Foreign Minister Wu Ting Fang, rose to the high level. He agreed to
a surrender with honors, even guaranteeing the life of the notorious
murderer of non-combatants, General Chang the Second. The negotiations
took place under the guns of historic Purple Hill, while the panting
troops held enthusiasm in control. Behind the walls the imperialists
breathed hard, and the great populace of shopkeepers eagerly waited
and watched the republican sun flags on Purple Mountain. Hurrah! a
shout went up that lives would be guaranteed (“Chiu Ming”); yes, honor,
too! Fling open the pounded, riddled iron “Great Peace” gate! The
steel muzzles of the hot Armstrongs, the deadly four-point-sevens, the
spitting Rexer rapid fire and three-inch Krupp guns on Purple, Lion and
Tiger Hills, held their smoky breath like good hounds in leash, but
straining. The generals and captains marked time; the troops craned
their heads; the Cantonese artillery hitched up the limbers to the gun
carriages. The American missionaries thanked God and led on the way
of peace for a China that would never forget the moving scene, where
forgiveness towered over revenge. Here they come, General Chao riding
ahead of the doughty Shangtung territorials with their yellow dragon
flags flying for the last time, and the bloody turbaned men of escaped
Chang’s army. Ground arms and mark time! The victorious rebels kept
their places, and under the fluttering red, white and blue sun flags of
the new republic, looked on at the impressive acts. The great column of
imperialists deployed with music playing, saluted and piled their arms
before the feet of the victors, General Hsu sitting on horseback where
the pacificators stood. Sun flags and white flags fluttered everywhere
as the sign of rebel dominance. Who are these who now come up with
reversed arms? They do not wear the German peaked caps, and the khaki
uniform of modern troops, but the old turban and slovenly blue uniform
of the ancient troops of China. They are Chang’s bloody old-style
warriors, 1,000 of them, wearing white bands in deep contrition and as
a seal of their lives from massacre. They, too, salute Hsu, the giver
of their lives, some of them giving the unmilitary kotow instead of
the modern salute. A cheer went up, the bands playing with greater
spirit. Hold open the “Great Peace” gate! Victorious Generals Hsu and
Ling, and their men, they of a hundred cold steel and bomb charges,
blowing hot the trumpets of victory, and led by the shaven heroes, the
“Dare to Die” regiment of immortal night charges, are on the ringing,
clanging march for the ancient Ming city, which they have conquered,
Nanking the cultured; Nanking the proud capital of capitals; Nanking
where was the yamen of the illustrious Viceroy Liu Kun Yih; Nanking of
the Taipings, and Nanking of the world’s widest republic! A friendly
hand had touched off the mine under the Tartar general’s yamen, and
the eighteen other dastardly mines, so that the victors should not be
blown up treacherously in the crowning hour of their rejoicing. White
flags flutter everywhere. Once the sign of death in China, they are
now the sign of peace in China, as well as in the rest of the world.
A shout of welcome goes up from the populace, who from the beginning,
like all the rest of the central and southern provinces, have been in
sympathy with the revolution. Generals Hsu, Ling and Hwang at Nanking
then have indeed balanced for the rebels the imperialist victory at
Hanyang won by General Feng. The rebels lost their left wing, which
was turned. The imperialists have also now lost their left wing, which
has been thus crumpled up at Nanking. New moves must now be made on the
checker-board by Dictator Yuan at Peking.
Governor Chan Kwang Ming and President Wu Hon Man, of the Canton
Assembly, sent out their torpedo-destroyers _Wu Ying_ and _Wupang_,
and with the British gunboats _Robin_, _Sandpiper_ and _Moorhen_ from
Hongkong, and the American gunboat _Callao_, attacked the West River
pirates, and patrolled that romantic river as far as the shadow of
Wuchow Pagoda, 220 miles of varied temples, islands, gorges, reaches
and river peaks. Mercantile vessels steamed up two by two, their
wheel-houses sheathed with steel, their gun racks full, the barred
hatches, which let air in but no smuggled pirates out, nailed down on
the ’tween decks, a guard at each hatch and over each port, and double
quartermasters manning the wheel. Commerce had gone back to medieval
conditions, and it was exciting. Rich compradores of Hongkong, like
Chan Kang Yu, of Douglas, Lapraik and Company, contributed 2,000
uniforms and outfits to equip a regiment of President Wu’s provincial
troops. Part of the rebel navy now made a four-hundred-mile dash at
forced draught to Wuchang and Hanyang, from Shanghai, to try to keep
the successful right wing of the imperialists from crossing to the
rebels’ temporary capital. If the gunboats could keep the loyalists
engaged at Hanyang, it was not impossible that the rebels, if greatly
reinforced from Canton, could turn the flank and strike the loyalists’
supply railway in the rear.
