YÜN-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL.
_Access to Yün-nan-fu_. _Concentrated reform_. _Tribute to Hsi Liang_.
_Conservatism and progress_. _The Tonkin-Yün-nan Railway_. _The Yün-nan
army_. _Author's views in 1909 and 1910 contrasted_. _Phenomenal forward
march, and what it means_. _Danger of too much drill_. _International
aspect on the frontier_. _The police_. _Street improvements_. _Visit to
the gaol, and a description_. _The Young Pretender to the Chinese
throne_. _How the prison is conducted_. _The schools_. _Visit to the
university, and a description_. _Riot among the students_. _Visit to the
Agricultural School, and a description_. _Silk industry of Yün-nan._
Yün-nan-fu to-day is as accessible as Peking. After many weary years the
Tonkin-Yün-nan railway is now an accomplished fact, and links this
capital city with Haiphong in three days.
Reform concentrates at the capital. The man who visited Yün-nan-fu
twenty, or even ten years ago, would be astounded, were he to go there
now, at the improvements visible, on every hand. A building on foreign
lines was then a thing unknown, and the conservative Viceroy, Tseng Kong
Pao, the decapitator in his time of thousands upon thousands of human
beings, would turn in his grave if he could behold the utter
annihilation of his pet "feng shui," which has followed in the wake of
the good works done by the late loved Viceroy, Hsi Liang.
The name of Hsi Liang is revered in the province of Yün-nan as the most
able man who has ever ruled the two provinces of Yün-nan and Kwei-chow,
a man of keen intellectuality and courtly manner, and notorious as being
the only Mongolian in the service of China's Government. I lived in
Yün-nan-fu for several weeks at a stretch, and since then have made
frequent visits, and knowing the enormous strides being made towards
acquiring Occidental methods, I now find it difficult to write with
absolute accuracy upon things in general. But I have found this to be
the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of
any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the
same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no
subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound
generalization, one has to forego much temptation to "color" if he would
be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues
agree as to the impossibility of the conception of the Chinese mind and
character as a whole, so glaring are the inconsistencies of the Chinese
nature. And as one sees for himself in this great city, particularly in
official life, the businesslike practicability on the one hand and the
utter absurdity of administration on the other, in all modes and
methods, one is almost inclined to drop his pen in disgust at being
unable to come to any concrete conclusions.
Of no province in China more than of Yün-nan is this true.
Reform and immovable conservatism go hand in hand. Men of the most
dissimilar ambitions compose the _corps diplomatique_, and are willing
to join hands to propagate their main beliefs; and when one writes of
progress--in railways, in the army, in gaols, in schools, in public
works, in no matter what--one is ever confronted by that dogged
immutability which characterizes the older school.
So that in writing of things Yün-nanese in this great city it is
imperative for me to state bare facts as they stand now, and make little
comment.
THE RAILWAY
The Tonkin-Yün-nan Railway, linking the interior with the coast, is one
of the world's most interesting engineering romances. This artery of
steel is probably the most expensive railway of its kind, from the
constructional standpoint. In some districts seven thousand pounds per
mile was the cost, and it is probable that six thousand pounds sterling
per mile would not be a bad estimate of the total amount appropriated
for the construction of the line from a loan of 200,000,000 francs asked
for in 1898 by the Colonial Council in connection with the program for a
network of railways in and about French Indo-China.
To Lao-kay there are no less than one hundred and seventy-five bridges.
The completion of this line realizes in part the ambition of a
celebrated Frenchman, who--once a printer, 'tis said, in Paris--dropped
into the political flower-bed, and blossomed forth in due course as
Governor-General of Indo-China. When Paul Doumer, for it was he, went
east in 1897, he felt it his mission to put France, politically and
commercially, on as good a footing as any of her rivals, notably Great
Britain. It did not take him long to see that the best missionaries in
his cause would be the railways. At the time of writing (June, 1910) I
cannot but think that profit on this railway will be a long time coming,
and there are some in the capital who doubt whether the commercial
possibilities of Yün-nan justified this huge expenditure on railway
construction. Whilst authorities differ, I personally believe that the
ultimate financial success of the venture is assured. There are markets
crying out to be quickly fed with foreign goods, and it is my opinion
that the French will be the suppliers of those goods. British enterprise
is so weak that we cannot capture the greater portion of the growing
foreign trade, and must feel thankful if we can but retain what trade we
have, and supply those exports with which the French have no possibility
of competing.
