Inside China’s military melting pot(3)

Sun Yat-sen, renowned revolutionary and founder of the Whampoa Military Academy, dines with military advisers from the former Soviet Union, many of whom taught at Whampoa between 1924 and 1926. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The return

Although inconsolable, at Ho Chi Minh's request Hong Shui married a Vietnamese woman and returned to China in 1950, only to discover that his family was still alive.

"It was excruciating for them both, but my mother made the decision to end the marriage. Looking back, it was so obvious that she spent her whole life loving and protecting my father. She made sure he had a peaceful life during his final five years in China with his Vietnamese wife and children," said Chen Hanfeng. "And she made an effort to get my brother and me to believe that our father was always with us, wherever he might be.

"When she came to my school and told me the truth, it was, as she later told me, because my teacher had called to say I had been naughty," he said. "But I only got to know the whole story in the mid-1960s, during the Vietnam War, when we were invited to meet visiting Vietnamese officials.

In 1956, a year after he'd been made a major general by the Chinese government, Hong Shui was diagnosed with lung cancer. He insisted on returning to Vietnam, and passed away in October of that year. Chen Jiange died in 2012 at the age of 99.

Reflecting on the significance of his father's time at Whampoa, Chen Hanfeng said: "My father's Chinese name means 'flood'. He once likened himself to a torrent of water, charging irresistibly through life's rugged landscape, against all the odds. In the same way, Whampoa really was the place where all these different 'rivers' met and formed a strong torrent that changed the world once and for all."

WHAMPOA TIMELINE

May 1, 1924: The Whampoa Military Academy is founded in Guangzhou by Sun Yat-sen.

Sept 18, 1931: Japan invades China.

July 7, 1937: The War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression officially begins.

Sept 1, 1939: World War II begins.

Dec 7, 1941: Japan attacks the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor, and the US joins the war.

1946-1949: The Chinese civil war is fought between the Communists and the Nationalists.

Oct 1, 1949: The People's Republic of China is founded. The Whampoa Academy relocates to Taiwan, where it remains today.