(1) On The Old Silk Road With China's 'Celestial Horses.' Wagmag, April 2015. https://www.wagmag.com/on-the-ol ... s-celestial-horses/
(first sentence: "In 1949, shortly before the end of China’s Civil War as the Communist troops were about to cross the Yangtze River to seize China's capital city of Nanking, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, president of Nationalist China, asked my father, Canadian Ambassador Chester Ronning, if he would exercise his horse, Wudi, until arrangements could be made for the stallion to be sent to his palatial sanctuary in Formosa (Taiwan).")
My comment: Please do NOT read this article. To sum up, (1) was adapted from (2), attached below.
(a) I can find nothing in the Web (either in English or in Chinese) about Chiang Kai-shek's ownership of a celestial horse (and named "Wu-di" no less).
(i) Besides, the last paragraph included these two sentences: "A white celestial cloud horse is sacred to the Chinese goddess of Mercy, Kwan Yin. Her horse has supernatural powers and flies through the heavens, bringing blessing and good tidings." However, the goddess has no horse (again either in
English or in Chinese).
Then, Chester Ronning was not Canada's ambassador to China at the time, but counselor (1945-1946) and charge d'affaires (1946-1051).
Further,
(A) why the authorship is "by Staff,"
(B) Wagmag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagmag
is not authoritative.
(ii)
(A) Chester Ronning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Ronning
(1894 – 1984; "was born in Fancheng, China, now in Xiangyang, Hubei province [present-day 湖北省襄阳市樊城区], the son of Norwegian American Lutheran missionaries * * * Ronning served in diplomatic posts in China (1945–1951)" for Canada)
(B) Chester Ronning. Canadian Ambassador Alumni Association (AMB CANADA), undated https://ambcanada.ca/ambassadors/chester-ronning/
(first paragraph: "Chester Ronning gave Canada a bridge into the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Fluent in Mandarin, he was recruited by the Department of External Affairs in 1945 and posted to the Canadian embassy in Chongqing. When the embassy closed in 1946, Ronning remained as Chargé d'affaires and parlayed with both the ruling Nationalists and the rising Communists. These latter contacts gave him a line of communication with the PRC and the Democratic Republic of North Vietnam. At the 1954 Geneva Accords, he introduced Lester Pearson to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, a personal acquaintance, while his reputation as an expert on China gave him enough credibility to lead a peace mission to Hanoi – codenamed 'Operation Smallbridge' – in 1966. At a time when the United States conflated Soviet, Chinese, and Vietnamese Communism as a uniform threat, Ronning provided the nuanced advice and personal connections that allowed Canada to play the role of mediator during the Vietnam War")
(C) Chargé d'affaires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargé_d%27affaires
("is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador")
(c) In modern times, sweating blood is believed to be caused in several kinds of animals by Parafilaria multipapillosa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parafilaria_multipapillosa作者: choi 时间: 8-1-2024 13:05 本帖最后由 choi 于 8-1-2024 13:51 编辑
(2) It turns out that Chiang Kai-shek did have a horse called Wu-di.
Obviously he invites certain contributors to guest-write in his website, and Ronning-Topping did.
(ii) Audrey Ronning Topping (1928- ) is 96 years old. Her husband was Seymour Topping (1921 – 2020); there is a short en.wikipedia.org about him.
(A) Her latest book was
China Mission; A personal history from the last imperial dynasty to the People's Republic. LSU Press, 2013. https://lsupress.org/9780807152782/china-mission/
On the book cover was the family of her grandfather -- and Chester's father -- Halvor Rønning.
(B) James A Scherer (Emeritus professor, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, Illinois), Ronning, Halvor (1862 — 1950), Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (BDCC), undated https://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/ronning-halvor
(b) "Nanjing, July 1948[:] My story begins at an intimate dinner party taking place in Generalissimo Chiang Kai- shek's 'Heavenly Palace' in Nanjing. At the same time, one million Communist revolutionary troops were massing to sail across the Yangtze River in armed Chinese junks to seize Nanjing * * * The two men, both in their early fifties, had first met four years earlier in 1945, in Chongqing, China's wartime capital. * * * [After Japan surrendered] The 'Gimo' (American slang for Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek) then moved his Nationalist headquarters from Chongqing down the Yangtze River to Nanjing * * * Foreign diplomatic missions were obliged to follow. Ronning packed up the Canadian embassy and sailed down through the risky, untamed Three Great Gorges of the Yangtze to Chiang's southern capital of Nanjing, where he proudly raised the first Canadian flag to fly in China. * * * shortly after the dinner Chiang Kai-shek shared with my father in 1949 [here Audrey said 1949, not 1948], the Generalissimo left to continue supervision of the Nationalists' retreat from mainland China which had actually begun months, even years before. The Great Retreat [which is sectional heading] Han Cheung, a staff reporter for The Taiwan Times, recorded the 'massive' relocation of nationalist headquarters from the mainland, called 'The Great Retreat.' Some 60 planes flew each day, shuttling between China and Taiwan transporting fuel, weapons, ammunition, and eventually personnel."
