The personal factors and political events in this extraordinary drama are not yet known in their entirety, and it may be decades before the whole story is pieced together from the accounts of eyewitnesses and interpreters. Chiang K'ai-shek in his published diary mentions no formal agreement for the institution of a United Front policy, but the rumors from the Left persist in affirming the existence of a truce between the Nationalists and the Communists, the fruits of which were to be action against Japan. Certainly the military and political effects of Chiang's kidnaping were substantial,[7] and the ideological scarcely less. In brief, the kidnaping arose from action on the part of Chinese National Army troops under the command of Chang Hsüeh-liang, the ex-_tuchün_ of Manchuria. His forces were mostly from the Manchurian provinces and had no stomach for fighting the Communists in the far west of China while the Japanese remained in undisturbed occupation of their homelands. They had inaugurated an informal understanding with the Communists, and fraternization had begun between the opposing armies. When Chiang came up to investigate conditions, he was promptly kidnaped (December, 1936). His bodyguard was slaughtered and he himself was injured in the spine. The kidnaping was nominally the act of the _Tungpei_ (ex-Manchurian) troops. Even the Communist forces worked for the release of Chiang, since they felt that his death would mean national disaster. The release of Chiang was finally procured through the mediation of an Australian editor with a long experience in Chinese politics.[8] The effect on popular thinking was twofold. In the first place, Chiang's popularity was made fully apparent by the vigor of the demonstrations in his favor all over China. It had long been asserted that even the most momentary relaxation of Chiang's despotism, as its opponents termed it, would be followed either by anarchy or a new revolutionary regime. Neither appeared. The strength of the National Government as a government was apparent, despite a strong odor of treason in widely separated quarters, and the people as a whole kept quiet. Students, workers, capitalists, officials, military men--all groups sought Chiang's release. Their anxiety for his personal safety was in some cases qualified by a hearty dislike of the man himself, but almost everyone admitted to an admiration, either grudging or whole-hearted, for the effectiveness of his work. The National Government and its chief military leader were indeed strongly entrenched in popular sympathy and thought--more so than even the most optimistic observers had dared to hope.