China-Japan War over Korea. Viceroys Li Hung Chang and Yuan Shih Kai
were bent on drilling an effective service. Chiefly German and Japanese
instructors were hired, though there were a few other foreigners also.
General Upton (U. S. A.), of Civil War fame, once made a trip to China
and planned with Viceroy Li Hung Chang the establishment of a Chinese
West Point in the north, which has been begun in the Pei Yang Military
College at Tientsin. Emperor William personally instructed General Yin
Tchang in Germany. An army of Imperial Guards and ten divisions, mostly
territorial for facility in recruiting and mobilizing, was whipped into
shape chiefly in the northern provinces, and twenty other divisions
were partly formed as provided for by the famous Army Edict of April
16, 1906. Modern arsenals, headquarters offices, field maneuvers, Red
Cross, foreign instructors, the Pei Yang Military College, etc., were
all provided for. The old-style provincial turbaned troops allotted to
each viceroy, and the pensioned soldiers of the eight Manchu banners
were not all disbanded. They were quartered among the 4,000 walled
cities. No conscription was necessary, as the men seemed anxious to
serve for the wage, or the promise of six dollars a month. The plan
was to keep the men three years with the colors, three years with the
reserve, and thereafter for ten years with a landwehr on the German
plan. By 1900 the new army was not cohesive, or the reactionary
empress dowager, Prince Tuan, General Tung Fu of Kansu, and Yu Hsien,
of Shangtung, would have wiped out the foreigners in the legations and
Admiral Seymour’s international relief expedition at Tientsin. When
the 1911 rebellion opened, the Eighth Division joined the republicans
at Wuchang, and earned immortal glory. Their brothers of the Third
Division opposed them at Hankau. The Ninth Division of Shangtung and
Kiangsu territorials held Nanking for the imperialists, but the Kiangsu
Brigade of that division later deserted. The Twentieth Division of
Manchurian territorials at Lanchow Camp near Peking earned immortal
glory by sending up to the National Assembly and the throne nineteen
constitutional articles which they said had to be signed before they
would war for the throne. This was _lèse majesté_ with a vengeance! The
Guards Division was at Peking, where it stayed, watching the hoards of
bullion and sycee more than constitutional articles! The Sixth Division
was in Shansi province. The First Division of Manchu troops, and the
Second and Fourth Divisions at times shuttlecocked along the railway
between Hankau and Peking. The Fifth Division was at Tsinan, capital of
Shangtung province.
Had China’s army not been territorial, the rebellion might never
have got into swing, because it would have been impossible to have
intrigued with a mixed Eighth Division. Again, had China’s army not
been territorial, President Yuan could have used the Third, Fourth,
Sixth and Twentieth Divisions at Peking in March, 1912, to suppress
the mutiny, whereas these divisions remained in sympathy with the
First Manchu Division and the Imperial Guards Division, and refused to
obey the constitutional head of the government at a climacteric time.
A mixed army is not easily mobilized, but when mobilized it is more
amenable to discipline, and the ignoring of local feeling in view of
the larger aims of statesmanship. England’s, Germany’s and France’s
armies are territorial. Italy’s and America’s regular armies are not.
America’s vast militia army, however, on which she mainly depends, is,
of course, territorial.
General Yin Tchang, who had much to do with organizing the effective
ten divisions of the northern army, is a graduate of Peking University.
He served five years in the Austrian infantry, and as minister to
Germany, at Emperor William’s request, he enjoyed that unusually able
and enthusiastic monarch’s private instruction in army matters. In 1900
General Yin Tchang came in contact with the allied forces at Tientsin,
and held his retreat together well enough to elicit much admiration.
General Yin and the regent, Prince Chun, both visited Hongkong in 1901
and there gained sympathy from us all for the great promise which
they showed in guiding the New China. Yin Tchang’s excellent idea was
to take the provincial armies away from the viceroys, and make the
new divisions answerable to the Board of War (Ping Pu) at Peking.
