MY RECALL TO CHINA
In 1894-5 war broke out between China and Japan on account of Korea. My
sympathies were enlisted on the side of China, not because I am a
Chinese, but because China had the right on her side, and Japan was
simply trumping up a pretext to go to war with China, in order to show
her military and naval prowess. Before the close of the war, it was
impossible for me to be indifferent to the situation--I could not
repress my love for China. I wrote to my former legation interpreter and
secretary, two letters setting forth a plan by which China might
prosecute the war for an indefinite time.
My first plan was to go over to London to negotiate a loan of
$15,000,000, with which sum to purchase three or four ready built
iron-clads, to raise a foreign force of 5,000 men to attack Japan in the
rear from the Pacific coast--thus creating a diversion to draw the
Japanese forces from Korea and give the Chinese government a breathing
spell to recruit a fresh army and a new navy to cope with Japan. While
this plan was being carried out, the government was to empower a
commission to mortgage the Island of Formosa to some Western power for
the sum of $400,000,000 for the purpose of organizing a national army
and navy to carry on the war. These plans were embodied in two letters
to Tsai Sik Yung, at that time secretary to Chang Tsze Tung, viceroy of
Hunan and Hupeh. They were translated into Chinese for the Viceroy. That
was in the winter of 1894. To my great surprise, Viceroy Chang approved
of my first plan. I was authorized by cable to go over to London to
negotiate the loan of $15,000,000. The Chinese minister in London, a Li
Hung Chang man, was advised of my mission, which in itself was a
sufficient credential for me to present myself to the minister. In less
than a month after my arrival in London, I succeeded in negotiating the
loan; but in order to furnish collaterals for it, I had to get the
Chinese minister in London to cable the government for the hypothecation
of the customs’ revenue. I was told that Sir Robert Hart,
inspector-general of customs, and Viceroy Li Hung Chang refused to have
the customs’ revenue hypothecated, on the ground that this revenue was
hardly enough to cover as collateral the loan to meet the heavy
indemnity demanded by Japan. The fact was: Viceroy Li Hung Chang and
Chang Chi Tung were at loggerheads and opposed to each other in the
conduct of the war. The latter was opposed to peace being negotiated by
Li Hung Chang; but the former had the Dowager Empress on his side and
was strenuous in his efforts for peace.
Hence Sir Robert Hart had to side with the Court party, and ignored
Chang Chi Tung’s request for the loan of $15,000,000; on that account
the loan fell through, and came near involving me in a suit with the
London Banking Syndicate.
I returned to New York and cabled for further instructions from Chang
Chi Tung as to what my next step would be. In reply he cabled for me to
come to China at once.
After thirteen years of absence from China, I thought that my
connections with the Chinese government had been severed for good when I
left there in 1883. But it did not appear to be so; another call to
return awaited me, this time from a man whom I had never seen, of whose
character, disposition and views I was altogether ignorant, except from
what I knew from hearsay. But he seemed to know all about me, and in
his memorial to the government inviting me to return, he could not have
spoken of me in higher terms than he did. So I girded myself to go back
once more to see what there was in store for me. By this recall, I
became Chang Chi Tung’s man as opposed to Li Hung Chang.
Before leaving for China this time, I took special pains to see my two
sons well provided for in their education. Dr. E. W. Kellogg, my oldest
brother-in-law, was appointed their guardian. Morrison Brown Yung, the
older son, had just succeeded in entering Yale, Sheffield Scientific,
and was able to look out for himself. Bartlett G. Yung, the younger one,
was still in the Hartford High School preparing for college. I was
anxious to secure a good home for him before leaving the country, as I
did not wish to leave him to shift for himself at his critical age. The
subject was mentioned to my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Twichell. They at once
came forward and proposed to take Bartlett into their family as one of
its members, till he was ready to enter college. This is only a single
instance illustrative of the large-hearted and broad spirit which has
endeared them to their people both in the Asylum Hill church and outside
of it. I was deeply affected by this act of self-denial and magnanimity
in my behalf as well as in the behalf of my son Bartlett, whom I felt
perfectly assured was in first-class hands, adopted as a member of one
of the best families in New England. Knowing that my sons would be well
cared for, and leaving the development of their characters to an
all-wise and ever-ruling Providence, as well as to their innate
qualities, I embarked for China, this time without any definite and
specific object in view beyond looking out for what opening there might
be for me to serve her.
On my arrival in Shanghai, in the early part of the summer of 1895, I
had to go to the expense of furnishing myself with a complete outfit of
all my official dresses, which cost me quite a sum. Viceroy Chang Chi
Tung, a short time previous to my arrival, had been transferred from the
viceroyalty of the two Hoos to the viceroyalty of the two Kiangs
temporarily. Instead of going up to Wu Chang, the capital of Hupeh, I
went up to Nanking, where he was quartered.
