In Neutral Territory
There is a portion of the Chinese Empire outside the Great Wall which
was tacitly regarded by both Russians and Japanese as beyond the
legitimate sphere of war. It lies west of the Liao, and extends to the
Mongolian boundary. Its length is about 250 miles, and its greatest
width less than a hundred; the eastern portion comprises much of the
Liao plain, swampy land, with barren stretches and salt-pans in the
south, and well cultivated grain lands in the north. On the west are
the Hai mountains, a chain of rugged rocks with fertile slopes and
excellent corn and grazing ground, where they rise from the plain.
Nominally, this territory is governed by Chinese authorities; actually
it is domineered by Russian troops foraging for supplies, by Japanese
agents, and by the chiefs of independent mountain villages, whose
inhabitants are usually regarded as robbers, bandits, Redbeards, or
Hunghuses.
The Imperial Chinese Railway has a line running north from Shanhaikwan
to Hsinmintun, with a branch east from the main line at Kaopantze
to Yingkow. The railway has British subjects superintending the
engineering, traffic, locomotive, and construction departments; but it
has a board of Chinese directors, and is essentially and actually a
Chinese railway run by and for the Chinese. You step into a vestibuled
dining-car on the mail train: you note the automatic couplings,
the bogie waggons, the large grain trucks, and read that all are
constructed in China, at the company’s own workshops. You see Chinese
engine-drivers, station-masters, pointsmen, brakesmen, and telegraph
clerks, and you may be on that train for hours, running smoothly at
forty miles an hour, and be the only European, not only on the train,
but at and about the stations at which it stops. The trains are
punctual, but they do not run at night, for the simple reason that
Chinese passengers will not travel in darkness; so the working day is
from 7 to 7, unless emergency trains are necessary. This railway is
excellently managed, and it is perhaps the only real controlling factor
in the government of the neutral territory. At each station there is a
guard of from ten to forty of the Viceroy Yuan-shi-kai’s soldiers. They
are fine men, in clean, neat uniforms; they carry small-bore Mauser
magazine rifles and sword bayonets; they have plenty of ammunition and
get their pay regularly. A detachment will fall into line and stand to
attention on the arrival and departure of each passenger train. In wet
weather they wear long oilskin coats and sou’westers; when they don
these slickers they invariably leave their weapons at home. At many
stations there is, in addition, a guard of soldiers from the regular
standing army, mostly from General Ma’s force, but they are armed only
with old-fashioned rifles, and are not nearly so smart as the others,
but doubtless are as good fighters.
The railway running parallel to the Russian west flank, and
communicating with their posts at both Yingkow and Hsinmintun, it could
be of great service to them as a means of communication, and also for
the conveyance of supplies; if it were in the hands of their enemies,
the Russian positions from Yingkow to Kaiyuen would be jeopardized.
They could not control the line absolutely unless they seized it from
the Chinese. Its neutrality was their only safeguard; and if regarded
by them as neutral, then its usefulness was lessened. That the railway
was untouched by either of the belligerents is in a large measure due
to the firm diplomacy of Mr. Cox, the superintendent at Yingkow, who
in difficult circumstances maintained the independence of the railway
corporation and satisfied both the Russians and Japanese that strict
neutrality could be and was always observed.
Contraband of war could not be conveyed through neutral territory, and
in order that there might not be any mistake as to what was contraband,
the Chinese authorities scheduled almost everything. Hogs’ bristles, I
think, were the only notable exception. The Russian officials did not
object to anything conveyed, so long as it was intended for the Russian
army, but the Japanese objected, and their agents kept a close watch on
everything and everybody going north from Shanhaikwan; all the same the
Russians smuggled with success.
Then an attempt was made by the Russians to obtain their object by
legitimate means. The Russian doctor in charge of the Red Cross
establishments supposed he was right in believing that supplies for the
Red Cross hospitals were not in any circumstances to be regarded as
contraband of war. The railway authorities confirmed him in the belief.
He wanted 120,000 fire-bricks and a thousand tons of fire-clay. Now,
these bricks and such clay make excellent facings to fortresses, and
were contraband of war. But, if he wanted them? He would not get them.
Then after dusk one evening some trucks, filled high with bales of
hogs’ bristles, arrived at Yingkow, and they were shunted down to the
wharf. Something about these bales attracted the attention of one of
the English inspectors: he made a closer examination, and discovered
that the hogs’ bristles concealed cases of ammunition. Those trucks
went back before daylight broke and before the consignee knew they had
arrived.
At Shanhaikwan, when suspected goods had to be examined, or refused,
or confiscated, the work fell invariably to one or other of the young
railway guards, all time-expired, short-service men from the British
army. The Chinese officials will never face a determined European. I
doubt whether they ever will acquire the courage to do so.
One day a Russian political agent, known to every one on the line,
arrived with a lot of baggage he was taking north on the morrow. Some
of the contents of his luggage had been manufactured in France, its
shipment had been notified by a Japanese agent, and its subsequent
movements followed with fidelity; now, when within a few hours’ journey
of the Russian lines, was it to be stopped by a British stripling? The
great man expostulated, threatened and fumed to no purpose. He went
on without his luggage, complaining to every railway official he met
of the absurdity of seizing his uniforms. He could not appear before
the Viceroy Alexeiev dressed like a British tourist! Everyone promised
to do what they could in order to get that baggage sent forward, and
the diplomat even communicated with Peking, so sad was his plight. In
the course of a few days the decisive answer came; the gentleman could
_not_ have his war balloon. Shortly afterwards a dispirited French
aeronaut took his way south.
The smugglers of provisions, wines, and delicacies for the Russian
officers travelled to and fro so often that they became known, and were
suspected and stopped. There were many genuine refugees using the line;
they came from Port Arthur and Dalny, and wanted to get back to Russia.
They had always a lot of baggage with them; but as this was going
towards China it did not matter. Some of these parties were personally
conducted by an Orthodox priest. After a time Russian refugees began to
arrive from China; they had come from Port Arthur and Dalny, and were
wanting to get back to Russia by the Tashichiao route. They also were
unkempt, had plenty of baggage, and were often accompanied by a Russian
priest. One day a surprise examination was sprung upon these refugees
bound north, with the result that no owners could be found for heaps of
luggage, all more or less contraband of war.
As a rule all the Russians at Yingkow were courteous to the British
passing through, and to the few British residents, all of whom were
connected with the railway service. One night a British officer dressed
in _mufti_ came from Shanhaikwan. There were about a dozen at dinner
that evening, and later the officer joined our company, and we talked
of the war and its prospects. There were no Russian officials present,
but one of the guests was a Russian, and so frequently a visitor that I
suspected him, and warned the officer. He returned to Shanhaikwan early
the next morning. Later that day the Russian guards made a thorough
search of the settlement, believing him to be still in hiding amongst
us. During this quite Russian domiciliary visit, one of the soldiers
lingered too long in the bedroom of one of the railway men, who became
impatient, and told him to go. The man would not, so the Briton threw
him and his rifle not only out of the house, but through the fence of
the compound. Shortly afterwards an officer with a guard arrested the
Briton, and took him to Newchwang, where an interpreter was found. They
brought the Briton before the administrator, and endeavoured to impress
upon him the enormity of his offence: to touch a soldier was to touch
the Tsar. What had he to say? The old soldier thought it time to plead
guilty.
“I can only say I’m sorry I killed him; I did not intend that.”
“Killed him? You haven’t killed him; he is there! Look!”
“I don’t seem to have hurt him. Ask him, please, if I hurt him?”
The soldier was asked: if he had been hurt, he would not have owned to
it, and he laughed at the suggestion, and denied it emphatically.
“Then why am I here?” asked the Briton.
“Oh! go away, all of you--don’t bother me with such little matters.”
The incident closed, and never after that was there any trouble between
British and Russians on the Yingkow side.
Out in the east, when top-dog, the Briton is bad, but the Russian much
worse, as the Chinese are well aware. Sometimes I would ride out alone
through villages in this neutral territory, and as I galloped towards
the group of trees by the temple, I would see in the distance women,
children, and men hurrying into their compounds and barring the gates.
The village streets and the cultivated land surrounding the village
would be deserted by the time I arrived. Not a living soul would be
seen--only the black pigs routing in the mud, and the half-wild village
dogs walking along the mud walls and barking loudly. If I rode straight
through, and, after going a little way, looked back, I saw the people
coming out and staring after me. If I pulled up on the lee side of
one of their wretched mud dwellings, took out my pipe and filled it,
then smoked, some bold man would put out his head and say, “Yingwa,”
whereon a crowd of the inquisitive would gather rapidly and gaze at me
wonderingly. There is no fear of the English; the Russians are beheld
with terror by these simple villagers, who have lost much through their
depredations.
The first time I stayed in a Chinese inn up in this country I was
surprised at the consideration shown to Englishmen. The innkeeper
sent one of his men to conduct me to the place I wished to visit,
and men with lanterns to bring me back safely. They fed me well,
pressed me to take cocoa--the only English food he possessed--gave me
cigars, provided me with a private room--a luxury in small country
inns--arranged with a carter to convey me on the next stage of my
journey, and absolutely refused to accept any payment. I was, he
said, the first Englishman to visit his inn, and that was honour. His
servants also refused to accept gratuities--for the same reason.
That was north, a country possessing great agricultural wealth. The
district is but a score miles from the Imperial cattle reserve, and the
supply is so great as to appear illimitable. Naturally, the Russians
have been drawing upon it for their increased needs. But they have lost
ground in this territory, as they have where the Japanese have attacked
them. Amongst my notes of February, I have: “Three hundred Cossacks
from Liaoyang crossed the Liao plain, and rode to the mountains.
They visited I-chow and Kuan-ning, then by way of Tung-na-ku and
Hsiao-hei-shan went to Lao-ta-tsu, where a post is established.” This
town was in the southern district much nearer established Chinese
authority than is Hsinmintun. At the end of April the Cossacks had
commenced to denude the country of cattle, going out in troops of
fifty, each accompanied by a Chinese interpreter. Each troop considered
it an unlucky day when a bullock apiece had not been captured. The
Russians also requisitioned cattle from the Tartar generals, and if
sufficient were not forthcoming, at once renewed their demand for all
the Chinese troops in the Fengtien province to be disarmed.
The Chinese of these parts were simply bullied by the Russians into
parting with everything they possessed, and their Chinese officials
were dispossessed of the little authority which had been allowed to
remain. The same harsh rule was applied in even greater force in the
north, and the Tartar general at Kirin is supposed either to have
died of broken heart, or to have committed suicide in order to avoid
dishonour.
Another note of mine of much later date shows a different state of
affairs in this neutral territory. In August thirty Cossacks were seen
near Hsiao, riding two on each pony; two miles behind a force of about
three hundred bandits were in hot pursuit.
To obtain further meat supplies the Russians purchased at Kulan Fair
and Ha-lao, on the Mongolian frontier. In neutral territory they seldom
paid for their supplies, merely gave a receipt for the beasts they took
away, and sometimes tied that to the horns of the cattle driven into
the Russian lines. The extent of the enormous traffic may be judged
from the fact, that as many as a thousand head of cattle have been
delivered in Mukden in one day from the Hsinmintun road alone.
The villagers were powerless to protect their property, so bought the
aid of the hill men, all of whom are more or less engaged in horse and
cattle dealing. Hence after the raids, there were counter raids and
border warfare. The hill men number between fifty and eighty thousand,
and from them soldiers are recruited. Their leaders are all known to
the Chinese government, at least by name; some have been and some
still are in government service, acting as independent police for the
protection of the frontier and for the purpose of preventing cattle
raids.
The conditions were bad before the war began; they have since grown
increasingly worse. Russian outposts were attacked, and had to be
abandoned, and with the exception of the road between Hsinmintun and
Mukden, which the Russians must keep open to get through supplies from
China, it is doubtful if there are now any Russian soldiers stationed
in neutral territory. The hill men grew bolder as the Japanese
successes followed each other, and in the summer they agreed upon
common action and scoured the country, driving the Russians before them
and killing all whom they could capture.
At first they had their own leaders, two of whom I met, but latterly
they have been organized and commanded by Japanese, who wear Chinese
dress, and have queues fastened inside their caps. The hill men are now
an irregular force of raiders, quite free from Chinese control, and are
being used to annoy the Russians, and where possible to break up the
line, hinder railway communications, and hamper the Russians in getting
through food supplies from Mongolia.
They are all well armed, mostly with modern German magazine rifles.
They lead a wild, free life, preying on those villagers who will not
employ them, upon well-to-do native travellers and traders, and most
of all upon the Russians, for a Hunghus is as proud of having slain a
Russian soldier as an American Indian was of a Sioux scalp.
For Chinamen they may be considered brave, that is to say, when they
are superior in numbers, about five to one,--they will attack openly
Russians conveying cattle, and they are sufficiently daring to make
night attacks on villages known to be harbouring Chinese who favour
their foes. In no circumstances would they make such attacks as the
Japanese have made at Port Arthur, Tashichiao and Liaoyang.
The Russian political agent to Mongolia, a Siberian named Gromov,
whom I met in Harbin and at Port Arthur, has been trying through his
Mongolian acquaintances to win over some of these Chinese hill men of
the north to the Russian side, but apparently without any success.
The bandits attacked Tehling, got away with some stores, and set fire
to more, but in my opinion their finest recorded exploit is their
successful attack on the Russian gunboat _Sivouch_, which, in order
to escape the Japanese, went up the Liao to Estahbien on high spring
tides. The _Sivouch_, an old vessel of 943 tons register, steamed down
to Liao bar when H.M.S. _Espiègle_ arrived from Chenwantao to render
assistance to British residents, and, according to the Chinese version
current, drove the British warship away. The Hunghuses attacked by
night, firing upon her at short range from the high _kowliang_ growing
on the banks, and from behind the many embankments made in that
district to keep flood-water off the land. Each night the attack became
more serious; the rifle bullets pierced the ship’s sides, and she was
then blown up and sunk by her crew, who escaped by way of old Newchwang
to Liaoyang.
When the Japanese, three days later, sent their gunboat up the river to
engage her, they found only a newspaper correspondent in possession,
and with him a number of Chinese soldiers intended for her protection.
The Japanese arrested the correspondent, and gave him a passage on
their vessel down the river, but not before he had managed to acquire
and secrete the gilded Imperial Eagle from her bows as a souvenir of
his excursion.
The homes of these hill men are up in the mountain fastnesses, to which
there are only rough paths up which their sturdy Mongolian ponies will
scramble at a fair pace. Many of their leaders ride on donkeys, and
Wang, one of the smartest, when last I met him, was riding a fine dark
brown jackass, which, he informed me, he would not exchange for any
pony in the country. In Manchuria and North China the richest men ride
mules, and ordinarily a good saddle mule is worth more money than a
pony of equal quality.
The Hunghus towns and villages are surrounded with a low wall, have
gates, and small forts with jingals at frequent intervals, commanding
all the approaches. It is one of the ordinances of China that even
every village must have its surrounding wall. Though this fence may be
of mud and only a few feet high, without gates, and used as a promenade
in muddy weather, it nevertheless exists. In some of the villages on
the plain the walls also have forts; these forts have cannon about as
large and very much of the shape of an old blunderbus barrel. And there
is always a diminutive flag over the fort, whose walls and moat, or
trench, there is not a correspondent’s waler could not jump easily,
and a clever horse would jump both in and out of the fort, as an Irish
horse jumps a stone wall. The forts are just such toys as enterprising
boys make on the sea-beach for their amusement, and of no greater
military importance.
The strength of the Hunghuses lies in their bravery; they do not fear
their own countrymen; of foreigners they have a wholesome dread.
The Russians were so uneducated they knew not what to do, nor what to
want. Ordinarily you could pass through their lines with ease. When it
was difficult, or the correspondent too lazy, a Chinaman was employed.
One I sent into the fort to see what was being done there, to find out
how many guns were in position and what they were. He was an educated
man, but passed in as a coolie, and as a coolie was detained until he
had done a day’s work with the others.
There was a spy who wished to get plans of the fort and of the
fortifications around it. He stayed in a Chinese village near by, went
in and out and about; hid when necessary in the hollows where Chinese
coffins have fallen in on the corpses, and when hard pressed he came
back to Yingkow. The authorities, aided by their English secretary,
were after him there, but it did not suit the correspondents to have
one who had posed as of their profession to be caught thus red-handed.
He was hidden among Chinese in a riverside village, and as the train
was searched for him every morning, he had to get underneath one of the
cars before dawn, and hang on to the gear there until the train reached
the next station.
This was an exceptional case. Ordinarily the correspondent and
the Chinese helpers were equal to every occasion. For a monetary
consideration commensurate with the risk they ran, they would take the
correspondent almost anywhere. He got into a covered Peking cart, and
left the rest to his men. The cart would dawdle along when nearing a
Russian picket, until a number of native carts joined the procession.
At the post there would be a crowd; if you kept your cover down, other
Chinese carts with native passengers did so; whilst they were being
examined your driver contrived to get into the line of those passed as
correct. At most you wanted only two or three carts. Those in advance
acted as scouts, their drivers warning your carter what was happening
ahead. Success in spying depends not so much in ability to get out of
difficult situations as in having the good sense to avoid them.
For most of the mistakes the correspondents made they were themselves
to blame. The credulity with which they absorbed rumour was equalled
only by the avidity with which they sought news. Some might consider
their colleagues to be their worst enemies. One would ask another what
he thought of the serious position created by General Ma bringing
40,000 Chinese soldiers outside the Great Wall of China. He questioned
to get the speaker’s idea of the extent of the seriousness, not daring
to own that he had not received the news, or questioning the fact
itself. After a general talk all round, some one of the crowd was as
likely as not to wire off as news what was only an assumed state of
affairs. In this way the Japanese were reported to have torpedoed a
pilot boat, to have captured half South Manchuria before they left
Korea, and to have achieved numerous impossibilities.
The Russian officials were not guiltless. The cabling of a little false
news afforded them an excuse for being rid of a correspondent when his
presence was not desired. Trap after trap was set, and he was indeed
wary or inactive who escaped them all.
There was one item of somewhat sensational interest most adroitly
launched. An officer at Yingkow heard from two army officers who had
arrived from Liaoyang that an American newspaper correspondent, who had
gone there without having his papers in order, had sought refuge with a
countrywoman of his resident there, and that for harbouring him she had
been flogged by the order of the commander-in-chief. The alleged victim
was a Miss Alice Clery, who had been for some years in the Orient, and
was one of the few persons of American nationality who were heart and
soul with the Russians in their struggle against the Japanese. At Port
Arthur, in order to be with them, she had volunteered for Red Cross
work, and through the influence of friends on the Viceroy’s staff had
been found quarters at Liaoyang. That much was true, and it was also a
fact that the correspondent had made her acquaintance. The remainder
of the story was open to question. The manner in which it was started
was quite clever. In course of general conversation with a British
trader in Yingkow, a hint was dropped by an army officer that British
and American correspondents, and those who helped them, had not much
favour at the hands of General Kuropatkin. The man mentioned the fact
to a resident, who told me jocosely what I might expect. Thereupon I
interviewed the officer, who, most reluctantly, informed me of what
his brother officers had told him. He believed them. It was a possible
story. He did not, and could not, vouch for the facts, as he was not
at Liaoyang at the time, but he knew this, that, and the other which
corroborated everything he had been told. I went to the censor and
asked him to be good enough to straighten out the story, if I had the
details wrong. He had heard the officers tell the same story, heard
that the woman received twenty-five lashes, and had no reason to doubt
the statement at all. He deplored the occurrence, but it was not for
him to question any action of the commander-in-chief.
Here was a story which an American journalist could turn into a rousing
article--and it was vouched for sufficiently.
It lacked probability. Russian officers would not be guilty of such
barbarity. Sooner or later such an occurrence would be known, for
there were American military attachés and newspaper correspondents at
Liaoyang, and when it was known, the political consequences would be
such that any officer guilty of an act of that kind would have trouble.
For every offence, short of crime, which a foreigner of either sex
may commit the Russians have one penalty--the offender is banished
from Russian territory. It is a short and effective way out of many
difficulties, one unlikely to lead to a diplomatic incident or cause
future trouble. This report needed more evidence than hearsay to
substantiate an event so improbable, and the correspondents again saved
themselves.
Etzel had repeatedly suggested to me that by getting a junk we might
reach Kaiping or Port Adams or Port Arthur, and find out what the
Japanese were doing. It was a proposal I negatived. The risks were
greater than the results appeared to promise. He was very keen on the
scheme, and ultimately made the attempt in the company of the _Daily
Mail_ representative. A few days before he embarked he accompanied me
as far as Kaopantze, in the neutral territory, where he was getting
together the necessaries for his voyage. The matter was kept quite
secret. Instead of going to Messrs. Bush Bros., or Bandinel & Co.,
and having a junk and crew known on the river, or even obtaining the
protection of their house flag, he chartered through an Englishman
a small, light, fast-sailing junk of the type known locally as “sea
swallows”; it also resembles unfortunately some of the piratical
craft with which the waterways are infested. At the last moment he
was implored not to go, and almost persuaded. He seemed to have a
presentiment of approaching catastrophe. One of his friends bidding
him good-bye said he never expected to see him alive again, so he woke
up that friend between three and four the next morning to reassure
him of his mistake. Then he started--taciturn, glum and oppressed with
foreboding.
At first all went well, but long before the “sea swallow” was out of
Chinese waters the strange craft was sighted by soldier guards on the
watch for pirates, smugglers and blockade runners. These guards bore
down on the vessel and in Oriental fashion fired first and inquired
afterwards. They were informed that there were foreigners on board,
and they hastened away. But the deed had been done. Etzel, whilst
performing his duty, had been killed accidentally in a volley fired
from behind by men with whom he had no quarrel, by men who would have
risked their lives to save his.