* * * * *
THE MILITARY
The foreigner in Yün-nan-fu can never rest unless he is used to the
sounds of the bugle and the hustling spirit of the men of war.
In standard works on Chinese armaments no mention is ever made of the
Yün-nan army, and statistics are hard to get. But it is evident that the
cult of the military stands paramount, and it has to be conceded, even
by the most pessimistic critics of this backward province, that the new
troops are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-organized to
crush any rebellion. This must be counted a very fair result, since it
has been attained in about two years. A couple of years ago Yün-nan had
practically no army--none more than the military ragtags of the old
school, whose chief weapon of war was the opium pipe. But now there are
ten thousand troops--not units on paper, but men in
uniform--well-drilled for the most part and of excellent physique, who
could take the field at once. The question of the Yün-nan army is one of
international interest: the French are on the south, Great Britain on
the west.
On June 2nd, 1909, I rode out to the magnificent training ground, then
being completed, and on that date wrote the following in my diary:--
"I watched for an hour or two some thousand or so men undergoing their
daily drill--typical tin soldiery and a military sham.
"Only with the merest notion of matters military were most of the men
conversant, and alike in ordinary marching--when it was most difficult
for them even to maintain regularity of step--or in more complicated
drilling, there was a lack of the right spirit, no go, no gusto--scores
and scores of them running round doing something, going through a
routine, with the knowledge that when it was finished they would get
their rice and be happy. Everyone who possesses but a rudimentary
knowledge of the Chinese knows that he troubles most about the two
meals every day should bring him, and this seems to be the pervading
line of thought of seven-eighths of the men I saw on the padang at
drill. Officers strutting about in peacock fashion, with a sword
dangling at their side, showed no inclination to enforce order, and the
rank and file knew their methods, so that the disorder and haphazardness
of the whole thing was absolutely mutual.
"Whilst I was on the field gazing in anything but admiration on the
scene, I was ordered out by one of the khaki-clad officers in a most
unceremonious manner. Seeing me, he shouted at the top of his thick
voice, 'Ch'u-k'ü, ch'u-k'ü' (an expression meaning 'Go out!'--commonly
used to drive away dogs), and simultaneously waved his sword in the air
as if to say, 'Another step, and I'll have your head.' And, of course,
there being nothing else to do, I 'ch'u-k'üd,' but in a fashion
befitting the dignity of an English traveler.
"The reorganization of the army, with the acceleration of warlike
preparedness, has the advantage that it appeals to the embryonic feeling
of national patriotism, and affords a tangible expression of the desire
to be on terms of equality with the foreigner. That officer never had a
prouder moment in his life than when he ordered a distinguished
foreigner from the drilling ground, of which he was for the time the
lordly comptroller. And it may be added that the foreigner can remember
no occasion when he felt 'smaller,' or more completely shrivelled.
"Whilst it is safe to infer that the motives that underlie the
significant access of activity in military matters in Yün-nan differ in
no way from those which have led to the feverish increase in armaments
in other parts of the world, such ideas that have yet been formed on
actual preparations for possible war are most crude. On paper the
appointments in the army and the accuracy of the figures of the
complement of rank and file admit of no question, but the practical
utility of their labors is quite another matter, and a matter which does
not appear to produce among the army officials any great mental
disturbance in their delusion that they are progressing. Yün-nan is in
need of military reform, reform which will embrace a start from the very
beginning, and one of the first steps that should be taken is that those
who are to be in the position of administering training should find out
something about western military affairs, and so be in a position of
knowing what they are doing."
The above was my conscientious opinion in the middle of last year.
