SOME REVOLUTION FACTORS
Revolution is endemic in this land of great movements. The
particular spirit that sways the feelings of the sensuous populace
manifests itself now in the sporadic riotings that seem to occur
everywhere and everywhen, and from no conceivable cause; again in the
more widespread upheaval to which we give the name of "rebellion"--an
abortive revolution; but ever and anon, gathering momentum from
varying petty upheavals, the torrent of passions aroused bursts all
restraining bounds and the country is swept from end to end by the
onrushing flood. All erstwhile authority is at an end; fire and
sword are the only "powers that be"; the land drinks deeply of the
life-blood of its sons and daughters; and then, when the torrent of
fury has spent its strength, Nature reclothes herself in a new garb,
new homesteads and teeming villages spring into existence, and a new
authority takes to itself power and grows on to greatness. Decades
and centuries roll by; and this Dynasty also, like the effete
Government it displaced, totters through a long period of hoary
childishness to its terrible fall.
Even the casual observer realises that the last scene of a last act
is being played out before our eyes. Full soon the curtain will fall
and the Ta Ts'ing Dynasty exist in history only. Its "cup of
iniquity" seems long to have been full.
Five hundred years ago there was a somewhat {257} analogous
situation. The Emperor of the time, Hwei-ti by name, was but a
stripling, and utterly incapable of guiding the ship of state through
the stormy seas of Court intrigue. His uncle, Prince Yen, the Yuan
Shih K'ai of his age, had for years been drilling his soldiery,
accumulating war stores, and in every way preparing to seize the
reins of power. In 1400 A.D. the time seemed ripe; and in August of
that year Yen led forty thousand picked men into Shangtung. No less
than three hundred thousand loyalists were sent to oppose him; but
the better trained and more skilfully led rebels, though numerically
so inferior, utterly routed the badly-placed horde led by General
Ping-Wen. This was but the beginning of a four-years relentless war,
waged mostly in the northern and eastern provinces--Shangtung,
Chihli, Anhwei and Kiangsu--leading to the flight of Hwei-ti to
Szechuen (where he became a Buddhist priest) and the proclamation of
Prince Yen as Emperor under the title of Ch'eng Tsu.
This Revolution in no way affected the Dynasty, which, in spite of
internal uprisings and external depredations by Mongols and Japanese,
ran for another 250 years in unbroken succession. Nevertheless
during the whole of this period the history of China is one long
chapter of domestic trouble, corruption and decadence alike of ruler
and ruled, whilst over all Court life the deadly upas-tree of
eunuchdom cast its blasting shadow. There were always rebellions,
always the argument of the naked sword in the settlement of
differences--and always the emerging from one cloud of trouble to
enter but another, and that of a deeper darkness. Then came the end.
A rebellion that shook the Empire to its centre and brought about the
end of the Ming Dynasty broke out in Shensi, and quickly spread
through the neighbouring provinces, until not only Shensi, but
Shansi, Honan, and Hupeh were involved. Like the Revolution that
{258} threatens to be the end of the present Dynasty, and has already
foreshadowed the great and momentous changes to be, this rebellion
was conceived and carried out by a "General Li"--Li Tsi-cheng by
name. For some few years the Government was able to keep the upper
hand--indeed, in 1634 it seemed as if the generalissimo of the rebel
forces was hopelessly involved in a mountainous cul-de-sac, and that
his extermination was but a question of time. Not knowing the
strength of the rebel army, the commander of the Imperial forces
granted terms of capitulation. Li brought away his forces to the
number of thirty-six thousand with only the loss of their arms, much
to the chagrin of the Imperial leader.
There was the great mistake of the Imperialists. Almost immediately
the Manchus, having been joined by the Mongol forces, harassed the
northern borders of the Empire. The Ming Dynasty had lost the
confidence of the nation; officialdom was at its weakest through long
years of corruption and misrule; General Li seized his opportunity,
other leaders joined themselves and their forces to the rebel army,
and China for ten years became one great battlefield.[1] To give but
a solitary instance of the carnage that ensued: Li had unsuccessfully
invested Kaifeng-fu earlier in the year, but having captured Nanyang,
he led his victorious troops before the former city at the close of
1641, only to be repulsed, losing an eye, pierced by an arrow, in the
attempt. In the following year Li again laid siege to the seemingly
impregnable place; and, finally, enraged by the nine-months
resistance of plucky Kaifeng, turned the waters of the Yellow River
into the doomed city. The loss of life was fearful--some million
souls, it is said, perishing in the muddy torrent that swept across
the plain, twenty feet high. Li himself was compelled to beat a
hasty retreat, losing ten thousand men in his flight. Compared with
such awful {259} carnage and loss of life, the casualties in the war
of the present Revolution seem but trifling.
In the early part of 1644 Li was so far successful that he proclaimed
himself Emperor, called his Dynasty "Tai Shun," appointed various
Boards to control the affairs of the country, granted patents of
nobility and other rewards to all who had faithfully served him, and
generally believed that the Empire, with the throne of it, was his.
The rebel chieftain marched through rivers of blood to Peking,
captured the city, and found that the Emperor (Chwang Lieh-ti) had
hanged himself in his own girdle. The revolution seemed complete,
and the prize of life within his grasp.
One enemy remained unconquered, but this enemy was one Wu San-kwei,
the commandant of the fortress of Ning Yuen. His force was not a
large one, and his supplies limited. To crush him utterly seemed but
the work of a few days to the one who had swept on to Peking in one
victorious career. Li Tsi-cheng himself led the army--strong in
itself, doubly strong in its sense of reliance born of victory. Love
is strong; love ruthlessly deprived of its object breeds a hatred
that is stronger tenfold in its thirst for vengeance. Wu San-kwei's
beautiful mistress, whom he passionately adored, had been ravished by
one of the rebels. Weak himself, he called in a mighty power to aid
him in wreaking his revenge. About 270 miles away was the Manchu
host, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to strike the blow they had so
long been preparing. Wu must have foreseen the consequences. It was
a deliberate betrayal of his country to her bitterest foes. Hate had
its way, and called in its only effective instrument.
In the battle that followed the Chinese army was completely surprised
and routed, Li being one of the first to flee. His power was broken,
his army gone, and the last of the Chinese Emperors had reigned his
reign. The Manchu had come.
Li's conquest of the Empire was completed with the {260} taking of
Peking; in Peking the subjugation of China by the Manchus was begun.
For thirty-seven years the work of conquest and pacification was
carried on. Then the Empire had rest for a season.
We quote the following from an interesting article that appeared in
the Central China Post of December 2, 1911: "From this date there was
no serious internal disturbances in China for a hundred and seventy
years. During the greater portion of the time the administration was
at once strong, able, and enlightened, for two of the first four
Manchu Emperors were great and commanding personalities, while the
length of time they severally occupied the throne did much to
consolidate the position of the Dynasty. The second Manchu
sovereign, the great Kanghi, proclaimed Emperor at the age of eight,
in 1661, occupied the throne for the long term of sixty-one years,
and his long rule was extremely brilliant and vigorous. Kanghi's
immediate successor, Yung Ching, was far from being a weak man; but
as his brief reign of thirteen years was characterised by no novel
departure and no startling events, he is much less prominent than
either his father or the son that succeeded him. The fourth Manchu
sovereign would have had even a longer reign than his grandfather had
if he had not adopted the unusual course of abdicating the throne,
after occupying it sixty years. In this connection, it may be
remarked that cases of abdication are about as rare in Chinese as in
European history, while in Japan during the last millennium it has
been quite exceptional for a sovereign to die in actual occupation of
the throne. The second Manchu Emperor, Kanghi (1661-1722), was one
of the greatest and most successful rulers that ever exercised sway
in China. But his grandson, the fourth Manchu Emperor, Keen-lung
(1735-96), was even greater and even more successful still.
Keen-lung was twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne in
1735; thus when he abdicated {261} in 1796 he was a patriarch of
fourscore years and six. Yet even till that date he had retained the
active habits which had characterised his youth. Much of his
official work was carried on at an early hour of the morning; and
Europeans who had audience with him shortly before his abdication
were greatly surprised to find the patriarch so keen and eager for
business at these early conferences. Keen-lung did not omit to
train, or at least to try to train, a successor. He abdicated in
1796, as has just been written; but for three years after that date
he kept a keen watch upon his son and successor, Kia-king, exerting
all his efforts to inculcate in him the right principles of sound
government. But the results were nothing much to boast of after all.
Half a century after the death of Keen-lung, the account of the state
of China, given by writers notoriously friendly to the Manchus, is
lurid indeed. The corruption of the public service, we are told, had
gradually alienated the sympathies of the people. Conscience and
probity had for a time been banished from it. The example of a few
men of honoured capacity served but to bring into more prominent
relief the faults of the administrative class as a whole. Justice
was nowhere to be found; the verdict was sold to the highest bidder.
It became far from uncommon for rich criminals sentenced to death to
get substitutes procured for them. Offices were sold to men who had
never passed an examination, and who were wholly illiterate, the sole
value of the office lying in its being a tool for extortion.
Extortion and malversation ran to extraordinary lengths. In
Kia-king's early years, when the minister Hokwan was condemned and
executed for peculation, it was found that the fortune he had amassed
amounted to eighty million taels--more than twenty-six million pounds
sterling. The officials waxed rich on ill-gotten wealth, and a few
accumulated enormous fortunes. But the administration went on
sinking lower and lower in the estimation of the people, {262} while,
of course, its efficiency was getting steadily crippled. Now, the
peculiar Civil Service of China is at once the strength and weakness
of the Empire. It needs to be made to toe the line very strictly by
a stern and upright and ever alert Imperial master. Keen-lung
himself knew its weak spots, and more than once thought of finding
drastic remedies for them. But when questioned on the matter, one of
the ablest and most honest of his ministers maintained that there was
no remedy. 'It is impossible; the Emperor himself cannot do it--the
evil is too widespread. He will, no doubt, send to the scene of
disturbance and complaint mandarins clothed with all his authority;
but they will only commit greater exactions, and the inferior
magistrates, in order to be left undisturbed, will offer them
presents. The Emperor will then be told that all is well, while
everything is really wrong, and the poor people are being oppressed.'
"Therefore, Keen-lung had to depend almost entirely upon others as
his 'ears and eyes.' It is all very well to speak of him doing and
seeing everything for himself, but in an Empire such as his the thing
was really entirely out of the question. However, his untiring and
unceasing energy did much to make his subordinates honest and
attentive to their duties, in spite of themselves. But his
successor, Kia-king (1796-1821), was neither a strong man nor a great
worker, and under him the debacle began. Under the weak but
well-meaning Taou-kwang (1821-50) it gathered headway apace, with the
result that within half a century of the great Keen-lung's demise the
Manchu Dynasty had to face a national revolt that put its existence
into direst jeopardy."
Steep was the descent and quick was the pace. As had been the Ming
Dynasty five centuries ago, so had become their so promising
succeeding race. "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
There had been that irritating intercourse with the outside {263}
world, and the war--disastrous to China--consequent upon the proud
Empire's attempt to treat all foreign peoples as vassals of the Son
of Heaven. But it was hoped that with the signing of the Treaty of
Nanking wiser councils would prevail, and that the Chinese had
learned to respect the foreigners, or at least the thunder of their
guns. But "such was the gross ignorance of the educated and leading
men of China in regard to foreign nations, it was believed that they
were utterly beneath the contempt of China." The war had taught them
no lesson. China's officials were as arrogant as ever. The civil
administration was equally incapable of dealing with and directing
the affairs of State.
In fact, there was a parallel between the Empire at the time under
review and the conditions that obtained when the storm of Revolution
burst on Wuchang last tenth of October, as will have been seen in
former parts of this volume.