On December 5, 1911, new moves were made at Peking. Prince Chun, the
regent father of the baby Emperor Pu Yi (his real and not his throne
name), resigned in favor of two co-regents, one a Manchu, Prince Tsai
Su, and the other a Chinese, Hsu Shao Ching. This was a buffer move to
save the throne from the republican demands. For the first time in the
three hundred years’ history of the Manchu dynasty, a Chinese was thus
brought to share the regent’s power. Prince Tsai Su had been a grand
councilor in the old days; and when a national assembly was granted he
was put in as its president by Manchu power. Later he was president
of the Navy Board, and president of the Wai Wu Pu (Foreign Board). He
is a moderate progressive, a Manchu of the Manchus and related to the
emperor. Hsu Shao Ching, a Pechili Chinese, is well known as a former
minister to Russia and Germany, and the first president of the Chinese
Eastern Railway. He was a grand councilor in the old days, a viceroy of
Manchuria, and president of the Railway Board (Yu Chuan Pu) in charge
of loans. He has visited America. The appointment of this republican
general-in-chief was, of course, mere flattery, and he did not serve.
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Mortuary statues near tombs of the last native Chinese dynasty, the
Ming, near Nanking. The crowning battle of the revolution swept
over this hillside.
]
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
American, French and British gunboats protecting foreigners
at Shameen Island, Canton, during revolution, 1911–12. In
foreground, wupan, or boat of “five boards.” Note wide awnings
required on gunboats. The awnings on second gunboat (British)
were riddled by bullets of contesting forces.
]
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
The famous gate giving entrance to the native city, Tientsin.
Reform in schools, industries and army really started in this
city under the viceroyships of Li Hung Chang and Yuan Shih Kai,
and the taotaiship of Tang Shao Yi.
]
These moves on the recommendation of Dictator Yuan, who was an old
enemy of Regent Chun, who exiled him, did not satisfy the rebels, who
named Nanking as their permanent capital, called for delegates from
all the rebel provinces, and pressed on the war. “The name is changed
at Peking, but it is the same old game,” they said. A republican loan
of ten million taels, bearing twelve per cent. interest, and sold at
about eighty per cent. of face value, was sought at Shanghai, Wu Ting
Fang seeking American subscriptions especially, for he kept reminding
Americans: “You are the mother of republics; the greatest republic, as
we will be the largest republic.” Wu also wired prominent American and
British financiers and their governments, pleading that loans should
not be made to the Manchu government, and respectfully warning that:
“The republican rebels would remember if loans were made to fight
their cause.” This really had a deterrent influence, for Americans and
Britons were able to influence France to suspend financial action for
a while. The American-educated Tang Shao Yi, Dictator Yuan’s chief
assistant, now went to the rebel headquarters at Wuchang and Shanghai
to interview General Li, Minister Wu and General Hsu regarding peace,
and the rebels held sessions of delegates from the Yangtze, southern
and western provinces. Kwangtung province began its republican
organization, and sent up another quota of 3,000 modern troops from
Canton, added to 10,000 previously sent, to reinforce General Li, who
stood marking time at Wuchang against General Feng of the imperialists
at Hanyang.
