January 21, 1921: "I have decided to come within ten days to serve in a personal capacity. For the post, it would be best to appoint Ziyin. I certainly dare not accept it."

On January 21, 1921, Chiang Kai-shek received a telegram from Chen Jiongming, commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Army.

The plan to aid Guangxi had been settled, and Chen was calling on him to command the central army.

He replied the same day. Within ten days, he said, I will come and help in a personal capacity; for the post, please appoint Ziyin; I certainly dare not accept it. At the end he added: "You know me. Please do not take this refusal as an empty formality."

This was not politeness.

1. Coming, but Not Taking the Post

He split "going to Guangdong" and "taking the post" into two separate matters.

He could come in person; he did not want the position. In his diary his reason is a single line: "Measuring myself, I am not equal to it, so I firmly declined."

The same day he berated himself: "I have not yet achieved the self-cultivation to be unmoved by honor or disgrace and even in joy and anger. It is always because I cannot rid myself of vanity and self-importance."

His reply to the outside world was firm; his verdict on himself was merciless. These words show how he examined himself, but they cannot speak for Chen Jiongming, nor prove that his refusal hid some other aim.

Whether "Ziyin" was later appointed, this telegram does not say. Recommendation, appointment, and taking up the post are three different things.

2. The Battle Plan That Was Held Up

Six days later he reached Ningbo.

On the evening of January 28, the post office informed him that the battle plan he had earlier mailed to Chen Jiongming had been held by the garrison commissioner.

"I was more alarmed than I can say."

Fortunately its contents had nothing to do with Fujian or Zhejiang. He wrote again and set out the strategy once more.

He had not taken the post, but his writings on the campaign were still in the mail.

On April 10 he read Mongol military methods and noted that they often moved by hidden routes and struck from the rear. "Hereafter I should keep a register of talent; with people, one must take care to tell them apart." This was something he meant to do, not a finished roster of commanders.

3. Not on the Guangzhou List

In May he went to Guangzhou again. On the 23rd he discussed the campaign at headquarters and studied the battle orders; on the 24th, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, he worked on drafting the battle orders.

When he finished, he went to see Sun Yat-sen and then called on Xu Chongzhi with him. Then his diary turns to disgust: "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 and woke worried about his mother's illness. On the 25th he went as usual to revise the draft orders, and finished them toward evening.

By now Guangzhou had its own hierarchy of appointments. A report of May 7 by the American vice consul, Price, listed the personnel announced after Sun Yat-sen took office: Chen Jiongming as minister of the interior and of the army, and believed still to be governor of Guangdong; Li Liejun at the head of the general staff; Cheng Qian as vice minister of the army.

On the list was a "Chiang Tsun Kwei," vice chief of the general staff. That was Jiang Zungui, not Chiang Kai-shek.

The list is not a register of every office, and cannot be used to say he had no authority at all. But it reminds the reader not to put the Chiang Kai-shek who later stood at the top back into the organization of 1921.

4. Other Men's Comings and Goings

On June 6, according to the Chronological Biography of the Founding Father, citing Wu Zongci's Record of the Constitution Protection Campaign, Sun Yat-sen sent Wu Zongci to discuss with Chen Jiongming the replacement of Deng Wenhui, a brigade commander of the Jiangxi Army. Chen said Deng was carrying out orders to make contact with Jiangxi and proposed waiting until he returned before moving him. What the record shows is a postponement, not a dismissal; Chiang was not present for this either.

Years later, Li Zongren recalled that after the Guangxi war of 1921, Liu Zhenhuan wanted to absorb his troops and offered him a brigade command, which he declined. This is Li's recollection in old age and has no direct connection with Chiang.

A post could be declined, a replacement could be postponed, an absorption could be refused. The person asked to take office, the original commander, and the man trying to keep his troops together could all shape the outcome.

5. A Second Refusal, Six Days to Nanning

On September 11 he again met Xu Chongzhi in Guangzhou and "discussed my taking up the post, and decided to decline it." The transcription has a doubtful character here, and the diary does not make clear which post it was, so it cannot be established that this refers to the "command of the central army" mentioned in January.

Two days later he took the train to Sanshui and changed to a boat up the West River. At seven in the morning on the 17th he reached the Guangdong Army headquarters in Nanning and saw Chen Jiongming.

He wrote heavily that day. Listening to people, he was "very impatient, and deeply regret my own lack of firm views." He went to call on Ma Junwu, governor of Guangxi, and was turned away by the gatekeeper. In the afternoon he went with Ma to headquarters, and "hearing what was said, it was even worse than what I heard in the morning. Thinking of it, my heart aches. How pitiful that our party has come to have no one, and is deceived to such a degree. My head swam and I did not know what to say."