Everywhere there had existed secret societies, or numbers of men
banded together by oath to destroy the "Manchu usurpers," and ever
and again some malcontent or another would set up the banner of
insurrection, and to him would flock all the discontents and bandits
of the neighbourhood. This is the opportunity of the secret society
men. The cry of "China for the Chinese" is raised, patriotic
feelings are appealed to, and save for the fact that the secret is
always betrayed at headquarters long before the would-be
revolutionaries are ready, any year of the past century might have
seen a repetition of the scenes which are briefly referred to here.
Ten years after the Treaty of Nanking news came that one Hung
Siu-Chuen, amongst the mountain fastnesses of the south, with a small
band of men known as the Society of Worshippers of God, had placed
himself at the head of the discontented people--driven to rebellion
by official persecution--and was defeating the Imperial troops
everywhere. He claimed the Throne, called himself the {264}
Tien-wang ("celestial or heavenly king"), and styled his new Dynasty
the Taiping ("Great Peace"). To usher in the Golden Age was the work
to which he dedicated himself. Threefold was his desire for freedom.
The people groaned under the tyranny of an alien power, and so
desired civil liberty; they were cursed by the superstition and
idolatry to which they had given themselves, and so desired religious
liberty; they saw the craving of opium blighting the lives of their
best, and so were fighting for moral liberty for the nation. All
Manchus were ruthlessly put to the sword, all temples and idols were
utterly destroyed, and all traffic in or smoking of opium was sternly
prohibited. In the early stages of the movement the moral forces of
Christianity, the religious opinions that seemed to hold sway in the
minds of the Taipings, and the high aims of the leaders of the
movement made missionaries and Christians at home think that China
was to arise from the ashes of her destroyed paganism, clothed in the
fair garments of Christianity. Reports to the Dragon Throne informed
the Emperor that the rebels were in full flight. As a matter of
fact, they were carrying everything before them. They swept
triumphantly through the provinces of Kwangsi and Hunan, then on to
the busy mart of Hankow in Hupeh; there, freighting a thousand junks
with their spoils, they swept on down the Yangtze to the ancient
capital of the Ming Dynasty--Nanking. This city fell after a brief
siege, and with its fall the initial work in preparing the way for a
new kingdom was come. _If_--and in the "if" is perhaps the reason of
the collapse of the movement--if the new-made king had known how to
construct after he had done the work of destruction, there would have
been a lasting revolution instead of an almost forgotten rebellion.
One authority, who was in China at the time, says that the very
success of the movement seems to have not only affected for the worse
the principles of its leaders and the morals of the {265} Taipings,
but also to have attracted a great many of the baser sort to it. Dr.
Martin, in his "A Cycle of Cathay," says: "He, the Tien-wang,
sanctioned robbery and violence, and himself set the example of
polygamy, an example eagerly followed by his subordinates, who had no
scruple in filling their harems with the wives and daughters of their
enemies." The opinion of the outside Powers concerning the
insurgents was not improved by the atrocities of a horde of
secret-society men, who belonged to the Triad Society, and were
sometimes called Redheads. These were regarded as being part of the
Taiping Army, though having really no connection with it or with the
aims of its leaders. Their awful cruelty and bloodshed in capturing
Shanghai not only induced the French to expel them, but alienated the
sympathies of the foreign Powers from the Taipings themselves. One
other fact should be mentioned. The foreign merchants were also
prejudiced against the rebels. This is easily understandable. Trade
was at a standstill throughout one-third of the Empire, and that the
part most easily accessible; and at the same time the stringent laws
against the use of opium caused the sympathies of some to be against
the movement. First, an American, General Ward, organised a force of
foreigners and natives and showed the Chinese Government what a
trained soldiery could do. Then, General Gordon was lent to the
Imperialists by the British Government. One by one the cities were
retaken, until at last, with the fall of Nanking, after a protracted
siege and the suicide of the Tien-wang, the rebellion came to an end.
