"THE THIRD REVOLUTION"
THE REVOLT OF YUNNAN
In all the circumstances it was only natural that the extraordinary
chapter of history we have just narrated should have marched to its
appointed end in just as extraordinary a manner as it had commenced.
Yuan Shih-kai, the uncrowned king, actually enjoyed in peace his empty
title only for a bare fortnight, the curious air of unreality becoming
more and more noticeable after the first burst of excitement occasioned
by his acceptance of the Throne had subsided. Though the year 1915 ended
with Peking brightly illuminated in honour of the new régime, which had
adopted in conformity with Eastern precedents a new calendar under the
style of Hung Hsien or "glorious Constitutionalism," that official joy
was just as false as the rest had been and awakened the incredulity of
the crowd.
On Christmas Day ominous rumours had spread in the diplomatic circle
that dramatic developments in South China had come which not only
directly challenged the patient plotting of months but made a débâcle
appear inevitable. Very few days afterwards it was generally known that
the southernmost province of China, Yunnan--on the borders of
French-Indo-China--had telegraphed the Central Government a thinly
veiled ultimatum, that either the monarchy must be cancelled and the
chief monarchists executed at once or the province would take such steps
as were deemed advisable. The text of these telegrams which follows was
published by the courageous editor of the Peking Gazette on the 31st
December and electrified the capital. The reader will not fail to note
how richly allegorical they are in spite of their dramatic nature:
FIRST TELEGRAM
To the Great President:
Since the question of _Kuo-ti_ (form of State) was raised
consternation has seized the public mind; and on account of the
interference of various Powers the spirit of the people has been
more and more aroused. They have asked the question:--"Who has
invited the disaster, and brought upon us such great disgrace?" Some
one must be responsible for the alien insults heaped on us.
We have learned that each day is given to rapid preparations for the
Grand Ceremony; and it is now true that, internally, public opinion
has been slighted, and, externally, occasions have been offered to
foreigners to encroach on our rights. Our blood runs cold when we
face the dangers at the door. Not once but twice hath the President
taken the oath to observe and obey the Constitution and protect and
maintain the Republic. The oath was sworn before Heaven and Earth;
and it is on record in the hearts of millions of people and the
words thereof still echo in the ears of the people of all nations.
In the Classics it is said that "in dealing with the people of the
country, faith is of the essence of great rule." Again it is written
that "without faith a people cannot endure as a nation." How then
can one rule the people when he "eats" his own words and tears his
own oath? Principle has now been cast to the winds and the _Kuo-ti_
has been changed. We know not how the country can be administered.
Since the suspension of the National Assembly and the revision of
the Constitution, the powers of Government have been centred in one
person, with the implied freedom to do whatever seems meet without
let or hindrance. If the Government were to use this power in order
to reform the administration and consolidate the foundations of the
nation, there would be no fear of failure. For the whole country
would submit to the measures of the Central Government. Thus there
is not the least necessity to commit treason by changing the
_Kuo-ti_.
But although the recent decision of the Citizens' Representatives in
favour of a monarchy and the request of the high local officials for
the President's accession to the Throne have been represented as
inspired by the unanimous will of the people, it is well known that
the same has been the work of ignoble men whose bribery and
intimidation have been sanctioned by the authorities. Although inept
efforts have been made to disguise the deceit, the same is unhidden
to the eyes of the world.
Fortunately it is said that the President has from the very
beginning maintained a calm attitude, speaking not his mind on the
subject. It is now as easy to turn the tide as the reversing of the
palm. It may be objected that if the "face" of the nation is not
preserved in view of the interference of Foreign Powers, there will
be great danger in future. But it must be observed that official
declaration can only be made in accordance with the will of the
people, the tendency of which can easily be ascertained by searching
for the facts. If the will of the people that the country should be
the common property of the Nation be obeyed and the idea of the
President that a Dynasty is as cheap as a worn-out shoe is heeded,
the latter has it in his power to loosen the string that suspends
the bell just as much as the person who has hung it. If the wrong
path is not forsaken, it is feared that as soon as the heart of the
people is gone, the country will be broken to pieces and the
dismemberment of the Nation will take place when alien pressure is
applied to us. We who have hitherto received favours from the
President and have received high appointments from him hereby offer
our faithful advice in the spirit of men who are sailing in common
in a boat that is in danger; we speak as do those who love sincerity
and cherish the unbroken word. We hope that the President will, with
courage, refuse to listen to the speech of evil counsellors and heed
the voice of conscience and of honour. We further hope that he will
renew his promise to protect the Republic; and will publicly swear
that a monarchical system will never again appear.
