【China's Long Journey of Blood and Tears】

 

III. The Call

 

Judith Tien 田之雲

 

Mother’s and Father’s train ride to Tientsin on September 13th 1938, was just the first part of their secret journey. Under the noses of the Kempetai, Mother and Father were on their way to Kunming in the far distant mountains of Yunnan province.

 

To the young couple, the shock of 35,000 Japanese troops marching through the imposing gate 正陽門 (now known as 前門 Chienman Gate) a year earlier was still surreal. With each passing day, more Japanese occupiers swaggered into every corner of their city. Soon, there were 100,000 soldiers garrisoned in Beiping. The former lively and industrious populace slumped into a sullen gloom and withdrew behind their courtyard walls. My mother remembered that the once enticingly aromatic city of the 8 great Chinese cuisines smelled of “dried fish and pickled turnips.”

 

 

 IJA in Beiping

At Beida, when my parents started their junior year, there were only 7 original Beida professors still teaching under a proxy administration and a rigidly pro Japanese curriculum. Following the 1937 July 7th Marco Polo Bridge IJA incursion, a mass exodus of Beiping residents  began streaming out of the city, including the three presidents of the preeminent Chinese universities: Tsinghua’s Mei Yi-chi梅贻琦, Beida’s Chiang Mo-lin 蔣梦麟 and NanKai’s Chang Po-ling 張伯苓, who led the evacuation of their respective campuses. They regrouped with the escapee students in Changsha, Hunan to form a Temporary University, LinDa, out of the reach of the Japanese occupation. 

Three University Presidents : Mei Yi-chi. Chiang Meng-lin. Chang Po-ling

News circulated throughout China that by November 1, a total of 1,452 resistive students had, by various means, evaded 1400 miles of IJA security between Beiping to Changsha and reported for matriculation at the Temporary University Lin Da: 631 students from Tsinghua, 342 from Beida, 147 from Nankai and 218 transfer students. There were 148 professors - 73 from Tsinghua, 55 from Beida and 20 from Nankai. Some academics escaped alone and some managed to bundle up their families with them. No one knew what the conditions would be the next day, week, months or years, or even how long the war China was fighting alone, would last. The mission of the professors was to continue the independent pursuit of learning and the preservation of culture, and, above all, to keep their students alive.

Much as Mother and Father chafed under the loathsome conditions of Japanese administered Beida, Mother also agonized over abandoning her illiterate, widowed mother with little means under the care of her four teenage brothers in a Japanese occupied city while Father was in the traditional mourning period for his recently departed mother and also could not desert his beloved to the depredations of the enemy occupiers.

Grandfather Tien was neither distracted by his son’s discontent nor attachments. Grandfather Tien, who had survived the Manchu Ching Dynasty rule, the Xinhai Revolution, the early Republic and the Beiyang government, exhorted his restless son to be patient and consider the Changsha location of LinDa. Grandfather reflected ruefully,  “ LinDa” - “Temporary University”, is an appropriate name.”

Knowing that Father’s favorite subject was geography, Grandfather spread out his large map topographical of China, pointed out the vulnerability of Changsha, the rich Hunan rice agriculture in the strategic plains of China, and fierce river line battles around the Yellow River and Yangtze tributaries, as well the coastal ports which the IJA would assuredly plan to control. The rugged terrain of hills and rivers in Central China became fierce frontline defenses.

As Grandfather had feared, barely six weeks later, on December 13, much of north central China, Shanghai and the Nanking Capital fell to the Japanese. The barbarity of the IJA after their capture of Nanking is one of the greatest atrocities committed in modern history. “The Rape of Nanking” was a bloodbath of over 300,000 surrender soldiers and civilian men, women and children in an orgy of rape, mutilation and genocide.(1)

   

IJA haughty bearing in China

Devastating brutality of IJA in Nanking, Dec 13, 1937

The ROC Government retreated from their Nanking capital, first to Hankow, then into the southwest mountains of Szechuan. All of China was gripped by the distressing news of the retreating National Government, as well as the  fate of the defiant LinDa faculty and students at Changsha who had given up everything to continue their independent education. Japanese air raids unremittingly targeted Changsha and the Temporary University but the 160,000 Chinese army under 3 star General Chen Cheng held resolutely on to the Changsha defense ground line despite heavy losses.

