MY INTERVIEWS WITH TSANG KWOH FAN
In 1863, I was apparently prospering in my business, when, to my great
surprise, an unexpected letter from the city of Ngan Khing, capital of
An Whui province, was received. The writer was an old friend whose
acquaintance I had made in Shanghai in 1857. He was a native of Ningpo,
and was in charge of the first Chinese gunboat owned by the local
Shanghai guild. He had apparently risen in official rank and had become
one of Tsang Kwoh Fan’s secretaries. His name was Chang Shi Kwei. In
this letter, Chang said he was authorized by Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan to
invite me to come down to Ngan Khing to call, as he (the Viceroy) had
heard of me and wished very much to see me. On the receipt of the letter
I was in a quandary and asked myself many questions: What could such a
distinguished man want of me? Had he got wind of my late visit to
Nanking and of my late enterprise to the district of Taiping for the
green tea that was held there by the rebels? Tsang Kwoh Fan himself had
been in the department of Hwui Chow fighting the rebels a year before
and had been defeated, and he was reported to have been killed in
battle. Could he have been told that I had been near the scene of his
battle and had been in communication with the rebels, and did he want,
under a polite invitation, to trap me and have my head off? But Chang,
his secretary, was an old friend of many years’ standing. I knew his
character well; he wouldn’t be likely to play the cat’s paw to have me
captured. Thus deliberating from one surmise to another, I concluded not
to accept the invitation until I had learned more of the great man’s
purpose in sending for me.
In reply to the letter, I wrote and said I thanked His Excellency for
his great condescension and considered it a great privilege and honor to
be thus invited, but on account of the tea season having set in (which
was in February), I was obliged to attend to the orders for packing tea
that were fast coming in; but that as soon as they were off my hands, I
would manage to go and pay my respects to His Excellency.
Two months after receiving the first letter, a second one came urging me
to come to Ngan Khing as early as possible. This second letter enclosed
a letter written by Li Sien Lan, the distinguished Chinese
mathematician, whose acquaintance I had also made while in Shanghai. He
was the man who assisted a Mr. Wiley, a missionary of the London Board
of Missions, in the translation of several mathematical works into
Chinese, among which was the Integral and Differential Calculus over
which I well remember to have “flunked and fizzled” in my sophomore year
in college; and, in this connection, I might as well frankly own that in
my make-up mathematics was left out. Mr. Li Sien Lan was also an
astronomer. In his letter, he said he had told Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan
who I was and that I had had a foreign education; how I had raised a
handsome subscription to help the famine refugees in 1857; that I had a
strong desire to help China to become prosperous, powerful and strong.
He said the viceroy had some important business for me to do, and that
Chu and Wa, who were interested in machinery of all kinds, were also in
Ngan Khing, having been invited there by the Viceroy. Mr. Li’s letter
completely dispelled all doubts and misgivings on my part as to the
viceroy’s design in wishing to see me, and gave me an insight as to his
purpose for sending for me.
As an answer to these letters, I wrote saying that in a couple of months
I should be more at liberty to take the journey. But my second reply did
not seem to satisfy the strong desire on the part of Tsang Kwoh Fan to
see me. So in July, 1863, I received a third letter from Chang and a
second one from Li. In these letters the object of the viceroy was
clearly and frankly stated. He wanted me to give up my mercantile
business altogether and identify myself under him in the service of the
state government, and asked whether or not I could come down to Ngan
Khing at once. In view of this unexpected offer, which demanded prompt
and explicit decision, I was not slow to see what possibility there was
of carrying out my educational scheme, having such a powerful man as
Tsang Kwoh Fan to back it. I immediately replied that upon learning the
wishes of His Excellency, I had taken the whole situation into
consideration, and had concluded to go to his headquarters at Ngan
Khing, just as soon as I had wound up my business, which would take me a
complete month, and that I would start by August at the latest. Thus
ended the correspondence which was really the initiatory step of my
official career.
Tsang Kwoh Fan was a most remarkable character in Chinese history. He
was regarded by his contemporaries as a great scholar and a learned man.
