In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 015How Chiang Kai-shek's Personal Bond with Sun Yat-sen Was Built

November 21, 1920. Xikou, Fenghua, Zhejiang.

Chiang Kai-shek received three telegrams: one from Sun Yat-sen, two from Zhang Jingjiang and Dai Jitao. They all said the same thing: if you don't come, Xu Chongzhi won't go either. Come to Shanghai at once.

A staff officer who had just been relieved of his post and was idling at home now held a corps commander's movements in his hands. That alone shows how much Sun had come to rely on him.

He still said no. In his diary he wrote that he was caught in the middle, his family affairs were unsettled, and going would do no good. Four days later Sun left Shanghai for Guangzhou with Tang Shaoyi and Wu Tingfang to rebuild the military government. Chiang stayed in Xikou.

It was not the first time something like this had happened in those years.

A Mentor Who Kept Waiting for Him

In his diary Chiang called Sun "my teacher." Behind the word lay an admiration that began early. In a retrospective summary written in 1917, he recalled that as a boy he first heard Sun Wen's name from someone else, learned that this was the leader of the revolution, and longed to meet him.

He began working at Sun's side in earnest only after 1918. That year he lost a battle in Fujian, and at the end of December he received a letter in Sun's own hand. His diary says he was so grieved that he could not hold back his tears.

In February 1920 he called on Sun just as a Japanese friend was visiting. Introducing him to the guest, Sun praised him again and again. Chiang wrote that the warmth Sun showed him was beyond words, and that he felt unworthy of it.

In May of the same year he was in hospital. Sun came in person one afternoon, hoping Chiang would join him in the campaign at Zhangzhou once he recovered. Chiang fretted in his diary: if he agreed, his heart was not in it; if he refused, he could hardly turn Sun down. By June Sun had dropped the idea of going to Fujian himself and told Chiang to go alone. Chiang decided not to go, saying he would no longer "sew the wedding dress for someone else's bride."

In September he reached Shanghai, and Sun immediately telegraphed for him and offered three places to choose from: Russia, Sichuan or Guangdong. Chiang privately wanted Sichuan; Liao Zhongkai pressed hard for Guangdong. For a while he could not decide.

He went, came back, was called away again: that was the pattern of those years. Almost every time, Sun was waiting for him.

He did not admire Sun without reservation. In August 1918, after seeing Sun, he wrote that he was deeply worried that the party leader's insistence on fairness did not suit China's conditions and was keeping the party from growing. It is a rare piece of direct judgment in the diary. After that, nearly everything he wrote about Sun was respectful.

Telegrams While His Mother Lay Ill

In April 1921 Sun was elected president in Guangzhou. Chiang read the news at home and wrote that he was "half glad, half afraid."

Then came telegram after telegram. On April 27 Sun and Hu Hanmin wired him to come to Guangdong "most urgently"; the same day he heard that his mother was ill. He went home to Xikou to stay by her side and wired Sun that his mother was gravely ill and he could not bear to leave at once. In late May he did make a trip to Guangzhou and drafted operational orders for the Guangdong Army. In his diary of those days he set himself a model: to follow Mr. Sun's breadth of vision.

His mother died on June 14. Three days later Sun's telegram of condolence and a funeral gift of 2,000 yuan arrived. On June 27 Sun wired again, hoping Chiang would come to the front still in mourning clothes. Chiang replied that until his mother was buried, he dared not give himself to the country.

Part 14 of this series ("Filial Duty First") has told that story, including how Sun, at Chiang's request, wrote the inscription for his mother's tombstone, and how the calligraphy reached Xikou on August 5.

Back from Nanning, His Heart Ached for His Teacher

In September, with the burial set for November, he used the gap to go south. In Guangzhou he saw Sun and discussed with Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei when to issue the order for the punitive expedition.

On September 17 he went to Nanning to see Chen Jiongming. The Guangdong Army had just taken Guangxi that summer, and Chen's headquarters was there. The visit went badly. The more he heard from the people around him, the more impatient he grew, and that afternoon he boarded a boat back.

On the boat he wrote that he spent the whole day in dejection and regret, blaming the party for its lack of capable men and pitying the pains his teacher had taken. Chen had also asked him something to the effect of why he was willing to work with a man who ran for president. Chiang thought of writing a letter in answer, but the diary does not say whether he did.

At this point Sun and Chen still served in the same government, and Chiang's account of funeral gifts listed money from both men. Yet on that day in Nanning, Chiang's heart had already taken Sun's side.

Back in Guangzhou he saw Sun two days running to talk over the next steps. On October 11, home in Xikou again, he received a telegram from Sun: Sun was going to Guilin with Xu Chongzhi and asked him to come quickly and help.

He did not leave at once. His mother was not yet buried.

After the Tomb Was Sealed

On November 23 his mother was buried. Five days later he quarreled with relatives over his divorce, and that evening wrote to his two sons about dividing the family property. According to an annotated edition of his family letters, he wrote that with his mother buried, the great duty of a son's life was done, and from now on he could give himself wholly to the revolution.

