Xie Jinyuan and the Eight Hundred Heroes

Basic facts

A few lines of a song

This piece does not begin at the beginning. First, a few lines of a song:

"China will not perish, China will not perish — look at Colonel Xie, the national hero; China will not perish, China will not perish — look at the Eight Hundred Heroes, the lone army holding the battlefield."

These are the words that were sung in those days of the Eight Hundred Heroes fighting the enemy to the death in Sihang Warehouse. As a report on China Military Online put it: "Even today it still sets the blood racing."

Who he was

26 October 1937: a handover in one sentence

In 1937, after the August 13 Incident opened the Battle of Shanghai, the Japanese army took Dachang, Jiangwan, Zhabei and Miaohang one after another, trying to cut the Chinese army's line of retreat. The Military Affairs Commission of the National Government decided to withdraw the main force to positions south of Suzhou Creek.

On 26 October, Xie Jinyuan, deputy commander of the 524th Regiment, 262nd Brigade, 88th Division, was ordered to hold Zhabei with more than 420 officers and men and cover the retreat of the main force.

At the moment of parting, his superior warned him:

"You are a lone army — there will be no reinforcements!"

Xie Jinyuan's answer was a single word:

"Understood!"

Then he led all his officers and men in an oath:

"Sihang Warehouse shall be the place where we lay our bones!"

In the small hours of 27 October they moved into Sihang Warehouse on the north bank of Suzhou Creek.

A numbers game

To deceive the enemy, the defenders of Sihang claimed to the outside world to number eight hundred, and so the world respectfully called them the "Eight Hundred Heroes".

More than 420 men, claiming eight hundred. That piece of "bluff" later became their most famous name.

As to the actual strength: accounts range between 414 and 450, and this book follows the "more than 420" figure used by China Military Online and Xinhua.

Four days and four nights

27 October

• At daybreak the Japanese discovered that Chinese troops were still holding Sihang Warehouse and at once attacked, only to be fiercely beaten back by the "Eight Hundred Heroes";
• with outstanding nerve and resourceful command, Xie Jinyuan set up crossing fields of fire from several angles of the warehouse, "leaving the Japanese dead in heaps and fleeing in disarray".

(As to the exact hour the fighting began: Xinhua's interview records that "the battle started on 27 October", while Xie Jinyuan's son Xie Jimin says "one o'clock that afternoon"; other material records that "the Japanese attacked at daybreak on 27 October". This book sets down both.)

28 October

• the Japanese attacked again, covering their infantry with tanks;
• at the critical moment, a member of the suicide squad, Chen Shusheng, deputy squad leader of the 4th squad, 2nd company, strapped grenades all over himself, leapt from an upstairs window into the enemy, and perished together with several Japanese soldiers.

As to which floor he leapt from, there are two accounts — "a fifth-floor window" (Xinhua) and "an upstairs window"; this book follows Xinhua's "fifth-floor window".

Evening, 28 October

Xie Jinyuan passed on to his officers and men his most famous order:

"Hold Sihang Warehouse to the death; stand or fall with the last position!"

He "expressed his resolve to hold out and stand or fall with all his officers and men, and urged them to show the soldier's spirit that fears neither blood nor death and the spirit that would save the nation from ruin".

Before dawn, 31 October

Their task of covering the main force's withdrawal done, the "Eight Hundred Heroes" were ordered to withdraw wholly into the International Settlement.

The tally

This is "the Eight Hundred Heroes holding Sihang".

Three things told again and again

One: 298 last letters

Between bouts of fighting, the "Eight Hundred Heroes" wrote 298 last letters in all in the cold, dank warehouse — to wives and children, to parents, every word blood and tears, every line feeling.

Xie Jinyuan's granddaughter Xie Jun recalls:

"My grandfather realised that Sihang Warehouse might be where they would all lay their bones! He organised everyone to write home between bouts of fighting. For the young soldiers, this might be the first letter home of their lives, and the last…"

Two: Chen Shusheng's letter in blood

The martyr Chen Shusheng, who gave his life to perish together with the enemy, wrote a letter in blood on a white undershirt, left for his aged mother far away in the Daba Mountains of Sichuan:

"To lay down life for righteousness is what your son wishes!"

Three: that national flag

The heroic deed of the "Eight Hundred Heroes" raised the patriotic fervour of the people of Shanghai to a pitch never known before. Gifts and letters of comfort poured into the warehouse without cease.