In Viceroy Chang Chi Tung, I did not find that magnetic attraction which
at once drew me towards Tsang Kwoh Fan when I first met him at Ngan
Khing in 1863. There was a cold, supercilious air enveloping him, which
at once put me on my guard. After stating in a summary way how the loan
of $15,000,000 fell through, he did not state why the Peking government
had declined to endorse his action in authorizing the loan, though I
knew at the time that Sir Robert Hart, the inspector-general of the
Chinese customs, put forward as an excuse that the custom dues were
hardly enough to serve as collateral for the big loan that was about to
be negotiated to satisfy the war indemnity demanded by the Japanese
government. This was the diplomatic way of coating over a bitter pill
for Chang Chi Tung to swallow, when the Peking government, through the
influence of Li Hung Chang, was induced to ignore the loan. Chang and Li
were not at the time on cordial terms, each having a divergent policy to
follow in regard to the conduct of the war.
Dropping the subject of the loan as a dead issue, our next topic of
conversation was the political state of the country in view of the
humiliating defeat China had suffered through the incompetence and
corruption of Li Hung Chang, whose defeat both on land and sea had
stripped him of all official rank and title and came near costing him
his life. I said that China, in order to recover her prestige and
become a strong and powerful nation, would have to adopt a new policy.
She would have to go to work and engage at least four foreigners to act
as advisers in the Department for Foreign Affairs, in the Military and
Naval Departments and in the Treasury Department. They might be engaged
for a period of ten years, at the end of which time they might be
re-engaged for another term. They would have to be men of practical
experience, of unquestioned ability and character. While these men were
thus engaged to give their best advice in their respective departments,
it should be taken up and acted upon, and young and able Chinese
students should be selected to work under them. In that way, the
government would have been rebuilt upon Western methods, and on
principles and ideas that look to the reformation of the administrative
government of China.
Such was the sum and substance of my talk in the first and only
interview with which Chang Chi Tung favored me. During the whole of it,
he did not express his opinion at all on any of the topics touched upon.
He was as reticent and absorbent as a dry sponge. The interview differed
from that accorded me by Tsang Kwoh Fan in 1863, in that Tsang had
already made up his mind what he wanted to do for China, and I was
pointed out to him to execute it. But in the case of Chang Chi Tung, he
had no plan formed for China at the time, and what I presented to him in
the interview was entirely new and somewhat radical; but the close of
the Japan War justified me in bringing forward such views, as it was on
account of that war that I had been recalled. If he had been as broad a
statesman as his predecessor, Tsang Kwoh Fan, he could have said
something to encourage me to entertain even a glimpse of hope that he
was going to do something to reform the political condition of the
government of the country at the close of the war. Nothing, however, was
said, or even hinted at. In fact, I had no other interview with him
after the first one. Before he left Nanking for Wu Chang, he gave me the
appointment of Secretary of Foreign Affairs for Kiang Nan.
On the arrival of Liu Kwan Yih, the permanent viceroy of the two Kiang
provinces, Chang Chi Tung did not ask me to go up to Wu Chang with him.
This I took to be a pretty broad hint that he did not need my services
any longer, that I was not the man to suit his purposes; and as I had
no axe to grind, I did not make any attempt to run after my grind-stone.
On the contrary, after three months’ stay in Nanking under Viceroy Liu
Kwan Yih, out of regard for official etiquette, I resigned the
secretaryship, which was practically a sinecure--paying about $150 a
month. Such was my brief official experience with Viceroys Chang Chi
Tung and Liu Kwan Yih.
I severed my official connection with the provincial government of Kiang
Nan in 1896, and took up my headquarters in Shanghai--untrammeled and
free to do as I pleased and go where I liked. It was then that I
conceived the plan of inducing the central government to establish in
Peking a government national bank. For this object I set to work
translating into Chinese the National Banking Act and other laws
relating to national banks from the Revised Statutes of the United
States with Amendments and additional Acts of 1875. In prosecuting this
work, I had the aid of a Chinese writer, likewise the co-operation of
the late Wong Kai Keh, one of the Chinese students who was afterwards
the assistant Chinese commissioner in the St. Louis Exposition, who gave
me valuable help. With the translation, I went up to Peking with my
Chinese writer, and, at the invitation of my old friend, Chang Yen Hwan,
who had been Chinese Minister in Washington from 1884 to 1888, I took up
my quarters in his residence and remained there several months. Chang
Yen Hwan at that time held two offices: one as a senior member of the
Tsung Li Yamun (Office for Foreign Affairs); the other, as the first
secretary in the Treasury Department of which Ung Tung Hwo, tutor to the
late Emperor Kwang Su, was the president. Chang Yen Hwan was greatly
interested in the National Banking scheme. He examined the translation
critically and suggested that I should leave out those articles that
were inapplicable to the conditions of China, and retain only such as
were important and practicable. After the translation and selection were
completed, he showed it to Ung Tung Hwo, president of the Treasury. They
were both highly pleased with it, and had all the Treasury officials
look it over carefully and pass their judgment upon it. In a few weeks’
time, the leading officials of the Treasury Department called upon me to
congratulate me upon my work, and said it ought to be made a subject of
a memorial to the government to have the banking scheme adopted and
carried out. Chang Yen Hwan came forward to champion it, backed by Ung
Tung Hwo, the president.