 The progression of IJA control over China

Through the winter weeks, the LinDa students squabbled over whether they should join the Chinese forces defending Changsha or follow the dictates of their government to flee into the Southwest mountains. Only the impenetrable mountainous strongholds in west China, nestled in the jagged 1500 mile chain of the Himalayan Mountains, could shelter the remnants of defiant Chinese.

  

On January 5th, 1938 the Ministry of Education, the Executive branch of the National Government, and the most revered educators ordered, all able-bodied intellectuals to preserve the Chinese heritage in the southwest mountains. Out of a population of 450 million, there were only about 27,000 college students in the 114 colleges.

  

In Changsha, 600 of the 1452 matriculated LinDa students continued to ignore the frantic pleas of their government and scholars and either dropped out to return home, transfer to other more accessible colleges or felt compelled to patriotically commit themselves to the Chinese military defense of Changsha against the IJA.

  

The rest of the students bickered through the Chinese New Year of the Tiger on January 31. Finally, on February 19th, the battle hardened 3 star General Chen Cheng rushed to Changsha at the behest of Beida President Chiang Meng-lin, beseeching the students with a desperate plea: “… China has tens of thousands of soldiers. What she lacks is men of learning… You are the last hope – China’s  national treasure. In the midst of our nation’s dying, we should pursue life. To rebuild our nation in the future, we need men of talent. China’s best students is our national posterity.”

General Chen Cheng at time of Battle of Wuhan and Hankow, 1938.  ROC

Vice President 1954- 1965

Upon hearing these words from a respected warrior, the weeks of indecision and squabbling among the remaining students came to an abrupt stop. General Chen’s speech accomplished what the government’s orders and the professors’ entreaties could not. The Temporary University/LinDa students were so moved by the young General Chen’s exhortation that 820 LinDa students began to organize themselves for the hazardous 1663 km journey from Changsha to the remote city of Kunming. 244 hale male students decided to walk, led by about a dozen hearty professors while the rest of the faculty and students evacuated the Changsha Temporary University by any available transport to meet up with the marchers in Kunming.

  

In Kunming, the Temporary University (LinDa) in Changsha became formally named Guoli XiNan Lianda. The National Southwest Associated University. With their backs to the Himalayas on the border of Burma, there would be nowhere else for the resolute “national treasures” to retreat. In Kunming, the professors and their 820 students would make their last stand.

The 68 day journey rugged hike actually logged 3500 km due to the winding switchbacks paths up 1899 meters above sea level, has been likened to an academic “pilgrimage” by students of MIT, Harvard and Princeton Universities marching together from Boston, Massachusetts through the Appalachians to the Rocky Mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico in the primitive times of the early American pioneers. “

Changsha (LinDa)Temporary University Students Escape Routes to Kunming

Not only had the young fugitives to elude the terrible pursuing IJA but also obtain safety from their own impoverished countrymen of traitors, informers, thieves and bandits. The genteel squad of young scholars vigorous in intellect, hardened of will but tender of body were beset by hunger, thirst, malnutrition, illness, cold, heat, rain, bugs, sores but most of all, blistered feet for few of the students had ventured much beyond their desks, library or school grounds in their determined pursuit of education. 

Sunburnt Linda students arrival in Kunming on April 28, 1938 after 68 days march departing Changsha

on Feb 19, 1938

Meanwhile, in the Shui Mo Hutong house in Beiping, the Tien family also heard the resounding summons of General Chen. In November, Beida Professor George Yeh* (1904-1981), a young friend of Grandfather Tien had come back from Changsha to Shui Mo Hutong where his family was living in one of Grandfather’s empty courtyards which had been vacated by the married Tien children. Grandfather very much respected Professor Yeh, a distinguished professor of English at Beida, as a man of both Chinese and Western erudition, as well as a cosmopolitan visionary for China’s future. While Professor Yeh was packing up his family, in great haste, for Kunming, Father followed the Professor around, bemoaning to Professor Yeh that the classes at Beida had become meaningless.

 

Professor Yeh glanced at his friend Tien Shu-fan before tersely turning to Father, “Then leave.”

George Yeh, Beida Professor, R.O.C.

Ambassador to the U.S.A., the first Minister

 of Foreign Affairs of R.O.C. since 1949.

