Wild Swans

But the project was never finished, partly due to lack of materials and poor planning, but mainly because of corruption. The man in charge of the construction work siphoned off building materials and sold them on the black market; the workers were not paid enough to eat. By September, when the Communist forces began to cut the city off, only a third of the system had been completed, much of it small, unconnected cement forts. Other parts had been hastily assembled from mud taken from the old city wall.

It was vital for the Communists to know about this system and about the disposition of the Kuomintang troops. The Communists were building up enormous forces—about a quarter of a million men—for a decisive battle. The commander in chief of all the Communist armies, Zhu De, cabled the commander on the spot, Lin Biao: ‘Take Jinzhou…and the whole Chinese situation is in our hands.’ Yu-wu’s group was asked to provide up-to-date information before the final attack. He urgently needed more hands, and when my mother approached him asking for work, he and his superiors were delighted.

The Communists had sent some officers into the city in disguise to reconnoitre, but a man wandering around the outskirts alone would immediately attract attention. An amorous couple would be much less conspicuous. By then, Kuomintang rule had made it quite acceptable for young men and women to be seen together in public. Because the reconnaissance officers were male, my mother would be ideal as a ‘girlfriend’.

Yu-wu told her to be at an appointed place at a particular time. She was to wear a pale blue gown and a red silk flower in her hair. The Communist officer would be carrying a copy of the Kuomintang newspaper, the Central Daily, folded into a triangle, and would identify himself by wiping sweat three times off the left side of his face and then three times off the right.

On the appointed day, my mother went to a small temple just outside the old north wall but within the defence perimeter. A man carrying the triangular newspaper came up to her and gave the correct signals. My mother stroked his right cheek three times with her right hand, then he stroked her left cheek three times with his left hand. Then my mother took his arm, and they walked off.

My mother did not understand fully what he was doing, and she did not ask. Most of the time they walked in silence, only talking when they passed someone. The mission passed off without incident.

There were to be more, around the city outskirts and to the railway, the vital communications artery.

It was one thing to obtain the information, but it was another to get it out of the city. By the end of July the checkpoints were firmly shut, and anyone trying to enter or leave was thoroughly searched. Yu-wu consulted my mother, whose ability and courage he had grown to trust. The vehicles of senior officers could go in and out without being searched, and my mother thought of a contact she might be able to use. One of her fellow students was the granddaughter of a local army commander, General Ji, and the girl’s brother was a colonel in their grandfather’s brigade.

The Jis were a Jinzhou family, with considerable influence. They occupied a whole street, nicknamed ‘Ji Street’, where they had a large compound with an extensive, well-groomed garden. My mother had often strolled in the garden with her friend, and was quite friendly with her brother, Hui-ge.

Hui-ge was a handsome young man in his mid-twenties who had a university degree in engineering. Unlike many young men from wealthy, powerful families, he was not a dandy. My mother liked him, and the feeling was mutual. He began to pay social calls on the Xias and to invite my mother to tea parties. My grandmother liked him a lot; he was extremely courteous, and she considered him highly eligible.

Soon Hui-ge started to invite my mother out on her own. At first his sister accompanied him, pretending to be a chaperone, but soon she would disappear with some flimsy excuse. She praised her brother to my mother, adding that he was their grandfather’s favourite. She must also have told her brother about my mother, because my mother discovered that he knew a lot about her, including the fact that she had been arrested for her radical activities. They found they had much in common. Hui-ge was very frank about the Kuomintang. Once or twice he tugged at his colonel’s uniform and sighed that he hoped the war would end soon so he could go back to his engineering. He told my mother he thought the Kuomintang’s days were numbered, and she had the feeling that he was baring his innermost thoughts.

She was certain he was fond of her, but she wondered if there might be political motives behind his actions. She deduced that he must be trying to get a message across to her, and through her to the Communists. The message had to be: I don’t like the Kuomintang, and I am willing to help you.

They became tacit conspirators. One day my mother suggested that he might surrender to the Communists with some troops (which was a fairly common occurrence). He said he was only a staff officer and did not command any troops. My mother asked him to try to persuade his grandfather to go over, but he replied sadly that the old man would probably have him shot if he even suggested it.

