by Zetazot (World of Darkness | World of Darkness: Shanghai | Resources)
Within this chapter you will find no Kuei-jin, no Xiong Reng, and no other shen. This is the history of Shanghai through the eyes of mortals. It’s important to know how events actually occurred to see the inherent horror that exists in the real world and for inspiration on how to use them in the World of Darkness.
Shanghai is an oddity in the Asian world. It’s the child of western imperialism and the youngest of China’s major cities. Less than one hundred and fifty years ago, there was no major city where Shanghai now stands. Back then it was little more than a scattering of small villages on the muddy flood plain of the Huangpu River as it emptied into the mighty Yangtze River. These small villages consisted of little more than farmers, weavers, and fishermen. Junks were the only ships that set anchor in the waters of the river then. It was a land that had no changes in over a thousand years, but in a blink of an eye it would become one of the greatest cities in Asia.
The city only became the massive cosmopolitan metropolis it is now with the coming of the great imperial power of the United Kingdom when they forced the opening of the trade here with the Qing Dynasty as part of the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. Both France and the United States quickly followed the British. With the creation of Treaty Ports they brought trade and prosperity to this backward part of China and thrust it into the modern era, but such explosive growth came at a price of unrestricted capitalism and all the vices that entailed. Shanghai is known as the Paris of the East or the Jewel of the Orient for its splendor, but at the same time it can be called the Whore of Asia for its rotten decadent underbelly. Shanghai was a place where anything could be bought for a price. It is this dynamic heritage that makes Shanghai one of the great Asian cities today.
Unlike the neighboring cities of Nanjing, Hangchow, and Soochow, Shanghai is very rarely mentioned in the ancient chronicles of Chinese history. The earliest recorded reference to the area now known as Shanghai is estimated to be around 770 BCE when it was part of the Wu Kingdom. During the period of the Warring States (475 BCE) the area that would become Shanghai belonged to the Yue State, then the Chue State. King Lie of the Chu Kingdom appointed Huang Xie as his prime minister and bestowed to him the title of Lord Chunshen. As part of his duties he was granted fief that contained the territory of Shanghai. From his title one of Shanghai’s early names was derived... “Shen”.
Shanghai also has another name during this early time period of its history. Often locals referred to the area as “Hu Du” This name was taken from two Chinese words. The fist, “Hu”, is the name of a fishing device invented locally and “Du” is Chinese for “creek”.
Other than names and titles, little is known of the history of the area. This is probably due to the humble nature of the agrarian communities and the remote nature of the province in relation to the politics of the Imperial Chinese court. It wasn’t until 1280 CE that the hiatus in the historical record ended when “Hu Du” gained the name Shanghai (“Above the Sea”) during the Song Dynasty. Although it was still only a small, but growing trade port, Shanghai was now on the map so to speak.
By the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE), Shanghai had become China’s largest manufacturer of textiles. Business was thriving so much that the Qing Dynasty set up a Customs Post in the city in 1685 CE to deal with the growing trade with the West. Such wealth did not go unnoticed.
During the Sixteenth Century, the coastal area of China increasing came under threat from Japanese Pirate who frequently raided and pillaged the lightly defended coastal town and villages of China. In 1554 CE, it was decided to provide Shanghai with better defenses. A wall that stretched 4 miles long surrounded the community. The wall was over twenty-three feet high with twenty towers spaced evenly over the course to provide excellent vantage points for defending archers. Six massive gates controlled entrance into the city. Shanghai had become walled city of the feudal age. The last remnants of the wall vanished after the Revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911.
Shanghai was also becoming a cultural center for China in the 1500’s. Two of China’s greatest writers, Lu Tsih and Wang Ke were born here during this time period. It is also during this period that the people of Shanghai have their first major introduction to western culture with the coming of Jesuit Missionaries. In fact, for the fist time a senior Chinese official, Hsu Kwang-ch’i, befriended a Jesuit by the name of Matteo Ricci and later converted to Roman Catholicism. Over the course of his life, Hsu Kwang-ch’i wrote several important works that defended the new faith in China. His family estate was later donated to the Jesuits and eventually become the site of the one of the first cathedrals in China, the Church of St. Ignatius. For the most part, Shanghai continues to grow and prosper at a modest rate until the coming of the mercantile powers in the Nineteenth century, when it explodes into the modern world.