Soon after the Taiping Rebellion broke out and began to assume vast
proportions, carrying before it province after province, Tsang began to
drill an army of his own compatriots of Hunan who had always had the
reputation of being brave and hardy fighters. In his work of raising a
disciplined army, he secured the co-operation of other Hunan men, who
afterwards took a prominent part in building up a flotilla of river
gun-boats. This played a great and efficient part as an auxiliary force
on the Yangtze River, and contributed in no small measure to check the
rapid and ready concentration of the rebel forces, which had spread over
a vast area on both banks of the great Yangtze River. In the space of a
few years the lost provinces were gradually recovered, till the
rebellion was narrowed down within the single province of Kiang Su, of
which Nanking, the capital of the rebellion, was the only stronghold
left. This finally succumbed to the forces of Tsang Kwoh Fan in 1864.
To crush and end a rebellion of such dimensions as that of the Taipings
was no small task. Tsang Kwoh Fan was made the generalissimo of the
imperialists. To enable him to cope successfully with the Taipings,
Tsang was invested with almost regal power. The revenue of seven or
eight provinces was laid at his feet for disposal, also official ranks
and territorial appointments were at his command. So Tsang Kwoh Fan was
literally and practically the supreme power of China at the time. But
true to his innate greatness, he was never known to abuse the almost
unlimited power that was placed in his hands, nor did he take advantage
of the vast resources that were at his disposal to enrich himself or his
family, relatives or friends. Unlike Li Hung Chang, his protégé and
successor, who bequeathed Tls. 40,000,000 to his descendants after his
death, Tsang died comparatively poor, and kept the escutcheon of his
official career untarnished and left a name and character honored and
revered for probity, patriotism and purity. He had great talents, but he
was modest. He had a liberal mind, but he was conservative. He was a
perfect gentleman and a nobleman of the highest type. It was such a man
that I had the great fortune to come in contact with in the fall of
1863.
After winding up my business in New Keang, I took passage in a native
boat and landed at Ngan Khing in September. There, in the military
headquarters of Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan, I was met by my friends, Chang
Si Kwei, Li Sien Lan, Wha Yuh Ting and Chu Siuh Chune, all old friends
from Shanghai. They were glad to see me, and told me that the viceroy
for the past six months, after hearing them tell that as a boy I had
gone to America to get a Western education, had manifested the utmost
curiosity and interest to see me, which accounted for the three letters
which Chang and Li had written urging me to come. Now, since I had
arrived, their efforts to get me there had not been fruitless, and they
certainly claimed some credit for praising me up to the viceroy. I asked
them if they knew what His Excellency wanted me for, aside from the
curiosity of seeing a native of China made into a veritable Occidental.
They all smiled significantly and told me that I would find out after
one or two interviews. From this, I judged that they knew the object for
which I was wanted by the Viceroy, and perhaps, they were at the bottom
of the whole secret.
The next day I was to make my début, and called. My card was sent in,
and without a moment’s delay or waiting in the ante-room, I was ushered
into the presence of the great man of China. After the usual ceremonies
of greeting, I was pointed to a seat right in front of him. For a few
minutes he sat in silence, smiling all the while as though he were much
pleased to see me, but at the same time his keen eyes scanned me over
from head to foot to see if he could discover anything strange in my
outward appearance. Finally, he took a steady look into my eyes which
seemed to attract his special attention. I must confess I felt quite
uneasy all the while, though I was not abashed. Then came his first
question.
“How long were you abroad?”
“I was absent from China eight years in pursuit of a Western education.”
“Would you like to be a soldier in charge of a company?”
“I should be pleased to head one if I had been fitted for it. I have
never studied military science.”
“I should judge from your looks, you would make a fine soldier, for I
can see from your eyes that you are brave and can command.”
“I thank Your Excellency for the compliment. I may have the courage of a
soldier, but I certainly lack military training and experience, and on
that account I may not be able to meet Your Excellency’s expectations.”
When the question of being a soldier was suggested, I thought he really
meant to have me enrolled as an officer in his army against the rebels;
but in this I was mistaken, as my Shanghai friends told me afterwards.