By this time the fine Tyne-built, gray Chinese cruiser _Hai Chi_, which
sailed from New York in October, arrived at Shanghai, and amid wild
rejoicing, such as only the southern Chinese can express, ran down the
triangular yellow dragon and hoisted the square tri-color sun flag of
the republican revolution. She was at once ordered to report at the
arsenal with her heavy load of ammunition, which was a godsend to the
revolutionists. This cruiser was the best known abroad of Chinese war
vessels, and at once became the flagship of the rebel navy. She is
armed with two eight-inch, and ten four-point-seven guns. On December
14th, Doctor Sun Yat Sen (Sunyacius), with the American, Homer Lea,
arrived safely at Penang, Straits Settlements, a hotbed of Chinese
reform, which has from time to time sheltered all the reformers like
Sun, Kang, etc., since the coup d’état in 1898. The rich foreignized
Cantonese owners of tin mines have been loyal to reform from the
beginning. When Sun arrived at Singapore on December 16th, a band of
Chinese girls met him, each waving the tri-color of the revolution and
of the emancipation of Chinese womanhood, and singing the Chinese
Marseillaise, _Chung Kwan_. The Chinese wore no queues, and the
caricatures which they distributed showed the pig, the dog, the monkey
and the Manchu as all belonging to the races which wear queues! Who
will say that the Chinese are not distinguished for humor! I have for
years been trying to point out this quality in them.
The first wave of the revolution, which had died down somewhat by
the Hankau defeat, had rolled on even into far mountainous Tibet,
and Gyangze, a walled and fortified town on the trade route between
Lhasa and Darjeeling, fell before the revolutionists on December 14th.
Gyangze will be remembered for the stand it made against Sir Francis
Younghusband’s brilliant campaign in 1904 to open up the way from India
to Lhasa, and also for the operations in its neighborhood by General
Chao Ehr Feng, who drove the sacred plotting Dalai Lama for the first
time out of China into India in the startling campaign of 1910.
During this week the Yangtze River for six hundred miles presented
a remarkable scene, as Tang Shao Yi, the emissary of Dictator Yuan,
sailed down to Shanghai to discuss peace terms with the revolutionists
at the Town Hall at Shanghai, which was guarded by British, Sikh and
other troops of the international settlement. At Hankau the last yellow
dragon flag of the imperialists was seen, as the imperial legates, Tang
Shao Yi, Yen Shih Si and Yang Shih Chih, on the steamer _Tung Ting_,
sailed between the new navy of the rebels on patrol of the great river,
which was now their six hundred miles of front. The fine cruiser _Hai
Chi_, with New York Chinese among the crew, the companion cruisers _Hai
Yung_ and _Hai Sun_, the gunboats _Kwang Kang_, _Kwang Poa_, _On Nam_,
etc., headed the republican fleet, which flew the red, white and blue
sun flag. The armistice was not kept in Shansi or Shensi provinces by
the imperialist general, Sheng Yun. When the pourparler opened, the six
powers, at America’s suggestion, informed Wu and Tang that they would
appreciate a settlement, because neither side seemed to be able to
keep down piracy, it being as bad along the Liao River in the north as
along the Si valley in the distant south. It will be recalled that the
Manchus of Shansi province early in the campaign assassinated the great
rebel general, Wu Lu Cheng. It was now rumored that the Chinese had
induced Tuan Fang’s troops in the same province to murder that noble
Manchu, who was the greatest friend the foreigners had among the Manchu
officials in the dark “Boxer” days of 1900. Tuan had been governor of
Pechili and Szechuen provinces, head of the railway development in
the Yangtze basin, and above all head of the famous constitutional
committee (Hsien Cheng Pien Cha Kuan), which, in 1906, went abroad to
study foreign parliaments and congresses. He was the noblest of the
Manchus, a repetition in character of Prince Kung of Victorian days,
and he died like a modern hero. “Kneel and be decapitated,” his troops
demanded. “You’ll shoot or cut me down where I stand,” he declared.
Individual virtue does not belong exclusively to any organization.
