That these governments came more under the influence of the Communist party and the 8th Route Army than under the Kuomintang is more a matter of historical development than of armed power. As I discovered, many leaders of the local governments had once followed the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek but had deserted them in favor of the Communists because they found it impossible to fight the Japanese effectively under Kuomintang oppression. The swing of these locally elected leaders to the Communist side for this reason, rather than any Communist arms or Communist propaganda, was one of the big reasons why a full-fledged civil war broke out in China after the defeat of Japan.

　　I used to wonder while I was in the Liberated Areas how I could possibly explain this phenomenon that had so changed the balance of forces in China and had brought the people of the north over to the Conirnunist side against Chiang Kai-shek. How could I describe the slow disillusionment of men who formerly believed Chiang Kai-shek was the savior of China, yet finally deserted him and went over to the Communists.

　　I could list the bare historic facts as I have done above, but how explain it in more human terms. Then Professor Yang Hsiu-feng, head of the Border Region government, began to tell me something about his life, and as I wrote it down I began to realize that here was not only a personal history, but a record of how the movement against dictatorship in China grew.

　　I saw quite a lot of Chairman Yang while I was in the Liberated Areas. His government was in a tiny village, about four miles away, up and across a hill, from the village where I lived with the Army. Sometimes, when I had nothing to do, I used to wander over there, hoping he would invite me to dinner - and he always did. Yang had a cook who had been captured from one of Chiang Kai-shek's provincial governors; and though I can't vouch for the cook's political reliability, I can testify that his culinary talents were quite extraordinary. On the spur of the moment from the midst of a peasant's hut, he would whip up five- and six-course dinners that were some of the best I have ever eaten in my life, far surpassing in taste and originality any of the more sumptuous meals for which you had to pay a fortune in Shanghai and Peiping. The cook was particularly expert in eggs, boiling them, rolling them in flour and then baking them. As a matter of fact, he had so many different ways of cooking both eggs and chicken that all the times I was there I don't think he ever repeated himself.

　　Yang generally just pecked at this delicious food to keep me company, for he had very simple tastes. He dressed in a cotton padded uniform like everyone else in the region, but his shoes were half worn out and patched with leather. He was a rather wizened little man, about fifty, and half deaf, making it very difficult to ask him questions; but since he was a native of Peiping and spoke with a clear Peking accent, it was a pleasure to hear him talk.

　　One could not always find Yang at home, for it was his custom to mount himself on a donkey and take long trips through the mountains visiting various counties and listening to the complaints of the people. The picture of this frail intellectual, who had traveled widely in Europe and who had once been a highly respected history professor in Peiping - the picture of him jouncing through the mountains like some itinerant friar and dispensing government from the back of a jackass to a crowd of illiterate, suspicious peasants, scarcely emerged from the thirteenth century - his picture, I must confess, always seemed to me highly incongruous. What was this parchment-skinned professor with the quiet voice and the gentle manners doing among a lot of roughneck Communists and former feudal serfs? Why had he, with apparently nothing to gain and everything to lose, suddenly, in middle age deserted to the Communist cause, not as a party member, but as a political ally?

　　"I was forty-one," he said, "when the Japanese invaded China in 1937, and, I suppose, being a history professor, I was even more patriotic than most people. As you probably know, the educated men, representing our higher classes, are so few that there are not many persons who can lead the people in the time of a national crisis. By this you will see how necessary and almost inevitable it was that I should think it my duty to take a particularly active part in the war. All these remarks are only to enable you to understand how I - middle-aged professor, not a soldier by profession, with little political experience, actuated, I believe, by the highest motives, volunteered my services to the government of Chiang Kai-shek and allowed his military headquarters at Paoting to dispatch me into southern Hopei to arouse our characteristically apathetic, and what I considered ignorant, people to fight guerrilla warfare.

　　"You may well imagine the surprise engendered in my mind when, on arrival in the guerrilla areas, which Chiang's army had abandoned, I found that the people had already organized several bands of their own and had, with the disappearance of the Kuomintang officials, elected several county governments. Although I was an interloper, I managed to develop some authority with the people, and a year later when thirty counties banded together and formed a Director's Bureau for southern Hopei, I was elected chairman.

　　"First he demanded that we turn the local guerrilla units into a Peace Preservation Corps. Hardly believing that I had heard him rightly, I answered as calmly as I could: 'If you change these anti-Japanese fighters into provincial guards, you will be destroying their patriotic nature and will ruin their spirit.'

