Nearing Tung-chow--Japanese artillery--A cut in the river
bank--A midnight attack--Home-made guns--Gate blown up--A
Deputation--Suicides--The British naval guns--Business as usual--An
unlucky beggar--Severed heads--A faithful little dog--A well-earned
rest--The advance-guard on a reconnaissance--A conference of the
Allied Generals--To march at once on Pekin.
While the other troops took advantage of the day’s rest at
Chang-chia-wan, the Japanese advance-guard pushed on ahead, and at 1
+P.M.+ was again fighting the enemy, with whom they had caught up, and
who was running before them. In this race they had reached within 3000
yards of Tung-chow, when they perceived with spy-glasses a great number
of Chinese soldiers on the city wall and outside the town. The Japanese
artillery was brought up 1000 yards from the city, and shelled the
enemy till four o’clock in the afternoon. There seemed, however, to be
no sign that an effective resistance would be offered.
On nearing Tung-chow we found that the Chinese had in one place cut a
ditch across the bank of the river, so as to inundate the country. They
had succeeded to a certain extent. In the photograph here reproduced
Japanese sappers can be seen hard at work to prevent the flow of
water. Their efforts, after some hours’ struggle, were rewarded with
success. When a sufficient number of troops had arrived at Tung-chow
and encamped some little way outside the wall, the Japanese commenced
an attack on the town at midnight. They were fired upon from the wall,
the Chinese actually using some of their home-made guns, over a hundred
years old. They had spread a quantity of these along the wall, and they
were the most primitive kind of guns I have ever seen. Most of them had
not even a gun-carriage, and were merely resting on the parapet of the
wall. In firing them, one or two of these guns fell over the wall!
[Illustration: JAPANESE SAPPERS REPAIRING CUT IN RIVER BANK]
At 3.30 +A.M.+ on August 12 the Japanese advance-guard reached the city
gate, while the other troops were deploying, but no resistance was
offered. One company of engineers blew up the gate with dynamite.
At 4.30 the whole army of the Allies entered the city by the south
gate, but a wing went in by the South-West entrance of the town. A
deputation had been received saying that no fighting would take place
if the lives and property of the people were safeguarded. In fact, in a
few moments nearly every house along the principal streets was guarded
by a Japanese soldier, and a Japanese flag of truce waved over every
door. The Americans and the British remained encamped outside the town
to the south, where good well-water was obtained and also some shade.
[Sidenote: SUICIDES]
In the advance since August 6, after the battle of Pei-tsang, the
Japanese had lost two killed and thirteen wounded.
Some women, in despair at having had their homes looted by Boxers and
Imperial soldiers previous to their abandonment of the city, committed
suicide by jumping from the city wall. Both soldiers and Boxers, of
whom this important town had been full, had fled by the paved road to
Pekin previous to our entry into the city.
As far as this point the Allies had naturally kept in constant touch
with their transport, the communication being to a considerable extent
by water. The British naval guns had also been brought up on boats,
but were never used. From Tung-chow, however, the Pei-ho had to be
abandoned, nor was the canal which joined Pekin to this town used in
any way.
