COPY.
CONFIDENTIAL.
35
Enclosure No. 5.
Honourable Secretary for Chinese Affairs.
On the 23rd April General Leung Wing-son
called at my house to say good-bye' on leaving
the Colony for North China for a short holiday.
General Leung informed me that General
General
Tang Seng-chi had sent him no fewer than four
telegrams asking him to join his staff.
Leung sent a negative reply to the first three
telegrams,
but he felt that he could not return the
same answer to the fourth message without giving
offence to Tang, and so he agreed to pay him a
friendly and unofficial visit, with out, however,
committing himself to any promise of political or
military service.
In the course of conversation General
Leung gave me the following information.
General Tang Seng-chi left Hong Kong on or
about the 4th March at the urgent request of
Marshal Chiang Kai-shek. At the time of his
departure from Hong Kong, General Tang had not
made up his mind as to what to do in North China;
but there is no doubt that his subsequent action
in working for the defection of Pei Chung-hsi's
principal lieutenants in Peiping was dictated by
a long predetermined plan of regaining his (Tang's)
former power. General Leung is not at all sure
that Tang Seng-chi will "for ever" be on the side
of Chiang Kai-shek, as their political ideas differ
mat erially.
Tang Seng-chi is a friend of Great
Britain.
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