Free The Cold War by Robert Cowley Page B

the Manchurian cities: Trapped, the Nationalists had no choice but to surrender. The Communists then pushed southward, taking advantage of Nationalist demoralization and inept generalship. Still, the Nationalists began 1948 with a three-to-one superiority; by the end of the year, the Communist forces outnumbered them. Many of their troops were former Nationalists; even generals went over to their side. They captured vast stockpiles of American arms, left behind by the fleeing Nationalists. Now they had material superiority, too. But Mao was convinced that the Americans were preparing to mount an invasion, leading him to announce a “lean to one side” doctrine. That side was, of course, the U.S.S.R. The Iron Curtain now extended to Asia.
    In the spring of 1949, as the blockade of Berlin was fizzling to an end, Chiang's Nationalist armies were close to collapse. If the Soviets in the West had suffered a reverse that checked their expansionist hopes in Europe, in the East the armies of Mao's People's Republic were on theverge of achieving Communism's most resounding (and most enduring) victory. They occupied the greater part of China north of the Yangtze, and on April 20 would begin to cross the divided nation's greatest river. That was the same day that the British frigate
Amethyst
came under fire from Communist guns as it made its way up the Yangtze. Its mission was to bring supplies to the British embassy in Nanking, the Nationalist capital that Chiang's government was already abandoning. The Communists would occupy it, unopposed, on April 24, by which time a badly damaged
Amethyst
had crawled to the relative safety of a protective island. The frigate would spend the next 101 days there, trapped and a virtual captive of the Communists. During that interval, which lasted into midsummer, Chiang would flee to Taiwan and the Reds would take China's largest city, Shanghai.
    What followed all depends on your point of view. For the West, and Great Britain especially, the
Amethyst
's dash for freedom was the stuff of legend—and, inevitably, a movie. Was it indeed one of the rare epics of the burgeoning Cold War? But as Simon Winchester learned when he visited the site, the Chinese regard the escape of “The Imperial Make-Trouble Vessel” as a tale of bloodied bullies slinking away, a humiliation for the British Empire in particular and white prestige in general. For over a century, the Royal Navy had roamed the major rivers of China unchallenged. Suddenly, it seemed a little less invincible. The psychological impact of the
Amethyst
incident (as Chassin writes) “did more for a Communist victory than any strategic maneuver could possibly have done.”
    SIMON WINCHESTER has published eighteen books, including
Their Noble Lordships, Prison Diary: Argentina, The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, Krakatoa,
and
The Meaning of Everything
. His next book is
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
. This article is adapted from Winchester's account of a journey up the Yangtze,
The River at the Heart of the World
. When not traveling, he can be found in New York City, on a farm in the Berkshires, or on the Scottish island of Luing.
    Z HENJIANG, A MODERATELY SIZED and moderately ugly city that lies on the still-tidal waters of the Yangtze, a hundred miles inland from the river's mouth, has long been famous in China for the making of vinegar. Westerners with a taste for literature may also know it as the childhood home of a formidable lady named Pearl Sydenstricker, who, after her marriage, became Pearl S. Buck, Nobel laureate. But I had long known of the place for a quite different reason. There was supposed to be a relic in Zhenjiang—from 1949, back when it was known as Chinkiang—that would stir the heart of any English schoolboy of my generation: the anchor of the famous and heroic Royal Navy vessel H.M.S.
Amethyst.
I had come to Zhenjiang because I wanted to see