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Template:Did you know nominations/Northeastern Army

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

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Northeastern Army

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Chiang Kai-shek and Northeastern General Zhang Xueliang
Chiang Kai-shek and Northeastern General Zhang Xueliang

5x expanded by SilverStar54 (talk). Self-nominated at 02:09, 8 January 2023 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: None required.

Overall: @SilverStar54: Good article. However

  • "In early 1927, the forces of the NPA engaged the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in Henan and Jiangsu." Needs a citation
  • "and on 17 October, Yu Zhishan surrendered Eastern Liaoning to the Japanese." Needs a citation
  • Other notable commanders list should probably be cited.

If you can fix that then I'll pass. Onegreatjoke (talk) 21:02, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Hopefully this is the right spot to respond (first time in the DYK process), but thank you for the quick review. I've revised the article to add sources (or remove unsourced material) where you requested. Let me know if there's any further steps I should take. SilverStar54 (talk) 07:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Forgot to promote. Hope to see more expansions about the warlord era. Onegreatjoke (talk) 18:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
@SilverStar54: could you point as to where in the article we're going with "kidnapping", rather than detainment? Also, where could I find the bit about convincing him to join the second united front? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 09:13, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: I feel that either term could be used to describe the events, I chose "kidnapping" just because it's more eye-catching for a hook. Do you feel like that's too much of a creative liberty? About the Second United Front, thank you for pointing that out. I describe it, but I never actually included a link to the Second United Front in that section (fixed now). It's what I'm describing in these two sentences: "By the end of the negotiations, Chiang had verbally promised to end the civil war, to resist the Japanese together, and to invite Zhou to Nanjing for further talks. Although he publicly renounced his promises after being released, he quietly followed through on them over the following months." I think that more detail about the Second United Front would be tangential to the article, but I could add more about the negotiations. SilverStar54 (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
@SilverStar54: I'd say that "kidnapping" probably has connotations we couldn't back up, but I could be wrong. When you say "join the Second United Front", you don't mean as a card-carrying member? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 03:42, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: I guess I feel that "kidnapping" connotates illegally seizing a person, whereas "detaining" implies a legal or official action, such as by the police. This was done by an army, but their actions were perceived as illegal (at least by the Nanjing government). Perhaps "took hostage" works better?
I'm a bit confused by what you mean by "as a card-carrying member". The Second United Front wasn't a political party that you could be a member of, it was just an alliance between the CCP and the KMT to resist the Japanese. Chiang denied that he was bound by his verbal promise to create such an alliance after he was released, but gradually eased hostilities and eventually did sign an official alliance with the Communists after six months of continued negotiations. For political reasons the KMT framed this as a "surrender" by the CCP, but in reality it was an alliance. I'll try to rewrite that section to make it more clear. SilverStar54 (talk) 05:58, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Not sure if they want any changes or not. SilverStar54 (talk) 21:15, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
@SilverStar54: the clarifying changes for that section would be welcome :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:09, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: Just made some more edits. Please take a look at my most recent revision and let me know what parts still need more detail or clarification. SilverStar54 (talk) 19:51, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
@SilverStar54: forgive me, my head's been swimming recently – could you point me to the sentences in the article that support the hook? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:35, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: The section on the Xi'an Incident, specifically the second paragraph:
"In November 1936, Zhang asked Chiang to come to Xi'an to raise the morale of troops unwilling to fight the Communists. When he arrived, Northeastern soldiers overwhelmed his bodyguard and placed him under house arrest. A faction of the army led by Yang Hucheng and the radical young officers of the "Anti-Japanese Comrade Society" wanted to execute Chiang, but Zhang and the Communists insisted that he be kept alive and convinced to change his policy towards Japan and the Communists. They argued that an alliance with Chiang was their best chance to combat the Japanese, while killing him would only provoke retaliation from the Nanjing Government. The Northeastern Army attempted to broadcast 8 demands to the Chinese public explaining why they arrested Chiang and the conditions for his release, but Nationalist censorship prevented their publication outside the Communist-held areas. Nonetheless, Chiang eventually agreed to negotiate with CCP diplomats Zhou Enlai and Lin Boqu. By late December Chiang had given a verbal promise that he would end the civil war and resist Japanese aggression."
As explained in the following paragraph, the alliance between the Communists and Nationalists against the Japanese became known as the Second United Front. SilverStar54 (talk) 22:26, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
