Shensi provinces, General Sheng Yun, a Mongol by blood, still had
15,000 troops (many of them Mohammedans) fomenting Manchu propaganda
and slaying everywhere, while General Yin Tchang, at Japanese Dalny,
Governor Chao Ehr Hsun, at Mukden, and Prince Su, at Jehol and Kalgan,
were doing the same thing. What a confused state of affairs existed
in the mutinous army, of the north, which was divided into five corps.
General Sheng’s Mohammedans were setting Shansi and Shensi provinces on
fire. The corps of Imperial Guards and Manchu divisions at Peking were
at heart of course for the deposed Manchu dynasty. The Mongol divisions
in northern Pechili looted and decapitated and laughed at President
Yuan’s orders. The old-style turbaned troops of Yuan’s were loyal one
day and disloyal another, and the same thing was true of divisions of
territorial Shangtung, Pechili and Honan troops of Yuan’s modern army.
In the southern provinces the republicans had a little more cohesion
in the five armies of their recruited corps and their two territorial
armies. In Yunnan province an entirely isolated army was marking time
and had done nothing for either southern or northern cause of late. Oh!
for a strong hand to weave and hold all these cords in one cable of
some strength.
On March 10th, amid the crashing of walls and institutions, a pathetic
but inspiring scene occurred in the modern Wai Wu Pu (Foreign Office)
at Peking. Yuan Shih Kai, dressed in military uniform, was formally
inaugurated provisional president of the republic of China, in the
presence of the Nanking assembly delegates, military and naval
officers, provincial envoys, and many foreigners. Of course, legation
staffs and missionary bodies did not attend officially. Yuan read a
declaration promising progress, to observe the constitution, and retire
when the National Assembly appointed a permanent president for the
decided term, if he himself was not chosen. Two yellow robed Lamas
from the Buddhist temple stepped up, presented Yuan with two honorary
scarfs and called him, in Pekingese, “Da Dsoong Toong” (in Cantonese,
Ta Tsung Tung),--the great president. It was a businesslike military
scene, there being very little of Oriental display or the gorgeous
robes of old. Tang Shao Yi was named premier. President Yuan signalized
his assumption of office by pardoning all prisoners, except murderers
and robbers, remitting all overdue land taxes and announcing that for
the present the old laws would stand, except where they were obviously
contrary to the spirit of republicanism.
The new constitution provided that the supreme power was in the hands
of the National Assembly; that all acts of the president required
the approval of the assembly, that the cabinet was answerable to
the assembly; and that the assembly was to elect the president and
vice-president, and have power to pass laws over the executive veto.
This was vastly different from Japan’s stultified parliamentarism,
and was a union of the American system of the lower house being
supreme, and of the British executive efficiency obtainable from a
small cabinet. Doctor Sun promised to turn over the great seal of his
office. Disorder ruled throughout the armed north, where a republic
was unpopular with the mercenary troops. Republican flags were torn
down wherever the merchants of Peking put them up. The rebelling
troops decapitated the crowd by thousands at Peking, Tientsin, Kalgan,
Paoting, and throughout Shansi, Shensi and Pechili provinces. So many
heads and bodies lay on the street that the donkeys and mules refused
to pass the heaps. Yuan himself had to add the head of the headtaker
to the pile. He sent the tall, venerable General Chiang Kwei Tai with
old-style turbaned Nganhwei troops, who mowed off heads right and left
through the streets of old Peking. The famous Tongkwan pass, at the
heel of the Yellow River, commanding Shensi and Honan provinces, was
seized by the reactionary troops of General Sheng Yun, who compelled
the merchant guilds to pay blackmail or have their stores looted.
Clearly Pechili province, with its hosts of irreconcilable mercenary
troops, was the rock on which the ship of republicanism was now
stranded. Yuan had to change his body-guard from day to day, one day
old-style troops, another day Manchu troops, and again the champion
looters of the Third Division, but the real hand which afforded what
little steadiness there was, was the magnificent body of foreign troops
which amounted to 3,000 picked men.
