LITTLE CHANG

Evening Star, Issue 19550, 7 May 1927, Page 24

LITTLE CHANG

A MILD, SUAVE WAR LORD , AMAZING BANDIT [By G. C. Dixon, in the ‘ Empire 'Review.’]

The welter'of civil war in China has again brought into the limelight one of the strangest figures in history—-the half-comical and wholly terrible little War Lord of Manchuria, Marshal Chang Tso-lin. Cables report that ho has now declared war on the Soviet. Just as the Great Wall heat hack for a thousand years the hordes that swept down from the arid Gobi and the steppes of Siberia, so does Chang stand to-day as the last military barrier between Moscow and complete possession of tho richest prize a fanatic ever gazed upon. For the salvation of China, if it is to come from military opciations at all, the Powers must look mainly to Chang Tso-lin - He is a fantastic am] fascinating figure, this Manchurian War Lord, who broods, from his stronghold in Mukden, over all China north of tho Yangtzekiang. Looking for the swash-bucklcr of tradition, you find a tiny man, fifty years old, about five feet high and six stone in weight, as smooth as a bishop, as suave as a diplomat, mildoyed, self-effacing, soft-spoken, EYES THAT WATCH YOU. The very thought of violence seems grotesque as you gaze da that dosecropped, almost shaven head, tightdrawn waxen face, dispirited moustaches, and heavy lids half veiling tho rdeepy eyes that watch you inscrutably, and watch, and watch.. It is like playing with a kittenish tiger in the sun. For all the time you know that this gentle, unobtrusive figure, who might bo a very minor clerk, is one of the great'adventurers of the ages; a ruthless, coolly-ferocious super-bandit, who has been known to shoot down instantly, as you or I would kill a fly, a subordinate guilty of what ho iegards as an error of judgment. About Chang, who began life as a leader of Hunghutzes (literally redheards, or bandits), 'so many things are told in the cluhrooms of China that he is fast becoming a legend. It is perfectly true that he began his career as a leader of bandits, served with his hand on tho side of the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, transferred, with the true Chinese astuteness, to the winning side, and, at the end of the war, found himself at the head of a well-armed and well-trained force of two thousand. POINTING THE MORAL.

Of the many stories about him which happen to ho both picturesque and tine oiie is that of the colonel who, on the eve of battle in Chang’s last war with Wu Pei-fu, sent back his wife from the front to a safer spot, just in case the battle went tho wrong way. in duo course, the nows came to the Marshaks ears, as most news does in the Far East, and his officer received a summons to the great ' man’s tent. Softly and gently the Marshal pointed out that to .take into consideration even the possibility of defeat was likely to shake, the_ confidence of the troops; and to point the moral. ho whipped .out a revolver and, shot the offender dead. Unchallenged rider over a vast province, with over 20,0(10,000 subjects, Chang has a revenue estimated at £3,000,000 a year, and does not hosjtato to spend it. Ho has a welltrained army of about 200,000 men, well-armed, garbed in the only trim uniforms in China, and advised by white staff officers; he lias a fleet of at least,sixty aeroplanes; and, amongst the two or tliree hundred thousand Russians in Harbin, the principal city of Northern Manchuria, are thousands of “White” Russian soldiers, ragged and hungry, iVbo would only be to glad to enlist as soldiers of fortune in'any war that happens to be on A brigade of them fought with Chang in his campaign a year ago, though their experience was by all accounts not particularly happy. Not only did they bear the brunt of several heavy engagements, but they were shot down from behind by a section of Chang’s troops, which following the usual Chinese practice, changed sides in the mylst of a battle. COOL, BRAVE.

He is an.extraordinarily cool, bravo, and resolute little man, this Hnnghutze who is now an international figure, but, like many very_ bravo men, he is above all things cautions, Tho machineguns which ho has now had installed for the protection of his yninen in Mukden, are only one of tho many precautions necessary in a land where nothing is quite so cheap as life and jealous rivals abound Ho makes it a rule to see no visitors unless they are personally known to him. His bodyguard, with loaded Manser rifles and automatic pistols, which his residence night and day; and-when he goes about tho streets ho travels in a motor car . specially built for him in America, at a cost_ of £6,000. The interior of tho car is decorated with gold plate. The exterior is covered with steel plate to keep the bullets out and the gold in. But Chang. Tso-1 in is somethin" more than a brilliant adventurer, a Bandit on a,great scale, He is a good deal of a statesman as well; astute, calculating, far-seeing. As early as two years ago ho told mo that China’s greatest peril came not from tho militarists within or without, but from Russia. Chang’s success has been very largely due to his departure from traditional Chinese methods, and his reliauce_ on foreigners. He has an able American political adviser, Mr Carleton E. Baker, and, amongst other stall officers, an Fmglish munitions expert, “ General ” Frank Sutton, an old Etonian, who, in another age, would have cut and thrust his way through the pages of Dumas.