Hmm, okay. What about: theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:32, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
ALT0a: ... that Nationalist China's own Northeastern Army captured Chiang Kai-shek (pictured) to convince him to help them fight the Japanese?
(edited) At first this looked good to me but I didn't realize you had also edited the second part of the sentence. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but "...to help them fight the Japanese" is both misleading and missing a big part of the story. It's misleading because "help" implies that the Northeastern Army is Chiang's ally, when in fact they were part of his army (is the head of state "helping" part of his army fight a war by declaring it?). It's also missing the critical demand that Chiang fight the Japanese by working with the Communists.SilverStar54 (talk) 17:39, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
Fair enough, but where in the paragraph does it actually say that they wanted to convince Chiang to join the Second United Front? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 19:01, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
As I mentioned, the words "Second United Front" don't appear until the following paragraph:
"Chiang was released on 26 December and returned to Nanjing with Zhang Xueliang. [...] Chiang did eventually keep his promise to the CCP. After six months of continued negotiations, he signed a formal agreement creating the Second United Front, a military alliance of the Communists and Nationalists against Japan."
SilverStar54 (talk) 22:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Gotcha, so is the originally hook accurate if the Second United Front didn't exist yet? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:25, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
How about "that Nationalist China's own Northeastern Army took Chiang Kai-shek (pictured) hostage to convince him to form the Second United Front?" SilverStar54 (talk) 01:32, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@SilverStar54 and Theleekycauldron: How about this:
ALT1: ... that Nationalist China's own Northeastern Army captured Chiang Kai-shek (pictured) to convince him to end civil war against the Chinese Communist Party?
Cielquiparle (talk) 06:23, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Yeah that's fine. At this point I'm good with whatever, I don't want to keep haggling over every detail SilverStar54 (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Need new reviewer for ALT1 hook. (And yes, all the back and forth was warranted, as it appears the proposed hooks were going beyond what the sources said, understandably and in good faith, in order to simplify the story.) Cielquiparle (talk) 19:32, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
My understanding was that User:theleekycauldron's objections were based on lack of clarity in the article, not on any question about sources. I want everyone to be happy so I'm fine with using your proposed hook, but my original wording did not go beyond the sources. Regarding "join/form" the United Front, both are correct to describe what the Northeastern Army wanted out of Chiang. At the time of the incident, the Communists and Northeastern soldiers understood the term "United Front" as an existing policy of cooperation between the CCP and non-Communists who were willing to fight against Japan that could be extended to become a grand alliance between Communists and Nationalists. See Itoh on pg. 116 "the CPC launched its Eastern Expedition to drive out the Japanese, as well as operations vis-à-vis the Northeastern Army to form a united front for anti-Japanese resistance, at the beginning of 1936" and pg. 157: "The main group [of the Northeastern Army] was a moderate group, led by Zhang Xueliang and Wang Yizhe, which truly believed in forming a united front with the communists for the sake of anti-Japanese resistance." How the United Front operated before it was joined by the Nanjing government is described in detail in Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China, especially pg. 328-332.
As far as whether "kidnapped" is appropriate to describe the capture of Chiang, it's a matter of taste. But Itoh does use it to describe the event in his conclusion on page 217. SilverStar54 (talk) 07:11, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@SilverStar54: Keep in mind that the reason for the bulletproofing is that we need to be confident that the hook will not get pulled on the day it is published on the main page. When 20,000+ people – with varying degrees of familiarity with the topic – read the article and one or two of them complain at WP:ERRORS about the accuracy of the hook, or possibly dispute that the fact cited in the hook matches what the article explicitly states (and/or what the sources say), it can result in the hook getting pulled and replaced without completing its allocated run (regardless of whether or not it's 100% justified, if the admins aren't sufficiently confident they can back up the claim made in the hook). So I understand it feels very picky and pedantic and like spoonfeeding, but with DYK it's safest to make sure that the hook corresponds to a similarly worded sentence or two in the article text, and to make sure that those sentences cite sources which can be easily verified, and aren't likely to be easily disputed even if they are challenged. No one is questioning your good faith effort, which we appreciate. Cielquiparle (talk) 10:48, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@Cielquiparle: Thank you for taking the time to explain that, it makes sense. SilverStar54 (talk) 16:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: None required.

Overall: Approve ALT1. BorgQueen (talk) 09:10, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

A bit of a burden hunting down the details of the hook to confirm. Bruxton (talk) 20:05, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
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