The Peking Express by James M. Zimmerman

Last year one of my goals was to read more books about China. In addition to the usual books about the country’s politics and foreign relations I wanted to read a wide range of nonfiction encompassing history, biography and memoir. I especially wanted to incorporate backlisted materials from the public library like I did back in 2018 when I featured three books: Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization by Liel Leibowitz and Matthew Miller, Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s Other Billion by Michael Levy and Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos. But sadly last year I fell way short of my plan and featured just one such book, Rob Schmitz’s Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road.

Hoping to this year make do on my promise and read a diverse array of books about China I took a chance on James Zimmerman’s 2023 The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China. Recommended by one of my local librarians I borrowed a copy through Overdrive. I’m happy to say my librarian didn’t steer me wrong.

In 1923 China was a mess. Except for a small urban elite and handful of feudal lords the largely peasant nation was poor, hungry and technologically backwards. Government authority, corrupt and impotent as it was amounted for little outside the nation’s capital. Instead China was ruled by a cast of competing warlords, each one a law unto themselves. A decade after overthrowing China’s ruling Manchu dynasty the Chinese people were desperate for a new ruling order, one that would bring lasting stability, good governance and prosperity.

One of those desperate Chinese was 25-year-old Sun Mei- yao. A former soldier, he and former brothers in arms had grown weary from a life of rural poverty after being unceremoniously demobbed and left unpaid by China’s impotent central government. His bold plan was to derail the nation’s premier Shanghai to Peking rail service, take its passengers hostage and force the authorities to reinstate him and his men in the army, complete with owed back pay. By doing so Sun and his conspirators also hoped to expose China’s teetering government to the entire world, and in doing so usher in a more competent and beneficial regime.

In addition to several hundred Chinese nationals the Peking Express was also transporting roughly 25 Westerners. A colorful lot, some of these non-Chinese passengers could pass as characters from Murder on the Orient Express. Among the memorable was an Italian lawyer with close ties to both the opium trade and Mussolini, John D. Rockefeller Jr’s sister-in-law, several members of Shanghai’s Jewish community, an influential American publisher and a pair of Mexican newlyweds on honeymoon.

Sun as his men were able execute their audacious plan, or at least the first part. But as the German general once said, no good plan survives contact with the enemy. After derailing the train and successfully escaping with the hostages to a remote locate (and killing only one of the Westerners) things became difficult. As an increasing number of factions and interested parties fought over how the crises should be resolved things grew tense and complicated. As you might guess situations like these produce considerably more losers than winners. Far from being a piece of forgotten history this incident would change China forever. And makes for great reading.