On the morning of July 10, 1922, on the Pearl River at Guangzhou, the gunboat Yongfeng was charging toward the Chewai forts.

In the account Sun Yat-sen wrote three months later, the very first sentence is about this: when Chen Jiongming rebelled, Jieshi came to Guangdong to share the danger and boarded the warship.

The guns on shore concentrated on this one ship, because Sun Yat-sen was aboard. The hull took four hits in a row and began to rock.

In the saloon, several friends on board were so frightened they lost their voices, and some looked for places to hide. Chiang Kai-shek later wrote in his diary that all he did then was watch the clock, reckoning that in another twenty minutes they would be past the forts.

By his own diary's account, the man who gave the order to charge was him.

A Raincoat and a Vegetable Basket

At the end of the last part, Chiang Kai-shek was about to head for the place Chen Jiongming's guns were trained on.

Before dawn on June 16, rebel troops surrounded the presidential office. According to the circular Sun Yat-sen later sent to party comrades, he had been warned two hours beforehand by Lin Zhimian and Lin Zhengmin, slipped out of the office by a back way, and had barely boarded a warship when the rebels closed in; the Yuexiu Building was destroyed by artillery. From then on he lived aboard the warships, waiting for the Northern Expedition army to come back.

Soong Ching-ling, who had stayed behind in the Yuexiu Building, first dashed out of the presidential office wearing an aide's straw hat and her husband's raincoat; after fainting in a village house and coming to, she disguised herself as a country woman carrying a vegetable basket and hid for a night in a comrade's home. Only the next evening did she see Sun Yat-sen aboard ship. It was, she said, truly like meeting again after parting in death.

At two in the afternoon on June 29, Chiang Kai-shek reached Whampoa and boarded the Yongfeng. Sun Yat-sen kept him talking for a long time, and that night he slept aboard.

The Guns Promised for Six O'Clock

According to his diary, once aboard, his days were spent in suspicion of the navy. The commander, Wen Shude, suddenly declared martial law; the guns were supposed to open on the Yuzhu fort at six in the morning, and Chiang got up at half past five to wait, but they never fired; at night came reports that the navy meant to slip away and go over to the north.

On the night of July 8, three large ships really did leave. The Chronological Biography of the Founding Father records that night: the Haiqi, Haichen and Zhaohe raised steam and weighed anchor at eleven and sailed away from Whampoa, and Sun Yat-sen ordered the other ships to move by way of Haixingang. The next afternoon, the marines of Sun Xiangfu's unit holding Changzhou raised a white flag, and the Changzhou fortress was "lost in an instant." In his diary Chiang names "Xiangfu" and says his crime was greater than Chen Jiongming's. Sun Yat-sen's circular also mentions the three large ships leaving the battle line and Changzhou left isolated and undefended.

Twenty Minutes on the Clock Face

With Changzhou lost, the flotilla decided to force its way past the Chewai forts to Bai'etan, west of the city. Once through, Chiang at first exulted in his diary that after passing through danger there is an indescribable pleasure; then he regretted it, saying that with the president aboard he should not have ordered so reckless a charge. Yet he also recorded that Sun Yat-sen, on the contrary, was especially pleased.

Sun Yat-sen's circular two months later confirms that day: the Yongfeng he was aboard was holed by shells, and on July 10 it reached Bai'etan. There are points that do not match, too. The Chronological Biography says the order to charge was given at half past nine by Sun Yat-sen himself and that the Yongfeng took six hits; Sun stood on deck teaching the gunners to aim, and when his guards urged him to go below, he laughed and said it was the same below. Chiang's diary says he gave the order before nine, and that there were four hits. Both versions stand.

Mines, Sherlock Holmes and a Reckoning

Then came another month. The rebels laid mines near the Yongfeng, only a few zhang from an American warship alongside, and Sun Yat-sen's circular also says the rebels tried to ambush the Yongfeng with mines and failed. News from the front swung between victory and defeat, and aboard ship Chiang read the Sherlock Holmes stories one volume after another.

On August 1 he made a reckoning in his diary: most of the officers aboard were young and hot-headed, and the men were split into cliques; the labor of settling quarrels over this month and more had been ten times harder than fighting at the front. This reckoning is found only in his diary.