At this juncture of the present Revolution, when so many are
clamouring for foreign intervention, and when individual foreigners
are taking it upon themselves to address the leaders of the parties
in the interests of an early peace, it is well to pause and give due
weight to the arguments of the other side. From the very beginning
of this struggle the foreign Powers have {266} been firmly but
respectfully asked to keep their hands off. This is a domestic
matter. The Chinese wish to be allowed to fight the thing out. A
premature patching up of so great an upheaval would be far more
disastrous than a peace deferred. The movement is a people's
movement. The nation knows its own mind on the matter, and is intent
on seeing its will carried into effect. That will may be guided into
right and safe channels; but to thwart it by interference from
without would be like attempting to dam up the Yangtze--an operation
fraught with dire disaster to all concerned.
The suppression of a revolution _ab extra_ always reverses the wheels
of progress, and in this instance who can tell by how many centuries
it has postponed the adoption of Christianity by the Chinese? ...
Looking back at this distance of time, with all the light of
subsequent history upon the events, we are still inclined to ask
whether a different policy might not have been better for China. Had
foreign Powers promptly recognised the Taiping chief on the outbreak
of the second war, might it not have shortened a chapter of horrors
that dragged on for fifteen more years, ending in the Nien-fei and
Mohammedan rebellions and causing the loss of fifty millions of human
lives.... More than once, when the insurgents were on the verge of
success, the prejudice of short-sighted diplomats decided against
them, and an opportunity was lost such as does not occur once in a
thousand years."[2] Other witnesses of these times and events speak
in a similar strain. On the other hand, it has to be remembered that
there was no little failure on the part of the Taiping Wang to
realise the need for reconstruction of a new kingdom, and seeming
lack of ability to use the fruits of his victories. The suppression
of the Taipings took fourteen years (1850-64). The outside world has
forgotten, if it ever knew, the extent and horrors {267} of that
terrible time. Not so the Chinese people. Small wonder is it that
when Li Yuan Hung's army began their terrible slaughter of the
Manchus in Wuchang, young and old, rich and poor, taking only such
clothes as they wore or such goods as they could carry, quietly and
in a sort of unorganised order started, eight hundred thousand of
them, on their flight from doomed Hankow. For there were many who
still remembered the coming of the dreaded Taipings, and still
shuddered at the thought of that "tomb of the seventy thousand"
outside Wuchang city, and still remembered the similar flight of
fifty years ago. They knew, too, of the Taiping rebellion, that nine
provinces had been desolated by it. Towns and cities had been left
mere heaps of ruins (like unto Hankow at this present time), and in
them wild beasts had their dens, while some twenty millions of people
had been sacrificed in that terrible struggle of a nation at war with
itself.
Almost concurrently with the Taiping movement came the great
Mohammedan rebellion, under the leadership of Yakub Beg. About this
time there was more than one attempt on the part of Islam to avenge
the insults of the arrogant Chinese, a by no means insignificant
rising, occurring in Yunnan, where the Panthays, taking advantage of
the Taiping troubles, captured the western half of Yunnan, and made
Talifu their capital, under Sultan Sulieman. But by far the greatest
rising, both in duration and effect, was that of the north-west,
which originated in eastern Turkestan, swept over the Tien-Shan
Mountains, into Ili, on through Kansu, and into the province of
Shensi.
If ever a time seemed favourable to the Revolutionary cause, surely
this was the time. The Taiping rebellion was not yet quelled, China
was embroiled with England, and the rebel chief was able without
serious opposition to hold on his triumphant way. Yakub Beg was so
brilliantly successful in his "holy war" that he was styled the
"Champion Father" by the {268} Mohammedan world. At last had arisen
the man who would, under Allah's blessing, purge away the stain of
insult from the "Faithfuls'" escutcheon. It did really seem as if a
permanent kingdom had been founded in this north-western section of
the Flowery Land, and that a new leader was to be the first of a long
line of Mohammedan kings. Then one of those unanticipated changes
occurred--that is, unanticipated by the casual observer of things
Chinese. In little more than a decade from the first raising of the
standard of rebellion, Yakub Beg died, a broken and a beaten man,
away in far distant Korla. For the army which had been trained in
the hard school of experience of fighting the Taipings was, under the
excellent leadership of General Tso, practically invincible when the
undisciplined fanatic hordes hurled themselves against it. City
after city was retaken, until in 1878 the rebellion was at an end,
and the times that had been were only a horrible nightmare in the
memories of those who had endured, suffered, and fortunately escaped
with lives.