[Illustration: JAPANESE ENTERING THE WALLED TOWN OF TUNG-CHOW]
Most of the inhabitants of Tung-chow had bolted, but the shops and
houses still remained in their original condition, and business was
carried on as usual. But not for long. After a few hours the Japanese
soldiers who were on guard were the first to break into the shops they
were guarding, and the soldiers of the other Allies lost no time in
imitating their example. It was, however, impossible for them to carry
away much. By the afternoon the main street and others were wrecked,
and before nightfall a good many dead Chinamen were lying about. An
unfortunate Chinese youth, a half-witted cripple, prowling about the
streets begging, found on the ground a brand-new coat discarded by
a runaway Imperial soldier. He joyfully garbed himself in it, and
walked unconcernedly up the main street, where he was pounced upon by
the Japanese, who mistook him for a soldier. He was roughly handled,
beaten, tied hand and foot, and exposed at the corner of the two
principal roads intersecting each other at right angles. The poor
fellow was in a pitiable condition, and several hours later he was
dead. As one rode about one saw strange sights. Carcases of horses
decomposing fast in the sun, a mass of moving maggots, houses burning,
natives in the farther streets--nearly all men--stampeding in every
direction at the approach of a foreigner, Chinese looting the houses
of their neighbours at every turn. Here and there along the road hung
to the wall, streaked and splashed with blood, heads severed from
their bodies, the work of Celestial justice. Perhaps some of these
poor devils were the messengers despatched from the Pekin Legations to
Tientsin. In a side street, where most of the houses were smashed in or
burnt down, a dear little dog stood, sad and restless, on the doorstep
of a burnt-down house. He kept constantly looking up and down the
street, evidently waiting for his missing master.
[Sidenote: A FAITHFUL DOG]
[Illustration: A FAITHFUL LITTLE DOG]
I rode down the same way several hours later, and there he was still,
straining his eyes to the right and left in expectation of one who
probably was no more. I tried to feed him with some biscuits I had in
my pocket, but he would not eat, nor would he touch some water that I
procured him. The poor thing looked starved and heart-broken. It was
quite pathetic. He positively refused to leave the door, or I would
have liked to have taken him with me. A more affectionate and faithful
little dog it would be difficult to find.
The greater part of the day (12th) was spent by the soldiers in
well-earned rest, but at night a battalion of Japanese infantry was
sent to Pan-Chia-wo as an advance-guard, and the Allied cavalry went
for a reconnaissance towards Pekin through Huan-Kua-He. The Allied
Generals held a conference, at which it was deemed advisable to follow
up immediately the successes so far obtained, and not give the enemy
time to recover his courage, and perhaps his strength. Although the
allied soldiers were in a bad condition, and would have been all the
better for an extra day’s rest, it was thought necessary to march at
once on Pekin.
A distance of only fourteen miles separated us.
Having brought the reader practically to the gates of the capital, we
will now for a while leave the allied forces and hear what had taken
place in the besieged Legations while we were rushing up to their
relief.
END OF VOL. I
Printed by +Ballantyne, Hanson+ & Co.
London & Edinburgh
Transcriber’s Notes
For printer’s errors and other inconsistencies in punctuation,
spelling, etc., only the changes listed below were made. Notes specific
to Chinese characters are located at the end.
_Italics_, =Bold Face=, +ALL SMALL CAPS+, and +Small Caps+ were
formatted as so.
In-line and whole-page illustrations were moved to the nearest
paragraph break.
Page numbers on the list of illustrations and contents were not changed.
Footnotes were reindexed and moved to the next paragraph.
Illustrations were moved to the nearest paragraph break.
Unique text on odd pages of the header were transcribed as Sidenotes
and moved to the nearest paragraph break.
The middle dot “·” (which was used inconsistently) was silently
standardized to a period “.”.
In the list of illustrations, “_Page_” was removed after the first
instance.
On page xii “Pp.” was added to Chapter XXI.
On page xii “Pp.” was added to Chapter XXII.
On page xxi “Yamen” was standardized to “Yamên”.
On page xxiv “_Page_” was added after “MAPS AND PLANS” for
standardization.
On page 27 “Empress Dowager” was standardized to “Empress-Dowager”.
On page 55 “coté” was corrected to “côté”.
On page 55 “reçevons” was corrected to “recevons”.
On page 55 “à légère” was corrected to “à la légère”.
On page 55 “parait” was corrected to “paraît”.
On page 56 two instances of “Ev.” were corrected to “Év.” i.e. “Évêque”.
On page 72 “coup d’état” was italicized for standardization in the
starting paragraph.
On page 115 “gun-boat” was standardized to “gunboat”.
On page 120 “gun-boats” was standardized to “gunboats”.