My mother kept Yu-wu informed, and he told her to cultivate Hui-ge. Soon Yu-wu told her to ask Hui-ge to take her for a trip outside the city in his jeep. They went on such trips three or four times, and each time, when they reached a primitive mud toilet, she said she had to use it. She got out and hid a message in a hole in the toilet wall while he waited in his jeep. He never asked any questions. His conversations became more and more centred on his worries about his family and himself. In a roundabout way, he hinted that the Communists might execute him: ‘I’m afraid I’ll soon just be a disembodied soul outside the western gate!’ (The Western Heaven was supposed to be the destination of the dead, because it was the site of eternal peace. So the execution ground in Jinzhou, like most places in China, was outside the western gate.) When he said this, he would look questioningly into my mother’s eyes, clearly inviting contradiction.

My mother felt certain that because of what he had done for them the Communists would spare him. Although everything had been implicit, she would say confidently: ‘Don’t think such gloomy thoughts!’ or ‘I’m sure that won’t happen to you!’

The Kuomintang position continued to deteriorate through the late summer—and not only because of military action. Corruption wreaked havoc. Inflation had risen to the unimaginable figure of just over 100,000 per cent by the end of 1947—and it was to go to 2,870,000 per cent by the end of 1948 in the Kuomintang areas. The price of sorghum, the main grain available, increased seventyfold overnight in Jinzhou. For the civilian population the situation was becoming more desperate every day, as increasingly more food went to the army, much of which was sold by local commanders on the black market.

The Kuomintang high command was divided over strategy. Chiang Kai-shek recommended abandoning Mukden, the largest city in Manchuria, and concentrating on holding Jinzhou, but he was unable to impose a coherent strategy on his top generals. He seemed to place all his hope on greater American intervention. Defeatism permeated his top staff.

By September the Kuomintang held only three strongholds in Manchuria—Mukden, Changchun (the old capital of Manchukuo, Hsinking), and Jinzhou—and the 300 miles of railway track linking them. The Communists were encircling all three cities simultaneously, and the Kuomintang did not know where the main attack would come. In fact it was to be Jinzhou, the most southerly of the three and the strategic key, because once it fell the other two would be cut off from their supplies. The Communists were able to move large numbers of troops around undetected, but the Kuomintang were dependent on the railway, which was under constant attack, and, to a lesser extent, on air transport.

The assault on Jinzhou began on 12 September 1948. An American diplomat, John F. Melby, flying to Mukden, recorded in his diary on 23 September: ‘North along the corridor to Manchuria the Communist artillery was systematically making rubble out of the airfield at Chinchow [Jinzhou].’ The next day, 24 September, the Communist forces moved closer. Twenty-four hours later Chiang Kaishek ordered General Wei Li-huang to break out of Mukden with fifteen divisions and relieve Jinzhou. General Wei dithered, and by 26 September the Communists had virtually isolated Jinzhou.

By 1 October the encirclement of Jinzhou was completed. Yixian, my grandmother’s hometown twenty-five miles to the north, fell that day. Chiang Kai-shek flew to Mukden to take personal command. He ordered seven extra divisions to be thrown into the Jinzhou battle, but he was unable even to get General Wei to move out of Mukden until 9 October, two weeks after the order had been given—and even then with only eleven divisions, not fifteen. On 6 October Chiang Kai-shek flew to Huludao and ordered troops there to move up to relieve Jinzhou. Some did, but piecemeal, and they were soon isolated and destroyed.

The Communists were getting ready to turn the assault on Jinzhou into a siege. Yu-wu approached my mother and asked her to undertake a critical mission: to smuggle detonators into one of the ammunition depots—the one supplying Hui-ge’s own division. The ammunition was stored in a big courtyard, the walls of which were topped with barbed wire which was reputed to be electrified. Everyone who went in and out was searched. The soldiers living inside the complex spent most of their time gambling and drinking. Sometimes prostitutes were brought in and the officers would hold a dance in a makeshift club. My mother told Hui-ge she wanted to go and have a look at the dancing, and he agreed without asking any questions.