On March 12th, Provincial President Wu Hon Man and Governor Chan
Kwang Ming, at Canton, were harassed by the notorious pirate chief,
Luk, who was remarkably successful. Luk, through the mutiny of the
soldiers, gained the historic Bogue, Yuchu, Whampoa and Fumen forts,
and the arsenal and admiralty buildings. All the foreign navies, led
by the United States gunboat _Wilmington_ and the British fleet under
Commander Eyres, anchored off Shameen Island, cleared for action,
and the passenger steamers, on which probably every world tourist
has probably been, the _Fatshan_ and _Honan_, sailed from Canton for
Hongkong with two thousand passengers each. The famous old shallow
draft British gunboat _Moorhen_, the hero of a thousand pirate chases
in intricate Kwangtung province waters, had her awnings and spars torn
by bullets during the night, as she protected the electric station,
so that the pirates could not strike Canton into midnight, and in the
dark massacre along the narrow streets, the maloos and the bund. Eight
hundred British and French troops patrolled the little foreign island
of Shameen.
Before the days of direct primary nominations in America we suffered
from the machine system, which advanced the incompetent and debarred
the eminent and efficient from service in the state. A saloon-keeper
who brought 2,000 votes would demand, for instance, the position of
secretary of state. “But you’re not fitted for it; you’re a hoodlum.”
The ward-heeler would answer: “I must have it; I have to pay my 2,000
brigands the ‘graft’ which we claim is ours; otherwise, remember our
revenge next election.” One Shek Kam Chuen, a young stone-cutter and
human hair hawker of Canton, was very successful in smuggling arms
for the revolution, and on the declaration of independence, he led a
following of 2,000 nondescript men, who did effective work in fighting.
They were men who loved a fight more than liberty, not liberty more
than life. When the republic was victorious and his troops, after being
paid, were disbanded, Shek was unsatisfied. He, a hawker, wanted high
office, when even President Sun turned his brother down from politics
to business in Canton because he was not eminent for political ability.
Shek made demands for his men that the state could not consistently
grant. He smuggled arms to take up piracy in reprisal on the harassed
state. The way the governor of Canton treated Shek and his legal
adviser, Chang Han Hing, was, under the constitutional pressure of
public opinion, to capture them at their headquarters, and under
military law, or the application of the popular “recall”, have them
both shot, to the great rejoicing of good citizens and taxpayers. That
ended one instance of heelerism, bossism, packed primary, professional
office holding, “public office a private graft”, piracy, or whatever
you like to call it, in modern China! The “Popular Recall” was a
success, despite the cynicism of the standpatters in Canton, and one of
those standpatters was Shek’s lawyer, Chang, who shared his client’s
fate, much to his disgusted surprise. I am sorry William Dean Howells
was not in Canton at that time to write _A Modern Instance_!
General Wu Sum, with 2,000 republican provincial troops, left Canton
for Swatow to put down pirates operating around that noted old city,
and the famous General Ling, and General Ho came down from Nanking to
assist. On March 14th the irreconcilable “Boxer” Manchu leader, Prince
Tuan, exiled in Kansu province, raised the standard of revolt, with
his son Ku Kwei, as a pretender to the throne. He had not the moral
support of all of the imperial clan, because he had in 1900 plotted to
displace Prince Chun’s emperor son, “Pu Yi”. Tuan is a shrewd, able and
persistent leader. If he had not been a reactionary in 1900, he might
have preserved to the Manchus a longer lease of power.
The battles of the international financiers still went on at
Peking, Premier Tang Shao Yi’s action in raising $5,000,000 from a
Russian-Belgian syndicate on the Chinese-built Peking-Kalgan railway,
incensing the international group. Tang gave a laconic interview,
merely saying: “China need not necessarily put herself forever in the
hands of four nations; we can deal with independents where we are
able to find any. The loan was first offered to American bankers,
but those American bankers who are now in the Far East would not act
independently of the four nations.” Russian, Japanese and Belgian
bankers seemed to fall in with Russia’s plans, as in 1896, to put
China under a financial thraldom. Russia did not want a loan given to
China for her army, as Russia and Japan both desire a weak army in
China. The four-nation bankers now offered China $300,000,000, of which
$60,000,000 was to be for army purposes. If Japan joins in this loan,
it will be because she does not want to be shut out of a share in
controlling China’s finances, and an apportionment of the concessions.