Prince Tsai Tse’s, the finance minister’s plan, was to inform each
governor what amount he was to send to Peking as the province’s share
in maintaining a central army. There was considerable conflict over
this issue, many southern governors saying that they paid for two
armies, one modern army which was held in the north, of which they
never received their allotted division or brigade, and the old-style
provincial troops which they had to maintain to preserve order. General
Ha Han-Chang, a Chinese by blood, came next to Yin in drilling the new
army. He is also a Pei Yang graduate, and trained with the Japanese
army. General Liang-Pi, a Manchu, had an experience similar to that
of General Ha, before accepting command of the First Brigade. None
of these men is like Tieh-Liang and the other well-known old-style
generals, strong in classics but weak in tactics. They reversed the
order. General Li Chin Hsi at remote Yunnan City raised and drilled an
excellent division. The division at Canton went all to pieces before
the republican troops of General Wu Sum, but the Shansi divisions were
effectually held together by General Sheng Yun, a Mongol, who later
captured the Tongkwan pass, which commands the road from the west to
Peking. Many soldiers of the southern divisions, in the first few
weeks of the revolution, fired from the hip, as they were not used to
the recoil on the shoulder. They, of course, soon did better. One of
the best and most popular marksmen of the Singapore Rifle Team which
competed at Bisley in 1910 was Sergeant Tan Chow Kim, a Cantonese
Chinese.
The name of Frederick T. Ward should be linked with “Chinese” Gordon’s
in connection with Chinese military records. General Ward, born at
Salem, Massachusetts, lost his life in the service of China. He
organized and led the only great army that China ever had before
1906. His name stands linked with Gordon’s as the maker of the “Ever
Victorious Army,” the conqueror of the Taiping horde.
A modern rage for dull-colored new uniforms has struck gorgeously
gowned old China. I shall recite an amusing instance. In the fall
of 1911 a band of rebels organized in Sining, in far-western Kansu
province. They chose a boy of fifteen as their prophet leader because
he bore peculiar birthmarks. He was given the fanciful name of Savior
of the Land (Chu Shih Waang). The generals reported that the new force
should wear modern uniforms of cotton. The stores were swamped with
orders, and every bolt of foreign cotton was immediately bought up, no
matter what its design. The Imperial Guards wear gray, and the other
divisions wear blue and khaki.
Aviation was introduced in China (really Indo-China) at Saigon on
December 1, 1910, by the Holland-Frenchman, Vanderborn. He was followed
later in the year at Shanghai by the American, “Bud” Mars. The first
Chinese aviator was Fug-Yu, who was trained in America, and who
experimented at the Lanchow (east of Peking) camp in 1911. During the
revolution a number of Chinese students took lessons in aviation in
America and left for the rebel front. Had the war continued it was the
intention to destroy Peking by dynamite dropped from air-ships. Both
Sun and Yuan are to be congratulated that this necessity was obviated
by diplomacy.
China’s antiquity, vast population and warlikeness have been brought in
question by some writers. That she had a vast population as far back
as the third century before the Christian era is proved by the army
records. The Ts’in clan, operating under their celebrated General Peh
Ki, slew and beheaded in 293 B. C. 240,000 Hans; in 275 B. C. 40,000
Ngwheis; in 264 B. C. 50,000 Hans; in 260 B. C. 400,000 Chows, and in
256 B. C. 90,000 more Chows, thus exterminating the imperial ancestral
clan which instituted the sacrifices and held the sacred tripods. Szma
Tsien, the historian, writing at 100 B. C., says the allies lost a
million men in fighting this Ts’in clan. After the Christian era the
Chinese took fewer plural wives and fought fewer wars. Twenty years
ago, an emperor who raised the despised military class to the equal of
scholars, farmers and merchants, would have been decapitated. Compare
one of the military edicts of the regent, Prince Chun, dated Peking,
April, 1911: “We are of the opinion that militarism is the first thing
necessary to the upbuilding and preservation of a nation.”
Some of the military proverbs of the old Chinese are:
“The best general thinks of wise strategy before blind courage.”
“A mob does not make a regiment, for a trained man is as effective as a
score untrained, and much easier to save in a retreat.”