Thus the heart of the people will be settled and the foundations of
the Nation will be consolidated. Then by enlisting the services of
sagacious colleagues in order to surmount the difficulties of the
time and sweeping away all corruption and beginning anew with the
people, it may be that the welfare and interest of the Nation will
be furthered. In sending this telegram our eyes are wet with tears,
knowing not what more to say. We respectfully await the order of the
President with our troops under arms.
(Signed) THE GOVERNORS OF YUNNAN.
SECOND TELEGRAM
For the Perusal of the Great President:--
In our humble opinion the reason why the people--Chinese and
foreign--cannot excuse the President is because the movement for the
change of Kuo-ti has been inspired, and indeed actually originated
in Peking, and that the ringleaders of the plot against the _Min
Kuo_ are all "bosom-men" of the President. The Chou An Hui,
organized by Yang Tu and five other men, set the fire ablaze and the
circular telegram sent by Chu Chi-chien and six other persons
precipitated the destruction of the Republican structure. The
President knew that the bad deed was being done and yet he did
nothing to arrest the same or punish the evil-doers. The people
therefore, are suspicious. A mandate was issued on the 24th of the
11th month of the 3rd year in which it is affirmed: "Democracy and
republicanism are laid down in the Constitutional Compact; and there
is also a law relating to the punishment of those who spread
sedition in order to disturb the minds of the people. If any one
Shall hereafter dare to advance strange doctrines and misconstrue
the meaning of the Constitution, he will be punished severely in
accordance with the law of sedition."
Yang Tu for having publicly organized the said Society and Chu
Chi-chien for having directly plotted by telegram are the principal
offenders in the present flagrant case of sedition. As their crimes
are obvious and the subject of abundant proof, we hereby ask the
President to carry out at once the terms of the said mandate and
publicly execute Yang Tu, Sun Yu-yun, Yen Fu, Liu Shih-pei, Li
Hsieh-ho, Hu Ying, Chu Chi-chien, Tuan Chih-kuei, Chow Tzu-chi,
Liang Shih-yi, Chang Cheng-fang and Yuan Nai-kuan to the end that
the whole nation may be pacified. Then, and not till then, will the
world believe in the sincerity of the President, in his love for the
country and his intention to abide by the law. All the troops and
people here are in anger; and unless a substantial proof from the
Central Authorities is forthcoming, guaranteeing the maintenance of
the Republic, it will be impossible to suppress or pacify them. We
await a reply within twenty-four hours.
(Signed) THE GOVERNORS OF YUNNAN PROVINCE.
[Illustration: General Feng Kuo-chang, President of the Republic.]
[Illustration: The Scholar Liang Chi-chao, sometime Minister of Justice,
and the foremost "Brain" in China.]
It was evident from the beginning that pride prevented Yuan Shih-kai
from retreating from the false position he had taken up. Under his
instructions the State Department sent a stream of powerful telegraphic
messages to Yunnan attempting to dissuade the Republican leaders from
revolt. But the die had been cast and very gravely the standard of
rebellion was raised in the capital city of Yunnan and the people
exhorted to shed their blood. Everything pointed to the fact that this
rising was to be very different from the abortive July outbreak of 1913.
There was a soberness and a deliberation about it all which impressed
close observers with a sense of the ominous end which was now in sight.
Still Peking remained purblind. During the month of January the
splendour of the dream empire, which was already dissolving into thin
air, filled the newspapers. It was reported that an Imperial Edict
printed on Yellow Paper announcing the enthronement was ready for
universal distribution: that twelve new Imperial Seals in jade or gold
were being manufactured: that a golden chair and a magnificent State
Coach in the style of Louis XV were almost ready. Homage to the portrait
of Yuan Shih-kai by all officials throughout the country was soon to be
ordered; sycophantic scholars were busily preparing a volume poetically
entitled "The Golden Mirror of the Empire," in which the virtues of the
new sovereign were extolled in high-sounding language. A recondite
significance, it was said, was to be given to the old ceremonial dress,
which was to be revived, from the fact that every official would carry a
Hu or Ivory Tablet to be held against the breast. The very mention of
this was sufficient to make the local price of ivory leap skywards! In
the privacy of drawing-rooms the story went the rounds that Yuan
Shih-kai, now completely deluded into believing in the success of his
great scheme, had held a full dress rehearsal of a ceremony which would
be the first one at his new Court when he would invest the numerous
ladies of his establishment with royal rank. Seated on his Throne he had
been engaged in instructing these interested females, already robed in
magnificent costumes, in the parts they were to play, when he had
noticed the absence of the Korean Lady--a consort he had won, it is
said, in his Seoul days in competition against the Japanese Envoy
accredited to Korea, thereby precipitating the war of 1894-95.[19] The
Korean Lady had refused to enter the Throne-room, he was told, because
she was dissatisfied with the rank he proposed to confer on her. Sternly
he sent for her and told her to take her place in the circle. But no
sooner had she arrived than hysterically she screamed, "You told me when
you wedded me that no wife would be my superior: now I am counted only a
secondary consort." With that she hurled herself at the eldest wife who
was occupying the post of honour and assailed her bitterly. Amidst the
general confusion the would-be-Emperor hastily descended from his Throne
and vainly intervened, but the women were not to be parted until their
robes were in tatters.