On August 7 came news that the Northern Expedition army was in retreat. He judged that for Sun to stay in Guangdong was only to run risks for nothing. Two days later, at four in the afternoon, he accompanied Sun Yat-sen onto a British warship and left Guangzhou; the next day in Hong Kong they changed to the Empress of Russia, and on August 14 they came ashore at Wusong. Sun Yat-sen's circular gives the same reason for leaving the ship: hearing that the Northern Expedition armies had fallen back by separate routes from Shixing and Nanxiong, he knew that relief by land was cut off and holding on was of no use.

A Book and a Preface

Back in Zhejiang, Chiang Kai-shek shut himself in to write a diary of President Sun's ordeal. He wrote it at home, wrote in Ningbo, revised it at Tiantong Temple, and on September 20 finished the revision for the printer. This was the Record of President Sun's Ordeal in Guangzhou.

On October 10, Sun Yat-sen wrote a preface for it: Jieshi came aboard the warship, was at my side every day, his plans mostly hit the mark, and he was glad to live or die together with me and the navy's officers and men. He also wrote plainly that what he valued was not the book's flattering words.

Some told it differently. Israel Epstein's Woman in World History: Soong Ching Ling writes that Chiang's role aboard ship was less heroic than he later claimed, and that when things looked bad he slipped back to Shanghai on his own; the book also says he was one of the officers accompanying Sun Yat-sen when Sun boarded the Yongfeng. But Chiang's diary has him reaching the ship only on June 29 and records day by day through August 9, when he left Guangdong on the same ship as Sun; Sun's preface also says he came aboard and was at his side every day. This version matches neither, and the book gives no source for this sentence.

The appointments that followed appeared in the official gazettes: on March 17, 1923, he was specially appointed chief of staff of the Generalissimo's headquarters; on May 3, 1924, specially appointed president of the Army Officers' Academy; in July of the same year, concurrently commander of the Changzhou fortress. The Changzhou he had watched being lost from the deck of the Yongfeng two years earlier was now under his command.

The Clock Is Still Running

In September 1926, when the Northern Expedition army was besieging Wuchang and could not take it, he compared it in his diary to those days: when the late Premier was in peril aboard the Yongfeng, things were far grimmer than now, but there was no such humiliation.

In September 1936, after the Guangdong-Guangxi incident was settled, he went to Guangzhou. On his to-do list for those days was one item: reward the old hands from the Yongfeng.

On the morning of July 10, 1922, the clock he was watching ran for twenty minutes.