“A good general can’t blame defeat on bad soldiers, for a good general
has no poor regiments.”
“The pike only grabs the duck’s lame leg that can’t kick.”
“The battle may not be for a cycle of years, but the soldier must awake
for it every day.”
“A dog that bites the hardest shows his teeth the least.”
“A whisper can bring on a war.”
“Keep your good cannon masked, and your bad guns on brave parade.”
“If the enemy doesn’t know your weakness, you are not weak.”
“It’s the man behind the gun more than the gun, and the man inside the
fort more than the wall.”
Chinese literature is not without its stirring war songs, which
breathe not only the pathos of the suffering of those at home, but
the sacrificing patriotism of the ranks. The following is quoted from
Confucius’ Odes, B. C. 551:
THE SOLDIER
I climbed the barren mountain,
And my gaze swept far and wide
For the red-lit eaves of my father’s home,
And I fancied that he sighed.
I climbed the grass-clad mountain,
And my gaze swept far and wide
For the rosy light of a little room,
Where I thought my mother sighed.
I climbed the topmost summit,
And my gaze swept far and wide
For the garden roof where my brother stood,
And I fancied that he sighed.
My brother serves as a soldier
With his comrades night and day,
But my brother is filial and may return,
Though the dead lie far away.
The following far older poem was written in 800 B. C. by Li Hua to
commemorate a battle between the ancient Chinese tribe of Wei and the
Northern Mongols:
THE BATTLEFIELD
Many men with but one heart;
Many lives to sell as one.
Foes and Nature interlock;
Sands arise; hills join the shock.
Rivers, death fills like a flood;
Red, Wei’s Great Wall too with blood.
Slaves ye shall be if ye yield;
Dead men if ye fight the field!
Fled no warrior; name on name,
Ghosts approach me, starred with fame.
With such Spartan poetry the early Chinese were able to fire the race
with militarism. The ideograph is virile and laconic in the highest
degree, just as the Anglo-Saxon of “Beowulf” is more condensed than our
later Latinized speech.
Confucius believed in revenge upon a murderous enemy of one’s family.
He replied to a question of a pupil on this matter: “Have only your
weapons for a pillow.”
Two of the promising colonels in the southern republican army are
graduates (1909 class) of the American West Point Academy. They were
admitted on the personal recommendations of President Roosevelt. One
is Colonel Wen Ying Hsing, a nephew of Wen Tsung Yao, who is assistant
minister of foreign affairs of the Nanking Republican Assembly. Colonel
Wen has seen hard service as military adviser of the Canton Provincial
Assembly. The other “West Pointer” is Colonel Chen Ting, brother of
Doctor Chen Shin Tao, minister of finance of the Nanking Republican
Assembly.
On one of my rambles through the narrow streets of Canton I dropped
into an artist’s shop on Yuck Tsze Street and selected some treasured,
delightful opal-colored paintings, full of spirit, of the old
picturesque three-masted Manchu war-junks which in the early days one
saw sometimes beating into the reaches and broads of the flooded waters
of Kwangtung province. The yellow shields, emblazoned with ideographs,
hang over the midship bulwarks of the ship. The latticed red rudder is
high above the water so that it may drag the unwieldy keelless boat
around. The great blue sweeps, with yellow eyes, stretch from the
galley-ports. The ship itself has eyes on the bow. The overhanging
cabin in the high stern is crowded with men, stores and bronze cannon.
The low red prow cuts the olive green sea into white foam. The red
triangular flags flaunt challenge from all the masts. The great square
brown matting sails spread like clouds above the blue-gowned leadsman
in the bow. Dipping under the horizon are the fleeing black banners of
the enemy, and the sea-gulls scatter in terror. Only the serrated blue
hills are brave along the iron shores.
