A train full of wealthy passengers, both foreign and Chinese, is wending its way across the country to Peking. But after being taken hostage by bandits, their plight goes from bad to worse as geopolitics rear their head too.

In the summer of 1923, Chinese bandits robbed a luxurious train and took over 300 of its passengers hostage, including many foreign citizens. As the situation became worse and the consequences mounted, it became an international crisis that eventually struck a blow against the stability of the Chinese government. However, having become overshadowed by other events during this turbulent time in Chinese history, there isn't a lot of English language material out there about it.

The author does a good job of balancing the political and personal sides of the story, allowing us to see how the hostage drama comprises only the innermost circle of the crisis. There's a lot of context needed to understand how the situation ended up so convoluted, and we get that in spades. I came away feeling like I'd learned a lot about early twentieth-century China in the microcosm of this book.

However, I did feel like the writing got dry or repetitive on occasion, which made the hostages' predicament feel less impactful sometimes. I also really wished that we learned more about the predicament of the Chinese hostages or the mountaintop children - while their stories are referenced, it's mostly in relation to the foreign hostages. Maybe their stories were skated over because there were less resources available about them or because it would have been beyond the scope of the story the author was trying to tell, but either way I definitely felt the omission.

This was a very good history book about a train robbery I've never heard of
The author did a very fine of transporting me
back to China circa 1923

The 1920s were a tumultuous time for China, with the changes in power and a government that was still finding its footing even while it became more decentralized. During this time period, Sun Mei-yao was frustrated with his treatment as a former soldier and sought to make a political statement by planning to stop the Peking Express, rob the passengers of their valuables and hold the wealthy ones hostage. The plan was to use the passengers, particularly the first class foreign ones, as bargaining chips with Chinese government to reinstate the bandits as soldiers of the Chinese Army. Thus began the negotiations to free the foreign nationals from the bandits' stronghold. Ultimately the hostages were freed but even though the bandits signed an agreement reinstating their status, they were quickly sentenced to death by the Chinese military despite the wishes of the hostages who had come to empathize with their plight. Overall, a well written account of the events told in an engaging manner.

In May 1924, a politically motivated bandit army conducted a heist of the Peking Express, capturing the passengers in what would become a months long odyssey into the hinterlands of China. It is a narrative of governmental disfunction, colonialism, cruelty, imprisonment, comradeship, ideals and a surprising sing-a-long.

James Zimmerman's The Peking Express: the Bandits Who Stole A Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China examines this event , eventually known as the Lincheng Incident (or Outrage), chronologically. Drawing from the official records, newspaper coverage, photos, artifacts, landscape and first hand accounts. At this time, China was a troubled, destabilized nation. Following the world powers (Great Britain, Germany, France, USA and Japan) colonial expansion into China with political force and military might, the Chinese government had been drastically weakened with warlords taking control in regional spaces.

It is in this latter rise of warlords, that gave rise to the banditry. Sun Mei-yao, the leader, had been a soldier who was seeking back payment and reinstatement for both him and his men. He also had lofty aspirations to overthrow the government. His plan was to ambush the Peking Express and take as many hostages as possible and to use them as bargaining chips to attain his goals.

These goals are contrasted with the privileged position of the westerners aboard the train, protected by treaty enshrined extraterritoriality. The hostages would include US army officers, a car dealership owner, a distinguished publisher, an Italian lawyer, and John D. Rockefeller’s sister-in-law. Alongside these high profile international hostages, the bandits also captured Chinese citizens, some of them with status or wealth. These latter hostages were treated with more cruelty, and were far more likely to be shot, their bodies abandoned.

Zimmerman distilled archival sources, masterfully differentiates the subjects by using the voices of the hostages and officials. This allows us to get some idea of the bandits, too, through the explanation of nick-names or day to day life as hostages. However, this also means dealing with the racist or condescending perspectives of the westerners for the Chinese. It is a wide cast of figures, and the book does include a listing of the different people of the book, alongside their roles and nation.

While the incident is almost a century in the past, many of the causes are still afflicted our contemporary world. There is still a large disparity between the wealthy and the destitute. Treatment of peoples according to their nationality or whiteness cause social inequities. Corruption seems endemic of many of the governments of the world.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher PublicAffairs for an advanced copy of this history book featuring bandits, trains, wealthy Europeans and Chinese politics.

As an American the idea of stopping and robbing a train is not new. Plenty of westerns, from the lowest oater to the biggest of Hollywood spectacles have desperados stopping trains with logs, explosives, removing a bridge, or even tying a heroine to the rail. Trains usually have something, and being an outlaw is expensive. The same can be said of being a warlord in China when the government was at its weakest and lots of men had rifles and really nothing better to do with them, then brigandry. Especially if this warlord had a lot of men, an a lot of hopes for raising himself and his men to much loftier heights. Well that luxury train passing through his territory, loaded with rich Europeans and many sparkling things would be quite a tempting target. James M. Zimmerman in his book The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China discusses this real robbery, what happened and how both China and other suffered from these events.