Now--in June of 1910--I have to write of enormous improvements and
revolutions in the drilling, in the armaments, in the equipment, in the
general organization of the troops and the conduct of them. Yün-nan is
still peculiarly in her transition stage, which, while it has many
elements of strength and many menacing possibilities, contains, more or
less, many of the old weaknesses. All matters, such as her financial
question, her tariff question, her railway question, her mining
question, are still "in the air"--the unknown _x_ in the equation, as it
were--but her army question is settled. There is a definite line to be
followed here, and it is being followed most rigidly. Come what will,
her army must be safe and sound. China is determined to work out the
destiny of Yün-nan herself, and she is working hard--the West has no
conception how hard--so as to be able to be in a position of
safeguarding--vigorously, if necessary--her own borders.
One question arises in my mind, however. Should there be a rebellion,
would the soldiers remain true? This is vital to Yün-nan. Skirmishings
on the French border more or less recently have shown us that soldiers
are wobblers in that area. The rank and file are chosen from the common
people, and one would not be surprised to find, should trouble take
place fairly soon, while they are still raw to their business, the
soldiers turn to those who could give them most. It has been humorously
remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy
would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and
for drilling him so hard and long.
What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to
be true also of Tali-fu.
A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a
nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were
enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four
dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers
drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many,
necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble
of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their
rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three
dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would
have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty
taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks--a sign in
itself of the altered conditions of the times--and I visited some
extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty
thousand gold dollars.
Military progress in this "backward province" is as great as it has been
anywhere at any time in any part of the Chinese Empire.
THE POLICE
Until a few years ago, as China was kept in law and order without the
necessary evil of a standing army, so did Yün-nan-fu slumber on in the
Chinese equivalent for peace and plenty. As they now are, and taking
into consideration that they were all picked from the rawest material,
the police force of this capital is as able a body of men as are to be
found in all Western China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old
London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and
well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of
the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is
substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should
ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be "run in"
in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone
will be unmistakable proofs to the victim, even in heaviest
intoxication, that he is not being handled by policemen of his awn
kind--that is, if the Yün-nan police shall ever have made strides
towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their
place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much
less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover--when will
the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?--is certainly being put
down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement
they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are
dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways
throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have
been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by
the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.
THE GAOL
A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the
prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the
entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of
which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a
reception-room. There was nothing "quadlike" about the place. This
reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main
prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white
curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging
scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor,
wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in
Yün-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an
extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent
prison--one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.
After we had drunk each other's health--I sincerely trust that the cute,
courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way
of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around
me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely
mundane things--I was led away to the prison proper.
This gaol, which had been opened only a few months, is a remarkably fine
building, and with the various workshops and outhouses and offices
covers from seven to eight acres of ground inside the city. The outside,
and indeed the whole place, bears every mark of Western architecture,
with a trace here and there of the Chinese artistry, and for carved
stone and grey-washed brick might easily be mistaken for a foreign
building. It cost some ninety thousand taels to build, and has
accommodation for more than the two hundred and fifty prisoners at
present confined within its walls.
After an hour's inspection, I came to the conclusion that the lot of the
prisoners was cast in pleasant places. The food was being prepared at
the time--three kinds of vegetables, with a liberal quantity of rice,
much better than nine-tenths of the poor brutes lived on before they
came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various
outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in
their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the
emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one
grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly
waiting for his doom brought sad thoughts.
The long-termed prisoners work, of course, as they do in all prisons.
Weaving cloth, mostly for the use of the military, seemed to be the most
important industry, there being over a score of Chinese-made weaving
machines busily at work. The task set each man is twelve English yards
per day; if he does not complete this quantity he is thrashed, if he
does more he is remunerated in money. One was amused to see the
English-made machine lying covered with dust in a corner, now discarded,
but from its pattern all the others had been made in the prison. Tailors
rose as one man when we entered their shop, where Singer machines were
rattling away in the hands of competent men; and opposite were a body of
pewter workers, some of their products--turned out with most primitive
tools--being extremely clever. The authorities had bought a foreign
chair, made of iron--a sort of miniature garden seat--and from this
pattern a squad of blacksmiths were turning out facsimiles, which were
selling at two dollars apiece. They were well made, but a skilled
mechanic, not himself a prisoner, was teaching the men. Bamboo blinds
were being made in the same room, whilst at the extreme end of another
shed were paper dyers and finishers, carrying on a primitive work in the
same primitive way that the Chinese did thousands of years ago. It was,
however, exceedingly interesting to watch.