Sources and narrative limits

  1. Diary: read from the user-supplied electronic transcription/OCR text of Chiang Kai-shek's diaries, 1917–1936 (a transcription of the manuscript held at the Hoover Institution, Stanford), entries for June 29–August 14 and September 7–20, 1922; September 13, 1926; and September 6, 1936. The manuscript images were not examined. The July 10 entry has missing characters, and the text paraphrases only the legible parts. Sentences introduced by "by his own diary's account" or "according to his diary" rest on the diary alone.
  2. Complete Works of the Founding Father (Guofu quanji): Modern China Press edition of 1989, twelve volumes, read in the e-book in the Sun Yat-sen academic database of the National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall; page numbers are those of that edition.
  3. Chronological Biography of the Founding Father (Guofu nianpu): edited by Luo Jialun and Huang Jilu, enlarged by Qin Xiaoyi and Li Yunhan, compiled by the Kuomintang Party History Committee, Modern China Press, fourth enlarged edition, November 1994, two volumes; read in the same database's e-book. Its entries for July 8–10, 1922 cite Chiang's Record of President Sun's Ordeal in Guangzhou (pp. 17, 20–24) and Xie Xinzhun's manuscript memoir of the Yongfeng campaign, so where it agrees with Chiang's diary it is not independent corroboration. Who gave the order on July 10 (Chiang's diary: Chiang, before nine; the Chronological Biography: Sun, at half past nine) and the number of hits (four or six) are given side by side. The "watching the clock" detail in the Chronological Biography also comes from the Record. In the second section only Sun's circular is offered as another party's account; the July 8 and 9 entries of the Chronological Biography share a source with Chiang's diary and are not treated as independent.
  4. Soong Ching-ling, "Escape from Canton": listed in the table of contents of Selected Writings of Soong Ching Ling, vol. 1 (Soong Ching Ling Foundation, People's Publishing House, 1992; checked against an electronic table of contents), but the printed volume was not seen and its pages are unverified. The wording follows the full Chinese translation published on the website of the Shanghai Soong Ching Ling Residence Memorial (https://www.shsoong-chingling.com/show-442.html, accessed October 31, 2026); the piece first appeared serially in the Shanghai Minguo ribao on June 28–29, 1922, which was not seen. "Hid for a night," "the next evening she saw him aboard ship" and "meeting again after parting in death" were checked word for word against that translation. The straw hat and raincoat belong to her escape from the presidential office, the disguise and the basket to the time after she fainted and came to in a village house; the text keeps them apart. The exact dates of her stay in Lingnan and of her boarding are not given.
  5. Israel Epstein, Woman in World History: Soong Ching Ling (Chinese edition; publisher and edition unverified; section 7, "Escape from Canton," read in an online transcription at xuges.com/zj/zgxd/sqle/032.htm; pages unverified). The book's statement that Chiang "slipped back to Shanghai on his own" carries no note; its statement that he was one of the officers accompanying Sun "when Sun boarded the Yongfeng" conflicts with the diary's June 29 arrival. The diary's daily entries through August 9 and Sun's preface ("at my side every day") both conflict with the "slipped back" claim; Sun's circular says only that he "led his officers off the ship" without naming Chiang, and is not used as counter-evidence. The text gives it as a divergent account. The book also records Sun and Soong taking the British warship Moorhen to Hong Kong and changing to the Empress of Russia for Shanghai, which matches the diary for August 9–14.
  6. Government appointments: the Republic of China government officials database of National Chengchi University, Chiang Zhongzheng entry (compiled from the gazettes of the Nationalist Government and the Generalissimo's headquarters); gazette issue numbers unverified. The March 1923 appointment was a "special appointment"; when Chiang actually took up the post is outside the scope of this article.
  7. Not used: memoirs by Ma Xiang, Lin Zhimian, He Xiangning, Chen Ce and others, Chen Jieru's memoir, accounts from Chen Jiongming's side and original 1922 newspapers, for none of which a readable original was found this time; works by Huang Tzu-chin, Lü Fang-shang, Wang Qisheng, Yang Tianshi and Jay Taylor were not read in the original and are not cited. The Record of President Sun's Ordeal in Guangzhou itself was not read and is cited only through the Chronological Biography.
  8. Inference and summary: the sentence "the Changzhou he had watched being lost ... was now under his command" states only two documented facts; how directly these appointments followed from his forty-odd days aboard the Yongfeng is inference, not something the sources state. Inner states are paraphrased from the diary's own words, and no dialogue has been added.

Notes (original wording; translations by the editor)