The book begins with a journalist catching a train. The Peking Express was the most luxurious of trains, capable of bringing passengers from the city of Shanghai, to the capital of China in style and comfort over some of the beautiful scenery imaginable. And the most dangerous. For every elegant dining car, with temperature controlled rooms with rest rooms, the train also had mounted machine gun nests, security troops and bulletproof rail cars to protect the train from bandits. The outer areas were in the hands of various warlords who fought and stole anything they could, as desperate men who are armed are very dangerous men. The journalist starting his trip was John Benjamin Powell, a publisher and reporter who had made his career covering events in China, on his first trip on the Peking Express. Joining him were a diverse cast of Europeans and Americans from business leaders, to gamblers, military men, and opium dealers. These travellers paths soon cross with Sun Mei-yao a very charismatic warlord, with a large group of men and a dream. Stop the Peking Express, steal everything of value including food, and use the wealthy as hostages to get the Chinese Government to recognize Sun Mei-yao and his men as members of the Chinese army. And these two sides collided, with violent consequences.

A very well told story about a time and era that I knew more from adventure novels or even reading old copies of Terry and the Pirates. Zimmerman did a lot of research and it shows, the way the train is described, conversations taken from diaries, the way the bandits attacked. The book reads like a pulp novel in spots, but never loses the fact that this is all history and that real people were living through these moments, not characters in a book. The action on the train is very well done, as is the negotiations and explanations of what was being done to make sure this situation could be solved without either side losing face, which was very important to all. A very well written history.

Recommended for readers of Chinese history and for those who remember reading stories about pirates and warlords in China, just to find out what the real story was. A perfect gift for Father's Day for those who enjoy different looks at history.

I found this to be an very interesting book, and the subject one I hadn't heard of before, it being a luxury train express running from Shanghai to Peking in the early 1920's, which was hijacked by Chinese bandits trying to force the government to pay its soldiers instead of forcing them to turn to banditry to feed themselves and their families. This period of time was one of great upheaval in China, as well as around the world. The haves and have nots were polar opposites, with the haves in a distinct minority but ostentatious in showing their wealth, as opposed to the horrible conditions the rest of the country's populace lived in. How events transpired over a month of negotiations for the release of the hostages, and how the Chinese basically were working for the release of really only the foreign prisoners, as opposed to the many more Chinese ones, was eye opening.

This was an interesting topic for a book set in this time period, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC to read and review.

Reading The Peking Express is like watching a great action movie or thriller: tense, action packed and always have a message behind both the captives and the people holding them hostage.

James M. Zimmerman brings the story of the 1923 train robbery/hostage situation to life and allows readers to be there with both the hostages in their struggle and the revolutionary group that kept them under lock to push their political message.

I was never bored reading this book and Zimmerman allows readers a view of the events that blends your beliefs on who is right and who is wrong.

I greatly enjoyed The Peking Express and hope to use it in my classroom in the future!

I came for the train attack, but I stayed for the early 1900s geopolitics.

James Zimmerman's The Peking Express tells the story of a train robbery and kidnapping in 1923 China. When I started the book, I expected a non-fiction thriller where each page contained heart pounding near misses and intrigue. I was only half right as there is plenty of intrigue but not a lot of thriller. And that is a good thing.

The book spends very little time on the actual train abductions and quickly transitions into a chess match between Chinese rebels and representatives of a very wobbly government. Another author might try to wring as much they can out of the train portions, but Zimmerman keeps the story moving and expertly explains the political environment of China during this time period without ever getting bogged down. We meet a lot of people, but we learn just enough about everyone to make them memorable before moving on to the next plot point.

This book could have gone wrong in many ways. However, Zimmerman keeps it interesting, fast, and informative without losing the reader's interest.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and PublicAffairs. The full review will be posted to HistoryNerdsUnited.com on 4/6/2023.)

Coming across as an early 1900s adventure novel, and yet one that is completely true, this book is filled with all of the elements that keep someone reading (mystery, suspense, action), while also highlighting one of the great hostage situations of the 20th century. Straddling the line between a history book, and an adventure novel, this is an ideal book for those who might not read history as their primary genre, or for historians who want a break from the dry tomes that are usually written.

The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned The West, and Broke The Republic of China by James M. Zimmerman
Mr. Zimmerman who is an attorney with 25 years of experience in China tells in wonderful detail the story of bandits capturing a train and holding hostage many foreigners some for up to 37 days before negotiations result in their release. The captives read like characters from an Agatha Christie novel but this is a true story. I have read parts of this story in the books by J.B. Powell a journalist and newspaper owner in Shanghai who was one of the captives as well as books by Carl Crow who was a Shanghai business man who organized providing supplies to the hostages. But this thoroughly research book tells the complete story using diaries and notes from some of the hostages now almost 100 years later. What I also like about the story was you could end up with sympathy for Sun Mei-yao the bandit leader who was not looking for money but instead dignity. He was asking that he and his bandits be paid, clothed and armed and made members of the Chinese Army which they had once been. The negotiations would not have ended successfully without the negotiations of Roy Anderson and American born in China who understood the necessity of finding a way for the bandits as well as the equally corrupt local army general to save face. This is Mr. Zimmerman’s first non-legal book and he has written an excellent story with detail and flow. I highly recommend this book for those interested in China during it’s early years after emperor rule when chaos reigns.