As we passed along I smelt a strong smell of opium. Yes, it was opium. I
sniffed significantly, and looked suspiciously around. The governor saw
and heard and smelt, but he said nothing. Opium, then, is not, as is
claimed, abolished in Yün-nan. Worse than this: whilst I was the other
day calling upon the French doctor at the hospital, the vilest fumes
exuded from the room of one of the dressers. It appeared that the doctor
could not break his men of the habit. But we remember that the
physician of older days was exhorted to heal himself.
Just as I was beginning to think I had seen all there was to be seen, I
heard a scuffle, and saw a half-score of men surrounding a poor
frightened little fellow, to whom I was introduced. He was the little
bogus Emperor of China, the Young Pretender, to whom thousands of
Yün-nan people, at the time of the dual decease in recent Chinese
history, did homage, and kotowed, recognizing him as the new emperor.
The story, not generally known outside the province, makes good reading.
At the time of the death of the emperor and empress-dowager, an
aboriginal family at the village of Kuang-hsi-chou, in the southeast of
Yün-nan province, knowing that a successor to the throne must be found,
and having a son of about eight years of age, put this boy up as a
pretender to the Chinese throne, and not without considerable success.
The news spread that the new emperor was at the above-named village, and
the people for miles around flocked in great numbers to do him homage,
congratulating themselves that the emperor should have risen from the
immediate neighborhood in which they themselves had passed a monotonous
existence. For weeks this pretense to the throne was maintained, until a
miniature rebellion broke out, to quell which the Viceroy of Yün-nan
dispatched with all speed a strong body of soldiers.
Everybody thought that the loss of a few heads and other Chinese
trivialities was to end this little flutter of the people. But not so.
The whole of the family who had promoted this fictitious claim to the
throne--father, mother, brothers, sisters--were all put to death, most
of them in front of the eyes of the poor little fellow who was the
victim of their idle pretext. The military returned, reporting that
everything was now quiet, and a few days later, guarded by twenty
soldiers, came this young pretender, encaged in one of the prison boxes,
breaking his heart with grief. And it was he who was now conducted to
meet the foreigner. He has been confined within the prison since he
arrived at the capital, and the object seems to be to keep him there,
training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he
can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and
his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to
tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were
shown to him after decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it
is doubtful whether the authorities--or even the emperor himself--will
mete out punishment to him when he grows older. He did nothing; he knew
nothing. At the present time he is going through a class-book which
teaches him the language to be used in audience with the Son of
Heaven--he will probably be taken before the emperor when he is old
enough. But now he is not living the life of a boy--no playmates, no
toys, no romps and frolics. He, like Topsy, merely grows--in
surroundings which only a dark prison life can give him.
This was the first time I had even been in prison in China. This remark
rather tickled the governor, and on taking my departure he assured me
that it was an honor to him, which the Chinese language was too poor to
express, that I should have allowed my honorable and dignified person to
visit his mean and contemptible abode. He commenced this compliment to
me as he was showing me the well-equipped hospital in connection with
the prison--containing eight separate wards in charge of a Chinese
doctor.
I smiled in return a smile of deepest gratitude, and waving a fond
farewell, left him in a happy mood.
THE SCHOOLS
One would scarce dream of a university for the province of Yün-nan. Yet
such is the case.
In former days--and it is true, too, to a great extent to-day--the
prominent place given to education in China rendered the village schools
an object of more than common interest, where the educated men of the
Empire received their first intellectual training. Probably in no other
country was there such uniformity in the standards of instruction. Every
educated man was then a potential school master--this was certainly true
of Yün-nan. But all is now changing, as the infusion of the spirit of
the phrase "China for the Chinese" gains forceful meaning among the
people.
The highest hill within the city precincts has been chosen as the site
for a university, which is truly a remarkable building for Western
China. One of the students of the late. Dr. Mateer (Shantung) was the
architect--a man who came originally to the school as a teacher of
mathematics--and it cannot be said that the huge oblong building, with a
long narrow wing on either side of a central dome, is the acme of beauty
from a purely architectural standpoint.