In such childishnesses did Peking indulge when a great disaster was
preparing. To explain what had occurred in Yunnan it is necessary to go
back and tell the story of a remarkable young Chinese--General Tsao-ao,
the soul of the new revolt.
In the revolution of 1911 each province had acted on the assumption that
it possessed inherent autonomous rights and could assume sovereignty as
soon as local arrangements had allowed the organization of a complete
provisional government. Yunnan had been one of the earliest provinces to
follow the lead of the Wuchang rebels and had virtually erected itself
into a separate republic, which attracted much attention because of the
iron discipline which was preserved. Possessing a fairly well-organized
military system, largely owing to the proximity of the French frontier
and the efforts which a succession of Viceroys had made to provide
adequate frontier defence, it was amply able to guarantee its newly won
autonomy. General Tsao-ao, then in command of a division of troops had
been elected Generalissimo of the province; and bending himself to his
task in very few weeks he had driven into exile all officials who
adhered to the Imperialist cause and made all local institutions
completely self-supporting. Even in 1911 it had been reported that this
young man dreamed of founding a dynasty for himself in the mountains of
South China--an ambition by no means impossible of realization since he
had received a first-class military education in the Tokio Military
Schools and was thoroughly up-to-date and conversant with modern
theories of government.
These reports had at the time greatly concerned Yuan Shih-kai who heard
it stated by all who knew him that the Yunnan leader was a genius in his
own way. In conformity with his policy of bringing to Peking all who
might challenge his authority, he had induced General Tsao-ao, since the
latter had played no part in the rebellion of 1913, to lay down his
office of Yunnan Governor-General and join him in the capital at the
beginning of 1914--another high provincial appointment being held out to
him as a bait.
Once in Peking, however, General Tsao-ao had been merely placed in
charge of an office concerned with the reorganization of the land-tax,
nominally a very important piece of work long advocated by foreign
critics. But as there were no funds available, and as the purpose was
plainly merely to keep him under observation, he fretted at the
restraint, and became engaged in secret political correspondence with
men who had been exiled abroad. As he was soon an open suspect, in order
to avoid arrest he had taken the bold step at the very inception of the
monarchy movement of heading the list of Generals in residence in Peking
who petitioned the Senate to institute a Monarchy, this act securing him
against summary treatment. But owing to his secret connection with the
scholar Liang Chi-chao, who had thrown up his post of Minister of
Justice and left the capital in order to oppose the new movement, he was
watched more and more carefully--his death being even hinted at.
He was clever enough to meet this ugly development with a masterly
piece of trickery conceived in the Eastern vein. One day a carefully
arranged dispute took place between him and his wife, and the police
were angrily called in to see that his family and all their belongings
were taken away to Tientsin as he refused any longer to share the same
roof with them. Being now alone in the capital, he apparently abandoned
himself to a life of shameless debauch, going nightly to the haunts of
pleasure and becoming a notorious figure in the great district in the
Outer City of Peking which is filled with adventure and adventuresses
and which is the locality from which Haroun al-Raschid obtained through
the medium of Arab travellers his great story of "Aladdin and the
Wonderful Lamp." When governmental suspicions were thoroughly lulled, he
arranged with a singing-girl to let him out by the backdoor of her house
at dawn from whence he escaped to the railway-station, rapidly reaching
Tientsin entirely unobserved.
The morning was well-advanced before the detectives who nightly watched
his movements became suspicious. Then finding that his whereabouts were
unknown to the coachman dozing on the box of his carriage, they roughly
entered the house where he had passed the night only to find that the
bird had flown. Hasty telegrams were dispatched in every direction,
particularly to Tientsin--the great centre for political refugees--and
his summary arrest ordered. But fortune favoured him. A bare
quarter-of-an-hour before the police began their search he had embarked
with his family on a Japanese steamer lying in the Tientsin river and
could snap his fingers at Yuan Shih-kai.
