Last year, it was the 80th Victory Anniversary of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. This year, it is the 80th Anniversary of the Victorious Return of the Central Government to Capital Nanking. The Central Government returned to Nanking after winning the war, moving back from the provisional capital Chungking. On 5 May 1946, there was a huge celebration at the Mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen in Nanking, hosted by President Chiang Kai-shek, attended by all the senior civil and military officials. On one hand it was to pay respect to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Father of the Nation, on the other hand, to announce to Chinese everywhere that the Republic of China had risen from the ashes of war.

At the time, the Kwangtung Provincial Government Representative Li Chia-mien (李加勉) asked many eminent men in Nanking to inscribe their thoughts on paper, enough to fill an album. Shortly before the fall of mainland China to the communists, he took it with him to Taiwan, and it has been under the custodian of the descendants for many years. We now have the good fortune to peruse this album, though at a loss to the encroaching melancholy.

Curatorial and Editorial Department