The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole A Train, Stunned The West, And Broke The Republic Of China, Zimmerman - B

                      In the dozen years after its 1911 revolution, China fell into chaos as bandits and warlords battled and the government of the Republic of China sat helplessly in Peking. In 1923, a newly launched express train passed through bandit territory. "In early May, the inevitable happened - an attack on the Peking Express, a hostage situation, and a diplomatic crisis that captured the attention of the globe - it not only changed the lives of those caught up in the affair; it also changed China and its relationship with the rest of the world. This is that story." 

                    On May 5th, the fully loaded train pulled out of Shanghai. In Shantung Province, 25 year old Sun Mei-yao and his band were waiting.  Sun was bright, ambitious, and hoping to free the countryside from the brutality of the warlords. In the early hours of the next day, the train derailed, and 1,000 men attacked. They robbed the passengers, and then took over one hundred hostages. Twenty-eight were foreigners, including Lucy Aldrich, daughter of a late U.S. Senator and sister-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. They began to walk into the mountains. Most were in their nightclothes and many were barefoot. Government troops were soon in hot pursuit. The bandits split the hostages up and continued to try and march away from the government's soldiers. As word of the kidnapping spread, various western governments made demands on the Chinese government. Aldrich escaped when the bandits grew weary of trying to move the overweight older woman along.  

                A German priest was the first to speak to Sun about his demands. He did not want money, just the removal of warlords from the province. He threatened to kill the hostages. An American diplomat made the next approach. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Sun moved the hostages further away from the railway line. The central government was unable to exert any control over the warlords, who continued to threaten and surround the bandits. Sun sent an American newspaperman and two of his colleagues down the mountain to negotiate with the authorities. Sun received what he wanted, which was the dismissal of the local warlord, acceptance of his band into the army, along with a month's pay and a uniform for each man. On June 8, the hostages were released.

              The national government was humiliated and a coup led to an immediate change. At years end, those that Sun had humiliated sought and achieved their revenge. Sun's bodyguards were arrested and shot. He was beheaded. The chaos and violence in the countryside was ended when Chiang Kai-shek bought stability to the country in 1928.