The rebels went on with their work in calling up troops from Premier
Wu Hon Man at Canton, and in equipping aeroplanes, run by Americanized
Chinese, for a possible air attack on Peking, if the peace conference
should break up in failure, and Hankau could be won back. The
missionaries agreed to flee to the Methodist compound which adjoined
the legation quarter in the Tartar city of Peking, on a signal being
given by rocket. The foreigners in the northern provinces were dubious
that a republican government could be established, but it must be
remembered that many of these foreigners were more surprised than the
rest of the world that the reformers ever shouldered arms for reform
and declared for a republic on October 10, 1911. The foreigners of
the northern provinces were accordingly at first largely in sympathy
with the retention of the Manchu, under a limited monarchy system, and
the election of Yuan as premier. Many of the foreigners of Peking and
Tientsin tried to impose their views upon the foreigners of Shanghai
and Hongkong, who naturally knew more about the reform and republican
movement in China, for the initial reformers of China all came from
Canton, Penang, Manila and Shanghai, where they were influenced by
British Hongkong, Singapore and America. The income of the imperial
authority had been levied mainly on the southern provinces, which had
least representation on the Peking Boards (Pus) since the coup d’état
of 1898. Taxation again without representation! The doubt in the minds
of the reformers was that if the Manchu was retained, he might revert
to his old faults of by turns oppressing China, and by turns looting
it, for certain foreign concessionaires. True, said some, peace could
be fixed up now, and matters fought out again, if faith was not kept.
But, said others, by that time certain foreigners will have given Yuan
Shih Kai an army of forty divisions with a fortified base at Peking
in touch with the Russian railway, a navy of battleships, 2,500 miles
of new flanking railways down into the south, and a full exchequer
box, while the new parliaments may be without a Cromwell, a Pym, a
Hampden, a Jefferson, a Franklin, a Lincoln. It was a great question,
the largest any nation has ever handled, and the one answer was: “Well,
then, develop your Cromwells, Pyms, Hampdens, Jeffersons, Franklins,
Lincolns, out of such timber as you have in Sun, Wu, Kang, Li, etc.,
and let us have peace.”
There are two things that the writer believes and prays for, viz.:
that China will remain a republic, and will become a republic
based on the worship of Christ and the study of the Christian’s
Bible. Such a wonderful nation of four hundred millions, preserved
from the immemorial past as one people, must have been preserved
for some providential purpose, to put irresistible might behind
certain altruistic world ideas. Are those ideas the giving of a
truer republicanism, and a more unselfish Christianity than we have
exemplified, to mankind? Japan made one irremediable and lamentable
mistake; she has ignored the fact that the strength of the West is
not in fleets, but in Bible knowledge, certain trusts and occasional
wars notwithstanding. It will be remembered that the secretary of the
Board of Rites, Wang Chao, recommended to the reform emperor, Kwang
Hsu, in 1898, that Christianity should be named as the state religion.
President Sun and General Li of the republicans are, as I have said
before, a Congregationalist and an Episcopalian.
As the friendly note from the six powers to the imperialists and
revolutionists at Shanghai was, at America’s and Britain’s suggestion,
identical, it was virtually a tentative recognition by the powers of
the belligerents, which happy result the latter had been trying to
obtain at Minister Wu’s urgency for over two months. Yuan threatened to
fight if a republic was insisted on, and he seized a great part of the
Manchu hoards at Peking and Tientsin, under the name of a forced loan.
He needed two million dollars a month to pay the Manchu and northern
bannermen. Four of the powers were in favor of lending Yuan money, but
the rebels said, if you don’t also lend us money, we will boycott your
trade in the central and southern provinces, and you know that most of
the foreign trade emanates from Southern China, that is, your tea and
silk come from that section, and your exports go there in exchange. If
you want to know what a trade boycott by us means, ask the Japanese,
who will recall the “Tatsu Maru” incident. The rebels also threatened
that if loans were made by foreigners to the imperialists, and the
rebels were successful, the latter would repudiate these loans. This
was the most brilliant move to date of the republican diplomacy. The
rebels now made a surprising and broad-minded move. They wanted to
save bloodshed. They knew that a Paul converted had been made out of a
stubborn Saul unconverted; that some reformers were in their day stanch
“standpat machine” men! They offered Yuan the presidency of a republic,
with Sunyacius as vice-president possibly, and Wu as a possible foreign
minister, until real elective assemblies could form parties, and elect
their nominees. Yuan’s emissary at the Shanghai Conference, Tang Shao
Yi, was impressed with the fact that Yuan and others in North China
had no idea how strongly the republican idea had seized on the rebel
provinces. Tang, it will be remembered, is a graduate of an American
university, and he is even more progressive than his patron, Yuan. In
making overtures to Yuan, Sunyacius and Wu of the rebels were showing
that they were strong and calm diplomats, who could waive a detail to
win a general cause. Recent Occidental politics exhibit no such example
of the suppression of factiousness. Wu, however, did not hesitate a
minute to tell the six powers that if they loaned money to the north,
or interfered, they would only prolong the war indefinitely.
