Fan Changjiang and the Rhetoric of War

Among a host of war reporters, Fan Changjiang, already well known even before the outbreak of the war, was a particularly dominant presence. In 1936, Fan published The Northwest Corner of China (Zhongguo de xibei jiao), a collection of articles written in 1935 and 1936 when Fan was traveling in the relatively unknown territories of the northwest as a roving reporter for the famous Tianjin newspaper Dagong bao. This was a time when Japan was intensifying its penetration into Inner Mongolia. Fan, distressed by the political unrest at home and concerned over Japanese aggression in the north, decided to investigate the situation firsthand.^[15] He began his long and hazardous

journey in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and over the next ten months he traveled extensively across Gansu, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia. Meandering through the shifting sands of the northern desert and scaling the forbidding peaks of the Qilian Mountains, Fan visited remote border regions and sent back sensational reports about the life and customs of the frontier people, the grim reality of political and economic chaos, and racial inequality in China, especially the GMD government's discriminatory policies regarding minority nationalities—ominous signs, Fan warned, of a brewing social and political crisis.

Published when Fan was twenty-seven, this landmark book signaled the rise of the journalist as a social critic and the emergence of a new, witty, personal style in Chinese journalism. It became an instant bestseller, reaching its eighth printing and selling thousands of copies within just a few months.^[16] The book's popularity and authority quickly established Fan Changjiang as one of the most influential journalists of his time.^[17] To be sure, Fan's book was not the only one about the border regions to appear in the 1930s.^[18] Yet his book was definitely the most original as well as the most compelling. Its lucid style, its exotic contents, its firsthand reports, and its fervent plea for a solution to the worsening nationality problem all combined to make The Northwest Corner of China a tour de force in journalistic writing.

Although Fan Changjiang's early work made him widely known as a brilliant reporter, it was his frontline dispatches during the early phase of the War of Resistance that earned him an international reputation as "China's most famous war correspondent."^[19] In 1936 and 1937 he was sent by Dagong bao to cover the fighting between Prince De, who led a combined Manchukuo-Mongol force in rebellion, and the Nationalist government. He was the first reporter to enter Xi'an in early February 1937 after the historic Xi'an Incident, and that same month he was the first Chinese reporter from outside to visit Yan'an. He described vividly his night-long interview with Mao Zedong in his celebrated piece "A Trip to Northern Shaanxi."^[20] All these sensational reports subsequently appeared in another best-selling book, Journeys on the Frontier (Saishang xing), published in 1937.

In July 1937 Fan was sent to report on the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The next month he covered the fall of Beijing and the fierce fighting at the Nankou Pass in central Hebei. And in early 1938 he covered the bloody battles of Taierzhuang and Xuzhou. From the battlefields, Fan sent back eyewitness reports that won him a devoted audience, the praise of his colleagues, and the enmity of the govern-

ment, for Fan did not hesitate to report on the incompetence and corruption within the Guomindang army. Many of his wartime columns subsequently appeared in book form: Battles on the Western Front (Xixian fengyun, November 1937), The Fall of Beiping and Tianjin (Lunwang de Ping-Jin, January 1938), and From the Marco Polo Bridge to Zhang River (Cong Lugouqiao dao Zhanghe, September 1938), to name but a few.^[21] All were extremely popular during the war.

In reportage about the fighting between the Chinese and Japanese, dramatic and tragic stories abounded. Many correspondents risked and lost their lives, and others established their reputations, filing numerous excellent pieces.^[22] Qiujiang's "Outflanking the Enemy at the Nankou Pass," for example, easily ranks as one of the best stories to come out of wartime China.^[23] Nevertheless, Fan Changjiang was unique among his contemporaries in his grasp of background information and above all in his incisive, insightful commentary.^[24] Perhaps more than any other reporter, he provided an intimate look at the war; as one colleague put it, Fan "creat[ed] a sensation throughout the country."^[25]

Fan often filed dispatches describing emotional victories, but he was noted for bringing home the cruel images of the war and stories of common soldiers struggling to survive on the battlefield. Indeed, Fan Changjiang was at his best when depicting the human agony of the war:

Recently, Japanese planes have flown over Baoding almost every day. They have machine-gunned people down below, wounding many. Only those barbaric Japanese soldiers would not hesitate to shoot at unarmed, innocent civilians…. To avoid mass slaughter, the only outlet for the defenseless people has been to flee. As a result, trains leaving Baoding for the south have been jammed with people, especially women and children…. Their peaceful life disrupted, they had to be parted amid much sadness. On the train I saw a middle-aged Cantonese woman who was sobbing as she bade farewell to her husband. Her two girls and a boy were also in tears, incessantly calling out for their father. Outside the train window was a middle-aged man and a young fellow who looked like his oldest son, gazing morosely at their loved ones. The train started to move, the crying inside and outside the train became more intense and bitter. The men ran after the train, waving. Not until those outside the train could no longer be seen did the mother turn and start to comfort her three children.^[26]

The war with Japan left a lasting impression on those who reported it. Three themes kept reemerging in Fan's and other war correspondents' dispatches: the brutality of the Japanese, the omnipresence of Chinese collaborators,^[27] and the endless suffering of refugees. Even more tragic than the indiscriminate killing of civilians, burnings, bombings, and rapes by the Japanese, Fan Changjiang wrote, was the number of collaborators abetting the enemy in these crimes. Yet always, the sorrowful scene of refugees was the most telling reminder of the terror of the war. A sudden increase of beggars, Fan observed, could be interpreted as signaling the worsening picture at the front.^[28]

Yet the war, brutal and inhuman as it was, had its occasional uplifting moments. Fan captured one such scene:

On the morning of 31 January [1938], the train moved slowly into Xuchang station [Henan province]. In a third-class car were two elderly waiters engaged in heated discussion about the future of the war. The bald-headed fellow, speaking in pure Beiping accent, insisted that he would soon be able to return to Beiping. According to him, the war had finally eliminated regionalism [in China], and everyone was now willing to unite under the banner of the central government—a truly unprecedented phenomenon! "China is a big country," he said. "If everyone can join together, our strength will be awesome!" He went on to make a witty remark: "In fighting against the Japanese, we must not score a quick victory. Doing so would have two serious consequences. First, China will not have enough time to undergo thorough reconstruction, and then more troubles lie ahead. Second, the best strategy against the Japanese is 'wearing them down' [hao ]. Without completely wearing them down, our victory cannot be considered final. Japan is like a candle: the longer we wait, the more damage [we can inflict on them]. This is because in wartime, Japan's industry and commerce cannot operate normally. For a country like Japan, which relies so much on industry and commerce [to survive], how can they withstand 'wearing down'? As for us Chinese, we can rely on farming. No matter how much land is occupied [by the enemy] and how many battles we lose, we can still survive. Based on this general principle, Japan will be defeated!" Everyone listened with rapt attention. To show his respect [for the speaker], one passenger even went over to pour him a cup of tea.^[29]

The narrative is simple and moving. It portrays vividly the common people's confidence in the positive outcome of the war. Yet it is hardly an objective style. Like Zigang and Cao Juren, Fan wrote as a patriot

who hated the Japanese invaders and sought to rally the people for resistance.

If cartoons used forceful images to convey patriotic messages, wartime dispatches utilized a vivid and emotional vocabulary to report on the armed conflict and to recount legends of heroism on the battlefield (such as stories of Commander Yao Ziqing and Airman Yan Haiwen, both killed in the early phase of the war). Here words were more than just a form of communication: they were weapons of politics. Carefully chosen expressions in combination with facts could turn tired propaganda slogans into poignant exhortations or painful reminders of the country's collective fate. This new style of reporting that came to life during the Sino-Japanese War had an internal textual unity based on a simple reality: China's future was at stake. Covering an array of events—scenes of combat, victory, retreat, and so on—the frontline reports were unabashedly patriotic. They were also gripping as historical reports and on occasion attained distinction as excellent literary prose, presenting a refreshing contrast to the stereotypical and platitudinous writing of the past.

In general, Chinese war correspondents told simple but uplifting stories, preferring to speak concretely about what really happened at the front. Whenever possible, names of victims were given (as in Zigang's piece) to elicit readers' empathy. Yet this down-to-earth approach did not preclude the frequent use of high-sounding slogans and phrases to make a passionate appeal. To reporters, the War of Resistance was more than a contest of weaponry: it was a battle of different ideals, a confrontation between the forces of order and of evil. The war therefore had to be addressed at a high moral level if the complete picture was to be gained.

Realizing the power of words to arouse people, war correspondents created a host of new words and descriptions that served as political weapons. Theirs was a language of combat, a charged rhetoric intended to heighten the Chinese people's sensitivity to the unfolding crisis. This new political language was more than just a reflection of the realities of war or a departure from the past; it also went beyond the Durkheimian notion that language is a carrier of cultural integration. Rather, it was "an instrument of political and social change"^[30] and a means for political integration, a tool that was used to shape public opinion in a time of national crisis.

Fan Changjiang belonged to a new generation of reporters who were dissatisfied not only with traditional journalistic practices but also with the traditional use of language. In their view, most reports in

the established press were stilted and dull. The traditional journalistic language was often too sophisticated for common people to understand. It showed little variation of vocabulary, syntax, and style, and its descriptions of battle were monotonous and uninspiring, devoid of human sensitivities. Worse still, it could not adapt quickly to the changing demands and responses of audiences. As a result, Chinese newspapers were riddled with what the young journalists called "eight-legged news essays" (xinwen bagu)^[31] —in which clichés such as "the ultimate victory belongs to us" and "our troops scored a resounding triumph" were repeated ad nauseam—which could render the newspaper unreadable, thus destroying its value as a vehicle of communication.^[32] Thus the new generation of reporters aspired to create a language that would speak to the masses and to intellectuals alike, a common tongue that could unite a country divided by regional and cultural differences. The trend was away from elegant prose and toward facts and figures, but with a personal touch. An excellent reporter, these reformers argued, should captivate readers both with his or her knowledge and with exciting, well-written stories. Fan's book The Northwest Corner of China and his wartime dispatches were models to be emulated. His delivery, paired with imaginative titles such as "Mourning Datong" and "Recalling the Battlefield at Night," evoked both anger and sadness among his readers and won him quite a few followers. Pieces by Qiujiang like "Outflanking the Enemy at the Nankou Pass" and "Lament for Zhangjiakou" bore the unmistakable imprint of Fan.^[33]

The wartime political vocabulary comprised a small number of emotionally charged and timely words and phrases. This was a new journalistic language that bore little resemblance to that of the past. Its effectiveness depended on a vivid use of metaphors and the ability to render complicated national issues in simple and memorable terminology. Chinese journalists took advantage of popular sayings of the time, and they often embellished their rhetoric with familiar military imagery. The channeling of news to the frontline was itself compared to a military campaign. The journalist Gao Tian (1917-), for instance, called on reporters to establish "cultural war stations" (wenhua bingzhan) to communicate vital information to the soldiers at the front and launch what he called "a total cultural attack against the enemy."^[34] Putting this idea into practice, in 1938 the Chinese Young Journalists Society established a "Battlefront Newspaper Supply Team" (Zhandi baozhi gongyingdui), which brought newspapers and magazines to the front. This "spiritual supply line" (jingshen bujixian), as Gao Tian

called it, created a unique bond between soldiers at the front and the people at home.

Others stated, "Wartime journalists must not 'fight in isolation' [gujun zuozhan ]."^[35] The importance of unity was repeatedly stressed. Memorably, as we have seen, Cheng Shewo described newspapers as "paper bullets": tools that could not only channel vital news to every village but also score a propaganda victory against the enemy.^[36] The juxtaposition of paper and bullet was striking, for it reminded people of the power of words and the ability of the press to achieve something extraordinary. The press, in other words, was more than a vehicle of communication; it was a weapon that could inflict heavy damage on the enemy.

To emphasize the importance of propaganda work behind enemy lines, the correspondent Shi Yan proposed that a kind of "journalism guerrilla warfare" (xinwen gongzuo de youjizhan) be waged. "Let's call upon those hundreds and thousands of courageous, determined journalists to go behind Japanese lines to establish dailies, rural wall papers, and mobile journals" that would constitute "a network of cultural battle lines" (wenhua huoxianwang).^[37] Although it is not known how many of these "guerrilla" newspapers were established in those territories, or where, the repeated call for their creation indicated the seemingly limitless forms that resistance could take.

The call for journalists to wage "guerrilla warfare" against the invaders underscored the importance of their involvement in the resistance movement. The search by reporters for a new role in turbulent times and a new vocabulary to describe the armed conflict created an original rhetoric couched in military phraseology, which in turn shaped public knowledge about the war, providing a feeling of actual participation. The war of words could be as important to success as actual combat on the battlefield. Journalists were no longer mere by-standers. In interesting juxtaposition to the intellectual in Ye Qianyu's cartoon "Let's Change into New Uniform" (fig. 26), journalists were combat troops dressed in civilian clothes.