The detonators were handed to my mother the next day by a man she had never seen. She put them into her bag and drove into the depot with Hui-ge. They were not searched. When they got inside, she asked Hui-ge to show her around, leaving her bag in the car, as she had been instructed. Once they were out of sight, underground operatives were supposed to remove the detonators. My mother strolled at a deliberately leisurely pace to give the men more time. Hui-ge was happy to oblige.

That night, the city was rocked by a gigantic explosion. Detonations went off in chain reactions and the dynamite and shells lit up the sky like a spectacular fireworks display. The street where the depot had been was in flames. Windows were shattered within a radius of about fifty yards. The next morning, Hui-ge invited my mother over to the Ji mansion. His eyes were hollow and he was unshaven. He had obviously not slept a wink. He greeted her a little more guardedly than usual.

After a heavy silence, he asked her whether she had heard the news. Her expression must have confirmed his worst fears—that he had helped to cripple his own division. He said there was going to be an investigation. ‘I wonder whether the explosion will sweep my head from my shoulders,’ he sighed, ‘or blow a reward my way?’ My mother, who was feeling sorry for him, said reassuringly: ‘I am sure you are beyond suspicion. I’m certain you will be rewarded.’ At this, Hui-ge stood up and saluted her in formal fashion. ‘Thank you for your promise!’ he said.

By now, Communist artillery shells had begun to crash into the city. When my mother first heard the whine of the shells flying over, she was a little frightened. But later, when the shelling became heavier, she got used to it. It became like permanent thunder. A kind of fatalistic indifference deadened fear for most people. The siege also broke down Dr Xia’s rigid Manchu ritual; for the first time the whole household ate together, men and women, masters and servants. Previously, they had been eating in no less than eight groups, all having different food. One day, as they were sitting around the table preparing to have dinner, a shell came bursting through the window over the kang, where Yu-lin’s one-year-old son was playing, and thudded to a halt under the dining table. Fortunately, like many of the shells, it was a dud.

Once the siege started there was no food to be had, even on the black market. A hundred million Kuomintang dollars could barely buy a pound of sorghum. Like most families who could afford to do so, my grandmother had stored some sorghum and soybeans, and her sister’s husband, ‘Loyalty’ Pei-o, used his connections to get some extra supplies. During the siege the family’s donkey was killed by a piece of shrapnel, so they ate it.

On 8 October the Communists moved almost a quarter of a million troops into attack positions. The shelling became much more intense. It was also very accurate. The top Kuomintang commander, General Fan Han-jie, said that it seemed to follow him wherever he went. Many artillery positions were knocked out, and the fortresses in the uncompleted defence system came under heavy fire, as did the road and railway links. Telephone and cable lines were cut, and the electricity system broke down.

On 13 October the outer defences collapsed. More than 100,000 Kuomintang troops retreated pell-mell into the centre of the city. That night a band of about a dozen dishevelled soldiers stormed into the Xias’ house and demanded food. They had not eaten for two days. Dr Xia greeted them courteously and Yu-lin’s wife immediately started cooking a huge saucepan of sorghum noodles. When they were ready, she put them on the kitchen table and went into the next room to tell the soldiers. As she turned her back, a shell landed in the saucepan and exploded, spattering the noodles all over the kitchen. She dived under a narrow table in front of the kang. A soldier was ahead of her, but she grabbed him by the leg and pulled him out. My grandmother was terrified. ‘What if he had turned around and pulled the trigger?’ she hissed once he was out of earshot.

Until the very final stage of the siege the shelling was amazingly accurate; few ordinary houses were hit, but the population suffered from the terrible fires which the shelling ignited, and there was no water to douse the flames. The sky was completely obscured by thick, dark smoke and it was impossible to see more than a few yards, even in daytime. The noise of the artillery was deafening. My mother could hear people wailing, but could never tell where they were or what was happening.

