Shanghai (93 page)

Japanese Plans

Even as the two young Japanese generals waited for their vehicle, visions of a brilliant future danced before their eyes. “The greatest of the White thieves is in the ground,” General Yukiko said under his breath as he stepped into the large touring car. “His family is in chaos, and our spies tell us that the Vrassoons' power in London is on the wane.”

“And the Chinese are in their usual state of confusion,” General Akira said as he stared at the young corporal who was supposed to race around to his side of the car and hold the door for him.

“Your name, soldier?” he demanded.

“Corporal Minoto, sir.”

General Akira smiled—the same loafing man he had seen earlier. Yes, Corporal Minoto's death would be far
more useful than his ludicrously privileged life had been, he thought.

The young corporal felt a wave of cold enter his bowels—and stay there.

General Akira stepped up into the car and sat beside General Yukiko. The men looked at each other. They knew what they would report. And they knew their words would carry weight with the Emperor. Both of these young men knew that it was their time to rise. It was time for Japan's glory—and for the world to change. And they would do the changing, starting with China.

A lead car, carrying Corporal Minoto, led the way. As the generals' car pulled away to follow, General Yukiko suggested, “Three months to take the whole country?”

“If that. What little in the north that we don't already control is in the hands of warlords who fight amongst themselves. Chiang Kai Shek and his ridiculous Republic rule from Nanking and are concerned with only one thing: annihilating the Chinese Communists up in Kiangsi.”

“Our spies tell us that the Russians actually kidnapped Chiang Kai Shek in Xi'an and wouldn't let him go until he swore that he would fight us, not the Chinese Communists.”

“Was that before or after the Communists retreated all the way up to the north-west?”

“It's hard to tell. Chinese history is an art, not a science.”

The men shared a laugh at that.

“Is that place they went to called Yen'an?”

“It's something like that, but who cares? They say the Communists lost sixty thousand of their men running away from Chiang Kai Shek's army. They
started with eighty-five thousand soldiers and fifteen thousand party officials.”

“What's a party official?”

“A parasite who lives off the backs of real soldiers.”

“Do the Chinese have real soldiers?”

“Not that I've ever met.” The two men laughed like drunken teenagers.

“Weren't there some women who made the march?”

“Thirty, I think. Some tough women to service all those men.”

“If those men who died had stayed and fought they could have at least taken some of their enemy with them, rather than just starving to death in the cold.”

“True, but the Chinese are better at running than fighting.”

“Agreed. That's why I think that three months is more than enough to take the whole country.”

Their car braked to a sudden halt and car horns began to sound. The young corporal leaped out of the car in front of them and approached their vehicle, no doubt to apologize for the traffic. The driver beeped his horn loudly. The young corporal jumped out of the way. The generals looked at each other. Then Akira said to the driver, “Don't run over him here—he'll be more useful to us up in Beijing.”

Yukiko smiled and nodded slowly as the car swerved up on the sidewalk and passed by the young corporal—and the generals helped themselves to the liquor supplied by the Imperial Court of the Japanese Emperor, and selected for them by the Emperor himself.

1937

The Marco Polo Bridge spans the Yongding River fifteen kilometres south-west of the centre of Beijing, and at the time was the only route out of the city that led to the Kuomintang strongholds of the south.

On either end of the bridge stand two imperial stelae—large stone slabs etched with historic calligraphy. The one on the west—where Chinese troops were massed—bears the inscription “Moon over the Lugou Bridge at Dawn” in the handwriting of Emperor Qianlong, while the one on the east end of the bridge—against which Japanese troops lounged—celebrates the restoration of the bridge in the reign of Emperor Kangzi in the late seventeenth century. Stone elephants guard
the ramps to the bridge, while the eleven arches of the bridge itself hold their burdens under the silent, unmoving vigilance of four hundred and eighty-five stone lions, all in different poses, atop one hundred and forty balusters. In the tradition of hyperbole common to the Beijing area, it was often said that “There are too many lions on the bridge to count.”

