GOLD, BANKS, AND TELEGRAPHS IN YUNNAN.
Yunnan City is the great gold emporium of China, for most of the gold
found in China comes from the province of which it is the capital. When
a rich Chinaman returns from Yunnan to another province, or is summoned
on a visit to the Emperor at Peking, he carries his money in gold not
silver. Gold leaf sent from Yunnan gilds the gods of Thibet and the
temples and pagodas of Indo-China. No caravan returns to Burma from
Western China whose spare silver has not been changed into gold leaf. In
the Arracan Temple in Mandalay, as in the Shway-dagon Pagoda in Rangoon,
you see the gold leaf that Yunnan produces, and in the future will
produce in infinitely greater quantities.
Gold comes chiefly from the mines of Talang, eighteen days journey by
land S.W. from Yunnan City, on the confines of the district which
produces the famous Puerh tea. The yield must be a rich one despite the
ineffective appliances that are employed in its extraction. Gold has
always been abundant in this province; at the time of Marco Polo's visit
it was so abundant that its value in relation to silver was only as one
to six.
When gold is worth in Shanghai 35 times its weight in silver, it may be
bought in Yunnan City or Talifu for from 25 to 27.5 times its weight in
silver, and in quantities up to hundreds of ounces. To remit silver by
telegraphic transfer from Shanghai or Hong Kong to Yunnan city costs six
per cent., and either of the two leading banks in the city will
negotiate the transfer from their agents at the seaports of any amount
up to 10,000 ounces of silver in a single transaction. The gold can
always be readily sold in Shanghai or Hong Kong, and the only risk is in
the carriage of the gold from the inland city to the seaport. So far as
I could learn, no gold thus sent has gone astray. It is carried overland
by the fastest trade route--that through Mungtze to Laokai--and thence
by a boat down stream to Hanoi in Tonquin, from which port it is sent by
registered post to Saigon and Hong Kong. Here then is a venture open to
all, with excitement sufficient for the most _blasé_ speculator. Ample
profits are made by the dealer. For instance, a large quantity of gold
was purchased in Yunnan city on the 21st January, 1894, at 23.2, its
value in Shanghai on the same date being 30.9; but on the date that the
gold arrived in Shanghai its value had risen to 35, at which price it
was sold. At the time of my visit gold was 25.5 to 27 in Yunnan, and 35
in Shanghai, and I have since learnt that, while gold has become cheaper
in the province, it has become dearer at the seaport.
The gold is brought to the buyer in the form of jewellery of really
exquisite workmanship, of rings and bracelets, earrings and head
ornaments, of those tiny images worn by rich children in a half circlet
over the forehead, and bridal charms that would make covetous the heart
of a nun. Ornaments of gold such as these are 98 per cent. fine and are
sold, weighed on the same scales, for so many times their weight in
silver. They are sold not because of the poverty of their owners, but
because their owners make a very large profit on their original cost by
so disposing of them. If, however, the purchaser prefer it, gold will be
brought him in the leaf 99 per cent. fine, and this is undoubtedly the
best form into which to convert your silver. The gold beaters of Yunnan
are a recognised class, and are so numerous that they have a powerful
guild or trade's union of their own.
Gold-testing is also a recognised profession, but the methods are
primitive and require the skill of an expert, consisting, as they do, of
a comparison of the rubbing on a stone of the unknown gold, with a
similar rubbing of gold whose standard has been accurately determined.
One of the best gold-testers in the city has been taught electric
gilding by Mr. Jensen and does some skilful work.
The principle of self-protection restrains the Chinaman from the
ostentatious exhibition of his wealth--he fears being squeezed by the
officials who are apt to regard wealth as an aggravation of crime, to be
the more severely punished the better able is the accused to purchase
exemption from punishment. I have seen a stranger come into the room
where Mr. Jensen and I were sitting, who from his appearance seemed to
be worth perhaps a five-dollar bill, and after a preliminary interchange
of compliments, I have seen his hand disappear up his long sleeve and
produce a package of gold leaf worth perhaps 2000 taels of silver. This
he would offer for sale; there was some quiet bargaining; when, should
they agree, the gold was weighed, the purchaser handed a cheque on his
Chinese banker for the amount in silver, and the transaction was
finished as quickly and neatly as if it had taken place in Bond Street,
and not in the most inland capital of an "uncivilised country"; whose
civilisation has nevertheless kept it intact and mighty since the dawn
of history, and whose banking methods are the same now as they were in
the days of Solomon.
The silver of Yunnan is of the same standard as the silver of Shanghai,
namely 98 per cent. pure, and differs to the eye from the absolutely
unalloyed silver of Szechuen.
The cash of Yunnan vary in a way that is more than usually bewildering.