The last of these great political movements, which must be briefly
referred to here was generally known as the Boxer uprising. This,
like the Taiping rebellion, had as its origin that spirit of enmity
that has ever been manifested between the north and the south. Never
was this struggle so manifestly obvious as during this great movement
that is still taking place in China. The very names of "Northern
Army" and "Southern Army," used by the Hankow populace in everyday
parlance when speaking of the opposing forces under Yuan Shih K'ai
and Li Yuan Hung respectively, vouches for evidence of the truth of
the statement. In that valuable contribution towards the history of
the inwardness of the Boxer movement, "China Under the
Empress-Dowager,"[3] this eternal quarrel between the north and the
south is well worked out. We need do {269} no other than refer the
reader to it in passing. In fact, the cause of the Reform movement
of 1898 was that the versatile scholars of the south had captivated
the mind of the young Emperor, and had led him to issue his
celebrated Reform Edict. On the other hand, jealous of their
southern opponents, the wily men of the north used their influence
with Jung-Lu and the Empress-Dowager to bring about the _coup d'état_
that practically dethroned the Emperor and was the first of a series
of retrogressive steps culminating in the enlisting of the Patriotic
Harmony Train-bands (Boxers), to Rid China of the Accursed _Presence_
of the Foreigners.
Since the time of the Taipings a new element of contention had crept
into State politics--the foreigner. Whether as missionary or
merchant, as financier or diplomat, the "foreigner" was now a force
to be reckoned with, and after this brief review we shall note how
all these factors paved the way for perhaps the greatest movement of
all, the Revolution of 1911-12. Away in the Kwan district of
Shantung there existed a secret society rejoicing in the euphemistic
title of Plum Blossom Fists. The late Tuan Fang, when issuing his
famous proclamation that all missionaries should be protected in his
province, compared these Boxers to the White Lily Society[4] which
had done so much to {270} bring about the downfall of the Yuan
Dynasty in the fourteenth century.
But in these Plum Blossom Fists there was something more than the
usual spirit animating the secret-society men. There was the newly
awakened "patriotism"--a word and an idea just taking hold of the
student throughout the country. The utter defeat of China in her
short, sharp conflict with the Japanese, that hitherto despised
"nation of dwarfs," caused a thrill of indignation throughout the
Empire. "What are you going to do now?" I asked a young student,
just through his college course. The answer came pat. "I am going
to Japan to study military tactics, and so help _save my country_," a
reply pregnant with meaning. But the Plum Blossom Fists had much to
learn before they could come under the spell of that young student's
idea. _They_ were the ones to save China. Themselves invulnerable,
their mission from Heaven itself, their cause righteous, there could
be only victory for them and salvation for their country!
The spirit that animated these fanatical devotees with their blind
belief in incantations and charms[5] was also at work in the more
enlightened Kwang-hsu. China was being dismembered. Germany had
practically occupied Shantung. Russia possessed Liaotung. Japan
held Formosa by right of treaty. And the Powers were coolly
discussing "spheres of influence." They understood the temper of the
Chinese as little as the Chinese had understood that of the
foreigners. The young Emperor and his advisers realised something of
the power of knowledge. And as a result of that Reform Edict the
eyes of Young China were turned from the {271} contemplation of a
dead past to the quickening study of all that was best and living in
the colleges of the world. The _coup d'état_ of September 22, 1898,
for a time put back the hands of the clock of progress, and the
Empress-Dowager entered upon her reactionary career. The Boxers,
every one of them, had for their objective the expulsion of the
Tartar Dynasty, and the putting of a Chinese emperor on the throne.