He simply put it forward to find out whether my mind was at all
martially inclined. But when he found by my response that the bent of my
thought was something else, he dropped the military subject and asked me
my age and whether or not I was married. The last question closed my
first introductory interview, which had lasted only about half an hour.
He began to sip his tea and I did likewise, which according to Chinese
official etiquette means that the interview is ended and the guest is at
liberty to take his departure.
I returned to my room, and my Shanghai friends soon flocked around me to
know what had passed between the viceroy and myself. I told them
everything, and they were highly delighted.
Tsang Kwoh Fan, as he appeared in 1863, was over sixty years of age, in
the very prime of life. He was five feet, eight or nine inches tall,
strongly built and well-knitted together and in fine proportion. He had
a broad chest and square shoulders surmounted by a large symmetrical
head. He had a broad and high forehead; his eyes were set on a straight
line under triangular-shaped eyelids, free from that obliquity so
characteristic of the Mongolian type of countenance usually accompanied
by high cheek bones, which is another feature peculiar to the Chinese
physiognomy. His face was straight and somewhat hairy. He allowed his
side whiskers their full growth; they hung down with his full beard
which swept across a broad chest and added dignity to a commanding
appearance. His eyes though not large were keen and penetrating. They
were of a clear hazel color. His mouth was large but well compressed
with thin lips which showed a strong will and a high purpose. Such was
Tsang Kwoh Fan’s external appearance, when I first met him at Ngan
Khing.
Regarding his character, he was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable
men of his age and time. As a military general, he might be called a
self-made man; by dint of his indomitable persistence and perseverance,
he rose from his high scholarship as a Hanlin (Chinese LL.D.) to be a
generalissimo of all the imperial forces that were levied against the
Taiping rebels, and in less than a decade after he headed his Hunan raw
recruits, he succeeded in reducing the wide devastations of the
rebellion that covered a territorial area of three of the richest
provinces of China to the single one of Kiang Nan, till finally, by the
constriction of his forces, he succeeded in crushing the life out of the
rebellion by the fall and capture of Nanking. The Taiping Rebellion was
of fifteen years’ duration, from 1850 to 1865. It was no small task to
bring it to its extinction. Its rise and progress had cost the Empire
untold treasures, while 25,000,000 human lives were immolated in that
political hecatomb. The close of the great rebellion gave the people a
breathing respite. The Dowager Empress had special reasons to be
grateful to the genius of Tsang Kwoh Fan, who was instrumental in
restoring peace and order to the Manchu Dynasty. She was not slow,
however, to recognize Tsang Kwoh Fan’s merits and moral worth and
created him a duke. But Tsang’s greatness was not to be measured by any
degree of conventional nobility; it did not consist in his victories
over the rebels, much less in his re-capture of Nanking. It rose from
his great virtues: his pure, unselfish patriotism, his deep and
far-sighted statesmanship, and the purity of his official career. He is
known in history as “the man of rectitude.” This was his posthumous
title conferred on him by imperial decree.
To resume the thread of my story, I was nearly two weeks in the
viceroy’s headquarters, occupying a suite of rooms in the same building
assigned to my Shanghai friends--Li, Chang, Wha and Chu. There were
living in his military headquarters at least two hundred officials,
gathered there from all parts of the Empire, for various objects and
purposes. Besides his secretaries, who numbered no less than a hundred,
there were expectant officials, learned scholars, lawyers,
mathematicians, astronomers and machinists; in short, the picked and
noted men of China were all drawn there by the magnetic force of his
character and great name. He always had a great admiration for men of
distinguished learning and talents, and loved to associate and mingle
with them. During the two weeks of my sojourn there, I had ample
opportunity to call upon my Shanghai friends, and in that way
incidentally found out what the object of the Viceroy was in urging me
to be enrolled in the government service. It seemed that my friends had
had frequent interviews with the Viceroy in regard to having a foreign
machine shop established in China, but it had not been determined what
kind of a machine shop should be established. One evening they gave me a
dinner, at which time the subject of the machine shop was brought up and
it became the chief topic. After each man had expressed his views on the
subject excepting myself, they wanted to know what my views were,
intimating that in all likelihood in my next interview with the Viceroy
he would bring up the subject. I said that as I was not an expert in the
matter, my opinions or suggestions might not be worth much, but
nevertheless from my personal observation in the United States and from
a common-sense point of view, I would say that a machine shop in the
present state of China should be of a general and fundamental character
and not one for specific purposes. In other words, I told them they
ought to have a machine shop that would be able to create or reproduce
other machine shops of the same character as itself; each and all of
these should be able to turn out specific machinery for the manufacture
of specific things. In plain words, they would have to have general and
fundamental machinery in order to turn out specific machinery. A machine
shop consisting of lathes of different kinds and sizes, planers and
drills would be able to turn out machinery for making guns, engines,
agricultural implements, clocks, etc. In a large country like China, I
told them, they would need many primary or fundamental machine shops,
but that after they had one (and a first-class one at that) they could
make it the mother shop for reproducing others--perhaps better and more
improved. If they had a number of them, it would enable them to have the
shops co-operate with each other in case of need. It would be cheaper to
have them reproduced and multiplied in China, I said, where labor and
material were cheaper, than in Europe and America. Such was my crude
idea of the subject. After I had finished, they were apparently much
pleased and interested, and expressed the hope that I would state the
same views to the Viceroy if he should ask me about the subject.
Several days after the dinner and conversation, the Viceroy did send for
me. In this interview he asked me what in my opinion was the best thing
to do for China at that time. The question came with such a force of
meaning, that if I had not been forwarned by my friends a few evenings
before, or if their hearts had not been set on the introduction of a
machine shop, and they had not practically won the Viceroy over to
their pet scheme, I might have been strongly tempted to launch forth
upon my educational scheme as a reply to the question as to what was the
best thing to do for China. But in such an event, being a stranger to
the Viceroy, having been brought to his notice simply through the
influence of my friends, I would have run a greater risk of jeopardizing
my pet scheme of education than if I were left to act independently. My
obligations to them were great, and I therefore decided that my
constancy and fidelity to their friendship should be correspondingly
great. So, instead of finding myself embarrassed in answering such a
large and important question, I had a preconceived answer to give, which
seemed to dove-tail into his views already crystallized into definite
form, and which was ready to be carried out at once. So my educational
scheme was put in the background, and the machine shop was allowed to
take precedence. I repeated in substance what I had said to my friends
previously in regard to establishing a mother machine shop, capable of
reproducing other machine shops of like character, etc. I especially
mentioned the manufacture of rifles, which, I said, required for the
manufacture of their component parts separate machinery, but that the
machine shop I would recommend was not one adapted for making the
rifles, but adapted to turn out specific machinery for the making of
rifles, cannons, cartridges, or anything else.
“Well,” said he, “this is a subject quite beyond my knowledge. It would
be well for you to discuss the matter with Wha and Chu, who are more
familiar with it than I am and we will then decide what is best to be
done.”
This ended my interview with the Viceroy. After I left him, I met my
friends, who were anxious to know the result of the interview. I told
them of the outcome. They were highly elated over it. In our last
conference it was decided that the matter of the character of the
machine shop was to be left entirely to my discretion and judgment,
after consulting a professional mechanical engineer. At the end of
another two weeks, Wha was authorized to tell me that the Viceroy, after
having seen all the four men, had decided to empower me to go abroad and
make purchases of such machinery as in the opinion of a professional
engineer would be the best and the right machinery for China to adopt.
It was also left entirely to me to decide where the machinery should be
purchased,--either in England, France or the United States of America.
The location of the machine shop was to be at a place called Kow Chang
Meu, about four miles northwest of the city of Shanghai. The Kow Chang
Meu machine shop was afterwards known as the Kiang Nan Arsenal, an
establishment that covers several acres of ground and embraces under its
roof all the leading branches of mechanical work. Millions have been
invested in it since I brought the first machinery from Fitchburg,
Mass., in order to make it one of the greatest arsenals east of the Cape
of Good Hope. It may properly be regarded as a lasting monument to
commemorate Tsang Kwoh Fan’s broadmindedness as well as far-sightedness
in establishing Western machinery in China.