The Peking Express

The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China

By: James M. Zimmerman

Narrated by: David Shih

The thrilling true story of train-robbing revolutionaries and passengers who got more than they paid for in this Murder on the Orient Express-style adventure, set in China’s republican era.

In 1923 Shanghai, native and foreign travelers alike are enthralled by the establishment of a new railway line to distant Peking. With this new line comes the Peking Express, a luxurious express train on the cutting edge of China’s continental transportation.

Among those drawn to the train are oil heiress Lucy Aldrich, journalist John Benjamin Powell, and vacationing Army Majors Roland Pinger and Robert Allen, wives and children in tow. These errant Americans and their eclectic fellow passengers all eagerly anticipate an idyllic overnight journey in first class.

But the train’s passengers are not the only ones enchanted by the Peking Express. The bandit revolutionary Sun Mei-yao sees in it the promise of a reckoning long overdue. From his vantage in Shantung Province, a conflict-ravaged region through which the train must pass, he identifies the Peking Express as a means of commanding the global stage. By disrupting the train and taking its wealthy passengers hostage, he can draw international attention to the plight of Shantung and, he hopes, thereby secure a solution.

In the first hours of May 6, 1923, Sun and his bandit troops enact their daring plan. Wrested from the pleasures of their luxury cabins, dozens of travelers including Aldrich, Powell, Pinger, and Allen are plunged into the unfamiliar Shantung terrain. Pursued by warlords and led by their captors, they must make their way to the bandits’ mountain stronghold and there await their fate.

The Peking Express is the incredible, long-forgotten story of a hostage crisis that shocked China and the West. It vividly captures the events that made international headlines and later inspired Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 Hollywood masterpiece Shanghai Express.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 James M. Zimmerman (P)2023 PublicAffairs

Critic reviews

“The Peking Express is a fascinating story, and the author has done an amazing amount of research. It’s really an intriguing, impressive work.”—Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Souls of China

“The Peking Express is a vivid, exhilarating account of China’s greatest train robbery of the early twentieth century. A true story about bandits, kidnapping, forced marches across the countryside, a pursuing Chinese army, diplomatic intrigue, and a cast of rather unique characters in 1923 China—what’s not to love???”—Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking and City of Devils

“The Peking Express is a dramatic story of survival, heroism, and political intrigue. It takes the reader from the bustling cosmopolitan city of Shanghai to the impoverished, rural landscape of the mysterious and breathtakingly beautiful mountains of southern Shandong. Zimmerman delivers a gripping account that captivates the reader from beginning to end—an ending that is both climatic and riveting in its description of the horrors and excesses of China’s Warlord Era. This is a book that readers will never forget!”—Lingling Wei, award-winning journalist; chief China correspondent, the Wall Street Journal; and coauthor of Superpower Showdown

Might be better to read physically than listen to

It’s a great story which I never heard before. What I found most interesting was the psychology of the interactions. Captives and bandits bonded. In one remarkable scene - spoiler alert - the captives have just been freed but want to pause to drink with and say goodbye to bandits and have they’re pictures taken.

The narrator does a great job.

One of the captives is named Zimmerman. I wondered if he was a relation to the author.

The downside - why I don’t give it five stars - is that it’s very confusing because there are so many characters. And to my English ear the multitude of names was complicated by the plethora of Chinese names. I found it difficult to track all the different characters.

Good Story, Lacks Tension

A very good historical account of an incident that rocked the world 100 years ago, May of 1923. However, while it is a good story and moves along with ease there just isn't any tension driving it considering the trials and tribulations the characters went through. We do like the many characters, they are well in troduced, but do we really care that much fore them? Not really, like actors in a Hollywood movie. The "bandits" like any debt of evil, meanness or contempt in treatment except on occasion when they do show an evil side. But, we never grow to fear them or fear their treatment of their captives. Very interesting introduction into the political winds that were blowing both internally in China and in the world's opinions of China. Also the aggressive nature of Japan is shown as a fore telling of the future.
I would recommend it as a good listen, Mr. Shih does a great job with the dialects and getting the story across. I just wish he had more to work with.

A True Story That Fascinates

A True Story That Fascinates

A fascinating compilation of a patchwork quilt account of individual acts of bandits who terrorized the international passengers of a first class train.

David Shih's narration of this audiobook is outstanding.

Reads like a work of fiction!

Hard to grasp everything that happened. Incredible research and reconstruction of events by the author, and well put together.