A PREMATURE OPENING
On October 10, 1911, an ordinary military officer in the Hupeh Army
of China stood unflinchingly facing a band of Revolutionists in
Wuchang. One was Liu King, a student not long back from Japan--a
mere slip of a boy. He was now practically in charge of the
Revolution of China, now prematurely, quite haphazardly, broken out,
and he sat looking suspiciously at the military man before him. The
military man was a colonel. Above his neck glistened half a dozen
narrow swords held by dark-clad men who awaited instructions to send
into eternity the man whom Fate intervened to make the most noted man
in the world-history of our day.
That Colonel was Li Yuan Hung, whose fame within a month reached to
the uttermost ends of the earth.
The Revolution, long planned and still maturing, had prematurely
broken out. Li Yuan Hung had been chosen as the leader, and now
stood offering his apologies to the men who pressed him into office.
He was not anxious, he was explaining, to take the honour--of course
he was not, for who knew that that small military revolt at Wuchang
was to move the whole of the eighteen provinces of China? Li thought
it was not worth while. His fate would be sealed at once, for the
Model Army of China merely cut the heads off of any in its ranks who
rebelled against military discipline. So he demurred that the honour
was too great for him--he would rather that another, more able and
{48} experienced, should be invited to the leadership. More heavily
those cold swords were pressed against his neck. Then it seemed as
if another minute would find his head rolling to the floor. But he
was given another chance. He was told in stern tones that he was the
leader of the Revolution, that he must agree or else he would be
decapitated immediately. But the Colonel still stolidly refused.
Before the order was finally given to strike with those glistening
swords the man was given one more chance. He agreed. The swords
were raised, and at that moment the curtain rose and showed China in
revolt to the world. Li Yuan Hung's behaviour after that fateful
night when he stood so near his grave showed the wisdom of the choice
of the man of all men who in this land of the passing Celestial did
more to free China from the fetters of the past than any other man
dead or living.
[Illustration: A CAPTURED BOMB-MAKER. One of those responsible for
the premature outbreak of the Revolution.]
It was not until long after the month of October, however, that men
were able accurately to ascertain how the Revolution broke.
Newspaper men with special passes, and on the scent for news, each
buttonholed their man, hoping to get the story of why the revolt
occurred so long before the appointed time. Every intelligent
onlooker saw that sooner or later a great upheaval would come to
China--some even got to know that it could not take a very great time
before the extensive plans were fully matured--and then the blow
would be struck, and China, tottering against forces far too strong
for her, would be shaken to her very vitals. But when the signal for
the military to rise was actually given, and when the whole of
Hupeh's Army did rise, almost as one man, the newspaper men and those
who thought they had been watching closely were lifted off their
feet. And then there started throughout the world a long string of
newspaper hazards as to who was responsible and how the thing had
been done. But the story did not leak through. The most careful
guesswork failed to get anywhere near the truth, {49} for the
correspondents of American and European newspapers had not been
behind the scenes, and knew little of what was passing in the early
days of October, They knew nothing of the little affair that had
happened in the Russian Concession of Hankow. Europeans in Hankow,
as a matter of fact, knew nothing about the affair until the
newspapers wrote up a short story of it, and on the morning it
appeared no one seemed to attach any great importance to what they
read. They did not realise that what the Revolutionary party of
China had been planning had prematurely fused, and that now there was
nothing to do but for the leaders of the movement to take the
plunge--hit or miss, as might be. The short newspaper report read as
follows, and was printed modestly alongside other general matter:--
"The detonation of a bomb on the Russian Concession yesterday
afternoon was responsible for the discovery of a revolutionary
element, the existence of which had hitherto not been suspected. At
4 p.m. the police in the neighbourhood of the Russian Municipal
Building were startled by a loud report which, it was apparent,
emanated from the native houses at the back of the German butchery.
