Chaing+Kai+Shek+2+February+20th+1938

 **DECEMBER 3RD 1937**

This week there has been celebrations in the army barracks. Well, perhaps celebrations is too strong a term. At any rate the atmosphere was different. There’s something different about the look in our soldiers’ eyes - for the first time in many months there is hope.

No, we did not win the Battle of Shanghai. No, we did not defeat the Japanese. No, the number of Japanese soldiers who have died does not outstrip the fatalities of our soldiers.

These are not the reason hope has been restored to us.

I mean, to be honest we didn’t enter the battle expecting to win anyway. In fact, we entered it expecting to lose. To be slaughtered by the Japanese. So why enter it? To prove a point. And the hope? Because, as of November 26 1937, the point has been proven.

We have shown foreign nations - we have shown America - that China can, and is willing to fight. That we can help in delaying the Japanese and that we can facilitate the process of defeating them by draining their resources and soldiers in our war against them. No one believed we could do it. Before they invaded the Japanese had mocked us to the world, they had taunted that they could capture Shanghai in three days. No one expected us to last more than one week against the Japanese forces - one month maximum.

Three months. I feel ridiculously proud of our soldiers and how they persevered until the very end. Even though they knew that everybody expected them to fail they never faltered for a minute, and I respect each of them more than words can say.

Not that I have told them this.

In the presence of the soldiers I remain a stoic, unyielding presence. I remind them that it is a loss nonetheless. I have not once congratulated them. Yet I do not do this because I hate them - I do it because if we become too caught up in our achievements we will become overconfident, and overconfidence is the deadliest and most destructive killer of them all.

And the truth is that I cannot say that I am proud of them when I am so far from being proud of myself. I am proud of the soldiers that have fought in the Battle of Shanghai - nothing will change this - but, ultimately, we lost it. We lost Shanghai. Everyone tells me that it was inevitable and I smile and nod, yet the reality of the world is that //nothing// is ever //truly// inevitable. There was always something that could have been done. Some action that could have been taken in the past that would have prevented it. Under another ruler this could have been avoided. Another ruler who could successfully negotiate with the Japanese to prevent conflict that has //no other outcome but our loss//.

But I have never been a man of words.

I know there is no use in thinking such sentiments but... I feel so guilty. Who am I to have brought such suffering into our country? Who am I to have subjected millions of people to these times of terror and bloodshed? Who am I to have condemned - and in the end that is what I have done - those living in Shanghai to face their death at the hands of the Japanese?

I walked the streets of Shanghai myself shortly after the battle was over. Despite the danger involved in walking unprotected in a now Japanese occupied territory, I had to. I put on what may constitute as a rudimentary disguise - a bowler hat and a large winter coat that conceals half of my face. I'm not sure how to explain the feeling that came over me, but suddenly I knew that I had to see what I had done and face the consequences of my actions. Countless civilians have suffered. And- and I am the cause of it. I never wanted it to be this way. The picture of China that I imagined myself ruling over was so different to the sight that I saw while walking down the street. The people I passed looked so hopeless and destitute. Figures hardly distinguishable as humans begging pathetically on street corners. And the children. There are children everywhere. Orphans. They look famished, their skin stretched thin over their cheekbones - tissue paper on straws - and their scrawny legs flail pitifully when they walk like twigs in the wind.

And the pain overwhelmed me. It came unexpectedly, as though I had opened some sort of dam and all of the water that had been trapped was now rushing out in an unstoppable torrent. It invaded all of my senses until I could barely breathe. I wanted to scream but my throat was blocked with words I could not say. Words describing how unbelievably sorry I was that this had happened to them. Describing how I knew that they must hate me. About how I truly never wished for this to happen. But the words would not come.

I could not escape it. Suffering was everywhere. I stood rooted to the spot, weighed down with guilt. The images swirled around me, faster and faster until I felt as though I was drowning in them. Breathing was hard. The suffering and the knowledge that I should have prevented it choked me. I wanted it to stop. To end.

I wanted to die.

But how could I die if I could not open my mouth to ask them to kill me?

And then he came. The man whose face still haunts my dreams. His expression was so desperately sad as he asked me whether I had seen his wife. The way his eyes softened as he spoke of her showed me his love for her in a way more profound than mere words could possibly express. And I had taken her from him.

True I had not taken a knife and stabbed her, nor had I been the one to kidnap her - if that is what happened to her. However I may as well have. I may as well have killed them all. "No..." I said. I looked into his eyes. Eyes that betrayed his desperation that his voice attempted to hide, and I felt infinite pity for this man that had become the victim of my choices. "I'm sorry." I added. My voice broke on the last word. Such simple words. I wonder if he knows how true they are. How truly I meant them.

Yet the entire event was a weakness on my part, and I must never allow it to happen again.

The man still haunts my dreams. In my dreams he is asking me - he keeps asking me - if I know where his wife is. I am running and searching trying to find her, calling her name. I cannot find her and I am going in fruitless circles but I keep running. I run because I feel that if only I can find his wife I can fix everything. All of the pain and suffering that I have caused.

I never realized this before but people are correct in saying that the role of the leader is indeed a lonely one. I am not an idiot. While I berate them I see the look the commanders’ gazes hold before they drop resentfully yet, nonetheless, respectfully to the ground. I see how officials hurry away from me as they spot me on the other side of the corridor. I know that I appear overtly harsh and critical. Yet I continue to act the same. I continue because... Because I would rather be remembered for ruling over a successful regime than for the kind spirit of my heart. If China can grow and if the KMT can strengthen via my realism then it is my duty to do so. I did not strive to become a leader to be loved.

Emotions never helped anybody. Feelings themselves do not have the power to defeat enemies. It is useless - entirely useless to advertise and proclaim them. People look to me for example and I will not show them a hopeless, fearful weakling. When they look at me, I will make them see a leader.

Yet... yet when I look at two soldiers sharing a celebratory drink together with blissful smiles on their faces and their arms around each others shoulders - so blissfully and effortlessly amicable - I wonder whether I have made the right choice.

Now that this battle is over we will not begin another. Our point has been made and we are not suicidal. Instead, I think that after this we will make use of China’s greatest resource - its land. We will receed slowly backwards into the core of China, leading the Japanese on a path of pursuit that is unfamiliar to them - weakening and tiring their army. Yet there are other problems on the horizon. The alliance with the Communists is failing, and it is little wonder that those barbarians cannot manage to sustain a civil partnership. We are allied by name but enemies in all else - with each side constantly looking to gain subtle advantages over the other. The lines of communication between us are slowly diminishing and the officers of each side are increasingly reluctant to listen to the other side.

What do you expect from an alliance that was started from such uncivilized beginnings.

If only we had focused all of our energy into defeating Communism from the very beginning things may have been different. Perhaps... But no. Imagination, like emotion, serves very little purpose in war, and on that sensible note I depart my writing.