  1. Chiang diary, July 10, 1922: "The enemy guns concentrated their full fire on the Yongfeng, our flagship; shells fell like beads, the hull took four hits in a row and rocked... the saloon, I saw the friends on board lose their voices... those taking cover; I only watched the clock and sat steady, and after twenty minutes... we could pass the forts... With the president aboard I should not have ordered so reckless a charge. Thinking it over afterward, I feel deeply ashamed before the president, yet the president was all the more pleased."
  2. Sun Yat-sen, "Circular to party comrades on the course of the Chen rebellion and future policy" (September 18, 1922), Guofu quanji vol. 2, p. 106: "Two hours beforehand I was warned by Lin Zhimian and Lin Zhengmin, and amid the rebels' patrols I left the presidential office by a side way for Haizhu; I had barely boarded a warship when the rebels surrounded the presidential office... and destroyed the Yuexiu Building with artillery." "This was the plan decided that day, and the reason I stayed long aboard the warships."
  3. Soong Ching-ling, "Escape from Canton" (June 1922): "I disguised myself as an old country woman... we reached the home of a comrade and spent the night there... The next day, still disguised as a country woman, I escaped to Shamian... That evening I at last saw Dr. Sun aboard the ship; it was truly like meeting again after parting in death."
  4. Chiang diary, June 29, 1922: "At two in the afternoon reached Whampoa and boarded the Yongfeng. Saw the president and talked over the details and the situation on all sides. Slept aboard the Yongfeng that night."
  5. Sun Yat-sen, preface to Chiang Zhongzheng's Record of President Sun's Ordeal in Guangzhou (October 10, 1922), Guofu quanji vol. 9, p. 611: "In the Chen rebel's revolt, Jieshi came to Guangdong to share the danger, and from the day he came aboard he was at my side; his plans mostly hit the mark, and he was glad to live or die together with me and the officers and men of the navy... It is not his flattering words that I value."
  6. Chiang diary, June 30, July 3 and July 4, 1922.
  7. Guofu nianpu vol. 2, pp. 1222–1223, entries for July 8 and 9, 1922: "The marines of Sun Xiangfu's unit suddenly raised a white flag and surrendered to the rebels... the Changzhou fortress was lost in an instant."
  8. Chiang diary, July 9, 1922: "Changzhou: Xiangfu's marines raised a white flag, went over to the enemy and sold out their friends; Xiangfu's crime is greater than Jiongming's."
  9. Sun Yat-sen's circular, Guofu quanji vol. 2, pp. 106–108: "causing the three great ships Haiqi, Haichen and Zhaohe to leave the battle line, so that the Changzhou fortress was left isolated under attack and could not be held... the Yongfeng, on which I was, was also holed by shells; but by fighting on undaunted we reached Bai'etan on July 10." "When I heard that the Northern Expedition armies had already retreated by separate routes from Shixing and Nanxiong, I knew relief by land was cut off and holding on was of no use, and only then did I lead my officers off the ship and take a British warship to Hong Kong."
  10. Chiang diary, July 11, 1922: "After passing through danger there is naturally an endless pleasure."
  11. Guofu nianpu vol. 2, pp. 1223–1224, entry for July 10, 1922: "Thereupon at half past nine he gave the order, with the flagship Yongfeng leading the advance... the Yongfeng took six hits... At that time Chiang Zhongzheng was still at the helm, watching the hands of the clock: in twenty minutes more they could pass the forts."
  12. Chiang diary, July 19, 1922: "This noon the rebels laid mines near the Yongfeng, only a few zhang from the American ship; the United States protested to the enemy." Sun's circular, Guofu quanji vol. 2, p. 107: "The rebels tried to strike the Yongfeng with mines, and did not succeed."
  13. Chiang diary, July 15–23, 1922 ("read the Holmes cases"), July 17 and 19.
  14. Chiang diary, August 1, 1922: "This month and more aboard ship, with painstaking [missing], the labor of resolving disputes has been ten times harder than the difficulties of fighting at the front."
  15. Chiang diary, August 7, 9, 10 and 14, 1922: "decided to leave Guangdong at four in the afternoon on the British warship Moxi"; "at five the ship reached Hong Kong, and we boarded the Empress of Russia"; "at ten took a launch to Wusong and came ashore." (The base text names the ship "摩西"; Epstein's book has "摩轩.")
  16. Chiang diary, September 7, 8, 12, 13, 16 and 20, 1922.
  17. Epstein, Woman in World History: Soong Ching Ling, section 7, "Escape from Canton" (online transcription; pages unverified): "Chiang was one of the officers accompanying Sun Yat-sen when Sun boarded the Yongfeng after escaping in Guangzhou... after following Sun aboard, when he saw things going badly he slipped back to Shanghai on his own."
  18. National Chengchi University officials database: March 17, 1923, "Chiang Zhongzheng specially appointed chief of staff of the Generalissimo's headquarters"; May 3, 1924, "Chiang Zhongzheng specially appointed president of the Army Officers' Academy"; July 7, 1924, "Chiang Zhongzheng concurrently appointed commander of the Changzhou fortress."
  19. Chiang diary, September 13, 1926: "When the late Premier was in peril aboard the Yongfeng, how much grimmer it was than now! Yet there was no such humiliation."
  20. Chiang diary, September 6, 1936: "Reward the old hands from the Yongfeng."