The opening of the Treaty Ports was not the first attempt to open the markets of China to the cheap bounty of the Industrial Revolution brought by the western nations of Europe and America. Originally, western trade was restricted in China to the city of Canton. This was mainly done to control the “corruption” of Chinese culture through the influence of the western merchants. It also provided the Imperial government with a convenient choke point to control and tax the foreign goods entering the country.
As early as 1832 the East India Company of the Great Britain had attempted to also open Shanghai to foreign trade. Lead by Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, a commercial mission was sent north from Macao on behalf of the Company. The mission was denied entrance to a number of Chinese cities by the local authorities, but Lindsay did succeed in obtaining an audience with Chinese authorities in Shanghai. Even though Lindsay attempted to negotiate a trade agreement, his efforts were in vain. The conservative Chinese authorities agreed in the original precedence set at Canton and refused to allow the British to expand trade to the markets of Shanghai.
The British Empire was more an empire of “free markets” than of military might. So long as the British merchant and trading companies were allowed to conduct their business as they saw fit anywhere in the world, there would be no need for the use of force to open those markets. Tension grew over the fact that the British were restricted to one port when they saw an entire Asian continent ripe for the picking.
The Chinese on the other hand saw the British as little more than a nuisance. Had the Chinese Empire stood for over three thousand years? What would such an upstart nation as Great Britain know about the grandeur of their culture and heritage? To the Qing Emperors the British and the other Westerns were little more than uncouth barbarians from across the sea. The Chinese authorities only wished to preserve the purity of their traditions. To achieve this, the Qing limited the Westerns to just one city in China in which to live and trade. Any Westerner outside of Canton without the blessing of the Imperial Chinese government was at the mercy of the Imperial government to deal with as they say fit.
One thing that also led to tensions with the restriction of trade in China was the British control of the opium trade in Asia. The British strangle hold of the drug was brought about by vast quantities of opium cheaply produced in India. In the past the British had created a brisk trade with China for the drug. With a huge profit margin, the British only wished to continue and expand on it and engorge their coffers. They could not do so if they were limited to just one city in the Chinese Empire.
The powers that be in China saw the growing use of opium as a disaster of epidemic proportions. The drug ruined families and forced people to lives of crime to support their habits. It was an affront to the teachings of Confucius. Even as the trade grew, the Qing government banned the drug to stem its corrupting influence.
Friction over the trade of the drug and the market restrictions in Canton led to the outbreak of the “Opium War” in 1840. Great Britain would not stand to see its economic policy and power threatened. As soon as the news that the Chinese had made the profitable drug illegal, the British Parliament sent naval ships and troops to secure and open the markets to free trade for businesses like the East India Company.
While the Chinese still used spears, primitive muskets, and junks as their means of defense, Great Britain was the greatest military power in the word. Its military quickly captured Amoy, Ningo and Chappoo. They stormed and took the Woosung forts defending the land surrounding Shanghai. A landing party of Royal Marines even took a section of Shanghai that would one-day form part of the International Settlement.
In 1842, a British warship reached Nanjing and after a sharp conflict, defeated the Chinese forces. With this defeat, the Chinese signed the Treaty of Nanjing on board a British warship on August 29, 1842. The treaty opened a number of Chinese ports to trade with Great Britain. These cities would often be referred to simply as Treaty Ports. One of these cities was Shanghai. When the Parliament of Great Britain ratified the treaty on November 17, 1843 the ports were formally opened to the mercantile ships of the British Empire. Although the original treaty did not have provisions of gaining territory for the British, it did state that within the Treaty Ports “British subjects with their families and establishments shall be allowed to reside for the purpose of carrying out their mercantile pursuits, without the molestation or restraint.”
The war had started in 1840; within three years the modern armies of Great Britain had brought the Qing Dynasty to its knees in humiliating defeat. France and the United States quickly forced China into similar treaties by the end of 1844. In four short years all of China had been open to foreign trade by the new Treaty Powers. The dissection of China by the West had begun.
As the British moved in they quickly formed their own enclave just north of the walled city. This was done to allow for mutual protection and it also allowed the British to set up a western style community in which they would be comfortable. The original British Settlement stretched over 138 acres form the Yang King Pang creek (now covered by Avenue Edward VII) in the South and the Whangpoo River in the East. To the North the settlement ended at Consulate Road (now Peking Road) and Barrier Road (now Hunan Road) on the West.