Grandfather Tien read Father’s anxious face and knew that his restless 21 year old son would have to leave the safety of his home to heed the nation’s call and that of his own natural inclination for learning. At the age of 52, Grandfather Tien felt himself too old to start a new life and Grandfather had responsibilities for his family of four younger children, as well as substantial Beiping real estate and retail businesses.

 

Grandfather, himself an English major at the Imperial Academy, had long realized that China would have to adapt to a new world order and he accordingly had prepared his children to face a future much different than the past thousands of years of self-contained China. Grandfather’s extensive collection of books stored not only the traditional Chinese classics, Chinese new age thinkers, translated foreign books, as well as in their original languages. Piles of periodicals, newspapers, maps and magazines stacked on shelves. The Tien children read and listened to records and radio broadcasts, none more avidly than Father.

 

China’s future would be determined by the commitment of the younger generation to rejuvenation and modernity led by the youthful fugitive academics in Kunming such as George Yeh, Hu Shih, Fu Sinian, Cheng Tianting, and Chou Binling who was Father’s Beida advisor.

 

When I was in elementary school in Yokohama during the Korean War and ROC-CPC Civil War, my parents lost contact with their families in Beijing. The buoyant anticipation my parents had felt since arriving in Japan in 1947 dribbled away. In my simple mind, I understood that  Mainland China had become our enemy. One day, I interrupted Father at his desk and I innocently asked Father, ”How come we are on different sides”.

As usual, Father’s answer was to take down one of his books and flipped to a poem by George Yeh’s professor at Amherst who had seen “lyricism” in his promising, young student from China*.

 

“… I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

                           Robert Frost, 1916

 

Though at that time in 1952, I understood the words of the lyrical

poem, I had no idea what Father meant until ages and ages later.

時代的血淚

 

三、召喚

 

周素鳳  譯

 

父母親在1938年9月13日搭火車前往天津，那只是他們秘密之旅的第一段而已。在日本憲兵隊嚴查密巡之下，祖父規畫他們繞道而行，目標是遠在雲南省昆明的西南聯大。

 

盧溝橋事變之後，北平淪陷，三萬五千名日本軍人大舉進入正陽門的景象，即使在一年多之後，父母親仍然餘悸猶存。他們說，日軍進駐之後，城裡的士兵一天天增加，很快就變成十萬大軍，殺氣騰騰地在城內各角落橫行，欺壓百姓。以往活力充沛，晨興夜寐的人民，只能鬱悶地躲在自己家中，意興闌珊地過著日子，街頭巷尾熱鬧活潑的景象完全消失。母親說，北平被列為中國八大美食之都，原本大街小巷的香味處處可聞，日本兵一來，市井間充斥死魚和酸蘿蔔的臭味。

 

1937年秋天北大開學後，父母親註了冊成了大三生，但是偽政府開始控制課程，嚴格要求教學內容宣揚親日思想，導致當時只有七名教授願意繼續授課。其實在七七事變之後，北平已有許多居民逃離。中國著名的三所大學校長──清華大學的梅貽琦，北大的蔣夢麟，南開的張伯苓，看到情勢發展堪慮，領導師生撤離北平的校園，遷移到湖南省的長沙。此三校聯合組成臨時大學，日本的魔掌還不及於長沙，臨時大學得以循著正軌教導學生。

 

根據資料顯示，到了11月1日，總計有1,452名學生，分別以不同方式，逃抵1,400英里外的長沙，這些學生包括清華大學631名，北大342名，南開147名，另外有218名轉學生。臨大的教授共有148位，其中73位原屬清華大學，55位屬北大，20位屬南開。抵達長沙的人有些是單獨行動，有些則想辦法帶著家眷一起逃。沒有人知道明天、下個星期、下個月，甚至明年，情勢會變成怎樣，更沒有人知道，中國單獨對抗日本的這場戰爭到底要持續到什麼時候。這些教授們只知道，他們講授的課程不能受人操控，要保存自己的文化，獨立追求知識，而且最重要的是要保護好學生，他們是民族和文化的血脈。

 

父母親對於偽政府掌控北大深惡痛絕，但是遲遲沒有採取行動離開北平。母親不放心的是她不識字的寡母和年少的四個弟弟，擔心他們在淪陷區生活困難。而父親顧慮自己的母親不久前過世，子孫還在傳統的服喪期間，不宜遠走他鄉，而且他也不願讓自己心愛的人獨自留在淪陷區。

 

