely an empty shell in Chongqing and could contribute nothing to the country; thus he wanted to change his surroundings.\u201d   Wang considered staying abroad as a serious option amid the Hanoi uncertainty. Gao Zongwu had previously told Japanese negotiators that if Konoe\u2019s stance did not satisfy Wang, he might head to France. Chongqing echoed this possibility. On December 29, Ambassador Guo Taiqi, acting on Chiang\u2019s orders, telegraphed Wang suggesting he go to Europe \u201cto take a break.\u201d It would have offered a graceful exit. Kagesa recommended Hanoi as Wang Jingwei\u2019s midway station because, as a French colony, it offered a relatively safe environment. Only the French were armed there, and several members of the extended Wang family had grown up in France, enabling them to communicate with the colonial authorities.   After Wang departed for Hanoi, Long Yun hesitated for weeks. On December 20, he telegraphed Chiang, saying Wang had paused in Kunming on the way to Hanoi to seek medical treatment. Knowing this was untrue, Chiang replied on December 27 with a stern warning about Japan\u2019s unreliability, a message that appeared to have persuaded Long. A day later, Long urged leniency for Wang. Following Wang\u2019s publication of the \u201cyan telegram,\u201d public anger likely pushed Long toward a final decision. On January 6, he informed Chiang of a letter from Wang delivered by Chen Changzu, and he noted that the Wangs were considering the French option, but recommended allowing Wang to return to Chongqing to show leniency and to enable surveillance.   Chiang replied two days later that Wang would be better off going to Europe. The extended Wang family resided in two Western-style mansions at 25 and 27 Rue Riz March\u00e9, surrounded by high walls. On February 15, Chongqing\u2019s envoy Gu Zhengding brought their passports to Hanoi. Accounts differed on what happened next. One version had Wang offering to travel abroad if Chongqing accepted his proposal to start peace talks; if Chongqing remained indecisive, he would return to voice his dissent. Another version claimed Gu\u2019s primary task was to bring Wang back to Chongqing, which Wang declined, preferring France.   Although the French option was gaining favor, the Wang circle continued to explore other avenues. In early 1939, secret contacts with the Japanese government persisted, though not always in a coordinated way. Chiang\u2019s intelligence advised that the Wang group was forming networks in Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, with Gao Zongwu playing a central role. On February 1, Gao returned from Hong Kong and stayed for five days, finding Wang in a despondent mood. Wang asked Gao to pass along a few letters to Japanese leaders urging the creation of a unified Chinese government to earn the Chinese people\u2019s understanding and trust. Wang believed his actions would serve the best interests of both China and Japan. On March 18, the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong informed Gao that funding for the Wang group would come from China\u2019s customs revenues that Japan had seized.   Meanwhile, Chiang Kai-shek sensed a shift in the war\u2019s direction. On February 10, Japan seized Hainan, China\u2019s southernmost major island. The next day, Chiang held a press conference describing the development as \u201cthe Mukden Incident of the Pacific.\u201d He warned that Japan\u2019s ambitions could threaten British and French colonial interests and U.S. maritime supremacy. Gao Zongwu read the speech and concluded that Chiang\u2019s outlook had brightened.   For three months, the Wang circle met frequently to weigh options. The prominent writer and scholar Zhou Zuoren, who had already accepted a collaborationist post as head of the Beiping library, warned Tao Xisheng, saying \u201cDon\u2019t do it,\u201d signaling his misgivings about collaborating with Japan based on his reading of Japanese politics. As Zhou observed, many young Japanese militarists did not even respect General Ugaki, let alone a foreign leader.   Then the assassination of Zeng Zhongming, Wang\u2019s secretary and prot\u00e9g\u00e9, abruptly altered the meaning of Wang\u2019s mission. The Wang group was deeply unsettled by Zeng Zhongming\u2019s assassination. The event came as a shock. On March 20, Gu Zhengding\u2019s second Hanoi visit concluded. Allegedly Gu delivered passports and funds for a European excursion. On a bright spring day, the entire Wang family enjoyed a lighthearted outing to Three Peaches Beach, only to be halted by a French officer who warned they were being followed. During their afternoon rest, a man posing as a painter, sent by the landlord to measure rooms for payment, appeared at the door and was turned away when he insisted on entering every room. More than twenty people in the household, none were armed.   Since January, Hanoi had been a hive of BIS activity. The ringleader was Chen Gongshu, a veteran operative under spymaster Dai Li, though Chen\u2019s recollections clashed with those of other witnesses, leaving the exact sequence unclear. Chen claimed their role was intelligence and surveillance until March 19, when an unsigned telegram from Dai Li ordered, \u201cSeverest punishment to the traitor Wang Jingwei, immediately!\u201d The mission supposedly shifted. The Wang family was followed the next day but evaded capture in traffic, prompting a raid on the house. Reports varied: some said Wang resided on the second floor of No. 27; others suggested he lived in No. 25, with No. 27 used for day guests. The force entered the courtyard, forced open the door to Wang\u2019s room, and a getaway car waited outside. Chen, in the car, heard gunshots: initial shots toward a downstairs figure, then three shots through a bedroom door hacked open with an axe, aimed at a figure beneath the bed, believed to be Wang Jingwei. The team drove off after four to five minutes. Vietnamese police soon detained three killers who lingered in the courtyard and even listened in on a hospital call. Chen didn\u2019t realize the target had been misidentified until the next afternoon. Some BIS records suggested Wang and Zeng Zhongming had swapped bedrooms that night, a detail Chen doubted. Chen did not mention a painter\u2019s earlier visit.   There were competing accounts of the event with their numerous inconsistencies that fueled conspiracy theories. Jin Xiongbai outlined three possibilities: (1) the killers killed the \u201cwrong person\u201d as a warning to Wang Jingwei; (2) they killed Zeng to provoke Wang toward collaboration; or (3) the episode was always part of a broader Chiang-Wang collaboration plan.   In any case, Dai Li showed unusual leniency toward Chen Gongshu, who was never punished and later led the Shanghai station. After Dai Li\u2019s agent Li Shiqun was captured in 1941, Li not only spared Chen\u2019s life but recruited him on a double-agent basis for the remainder of the war, with Chen retiring to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek never discussed the case publicly or in his diary, and his silence was perhaps the strongest indication that he ordered the killing.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com\/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Wang Jingwei, once a key figure in China's resistance against Japan, grew disillusioned with Chiang Kai-shek's scorched-earth tactics during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Amid devastating events like the Yellow River flood and Changsha fire, which caused immense civilian suffering, Wang joined a peace faction advocating negotiation. Secret talks with Japanese officials led to his defection in 1938. He fled Chongqing to Hanoi, where an assassination attempt, likely ordered by Chiang, killed his secretary Zeng Zhongming instead.    ","author_name":"Ages of Conquest: a Kings and Generals Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/www.kingsandgenerals.net","html":"