Let me explain, in a few sentences, the "cash" currency of the Middle
Kingdom. The current coin of China as everyone knows is the brass cash,
which is perforated so that it may be carried on a string. Now,
theoretically, a "string of cash" contains 100 coins, and in the Eastern
provinces ten strings are the theoretical equivalent of one Mexican
dollar. But there are eighteen provinces in China, and the number of
brass cash passing for a string varies in each province from the full
100, which I have never seen, to 83 in Taiyuen, and down to 33 in the
Eastern part of the province of Chihli. In Peking I found the system
charmingly simple. One thousand cash are there represented by 100 coins,
whereas 1000 "old cash" consist of 1000 coins, though 1000 "capital
cash" are only 500 coins. The big cash are marked as 10 capital cash,
but count the same as 5 old cash. Nowhere does a Chinaman mean 1000 cash
when he speaks of 1000 cash. In Tientsin 1000 cash means 500 cash--that
is to say 5 times 100 cash, the 100 there being any number you can pass
except 100, though by agreement the 100 is usually estimated at 98. In
Nanking I found a different system to prevail. There cash are 1075 the
1000, but of the 10 strings of 100 cash, 7 contain only 98 cash each,
and 3 only 95, yet the surplus 75 cash--that is to say the number which
for the time being is the Nanking equivalent of 75--are added all the
same. At Lanchow in Chihli on the Imperial Chinese Railway near
Shanhai-kwan, 16 old cash count as 100 cash, yet 33 are required to make
up 200; in Tientsin from which point the railway starts, 1000 cash are
really 500 cash and 98 count there as 100. Now 2000 Chihli cash are
represented by 325 coins, and 1000 by 162 coins, and 6000 by 975 coins,
which again count as 1000 large cash and equal on an average one Mexican
dollar. Therefore to convert Lanchow cash into Tientsin cash you must
divide the Lanchow cash by 3, count 975 as 1000, and consider this equal
to a certain percentage of a theoretical amount of silver known as a
tael, which is always varying of itself as well as by the fluctuations
in the market value of silver, and which is not alike in any two places,
and may widely vary in different portions of the same place.
Could anything be simpler? And yet there are those who say that the
system of money exchange in China is both cumbrous and exasperating.
Take as a further instance the cash in Yunnan. Everyone knows that
theoretically there are 2000 cash in the tael, each tael containing 20
"strings," and each "string" 100 cash, but in Yunnan 2000 cash are not
2000 cash--they are only 1880 cash. This does not mean that 1880 cash
are represented by 1880 coins, not at all; because 62 cash in Yunnan are
counted as 100. Eighteen hundred and eighty cash are therefore
represented by only 1240 cash coins and all prices must be paid in this
proportion. Immediately outside the city, however, a string of cash is a
"full string" and contains 100 cash or rather it contains as few cash as
possibly can be passed for 100, a fair average number being 98.
Silver is weighed in the City banks and at the wholesale houses on the
"capital scale," but in the retail stores on scales that are heavier by
14 per cent. (one mace and 4 candareens in the tael). Outside the city
on the road to Tali there is a loss on exchange varying according to
your astuteness from 3 to 6 per cent. on the capital scale.
There are two chief banks in Yunnan city. Wong's whose bank, the
signboard tells us, is "Beneficent, Rich, United," and Mong's "Bank of
the Hundred Streams," which is said to be still richer.
With Mr. Jensen I called one evening upon Wong, and found him with his
sons and chief dependents at the evening meal. All rose as we entered
and pressed us to take a seat with them, and when we would not, the
father and grown-up son showed us into the guest-room and seated us on
the opium-dais under the canopy. The opium-lamps were already lit; on a
beautiful tray inlaid with mother-of-pearl there were pipes for
visitors, and phials of prepared opium. Here we insisted on their
leaving us and returning to their supper; they finished speedily and
returned to their visitors. We were given good tea and afterwards a
single cigar was handed to each of us. In offering you a cigar it is not
the Chinese custom to offer you your choice from the cigar box; the
courtesy is too costly, for there are few Chinamen in these
circumstances who could refrain from helping themselves to a handful.
"When one is eating one's own" says the Chinese proverb, "one does not
eat to repletion; when one is eating another's, one eats till the tears
run."
Wong is one of the leading citizens of Yunnan, and is held in high
honour by his townsmen. His house is a handsome Chinese mansion; it has
a dignified entrance and the garden court is richly filled with plants
in porcelain vases. It may thus be said of him, as of the Confucian
Superior Man, "riches adorn his house and virtue his person, his heart
is expanded, and his body is at ease."
A Szechuen man, a native of Chungking, fifty-nine years of age, Wong is
a man of immense wealth, his bank being known all over China, and having
branches in capital cities so far distant from each other as Peking,
Canton, Kweiyang, Shanghai, Hankow, Nanchang, Soochow, Hangchow, and
Chungking. I may add that he has smoked opium for many years.
I formed a high opinion of the intelligence of Wong. He questioned me
like an insurance doctor as to my family history, and professed himself
charmed with the amazing richness in sons of my most honourable family.
He had heard of my native country, which he called _Hsin Chin Shan_, the
"New Gold Mountain," to distinguish it from the _Lao Chin Shan_, the
"Old Gold Mountain," as the Chinese term California. I was the more
pleased to find that Wong had some knowledge of Australia and its gold,
because a few months before I had been pained by an incident bearing on
this very subject, which occurred to me in the highly civilised city of
Manila, in the Philippine Islands. On an afternoon in August, 1893, I
stood in the Augustine Church, in Old Manila, to witness the funeral
service of the Padre Provincial of the Augustines. It was the first
occasion for one hundred and twenty-three years that the Provincial of
the Order had died while in the actual exercise of his office, and it
was known that the ceremony would be one of the most imposing ever seen
in the Islands. The fine old church, built by the son of the architect
of the Escorial--the only building in Manila left standing by the
earthquake of 1645--was crowded with mourners, and almost every
notability of the province was said to be present. During the service
two young Spaniards, students from the University close by, pushed their
way in beside me. Wishing to learn who were the more distinguished of
the mourners, I asked the students to kindly point out to me the
Governor-General (Blanco), and other prominent officials, and they did
so with agreeable courtesy. When the service was finished I thanked them
for the trouble they had taken and was coming away, when one of them
stopped me.
"Pardon me, Caballero," he said, "but will you do me the favour to tell
me where you come from?"
"I am from Australia."
"From Austria! so then you come from Austria?"
"No, sir, from Australia."
"But 'Australia'--where is it?"
"It is a rich colony of England of immense importance."
"But where is it?" he persisted.
"_Dios mio!_" I exclaimed aghast, "it is in China."
But his friend interposed. "The gentleman is talking in fun," he said.
"Thou knowest, Pepe, where is Australia, where is Seednay, and
Melboornay, where all the banks have broken one after the other in a
bankruptcy colossal."
"_Ya me figuraba donde era_," Pepe replied, as I edged uncomfortably
away.
During my journey across China it was not often that I was called upon
to make use of my profession. But I was pleased to be of some service to
this rich banker. He wished to consult me professionally, because he had
heard from the truthful lips of rumour of the wonderful powers of
divination given to the foreign medical man. What was his probable
tenure of life? That was the problem. I gravely examined two of his
pulses--every properly organised Chinaman has four hundred--and finding
his heart where it should be in the centre of his body, with the other
organs ranged round it like the satellites round the sun--every Chinaman
is thus constructed--I was glad to be able to assure him that he will
certainly live forty years longer--if Heaven permit him.
Wong has a grown-up son of twenty who will succeed to the bank; he is at
present the managing proprietor of a small general store purchased for
him by his father. The son has been taught photography by Mr. Jensen,
and has an excellent camera obtained from Paris. He is quite an
enthusiast. In his shop a crowd is always gathered round the counter
looking at the work of this Chinese amateur. There are a variety of
stores for sale on the shelves, and I was interested to notice the
cheerful promiscuity with which bottles of cyanide of potassium and
perchloride of mercury were scattered among bottles of carbonate of
soda, of alum, of Moët and Chandon (spurious), of pickles, and Howard's
quinine. The first time that cyanide of potassium is sold for alum, or
corrosive sublimate for bicarbonate of soda there will be an _éclat_
given to the dealings of this shop which will be very gratifying to its
owner.
The telegraph in Yunnan is very largely used by the Chinese, especially
by the bankers and officials. By telegraph you can remit, as I have
said, through the Chinese banks, telegraphic transfers to the value of
thousands of taels in single transactions. It is principally the banks
and the Government who make use of the telegraph, and their
communications are sent by private code. When the Tsungli Yamen in
Peking sends a telegram to the Viceroy in Yunnan it is in code that the
message comes; and it is by private code also that a Chinese bank in
Shanghai telegraphs to its far inland agents. Messages are sent in China
by the Morse system. The method of telegraphing Chinese characters,
whose discovery enabled the Chinese to make use of the telegraph, was
the ingenious invention of a forgotten genius in the Imperial Maritime
Customs of China. The method is simplicity itself. The telegraph code
consists of ten thousand numbers of four numerals each, and each group
so constituted represents a Chinese character. Any operator, however
ignorant of Chinese, can thus telegraph or receive a message in Chinese.