That sentence is the watershed of this story.

Before it, he kept stopping and starting, always with a reason: his mother was ill, family affairs were unsettled, going would do no good, he would not sew someone else's wedding dress. After it, the diary shows his steps south quickening, and shows him again and again talking himself out of turning back.

On December 15 he set out from Ningbo and reached Hong Kong on the 18th. By then Sun had set up his Northern Expedition headquarters in Guilin, on December 4. From the 20th Chiang worked on the Northern Expedition's operational plan almost every day; one day he wrote from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon.

He did not go straight to Guilin, though. He spent the New Year around Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Later biographers have often criticized this stretch. The diary records only that he was drafting plans, and does not say why he did not set off at once.

That Night in Yangshuo

The diary for January 1 to 15, 1922, is damaged in the original and cannot be read.

The first legible day is January 16. He had reached Yangshuo, one leg short of Guilin. That evening a friend told him that Guilin had not yet decided whether to fight. He wrote that he was full of doubts and badly wanted to go straight back to Shanghai from there rather than be drawn into the whirlpool of infighting. In the end he decided to go on to Guilin first, then scolded himself for rashness and asked himself: what have I come here for?

The turn did not happen all at once. Less than two months after leaving his mother's grave, he nearly turned back again.

But this time he did not go back. According to Mao Sicheng's compilation on Chiang's life before 1926, he reached Guilin on January 18, still chief of staff of the Guangdong Army's Second Corps, and lodged in the Bagui Hall of the old provincial treasurer's yamen.

Two Months in the Bagui Hall

On the 22nd he went to report to Sun, and that evening Sun invited him to dinner. On the morning of the 23rd he saw Sun again, and they talked for several hours. He drew operational maps, wrote the Second Corps' concentration plan, and met commanders from every unit.

On January 28, with the lunar New Year near, he thought of his mother: this year he could not spend the holiday at home with his children, and from now on there was no one left to dote on him. The next day he set himself a rule: to sacrifice his personal credit and reputation for the country and the party, weighing only right and wrong, not gain and loss.

On the night of the 30th he and Hu Hanmin went to see Sun together. They fixed the date for the army to march and decided to move headquarters to Shaozhou.

The next day Wang Jingwei, Liao Zhongkai and others wired from Guangzhou asking him to mediate over Xu Chongzhi's resignation. Caught in the middle, he wired back that from now on, toward the party and toward his friends, he could only do his honest best; whether others believed him he would leave to fate.

In February he had his moments of discouragement, saying that neither the army nor politics suited his temperament and he would do better in social work. Yet on March 9 he wrote: from now on, until we strike Wuhan, I will never resign to rest. On March 21 he wrote: from now on I must not think of going home to visit the grave; my mother's spirit in heaven should be at peace with that.

A man who used to head back to Xikou at every turn was now telling himself not to go.

Leaving Once More

Things did not go to plan. In the spring of 1922 the Northern Expedition changed course, and Sun returned from Guangxi to Guangdong. On April 22 Chiang went to Sanshui to see Sun. The day he got back to corps headquarters he heard that Chen Jiongming had resigned, and he was deeply unhappy. The next day he wrote that he badly wanted to shake everything off and stay out of the whirlpool.

Soon he left, sailing by way of Shanghai, and reached Xikou on April 28 to sweep his mother's grave.

Even after the turn, he walked away once more. The diary is plain about it.

The difference was that this time his body was in Xikou but his mind stayed in Guangzhou. On May 9 he spent the morning writing a long letter to Liao Zhongkai, arguing that headquarters must be in Guangzhou and that Sun must hold the home base himself. On May 25 he wired Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin, Liao Zhongkai and Xu Chongzhi, urging that the rear be secured before any advance, and denouncing those who occupied the provincial capital and defied orders.

The News in June

June 14 was the first anniversary of his mother's death. He wrote in his diary that he had not seen his mother for a year and that his sins were great.

A few days later, on June 18, letters from Wang Jingwei and Lin Huanting arrived: Chen Jiongming's troops had surrounded the government in Guangzhou and disarmed it; fortunately the president was on a gunboat and unharmed.

He wrote that the situation might yet turn around. He also wrote that if he had hurried back to Guangdong instead of lingering at home, things might not have come to this, and that he too was to blame.

Two days later he set out from Xikou. On the 21st he reached Shanghai, heard accounts of what had happened in Guangzhou, and wrote: luckily Mr. Sun is not dead, and China still has a thread of hope.

On the 23rd he wrote that he could not serve both family and party; he could only leave his beloved family behind and give himself to the party.

A year and a half earlier he had used "family affairs unsettled" to turn down Sun's telegrams. Now Sun was on a warship, and he was on his way to Guangzhou.

When he reached Hong Kong, friends told him the president was still aboard the ship.

