In the early morning of June 16, 1922, the city of Guangzhou was torn apart by artillery fire.
Ye Ju, the general of the Cantonese army, led his troops to besiege the presidential palace, and Sun Yat-sen fled in a hurry and disguised himself as a doctor to board the Yongfeng ship.
The "June 16 Incident", which shocked China and the rest of the world, not only pushed Sun Yat-sen and Chen Jiongming, two comrades-in-arms for ten years, into the abyss of rupture, but also became a watershed in modern China's political line.
"The heart of the tiger and wolf of Soviet Russia, do not lure the wolf into the room!" As early as the eve of the incident, Chen Jiongming's urgent telegram had pointed to the core of the contradiction.
He bitterly denounced the Soviet Union's "manipulation in the name of revolution" and warned Sun Yat-sen that if he insisted on uniting with Russia, "the regime will become a puppet, and the country will not be a country."
However, Sun Yat-sen responded by removing Chen Jiongming from all positions and continuing to push for the Northern Expedition.
Looking back a hundred years later, is Chen Jiongming really a "traitor"?
The years that have walked side by side
The revolutionary cooperation between Chen Jiongming and Sun Yat-sen began in the late Qing Dynasty.
Born in Guangdong in 1878, Chen Jiongming graduated from the Guangdong School of Law and Politics as an "excellent student" in his early years, and later became a member of the Guangdong Consultative Bureau.
During this period, he put forward reform plans such as "Abolition of the Accumulation of Fraud in the Government Bureau" and "Prohibition of All Gambling Cases", showing a good spirit of pragmatism and innovation.
In 1909, he secretly joined the League and participated in the preparations for the uprisings organized in various regions.
Although he was later forced into exile due to the failure of the uprising, his organizational skills and courage were beginning to emerge, and he became well-known among the early revolutionaries.
After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, Chen Jiongming launched the Tamsui Uprising in Huizhou, which took only 8 days to recover Huizhou and form a revolutionary army with peasants and handicraftsmen as the main force, which became an important force in the Guangdong revolution.
At this time, Sun Yat-sen was still overseas, and Chen Jiongming and Hu Hanmin jointly led the independence of Guangdong and promoted the New Deal.
After the failure of the "Second Revolution" in 1913, Chen Jiongming went into exile in Nanyang.
During this period, he reflected on his revolutionary tactics and gradually formed the political concept of "local autonomy", which also laid the groundwork for his later "political disagreement" with Sun Yat-sen.
In 1920, Chen Jiongming led the Cantonese army to defeat the Gui warlord Lu Rongting and recover Guangdong, and Sun Yat-sen was able to establish a military government in Guangzhou.
The "honeymoon period" of the two began.
Chen Jiongming was appointed governor of Guangdong Province and commander-in-chief of the Guangdong army, while Sun Yat-sen focused on the national revolutionary layout.
During Chen Jiongming's administration, Guangdong ushered in a "golden age".
He promoted the prohibition of gambling and drugs (the ban on gambling alone caused Guangdong to lose millions of fiscal revenue every year, but Chen insisted that "it is better to lose the source of wealth than to destroy the people's customs").
He established the city, China's first modern municipal system, appointed Sun Ke (son of Sun Yat-sen) as its first mayor, and promulgated the Provisional Regulations of Guangzhou, setting a precedent for urban autonomy.
He promoted free and compulsory education and established a network of public schools, which enabled Guangdong's school-age children to become one of the highest in the country.
The U.S. ambassador to Xiamen once commented: "Chen's reform methods are almost revolutionary, the results are excellent, and the people are satisfied." ”
Sun Yat-sen also relied heavily on Chen Jiongming's governance ability at this time, calling him the "banner of the southern revolution", and even frankly said that "I am not as good as being hard-working and frugal."
During the Dharma Protection Movement, the two worked together to expel the Gui warlords, and Chen Jiongming, backed by the Cantonese army, secured Sun Yat-sen's political foundation in Guangzhou.