The first important names in connection with the building and drilling
of China’s modern navy are Captain Lang, R. N. (British), and Captain
Siebelin (U. S. N. and H. S. M.). These men prepared the fleet for the
war with Japan in 1894, which developed Admiral Ting and Captain Teng
as China’s sole naval heroes, who, however, could do little with an
inefficient war board (Ping Pu) behind them. The captured battleships
_Chen Yuen_ and _Ting Yuen_ are in Japan’s retired list. They were very
fine ships for their day, and resisted heavy punishment in the battles
of the Yalu and Wei Hai Wei. The navy training schools are at Tientsin,
Chifu, Nanking, Fuchau, Shanghai, Amoy, and there will be another at
Nimrod Bay, south of Ningpo. Admiral Beresford, on his visit to China
in 1898, advised with the Chinese officials, especially Li Hung Chang,
regarding navy matters, and some cruisers were built in England, though
the two best battleships were built in Germany. Captain Bradley Osbon,
an American, served for years in developing the Chinese navy.
The Chinese cruiser _Hai Chi_, painted the regulation gray, and
spreading the gorgeous yellow dragon flag, took part in King George
the Fifth’s coronation festivities at Spithead in July, 1911, and in
September, 1911, she came to New York and anchored beneath Grant’s
tomb. Conspicuous friendliness on both occasions was shown to the
officers and crew as a mark of the new interest in China which has
arisen in Britain and America especially. Similar cruisers, the _Hai
Chow_ and the _Hai Yung_; gunboats of the _Po Pik_ class; and torpedo
boats of the _Wu Pang_ class, were in constant use in China in the
ante-republican days. One day they were watching that Portugal did not
encroach at Macao; a week later shelling rebels around the great cities
which line the Yangtze River or making a dash to the Gulf of Pechili to
be ready to take on board the infant emperor. The cruiser _Fei Hung_,
the first Chinese warship built in America, was launched at Camden, New
Jersey, on April 24, 1912. Larger cruisers are building in England, and
when Chinese politics and finances are more settled, it is proposed to
order battleships from both Britain and America, and form three fleets,
the Northern, Yangtze Central and Southern fleets. Shanghai can dock
the smaller vessels, but British Hongkong alone has up to this time
been able to dock battleships in Chinese waters. China has as yet no
submarines. The British navy maintains several submarine torpedo boats
at Hongkong, and in that land-locked harbor, of all others in the
world, the moral effect upon an enemy would be terrifying.
In recent years the naval policy of China has been developed by Prince
Tsai Hsu. Admiral Sah Chen Ping, who commanded the Yangtze fleet which
operated against the republicans in October, 1911, and against the
pirates who attacked Yale College, at Changsha, in 1910, has visited
America, and entertained the American round-the-world fleet at Amoy
in 1908. He has a son in a western American college. General Li Yuen
Heng, one of the two greatest republican generals, was really trained
for the navy at Pei Yang and Chifu Colleges, and in Japan. Admirals
Jiu Cheng, Li Chun, of the Canton riots of April, 1911; Tan; Ching,
who entertained the American fleet at Amoy; Commander Hsu Chen Pang,
who was educated at Hartford, America; Admirals Liu and Hai Chun;
Admiral Chin Yao Huan and Commander Wu Chung Lin, both of whom visited
New York on the cruiser _Hai Chi_, are all well known. Commanders
Chen, Yang and Wong represented China when the cruiser _Fei Hung_ was
built at Camden, New Jersey, in 1912. When the republican troops took
the Shanghai arsenal it discouraged the navy, which could not secure
ammunition in time for effective work. The fleet then went over to the
red, white and blue sun flag, and later landed a republican army in
Shangtung province at Chifu to flank the imperial left wing operating
at Tsinan. The fleet also made a demonstration against Chin Wang Tao
on the gulf of Pechili, thus forcing the imperialists to hold several
divisions in the north to protect Peking. This enabled the republicans
to follow up the Nanking victory, drive General Chang out of Nganhwei
province, and made the Whei River instead of the Yangtze River the
republican front. If America undertakes with a Pacific fleet to back
up for all time the “non-partition of China” policy, the writer is
not a believer in a Chinese navy at present, outside of possibly one
dreadnought a year when the finances are revised. Of course a strong
revenue and police fleet for the rivers should be provided. Attention
should rather be given to China’s army, so that she may be able to do
her own police work as far as Russian or other intruders are concerned.
