May 24, 1921: "Why did I come to the Guangdong Army? To buy myself a good name? Should I go back?"

May 5, 1921. Heavy rain in Guangzhou. Sun Yat-sen took office as President of the Republic of China.

Chiang Kai-shek was not in Guangzhou. That day he was at Xikou in Fenghua, Zhejiang, where his mother was ill. His diary gives this great event five characters: "Heard that Teacher Zhongshan took office as president."

The same day's diary also records a telegram from Shoumei: the share price on the exchange had risen to 124 yuan, and he was "most gratified."

1. "Half Joy, Half Fear"

A month earlier, on April 13, he read in the newspaper that Sun Yat-sen had been elected president by the Extraordinary Parliament, and wrote: "Thinking of it, I feel half joy, half fear."

What the joy was about, and what the fear, he did not write.

The arguments in Guangzhou were set out clearly in a report by Price, the American vice consul there. Some wanted to convene an extraordinary session at once, some insisted on assembling a legal quorum, and some thought this was no time to elect a president at all. Price heard that 225 members attended that day; Sun Yat-sen received 222 votes, Chen Jiongming two, and one ballot was blank.

Of roughly a thousand members of the old parliament, only 222 voted for a president. The southern leaders' position was that, whether or not they could speak for the whole nation, they were still the only lawfully elected parliament in China.

2. Telegrams Urging Him On

Chiang had been waiting. On April 3 he replied to Sun Yat-sen by telegram: "With no date for mobilization, the journey would be wasted." With no mobilization yet, going would be for nothing.

On April 17, Chen Jiongming sent two telegrams in a row, "urging me to come to Guangdong at once." On April 21, Sun Yat-sen telegraphed: the mobilization order had been issued the day before, Xu Chongzhi had only just recovered from illness, and "nothing will do but for you to come and plan and assist in everything." Come as soon as you receive this.

His condition had been met, but he had not yet moved.

In Shanghai he discussed "business matters" with Dai Jitao and Zhang Jingjiang and kept an eye on the share price on the exchange: 82.6 yuan, "my mind is a little more at ease"; 86.9 yuan, "most fortunate." He also nursed an old grievance: some days earlier he had been slighted in the teahouse at the exchange, and "I am still resentful to this day." Then he scolded himself: "So narrow-minded as this, what could I ever accomplish?"

3. Mother

On April 27, telegrams from Sun Yat-sen and Hu Hanmin were "urging me to Guangdong most urgently," and word came from home about his mother's illness, "sometimes better, sometimes worse." He wrote: "Public and private duties press on me at once. What am I to do?"

At noon on the 28th he hurried back to Xikou. His mother was swollen all over, coughing without stop, and running a high fever. "Seeing her, I was filled with indescribable sorrow."

On May 1 he telegraphed Sun and Chen: his mother was critically ill, and he could not bear to leave her suddenly.

On May 2 he heard that she was gradually improving, and the share price had risen again, to 108 yuan: "privately gratified." On the 3rd he came home, and his mother was worse again.

On the 4th, at home, he saw his first wife, Mao, and "my head swam and burned; I could hardly bear it and flew into a temper again, regardless of my mother's illness." He also knew that "I treat Mao too harshly, and know it is improper," yet whenever he saw her he could not restrain himself. He thought of divorce, and then of "leaving the world."

Then came May 5: the president's inauguration, and a share price of 124 yuan.

4. Rain Two Miles Away

In Guangzhou that day, Price watched from the riverside. The United States did not recognize this government, so he could not enter the hall as a diplomat. He could only stand at a distance on the Bund, about two miles from the ceremony.

For days, steamers, junks, and trains had been packed with people coming into the city, and every hotel and inn was full. Before the noon ceremony, crowds filled the Bund, and boats of every kind on the river moved in the same direction. Rain poured down, and the scene went on for at least three hours.

What happened inside the hall, he learned from friends who were there.

After taking office, Sun Yat-sen issued a manifesto to foreign powers, asking them to withdraw their recognition of Beijing. On May 14, his representative Ma Soo delivered the manifesto to the American secretary of state. The United States did not recognize Guangzhou as a result.