祖父田樹藩一生閱歷豐富，歷經滿清政府、辛亥革命、民國初年、北洋政府，看盡世間百態。他很清楚父親對偽政府的不滿，也了解他對母親用情至深。祖父提醒舉棋不定的父親要有耐心，並且建議父親離開北平到長沙。根據祖父的判斷，臨時大學的「臨時」二字有其深意，代表它的未來並不樂觀。

 

祖父知道父親最喜歡的科目是地理，他攤開一大張中國地形圖分析，湖南不可能永遠安全，因為它位居中國戰略地位重要且盛產稻米的平原上，而且黃河和長江支流沿線，以及內陸幾個港口都曾經歷幾場激烈的戰役，因此日軍一定會設法拿下。華中地區多山脈河流，地形崎嶇，可做為防禦的前線。

 

果不其然，祖父擔心的事發生了。臨時大學成立不久後，上海淪陷， 而南京也於12月3日淪陷。兇殘的日軍在南京展開近代史上的大屠殺^[2]，血洗30多萬人，包括投降的士兵，手無寸鐵的平民，連婦女、兒童也不放過。他們慘遭各種酷刑、虐殺，強姦、輪姦，慘絕人寰。

 ^[2] Iris Chang, 張純如，華裔女作家，以The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (New York : Basic Books, 1997， 中譯: 《南京暴行：被遺忘的大屠殺》) 聞名，於2004年因撰寫此作導致憂鬱症而自殺，時年36歲。

迫於情勢，國民政府從南京撤退，先遷到漢口，再遷往西南山區的四川，人民對局勢的的發展憂心忡忡，而當初放棄一切跋涉到長沙的臨大師生，原本只是為了教學能夠獨立不受干涉，想不到日本空軍對長沙也毫不留情，猛烈轟炸長沙和臨大。我方損失慘重，但是陳誠將軍帶領16萬士兵全力抵抗。

 

接下來的幾個星期，臨大學生對未來何去何從爭論不休，有些人主張從軍報國，為保衛長沙而戰，有些人則認為應該遵從政府指示移往昆明。昆明在西南方的雲南省，四川盆地有1500英里的喜馬拉雅山環繞，形成天然的屏障，可以保護一群有風骨的知識分子。1938年1月5日，教育部、國民政府以及數位備受尊崇的教育家，一致認為知識分子有傳承中華文化之責，政府於是命令臨大遷往西南山區。中國人口4億5千萬，大學有114所，大學生2萬7千多名，這些學生肩負著延續中華文化與歷史的使命，他們是國家的命脈，是未來的希望。

 

臨大的1,452名學生中，最後有600名放棄學業，不願意前往昆明。他們之中有些人選擇返回家鄉或轉入其他學校，有的選擇從軍入伍，挺身保衛長沙。其他學生對於自己的前途持續討論，考量各種利弊，甚至到1月31日的農曆新年還未有定論。最後，在2月19日，北大校長蔣夢麟特別請陳誠將軍到長沙演講，勸導學生。陳誠強調中國有成千上萬的士兵，但是眼前最需要的是知識分子，許多學生因此決定繼續學業。陳誠將軍對學生說: 「你們是國家最後的希望，是『國寶』」，他強調如果中國最好大學的學生都上了戰場為國犧牲，如果年輕人都戰死沙場，化成炮灰，將來重建國家時沒有人才，國家的形勢就會更艱困。

 

學生們聽到一向最受他們敬重的陳誠將軍語重心長的談話，幾個星期的遲疑和爭論嘎然而止。陳將軍的演講好像為政府的命令和老師們的勸說做了一個總結，給學生指出一個明確的方向。他的言詞深深打動學生，820名學生開始準備從長沙遷往位置在1,663公里之遙的雲南。其中有兩百四十四名身體強健的男生以徒步方式走到昆明，由十多位熱心的教師帶隊，其他的教職員和學生則選擇可利用的各種交通工具，輾轉抵達昆明，與步行者會合。

 

在長沙的臨時大學到了昆明，正式更名為「國立西南聯合大學」。西南聯大位在滇緬邊界，背對喜馬拉雅山，意志堅決的教授和820多名「國家命脈」在此已退無可退，昆明是他們最後的據點。

 