Having no oversea colonies, she really has no use for a navy at
present, excepting that one dreadnought a year would, if necessary,
lend a little more than moral support to America’s altruistic and
non-land-grabbing policy in the Far East.
The Chinese are splendid sailors, and as is well known, they invented
the water-tight compartment in their junks, sanpans and wupans
forgotten centuries ago. I have had much intercourse with the watermen
of the southern provinces and can speak well of their seamanship. They
compose the crews of the mercantile fleets which cross the Pacific,
and have brought their ships through those awful circular typhoons
which rage for days. They have also developed modern yacht designers
like Ah King at Hongkong, and they are quick at the tiller and boom. I
have, in writing of the Chinese, given perhaps a hundred instances of
things which they do oppositely to the Occidental manner. Here is the
one hundred and first: Holding their nostrils, they dive feet foremost,
like the pearl fishermen of the Manaar Gulf of Ceylon! When our launch
screws would get tangled with the many ropes of Blake Wharf, Hongkong,
I have often seen half of the crew merrily jump overboard with knives
in their teeth, and work under water for an extraordinary length of
time; and though some writers call the Chinese stolid and humorless, I
have always seen them highly appreciative of applause and good-natured
laughter over the unexpected incidents that arise in an Oriental day’s
work. On one occasion the writer, who was exhausted with the tide, was
saved from drowning at Junk Bay, Hongkong, by the quick-witted efforts
of a native laota (coxswain) who deftly swung his launch within reach,
and whose ready arms reached out to “chiu ming” (save life).
The short story of China’s navy would not be complete without a word
on the naval engagements of the China-Japan War of 1894–5 over Korea,
when the whole world breathlessly watched the first trial of modern
ironclads, and when the Chinese on several occasions really showed
fearlessness under hopeless conditions. At the end of July, 1894,
Chinese troops arrived at the Yalu River (which divides Korea and
Manchuria) to reinforce General Yeh and Yuan Shih Kai, under cover of
the cruiser _Chi Yuen_ (2,300 tons, 17.5 knots), the _Kuang Yi_ (1,030
tons, 16 knots), etc. On July 25th this fleet was met by the much
superior Japanese fleet consisting of the _Yoshino_ (4,100 tons, 23
knots), _Akitsushima_ (3,150 tons, 19 knots), and _Naniwa_ (19 knots).
After a hot exchange the _Chi Yuen_ escaped from the faster _Yoshino_
by superior work in the stokehold. The _Kuang Yi_ ran aground. Admiral
Ting, the one big name in China’s navy, with a weak squadron, daringly
sailed from Pechili Gulf on September 14th for the Yalu, landed stores,
and skilfully evaded Admiral Ito’s and Rear-Admiral Tsuboi’s squadrons.
On September 17th, Admiral Ting led the way with the _Chen Yuen_ (7,400
tons, 15-knot German-built battleship) and the _Ting Yuen_, a twin
battleship, in the center, the other vessels on the wings, to meet the
Japanese fleets which were advancing in column. Ito passed wide of
the right wing of the Chinese. At 6,000 yards the Chinese opened fire
ineffectively, but the Japanese reserved their fire until 3,000 yards’
range was reached. The Japanese passed through to the rear, and drove
off the smaller Chinese warships. The larger Chinese vessels swung to
starboard to keep their bows toward the circling Japanese. The Japanese
armored cruiser _Fuso_ (3,700 tons, 13 knots), built in England,
steamed in close to the Chinese line. The _Hi Yei_, protected Japanese
cruiser (2,250 tons, 14 knots), crossed between the Chinese battleships
_Chen Yuen_ and _Ting Yuen_, and as could be expected, both were so
damaged that they had to seek the Japanese rear. The slow Japanese
_Akagi_, gunboat (614 tons, 13 knots), was hit by the Chinese left
wing. The second Japanese squadron now came up, and at once attacked
the Chinese front, the first Japanese squadron having completed the
circle, attacking the Chinese rear. The Japanese then withdrew and
reformed, but the Chinese were not able to reform their line. The
Chinese _Yuen Wei_ (gunboat, 1,350 tons, 16 knots) on fire, headed for
the Yalu, where she sank with the brave Captain Teng. The Chinese
_Chao Yuen_ (gunboat, 1,350 tons, 16 knots) was accidentally rammed
by the unmanageable Chinese _Chi Yuen_ (coast defense, 2,300 tons, 17
knots), and both sank, leaving only the two Chinese battleships, which
kept fighting and following the Japanese as best they were able. The
second Japanese squadron sank the Chinese _King Yuen_ (coast defense,
2,900 tons, 15 knots), while the first Japanese squadron circled
around the two Chinese battleships, which could not be maneuvered to
advantage. The Chinese _Ting Yuen_ cleverly planted a shell into the
Japanese _Matsushima_ (coast defense, 4,277 tons, 16 knots, French
built). At 5:30 P. M., after seven and one-half hours’ fighting, the
Japanese withdrew for repairs, although they had three armored coast
defense, 4,200-ton, 16-knot ships in good condition, two armored and
six protected cruisers, all of which answered their helms.