On page 120 “U.S.” was corrected to “U.S.S.” in “The U.S.S. _Monocacy_
took no part in the fighting”.
On page 123 “Monacacy” was corrected to “Monocacy”.
On page 144 a missing comma after “Russians, 7 killed” was added.
On page 151 in footnote 7 “reunion” was corrected to “réunion”.
On page 151 in footnote 7 “reponds” was corrected to “réponds”.
On page 151 in footnote 7 “precautions” was corrected to “précautions”.
On page 151 in footnote 7 “possible” was corrected to “possibles”.
On page 156 “atisfactory” was corrected to “satisfactory” in “A
satisfactory proclamation”.
On page 163 a missing comma was added after “SHELLS” in the
illustration.
On page 211 “melée” was corrected to “mêlée”.
On page 251 “YAMEN” was standardized to “YAMÊN” in the header.
On page 280 “Chrétienneté” was corrected to “Chrétienté”.
On page 292 “diner” was corrected to “dîner”.
On page 333 the single quotes around “+Mi Tei.+” were added.
On page 379 a missing period was added to the end of “to this town used
in any way”.
On page 381 “a” was corrected to “at” in “stampeding in every direction
at”.
On page 382 “reconnaisance” was corrected to “reconnaissance”.
On page 382 a missing period was added to the end of “VOL”.
Notes on Chinese
Inconsistent capitalization, apostrophes, etc. in transliterated
Chinese were generally retained.
Chinese characters within illustrations were transcribed where
possible. Chinese characters never appear in the caption of an
illustration. Columns were transcribed in reading order, beginning with
the rightmost column as the first line and the top character as the
first character. The transcription is found before captioned text in
the txt edition and within the alternative text for the html editions.
Many of these illustrated characters are somewhat calligraphic in form,
so alternative readings likely exist.
The cover features 義合拳.
The end-paper features triangle flags and square flags. All the square
flags appear to have 督陣 written. Most of the triangle flags have an
unclear character (either different or the same) on them. There are
shields with 王. There is a high amount of variation in the writing.
On page 2 after “in the presence of strangers, so the character”, the
character “和” was corrected to its present form. The original printed
character resembled the corrected character in size and shape but with
the 口 replaced with a 匚, resembling ⿰禾匚, a combination the transcriber
cannot otherwise represent. The character 和 features in a few of the
illustrations nearby.
On page 4 the illustration of 2 characters appears to refer to
“_Chu-fe_” in the text. A current term to refer to the Boxers is 拳匪.
The first character appears to be an abnormal variant of 拳, but could
even be something less expected like 椎 or 榷.
On page 21 the second character in the illustration likely refers to 帝
from 關帝 (Guan Di), which matches the paragraph’s context. As an aside,
Guan Di refers to Guan Yu, who featured in the Romance of the Three
Kingdoms. In the print, the second character more closely resembles a
derivative of 帝, such as 啼 or perhaps ⿰尺帝.
On page 22 the first line of the illustration is likely read from right
to left.
On page 36 the illustration contains 2 columns of 5 characters each,
some of which are unclear. The 4th letter of the 2nd column is
particularly unclear, and could be 扜. Regardless, they appear similar
to a part of the Lotus Sutra’s Universal Gate Chapter on Avalokitesvara
Bodhisattva. Notably, the first line matches a couplet that is
repeated, while the final two characters in the second line were
replaced. In the sutra, the final two characters are 掣 and 電 instead of
the 拆 and 閃 found here.
On page 229 the illustration of a receipt is too unclear to provide
a sufficient transcription of a majority of the text. Broadly, the
document appears to be a receipt or inventory of various cloth and
their value in taels.
On page 233 the illustration of a document uses the … character to
represent unclear characters. The middle 2 characters appear to be the
name of the person who received the respective taels of silver. On the
9th line, the … appears to be a number, perhaps 四 or 貳 since the shape
is similar to 囗.