On 14 October, the final offensive started. Nine hundred artillery pieces bombarded the city nonstop. Most of the family hid in an improvised air-raid shelter which they had dug earlier, but Dr Xia refused to leave the house. He sat calmly on the kang in the corner of his room by the window and prayed silently to the Buddha. At one point fourteen kittens ran into the room. He was delighted: ‘A place a cat tries to hide in is a lucky place,’ he said. Not a single bullet came into his room—and all the kittens survived. The only other person who would not go down into the shelter was my great-grandmother, who just curled up under the oak table next to the kang in her room. When the battle ended the thick quilts and blankets covering the table looked like a sieve.

In the middle of one bombardment, Yu-lin’s baby son, who was down in the shelter, wanted to have a wee-wee. His mother took him outside, and a few seconds later the side of the shelter where she had been sitting collapsed. My mother and grandmother had to come up and take cover in the house. My mother crouched next to the kang in the kitchen, but soon pieces of shrapnel started hitting the brick side of the kang and the house began to shake. She ran out into the back garden. The sky was black with smoke. Bullets were flying through the air and ricocheting all over the place, spattering against the walls; the sound was like mighty rain pelting down, mixed with screams and yells.

In the small hours of the next day a group of Kuomintang soldiers burst into the house, dragging about twenty terrified civilians of all ages with them—the residents of the three neighbouring courtyards. The troops were almost hysterical. They had come from an artillery post in a temple across the street, which had just been shelled with pinpoint accuracy, and were shouting at the civilians that one of them must have given away their position. They kept yelling that they wanted to know who had given the signal. When no one spoke up, they grabbed my mother and shoved her against a wall, accusing her. My grandmother was terrified, and hurriedly dug out some small gold pieces and pressed them into the soldiers’ hands. She and Dr Xia went down on their knees and begged the soldiers to let my mother go. Yu-lin’s wife said this was the only time she ever saw Dr Xia looking really frightened. He pleaded with the soldiers: ‘She’s my little girl. Please believe me that she did not do it…’

The soldiers took the gold and let my mother go, but they forced everyone into two rooms at bayonet point and shut them in—so they would not send any more signals, they said. It was pitch-dark inside the rooms, and very frightening. But quite soon my mother noticed that the shelling was decreasing. The noises outside changed. Mixed with the whine of bullets were sounds of hand grenades exploding and the clash of bayonets. Voices were yelling, ‘Put down your weapons and we’ll spare your life!’—there were blood-curdling shrieks and screams of anger and pain. Then the shots and the shouts came closer and closer, and she heard the sound of boots clattering on the cobblestones as the Kuomintang soldiers ran away down the street.

Eventually the din subsided a bit and the Xias could hear banging on the side gate of the house. Dr Xia went warily to the door of the room and eased it open: the Kuomintang soldiers had gone. Then he went to the side gate of the house and asked who was there. A voice answered: ‘We are the people’s army. We have come to liberate you.’ Dr Xia opened the gate and several men in baggy uniforms entered swiftly. In the darkness, my mother could see that they were wearing white towels wrapped around their left sleeves like armbands and held their guns at the ready, with fixed bayonets. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ they said. ‘We won’t harm you. We are your army, the people’s army.’ They said they wanted to check the house for Kuomintang soldiers. It was not a request, though it was put politely. The soldiers did not turn the place upside down, nor did they ask for food or steal anything. After the search they left, bidding the family a courteous farewell.

It was only when the soldiers entered the house that it sank in that the Communists had really taken the city. My mother was overjoyed. This time she did not feel let down by the Communist soldiers’ dust covered, torn uniforms.

All the people who had been sheltering in the Xias’ house were anxious to get back to their houses to see if they had been damaged or looted. One house had in fact been levelled, and a pregnant woman who had remained there was killed.

Shortly after the neighbours left there was another knock on the side gate. My mother opened it: half a dozen terrified Kuomintang soldiers stood there. They were in a pitiable state and their eyes were gnawed by fear. They kowtowed to Dr Xia and my grandmother and begged for civilian clothes. The Xias felt sorry for them and gave them some old clothes which they hurriedly put on over their uniforms and left.