By 1937 the Japanese had already cut deep into Chinese territory. In 1931 they took Manchuria, called it Manchukuo, and set up the last Q'ing Emperor, Henry Puyi, as its puppet leader. Although the Republican Kuomintang and the international community had adamantly refused to recognize the occupation, both had signed truce agreements with the Japanese later that same year. A year after that, Japanese forces routed a poorly equipped and trained Chinese army and took Chahar province, giving them the western accesses to Beijing. In 1933 they annexed Rehe and gained all the area north of the Great Wall, including the northern routes to Beijing. They then added Hebei province in 1935, thus gaining control of the east, south, and north-west routes to Beijing … and the west end of the Marco Polo Bridge. All that remained was to take the east end of the bridge and the town there, Wanping, which billeted the Kuomintang's gathered forces, and Beijing would be undefended.

The Japanese army was well trained and mechanized. Tanks led every attack while many Chinese soldiers went into battle little better equipped than their ancestors who had first attempted to keep Maxi

In early July the Japanese began a series of military exercises near the west end of the bridge. The Chinese Kuomintang garrison watched closely.

“Good,” General Akira said, “I'm pleased they are watching.”

“They have much to learn,” General Yukiko responded, then added, “about everything … even their own history.”

“How do you mean?” asked General Akira.

“I mean naming a bridge in China the Marco Polo Bridge.”

“Yes, that is odd, I agree.”

“What self-respecting country would name a major bridge after a foreigner?” General Akira asked, as he brushed a fly from his beautifully constructed sushi.

“A foreigner who never even came to the country,” General Yukiko replied casually as he moved the pickled ginger atop a rolled piece of rice and fish.

“What do you mean, never even came to the country?” General Akira demanded.

“Just what I said. I don't believe this Italian Polo person ever came to China,” General Yukiko said, keeping his tone conversational.

General Akira laughed so hard he almost fell from his three-legged bamboo stool.

“No, listen to me,” General Yukiko said, dipping another exquisite piece of sushi into the delicate sauce. “This Italian claimed to have been in the court of the great Khan for almost fifteen years, right?”

General Akira only managed to nod his head—his laughter continued.

“Fine. You laugh—go ahead and laugh. But if this Marco Polo had actually been in the court of Kublai Khan for all that time, how could he have failed to
mention in his endless writings that Chinese noblewomen had bound feet, or that the Chinese don't use letters but characters in their writing. And then there is the minor fact of the Great Wall. How exactly could these little items have escaped his observation?” General Yukiko demanded.

General Akira stopped laughing and looked at his younger counterpart. “None of these things are mentioned in the Italian's writings about his years in China?”

“Not a single mention in all those pages of any of those things. A bit suspicious, don't you think?” General Yukiko asked, and extended his chopsticks for another artistically assembled piece of sushi.

“Really?”

“Really … sir.”

The two men ate in silence as their adjutant silently removed used plates and filled their sake cups before they were emptied.

Finally General Yukiko asked, “So how did this Marco Polo get the information that he included in his books on China?”

“From Silk Road traders would be my guess. The Italian lived in Venice. Chinese silk had been arriving in Venice for decades before he wrote. Persian traders met Chinese traders on the western stretches of the Silk Road and carried the goods to Europe—and no doubt stories too.”

“So you think that this Marco Polo, who had been commissioned by his government—he
had
been commissioned by his government, hadn't he?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“You believe his writings were fraudulent. So what do you think he did with that money?”

“I assume he pocketed a pretty penny from his government and in return he produced a book. An exotic tale of the Orient. Without ever venturing east of Venice.”

“So where was he during those fifteen years he was supposed to have spent in China?”

“Probably safely ensconced in some Venetian whorehouse, where he bought stories from horny traders with the money his government had given him to go to China.”

General Akira shook his head, then said, “And for that he gets a bridge named after him?”

General Yukiko raised his sake cup and said, “The Chinese are fools. This place is a disgrace to all of Asia. But we can change that.”