A rush was made to the neighbourhood, and in the compound of No. 14
two Chinese were discovered throwing kerosene around, apparently just
preparing to set fire to the establishment. These were put quickly
under restraint, and a survey of the premises revealed the fact that
all the elements of a nice little revolutionary club were present.
Bombs already made, acids for their making, revolutionary pamphlets,
and a list of names which bore a strong resemblance to the members'
roll, gave testimony to the use to which the houses and the compound
had been put. It is surmised that the bomb went off accidentally,
and the inmates, fearing a visit by the police, attempted to set
their place on fire. That their attempts were frustrated is due to
the promptitude of the police, {50} who, in addition to the two
arrests already mentioned, tried to arrest four men who approached
the place in a suspicious manner soon after the explosion; these,
however, made their escape. At the Russian police-station, where at
a late hour last evening[1] a representative of the _Hankow Dally
News_ was making inquiries, two Chinese, a man and a woman, were
being examined, they having attempted to gain ingress to a suspected
house. Like the two men arrested, they, were turned over to the Hsia
Kao Ting,[2] whose representative had been quickly called to the
spot. The Viceroy had already sent a deputy, a naval officer, from
Wuchang, and together with the local officials he was busy attempting
to unravel the mysteries connected with the revolutionary quarters.
Among the articles seized by the police were revolutionary flags, as
well as maps of Wuchang and plans apportioning various bodies of
revolutionists to their positions for attack on the Wuchang gates.
At a late hour last night everything in the neighbourhood of the
scene was quiet, and not a soul was in sight except the Russian
police, who are to be heartily congratulated on their discovery and
the efficient manner in which they handled the situation."
Now, the man whose carelessness in making the bomb caused the
premature explosion in the Russian Concession and forced the
Revolutionary party to make their coup before they were ready was one
Sun Wu, an expert bomb-maker. He bears the marks of the explosion to
this day. Sun Wu was taken away immediately by his friends and
concealed until he was well enough to join his comrades. One of his
comrades was the aforementioned Liu King, who later became
Inspector-General of the Republican Government of Hupeh. Liu King's
wife was the woman who had undertaken to throw the bomb with which
the Revolution was to be started. The story is a most fascinating
{51} one, and nothing better can be done at the moment than to
reproduce the story as told to a newspaper man long after the great
war had seemed to be fairly well settled in favour of the
Republicans. Liu's personal appearance proclaims him an extremist,
said the report. He is a young man, about thirty, with unusual
eagerness in his eyes, wears foreign civilian clothes and gold-rimmed
spectacles, has a moustache but, of course, no queue. He comes from
a family of scholars among the gentry of Siangyang, in North Hupeh.
If he had not gone to Japan, he would probably have been a scholar of
the old Chinese type and an official, also of the old type, with a
boughten office. In fact, it was whispered that many thousands of
taels which he used in the Revolutionary cause were given him by
relatives in the expectation that he would buy a taotaiship
(magistracy).
In Japan Liu went through both the law course and the military. It
is ten years since he first took up revolutionary work. But he did
not claim to have done anything very effective till he met Dr. Sun
Yat Sen. Here is the story just about as he told it in Chinese:--[3]
"It was about six years ago that Sun Yat Sen came to Japan. I was
studying at the time in the Tungwen College. All the Chinese
students welcomed Sun with the utmost enthusiasm. He organised among
us a Society called the 'Tung Ming Hwei,' of which I was a member.
