CHINESE MARSHAL

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 151, 23 December 1935, Page 18

CHINESE MARSHAL

KILLED BY WOMAN

A Svoman assassin killed Marshal Sun Chuan-fang recently. He was a bitter opponent of the Nanking Government and was often mentioned as the possible choice of Japan to lead an independent i movement in North China; says, the "New York Times." Marshal Sun, formerly one of. China's most 'powerful war lords, was shot while attending. Buddhist services in the Chinese section of Tientsin. A well-dressed Chinese woman emptied her revolver into his body, then calmly surrendered.to the police. Investigators reported she was the 25-year-old daughter of the late General Sze Chung-pin, for whose execution she was asserted to have held Marshal Sun responsible. She was in an attitude of prayer, when Marshal Sun entered the temple. She suddenly turned and fired. He died instantly. Marshal Sun was fifty years old. He had-recently been living in retirement in Tientsin.

Marshal - Sun Chuan-fang played one of: the major military roles in China from 1923 to 1930. He was at one time commander'in chief• of the five wealthy south-eastern provinces Kiangsu,. Chekiahg, Fukien, Anwhei, and Kiangsi, and was.at the same time director-general of the Shanghai-Woo-sung- port. '/■.'■

With 200,000 well-trained troops he was a formidable foe of the Nationalists jander-General Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese cpmmander-in-chief, but he was ;twice;decisively defeated by the latter in 1927. / During the battle of Lungtan, near Chinkiang, in Kiangsii Province, his; forces were routed.

Marshal Sun was born at Lincheng, in Shantung Province, in 1885. He attended Peiyang Military Academy in Tientsin, graduating in 1906, and then completed, his military education in Japan, specialising in.infantry tactics.

•: He iought in various campaigns against the Southern Government of Dr.'-''Sim .Vat-sen and won the confidence of- Marshal Wu Pei-fu, who appointed him Military Governor of Fukien" in 1923.. He next defeated Lv Yung-hsiang, Dictator of Chekiang and succeeded him as Military Governor in 1924. Then he ousted Fengtien forces from Kiangsu and became Military Governor of that province in 1925.

After bis elimination from the five south-eastern provinces, Marshal Sun joined the late Marshal Chang Tso-lin, dictator of Manchuria. He participated in the northern military Coalition Government in Peking in 1930 and shortly after that he went into retirement.

At the height of his power Marshal Sun had capitals at Shanghai, Nanking, and Hangchow. It was reported in October, 1933, that the former war lord, who.was reputed to have amassed a fortune of . «10,000,000, had renounced the world and entered a Buddhist monastery in Peking. He announced he would spend the rest of his days studying under the renowned Abbot Yueh HsL