On October 18th, the Chinese battleship _Chen Yuen_ struck at Wei Hai
Wei and was seriously injured. On February 5, 1895, at 2 A. M., by a
bold move, the first of its kind in naval war, the Japanese torpedo
boats raced for an entrance to narrow Wei Hai Wei harbor. Eight boats
got in under the high-pointed guns of the fort and fired eleven
torpedoes. One torpedo from boat “9” struck the Chinese battleship
_Ting Yuen_, which steamed for shallow water, where the Chinese blew
her up (this is the battleship which the Japanese later raised and used
against the Russians in 1904). The Japanese lost torpedo boats “9” and
“22”.
On the morning of February 6th, five more Japanese torpedo boats headed
for the harbor, and four entered, torpedoing the Chinese _Lai Yuen_
(coast defense, 2,900 tons, 15 knots) German built; the _Wei Yuen_
(corvette, 1,300) and tender _Pan Fah_. The Chinese torpedo fleet
attempted to escape from the western entrance, but were captured or
destroyed by the first Japanese squadron. The Japanese towed mortar
platforms near the western entrance, and pounded the remaining Chinese
battleship _Chen Yuen_, which sank, as her deck was not armored (later
raised by Japanese and used against the Russians in 1904). On February
17th, Admiral Ito steamed in, and China’s one fighting naval hero,
Admiral Ting, brave but unfortunate, committed suicide. The Japanese
secured as prizes the _Kang Chi_, third-class cruiser (1,030 tons,
16 knots), built at Shanghai; the _Ping Yuen_ (coast defense, 2,600
tons, 10 knots), built at Shanghai, and the _Kuang Ping_ (third-class
cruiser, 1,030 tons, 16 knots), built at Shanghai. The battle showed
the world that a large, fast mosquito fleet, with longer-range guns,
can whip even a few bulldog battleships, if the maneuvering of the
latter is crippled by lucky shots early in the engagement. In other
words, a fleet of faster unarmored cruisers, converted _Lusitanias_,
for instance, whose full gun and engine power is effectively
maintained, by choosing and keeping their favored range, could in the
open sea finally whip poorly handled units of slower battleships.
On one other occasion the crew of a Chinese warship quitted themselves
like men. That was when the gunboat _Chen Wei_ alone engaged the whole
French fleet of armor-clads at Foochow, August 23, 1884. I quote the
report of an independent eye-witness, Commissioner Carrall of Sir
Robert Hart’s Imperial Customs Service: “Exposed to the broadsides of
the _Villars_ and the _D’Estaing_, and riddled by a terrific discharge
from the heavy guns of the _Triomphante_, the little _Chen Wei_ fought
to the last. In flames fore and aft, drifting helplessly down the
stream and sinking, she plied her guns again and again, till one of
the French torpedo boats, the Volta, dashing in through the smoke,
completed the work of destruction with a well-placed torpedo.”