Adroitly the clever Empress laid hold of their "patriotic" desires
and turned the machinations of the secret societies against the
Government into a conspiracy for the utter extermination of the
foreigner in China. Wiser counsels had for a time prevailed, and at
the commencement of Boxerism the Imperial troops in Shantung had kept
the "patriots" in order, overcoming by force of arms a party led by
an abbot. Although several of these fanatics were shot, and others
executed by the military commander, thus proving their
"vulnerability," the Government was not disposed to do other than to
accept such seemingly powerful allies. "They may be useless as a
fighting force, but their claims to magic will dishearten the enemy,
whilst their enthusiasm will inspire the soldiers of the regular
army." Such was the subtle reasoning of the astute Empress. The die
was cast, and she threw in her lot with those who had but a few short
months previously been thirsting for her own blood.
Such heroes as Jung-Lu, Yuan-Ch'ang, and Hsu-Ching-Cheng tried in
vain to turn the infatuated ruler from her fatal policy. The two
latter saved the lives of many a foreigner--that of the writer
amongst them--by substituting the ideograph meaning "Protect" for the
one meaning "Slay" in the Imperial Edict telegraphed all over the
Empire, but suffered the extreme penalty themselves when the Empress
found out what they had done. "Their limbs should be torn asunder,"
she screamed, "by chariots driven in opposite directions. Let them
be summarily decapitated."
{272}
So the Boxers were let loose upon Chinese Christians and foreign
missionaries alike. Killing, looting, burning went on apace; but
perhaps the most tragic scene of the horrible time was that enacted
at Taiyuenfu, in the yamen of Yu Hsien, the Nero of Shansi, who
himself helped to do to death fifty-five missionaries--men, women,
and children--on July 9, 1900.
In North China and Manchuria, to say nothing of isolated instances
south of the Yangtze, over two hundred missionaries, Protestant and
Roman Catholic, were massacred, while several thousands of Chinese
Christians followed their foreign pastors to the death.
The events that led to the collapse of the movement need but a
passing mention. They are matters of history but recently in the
minds of all. The Taku forts capitulated to the little foreign
gunboats, the army of the allies captured Tientsin, and a composite
force, fifteen thousand strong, marched on Peking. In less than a
fortnight the work was successfully accomplished; and on the 14th of
August the foreigners, with their Legations, which had been besieged
by a savage horde of Boxers and Imperial troops since the 20th of
June, were relieved. Peking was taken by assault, and China's
Imperial Court fled by the "Victory" Gate in three common mulecarts
for Sianfu, in far-away Shansi. The movement ended in a failure as
lamentable as its inception had been a mistake. It was conceived in
no spirit of mere thirst for blood. People and Court believed that
the foreign Powers were "swallowing up" China, and in a moment of mad
frenzy believed that the only way of escape for themselves and
salvation for their country lay along the line of utter extermination
of the foreigner and all that belonged to him.
This rapid survey--touching upon the salient features of each of
these great heart-throbs of the nation--shows us the main
contributory factors of the People's Revolution of 1911-12.
[Illustration: THE CHILD-EMPEROR OF CHINA. Last of the Manchu
Dynasty, that was overthrown by the Revolution.]
{273}
The events leading up to the Taiping Rebellion have shown that the
nation was ripe for a change. The fruit, rotten at the core, was
dropping from the tree; as was the Ming Dynasty at its fall, so had
become the Tsing Dynasty that supplanted it. The successful
revolution under General Li Ts'i-chang was brought to naught by the
coming in of an exterior power that snatched the fruits of victory
for itself, and, by putting down the Revolution, put down the Dynasty
also, and seized the whole country. The rebellion under Tien Wang
was put down in the same way, but this time the "foreign Power"
invoked was not imbued with a lust for conquest. Yet it brought the
Chinese politics a new force to be reckoned with--the foreigner, with
his law of extra-territoriality. The awakening of China began with
the utter defeat of the Imperial forces by the troops of Japan, and a
craving to know the reason of it all obsessed the nation's mind.