On December 21, 1911, the line-up was as follows. Yuan, three of
the powers and some of the world’s financial syndicates, in favor
of a monarchy or war, with a loan to the north, arrayed against the
republicans. Wu, ever persistent in demanding a republic, or renewing
the war, with a trade boycott in the southern and central provinces,
against any foreign nation that loaned the north money. Some of the
American journals, surprisingly, opposed the republic. For instance,
on the very day that Doctor Sunyacius was named president, the New
York _Outlook_ (December 30, 1911), with snap judgment, stated that a
Chinese republic could, would and should not be set up at present, and
further that “Americans would do well to throw all their influence on
the side of a constitutional monarchy”. Nine-tenths of the _Outlook’s_
readers doubtless thought that if Homer could sometimes nod, such
surprising retrogressive words as these might be forgiven the generally
progressive _Outlook_. Similarly in England, the large London house
of Montagu, which has been prominent in very profitable railway loans
to China under the Manchu régime, issued a circular stating its
“satisfaction” when the republicans lost Hankau to General Feng, under
atrocious circumstances of unforgivable massacre and unnecessary arson.
_Memoria longa, lingua brevis!_ Some of Britain’s diplomatic force,
arguing like the reactionaries of George the Third’s day, said that
they favored a monarchy because India might want a greater share in
self-government than she had, forgetting that a wide-awake and fully
developed India meant greater trade for Britain. Three monarchical
nations said that they would favor destroying the American doctrine of
the “non-partition of China” and splitting the four dependencies and
the eight provinces north of the Yellow River from the rebel provinces.
Now, if ever, was the time for America to act, to give the largest
and oldest nation on earth true freedom, and stop massacre and the
sowing of eternal hate between the yellow and the white races. If the
republican idea was decapitated by three of the monarchical nations
willingly, and two of the constitutional nations unwillingly, revulsion
would sweep through the camp of the republicans, and foreigners and
missionaries would be slain by the mobs, who always act before they
think the important second time. This was just what the plotting
Manchus had been endeavoring to bring about since October 10, 1911.
“Make the republicans, or the mob in their provinces, massacre;
that will bring in foreign interference, which will save the Manchu
dynasty.” In return, the Manchus promised certain foreign interests
almost any concessions which they might ask for. They could loot China,
the mineral Eldorado of the ages, and exploit the labor host of a new
Goshen. _Perfide!_ ye who are retroactive at this late day after all
the lessons of the crowded past, and who love Money more than Man.
Hail! American republic, the mother of republics, and hail, too, the
germinating Chinese republic! Even Count Okuma, the most liberal of the
Japanese, the founder of the enlightened Waseda University, of whom
most sympathy was expected with China’s effort for freedom, came out
with a pessimistic article at this time, prophesying the “failure of
the republic, years of degeneration, and an inevitable new dynasty”.
Did he mean that Japan would supply one, after first absorbing two
provinces of Manchuria?
Yuan, the dictator, began moving his divisions, the Twentieth, now rid
of its reform general, Chang Shao Tsen, being sent from the Lanchow
camp to a point north of Tientsin, to split the republicans of the
three provinces of Manchuria from joining the republicans of Shangtung.
Sunyacius, with Premier Wu Hon Man, of Canton, now left Hongkong for
Shanghai, and the world stood back and waited for the lightning to
come out of the clouds. The half million Chinese of British Hongkong
gave them a rousing send-off, which was at heart approved by the five
thousand British merchants and troops of Hongkong, for Hongkong knew
what a trade boycott in the southern provinces meant. Canton had now
struck a swinging pace, and Premier Wu had sent bodies of troops,
particularly his fine artillery and bomb-throwers, to strengthen the
two wings of the rebels under Generals Li, Ling and Hsu at Wuchang and
Nanking, respectively. Among these troops were one thousand students
recruited by the Fong Yuen College at Canton. God send great things to
earth! God save liberty for China, and keep progress from slipping back
a thousand years!