After four in the afternoon he boarded a boat for the return trip.

On the 18th: "On the boat there is nothing but dejection and regret. I blame our party for having no one, and pity the Teacher's painstaking efforts." Passing Guixian, with its strange mountain scenery: "The only thing that eases my resentment is the landscape."

On the 19th he thought of writing a letter to Chen Jiongming in answer to something Chen had said: why are you willing to work alongside Sun Yat-sen, a man who ran for president? The diary records only the intention. Whether the letter was written, and what it said, is not recorded.

He reckoned the round trip to Nanning at about six days. The land along the West River was "rich and fertile, the terrain open and broad." "Six days of hardship; all I can do is count it as an inspection of the region, some small compensation for my regret."

6. Epilogue

Back in Guangzhou, he met day after day with Sun Yat-sen, Xu Chongzhi, Hu Hanmin, and Liao Zhongkai to discuss sending out the army. On the 21st they decided that the Second Army would march by way of southern Hunan and set the date for departure. He wrote: "We worked out the procedure for sending out the troops. Alas, how hard it was."

On the 23rd he took a boat to Hong Kong, reading On War and Command on board. "Two weeks of vexation, bitter beyond words."

From January to September he turned down posts twice, and again and again drafted, consulted, and left. Names and work did not always match: some people were on the official list, some did not take the positions offered them, and some still had their futures to negotiate.

That year he was not yet a commander-in-chief. In the next installment, the view turns back to his home.

Sources and narrative limits

  1. Diary: the relevant entries actually read in the user's Google Drive electronic transcription/OCR were January 21 and 27–29, April 10, May 21–27, and September 11–23, 1921. Full-file SHA-256: 593632d5add8f884f8b12a8bdd3c83f653bfd92d7d3d34a9372d8c7a36d393f3. The transcription contains omissions and uncertain readings. No manuscript facsimile was examined for this article; the filename's reference to a manuscript is not proof of that. The epigraph translates part of the reply recorded on one date, without joining separate entries. An uncertain reading in the September 11 entry is one reason not to identify a specific office there.

2. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1921, volume I, document 284: Ernest B. Price, Canton, May 7, 1921, dispatch No. 258, file 893.00/3902. The published English document was read. It establishes the appointments it lists, not every position held in Guangdong. Its author's political sympathies are not adopted as judgments, and an omission is not proof of nonappointment. The old romanization of Jiang Zungui is compared with his role in the chronology below. The American consular record is an independent source group outside Chiang's political circle.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1921v01/d284

3. Sun Yat-sen chronology, lower volume, p. 1133, June 6, 1921, citing Wu Zongci's Hufa jicheng in Revolutionary Documents, no. 51, pp. 517–518. What was read is the chronology's published transcription, not Wu's original document or those printed pages. The proposed removal's eventual outcome is not established. This is one transmission chain, not several witnesses.
https://sunology.yatsen.gov.tw/detail/79474ece1edd5e74436bf654b5621233/

4. Li Zongren's memoir, narrated by Li and written by Tang Degang, concluding portion of chapter 12. The relevant public online transcription and its immediate context were read; a complete printed edition was not authenticated. This is a separate participant's retrospective testimony, not a contemporary daily record. Only the rejection is briefly paraphrased, without quotation, hostile character assessments, or assigning Li's visit to the date of Chiang's. The online version has limitations and the chapter reference is provided for checking.
https://www.scribd.com/document/787009725/%E5%94%90%E5%BE%B7%E5%88%9A-%E6%9D%8E%E5%AE%97%E4%BB%81%E5%9B%9E%E5%BF%86%E5%BD%95

  1. These three external groups support different facts; they are not presented as independent witnesses to the same conversation. Ziyin's identity and appointment, the identity of “Brigade Commander Jiang Kecheng” at a May dinner, and Deng Wenhui's eventual removal remain unestablished and are not invented. People sharing names are not merged. The article does not repeat episode 009's account of the 1920 military reorganization.
  1. Geography is limited to documented city-level movements through Guangzhou, Nanning, and Sanshui; no precise coordinates are invented for headquarters, provincial offices, or private residences. A publication slot is neither a historical event date nor an actual publication timestamp. Both texts are newly written, corresponding narratives. Limited quotation and paraphrase do not authorize republication of the private diary source or an entire modern memoir. The length follows the available evidence rather than adding scenes to reach a target. Details of the next episode are not previewed as established facts.