Once in Japan he lost no time in assembling his revolutionary friends
and in a body they embarked for South China. As rapidly as possible he
reached Yunnan province from Hongkong, travelling by way of the French
Tonkin railway. Entering the province early in December he found
everything fairly ready for revolt, though there was a deficiency in
arms and munitions which had to be made good. Yuan Shih-kai, furious at
this evasion, had telegraphed to confidential agents in Yunnan to kill
him at sight, but fortunately he was warned and spared to perform his
important work. Had a fortnight of grâce been vouchsafed him, he would
have probably made the most brilliant modern campaign that has been
witnessed in China, for he was an excellent soldier. Acting from the
natural fortress of Yunnan it was his plan to descend suddenly on the
Yangtsze Valley by way of Chungking and to capture the upper river in
one victorious march thus closing the vast province of Szechuan to the
Northern troops. But circumstances had made it imperative for him and
his friends to telegraph the Yunnan ultimatum a fortnight sooner than it
should have been dispatched, and the warning thus conveyed to the
Central Government largely crippled the Yunnan offensive.
The circumstances which had made instant action necessary were as
follows. As we have seen from the record of the previous risings, the
region of the Yangtsze river has superlative value in Chinese politics.
Offering as it does an easy road into the heart of the country and
touching more than half the Provinces, it is indeed a priceless means of
communication, and for this reason Yuan Shih-kai had been careful after
the crushing of the rebellion of 1913 to load the river-towns with his
troops under the command of Generals he believed incorruptible. Chief of
these was General Feng Kuo-chang at Nanking who held the balance of
power on the great river, and whose politics, though not entirely above
suspicion, had been proof against all the tempting offers South China
made to him until the ill-fated monarchy movement had commenced. But
during this movement General Feng Kuo-chang had expressed himself in
such contemptuous terms of the would-be Emperor that orders had been
given to another high official--Admiral Tseng, Garrison Commissioner at
Shanghai--to have him assassinated. Instead of obeying his instructions,
Admiral Tseng had conveyed a warning to his proposed victim, the
consequence being that the unfortunate admiral was himself brutally
murdered on the streets of Shanghai by revolver-shots for betraying the
confidence of his master. After this dénouement it was not very strange
that General Feng Kuo-chang should have intimated to the Republican
Party that as soon as they entered the Yangtsze Valley he would throw in
his lot with them together with all his troops. Of this Yuan Shih-kai
became aware through his extraordinary system of intelligence; and
following his usual practice he had ordered General Feng Kuo-chang to
Peking as Chief of the General Staff--an appointment which would place
him under direct surveillance. First on one excuse, then on another,
General Feng Kuo-chang had managed to delay his departure from day to
day without actually coming under the grave charge of refusing to obey
orders. But finally the position was such that he telegraphed to General
Tsao-ao that unless the Yunnan arrangements were hastened he would have
to leave Nanking--and abandon this important centre to one of Yuan
Shih-kai's own henchmen--which meant the end of all hopes of the
Yangtsze Valley rising _en masse_.
It was to save Feng Kuo-chang, then, that the young patriot Tsao-ao
caused the ultimatum to be dispatched fourteen days too soon, _i.e._,
before the Yunnan troops had marched over the mountain-barrier into the
neighbouring province of Szechuan and seized the city of
Chungking--which would have barred the advance of the Northern troops
permanently as the river defiles even when lightly defended are
impassable here to the strongest force. It was largely due to the
hardships of forced marches conducted over these rugged mountains, which
raise their precipitous peaks to the heavens, that Tsao-ao subsequently
lost his life, his health being undermined by exposure, tuberculosis
finally claiming him. But one thing at least did his resolute action
secure. With Yunnan in open revolt and several other provinces about to
follow suit, General Feng Kuo-chang was able to telegraph Peking that it
was impossible for him to leave his post at Nanking without rebellion
breaking out. This veiled threat was understood by Yuan Shih-kai. Grimly
he accepted the checkmate.
Yet all the while he was acting with his customary energy. Troops were
dispatched towards Szechuan in great numbers, being tracked up the
rapids of the upper river on board fleets of junks which were ruthlessly
commandeered. Now commenced an extraordinary race between the Yunnan
mountaineers and the Northern plainsmen for the strategic city of
Chungking. For some weeks the result was in doubt; for although Szechuan
province was held by Northern garrisons, they were relatively speaking
weak and surrounded by hostile Szechuan troops whose politics were
doubtful. In the end, however, Yuan Shih-kai's men reached their goal
first and Chungking was saved. Heavy and continuous mountain-fighting
ensued, in which the Southern troops were only partially successful.
Being less well-equipped in mountain artillery and less well-found in
general supplies they were forced to rely largely on guerrilla warfare.
There is little accurate record of the desperate fighting which occurred
in this wild region but it is known that the original Yunnan force was
nearly annihilated, and that of the remnant numbers perished from
disease and exposure.
Other events were, however, hastening the débâcle. Kueichow province had
almost at once followed the example of Yunnan. A third province,
Kwangsi, under a veteran who was much respected, General Lu Yun Ting,
was soon added; and gradually as in 1911 it became clear that the army
was only one chessman in a complicated and very ingenious game.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] This story is firmly believed by many, namely that a beautiful
woman caused the loss of Korea.