INNER MONGOLIA: Prince Humpty-Dumpty

As the Japanese withdrew in China, puppets tumbled right & left. One of them was Henry Pu Yi, ex-Emperor of the ex-state of Manchukuo; he was a Russian prisoner. Another was Inner Mongolia’s roly-poly Prince Teh (full name Teh-mu-chu-keh-lung-lu-pu), whose arid realm is the shortest international high way between Soviet Siberia and Peking.

Bloody Baron. Inner Mongolia is the lean twin (some 300,000 sq. mi.) of Outer Mongolia (some 900,000 sq. mi.). In pre-World War I days Outer Mongolia, with its less-than-one-million lama-ruled herds men, was nominally a part of China, actually a Tsarist protectorate.

During the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks had no time for the Mongolian steppe lands. But in 1921 a Tsarist refugee, the fantastic “Bloody Baron” Michael von Ungern-Sternberg, made Outer Mongolia’s metropolis, Urga (pop: 50,000), a base for operations against Russia. So the Bolsheviks liquidated him and moved into Urga, which they renamed Ulan Bator Khoto (Mongol for “City of the Red Hero”).

The Russians broke the hold of the lamas over the primitive Mongol sheep and camel herders. Then, in 1924, in response to one of those spontaneous popular demands that commonly follows a Red Army occupation, the People’s Republic of Outer Mongolia was set up. It was nominally independent, virtually a 17th Soviet Republic.

Russian power stopped at the Khalka River, which divides Outer from Inner Mongolia. Led by young Prince Teh, the Inner Mongolians remained unregenerately separate, tribal, lama-ridden and unso-vietized. In return for 50,000 silver dollars monthly, they owned a tenuous allegiance to the Chinese Republic. But in Outer Mongolian eyes, Inner Mongolia was an area for future redemption.

Meng Chiang. The Japanese also dreamed of redeeming the strategic area for their Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In 1936, five years after the Japanese had overrun Manchuria, Prince Teh transferred his allegiance to Dai Nippon. Inner Mongolia became the federal state of Meng Chiang (Mongol Border Land), and Prince Teh found himself an exalted puppet.

The Russians had brought progress to Outer Mongolia in the form of airplanes, machine guns and socialism. Into Inner Mongolia, the ancient land of temple gongs, ten-foot-long ceremonial horns, and monks chanting prayers by lonely lamaseries, the Japanese introduced neon signs, phonographs and beer halls. In the bleak steppe winters they shivered and dreamed of cherry blossoms. They also feverishly built empire.

Across the Khalka River armed Russia and armed Japan glared in hatred, waiting for the day when one would push the other from the steppes of central Asia and win the key region for dominating northern China. Meanwhile the Japanese installed Prince Teh in an old, tile-roofed, Mongol palace at Inner Mongolia’s metropolis, Koko Hoto (pop. 120,000)—the “Blue City,” so called because from a distance a bluish haze veils it.

Primitive Pleasures. There, clad in a long blue gown with scarlet cuffs, his hip-long queue carefully braided, the suave ruler, who looks like an Asiatic humpty-dumpty, held court. His ornate audience-chamber was furnished with occidental armchairs, Chinese tables and innumerable glass cases crammed with exquisitely gowned Japanese dolls.

Prince Teh really preferred the primitive pleasures of his country home at West Sunit, deep in the steppe. There he forgot the cares of state, frolicked with his two children, took airplane rides, wrestled (the chief Mongolian recreation) with old cronies, played the guitar and sang old songs of the glorious days when his forebears ruled Europe as far as the Oder and Danube Rivers and Asia from Bagdad to Burma.

Now the call was for another tune. Whether it turned out to be the Internationale or a song of Chinese composition, Prince Humpty-Dumpty was hardly the man to render it. Too much singing for the Japanese had cracked his voice.