　　"Next, Lu wanted to change the county magistrates. I opposed this, saying: 'They were elected by the people and they have shown merits against the Japanese. Why demoralize promising young men.'

　　"Sometimes I thought of giving in to Chiang's secret-service men. I told myself that I would only be compromising my principles temporarily for the national good. But then I was shocked by the thought of how many, like myself, had entered the war with a passionate patriotism, with the love of doing good and of being of service to the people, and had ended up without a bit of good done.

　　"In my pride I felt that I could no longer compromise on certain points and I determined to maintain an unswerving fight against those who wanted to destroy the patriotic organizations. But I felt myself very much alone in this fight.

　　"There was a unit of the 8th Route Army not far away, but they did not want to come to my aid. So I had to carry the fight by myself.

　　"At first, it was not an equal struggle. One day when the Japanese launched an attack near Nankung, I left my office to organize the people in a near-by city for defense. Lu Tsung-lin immediately put up posters, announcing that I had fled and ordering the abolition of the Director's Bureau. As soon as these posters went up, two hundred representatives of the bureau called a meeting and decided to oppose Lu's order. They reasoned that though Lu had been appointed by Chiang Kai-shek, they had been appointed by the people when none of Chiang Kai-shek's representatives were around.

　　"However, we did not declare our independence from the Chungking government. We sent telegrams demanding that Lu be replaced, but our telegrams were not answered.

　　"Since Lu no longer recognized the Director's Bureau, he had to appoint his own county magistrates. For this purpose he called in the troops of General Shih Yu-shan, who escorted the new officials to their offices and guarded them. The people, however, did not recognize these officials and many lawsuits occurred. In the summer of 1939, there were therefore two governments existing side by side, two district magistrates, two county heads and two mayors of each city. Lu and Shih did not recognize the elected government of the people and the people did not recognize the government of Lu and Shih.

　　"You can imagine how horrified I would have been when I set out from Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters a year or two before to lead guerrilla warfare had I been told that things would reach such an impasse as this.

　　"I could not have believed it. So I was unprepared for this turn of affairs and did not know just what course to follow. Finally, I wrote down eight Chinese characters and adopted them as my personal guide.

　　"Co-operate to fight Japanese; improve the people's living." Whoever opposed this motto, I decided I would fight.

　　"My ability to fight, however, I guess was mostly in my own mind. I had no force to oppose Shih Yu-shan, whose troops began to kidnap farmers from their homes and drive them into the army. The Director's Bureau sent a note to Shih, saying: 'Tell us how many soldiers you need and we will find them for you. Only stop this kidnaping.' We got no answer. As a consequence, the young men ran away from the villages whenever Shih's soldiers appeared, and it was very difficult to find anyone to fight the Japanese.

　　"Next, Shih's officials instituted a vicious system of taxation. All coffins were taxed. Vegetables drying on the roofs of the people's homes were taxed. Every time a cow was driven into town, a levy was placed on it. People were forced to contribute gifts to government celebrations. If a kidnaped draftee ran away from the army, his village was fined one hundred suits of cotton clothing to replace the uniform with which the deserter had run off.

　　"The people petitioned me for help, but I had no force. I felt that I was betraying them. But what could I do? I sometimes felt the 8th Route Army guerrillas near by were too tolerant. I wondered why they did not come and help me. Ineffective and useless to anyone as my life now seemed to me, I felt agitated and irritable. My thoughts would give me no peace. I felt that a terrible situation was developing and I felt powerless to halt it.

　　"Since the local guerrilla units supported the local farmers, Shih launched an attack on them, hoping first to wipe them out and then regain control over the people. The guerrillas, however, had good relations with an 8th Route Army battalion in the vicinity and they dared to fight back. So Shih was forced to attack this battalion. Even this did not bring about general fighting, for the 8th Route still remained very tolerant and I must say I sometimes felt annoyed with them.

　　"It was only when Japanese officers, disguised in the uniforms of Shih Yu-shan's army were found visiting his headquarters that general fighting broke out. Shih was a traitor and had to be attacked. He fled south of the Yellow River and was eventually executed by the Kuomintang. With his military support gone, Lu Tsung-lin, Chiang's appointed governor, also fled. With Lu's departure, his government dissolved and the Director's Bureau became the sole government in southern Hopei.