On April 6, 1849, the first Consul for France at Shanghai, M. Montigny, established what became know as the French Concession. This 164 acres Concession was created when Montigny negotiated that a section of the city should be under exclusive control of the French government. At one time it was proposed to unite the French Concession with the International Settlement, but the French government never approved the proposal.
As these two great European powers swallowed up sections of the city under their control, so did the businesses and citizens of the United States move into Shanghai. The American Settlement was not formed in an as organized a manner as the French and British. In 1848, Bishop William J. Boone established the Episcopal Church Mission north of Soochow Creek in Hongkew. He was the first Anglican Bishop in China. The land was low and swampy. In February 1854, the United States Consul to Shanghai opened its doors.
By 1863, the cultural similarities of the British and the Americans helped foster the union between the British and American Settlements into what is known today as the International Settlement.
All these foreign holdings were under extraterritorial administration. Just about every major European power established their own communities and districts in the city. They maintained their own courts, police, and armed forces. Shanghai had become a divided city and would remain so until the dark days of the Second World War. With the Westerner’s control of the city’s Municipal Council, the Treaty Powers in effect had control of the entire city.
China Begins to Fall Apart
From the opening of China in the 1840’s until the rise of the Communists in the late 1940’s, China is a land of growing turmoil. The stagnantly swollen, corrupt bureaucracy of the Qing Dynasty slowly collapses under its own weight over the course of the next hundred years.
Just as the Qing Dynasty had feared, the Westerns brought much that undermined and corrupted their authority. The first example of this was the Opium Trade that Britain forced on them. The inability of the Qing government showed that they no longer had the power to stop the advance of the foreigners in their own country. Many native Chinese saw this sign of weakness as a sign to change their nation... by force if necessary.
One of the great events of the Ninetieth Century to shape Shanghai was the Taiping Rebellion that lasted from 1850 to 1864. Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, a visionary from Guangdong, led it. He had created political movement influenced by elements of the western religion, Christianity. His ultimate goal was to found a new dynasty in China, the Taiping (“Great Peace”). Strong discontent with the Chinese government drew many people to his cause, especially among the poorer classes. Starting in Canton, the rebellion had spread with great violence through the eastern valley of the Chang River. The rebels captured Nanjing in 1853 and made it their capital.
The western powers, who at first sympathized with the movement, soon realized that the Qing dynasty might collapse and with it the lucrative trade they had fought to gain. A splinter group of rebels who called themselves the “Small Swords” fought their way northwards to Shanghai. On September 7, 1853 they entered and quickly captured the city. Until they were expelled and defeated in February of 1855, Shanghai was a city of open conflict. People going about their daily business often found themselves caught between savage fighting among the Taiping rebels and the few remaining Imperialists. Through out this two-year period, the International Settlement was able to maintain its territorial integrity and remain neutral with few exceptions by sealing itself off form the rest of the city for the most part.
In April of 1853, the Treaty Powers of Great Britain, France and the United States decided to take matters into their own hands in the International Settlement and to defend it against any Chinese interference… both Rebel and Imperialist. On the 12th of April they founded the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. A militia of sorts, the Volunteer Corps received its baptism of fire on April 4, 1854 when a large force threatened the western boarder of the settlement. The Volunteers in conjunction with British and American marines forced the Imperialist out of the International Settlement and secured its western boundary. During the course of what was to become know as the Battle of Muddy Flat, Taiping Rebels even helped the Volunteer Corps.
Another sign of the weakening state of the Qing Dynasty’s power was the reorganization of the Chinese custom service under the authority of the Treaty Powers. To stop the rampant corruption of the lesser Chinese custom officials, who often stole or extorted from the Treat Power’s shipments, Great Britain, France, and the United States took control of the custom service with the “blessing” of the local government. The reopening of the Custom House on July 12, 1854 is often considered the birth of the Chinese Maritime Custom Service.
Even as the Treaty Powers reorganized the custom service under modern lines, the Small Swords continued to menace the city. It was this threat and the danger to the markets of the Treaty Powers which lead to a joint action of Imperialist and French forces to expel the faction from the city. Although the Small Swords never recovered from this defeat, the Taiping Rebellion spread through most of Northern China. This period of open warfare lasted 1860 to 1964.
Still, Shanghai wasn’t free from the menace of the Taiping. In June of 1860, the nearby city of Soochow fell to the Taiping Rebels. The second Opium War between the Qing Dynasty and Great Britain, with its French allies, further complicated the situation. Again the Treaty powers showed themselves to be two faced to the Chinese people. They wished to keep the weak Qing Dynasty in power to protect the Treaty Ports and their markets only to bully the Qing into submission if they in turn ever threatened the ports.
