Cries That Shake the Earth

Abstract

This article examines a rare instance in China’s warlord period when military officers were actually held accountable for military atrocities. These atrocities occurred in 1920, when retreating Northern troops pillaged and murdered their way through three Hunan counties before being forced to surrender to a Hunan army. A popular outcry immediately arose in Hunan to punish the officers for the crimes of their troops. Responding to this pressure, a Hunan military court ultimately sentenced two commanders and several other officers to death. Nonetheless, it was only the specter of possible political disorder, as protests escalated from angry press reports and petitions into actual street demonstrations by atrocity victims, that convinced Hunan’s new and relatively unstable provincial government to accede to these popular demands. The case therefore illuminates both the potential political power and limits of public opinion and popular protests in Republican China.