The _National Review_ of Shanghai published at this time a caricature,
showing Russia pushing old China, and “Foreign Grafter” pushing New
China, out of the way, while North China, a clam, had shut its shell
on the beak of South China, a heron. The Chinese fable of the bird and
the shellfish was quoted as follows: “A bird attacked an open shellfish
on the beach; but the shellfish closed his shell with a snap, and the
bird was caught. Both were then helpless, and fell an easy prey to
some covetous fishermen.” Nearly all the Japanese papers, including
the influential Tokio _Nichi_ and _Jiji_, and the Osaka _Mainichi_,
came out attacking Yuan, and endeavoring to stir up differences between
North and South China. If Japan could prove that Chinese conditions
were unstable, there evidently would be more plausibility for Japan’s
possible intervention in Manchuria! On March 16th, Premier Tang Shao Yi
announced a provisional northern cabinet as follows, until the National
Assembly of seven delegates to a province could meet. None of the
appointees is a Manchu.
President, Yuan Shih Kai, a Honan man.
Premier, Tang Shao Yi, Cantonese, educated at Yale University, America.
Army, General Tuan Chi Jui, Nganhwei man, once viceroy of Hunan, active
in revolution.
Navy, Admiral Lin Kwan Hsung, a man of considerable experience in the
old and new navies, at Canton, along the Yangtze, etc.
Foreign Affairs, Lou Tseng Tsiang, Minister to Russia, Netherlands,
etc. In this appointment Yuan shows how natural it is for him to favor
Russia, whom he fears.
Interior, Cheo Ping Chun, a native of Hunan.
Education, Tsai Yuan Pei.
Railways, Posts, etc., Liang Ju Hao, Cantonese.
Commerce and Labor, Chen Chi Mei.
Agriculture, Sung Chiao Fen.
Justice, Wong Chun Hui, American educated, very able.
Finance, Hsiung Hsi Ling, Hunan man, once in Exterior Department of
Hupeh province.
Most of these are southern men, some of whom replied that they did
not see how they could come without a southern army to protect their
lives from the loosely-held northern troops, who had no idea what
constitutional honor or promises meant. The whole of the American
Pacific Navy, including the fine cruisers _California_, _South Dakota_
and _Colorado_, left Honolulu for the Far East, and the United States
steamer _Monterey_, on the same day, landed one hundred men at Swatow
to preserve order and the tanks of the Standard Oil Company. On March
19th the republican troops at Canton and Swatow gained back after
severe engagements the forts that the mutinous troops and pirates had
taken. The government at Canton bought up all the food in the shops so
as to starve out Luk’s pirates. Amid all the conflict of accusation and
denial, it is fitting that Yuan Shih Kai should speak for himself, and
therefore I quote parts from his long address to the old conservatives
and to the provincial governors shortly after the abdication of the
dynasty, which abdication he adroitly and successfully urged when, to
use his own words, “it was well nigh impossible to make stand against
the republicans.”
“From the time when I again led the troops and later when I came to
court, I was animated with the purpose of establishing a constitutional
monarchy, but the state of the country changed. The National Assembly
and the provincial assemblies all fathered the policy of not using
military force to put down the disturbances. When Hankau was regained,
the naval forces were lost. The moment Hanyang was reconquered, Nanking
fell. The power of the government over the waterways and the sea was
gone, and the sources of revenue were cut off. Although in various ways
I encouraged the military to greater effort, secured the revocation
of Shangtung’s declaration of independence, subdued the capitals of
Shansi and Manchuria, and did all in my power to prop up the North,
yet the tide was too strong and swept every locality. Revolutionary
societies among the people were scattered everywhere. At this time
there was international intervention and it was requested that in the
interests of humanity a truce be declared and negotiations undertaken.
Foreigners continually uttered reproof on the scores of commercial
interests and the indemnity. Because the country was in such a chaotic
state politically, it was difficult to restore order. Within there
was ruin; without there was furnished the possibility of foreign
intervention. The revolutionary forces were coming by various routes
to attack the North. The spirit of the army was shaken. Had the strife
been continued, in a very short time the revolutionary army would have
come north, and in that case it would have been impossible either to
fight or to negotiate for peace. What of the imperial family and the
livelihood of the bannermen? Recently the ministers of foreign nations,
the commercial associations at the ports, the different conferences,
the various troops and the provincial viceroys and governors have
sent telegrams, all stating that the will of the people is bent on
a republic, and that it would be well-nigh impossible to make stand
against it. Should the enemy arrive at the walls of the capital, the
disasters resulting would be unimaginable. How much better for the
throne, of its own grace, to proclaim the republic at an early date.
There was condemnation of the policy of staking the fate of their
imperial majesties and the lives and property of the North on a single
throw, trusting to luck in a single battle. An edict was issued by her
Imperial Majesty directing me first to settle with the revolutionary
army regarding the especial consideration to be accorded the imperial
family and the treatment of the Manchus, Mongolians, Mohammedans, and
Tibetans. If an agreement could be reached by the two sides, then
the imperial family might enjoy glory, and the hereditary nobility
among the Manchus, Mongols, Mohammedans, and Tibetans, as well as the
allowances of the bannermen, might continue without interruption. An
agreement was made, resulting in the present state of affairs.”
Neither Yuan nor the north has yet explained to the world the reason
why the nobility of the Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, etc., expect
titles and pensions, unless it be the argument that is now wearing
out over the world, in nation after nation, that it is constitutional
to maintain rule by a Privileged Minority over a taxed majority!
Yuan says: “An agreement was made resulting in the present state
of affairs,” but the “present state of affairs” is not entirely
satisfactory. At times, it seems in China that Confucius has abdicated
to Confusion. The solution lies in three things: railways, education,
and a real republican congress, none of the three to be interfered
with by either a riotous or office-greedy army, but rather dutifully
served by a patriotic army. There can be no doubt that the action
of the ninety generals of the northern army in forcing the National
Assembly at Peking, in July, 1912, at the sword’s point, to accept
against their will the second cabinet which Yuan Shih Kai had selected,
and some of his foreign-advised measures, was inimical to the vitality
of constitutionalism in China. The result was the forming of a
constitutional party in the Yangtze and southern provinces by Doctor
Sun Yat Sen and his friends, called the Tung Men Hwei (Sworn Brother
Society), some of whose measures were the supervision of Chinese
finances, and railway and industrial development, largely by Chinese,
and the discharge of more regiments of northern troops. The National
Assembly and cabinet have recently put in Sunyacius’ charge the
formation of a central railway board to arrange for the extension of
railways.
II
WIT AND HUMOR IN CHINA
In his book _Alone in China_, Julian Ralph, the New Yorker, wrote in
1898 the following sentence:
“The men and women of China will live in my mind forever, here and in
heaven, as the jolliest, kindest, most sympathetic and generous souls I
ever found in such profusion anywhere in my roving.”
I have lived and traveled three years in China, and have found that
the Chinese influence the foreigners and that the foreigners influence
the Chinese, sharpening each other’s wit, and smoothing each other’s
kindly humor. The jewel has many facets of view, depending on the angle
of vision, and in the following I shall attempt to recall many of the
angles.
Regarding the foreign custom, written of by Kipling and others, of the
troubled or exiled ones of the treaty ports taking copiously to liquor
for consolation, a wit remarked: “A corkscrew will never pull a man out
of sorrow.”
The Manchu soldiers read little, and have been under the impression
that others are like them. The “braves” on guard at the Ta Ping gate
of Canton had been in the habit of extorting many a “cumshaw” from
humble-looking citizens before they were allowed to go on their
business. They caught a Tartar in 1910, when they seized a modern
editor, who aired his complaint in his newspaper, which was read in
due time by the Military Prefect Lo. What occurred between Lo and his
old-fashioned braves was not reported, but the braves for many months
before the revolution of 1911 saw in every passer-by an editor. Up to
the time of free types, complaint had been smothered at the yamens.
Revolutionary spies had gone ahead of new appointees to distant
provinces and impersonated them with a recitation of their record. In
August, 1911, the Peking _Gazette_ recited that the cabinet would in
future despatch a photograph in a sealed envelope to the governors, so
that “they could pick out the man who fitted the record by physiognomy
as well as memory”.
Back in the 80’s the famous Szechuen pioneer, Archibald Little, dunned
the ears of the Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board) at Peking for permission
to open the whole Yangtze River from Shanghai to Chungking to steamer
service. “Yes,” said the humorously evasive board at last, “you may
run your steamer, but you know that a modern steamer will cut the
unwieldy junks down. Therefore all sailing craft will tie up to the
bank of the great river two days of each week, and give the terrible
Fung-kwei (foreign) steamer full reign on the Yangtze, but on those two
days of the week only. For five days of the week the steam craft must
in reciprocation, tie up to the bank.” This would require weeks longer
to ascend the river than could be done by tracking and sail, and Mr.
