When the first blue-uniformed emissaries of Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Hanoi, they applied to us for permits to carry arms. The strict order maintained in the city had made a strong impression on them. Uncle Ho was asked whether permits should be issued to them. He said, “Make a stamp and grant them the permits. It won't be long before they no longer need any papers from us.”
Within a few days after his arrival, Lu Han asked us for a report on the strength and organization of our army. To conceal our forces, Uncle Ho instructed us to change the name of the Liberation Army into “National Defence Guard”. The word “guard” would lead them to think of small regional units and make them relax their attention.
A number of army detachments were ordered to move out to the outskirts of Hanoi so as to avoid clashes with the Chiang troops. The soldiers on sentry duty at public offices were often faced with provocations from the Chiang troops, who sometimes tried to disarm them, which would result in an angry resistance. In the end, we managed to avoid incidents by posting our sentries inside the fences.
Late in September, Lu Han declared that there was no time limit for his troops’ mission in Viet Nam. It was evident that they had not come here with the sole aim of disarming the Japanese.
Early in October, Ha Ung Kham (Ho Yin Chin) flew to Hanoi from Chungking in company with the US Army Commander in China.
The demonstration to welcome the Allied mission, in fact designed to show our strength, was held within only a few hours’ notice. Yet it gathered some three hundred thousand people carrying large numbers of banners, flags and signs who marched past the former Governor General’s palace in perfect order shouting slogans such as: “Viet Nam for the Vietnamese!”, “Support the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam!”, “Support the League for the Independence of Viet Nam!” “Support President Ho Chi Minh!”...
It was a rather unexpected kind of welcome. As he stood on the steps to acknowledge it, the Chief of the Chinese General Staff was wet with sweat.
Later on, it was learned that Ha Ung Kham had come to Hanoi with Chunking’s plan to “destroy Communism and stop Ho”. But once here, he realized that with only two hundred thousand troops he could not carry out the plan immediately. He went back after a few days, leaving instructions to the Chiang generals in Hanoi.
Tieu Van (Siao Wen) set to work. He pressed for a government reshuffle, urging us to reserve many important portfolios and offices for the Viet Nam Nationalist Party and the Viet Nam Revolutionary Alliance.
Their agents found that they could not act in Hanoi the way they had acted in some of the border provinces. The first thing they did was to set up their headquarters, fly their flag and win over reactionary elements among the feudal class, former mandarins and thugs. They seized the Ngu Xa quarter and declared it to be an “autonomous zone”.
Nguyen Hai Than had his men distribute handbills and declare over loudspeakers that the Viet Minh had established dictatorial rule and had violated the agreements reached between various organizations in Liu Chou.
Three years before, during a trip abroad to get in touch with leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, Uncle Ho had been arrested by the Kuomintang authorities. They dragged him from one prison to another — over thirty in all. The political organisations in the country launched a campaign for his release, but he was still kept in Liu Chou. He eventually found out why the Chiang clique has refused to release him. The fact was that in Liu Chou, there was a reactionary political party in the pay of the Kuomintang, named Viet Nam Revolutionary Alliance, headed by Truong Boi Cong and Nguyen Hai Than. They alleged that he had been seeking to wreck their organization.
He was freed only after a fairly long time. He asked to be allowed to go home with some Viet Nam Revolutionary Alliance members of his choice. Truong Phat Khue (Chang Fa Kuei, the Chinese commander — Ed.) agreed, but Truong Boi Cong and Nguyen Hai Than objected. So Uncle Ho went home alone.
Nguyen Hai Than declared that he had the support of the Chiang troops. If the present government was not re-organized, he threatened, he would overthrow it by force. To show his strength, this former fortune-teller drove through the streets of Hanoi in a small car, with two men on the roof lying behind a light machinegun, and two others sitting on the front fenders with submachine-guns under their arms.