In 1921, Sun Yat-sen was elected "very president", and although Chen Jiongming questioned the legitimacy of the election (arguing that the number of members of parliament was not enough to meet the legal requirements), he still put the overall situation in mind and acquiesced in this result.
Since the two were initially close to each other, when did Sun Chen and Chen start to crack suddenly?
Opinions are different, and differences are gradually emerging
In the 1920s, the victory of the Russian Revolution aroused the attention of various factions in China.
It is reported that Lenin also sent a special envoy to secretly contact Chen Jiongming in 1920, proposing to use Vladivostok as a base to send weapons to Guangdong and support the agrarian revolution.
Although Chen Jiongming appreciated Soviet Russia's anti-imperialist stance, he was wary of its "exporting revolution" model, believing that "Soviet Russia's tiger and wolf heart should not lead wolves into the house."
In addition, Chen Jiongming also believed that violent land reform would disrupt social order, so he politely rejected Soviet Russia's proposal for cooperation.
You must know that at this time, Guangzhou was thriving under Chen Jiongming's governance, and he was also extremely confident in his political ideas and ideas.
So how did Chen Jiongming want to carry out the revolution in China?
Originally, he advocated emulating the US federal system, with each province first autonomous, and then peaceful reunification through the formulation of the inter-provincial constitution.
In 1921, in response to the initiative of Lu Yongxiang, the overseer of Zhejiang, to achieve inter-provincial autonomy, he issued a "Qiaodian", emphasizing "decentralization of power at the local level and completion of national unification by the rule of the people".
In Guangdong, the election of county magistrates and judicial independence that he promoted already had a tendency to turn Guangdong into a "model province," and he wanted to use this as a model to achieve gradual "national salvation."
However, Sun Yat-sen did not think so at this time.
Due to Sun Yat-sen's lack of direct troops, the Northern Expedition suffered repeated setbacks, and the repeated failures of the previous revolution also made him gradually change his "vigilance" against Soviet Russia.
Sun Yat-sen believed that the root cause of the warlords' secession was the excessive power of the local governments, so he advocated the overthrow of the Beiyang government by force of the Northern Expedition and the establishment of a centralized "party-state system".
In his History of the Chinese Revolution, he clearly put forward the three-stage theory of "military administration, discipline administration, and constitutional government", and criticized the autonomy of the provinces as "bureaucratic politics that hinders the rule of the people."
In 1922, Sun Chen's contradictions and differences entered a white-hot stage.
Sun Yat-sen forcibly pushed forward the Northern Expedition and asked Chen Jiongming to raise 5 million yuan in military salaries, but Chen refused on the grounds that "the people's livelihood is withering and the financial resources of Guangdong Province have been exhausted", and openly criticized the Northern Expedition as "not measuring morality and power, and wasting people's wealth in vain".
In addition, he also had considerable objections to Sun Yat-sen's position as "great president".
Because Sun Yat-sen made a statement before the Northern Expedition, "As long as Beijing's illegitimate President Xu Shichang resigns and goes into the wilderness, I, Sun Wen, will also immediately resign and go into the wilderness." ”
Sun Yat-sen's move was originally intended to justify the Northern Expedition, but he didn't expect Xu Shichang to really resign and go into the wilderness.
This time Sun Yat-sen couldn't be rectified, and Chen Jiongming also took the opportunity to attack him.
The subsequent intervention of the Soviet Union exacerbated the conflict between Sun and Chen.
The Soviet delegates demanded that Guangdong carry out violent land reform, but Chen Jiongming resolutely opposed it, believing that "the revolution should be gradual and gradual, and should not be drastic and drastic."
At the same time, Sun Yat-sen, in order to gain more support from the Soviet Union, acquiesced in the entry of Communists into the Kuomintang, which caused panic among the Chen faction.
Kuomintang veteran Deng Zeru and others jointly signed a letter warning that "the Soviet Union intends to manipulate, and the introduction of the Communist Party may become a vassal."
In this context, the contradictions between Sun and Chen gradually became irreconcilable.
Finally, at a certain moment, Chen Jiongming completely broke out.