The aim of this Society was to move the people of China to realise
the shame of being ruled by aliens, and to stir them up to win their
freedom. We published a weekly magazine, the _People_, in which we
showed how corrupt, tyrannical, and impotent was the Manchu
Government, giving instances of the inhumanity and injustice with
which the Manchus had treated our people in the past. We urged
reasons why the Chinese people should take revenge on behalf {52} of
their ancestors, thus proving their filial piety. We urged that the
Chinese should strive to make themselves the equals of other peoples,
who looked down upon them simply because they were enslaved by the
Manchus. The _People_ became very influential, and nearly all its
readers in China and abroad realised that they were slaves, and
wanted to free themselves. But the paper did not live long. The
Manchu Government complained to the Japanese against its publication,
and Japan, wishing to strengthen her friendship with the Chinese
Government, suppressed it. We then organised another department,
called the _Kung Ching_ (meaning 'Advance together'). The duty of
this department was to send agents to the various provinces to
inspire the soldiers and scholars with revolutionary spirit and
patriotism, and others to Chinese settlements abroad to raise funds.
I was twice elected president of this department while I was studying
at the Tungping Military College.
"The Revolutionary agents had friends among the military officers
throughout China, so that it was easy for them to get into touch with
the soldiers. Even if the officers refused to help, they were so
friendly with the agents that they would not betray them. So it was
very seldom that viceroys or governors were successful in arresting
Revolutionists.
"After graduating from the military college and the law college I
returned to Hupeh in the sixth moon (July), 1910. I came to Wuchang
and found that all the Revolutionary agents had taken flight, owing
to the strict search made for them by Viceroy Jui Cheng. I was
greatly disappointed. A little later I became sick, and went to my
home in Siangyang. The illness was a long one; I was not able to
leave my bed till the third moon (May, 1911). I came here but found
I was too weak for work, so I returned home for two months. In the
fifth moon I came back here, bringing ten thousand taels given me by
my family. I took {53} a house beside the middle school in Wuchang.
We took care to keep everything very secret. We had various retreats
in Wuchang and Hankow, and our headquarters was in the camp of the
sappers and miners' corps.
"Sun Wu had been working among the soldiers, and we knew that we
could rely on the sappers and miners and the artillerymen. For some
time the soldiers were timid, and, though they were eager to revolt
against the Manchus, they were unwilling to give a definite promise
to join the Revolution at a fixed time. We held secret meetings, and
at last we found that the only way to induce some of them was to
threaten that they would be blown up with bombs if they did not join.
"We had planned to begin the Revolution in December--simultaneously
in eight provinces. We had drawn up lists showing the amount of the
funds in the provincial treasuries, so that we knew the amount we
should probably have to begin operations with. My wife, who is a
zealous Revolutionist and who recently went to Shanghai to organise a
corps of women soldiers, had undertaken to disguise herself as a poor
pedlar-woman in order that she might throw a bomb at the Viceroy.
That was to be the beginning of the Revolution. Sun Wu and myself
were experts in the manufacture of bombs. On the night of October
9th Sun was making a bomb when, by some carelessness, he allowed it
to explode. This betrayed our plot before we were ready. That was
at the Russian Concession in Hankow. Russian policemen came to our
place and seized our plant, together with proclamations we had
prepared, dispatches to the foreign consulates, private letters, a
list of the revolutionists, and a large number of badges. These
badges had a design like that now used on the Republican military
flag."
[Illustration: A QUEUELESS BRIGADE. A great feature of the
Revolution was the discarding of the pigtail. Barbers were kept busy
for many days shearing the revolutionaries.]
Most of the story of that night and the following day is already
known to the world. Sun Wu's face was badly wounded in the
explosion, and he was concealed {54} by friends, who saw to it that
he got proper treatment until he had recovered sufficiently to rejoin
his comrades. Liu King's family was then living in the native city
at Hankow. He had long been suspected, and when the news of the
explosion was received his wife and brother were arrested. He had
himself escaped from the house in the Russian Concession. Several
arrests followed during the night, and the following morning four men
were executed. Liu's brother was not among them, for the reason that
the Viceroy was having him tortured to induce him to reveal Liu's
hiding-place. Two of the leading agents of the Revolution, Liu
Yao-chen and Run Chung-yung, were among those arrested on the 10th.
Liu King had tried to start the Revolution at midnight on the 9th,
but had failed.