臨大徒步隊的學生從長沙步行68天，翻山越嶺，山高約海拔1,899公尺，山路蜿蜒曲折，累計的路程應該有3,500公里。這一段艱辛的路程如同早期美國拓荒者所走過的「朝聖之旅」。等於是美國麻省理工學院、哈佛大學和普林斯頓三校的學生，一起徒步從麻州的波士頓出發，經過阿帕拉契山，到新墨西哥州聖塔菲的洛磯山脈。

 

這些徒步的師生不但要躲避日本憲兵隊的追捕，還得想辦法取得那些叛國通敵或是因貧困而淪為盜匪的同胞暗中協助，生命才不致受到威脅。這一群知書達禮的師生有敏銳的頭腦和堅強的意志，但身體缺乏鍛鍊，加上必須忍受飢餓、口渴、營養不足、疾病、蚊蟲叮咬，還要適應冷熱晴雨的天候變化，苦不堪言。尤其是雙腳起了水泡，還得忍痛繼續前行，這是多數學生在書桌、圖書館或校園裡求學所未曾經歷過的。

 

在此同時，在北平水墨胡同的田家也知道陳誠將軍受邀到臨大，期勉學生不要放棄讀書報國的信念。此消息傳來之前的三個月，也就是1937年的11月，北大英語教授葉公超 (1904-1981) 從長沙回到北平。他是祖父的年輕朋友，因為祖父在水墨胡同的家有空房，就將房間租給了葉公超一家人，葉教授此次回北平的目的是要將家人帶往昆明。祖父一直很尊重葉教授，因為他中西學養深厚，而且對中國未來的局勢，比較有國際視野。當時葉教授和家人匆匆打包，父親在葉教授身旁跟前跟後，抱怨北大的課程內容已經沒有甚麼意義。葉教授先看了一看父親，然後意味深長地望著祖父說：「那麼就走吧!」

 

祖父看到父親聽聞此話時一臉焦慮，他知道此刻必須讓這個舉棋不定的兒子離開北平的家了，這個兒子應該追隨政府讀書報國的召喚，想辦法到昆明把學業完成，而且這也符合他愛讀書的個性。而祖父認為自己52歲，到他鄉異地重新開始，可能太晚了。更何況北平還有四個兒女和其他家人，加上田家祖傳的地產和事業需要有人管理，他實在無法離開。

 

祖父田樹藩年輕時在京師大學堂讀的是英語系，因此很清楚中國需要調整腳步，接受新的世界秩序，他更明白，他的下一代所要面對的未來，必然迥異於自我封閉幾千年的中國。祖父的書房卷帙浩繁，不只收藏中國傳統經典古籍，也有中國新思想家的著作，還有翻譯作品，以及其他語文的書籍。書架上還有期刊、報紙、雜誌、地圖。田家的孩子都喜歡閱讀、聽唱片、聽廣播，其中父親是最認真，最入迷的一個。

 

祖父相信，中國未來的振興和現代化將掌握在下一代的手中，而引導新世代的就是遷往昆明的那些年輕知識分子，包括葉公超、胡適、傅斯年、鄭天挺，以及父親在北大的指導老師周炳琳。

 

記得我在橫濱上小學時，韓戰爆發，中國境內有國共內戰，父母親和北平的家人失去聯繫。父親在1947年奉派到日本，父母原本期望可以和北平的家人聯繫，無奈事與願違，他們的希望越來越渺茫。在我幼小的心靈中，我只知道統治中國的中共是我們的敵人，但不能理解為甚麼我們的親人住在那邊的北平。有一天，父親在看書，我打斷他，天真地提出我的疑問:「為什麼我們和他們要分隔在不同的兩邊?」

 

父親一如往常般，回答我的問題總是會在書架上取出一本相關的書，解答我的疑惑。他拿下一本佛洛斯特 (Robert Frost) 的詩集，他是葉公超在美國阿姆斯特學院 (Amherst College) 的教授。當年這位美國教授曾經在年輕有為的葉公超身上，看出他的「抒情」氣質。父親指著佛洛斯特1916年的一首詩，輕聲唸給我聽:

 

"...我將述說這段經歷，帶著嘆息，

在許多許多年以後的某時某刻:

樹林裡分岔的兩條路，而我，

我踏上少人問津的那條路，

因而造成一切的不同。"

 

1952年的我可以理解詩的字面意義，但是父親引用此詩表達他的心情，他當初選擇一條與家人分離的路，沒想到造成了日後不同的際遇，等到我明白他的嘆息，那已經是許多許多年以後了。