Shelling of the presidential palace
On June 2, 1922, Beiyang President Xu Shichang announced his resignation, and the situation between the north and the south changed abruptly.
As mentioned above, Sun Yat-sen once publicly promised that "Xu Shichang will go into the wilderness, and I will also go into the wilderness", but in the face of a telegram from more than 200 celebrities across the country urging him to fulfill his promise (led by Hu Shi and Cai Yuanpei), Sun Yat-sen refused to resign on the grounds that "the protection of the law has not been completed", which naturally caused an uproar in public opinion.
Chen Jiongming advocated "peaceful reunification" and held that since the "Provisional Covenant" had been restored and the goal of protecting the law had been achieved, the Northern Expedition should be stopped and the autonomy of the provinces should be promoted.
He called Sun Yat-sen in Huizhou: "Today, the north and the south are illegal governments, so why bother with violence? ”
However, Sun Yat-sen took a hard line and held a press conference on June 12, in which he reprimanded Chen Jiongming for "obstructing the Northern Expedition, which is tantamount to treason against the party and the country," and ordered the Cantonese army to withdraw 30 miles from Guangzhou, otherwise "it must be cleared by force."
At this time, the Cantonese army had not paid military salaries for several months, and there were frequent mutinies among soldiers due to food shortages.
Ye Ju and other generals led the 60th battalion of the Cantonese army into Guangzhou and demanded that Sun Yat-sen fulfill his promise to the field.
The two sides were at a stalemate for several days, but neither side was willing to budge and compromise.
At 3 a.m. on June 16, 1922, the Cantonese army fired three earthen cannons at the Guanyin Mountain Presidential Palace, intended to deter rather than kill.
However, by this time, Sun Yat-sen had already evacuated.
It turned out that long before the Cantonese army besieged the presidential palace, someone had conveyed evacuation warnings to Sun Yat-sen through his cook.
Sun Yat-sen did not believe it at first, but it was not until the captain of the guard, Yao Guanshun, strongly admonished that "the bullet had entered through the window", and then agreed to flee disguised as a doctor.
This is also considered by some people to be deliberately done by Chen Jiongming, and he did not really want to take Sun Yat-sen's name.
Half an hour after Sun Yat-sen's evacuation, the defenders were attacked by the Cantonese army because they refused to surrender, and only a dozen casualties were killed or wounded in the exchange of fire between the two sides.
After Sun Yat-sen boarded the Yongfeng ship, he also ordered the navy to bombard the city of Guangzhou.
Interestingly, Chiang Kai-shek was also on this ship at this time.
The turning point of fate also occurred from this, and Chiang Kai-shek's political career rose step by step from then on, and his status in the party rose higher and higher, which was not unrelated to this incident.
After the incident, Hu Shi once wrote an article pointing out: "Sun Chen's break is not a personal enmity, but a dispute over the line of founding the country - Chen wants Guangdong to be the 'state of the United States', and Sun wants it to be the 'central province'." ”
He even revealed that after Sun Yat-sen bombarded Guangzhou, Chen Jiongming strictly ordered his subordinates to "not pursue and let him live", and sent a secret envoy to send a letter to the Yongfeng ship: "If Mr. wants to leave Guangdong, Jiongming will protect him." ”
But no matter what, after Sun Chen and the two met each other this time, it was difficult to go back.
The day after the "June 16 Incident", the Soviet Russian envoy urgently met with Sun Yat-sen's representative Zhang Ji, promising to provide 2 million yuan in military aid and send advisers to assist in army building.
In July, the first batch of Soviet weapons arrived in Fujian via Vladivostok, and Sun Yat-sen was able to reorganize the "thief army".
At the same time, Chen Jiongming was regarded by Moscow as a "reactionary warlord" for rejecting the Soviet Union's condition of "recognizing the independence of Outer Mongolia in exchange for aid."
In a flash, China's political landscape began to change!
A fork in the road
Sun Yat-sen chose the "United Russia and the United Communist Party" at the fork in the road of history.