Taiping Rebels attacked Shanghai again on August 17, 1860 but found the city stoutly defended by a combined force of British, French and Volunteer Corps. The defenders were also supported by the awesome firepower of British and French warships in the harbor. Over the course of the fighting, the rebels never threatened the International Settlement.
By now citizens of the Treaty Powers had grown tired of the inability of the Qing to suppress the Taiping rebellion. From their ranks an American from New England, Frederick Townsend Ward, established a military force that will soon become the “Ever Victorious Army”. Originally a shipmaster, Ward was quickly commissioned a General by the Imperial government. Early on as a General for the Imperialists, Ward was summoned before the American Consul in Shanghai and charged with inducing the desertion of American and even British sailors with promises of adventure, high pay, and the spoils of war if they joined his Ever Victorious Army. To avoid trail by the Americans, Ward renounced his citizenship and became a subject of the Qing Emperor. It was only later that both the Americans and the British welcomed General Ward and his army when he defended Shanghai from the Taiping. Each of the western governments had originally considered him a criminal for his actions in forming his army, but when their investments were saved by his actions he was lauded a hero.
This army is composed of loyalist Chinese and a number of western adventurers, many of them from the International Settlement in Shanghai. The army gained its name in a number of stunning victories against the Taiping rebels. No quarter was asked or given by the height of the rebellion. Over 20,000,000 people died in the savagery of the civil war. Eleven of China’s richest provinces were laid to waste. On September 21, 1862, General Ward was killed in action near Ningpo. To this day Ward is a romanticized and revered hero of the period in China.
His lieutenant, Henry Burgevine, quickly succeeded him but after his death in combat, the more capable Charles George Gordon replaced Burgevine. An officer in the British Army, Gordon led the Ever Victorious Army on an aggressive campaign against the Taiping rebels. By May 1964, Gordon had effectively broken the back of the rebellion around Shanghai. The rebels were further weakened by a number of strategic blunders and growing internal dissension among the leaders of the rebellion. The Taiping rebellion fizzled out in 1865 when the last rebels were destroyed by the new provincial armies led by Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang.
Although opinions of the character of both General Ward and “Chinese Gordon” vary from noble saviors to opportunists who fought for the plunder of battle, it would not be unreasonable to claim that their actions saved Shanghai from destruction at the Taiping rebels.
A macabre side note of Tiaping Rebellion is the fact that Shanghai thrived during the course of the civil war. The influx of troops and refugees increase the size of the city and in turn property values. It also allowed for a brisk trade in western arms to the Imperial Chinese military. The increased business allowed the International Settlement to swell in size to its present boundaries. Even when the western population decreased in later years, permanent gains had been made in the size and political power of the International Settlement.
Even as the rest of the country slowly began to descend into anarchy as the Qing Dynasty ability to rule was slowly eroded, Shanghai enjoyed a period of continued growth and relative tranquility. Only rarely was it interrupted.
In 1874 the French Concession was rocked with the Ningpo Guild riots. The riots occurred when the French build a road through a Chinese cemetery.
Less than ten years later, war broke out between the French and Chinese over trade routes through Annam. In 1891 anti-missionary demonstrations were held in the Yangtze valley and the there was the Sino-Japanese war in 1894. All these events had little impact on the daily life in Shanghai, but they slowly build a feeling of apprehension of what the future might hold.
Another riot rocked the city on April 5, 1897 when the Shanghai Municipal Council increased the tax on licensing wheelbarrows. On November 10, 1910 the Plague Riots occurred in results form opposition to the enforcement of Public Health laws to prevent the outbreak of the plague.
By 1899 a growing resentment of foreigners, mainly Westerners, culminated in the Boxer Uprising in Peking. The people of Shanghai watched the events unfold with apprehension, but the city was never threatened.
One area of contention between the Chinese and the International Settlement were the courts systems. As part of the Treaties that established the ports, Westerners suspected of crimes could not be tried in Chinese courts. Foreign nationals would be tried in courts established by their respective governments. Needless to say guilty verdicts for crimes committed by foreigners against any Chinese in these courts were rarely given harsh sentences if they deserved them.