5. Five Days of Battle Orders

On May 17, Chiang's ship finally left the mouth of the Wusong. He reached Shantou on the 20th and Guangzhou at seven in the evening on the 21st, checked into the Xihao Hotel, and that night went to see Xu Chongzhi, Chen Jiongming, and "President Sun."

On the 22nd he and Deng Keng went to the governor's office to see Chen Jiongming. On the 23rd he went to the commander-in-chief's headquarters to discuss the campaign and heard that Beijing had ordered a punitive expedition against the South.

On the 24th, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, he drafted battle orders at headquarters.

That same day he ran into Zhang Guozhen, "felt unbearable disgust," and wrote the line: "Why did I come to the Guangdong Army? To buy myself a good name? Should I go back?"

That night he dreamed of snow several feet deep, white everywhere, and woke "still chilled at heart, not knowing whether my mother's illness will really be cured."

On the 25th he revised the draft orders, and finished them in the afternoon.

On the 26th he took leave of Chen Jiongming and Sun Yat-sen and sailed for Hong Kong, heading north.

At midnight on May 31, Chiang Kai-shek arrived back in Xikou. His mother's illness had eased a little, but her cough and her voice had both grown weaker, "not as strong as before."

The battle orders he had drafted in Guangzhou stayed behind at headquarters. The new government had a president, a manifesto, and a list of appointments; the orders would have to be carried out by many other people.

He had hurried to Guangzhou, drafted orders for five days, and hurried home again to keep watch at his mother's bedside.

Two weeks later, at 7:49 a.m. on June 14, his mother died.

Sources and narrative boundaries

  1. Diary: the user-supplied electronic compilation/OCR for April 3, 4, 13, 17, 21, 27 and 28; May 1–5, 11, 17, 20–26, 30 and 31, 1921, with surrounding entries. The connected Drive raw text was prioritized and compared with the supplied DOCX and private R1 entries. These are different carriers of the same material, not independent witnesses. The Chinese version directly quotes only the four characters translated here as joy and fear. No private source corpus is reproduced. Snow in a dream has not been converted into weather.

2. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1921, vol. I: document 281, Price, April 6, No. 248, 893.00/3869; document 282, April 20, No. 251, 893.00/3868; document 284, May 7, No. 258, 893.00/3902. The complete official English texts were read, not archival manuscript images. Inquiries addressed to Sun and Chen, direct waterfront observations, reports from ceremony attendees, and forecasts remain distinct. Document 282 gives 225 present and 222 votes for Sun, differing from the frequently cited 222/218; no contested total is adopted. Its prediction about Tang is not evidence of his later actions. Document 284 supplies announced appointments, not proof of daily performance. Its Chiang Tsun Kwei must not be mistaken for Chiang Kai-shek merely because of the surname; no such identification is made here.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1921v01/d281
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1921v01/d282
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1921v01/d284

3. Sun’s manifesto to foreign powers, May 5, 1921, transmitted by Ma Soo on May 14; FRUS, same volume, document 285, 893.00/3866. The published official English transmission was read in full. No claim is made to have collated it word by word with a Chinese original. Sun’s statement and Price’s observations were generated independently. Their appearance on the same FRUS website does not give them one author; multiple American reports likewise do not constitute multiple independent source groups.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1921v01/d285

  1. Place and time: ceremonies and headquarters work are associated with Canton at city scale. No exact location is assigned to an unverified venue, hotel, or desk. April 13 is the date Chiang read the news, not the election date; May 5 is inauguration day, not his arrival in Canton. Xikou is in present-day Fenghua, Ningbo, Zhejiang. Hong Kong and Shantou are separate travel stops, not locations for the entire political narrative.
  1. This is original narration using brief quotation and paraphrase from the private diary. FRUS is a U.S. government publication; Sun’s historical statement is paraphrased, not reproduced in full. No dialogue, ceremonial detail, private thought, or causal link has been invented. Price’s sympathy does not constitute U.S. recognition; commercial attitudes do not speak for all residents. The personnel thread at the close rests on already-read diary entries and an appointment list; specific appointment procedures still require the next episode’s verification.