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