On December 8, 1905 the Louza Police Station was attacked and set fire by rioters due disagreements in the decisions and jurisdictions of the court housed there. Eventually the police, the Volunteer Corps, and naval landing parties quelled the situation. Although they were not order to fire, there were a few casualties.
During October of 1911 the Republican Revolution overthrew the ancient rule of Emperors in China. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, after years of promoting republican reform in the Imperial system, saw the old weakened government swept away. Shanghai saw little of this conflict and simply accepted the new government by acclamation on November 4, 1911.
The new Republican government had the daunting task of ruling the remains of the massive Chinese Empire. The new government was just as weak as the old and not up to the task because it was immediately stretched to its limits when it assumed power. By 1913, the Chinese nation plummeted again into revolution and civil war against the government of Yuai shih-kai. Shanghai would not avoid this new conflict.
Revolutionaries attempted to seize the Chinese run telegraphs in the International Settlement of Shanghai on July 20, 1913. The municipal police defeated them. The Republican military did not intervene as it was considered a violation of the International Settlement’s neutrality in Chinese affairs. Through out the following week, gunfire could be heard in the districts surrounding the International Settlement and the French Concession. To protect their interests, the French, British, and Americans mobilized the Volunteer Corps and allowed naval forces to land.
For many in the International Settlement, new problems arose with the advent of the First World War. Although it did not affect the day-to-day lives of the Chinese populace, many Westerners returned to their native country to fight in the War to End All Wars. When China declared it sided with the Allies, the fortunes of the German minority in the International Settlement took a turn for the worse. Still the First World War as literally a world a way and, outside of a little espionage, provided little more than a distraction for the people in Shanghai in the newspapers.
The weak control of the Republican Government allowed for the rise of warlords who often fought each other for territory and power. Armed thugs often roamed the countryside enforcing the will of some warlord or another. Shanghai, with the presence of the Treaty Powers, was able to maintain order during this time of turmoil.
In the growing chaos of Shanghai, a group of intellectuals formed the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 by holding the First National Congress in a secret location in the French Concession.
In late 1924, open warfare between factions in the Kiangsu and Chekian provinces broke out between the Fengtien-Anfu and Chihi. As this conflict spread closer and closer to Shanghai, anxiety grew in the city that either of these factions would attempt to seize Shanghai as their own. In response to the growing concerns, in early 1925 a state of emergency was declared and the Volunteer Corps was mobilized. The French Concession and the International Settlement barricaded themselves against invasion in a joint defense plan. Still, they suffered an invasion of sorts as thousands of Chinese refuges poured in. The Treaty Powers also played a part in disarming thousands of deserters and fugitives from the fighting.
During this time period, tensions in Shanghai were further agitated by the protesting of many native Chinese over the rights and powers that many Westerners had. These protests rose to a head on May 30, 1925, when a number of Chinese protesters were arrested and interred in the Louza Police Station. A large crowd of sympathizers gathered and demanded for their release. Unlike the earlier riot that had resulted in part of the station being burned, the police decided to use deadly force to quell the riot and opened fire on the demonstrators. Eight Chinese died either in the initial volley of fire or from wounds after they had been dragged to safety.
The violence only served to inflame opinion even further and the following day a general strike was declared. There were numerous clashes with police and isolated protesters. In the end 24 Chinese lay dead and 36 were wounded. A state of emergency was again declared and the Shanghai Volunteer Corps was called out to maintain the peace on June 1. Even then the mood of the native Chinese remained very tense against the foreigners who lived in the city.
This dark mood forced the Treaty Powers to consider a number of demands to prevent another out break of violence. Many Chinese wanted the all the foreign concessions to return to Chinese control. They also wanted to abolish the extraterritoriality enjoyed by Westerners and try them in Chinese courts. Still the power of the Treaty Powers was great enough that they avoided giving into these demands. Instead, they finally allowed for the inclusion of Chinese representatives on the ruling body of the city, the Municipal Council. This however did not happen until 1928 in April. Still it marked for the first time that the Chinese had regained a voice in the destiny of the city in almost a hundred years.
A new power arose as the Republican Government’s power slowed eroded. The Nationalist movement, lead by Chiang Kai-shek, had begun in Canton. Unlike the Republicans, the Nationalists believed that the Chinese should control all territory in China. On July of 1926, the Nationalists launch a military expedition north from Canton. They destroyed any military opposition as they entered central China. The British quickly return their concessions in Hankow and Kiukiang as they do not have the power to completely stop the Nationalists’ advance. In International Settlement there is a growing sense of panic among the Westerners due to the possibility of the Nationalists’ taking what was left of their territory and stripping them of their power.
British, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, American, and Japanese forces were brought into the city in early 1927. The Shanghai Volunteer Corps was fully mobilized to protect the city. As the Nationalists advanced in February, the Treaty Powers and their allies prepared for the possibility of a siege. Their plans were often disturbed by riots of Chinese in the city. Soon the International Settlement and the French Concession were joined into one defensive perimeter with a wall of barbed wire and entanglements surrounding it. Check points were set up and a curfew was invoked. No one was allowed to venture out onto the streets between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. with out the proper passes.
The Nationalists and the Communists joined forces to take over the city as part of a larger effort to reunify China and rid the country of the infighting Warlords and the parasitic Foreigners. Eventually they took the Chinese sections of the city without conflict and placed them under the control of the Kuomintang Government. Although the Treaty powers awaited the finally assault, the Nationalists never violated the foreign settlements. Even as business returned to normal, tensions remained high. This was the greatest threat that the foreign settlements had ever faced since their creation.
The communists and the left-leaning Wuhan-based branch of the Kuomintang were in for a rude surprise in April, when Chiang Kai-shek called on his extensive underworld connections to purge them and consolidate his power base. This crack down became known as the “White Terror” and destroyed any hope of the Communists and the Nationalists to ever form united government under control of both factions.
Still the Westerns had faith in their investments in Shanghai. Even with this looming threat, the world’s greatest houses of commerce and finance continued to invest in Shanghai during the 1930’s. There were more automobiles on the streets of this single city that the rest of China put together. Shanghai could boast of having the tallest buildings in Asia. But in their shadow were countless opium dens, gambling pits, and brothels. Shanghai had become a byword for exploitation and vice.
Shanghai was really two worlds then. There was the glitter and wealth of the upper class and the grinding poverty of the lower classes. Many Westerners lived like royalty. The mansions that they lived in stood as mute testimony to their wealth. To give an idea of the disparity in between the classes, the authorities of the International Settlement in 1937 collected 20,000 bodies within their boundaries of people who had died from starvation and exposure. Granted 1937 was horrible year for China as famine swept the country and the poverty of Shanghai was more a reflection of conditions elsewhere in China. But there was a darkness descending on the city. Life was cheap. Gang murders were common as triads fought with each other. Prostitution had become a booming industry. Children were found chained to the looms they worked at in some textile mills. J.G. Ballard, a science fiction writer who grew up in Shanghai, recalled going to the opening night of the film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He found hundreds of hunchbacks outside the theatre. The owner of the theater and the movie’s promoters had hired them to add “atmosphere.”
Since the war between China and Japan in 1894, there had been growing tensions between the two countries. Japan coveted the natural wealth of resources in China and like any power before them, bullied China into unequal economical and political treaties. By the fall of 1931, Japanese military operations in Manchuria only helped to stir up a strong anti-Japanese sentiment in Shanghai as they clashed again and again with the Nationalists. In 1932, the Japanese Kwantung Army set up the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria.
The anti-Japanese sentiments were particularly strong in Shanghai as the Japanese formed the largest foreign group in the International Settlement. After the deaths of a few Japanese citizens and the Shanghai boycott of Japanese goods, the Japanese decided to take matters into their own hands. On January 21, 1932, the Japanese Consul General demanded the Chinese mayor of Greater Shanghai, General Wu Te-Chen, to suppress all anti-Japanese sentiment and to punish the culprits who had killed the Japanese citizens in the recent riots. Before the mayor could deliver his “meek and submissive” reply, the Japanese military launched into action. They quickly landed a large military force on January 28th, and bombed the city to remove the Chinese presence in the Chapei district and secure order. Many consider this the first act of the Second World War.
The Chapei district had been a problem for the Japanese as it neighbored the Hangkew district of Shanghai in which a large Japanese population lived. It was also the location of most of the Chinese owned industry in the city. For over a month, the hustle and bustle of the city life was interrupted by the noise of fighting. It was not uncommon to hear machine gun fire in the distance no matter where you lived in the city. The bridges over Suzhou Creek were flooded with Chinese refugees as they attempted to flee to the relative safety in the neutral International Settlements. In the end, what was left of the Chinese military retreated from the ruined Chapei district. Darning May of 1932, through the intercession of the League of Nations and Great Britain, China and Japan signed a truce of sorts.