“No,” General Akira said. “We
will
change that—and shortly.”

There was a polite knock on their door. General Akira checked for the rusted needle-nose pliers and the surgical scalpel in his pocket, fingered both, then looked at General Yukiko. The two men stood, lifted their sake cups, and saluted each other.

“To the glorious future,” General Akira said.

“To the end of the salacious past, to the end of the former Middle Kingdom,” General Yukiko replied. The two men drained their cups.

General Akira turned to the door and barked out, “Come.”

The door opened, revealing the young corporal from Shanghai. The terrified youth took a step into the room, clicked his heels, bowed his head, then kept his eyes firmly on the floor just in front of his shoes.

“Speak,” General Akira ordered.

“Honoured General, Corporal Minoto reports, as requested.”

“Ah,” General Yukiko said, clasping his hands behind his back and beginning to pace. “Do you really?”

The soldier ventured an upward glance, then quickly snapped his head back toward his polished boots. “Yes, sir.” Corporal Minoto sensed the two generals slowly circling him. As they did, he felt his entire body go cold. He had never wanted to be a soldier. It had only been to please his powerful father that he had accepted a minor commission in the army. But he detested the army, and he feared these two generals who inexplicably kept cropping up in his life—like an ugly sister. Then he felt a sharp pain in his leg. One of the generals had kicked him with his heavy boot.

General Akira kicked the man a second time, and this time the Corporal's knee buckled under the heavy blow. But before the man hit the floor, General Yukiko caught him by the hair and yanked his mouth open. General Akira then trapped the man's tongue between the jaws of his needle-nose pliers and pulled it far out of his mouth—then he grabbed his scalpel and slit the young corporal's tongue down the centre.

Pain shot up behind the young man's eyeballs as blood filled his mouth. He opened his lips to speak, but somehow two snakes were loose behind his teeth—and neither made the sound of horror that screamed in his head.

“Close your mouth, soldier!” General Akira ordered. “Your tongue's been slit, not your throat. Swallow the blood and you'll live. You won't ever speak properly or cry out loudly again, but then, we all do our part for the greater glory of Japan.”

General Akira looked at General Yukiko and the two men smiled.

“I think we have our missing man, don't you?”

“I do believe he was taken by the Chinese on the east end of the bridge.”

“That mustn't be allowed to go unpunished. Kidnapping a soldier of the Japanese Imperial Army is an insult to the entire Japanese nation!”

General Akira summoned his adjutant. “Take this traitor to the small room beneath the third arch of the bridge, where we were yesterday. Stay by him. He is not to leave, and no one is to see you. Is that clear?”

The adjutant grabbed hapless Corporal Minoto under the arms and hauled him to his feet. “Yes, General,” he said as he pulled the man from the room.

“Well, the first step is taken,” General Akira said as he removed a formal document from his desk. “Now, to step number two.”

* * *

LATER THAT DAY, to the dismay of the Kuomintang forces guarding the east side of the Marco Polo Bridge, General Akira and General Yukiko led a battalion of men, complete with four tanks, across the bridge and demanded to see the Chinese commanding officer.

The Chinese troops pulled back, allowing their commanding officer, General Zhang, to step forward. The sun was setting and he was able to see the Japanese only in silhouette. They seemed like fiends coming from the sun itself. Then they were speaking—no, yelling. Demanding the return of some soldier. One of the officers spat at his boots.

“Enough,” General Zhang said, in a surprisingly strong voice. “If an officer of the Imperial Japanese Army has been taken by my troops he will be returned, unharmed.”

“Not enough. This outrage has gone on too long. We have further demands that must be met, or our forces will invade Beijing,” General Akira said.

He handed over an elaborate document. It demanded that the Kuomintang wipe out all anti-Japanese organizations and stop all anti-Japanese activities inside the cities they controlled. That the Kuomintang take full responsibility for the safety and the return of the Japanese soldier, and that Supreme General Song of the Chinese 29th Army apologize publicly to the Japanese.