"I saw we should all be ruined if we did not begin at once," said
Liu, "but the soldiers had no badge, so they did not revolt. The
next morning (October 10th) I wrote to them that if the Viceroy found
the list of their names contained among our papers he would certainly
disarm and execute them all. They replied that they were not afraid,
and it was only because they had no badges that they had failed to
begin the Revolution. I then gave instructions that any white band
round the arm should be used as a badge, and that the Revolution
should begin at ten o'clock that night--the time fixed by the Viceroy
for the execution of my brother.
"The sappers and miners did not wait for the appointed time but began
their work at half-past seven. They sent men at once to watch all
the gates. The artillerymen, camped outside the city, heard the
firing and realised what had happened. They entered the city and
occupied the Choawangtai (where the magazine was), the Hwanghwalo
(the promontory overlooking the river), and the Serpent Hill. They
intended to shell the Viceroy's yamen, but soldiers went to the yamen
and found that the Viceroy had escaped through {55} a hole dug in a
back wall. As all the gates were held by Revolutionists, he must
have got over the wall by a rope.
"The sappers and miners went to the camps of the other corps and told
the men they must join the mutiny or fight. Practically all joined,
with the exception of part of the Commissariat Corps and about 250
soldiers, who fled with Chang Piao.[4]
"I had come to Wuchang from Hankow, and we called a meeting at the
magazine. The Revolutionary agents decided not to elect one of their
own number as commander."
Then followed in the interview a short description of the manner in
which Li Yuan Hung had been raised to the position of Leader of the
Revolution of China.
* * * * *
The following leader, printed in the London _Times_ as soon as the
Revolution broke, shows how great a surprise was given to the world.
It also shows how utterly unprepared China herself seemed in the eyes
of the world to be for the change that so suddenly shook the
fundamentals of her Government:--'
"A rising, which is manifestly very serious," said the _Times_
editorial, "has taken place at Wuchang, the great city in the
province of Hupeh which seemed destined to become the centre of the
Chinese railway system and of the internal trade of the Empire. How
serious it may prove to be and how serious the movement from which it
springs are matters on which Europeans have but few materials for
judgment. We have not sufficient information to show whether the
present insurrection is connected with the disturbances in Szechwan
which looked threatening enough a month ago. If they are their
significance, it need hardly be {56} said, would be materially
increased, but even if they are both altogether local they are
symptomatic of the general instability of the actual situation. Two
years hence a full Parliament of the Empire is to be convoked, and a
Ministry responsible to it is to be appointed--so at least the
Imperial Edict of last November has promised. The results of so
tremendous an innovation cannot be looked forward to without
misgivings. Is China, the oldest, and to all outward seeming one of
the most effete, of Oriental monarchies, fit for so vast a change?
The reception of the Edict of last year does not argue well for the
future. The National Assembly, which had unanimously demanded this
very reform, denounced it as too tardy the moment it was granted.
Yet surely three years was not too long a time for China to prepare
herself for constitutional government. There is much that is
admirable in the Young China party. They realise the absolute
necessity of reform, and many of them desire it out of genuine
patriotism. But hitherto they have shown no sense of prospective, no
powers of leadership, and no gift of construction. Last year one of
their number, himself a subordinate official, who would certainly
lose by a change, blurted out to a European in a moment of confidence
that in his opinion nothing could save the country but a bloody
revolution, making a clean sweep of everything. That was in the city
of Wuchang. Is the present insurrection an attempt to save China in
this way, and if it is, what popular force is behind it, or will
gather behind it, unless it is immediately quelled? A good deal for
us and for all European Powers with interests in the Far East depends
on the answer."
[1] October 10, 1911.
[2] A small magistrate.
[3] See _Central China Post_, January 15, 1912.
[4] Chang Piao was the General in command of the Hupeh Army, who took
the field in the first engagement of the war, and who was interviewed
by the author, as printed on page 61.
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