In 1923, he met with Yue Fei, a representative of the Soviet Russian government, and together they issued the "Sun-Wen Yue Fei Joint Declaration".
Soviet Russia not only provided military funds for Sun Yat-sen's "reinvigoration", but also sent an advisory group to assist him in establishing the Whampoa Military Academy, so that the Kuomintang had a party-military system independent of the warlords for the first time.
By the time the Whampoa Military Academy was established in 1924, the first weapons aided by the Soviet Union included 8,000 rifles and 2 million rounds of ammunition, and 60% of the Whampoa Military Academy's funding came directly from Soviet funds.
Of course, all of this is not without a price.
The Soviet side demanded that the Kuomintang admit Communist Party members to "cross-party positions," which aroused the dissatisfaction of many Kuomintang veterans, who believed that the Communist Party was "just a young student and should not be a problem."
The radical land reform and trade union policies promoted by Soviet representative Borodin also aroused dissatisfaction among the Kuomintang rightists, and Deng Zeru and other veterans jointly warned Sun Yat-sen, saying that "the Soviet Union intends to manipulate."
But in any case, the Soviet Union's aid enabled the Nationalist Government to have its own armed forces, and the establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy created a set of excellent generals for the next revolution on the mainland.
Chen Jiongming, who retired to Hong Kong after the failure of the Eastern Crusade in 1925, ended his political career on the mainland, but continued his influence in another way.
In 1925, Chen Jiongming reorganized the Overseas Hongmen Zhi Gong Tang into the China Zhi Gong Party and put forward the program of "anti-Chiang and anti-Japanese".
Even in his later years, he was so impoverished that he needed to be buried in his mother's coffin, he still refused to accept Japanese funding and publicly denounced the puppet state of Manchukuo as a "puppet regime".
The Zhi Gong Party later became one of the eight major democratic parties, and its concept of "overseas Chinese saving the country" has had a far-reaching influence to this day.
In the "June 16 Incident" in 1922, Chiang Kai-shek was trusted by Sun Yat-sen because of the "Yongfeng Ship Escort", and since then he has been in charge of the Whampoa Military Academy.
With the help of Soviet resources, he cultivated his lineage, secretly and gradually eliminated the left-wing forces in the party, and finally ended the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party with the "April 12 Coup".
The Huangpu generals under him, such as Chen Cheng and Hu Zongnan, monopolized military power, causing the Kuomintang to degenerate into a military oligarchy, deviating from Sun Yat-sen's original original intention of democratization of "military administration, training government, and constitutionalism".
The Soviet Union also imperceptibly influenced the course of the revolution in China.
Borodin, for example, implanted a Leninist party structure into the KMT, a model that was later inherited and strengthened by the CCP.
The clauses such as "equal land rights" and "control of capital" in the manifesto of the "First National Congress" of the Kuomintang were directly derived from the Comintern's transformation of the Three People's Principles.
The CCP's early organizational system and propaganda strategy were also born out of the guidance of Soviet advisers.
In fact, the essence of the Sun-Chen controversy was the confrontation between "radical revolution" and "gradual reform" and "centralization" and "local autonomy" in modern China.
Looking back now, does the practice of "one country, two systems" in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area seem to echo Chen Jiongming's concept of "local first" across the centuries?
The predicament of not being reunified between the two sides of the strait seems to reflect Sun Yat-sen's unfinished regret of "reunification by force."
There is no if in history, we only need to know that in that era of ups and downs and broken mountains and rivers, they had different political ideas, but they also had the same ideal and original intention, that is, "save China"!
Resources:
Chen Jiongming and Sun Yat-sen turned their faces from beginning to end, personally experienced Beiyang, Feng Xuerong, China Workers Publishing House
Chen Jiongming's opposition to Sun Yat-sen stems from his lack of understanding of the necessity of "discipline and government" Phoenix Information September 29, 2008
A Win-Win Choice: The Political Game and Alliance between the Soviet Union and Sun Yat-sen Phoenix.com June 28, 2009
CHEN Jiongming. Huizhou People's Government 2021-06-06