The Nationalist Party’s activities were somewhat more dangerous. With the help of the Chinese commander in Hanoi, they managed to get hold of a printing shop; then with a group of hired writers, they published the newspaper Viet Nam, which was followed by others such as Lien Hiep, Thiet Thuc... using brazen slanders and insolent allegations, they tried to stir up the people and set them against the leadership. They directed their attacks at the people’s administration and at all the policies of the Viet Minh and the Government. They hung up a large loudspeaker in front of their newspaper office in Quan Thanh Street and broadcast their stuff all day long though no one would listen to them. Together with slanders and propaganda, they also committed criminal acts: murder, kidnapping and extortion of money.
Gradually the Americans came to realize that we were not pro-Western “nationalists” as they had expected. US officers in Hanoi were ordered not to attend any meetings organized by the Viet Minh. Other Americans arrived, allegedly to interrogate Japanese prisoners of war and look for the bodies of Americans killed in the war. In fact they were trying to make a study of the political situation, natural resources, strategic routes, airfields and ports.
With the agreement of the Americans and the Chiang authorities, the French mission managed to set up an unofficial office in Hanoi. They met Nguyen Hai Than several times and sought contact with the Viet Nam Nationalist Party. They also tried to meet Vinh Thuy several times, but the latter avoided them out of wariness of us.
The Chiang troops were stationed in many places all over the city. They set up check-points inside the town and on streets leading out of the city. All motor-vehicles had to carry permits issued by them. They behaved as if they were an occupation force.
One day, I went to Ha Dong on some business. Although the windscreen of my car had a large permit on it bearing the large, red seal of the Chiang authorities, Chinese soldiers stopped us at Nga Tu So. They lifted up the seats and made a thorough search of the car. They found a pistol on my bodyguard. So the car was seized and we both were taken into a private house they had commandeered. In answer to their questions I told them that we worked at the Chinese-Viet Nam Liaison Mission.
Just then someone I knew passed by. He hurriedly went to inform our comrades at the Liaison Mission. We were released only after two hours.
Almost every night we received letters from the Chiang commanders, conveying either demands or intimidation.
Bac Bo Palace was no longer safe. Uncle Ho often had to change his place of residence and his travelling plans. One night he would spend at No 8 Bo Ho Street, another at a house in Buoi, and another still at a place near Nga Tu So. All those three houses were later destroyed during the war.
One evening, as his car left the Palace, his bodyguard informed him that an unknown car was trailing it. He told the driver, “Don’t leave this quarter yet. Just go round the lake.”
The car made a tour of the lake. The other car kept following it. Uncle Ho told the driver to take a sharp turn into a back street then to return to Bac Bo Palace.
The guards were astonished when they saw him back only a few minutes after he left. That night, Uncle Ho stayed in Bac Bo Palace.
The situation was extremely confused as a result of the actions of our internal and external enemies.
Uncle Ho and the Party Bureau had seen the Chiang troops’ inner weaknesses behind their numerical strength and apparent aggressiveness. Their greatest difficulty lay in the fact that they could not win any political support in face of our people’s unity and single mindedness. They wanted to overthrow us, but knew that without help from the Viet Minh authorities, they wouldn’t be able to get the vast quantities of supplies needed by their large armies which were hated and shunned by the people. They had also to reckon with other serious dangers that might befall them.
One day, the Chiang Army Command asked Uncle Ho to see them. He came back late, silently took his place at the dining table, and put down his chopsticks and went away sooner than usual. This rarely happened with him. He said, “I was too late at dinner and had no appetite.”
He told us that that morning the Chiang men had asked him to sign an agreement to supply them with a very large quantity of rice. He had refused. He was sure they would go on harassing us on that question. He said, “How can we give them so much rice? Our own people haven’t enough to eat.”
Noticing our indignation, he repeated his directive: to be patient with the Chiang troops so as to be able to concentrate our efforts against the main enemy.
He was very firm in principle and flexible in tactics. And once the tactics had been worked out, he was also firm in applying them.