IN CHINA'S CAPITAL CITY
China's capital, the great northern city of Pekin, is situated on a
plain one hundred and twenty miles from the sea, and near the eastern
base of a low mountain-range known as the Western Hills. It is divided
into two nearly equal parts, the northern being the Manchu, or Tartar
City, while the other is called the southern, or Chinese City. The
northern city is surrounded by a vast brick wall ten miles in length,
fifty feet thick at the base, sixty feet high, and forty feet wide on
top, pierced by nine massive gateways, two on the north side, two on the
east, two on the west, and three on the south. These last open into the
southern city, which is of about the same size as the other, and also
is surrounded by a lofty wall having seven gates. In the southern city,
standing in the middle of a forty-acre park, is the great Temple of
Heaven, in which the Emperor alone may worship.
In the centre of the northern, or Tartar City, and occupying one-eighth
of the enclosed space, is located the Forbidden City, surrounded by a
fifty-foot wall of red brick coped with tiles of imperial yellow. This
wall has but four gates, and within it are the yamens, or palaces of
high-rank mandarins, besides parks and pleasure-grounds. Inside of the
Forbidden City is yet another, known as the Imperial City, strongly
fortified, and containing the palaces, pleasure-grounds, lakes, and
lotus ponds of the imperial family.
While Canton, in the far south, has been called the most wonderful city
of the world, Pekin is almost as remarkable, although in an entirely
different way. Canton streets are noted for their extreme narrowness,
and those of Pekin for their width, some of the latter being one hundred
feet wide. In Canton there are no wheeled vehicles and no beasts of
burden, while Pekin streets swarm with blue-covered, two-wheeled
carts, very heavy, and drawn by large, fine-looking mules, two-coolie
jinrikishas, bullock-carts, wheelbarrows loaded with passengers or
freight, pushed by one coolie and pulled by another, long caravans
of shaggy, two-humped camels, besides innumerable riding ponies and
donkeys. Also, in Pekin, may occasionally be seen the smart European
brougham, drawn by a high-stepping American horse, of some wealthy
mandarin, though most of those who can afford to ride prefer to do so
in sedan-chairs. Of these chairs, those used by members of the imperial
family are roofed and curtained in yellow, those of the higher-class
mandarins are red, those of the next lower grade are blue, and so the
descent is continued through green to black, while mourning chairs of
every class invariably are white.
In Canton a large proportion of the houses have two stories, while in
all directions tower lofty, six-to-nine-storied pawn-shops, looking
like flat-topped grain elevators; but in Pekin all dwellings and shops,
even including the imperial palaces, have but a single story. The only
buildings in all the city that exceed this height are the pagoda-like
Temple of Heaven, the great drum-tower, the great bell-tower, the
fortified gate-towers surmounting the city walls, and certain foreign
establishments belonging to missions, legations, or business firms that
have been erected since 1900.
Pekin is well provided with wide breathing spaces in the shape of temple
and palace grounds, and shade trees are fairly abundant throughout
the city. Most of its broad avenues are unpaved, and it is visited by
suffocating dust-storms at certain seasons of the year, while at others
it wades through fathomless mud.
In 1897 the capital was connected with Tien-Tsin, eighty miles away,
and with the sea by rail, but the track was compelled to end two miles
outside the southern wall. In 1900 came the great Boxer uprising, the
siege of the foreign legations in Pekin, and the capture, occupation,
and terrible punishment of the city by the troops of nine foreign
powers. These retained possession for a year, during which time they
carried the railroad into the very heart of the city, largely increased
the area of legation "concessions," established a clean-swept neutral
zone three hundred feet wide around the legation territory, paved
Legation Street, built commodious barracks for the foreign troops
that were to remain as permanent legation guards, and erected handsome
legation buildings; while the United States and Germany took possession
of and will permanently control a quarter of a mile of the city wall
adjoining their legations. After a year of foreign control Pekin was
restored to its Chinese rulers, and the self-exiled imperial court
returned to their capital city. During 1903 a number of large foreign
buildings, including a European hotel, banks, hospitals, chapels,
schools, etc., were erected, and many more were projected for this year
(1904). Electric lighting on an extensive scale, as well as electric
trams, are already planned for. The Pe-Han (Pekin-Hankow) Railway, over
a portion of which our lads travelled, and which was wholly destroyed by
Boxers immediately afterwards, has been restored and the track extended
southward to the Yellow River. Beyond this construction is being so
rapidly pushed from both ends that the completion of the whole line is
promised by 1906.
Thus China's capital, rudely roused by foreign guns from the sleep of
ages, is now awake and in a fair way speedily to take a prominent place
among the progressive cities of the world.
None of these things were thought of, however, on that June day of
1900 when Rob Hinckley, accompanied by his stanch friend, Chinese Jo,
hesitatingly approached the great city; for at that moment it was
shadowed by the darkness of despair. The tidal wave of Boxer uprising
had reached and overwhelmed it. The I-Ho-Chuan were in complete
possession, and Pekin, with its teeming population, its accumulated
wealth of years, and, above all, with its hundreds of hated foreigners,
diplomats, missionaries, business men, and legation guards, lay at
their mercy. They had nothing to fear from imperial troops, for these,
always in sympathy with their movement, already had begun to co-operate
with them in their killing of Christian converts, their burnings and
their lootings. Bolder and bolder they became, wilder and wilder grew
their excesses, until shortly before the arrival of Rob and Jo they had
started fierce conflagrations in all parts of the city, had destroyed
two Roman Catholic cathedrals, and were regularly besieging a third
with cannonade and rifle-fire. In this great fortress, and within its
spacious, wall-enclosed grounds, ninety foreigners, forty-three of whom
were French and Italian marines, and more than three thousand native
converts had taken refuge. For sixty days this isolated stronghold
of Christianity was shelled and bombarded with cannon-ball and
rifle-bullet; but it held out to the end, and stands to-day a monument
to the heroic endurance of its defenders. The attack on it had been
begun three days before the arrival of our lads, and the sounds of heavy
firing that had so aroused their anxiety was the cannonade directed
against its walls.
With many misgivings they skirted the southern city, which seemed a
seething caldron of riot and flame, and sought an entrance to the
Tartar City through one of its western gates. Here, to Jo's great
satisfaction, he found, in the officer of the guard who examined them,
an acquaintance not only willing to admit them, but of whom he could
ask questions. Believing Jo to feel even more bitterly than himself
concerning foreigners, this officer did not hesitate to give him the
very latest news. He confirmed the report heard at Pao-Ting-Fu of the
defeat and driving back towards Tien-Tsin of the combined American and
British relief expedition, under Admiral Seymour, told of the siege of
the northern cathedral, and, most startling of all, informed Jo of the
imperial edict, issued that very day, ordering the destruction of every
foreigner within the walls of Pekin.
"Already," he said, "have the invincible troops of Jung Lu entered
the city, and with them are the Kwang-su tigers, under the terrible
Tung-Fu-Hsang, who thirsts for foreign blood as does a babe for its
mother's milk. To-day they are placing guns to command the legations,
and to-morrow at four o'clock, if the ocean devils have not left the
city, they will be attacked and killed like rats in their holes."
It was fortunate that Rob failed to comprehend what the officer said,
for he could not have listened unmoved as did Jo. That the latter did so
was because he was not quite certain that he did not approve of the plan
for driving all foreigners from China. Foreigners expelled Chinese from
their countries, so why should not his people in turn expel foreigners
from China? Still, he did not express any views on the subject at that
time, but changed the topic of conversation by asking the officer if he
could tell him where his father might be found.
For a moment the latter hesitated, and his face assumed a peculiar
expression. Then he said: "Did you not know that his excellency Li
Ching Cheng had been given a position on the Board of Punishment? It is
doubtless at the yamen of that illustrious body that you will find him."
Thanking the officer for his courtesy, Jo and his companion took their
departure, and, making their way through alleys and the quieter streets
as remote as possible from conflagrations and all scenes of disturbance,
they finally reached the yamen of the Board of Punishment, which
corresponds to what in an American city would be a combined court-house
and jail.
A main entrance through the street wall led to a court, reached by the
descent of several steps. This court was surrounded by low buildings,
occupied as offices of the board, and in its centre was a pond of water.
As no person of whom they could ask questions was to be seen here,
our lads passed on to a second or inner court that opened from the
first. It also contained a stone-bordered reservoir of water, and was
surrounded by fantastically ornamented buildings. In one feature that
was immediately noticeable, these low buildings differed from any other
that Rob ever had seen in China. They were provided with cellar-like
basements, divided into small compartments, from each of which a
little, grated window opened into a tiny outside well-hole.
About one of these well-holes stood a group of half a dozen Chinese
officials, towards whom Jo made his way, intending to ask them where
his father might be found. As he drew near and was about to speak, he
glanced downward to see what so had attracted their curiosity that no
one of them had turned at his approach. What he saw was a human face,
tortured and livid, pressed against the grating, and straining upward in
mute agony. The man was supporting himself by hands clinched about two
bars of the grating, and evidently was standing on tiptoe.
Rob, looking over Jo's shoulder, also saw the awful face, and for an
instant wondered at the black line that seemed to cut it at the uplifted
chin. Then it flashed across him that this was a line of black water,
slowly but surely rising, and that in another moment the man would be
drowned. And no one dared try to save him, even were it possible to do
so, for he was a condemned prisoner suffering one of the innumerable,
ingeniously awful forms of Chinese capital punishment.
"What was his crime?" asked one of the fascinated spectators of another.
"He was that member of the Tsung Li Yamen who, before circulating the
palace edict, '_Feng yang jen pi sha_'" (whenever meeting foreigners,
kill them), "dared alter '_pi_'" (kill) "into '_pao_'" (protect).
"It is enough, and his punishment is righteous," declared the other.
Rob did not quite understand this, but Jo did, and, seizing his
comrade's arm with so fierce a grip that the latter winced, he dragged
him from the awful scene. As they gained the street he whispered, in
choking voice:
"From this moment I am with you and with the foreign people, until the
Empress is overthrown. Let us get to your legation."
"Was it any one you knew?" asked Rob, not yet comprehending.
"He was my father."