The girl scout Yang Huimin braved death and shellfire to carry a Chinese national flag into Xie Jinyuan's hands.

At the moment the flag rose again over Sihang Warehouse, the cries of "Long live the Chinese nation!" and "The war of resistance will surely triumph!" rang out along the banks of Suzhou Creek.

Xie Jinyuan's letter home to his wife

Today this letter is displayed at the entrance of the Shanghai Sihang Warehouse War of Resistance Memorial Hall.

To my beloved wife Qiaoying:

In a few days I shall lead my troops into the Shanghai–Wusong fighting, and so I write you this short note to comfort you in my absence. Half of our land of Shenzhou is daily being nibbled away; the calamity of national and racial extinction is launched by others but lies in our own hands — if we are not careful, our descendants will be left with no one to survive. To kill the enemy for the country is the long-held ambition of a revolutionary soldier…

Speaking of this letter, Xie Jinyuan's granddaughter Xie Jun had tears in her eyes.

How the outside world reacted

• the many foreign correspondents who watched the heroic deeds of the "Eight Hundred Heroes" from across the river sent out a great stream of dispatches from the front;
• The Times carried an article: "the 'Eight Hundred Heroes' win glory for Chinese soldiers, forever defend China's sovereignty, struggle for the survival of their nation — they fight for humanity, for civilisation, for peace."

An outcome that was betrayed

This is the passage this piece can least afford to leave out.

The battle of Sihang Warehouse, besides pinning down the Japanese and covering the main force's withdrawal, had a political task:

At that moment the Nine-Power Treaty conference was about to open in Brussels. The Chinese delegation had hoped that this lone army's last, tragic resistance would win Western support, to resist and restrain the Japanese invaders.

The result was:

"But what it finally brought in return was the West's "advice" that the Chinese delegation withdraw from the conference. China's interests were once again ignored and betrayed."

The blood of more than 420 men bought a "suggestion to withdraw".

Afterwards: the rest of Xie Jinyuan's life

After withdrawing into the International Settlement on 31 October, the "Eight Hundred Heroes" were disarmed by the settlement authorities and housed in the "lone army camp" separated by a single wall from Jiaozhou Park (this is where "Jinyuan Park" later came from).

Thereafter:

• the Wang puppet government sent envoys several times to lure Xie Jinyuan into surrender with high office and rich reward, and each time he refused them in stern terms;
• on 24 April 1941, Xie Jinyuan was stabbed to death with a dagger by a soldier bought by the Wang puppet government, aged 37;
• in May 1941 the Chinese government ordered him posthumously made a major general of infantry.

He did not fall on the battlefield; he fell to a dagger from his own side.

How Shanghai remembers him

After the war of resistance was won, to commemorate Xie Jinyuan:

Jinyuan Road joins at one end the old North Station (where he came to Shanghai) and at the other Sihang Warehouse (where he fought). That arrangement carries real weight.

How to go and see him today

• Sihang Warehouse War of Resistance Memorial Hall (1 Guangfu Road): the bullet holes in the west wall are original; the letter home is at the entrance of the memorial hall; inside is displayed Xie Jinyuan's inscription, "With one gun and one bullet I am resolved to fight the Japanese bandits to the end";
• Jinyuan Road: walk it once, from north to south;
• Jinyuan Park: formerly Jiaozhou Park;
• the celebrities' cemetery of the Wanguo Public Cemetery: Xie Jinyuan's grave (moved here in 1983).

A closing line

The report on China Military Online ends well, and this book borrows its ending:

The setting sun falls on Suzhou Creek. The river once dyed red with the blood of the wartime generation now flows quietly on. This great city of ceaseless traffic has never once forgotten the "Eight Hundred Heroes".

Sources: the life and the fighting follow China Military Online's "Xie Jinyuan and the 'Eight Hundred Heroes': a lone army's bloody battle at Sihang"; Xinhua's "Sunset on Suzhou Creek — visiting the Shanghai Sihang Warehouse War of Resistance Memorial Hall"; and Xinhua Net's "Behind the bloody battle of the Eight Hundred Heroes at Shanghai: China hoped for Western support and was betrayed"; the commemorative place names follow the China Military Online report. The full bibliography is in Appendix 4.