12月12日December 12, 1936 ”西安事變”等

1936年胡適從舊金山回國，12月10日抵北平(12月1日抵上海) ，很忙碌。

12月12日December 12, 1936是史上多事之一日。

在英國，根據The King's Speech (《王者之聲：宣戰時刻》（The King's Speech，片名中speech既解作演講，也解作說話能力，是雙關語）是大事....

在中華民國，本日是所謂”西安事變”日，胡適發一封電報給張學良。

……..足下應念國難家仇，懸崖勒馬，護送介公出險。若執迷不悟，名為抗敵，實自壞長城，正為敵人所深快，足下將為國家民族之罪人矣。

Historical Events

- Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan

約75 years ago: Chiang Kai-shek placed under house arrest

Chiang Kai-shek

On December 12 1936, the leader of the Chinese Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek, was placed under house arrest by the leader of his northern armies, Chang Hsueh-liang, a former Manchurian warlord, in what would subsequently become known as the “Xi’an incident.”

Chiang Kai-shek had arrived at Hsueh-liang’s headquarters in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, ostensibly to discuss military tactics to be employed against the peasant army built by Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Chiang was unaware that since earlier in the year, Hsueh-liang had been negotiating with the CCP about a tactical alliance against the invading Japanese Imperial Army. Hsueh-liang believed that Manchuria would not have fallen to the Japanese five years earlier had he been also able to draw upon Mao’s military forces in the northern Chinese theatre of war.

Chiang was held under house arrest for almost two weeks before he finally agreed to Hsueh-liang’s eight demands, foremost of which was an end to the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists and the formation of a Second United Front between the two against the Japanese. The First United Front, instituted under Stalin’s orders in 1927 over the objections of Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition, had resulted in the massacre of CCP cadre and class-conscious Chinese workers. This had set the stage for the emergence of Mao and the shift in the party’s orientation from the urban working class to the peasantry.

During the Second United Front, combat between the Kuomintang and the CCP never fully ended and by 1940 civil war had reemerged, even in the midst of the Japanese occupation.