Sources and narrative limits

1. Diary: read directly from the user-supplied Google Drive electronic transcription/OCR text of Chiang Kai-shek's diaries, 1917–1936 (whole-file SHA-256 593632d5add8f884f8b12a8bdd3c83f653bfd92d7d3d34a9372d8c7a36d393f3): the 1917 retrospective summary; August 23 and December 24, 1918; February 22, May 27, June 13, August 31, September 22, November 21 and 25, 1920; the relevant entries from April 13 to December 31, 1921; and January 16 to June 28, 1922. The transcription notes that the original entries for January 1–3 and 5–15, 1922, are damaged and illegible, so his movements in those days are not guessed at. No manuscript images were examined. The passage about first hearing Sun's name as a boy comes from the 1917 retrospective summary at the head of the transcription and is Chiang's later recollection. The statement that "Chiang's funeral accounts recorded money from both men" rests on the diary for June 17, 1921: "Received a telegram of condolence from the president, with a funeral gift [the transcription has 博仪; reading it as 赙仪, funeral gift, is the editor's judgment] of 2,000 yuan, and 1,000 yuan from Commander-in-Chief Chen"; the year-end income and expenditure table in the 1921 transcription also lists "June: received from Sun 2,000; Jiongcun [Chen] 1,000."

2. The passage the text introduces as "a retrospective summary written in 1917" comes from the 1917 retrospective summary at the head of the diary volume, written when Chiang was about thirty, not in old age (see note 1). The August 23, 1918, remark that the party leader's fairness "did not suit the country's conditions" is given as the transcription has it. "Party leader" refers to Sun from context; the phrase about fairness reads awkwardly and may be mis-transcribed, so the text renders it cautiously. The December 24, 1918, entry speaks of a handwritten letter and order from "the president"; this refers to Sun as leader of the Constitutional Protection government, but the exact title and the letter's content were not checked, so the text says only "a letter in Sun's own hand."

3. The sentence "with my mother buried, the great duty of a son's life is done, and from now on I can give myself wholly to the revolution" comes from Chiang's November 28, 1921, letter to his sons Ching-kuo and Wei-kuo. It follows the written instruction to his sons appended to the entry for November 23, 1921, in Mao Sicheng's chronicle of Chiang's life before 1926 (original not yet verified); see also Zeng Jingzhong et al., eds., a selection of Chiang's family letters, diaries and writings (not seen; to be verified). Mao's chronicle places the instruction on the evening of the burial, November 23, while the diary records on November 28 that he wrote the letter to his two sons about dividing the property; the text follows the diary. The two dates disagree and remain to be verified. Calling this a "turn" is this article's narrative judgment, based on comparing the diary before and after; it is not Chiang's own word. His hesitation at Yangshuo on January 16, 1922, his discouragement on February 25 and his departure for home from April 23 are all reported as written, not smoothed over.

4. Sun's movements: his arrival in Guilin on December 4, 1921, to set up Northern Expedition headquarters follows the online transcription in the Sun Yat-sen academic database (based on the Chronology of Sun Yat-sen, vol. 2, pp. 1161–1162, edition not stated; printed edition to be verified), entry for December 4, 1921 (https://sunology.yatsen.gov.tw/detail/d67c2fc4d6a672eac9e51857887b7597/). The change of course of the Northern Expedition in spring 1922 and Sun's return to Guangdong are standard history; this article uses only the diary's line of April 22, "the generalissimo came to Sanshui," and does not go into the reasons for the change.

5. Chiang's arrival in Guilin on January 18, 1922, his continued post as chief of staff of the Second Corps and his lodging in the Bagui Hall follow Mao Sicheng's compilation on Chiang's life before 1926, original not yet verified. Note 122 to the December 4, 1921, entry of the Chronology of Sun Yat-sen cites Mao's work (vol. 3, pp. 94–95) and points out that Mao misdates Sun's arrival in Guilin to November 15 (per the database's online transcription), so Mao's dates should be used with caution; in the diary transcription the only nearby entries that bear on January 18 are those of January 16 (Yangshuo) and January 23 (audience with Sun). The view that he "lingered" before going to Guilin in late December 1921 is a later commentators' judgment; the text does not adopt their reading of his motives.

6. Narrative limits: for the June 1922 coup, only the news Chiang received and his reactions as recorded on June 18, 21, 23 and 28 are used. "Chen Jiongming betrayed the party" and the gunboat Chuyu are Chiang's own terms; for contemporary American telegrams, see note 5 of Part 14. This part ends with his arrival in Hong Kong. The passage just before the June 18 entry (about Li Yuanhong entering Beijing) is unclearly dated in the transcription and is not assigned a date here. All inner feelings are paraphrased from the diary; no dialogue is invented for Chiang, Sun or Chen. Chiang's age is counted in full years from his birth on October 31, 1887 (34 when he buried his mother in November 1921).

The original Chinese diary wording for each passage paraphrased above is given in the notes to the Chinese version of this article.