To have a basis upon which to start the National Bank of China, it was
necessary to have the government advance the sum of Tls. 10,000,000; of
this sum, upwards of Tls. 2,000,000 were to be spent on machinery for
printing government bonds and bank-notes of different denominations and
machinery for a mint; Tls. 2,000,000 for the purchase of land and
buildings; and Tls. 6,000,000 were to be held in reserve in the Treasury
for the purchase of gold, silver and copper for minting coins of
different denominations for general circulation. This Tls. 10,000,000
was to be taken as the initiatory sum to start the National Bank with,
and was to be increased every year in proportion to the increase of the
commerce of the Empire.
We had made such progress in our project as to warrant our appointing a
committee to go around to select a site for the Bank, while I was
appointed to come to the United States to consult with the Treasury
Department on the plan and scope of the enterprise and to learn the best
course to take in carrying out the plan of the National Bank. The
Treasury Department, through its president, Ung Tung Hwo, was on the
point of memorializing for an imperial decree to sanction setting aside
the sum of Tls. 10,000,000 for the purpose indicated, when, to the
astonishment of Chang Yen Hwan and other promoters of the enterprise,
Ung Tung Hwo, the president, received a telegraphic message from Shing
Sun Whei, head of the Chinese Telegraphic Co., and manager of the
Shanghai, China Steamship Navigation Co., asking Ung to suspend his
action for a couple of weeks, till his arrival in Peking, Ung and Shing
being intimate friends, besides being compatriots, Ung acceded to
Shing’s request. Shing Taotai, as he was called, was well-known to be a
multimillionaire, and no great enterprise or concession of any kind
could pass through without his finger in the pie. So in this banking
scheme, he was bound to have his say. He had emissaries all over Peking
who kept him well posted about everything going on in the capital as
well as outside of it. He had access to the most powerful and
influential princes in Peking, his system of graft reaching even the
Dowager Empress through her favorite eunuch, the notorious Li Ling Ying.
So Shing was a well-known character in Chinese politics. It was through
his system of graft that the banking enterprise was defeated. It was
reported that he came up to Peking with Tls. 300,000 as presents to two
or three princes and other high and influential dignitaries, and got
away with the Tls. 10,000,000 of appropriation by setting up a bank to
manipulate his own projects.
The defeat of the National Banking project owed its origin to the
thoroughly corrupt condition of the administrative system of China. From
the Dowager Empress down to the lowest and most petty underling in the
Empire, the whole political fabric was honey-combed with what Americans
characterize as graft--a species of political barnacles, if I may be
allowed to call it that, which, when once allowed to fasten their hold
upon the bottom of the ship of State were sure to work havoc and
ruination; in other words, with money one could get anything done in
China. Everything was for barter; the highest bid got the prize. The two
wars--the one with Japan in 1894-5 and the other, the Japan and Russian
War in 1904-5--have in some measure purified the Eastern atmosphere, and
the Chinese have finally awakened to their senses and have come to some
sane consciousness of their actual condition.
After the defeat of the national banking project at the hands of Shing
Taotai, I went right to work to secure a railroad concession from the
government. The railroad I had in mind was one between the two ports of
Tientsin and Chinkiang; one in the north, the other in the south near
the mouth of the Yangtze River. The distance between these ports in a
bee line is about five hundred miles; by a circuitous route going around
the province of Shan Tung and crossing the Yellow River into the
province of Hunan through Anwhui, the distance would be about seven
hundred miles. The German government objected to having this railroad
cross Shan Tung province, as they claimed they had the monopoly of
building railroads throughout the province, and would not allow another
party to build a railroad across Shan Tung. This was a preposterous and
absurd pretension and could not be supported either by the international
laws or the sovereign laws of China. At that time, China was too feeble
and weak to take up the question and assert her own sovereign rights in
the matter, nor had she the men in the Foreign Office to show up the
absurdity of the pretension. So, to avoid any international
complications, the concession was issued to me with the distinct
understanding that the road was to be built by the circuitous route
above described. The road was to be built with Chinese, not with foreign
capital. I was given six months’ time to secure capital. At the end of
six months, if I failed to show capital, I was to surrender the
concession. I knew very well that it would be impossible to get Chinese
capitalists to build any railroad at that time. I tried hard to get
around the sticking point by getting foreign syndicates to take over the
concession, but all my attempts proved abortive, and I was compelled to
give up my railroad scheme also. This ended my last effort to help
China.
I did not dream that in the midst of my work, Khang Yu Wei and his
disciple, Leang Kai Chiu, whom I met often in Peking during the previous
year, were engaged in the great work of reform which was soon to
culminate in the momentous _coup d’état_ of 1898.