(i) Chinese Civil War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War
(Mao "on 21 April, [1949,] began the Yangtze River Crossing Campaign [渡江战役]. On 23 April, they captured the KMT's capital, Nanjing")
On the other hand, Chiang was not ROC president; he stepped down from both KMT leadership 总裁 and ROC presidency 下野/ 引退 on Jan 21, 1949.
(ii) Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975)
So, in 1948 Chiang would be 61 years old. That year, Chester Ronning would be 54.
(iii) "he [Chester] proudly raised the first Canadian flag to fly in China"
(A) In 1946, after the Surrender of Japan, the KMT relocated its central government back to Nanjing." en.wikipedia.org for Nanjing.
(B) Canada–China relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93China_relations
(section 1 History, section 1.1 Prior to 1949)
Please read the entire section 1.1.
(iv) Audrey's wording sounded as if the journalist Han Cheung was reporting in 1949. In fact, CHEUNG Han is a reporter PRESETLY with Taipei Times (not The Taiwan Times).
(c) "Before retreating to Taiwan, himself, Generalissimo Chiang reminded Chester again that his sleek, golden-coated, Ferghana steed was no ordinary horse. The stallion had descended from royal Nisean ancestors, known as the mount of nobility. * * * Dad explained [to Chiang] that his Norwegian-American parents had served as missionaries with the China Inland Mission. 'As a child I learned to speak like the Chinese children I grew up with. When my parents were out Christianizing the Chinese, I was in the kitchen being Heathenized by the cook.' * * * After their dinner in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek shared with Chester the history of his beloved Celestial Horse, Wudi. In 138 BC, when China’s first Han Emperor Wu discovered in the ancient Chinese divination classic known as I Ching, or The Book of Changes, some words that would change the history of China: 'Divine horses are due to appear from the Northwest.' The emperor was smitten. Determined to possess the “Divine” horses he commanded, General Zhang Qian, (141 BC-87 BC), commander of the guards at the Imperial Palace to risk the hazardous journey to Central Asia to negotiate peace with the ferocious Huns and trade China’s unique silk brocade for horses. The General set forth with 100 mounted men to obtain the magical chargers from the Huns. When they were 5,000 km northwest of Chang-an (now Xian) in the lush Ferghana Valley in Turkestan (now Uzbekistan), the men were captured and held for 10 years. In 1975, I took this photo of a contemporary statue of General Zhang Qian on his Celestial Horse standing before the Sun Gate [阳关, which in English could be Yang Pass or Yangguan Pass] that leads to the Yungan Pass and through the Hexi Corridor to the Old Silk Road. * * * an 8th century painting 'Promenade of the Three Beauties' by Li Gonglin, (Sung dynasty, 960-1279 CE) * * * Nanjing Commander Lin Tsun [林遵] had defected to the Communists and his naval squadron turned their guns on Nationalist troops. * * * On April 23,1949, Chester and Topping, became eye-witnesses to the fall of Nanjing and the end of China’s Civil War. At dawn, Top was jarred awake by gunfire and explosions. Pandemonium swept the streets of Nanjing. He jumped into his jeep, picked up Bill Kuan [比尔·管], a young Chinese reporter with Agence France Press"
(i) Ferghana horse 大宛馬 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferghana_horse
("The Han dynasty Emperor Wudi sent a huge military expedition to Ferghana in 104 BC to acquire a sufficient number of 'Heavenly Horses' ")
(A) 大宛 https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/大宛
("大宛国大概在今日费尔干纳盆地")
(B) Ferghana Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergana_Valley
(has City of Ferghana. See map)
(ii) Nisean horse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisean_horse
There is no online dictionary which enlists Nisean, so I do not know how it is pronounced.
(iii) For China Inland Mission, see OMF International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMF_International
("formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship [海外基督使团] and before 1964 the China Inland Mission [(CIM) 中國內地會]")
(iv) English dictionary:
* heathen (n, adj; Did You Know?) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heathen
(v) 周易 or 易经 talked about 八卦 or eight directions, each direction symbolized by an animal: "乾为马，坤为牛，震为龙，巽为鸡，坎为豕，离为雉，艮为狗，兑为羊." 乾 is 西北.
(vi) "Sun Gate that leads to the Yungan Pass"
Sun Gate 阳关, which in English could be Yang Pass or Yangguan Pass. So Audrey was wrong to say the above quotation, and misspelled "Yungan," to boot.
(vii) " 'Promenade of the Three Beauties' by Li Gonglin"