At first light Yu-lin’s wife opened the front gate. Several corpses were lying right outside. She let out a terrified yell and ran back into the house. My mother heard her shriek and went outside to have a look. Corpses were lying all over the street, many of them with their heads and limbs missing, others with their intestines pouring out. Some were just bloody messes. Chunks of flesh and arms and legs were hanging from the telegraph poles. The open sewers were clogged with bloody water, human flesh, and rubble.

The battle for Jinzhou had been herculean. The final attack had lasted thirty-one hours, and in many ways it was the turning point of the civil war. Twenty thousand Kuomintang soldiers were killed and over 80,000 captured. No fewer than eighteen generals were taken prisoner, among them the supreme commander of the Kuomintang forces in Jinzhou, General Fan Han-jie, who had tried to escape disguised as a civilian. As the prisoners of war thronged the streets on their way to the temporary camps, my mother saw a friend of hers with her Kuomintang officer husband, both of them wrapped in blankets against the morning chill.

It was Communist policy not to execute anyone who laid down their arms, and to treat all prisoners well. This would help win over the ordinary soldiers, most of whom came from poor peasant families. The Communists did not run prison camps. They kept only middle- and high-ranking officers, and dispersed the rest almost immediately. They would hold ‘speak bitterness’ meetings for the soldiers, at which they were encouraged to speak up about their hard lives as landless peasants. The revolution, the Communists said, was all about giving them land. The soldiers were given a choice: either they could go home, in which case they would be given their fare, or they could stay with the Communists to help wipe out the Kuomintang so that nobody would ever take their land away again. Most willingly stayed and joined the Communist army. Some, of course, could not physically reach their homes with a war going on. Mao had learned from ancient Chinese warfare that the most effective way of conquering the people was to conquer their hearts and minds. The policy toward prisoners proved enormously successful. Particularly after Jinzhou, more and more Kuomintang soldiers simply let themselves be captured. Over 1.75 million Kuomintang troops surrendered and crossed over to the Communists during the civil war. In the last year of the civil war, battle casualties accounted for less than 20 per cent of all the troops the Kuomintang lost.

One of the top commanders who had been caught had his daughter with him; she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. He asked the Communist commanding officer if he could stay in Jinzhou with her. The Communist officer said it was not convenient for a father to help his daughter deliver a baby, and that he would send a ‘woman comrade’ to help her. The Kuomintang officer thought he was only saying this to get him to move on. Later on he learned that his daughter had been very well treated, and the ‘woman comrade’ turned out to be the wife of the Communist officer. Policy toward prisoners was an intricate combination of political calculation and humanitarian consideration, and this was one of the crucial factors in the Communists’ victory. Their goal was not just to crush the opposing army but, if possible, to bring about its disintegration. The Kuomintang was defeated as much by demoralization as by firepower.

The first priority after the battle was cleaning up, most of which was done by Communist soldiers. The locals were also keen to help, as they wanted to get rid of the bodies and the debris around their homes as quickly as possible. For days, long convoys of carts loaded with corpses and lines of people carrying baskets on their shoulders could be seen wending their way out of the city. As it became possible to move around again, my mother found that many people she knew had been killed; some from direct hits, others buried under rubble when their houses had collapsed.

The morning after the siege ended the Communists put up notices asking the townspeople to resume normal life as quickly as possible. Dr Xia hung out his gaily decorated shingle to show that his medicine shop was open—and was later told by the Communist administration that he was the first doctor in the city to do so. Most shops reopened on 20 October even though the streets were not yet cleared of bodies. Two days later, schools reopened and offices began working normal hours.

The most immediate problem was food. The new government urged the peasants to come and sell food in the city and encouraged them to do so by setting prices at twice what they were in the countryside. The price of sorghum fell rapidly, from 100 million Kuomintang dollars for a pound to 2,200 dollars. An ordinary worker could soon buy four pounds of sorghum with what he could earn in a day. Fear of starvation abated. The Communists issued relief grain, salt, and coal to the destitute. The Kuomintang had never done anything like this, and people were hugely impressed.