As a matter of course, the British and Americans strongly reinforced their military garrisons. A state of emergency and curfew were declared. The Shanghai Municipal Council called out the Volunteer Corps. Shanghai had now become an armed camp. Still fighting did not break out.
In August of 1937, the Japanese broke the silence and completely took control of the Chinese sections of the city by November after the formal outbreak of war between China and Japan. The Japanese cruiser, Idzumo, was anchored in the Huangpu River to support Japanese troops. On August 14, the infamous “Black Saturday”, Chinese planes attempted to sink it. One plane missed its mark and bombed the busy intersection of Nanjing Dong Lu by the Bund instead. Another plane was damaged. It attempted to drop its bomb harmlessly on the Shanghai racetrack, but instead ended up bombing Xizang Lu (now Yanan Lu), outside the Great World Amusement Center where hundreds of refugees had gathered to receive relief supplies. One observer morbidly recalled how a perfectly manicured lady’s hand, neatly severed at the wrist, flew up and smacked him in the face. On December 2, 1937 Shanghai had become an occupied city The Japanese quickly set up a puppet government under Wang Jingwei. Oddly enough, life continued as normal in the
International Settlement.
Deals were struck and contracts signed as a battle of imprisonment, torture, and assignation raged between the collaborators and members of the Nationalist and Communist resistance in the rest of the city.
On the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese also took control of the International Settlement and the even French Concession. They were no longer the sacred, neutral havens they once were. Japan’s military police, the Kempeitai along with regular Japanese forces quickly sealed the International Settlement and the French Concession up with barbed wire barricades. The Kempeitai established their headquarters on the Bund at the Bridge House Prison. Along with a well-established spy network, the Kempeitai quickly round up anyone they considered a threat.
“Aliens of enemy nationality” were soon resettled into squalid camps on the outskirts of the city. Those with the misfortune of being prominent or well connected were imprisoned and tortured in the Bridge House Prison on charges of espionage and opposition to the Japanese Empire. Often Westerners and Chinese were executed on trumped up charges of espionage. To discourage any further resistance, the Kempeitai would often hang their severed heads from lampposts through out the city. Bridge House Prison became a maze of torture chambers and holding pens for the condemned. At any hour of the day, screams could be heard echoing form the building.
Even then Shanghai continued to prosper, the Japanese slowly gained control of the city’s political and commercial institutions. The United States and Great Britain signed a treaty that renounced their extraterritorial powers and their international concessions to the Chinese in early 1943 to reward the Chinese people for their support in the war against Japan.
By then, Japan had all the remaining foreign nationals placed in concentration camps to secure the city under their complete control. One such camp was reserved mainly for British civilians and British Officers of the Shanghai Municipal Police. Another camp at Yu Yuen Road housed many employees of the Shanghai Municipal Council. As the Japanese took more and more control of the city, more Westerners and natives found themselves in the camps often to starve or be tortured to death. In the end over eight thousand foreigners were imprisoned in Shanghai. For many, the once glamorous city had become a death trap as the Kempeitai and their stooges executed a reign of terror.
The Allies lightly bombed the city over the course of the war. They often limited the attack to only include targets of military significance. The Japanese garrison would remain in the city until the very end of the war… unable to retreat to Japan because of the naval blockade imposed on the Home Islands by American submarines.
France would also follow Great Britain and the United States and gave up the French Concession in 1946. For the first time in almost a hundred years, Shanghai was completely under Chinese control. The Kuomintang controlled the city until May 27, 1949 when it fell to Communist forces of Mao Tse-tung without a shot being fired. In the end the Nationalists were forced into exile on the island of Taiwan while the Communists ruled the main land.
With a single stroke, the new Communist government swept away the old Shanghai. They began by deporting all the foreigners. Those who could not leave or had no place to go to, were placed in special camps for “stateless” persons. Once the foreigners had been exorcised, the Communists began to reform the city. They took it upon themselves to eradicating the slums, closing the opium dens and rehabilitating hundreds of thousands of addicts, prostitutes were given medical treatment and taught new trades, and they viciously stamped out child and slave labor. In the beginning, the Communists promised that all foreign companies and holdings would stay as they were, in possession of their western masters. This was a promise not to be kept; in 1953 all foreign assets remaining in Shanghai were seized and nationalized.
