CHfANG KAI-SHEK'S SLAYING SPREADS PANIC IN CHINA.
SHANGHAI, Dec. 16 (Wednesday).—Execution of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, announced in a radio broadcast by his captor, the mutinous war lord Marshal Chang, spread panicky unrest throughout China today. The reported killing of China's strong man and several of his generals brought fear of renewed civil war and chaos in the absence of forceful leadership. For a decade Chiang had been the big man and main reliance of his country in its struggle for peace within, and protection against Japan from without. The executions were announced in a radio broadcast by Marshal Chang Hsueh-Liang. Chiang, active head of the Nanking government, was killed, the broadcast said, at Sianfu, Shensi
province, where Marshal Chang seized him Saturday and held him to enforce a demand that China make war on Japan. Chang Poses as Savior. Chinese who heard the broadcast Said Marshal Chang assumed the attitude of a man who believed himself the savior of his country.
When he captured the Nanking generalissimo and his chief lieutenants at Sianfu, he broadcast demands for immediate hostilities against Japan, recovery of Manchukuo for China, and recognition of communism. (Because Marshal Chang's broadcast remained the only authority
for news of the Sianfu assassinations, some doubt remained of its veracity, in view of the possibility that the "young marshal" might have made his shocking statement to intensify China's panic and chaos for his own purposes. Throughout China and Japan, however, his story was generally credited. (Marshal Chang's announcement was in apparent conflict with a message received by the Nanking authorities earlier from W. H. Donald, its Australian-born adviser, to the effect that he had seen the generalissimo at Sianfu, alive and in good spirits. However, Donald did not say when he had been permittee: to see General Chiang. The Australian had flown to the Shensi capital to negotiate for the generalissimo's release and apparently had returned to Loyang, Honan province.) Broadcasting rrom Sianfu, scene of his amazing coup of last week, Marshal Chang, one-time war lord of Manchuria, said several of General Chiang's chief lieutenants, including men high in the councils
of the Nanking regime, also had met death. These included General Chen Cheng, vice minister of war and chief of staff; General Chiang Fang-Chen and others not named. Most of China was sleeping when the "young marshal's" announcement came over the air, but it intensified the panic already general as a result of days of alarming and conflicting rumors about the fate of the nation's chief figure. The message recalled an earlier episode in Marshal Chang's fantastic career. Chang "executed" two of his followers at Mukden seven years ago. One of those was General Yang Yu-Ting, one-time chief of staff of the Manchurian armies and chief prop of young Chang's Mukden government. General Yang and a companion were shot to death in the famous tiger room of the governor's palace at Mukden. Chang asserted General Yang was plotting to seize leadership of the Manchurian regime. General Chiang, sometimes called the "George Washington of China," generally has been admired. The man who proclaimed his death, on the other hand, has lost much in public esteem since he lost Manchuria to the Japanese. MARTIAL LAW DECLARED. NANKING, Dec. 16 (Wednesday) (/P)—Confronted by a grave national crisis growing out of the announcement of the death of General Chiang Kai-Shek, the government of China proclaimed martial law throughout the republic today.