He receives, for instance, a message containing a series of numbers such
as 0018, 0297, 5396, 8424. He has before him a series of ten thousand
wood blocks on which the number is cut at one end and the corresponding
Chinese character at the other, he takes out the number, touches the
inkpad with the other end, and stamps opposite each group its Chinese
character. The system permits, moreover, of the easy arrangement of
indecipherable private codes, because by adding or subtracting a certain
number from each group of figures, other characters than those
telegraphed can be indicated.
I need hardly add that the system of wood blocks is not in practical
use, for the numbers and their characters are now printed in code-books.
And here we have an instance of the marvellous faculty of memorising
characteristic of the Chinese. A Chinaman's memory is something
prodigious. From time immemorial the memory of the Chinese has been
developed above all the other faculties. Memory is the secret of success
in China, not originality. Among a people taught to associate innovation
with impiety, and with whom precedent determines all action, it is
inevitable that the faculty of recollection should be the most highly
developed of all the mental faculties. Necessity compels the Chinaman to
have a good memory. No race has ever been known where the power of
memory has been developed even in rare individual cases to the degree
that is common to all classes of the Chinese, especially to the
literati.
The Chinese telegraph clerk quickly learns all the essential portion of
the code-book by heart. The book then lies in the drawer a superfluity.
It is claimed for Chiang, the second Chinese clerk in Yunnan, that he
knows all the 10,000 numbers and their corresponding characters.
Telegrams from Yunnan to Shanghai cost twenty-two tael cents (at the
present value of the tael this is equal to sixpence) for each Chinese
character; but each word in any other language is charged double, that
is, forty-four cents.
[Illustration: SOLDIERS ON THE WALL OF YUNNAN CITY.]
From Yunnan to Talifu is a distance of 307 miles. The native banker in
the capital will remit for you by wire to his agent in Tali the sum of
1000 taels, for a charge of eight taels, exclusive of the cost of the
telegram, and, as the value of silver in Tali is one per cent. higher
than it is in Yunnan, the traveller can send his money by wire with
perfect safety, and lose nothing in the remittance, not even the cost of
the telegram.
The telegraph offices are separated from the city wall by a small
common, which is quite level, and which the Chinaman of the future will
convert into a bowling green and lawn-tennis ground. There is a handsome
entrance. The large portal is painted with horrific gods armed with
monstrous weapons. The Chinese still seem to adhere to the belief that
the deadliness of a weapon must be in proportion to the savageness of
its aspect. Inside, there are spacious courts and well-furnished guest
rooms, roomy apartments, and offices for the mandarin, as well as
comfortable quarters for Mr. Jensen and his body of Chinese clerks and
operators. There is a pretty garden all bright and sunny, with a pond of
gold fish and ornamental parapet. Wandering freely in the enclosure are
peacocks and native companions, while a constant playmate of the
children is a little laughing monkey of a kind that is found in the
woods beyond Tali. At night a watchman passes round the courts every two
hours, striking a dismal gong under the windows, and waking the
foreigner from his slumbers; but the noise he makes does not disturb the
sleep of the Chinese--indeed, it is open to question if there is any
discord known which, as mere noise, _could_ disturb a Chinaman.
The walls that flank the entrance are covered with official posters
giving the names of the men of Yunnan City who contributed to the relief
of the sufferers by a recent famine in Shansi, together with the amounts
of their contributions and the rewards to which their gifts entitled
them. The Chinese are firm believers in the doctrine of justification by
works, and on these posters one could read the exact return made in this
world for an act of merit, apart, of course, from the reward that will
be reaped in Heaven. In a case like this it is usually arranged that for
"gifts amounting to a certain percentage of the sums ordinarily
authorised, subscribers may obtain brevet titles, posthumous titles,
decorations, buttons up to the second class, the grade of licentiate,
and brevet rank up to the rank of Colonel. Disgraced officials may apply
to have their rank restored. Nominal donations of clothes, if the money
value of the articles be presented instead, will entitle the givers to
similar honours."--_The Peking Gazette_, August 22, 1892.
In the centre of the green stands the hollow pillar in which Chinese
printed waste-paper is reverently burnt. "When letters were invented,"
the Chinese say, "Heaven rejoiced and Hell trembled." "Reverence the
characters," is an injunction of Confucius which no Chinaman neglects to
follow. He remembers that "he who uses lettered paper to kindle the fire
has ten demerits, and will have itchy sores"; he remembers that "he who
tosses lettered paper into dirty water, or burns it in a filthy place,
has twenty demerits and will frequently have sore eyes or become blind,"
whereas "he who goes about and collects, washes, and burns lettered
paper, has 5000 merits, adds twelve years to his life, will become
honoured and wealthy, and his children and grandchildren will be
virtuous and filial." But his reverence has strict limits, and while he
reverences the piece of paper upon which a moral precept is written, he
often thinks himself absolved from reverencing the moral precept itself,
just as a deacon in England need not necessarily be one who never
over-reached his neighbours or swindled his creditors.