Little’s plan for fast steamer service was effectually disposed of by
the wily Manchu Board, which boasted that it “never denied a foreign
request”.
Two trains of coolies meet, and words or a jostle precipitate a combat.
After it is all over, and your men take up again the arms of your
chair, you remark that although your leader’s clothes are nearly ripped
off, he is laughing about it. In astonishment, you ask him why, and he
replies: “You should see the fellow I tackled; he hasn’t any left.”
In the country parts, if you hand a cigar to a man at an inn, he thinks
it is proper manners to pass it to every one, to take a puff, just as
he would do with a pipe.
The _Chi Feng Pao_, a native paper of Peking, reported that in the
month preceding the great 1911 revolution, even the house servants of
the Court had not received their wages for months, and that one morning
this anonymous placard was found placed on the comptroller’s door: “Not
even a shadow of our pay to be seen yet. Why?”
A Chinese merchant, who was disgusted that all his heirs died upon
birth, called at a life insurance office at Tientsin, and asked if
“they could insure a well and proper birth”, for if so, he would gladly
take out a policy. He supposed that was what the new American life
insurance meant.
A Hakka woman of the south was seldom given chicken by her husband,
who complained of the expense. She obtained his permission, however,
to purchase a fowl for the god in the Taoist temple. The husband came
home, found his wife eagerly eating the bird, and shrieked out: “How is
this? I bought it for the god, not for you.” She replied: “I offered it
to the god, who ate all he could of it. I am only eating the remainder,
thanks to the god, and not to you, for that.”
It is the custom for the mandarins who go into a country inn, to hang
out a red card, stating that “This inn is full”. A rejected guide
replied: “Rather the mandarin is full.”
I have seen a humorous drawing on a screen, which shows a cat chasing
a mouse. The cat has only been able to catch a hind foot of the mouse,
which keeps running, the foot lengthening in a most comical way,
judging by the disgust on the face of the cat, and the laugh on the
face of the mouse, which says: “That is all you get, anyway.”
“How is it that there are no one-legged men to be seen in China; do
you have no accidents?” an intelligent official was asked, and he
replied humorously: “Oh, yes, but as we know nothing of surgery, when a
man’s leg gets in trouble, we bury the whole man.”
Some of their merry proverbs are:
“If you must beat the priest, wait till he has ended the prayer for
you.”
“It’s all very well to tell the priest that you are penitent, but prove
it by pennies.”
“A wheelbarrow ahead means a trail behind.”
“Man’s mouth is wider than a volcano when it comes to words.”
A sick man, sleeping fitfully, is said to be having a “raw sleep”, and
correspondingly a tired or a drunken man, enjoying deep rest, is said
to be having a “ripe sleep”.
It has been the custom of the French and Germans, when a missionary
or an ambassador has been unfortunately assassinated, to compel the
Chinese government to erect a stone arch or pailoo, with the intent
of warning the nation of the wrath of the foreigner. When you ask
the common people, who can not read, if the arch is “in memory of
Ambassador So-and-So” they generally reply: “Oh, no, it’s to the other
fellow. It’s in memory of patriot So-and-So who was executed by a
coerced government for killing a forward foreigner.”
Beheading, outside of Kwangtung province, which has recently adopted
modern methods, is the punishment for far too many crimes. Scores
of prisoners are often beheaded together, as they kneel in a row.
The Chinese loathe this method of punishment, as no good Confucian
can appear in the next world with a headless body to be worshiped
as a god by his descendants. They overcome the difficulty by having
the head sewed on the body before it is buried. There is little to
identify the almost unclothed bodies, and the Doms or coolies who
are hired to perform the gruesome task sometimes get the bodies and
heads mixed up, delivering the right body but the wrong head to the
surprised though mourning family, which stands ready with the coffin
and the identifiers. The Chinese are so possessed of humor that it is
not unknown for retainers to burst out laughing at the incongruous
spectacle.
“The American cost of living is nothing compared to the Chinese cost of
loving,” said the demure mandarin, as he pointed to his five wives, et
cetera!