In the 1960’s Shanghai became the center for a radical branch of communism under the teachings of Mao Tse-tung. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution had begun. In 1966, Chairman Mao visited Shanghai to begin his revolution. The first articles for this campaign were published in the Wen Hui Bai newspaper. Millions of fanatical young people, called the Red Guard, were roused to fight and uphold Chairman Mao’s Correct Revolutionary Line. By August of 1966, thousands of them from all over the country, swarmed over the city. They besieged City Hall and the old Hong Kong and Shanghai Corporation headquarters. Panicking, the city mayor declared the Red Guards to be counter-revolutionary and mobilized to workers to raise the siege. After several days of intense fighting the siege was lifted.
Demonstrations and ideological debates continued and by the end of the year, students and workers in the city were organizing themselves in to massive organizations of over a million members. The organizations were from all sides of the political spectrum and conflict was unavoidable.
In the first half of 1967, life in Shanghai was brought to a virtual standstill as the conflicts grew in size and scope in the “January Storm”. By the middle of the first month, the leftist elements had taken control of the city’s administration. In early February, the Shanghai Commune, modeled on the Paris Commune of the 1970s, was established. Within eighteen days the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee had replaced it. Shanghai was the first place the Maoists successfully took power from the old guard communists who had brought Mao to power. Chairman Mao had replaced them with radicals loyal to him alone.
In a concentrated effort, radical communist tried to turn the clock back and return China to a simpler time of agrarian toil. Thousands were prosecuted for “knowing too much” or other counter revolutionary crimes. Western books and other items were burned and destroy to rid the masses of their corrupting influence. Anything with a western or feudal name was renamed into something more acceptable to the Red Guard.
Once the new leadership was in place, there was no longer a need for the fanatical Red Guard. Millions of them were forcibly shipped off to the countryside, many of them to the far off Xinjiang province, to put Chairman Mao’s teaching into practice. Most never returned.
Shanghai would once again play a major role in China at the end of the Maoist period. Chairman Mao died in September 9, 1976. Right after his death there was a power struggle between moderate and radical elements of the Communist Party for Mao’s successor. Shanghai was the base of power for the “Gang of Four” radicals; commonly know as the Shanghai Gang then.
The power struggle ended when the Gang of Four was arrested in Beijing on October 6, 1976. When brought to trail, they found themselves bearing the guilt of a nation for the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. The 1980 trial of the four, televised throughout China and designed to humiliate its members, was turned into a public rite aimed at closing this chapter in China's history. Even though the four could never have acted without Mao's involvement, it helped save most of his memory and legacy. It was politically wise to shift the blame to the Gang of Four, as it seems that they were a sacrifice that the society had to make in order to feel they had departed from the past. In 1981, the party ruled that Mao had committed "major mistakes", even though these did not outweigh his merits. As for the Gang of Four, they disappeared into history.
Shanghai and the rest of the China put this turbulent chapter behind them. Much of Communist China returned to normal. When Deng Xiaopeng took the reigns of power over, he initiated a program of market liberalization and reforms to kick-start China’s economic development from the stagnant state control. Shanghai was to especially benefit from the examples of Guangdong’s Shenzhen.
Near the end of the twentieth century, Shanghai was chosen to spearhead this new initiative in China’s economic development. Pudong, East Shanghai, which had been just farmland a few decades ago, was declared a Special Economic Zone in 1990. The zone allows for western style capitalism to flourish in a limited part of a communist controlled nation. This opened the city to foreign investment for the first time since the closing of the Treaty Ports at the end of the Second World War and returned it as the “dragon’s head” of the Chinese economy. Other industrial sections of the city were expanded to form the largest industrial base in the country.
This has resulted in Shanghai once again becoming an international trade and financial center know through out the world as its economy grew over twenty percent each year. It has a standard of living that is envied through out China. There has been a boom in the construction industry, private businesses, rising personal incomes, and growing foreign investments, but this rapid growth has come at a cost. Historic neighborhoods and monuments were raised. Entire communities were moved to different sections of the city to provide room for new businesses. Still, Shanghai retains much of its past and unique character.
After years of being closed off to the rest of the world, Shanghai is rapidly regaining its reputation as a cosmopolitan city. There has been a growing revival in the arts and culture of the city. This renaissance signals a return to the city’s glory days of the past. Shanghai is widely regarded as the financial center of China, a progressive enterprising city, open to new ideas.