Of red-faced brick, this university, which cost over two hundred
thousand taels to build, is most imposing, and possesses conveniences
and improvements quite comparable to the ordinary college of the West.
For instance, as I passed through the many admirably-equipped
schoolrooms, well ventilated and airy, I saw an Italian who was laying
in the electric light,[AC] the power for which was generated by an
immense dynamo at the basement, upon which alone twenty thousand taels
were spent. Thirty professors have the control of thirty-two classrooms,
teaching among other subjects mathematics, music, languages (chiefly
English and Japanese), geography, chemistry, astronomy, geology, botany,
and so on. The museum, situated in the center of the building, does not
contain as many specimens as one would imagine quite easily obtainable,
but there are certainly some capital selections of things natural to
this part of the Empire.
The authorities probably thought I was rather a queer foreigner, wanting
to see everything there was to see inside the official barriers in the
city. Day after day I was making visits to places where foreigners
seldom have entered, and I do not doubt that the officials, whilst
treating me with the utmost deference and extreme punctiliousness,
thought I was a sort of British spy.
When I went to the Agricultural School, probably the most interesting
visit I made, I was met by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a keen
fellow, who spoke English well, and who, having been trained at
Shanghai, and therefore understanding the idiosyncrasies of the
foreigner's character, was invited to entertain. And this he did, but he
was careful that he did not give away much information regarding the
progress that the Yün-nanese, essentially sons of the soil, are making
in agriculture. For this School of Agriculture is an important adjunct.
Scholars are taken on an agreement for three years, during which time
they are fed and housed at the expense of the school; if they leave
during the specified period they are fined heavily. No less than 180
boys, ranging from sixteen to twenty-three, are being trained here, with
about 120 paid apprentices. Three Japanese professors are employed--one
at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, and two others at three
hundred, the latter having charge of the fruit and forest trees and the
former of vegetables.
In years to come the silk industry of Yün-nan will rank among the chief,
and the productions will rank among the best of all the eighteen
provinces. There are no less than ten thousand mulberry trees in the
school grounds for feeding the worms; four thousand catties of leaves
are used every day for their food; five hundred immense trays of
silkworms are constantly at work here. The worms are in the charge of
scholars, whose names appear on the various racks under their charge,
and the fact that feeding takes place every two hours, day and night, is
sufficient testimony that the boys go into their work with commendable
energy. As I was being escorted around the building, through shed after
shed filled with these trays of silkworms, several of the scholars made
up a sort of procession, and waited for the eulogy that I freely
bestowed. In another building small boys were spinning the silk, and
farther down the weavers were busy with their primitive machinery, with
which, however, they were turning out silk that could be sold in London
at a very big price. The colorings were specially beautiful, and the
figuring quite good, although the head-master of the school told me that
he hoped for improvements in that direction. And I, looking wise,
although knowing little about silk and its manufacture, heartily agreed
with the little fat man.
There is a department for women also, and contrary to custom, I had a
look around here, too. The girls were particularly smart at spinning.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote AC: Soon afterwards a disturbance occurred among the students,
and had it not been for the promptitude of the inspector, some of them
might have lost their heads.
The electric light had just been laid in, and was working so well that
the authorities found it imperative to charge each of the 400 resident
students one dollar per month for the upkeep. This simple edict was the
cause of the riot In a body the boys rolled up their pukais, and marched
down to the main entrance, declaring that they were determined to resign
if the order was not rescinded. The inspector, however, had had all the
doors locked. The frenzied students broke these open, and incidentally
thrashed some of the caretakers for interfering in matters which were
not considered to be strictly their business.
Subsequently the Chancellor of Education visited the college in person,
but no heed was paid to his exhortations, and it was only when the
dollar charge for lighting was reduced that peace was restored.
The Chancellor, as a last word, told them that if they vacated their
schoolrooms a fine of about a hundred taels would be imposed upon each
man.
The occasion was marked by all the foolish ardor one finds among college
boys at home, and it seems that, despite the enormous amount of money
the college is costing to run, the students are somewhat out of
hand.--E.J.D.]
SECOND JOURNEY
YÜN-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU)