HISTORY AND LEGEND
Though Chinese historians have never set themselves to solve that
modern European problem as to whether history is or is not a science,
they have always--or at least since the days of Confucius--had a
strong sense of its philosophical significance and its didactic value.
Of the writings with which the name of Confucius is connected, that
known as the _Ch'un Ch'iu_ or "Spring and Autumn Annals" is the one
that he himself considered his greatest achievement, and Mencius
assures us that when the Master had written this historical work,
"rebellious ministers and bad sons were struck with terror." The
modern reader is perhaps apt to wonder what there was in the jerky,
disconnected statements of the _Ch'un Ch'iu_ to terrify any one,
however conscience-stricken; but Mencius's remark shows that history
was already regarded as a serious employment, well fitted to engage the
attention of philosophers and teachers of the people.
For a long time, indeed, practice lagged a long way behind theory.
There is some reason to suppose that Confucius himself was not above
adapting facts to suit his political opinions, which shows that history
had not yet secured for itself a position of great dignity. The oldest
historical work in the language is the _Shu Ching_, which is believed
to have been edited by Confucius. Certainly the sage's study of this
work does not seem to have inspired him with any lofty theories as
to how history ought to be treated, for his own work is considerably
balder and less interesting than the old one. The Confucian who wrote
the historical commentary known as the _Tso-chuan_ improved upon his
master's methods very greatly, and his work can be read with pleasure
at the present day; but the first great Chinese historian did not
appear till the second century B.C. in the person of Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien. For
several reasons it would be incorrect to style him the Herodotus of
China, but he may at least be regarded as the father of the modern art
of historical writing in that country.[20]
Yet his example did not bring about the abolition of the old methods of
the dry-bones annalists; for while the writers of the great Dynastic
Histories have been careful to imitate and if possible improve upon
his advanced style and method, and have thus produced historical
works which for fidelity to truth, comprehensiveness, and literary
workmanship will often bear comparison with similar productions in
Europe, the compilers of the innumerable local histories have almost
invariably contented themselves with legends, fairy-tales, and the
merest chronicle of notable events arranged under the heads of
successive years. The enormous quantity of these local histories may be
realised from the fact that each province, prefecture and district, as
well as each famous lake and each celebrated mountain, has one of its
own.
These works are often very voluminous: an account of a single famous
mountain, with its monasteries, sometimes extends over a dozen separate
books; and the account of Ssŭch'uan, a single province, is not far
short of two hundred volumes in length. These productions are not,
indeed, only of an historical and legendary nature: they include full
topographical information, elaborate descriptions of cities, temples,
and physical features, separate chapters on local customs, natural
productions and distinguished men and women, and anthologies of the
best poems and essays descriptive of special features of interest or
inspired by the local scenery.
On legends and folk-lore and anything that seems in any way marvellous
or miraculous, the compiler lingers long and lovingly; but when he
comes to the narrative of definite historical facts he is apparently
anxious to get over that dry but necessary part of his labours as
rapidly as possible, and so gives us but a bare enumeration of the
events in the order of their occurrence, and in the briefest and most
direct manner possible.
As a rule, his succinctly-stated matters of fact may be regarded as
thoroughly reliable. When a Chinese annalist states that in the year
990 there was a serious famine at Weihaiwei, the reader may take it for
granted that the famine undoubtedly occurred, however uninstructive the
fact may be in the opinion of those who live nearly a thousand years
later. What is apt to strike one as inexplicable is the occasional
appearance, in a list of prosaic details which may be accepted as
generally reliable, of some statement which suggests that the compiler
must have suddenly lost control of his senses. For instance, we read
in the _Wên-têng Chih_ or Annals of the district in which the greater
part of Weihaiwei is situated, that in the year which corresponds with
1539 there were disastrous floods, and that in the autumn a large
dragon suddenly made its appearance in a private dwelling. "It burst
the walls of the house," says the chronicler, "and so got away; and
then there was a terrific hailstorm." Why such startling absurdities
are introduced into a narrative that is generally devoid of the least
imaginative sparkle, may be easily understood when we remember that
such animals as dragons, phœnixes and unicorns and many other strange
creatures were believed in (or at least their existence was not
questioned) by educated Chinese up to a quite recent date; and the
writer of the _Wên-têng Chih_, when noting down remarkable occurrences
as they were brought to his notice, saw no reason whatever why he
should doubt the appearance of the dragon any more than he should doubt
the reality of the floods or the hailstorm. That the dragon episode
could not have happened because dragons did not exist was no more
likely to occur to the honest Chinese chronicler than a doubt about
the real existence of a personal Devil and a fiery Hell was likely to
beset a pious Scottish Presbyterian of the eighteenth century, or than
a disbelief in the creation of the world in six days in the year 4004
B.C. was likely to disturb the minds of the pupils of Archbishop Ussher.
The Chinese chronicles from which we derive our knowledge of the past
history of Weihaiwei and the adjacent country are those of Wên-têng
in four volumes, Jung-ch'êng in four, Ning-hai in six and Weihaiwei
(that is, the Wei of Weihai) in two. The first three are printed from
wooden blocks in the usual old-fashioned Chinese style, and this means
that recently-printed copies are far less clear and legible than the
first impressions, which are unfortunately difficult to obtain; the
last (that of Weihaiwei) seems to exist in manuscript only, and is
consequently very rare. It is from these four works chiefly, though not
solely, that the information given in the rest of this chapter, as in
many other parts of the book, has been culled; and while endeavouring
to include only such details as are likely to be of some interest to
the European reader, I trust there will be enough to give him an
accurate idea not only of the history of Weihaiwei but also of that
prodigious branch of Chinese literature of which these works are
typical.
The traditions of Weihaiwei and its neighbourhood take us back to the
days of myth. The position of this region at the end of a peninsula
which formed, so far as China knew, the eastern limit of the civilised
world, made it, as we have seen, the fitting birthplace of legend
and marvel. Not content with taking us back to the earliest days of
eastern Shantung as a habitable region, the legends assure us of
a time when it was completely covered by the ocean. Thousands of
years ago, it is said, a Chinese princess was drowned there.[21] She
was then miraculously turned into a bird called a _ching wei_, and
devoted herself in her new state of existence to wreaking vengeance
on the cruel sea for having cut short her human life. This she did by
flying to and fro between land and sea carrying stones in her beak
and dropping them into the water one by one until, by degrees, they
emerged above the surface and formed dry land. Thus her revenge for the
drowning incident was complete: she punished the sea by annihilating it.
For many centuries--and in this matter history and legend coincide--the
peninsular district of Shantung, including Weihaiwei, was inhabited
by a non-Chinese race of barbarians. Not improbably they were among
the aboriginal inhabitants of the central plains of China, who
were driven west, south and east before the steady march of the
invading Chinese, or--if we prefer to believe that the latter were an
autochthonous race--by the irresistible pressure of Chinese expansion.
The eastward-driven section of the aborigines, having been pressed into
far-distant Shantung, perhaps discovered that unless they made a stand
there they would be driven into the sea and exterminated; so they held
their ground and adapted themselves to the new conditions like the
Celts in Wales and Strathclyde, while the Chinese, observing that the
country was hilly, forest-clad, and not very fertile, swept away to the
richer and more tempting plains of the south-west.
This may or may not be a correct statement of what actually occurred:
all we know for certain is that at the dawn of the historical epoch
eastern Shantung was still inhabited by a people whom the Chinese
regarded as uncouth foreigners. The name given to them in the _Shu
Ching_ is Yü I, words which, if they are to be translated at all,
may be rendered as "the barbarians of the hill regions." The period
to which the _Shu Ching_ assigns them is that of the more or less
mythical Emperors Yao, Shun and Yü, whose reigns are assigned to the
twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries B.C., the Chinese Golden Age.
An alternative view of the Yü I is that they were not the people of
eastern Shantung, but the inhabitants of one of the Japanese islands.
Dr. Legge, again, took the view that Ch'ing Chou, one of the nine
provinces into which the Emperor Yü divided the Empire, included
the modern kingdom of Korea. As the Yü I are always referred to as
inhabiting the most easterly portion of the Empire, Dr. Legge was
obliged to assign them to some part of the Korean peninsula[22];
following certain Chinese writers, moreover, he took Yü I to be a
place-name, though this surely can only have been by the transference
of the name or nickname of a people to their place of habitation. The
whole question is hardly worth discussing, for it is almost impossible
to disentangle fact from myth in respect of any of the alleged events
of that far-off age; though, on the whole, it seems improbable that
Yü's Empire--presuming that Yü was an historical personage--ever
extended as far as some patriotic Chinese commentators would like to
make out, or ever included any portion of either Korea or Japan. The
great K'ang Hsi dictionary definitely states that the Yü I country
"is the present Têng-chou," which includes the north-eastern section
of Shantung all the way to the Promontory. The dictionary also
describes it as "the place where the sun rises." An interesting point
in connection with the Yü I is that it was to their country that the
Emperor Yao (2357 B.C.) is said to have sent one of the Imperial
Astronomers to "observe the heavens." The heavens of those days must
have been well worth observing, for Chinese legends say there were then
ten suns,[23] which all rose out of a prodigious abyss of hot water.
At one time, it was said, nine of the suns sat every day in the lower
branches of a great tree that grew in the land of Fu-sang, and one sat
on the topmost branch; but in the time of Yao all the suns climbed up
together to the top of the tree and made everything so uncomfortably
hot that the Emperor shot at them and succeeded in destroying nine.
Since then the world has had to content itself with a single sun.[24]
Assuming that the ordinary interpretations of the _Shu Ching_ are
correct, it appears that in the Golden Age of Yao the office of
Astronomer-Royal, as we should say, was an exclusive perquisite of
two families surnamed Hsi and Ho. Four members of these privileged
families were sent to establish observatories in the four quarters
of the Empire, east, west, south, and north, in order that they
might "deliver respectfully the seasons to the people." The passage
of the _Shu Ching_ in which this matter is mentioned[25] is of
great scientific interest on account of its astronomical details,
and of great importance as establishing the reliability of early
Chinese records. The only point that concerns us here is that one of
the astronomers--namely, the second of three of the privileged Ho
brothers--was sent to a tract of country called Yang Ku--"the Valley
of Sunlight"--in the territory of the Yü I. His special duty it was
to "receive as a guest the rising sun, and to adjust and arrange the
labours of the Spring." Monopoly and absence of competition seem
to have had their inevitable result; the privileged families of
Hsi and Ho fell into utter disgrace, and were charged with having
"neglected the ordering of the seasons and allowed the days to get
into confusion,"--and all this because they gave themselves up to the
pleasures of wine and female society instead of keeping a careful watch
on the movements of the heavenly bodies. The Hsi and Ho had evidently
become magnates of no small importance, for it was necessary to send
an army to punish them. Their main offence, as we gather from the _Shu
Ching_,[26] was that they made some sad blunder in connection with an
eclipse, and the penalty attached to an offence of this nature was
death. The only point with reference to all this that bears upon our
subject is that the eastern observatory, presided over by one of the Ho
family, was probably situated somewhere in the extreme eastern part of
the Shantung peninsula: and though it is open to sceptics to declare
that the astronomer, the observatory, and the Emperor himself were all
figments of the Chinese imagination, it is equally open to any one to
hold, though quite impossible for him to prove, that the Yang Ku--the
Vale of Sunlight--was no other than the sandy strip of sun-bleached
territory that lies between the sombre rocks of the Shantung Promontory
and the most easterly hills of Weihaiwei.[27]
Whether the people of this district were or were not called the
Barbarians of the Hill Regions at the dawn of Chinese history, or
whether in their territory there was or was not a place called the Vale
of Sunlight, does not affect the undoubted truth of the statement that
the Shantung peninsula was up to historic times inhabited by a race, or
the remnants of a race, that was not Chinese. We may be sure, from what
we know of the boundaries and inter-relations of the various Chinese
states in the Confucian epoch (that is, the sixth century B.C.), that
if Confucius himself had travelled from his native state of Lu through
that of Ch'i and so on in a north-easterly direction until he reached
the sea, he would have been obliged to engage an interpreter to enable
him to communicate with the inhabitants of the district we now know as
Weihaiwei.
We may presume without rashness that as time went on these Eastern
barbarians gradually assimilated themselves with, or were assimilated
by, their civilised Chinese neighbours. The process was probably a
long one, for we do not hear of the establishment of ordinary Chinese
civil government until the epoch of the Han dynasty, about 200 B.C.
Perhaps the legendary journeys of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, the "First
Emperor," which, as we have seen, are supposed to have taken place a
few years earlier, really represent some great military achievement
whereby the far-eastern barbarians were for the first time brought
under the Chinese yoke. The local annals mention the fact that during
the Chou dynasty, which preceded that of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti and held
the throne of China from 1122 B.C. to 255 B.C., the present district
of Wên-têng (including Weihaiwei) formed part of the Mou-tzŭ country;
but it must have been an independent or semi-independent state, for no
Chinese administrators are mentioned. Later on there was an hereditary
marquisate of Mou-p'ing, which extended over much of the country we are
considering.
The dynasty founded by the "First Emperor" divided the whole Empire as
it then was into thirty-six _chün_ or provinces, and Wên-têng formed
part of the Ch'i province. At last, in the sixth year of Kao Tsu of the
Han dynasty (201 B.C.), a Chinese magisterial district was founded in
the eastern peninsula for the first time, though the city chosen as the
centre of government was not Wên-têng but a place called Pu-yeh-ch'êng,
and the _hsien_ or magisterial district was accordingly known as
Pu-yeh-Hsien. This city, which is said[28] to have been founded by one
Lai-tzŭ in the "Spring and Autumn" period twenty-five centuries ago,
is now a small village in the modern Jung-ch'êng district, a short
distance from the British frontier on the Chinese side, and whatever
glory it may once have possessed has totally departed. The origin
of the name, which means "Nightless," is unknown, though naturally
one would like to connect it in some way with the Sunlit Vale of the
astronomer Ho. The new _hsien_ city was assigned to the prefecture of
Tung-lai, then the most easterly prefecture in the province.
From this time onward all the north-eastern part of Shantung, including
the districts with which we are specially concerned, remained under the
civil administration of China. From time to time various changes were
made in the seat of district-government and in the boundaries of the
prefectures, but these it would be superfluous to follow in detail. In
the fourth year of T'ien T'ung (568 of our era), Wên-têng city became
the magistrate's headquarters, and the district was placed in the
Ch'ang-kuang prefecture under the name of Wên-têng-shan Hsien. Early in
the period K'ai Huang (581-600), the abolished Ch'ang-kuang prefecture
gave place to Mou Chou, and Wên-têng was placed in the Tung-lai
prefecture, to which Pu-yeh had formerly been assigned. Passing over
many similar administrative changes of no special significance we come
to the Ming dynasty, which began to reign in 1368. In the ninth year of
Hung Wu (1376) the present prefecture of Têng-chou was created. Both
Wên-têng and Ning-hai districts were assigned to the new prefecture and
have remained under its jurisdiction ever since.
Before Jung-ch'êng (in the neighbourhood of the Shantung Promontory)
was made a separate magistracy, which was not till 1735, the position
of Wên-têng was most responsible and often perilous, for it faced
the sea on three sides--north, east, and south. The chronic danger
that menaced these shores came from the restless Japanese. From
the time of the Northern Wei dynasty (401 of our era) onwards, the
Chinese Government found it necessary to take special measures for the
protection of the Shantung coasts from Japanese pirates. Elaborate
military precautions, say the records, were taken in 742, during the
epoch of the mighty T'ang dynasty, and again in 1040 (Sung dynasty)
and in 1341 (Yüan dynasty). The failure of the warlike Mongols (who
founded the last-named dynasty) when they took to over-sea expeditions,
is no less remarkable than their wonderful successes on land. The
armadas despatched in 1274 and in 1281 by the great Kublai Khan for
the purpose of reducing to obedience the refractory Japanese has been
spoken of as an unwarranted attack on the liberty of a free and gallant
people, which met with well-deserved failure; but when we know how the
pirates of Japan had repeatedly harassed the coasts of China and, more
particularly, had made innumerable murderous attacks on the helpless
farmers and fishermen of the eastern coasts of Shantung, an entirely
new light is thrown upon Kublai's Japanese policy.
The whole history of Asia and of the world might have been changed
(perhaps for the worse, but not necessarily so) if the mighty Mongol
fleet that set sail for Japan in 1281 had not been scattered by hostile
winds and waves and defeated by its brave human adversaries. This was
the only serious attempt ever made by China to conquer Japan, and
though the Chinese dynasty of that day had carried its victorious
arms through a great part of the Euro-Asiatic continent it utterly
failed in its efforts to reduce to vassalage the island Empire of the
East. Yet it was not always Japan that represented enlightenment and
civilisation: it was not always China that stood for stagnation and
barbarism. When Kublai sent envoys to Japan in 1275 and in 1279 they
were not treated with the courtesy that the world has in more recent
years learned to expect from the natives of Japan: they were simply
deprived of their heads.
The disasters to their fleets appear to have discouraged the Chinese
from again trying their fortunes on the ocean; while the Japanese,
always intrepid sailors and fighters, re-entered with zest into the
profitable occupation of raiding the coasts of China and robbing her of
her sea-borne merchandise. "The spacious days of great Elizabeth," made
glorious for England by knightly freebooters and gentleman pirates,
were to some extent anticipated in the north-western Pacific during
the twelfth and succeeding centuries of our era. Japan took more than
ample revenge for the insult offered her by the great Kublai. The
whole coast-line of China lay open to her attacks and she utilised
the situation to the utmost, but it was north-eastern Shantung that
suffered most of all. For a long time the people of Wên-têng and
neighbouring districts, who were only poor fisher-folk and farmers,
sparse in numbers, vainly implored the Government to save them from
their miseries and protect them from the sea-rovers. The measures
hitherto fitfully employed to safeguard the coast had been repeatedly
shown to be inadequate. Soon after the commencement of the Ming period
(1368) the Imperial Government at last began to make a serious effort
to keep inviolate the shores of the Empire and to succour the people
who "had in the past suffered grievous hurt," so runs a Chinese account
of the matter, "from the pestilent outrages committed by the rascally
Dwarfs."
It may be mentioned that in the Chronicles of Wên-têng and Weihaiwei
the Japanese are never referred to except as _Wo_ or _Wo-jên_, which
literally means Dwarfs. This term was not current only among the
unlettered classes: it was regularly employed in official documents
and memorials intended for the inspection of the Shantung Provincial
Government.[29] A great Chinese geographical work published in
the tenth century of our era is even more uncomplimentary, for it
states[30] that "since the later Han dynasty [which reigned from 25 to
220 A.D.] the country [Japan] has been known as that of the Dwarf-slave
country," and it gives details as to the tribute said to have been paid
by Japan to China for a period of many centuries.
The new defensive measures taken by the Government consisted in the
establishment of Military Districts (_Wei_)[31] at various strategic
points round the coast of Shantung. Of these Districts Weihaiwei was
one and Ch'êng Shan was another. These two _Wei_ were created in 1398,
thirty years after the establishment of the Ming dynasty. The carrying
out of the project was entrusted to two high officials, one of whom
took up his temporary residence on Liukungtao. A wall was built a few
years later (1403) round the village of Weihai, the modern Weihaiwei
"city," and the headquarters of Ch'êng-shan-wei, known to us as the
town of Jung-ch'êng, was similarly raised to the dignity of a walled
city. Military colonies--that is, bands of soldiers who were allowed
to take up agricultural land and to found families--were brought into
every Wei under the command of various leaders, the chief of whom
were known as _chih-hui_. This title, generally applied to the chiefs
of certain non-Chinese tribes, was in many cases hereditary. Even in
Weihai, Ning-hai and Ch'êng-shan the _chih-hui_ were petty military
chieftains rather than regular military officers. There were other
commanders known as _li ssŭ_, _ch'ien-hu_ and _pai-hu_,[32] all of
which titles--being generally applied to petty tribal chiefs--were
probably selected in order to emphasise the two facts that the Wei
system was extraneous to the general scheme of Chinese civil and
military administration and that the officers of a Wei were not only
soldiers but also exercised a general jurisdiction, civil as well as
military, over the affairs of the Wei and its soldier-colonists.
[Illustration: PART OF WEIHAIWEI CITY WALL (see p. 47).]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Fleet Surgeon C. M. Beadnell, R.N._
THE AUTHOR AND TOMMIE ON THE QUORK'S PEAK (see p. 397).
(Summit of Mount Macdonald.)]
The Chinese Government has always done its best, in the interests of
peace and harmony and general good order, to inculcate in the minds of
its subjects a reverence for civil authority. Hence, besides appointing
a number of military officials whose enthusiasm for their profession
might lead them to an exaggerated notion of the dignity of the arts
of war, the Government also appointed a _Ju Hsüeh_, or Director of
Confucian studies, such as existed in every civil magistracy. To
render the ultimate civil control more effective the Wei were at first
regarded as nominally under the civil jurisdiction of the appropriate
magistracies: Weihaiwei thus remained an integral part of Wên-têng
Hsien. A change was made apparently on the recommendation of the
magistrate of Wên-têng himself, who pointed out the failure of the
joint-administration of Hsien and Wei and said that "the existing
system whereby the Magistracy controls the Wei is much less convenient
than a system whereby each Wei would look after itself"--subject
of course to the ultimate control of the higher civil authorities.
From the year 1659, then, that is sixty-one years after the first
establishment of the Wei system, Hsien and Wei were treated as two
entirely separate jurisdictions, neither having any authority over the
other. This was the system that remained in force from that time onward
until the final abolition of the Wei in 1735.
The main object in establishing these Wei was, as we have seen, to
provide some effective means of repelling the persistent attacks
of Japanese raiders. In this object the authorities appear to have
been only moderately successful. "When the sea-robbers heard of what
had been done," says one exultant writer, "they betook themselves a
long way off and dared not cast any more longing looks at our coast;
and thus came peace to hundreds and thousands of people. No more
intermittent alarms and disorders, no more panics and stampedes for
the people of Weihai!" This view of the situation was unduly rosy,
for in the fourth year of the reign Ming Yung Lo (1406)--only eight
years after the creation of the several Wei--the Japanese (_Wo k'ou_,
"Dwarf-pirates") effected a landing at Liukungtao, and additional
troops had to be summoned from long distances before they could be
expelled. Two years later--as if to show their contempt for one Wei
after another--they landed in force at Ch'êng-shan, and though they
did not succeed in capturing the new walled city of Ch'êng-shan-wei
they overwhelmed the garrisons of two neighbouring forts. These
daring raids resulted in an increase and reorganisation of the troops
attached to each Wei, and in the appointment of an officer with the
quaint title of "Captain charged with the duty of making preparations
against the Dwarfs." Henceforward the forts under each Wei were known
as "Dwarf-catching Stations," while the soldiers were "Dwarf-catchers."
It is not explained what happened to the Dwarfs when caught, but
there is no reason to suppose they were treated with undue leniency.
It is perhaps well for the self-respect of the Chinese that the Wei
establishments had been abolished long before the capture of Weihai
by the Japanese in 1895, otherwise the Catchers would have found
themselves in the ignoble position of the Caught.
We have seen that the city wall of Weihaiwei was first built in 1403.
The troops were stationed within the city and also in barracks erected
at the various beacon-posts and forts which lined the coast to east and
west, but considerable numbers in times of peace lived on their farms
in the neighbourhood and only took up arms when specially summoned.
The official quarters of the commandant of the Wei--the principal
_chih-hui_--were in the yamên which is now the residence of the Chinese
deputy-magistrate. The number of troops under his charge seems to have
varied according to the exigencies of the moment, but it is recorded
that Weihaiwei was at first (at the end of the fourteenth century)
provided with a garrison of two thousand soldiers, which number was
gradually increased. The area of the Wei--including the lands devoted
to direct military uses and those farmed by the military colonists--was
probably considerably less than one hundred square miles in extent,
and embraced a part of the most northerly (peninsular) portion of the
territory now administered by Great Britain.
It was not only from foreign "barbarians" that the inhabitants
of Wên-têng had to fear attack. Their own lawless countrymen were
sometimes no less daring and ruthless than the Japanese. Those that
came by sea were, indeed, foreigners in the eyes of the people of
Shantung, for most of them came from the provinces south of the Yangtse
and spoke dialects quite incomprehensible in the north. During the
Chia-ching period (1522-66) a Chinese pirate named Wang Hsien-wu seized
the island of Liukung, within full view of the soldiers of the Wei,
and maintained himself there with such ease and comfort that he built
fifty-three houses for his pirate band and took toll of all junks
that passed in and out of the harbour. He was finally dislodged by a
warlike Imperial Censor, who after his main work was accomplished made
a careful survey of the arable land of the island and had it put under
cultivation by soldier-farmers. This useful work was again pursued with
energy rather more than half a century later, when in 1619 the prefect
T'ao Lang-hsien admitted a few immigrants to the island and enrolled
them as payers of land-tax. With a view to their better protection
against further sudden attacks from pirates he established on the
island a system of signal-beacons.
The last year or two of the Ming dynasty (1642-3) was a troublous and
anxious time for all peace-loving Chinese. The events that led to the
expulsion of the Mings and the establishment of the present (Manchu)
dynasty on the Chinese throne are too well known to need detailed
mention. A great part of the Empire was the prey of roving bands of
rebels and brigands, one of whom--a remarkable adventurer named Li
Tzŭ-ch'êng--after repeatedly defeating the imperial troops finally
made himself master of the city of Peking. The last Emperor of the
Ming dynasty, overwhelmed with shame and grief, hanged himself within
the palace grounds. The triumph of Li was short-lived, for the warlike
tribes of Manchuria, readily accepting an invitation from the Chinese
imperialist commander-in-chief to cross the frontier and drive out the
presumptuous rebels, soon made themselves supreme in the capital and
in the Empire. The condition of the bulk of the Chinese people during
this time of political ferment was pitiable in the extreme. Military
leaders, unable to find money to pay their troops, neither could nor
would prevent them from committing acts of pillage and murder. Bands
of armed robbers, many of them ex-soldiers, roamed over the land
unchecked, leaving behind them a trail of fire and blood.
Confining our attention to the districts with which we are specially
concerned, we find that a band of brigands took by assault the walled
city of Ch'êng-shan, while at Weihaiwei the conduct of the local
troops was so disorderly that civilians with their wives and families
had to abandon their fields and homes and flee for refuge to the
tops of hills.[33] The _chih-hui_ in command of the local Wei at
this momentous time, coming to the conclusion that the dynasty was
tottering and that the seals of office issued by the Ming Emperors
would shortly bring disaster on their possessors, deserted his post
and sought a dishonoured refuge at home. It was not for several years
afterwards that the distracted people of Weihaiwei, or such of them
as had survived the miseries of those terrible days, once more found
themselves in possession of their ancestral farms and reasonably secure
from rapine and outrage.
The strong rule of the early Ta Ch'ing Emperors (the Manchu dynasty)
had its natural effect throughout the whole country. Law-abiding folk
enjoyed the fruits of their industry without molestation, while robbers
and pirates found their trade both more dangerous and less profitable
than in the good old days of political disorder. Yet it was not to be
supposed that even the great days of K'ang Hsi and his two remarkable
successors were totally unmarked by occasional troubles for the people
of so remote and exposed a section of the Empire as north-eastern
Shantung. The year 1703, say the local annals, was a disastrous one,
for floods in spring and a drought in summer were followed in autumn by
the arrival at Weihaiwei of shiploads of Chinese pirates. Soldiers from
the neighbouring camps of Ning-hai, Fu-shan (Chefoo) and Wên-têng had
to be sent for to assist the local garrison in beating them off. Nine
years later, on the seventeenth day of the tenth month, pirates arrived
at the island of Chi-ming,[34] whereupon a great fight ensued in which
a brave and distinguished Chinese commander lost his life.
An important year for the districts we are considering was 1735. For
some years previous to this the question of the abolition of the
various Wei and amalgamating them with the appropriate Hsien had been
eagerly discussed in civil and military circles. The question was
not, indeed, one of dismantling fortifications or denuding the place
of troops: these, it was reluctantly recognised, were a permanent
necessity. The disputed point was merely one of jurisdiction and
organisation. As we have seen, the Wei were something quite exceptional
in the Chinese administrative system; the creation of districts under
direct military control, free from any interference on the part of the
civil magistrates, had been in Chinese eyes a dangerous departure from
the traditional administrative practice of past ages and could not be
justified except as a temporary measure, which, being bad in principle,
should only be resorted to under pressure of abnormal conditions.
Several of the memorials and despatches written for and against the
retention of the Wei are preserved in the printed Annals of the
districts concerned. The matter was considered of such grave importance
that a provincial governor and a governor-general were separately sent
by the central Government to inquire into local conditions at the
north-eastern peninsula and to prepare detailed reports on the problems
of administration and defence. The end of it all was that in 1735 the
several Wei were abolished: Weihaiwei resumed its old place within the
magistracy of Wên-têng, while the Promontory Wei of Ch'êng-shan was
converted into a new magisterial district under the name of Jung-ch'êng
Hsien. Similar fates befell the other Wei of eastern Shantung, such
as Ching-hai, Ta-sung and Ning-hai. The boundary of Jung-ch'êng was
placed as far west as the villages of Shêng-tzŭ and Ch'iao-t'ou,[35]
and therefore, as we have seen, the territory temporarily administered
by Great Britain contains portions of both Wên-têng and Jung-ch'êng
districts.
In most magisterial districts which include seaports or large
market-centres there are certain small officials styled _hsün-chien_
who reside at such places and carry on the routine and minor duties
of civil government and police administration on behalf and under the
authority of the district-magistrates. A _hsün-chien_ in fact presides
over what may be called a sub-district and acts as the magistrate's
deputy. Before Weihai ceased to be a Wei an official of this class
resided near what was then the northern boundary of the Wên-têng
magistrate's jurisdiction, namely at a place called Wên-ch'üan-chai.
When the Wei was absorbed in the Wên-têng district in 1735 and the
boundaries of that district were thus made to include all the land
that lay to the north, the sub-district of Wên-ch'üan-chai was
abolished, and a new sub-district created at Weihai with headquarters
at Weihai city. The last _hsün-chien_ of Wên-ch'üan-chai became the
first _hsün-chien_ of Weihai, and the former place sank at once into
the position of an ordinary country village. Wên-ch'üan-chai must not
be confused with Wên-ch'üan-t'ang, the headquarters of the South
Division of the territory under British rule;[36] the two places are
several miles apart, though both at present fall within the magisterial
jurisdiction of the British District Officer. It is interesting to note
that Wên-ch'üan-t'ang itself was long ago--probably before the days of
the Ming dynasty--the seat of a military official, the site of whose
yamên is still pointed out by the people of the locality. The last
_hsün-chien_ of Wên-ch'üan-chai, who was transferred to Weihai city,
was a man of such excellent reputation that his name is remembered
with respect to this day. The people of the neighbourhood still repeat
a well-known old rhyme which he was fond of impressing upon their
ancestors' minds:
"_Shan yü shan pao
O yü o pao
Jo shih pu pao
Shih-ch'ên wei tao._"
This being translated means:
"Happiness is the reward of virtue; misery is the reward of wickedness.
If virtue and wickedness have not brought their due recompense it is
only because the time has not yet come."
This man, whose name was Yang, is said to have been so upright and
clean-handed an official that when he was relieved of office he found
himself without funds sufficient to take him home to his native place,
which was a long way off. However, being connected by marriage with the
Li family of Ai-shan-ch'ien,[37] he took up his residence with them and
there spent the remainder of his life. He was buried in the graveyard
of the Li family, where his tomb is still to be seen.
The abolition of the Wei necessitated military changes of some
importance, but the descendants of the old military colonists remained
where they were and kept possession of their lands. The only difference
to them was that their names as land-holders were now enrolled in the
ordinary civil registers instead of in separate military registers. The
_chün ti_ (military lands) became _min ti_ (civilian lands) and the
payment of land-tax was substituted for military service.
The country appears to have remained unmolested by external foes until
1798, when a fleet of pirate-junks made its appearance with the usual
disagreeable results. The years 1810-11 were also bad years for the
people, as the eastern part of the province was infested with bands
of roving brigands--probably poor peasants who, having been starved
out of house and home by floods and droughts and having sold all
their property, were asserting their last inalienable right, that of
living. Whatever their provocation may have been, it appears from the
local records that during the two years just mentioned their daring
robberies caused the temporary closing of some of the country-markets.
The robbers went about in armed bands, each consisting of seventy or
eighty men, and complaints were openly made that the officials would
take no active steps to check these disorderly proceedings because the
yamên-runners--the ill-paid or unpaid rabble of official underlings by
whom Chinese yamêns are infested--were in league with the robbers and
received a percentage of the booty as "hush-money." The usual method of
attack adopted by the miscreants was to lurk in the graveyards--where
in this region there is always good cover--and lie in wait for
unprotected travellers. Unlike the Robin Hoods and Dick Turpins of
England they shrank not from robbing the poor, and they spared neither
old woman nor young child.
Human enemies were not the only adverse forces with which the
much-harried peasant of Weihaiwei had to contend. Famine, drought,
earthquake, pestilence, all had their share in adding to his sorrows.
Sometimes his crops were destroyed by locusts; sometimes his domestic
animals became the prey of wild beasts. We find from the Annals that
the first visit of British war-vessels to Weihaiwei, which occurred
in 1816,[38] synchronised with a period of great misery: famines and
epidemics in 1811 and 1812 had been followed by several years of
agricultural distress; and during the years from 1813 to 1818 a new
scourge visited the people in the shape of packs of ravenous wolves.
The officers and men of the _Alceste_ and _Lyra_ might have had
the pleasure, had they only known it, of joining in the wolf-hunts
organised by the local officials.
The published chronicles do not carry us further than the middle of
the nineteenth century, though the yamêns of Wên-têng and Jung-ch'êng
possess all the information necessary for the production of new
up-to-date editions of their local histories as soon as the higher
provincial authorities issue the necessary orders. A new edition of the
_T'ung Chih_, the general Annals and Topography of the whole Province
of Shantung, is at present in course of preparation at the capital; and
to this work each of the magistracies will be required to contribute
its quota of information. If the work is brought up to recent times
it will be interesting to read its account of the war with Japan in
1894-5, and of the capture of Weihaiwei. Before the outbreak of that
war the fortifications of Weihaiwei had been entirely reconstructed
under the direction of European engineers. It was not, however, so
strong a fortress as Port Arthur, upon which six millions sterling had
been spent by the Government, and which was regarded by the Chinese as
impregnable. Yet Port Arthur fell to the victorious Japanese after a
single day's fighting, whereas Weihaiwei, vigorously attacked by land
and sea, did not capitulate till three weeks after the Japanese troops
had landed (on January 20, 1895) at the Shantung Promontory.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] A writer in the _Historians' History of the World_, published by
_The Times_ (see vol. xxiv. p. 683), says of the Chinese, that "up to
the advent of Europeans in the sixteenth century A.D. their records are
untrustworthy." This is an erroneous and most extraordinary statement.
The Chinese possessed valuable and, on the whole, reliable records
centuries before a single one of the modern States of Europe had begun
even to furnish material for history, far less produce trustworthy
historical records of its own.
[21] This story is related in that ancient book of marvels the _Shan
Hai Ching_ ("Hill and Sea Classic"). The princess is there said to have
been the daughter of the mythical Emperor Shên-nung (twenty-eighth
century B.C.). As a _ching wei_, the princess is said to have had a
white bill and red claws and to have been in appearance something like
a crow.
[22] See Legge's _Chinese Classics_, vol. iii. pt. 1. pp. 18 and 102-3.
[23] Ten was a sort of mystic number with the ancient Chinese. Lao Tzŭ,
the "Old Philosopher," for instance, is supposed to have had ten lines
on each hand and ten toes on each foot.
[24] These superstitions, which are treated seriously in the _Shan Hai
Ching_, are referred to in the _Lun Hêng_ of Wang Ch'ung, a writer of
the first century A.D. Wang Ch'ung decided that the ten suns could not
have been real suns, for if they had been in a Hot Water Abyss they
would have been extinguished, because water puts out fire; and if they
had climbed a tree their heat would have scorched the branches! (See
Forke's transl. of _Lun Hêng_, Luzac & Co: 1907, pp. 271 _seq._)
[25] See Legge's _Chinese Classics_, vol. iii. pt. 1. pp. 18-23.
[26] _Ibid._, vol. iii. pt. 1. pp. 162 _seq._
[27] The _Shan Hai Ching_ mentions an island in the Wên-têng district,
off the south-east coast, called Su-mên-tao, which still bears that
name; and describes it as _jih yüeh so ch'u_--"the place where the sun
and moon rise." This part of the ocean, though not the island itself,
is visible from the sandy strip mentioned in the text.
[28] See the _T'ai Ping Huan Yü Chi_ (_chüan 20_).
[29] The offensive appellation is preserved to this day in the name of
a small island 120 _li_ south-west of the Shantung Promontory, known as
Dwarfs' Island. The term is still frequently used by the people, and it
often occurred in formal petitions addressed to my own Court until I
expressly forbade, under penalty, its further use.
[30] _T'ai P'ing Huan Yü Chi_, 174th _chüan_, pp. 3 _seq._
[31] See pp. 12 _seq._
[32] For notices concerning the _ch'ien-hu_ and _pai-hu_ of the tribes
of far-western China at the present day, see the author's _From Peking
to Mandalay_ (John Murray: 1908), pp. 172, 176, 190, 425-7, 429.
[33] See p. 31.
[34] See p. 25.
[35] See pp. 14, 98.
[36] See p. 98.
[37] This is a village in British territory near Ai-shan Miao, a temple
described on pp. 385-6.
[38] See p. 1.