"Let us go to school with the foreigner; let us study his books"
became the nation's watchword. Then there began to dawn in China the
thought that far too much national wealth and power and prestige had
been handed over to foreign control. There was alarm, suspicion,
bitter animosity--and the Boxer movement. With the putting down of
this movement and the generous treatment--in spite of all criticism
to the contrary--meted out to China by the foreign Powers, came the
consciousness of her real needs. From this time China put her youth
to school with the "foreigner." Students went abroad by thousands,
Japan taking by far the greater number. Already there was the
conviction that the Government was corrupt, inefficient, and
incurable. The spirit of patriotism had not only been awakened in
the heart of the nation, but possessed the soul of each of her
students, and even the country yokels were full of the idea of it.
From contact with the outside world and from a comparative study of
empires, one with another and each with China, came {274} the third
necessary factor of China--the awakened and trained mind.
It is common opinion that the schools and colleges run by foreigners
in China have contributed in no small measure to this Revolutionary
movement. It is pointed out that missionary propaganda have also
played their part in creating in the Chinese mind a desire to do away
with make-believe and insincerity. The charge is a true one. All
these new forces coming into the life of the young student must have
created an intense dissatisfaction with things as they were. The
late Empress-Dowager seems to have been by no means unmindful of this
tendency of missionary and educational effort. To this may be
attributed, partly at least, her attempt to exterminate missionaries
and all they stood for.
It must be the aim and intention of the great body of educationists
throughout the Empire to come to the help of Young China in the time
of its greatest need. So much depends on the constructive ability of
the student body during the next few years that well-wishers of China
will welcome every honest attempt to help the student life to attain
its ideals; and not only so--to follow out in their after-life the
policy dictated to them by the manifold call of duty of their
enlightened conscience. For this reason, too, China will assuredly
welcome the efforts of the Occident to lead her into the ways of
higher education, such as may be obtained in the new Hongkong
University and the University that is to be in the Wu-han centre.
"The students of to-day are the masters of to-morrow." Nowhere is
this more true than in China, and statesmen-missionaries have always
advocated education as the surest means of reaching the heart of the
nation; for the other classes look to the student class for guidance,
and if one can win the heart of the student, the ear of the people is
gained also. The influence of the student in China has always been
great, {275} but it is likely to be still greater in the future.
Which brings us another problem. The students rule the people--who
rules the students? For except in the case of the few who study
abroad, a standard beyond that of an English Sixth Form is seldom
attained, while opportunities for carrying on education at that
critical time when for the first time the student has begun to love
his studies are very few. China needs her great force of students,
but she needs men of initiative, men who can lead, men whose higher
education has given them a broader outlook.
It is to supply this need that the United Universities Scheme has
been organised. Space prevents anything but the merest outline of
the scheme. It is proposed, however, to plant in the Wuhan centre,
that heart of China, a University, that will combine the highest
education, both Western and Chinese, with those forces and influences
that make for the upbuilding of strong Christian character. The
Universities of Britain and America will supply the University staff,
while various missionary societies will plant hostels on the
University grounds, and in these hostels the students must reside.
As a result, while they are getting an education equal to that of a
Western University, they will, at the same time, be brought in
contact with men of Christian character, while that part of their
being which Chinese students are all too apt to forget will be
strengthened. It must be clear that, on the ground of expense alone,
for one missionary body to attempt to do this would be impossible.
But the University Scheme, without isolating the student from the
influence of the mission school, will enable him to complete his
education. Here he will have an opportunity of preparing for his
lifework, for there will be courses both in philosophical and
technical subjects. Indeed, the University, will aim at giving the
student as thorough an education as he would receive were he to study
abroad, combined, as has been said, with an ennobling Christian
influence.
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China cannot depend for ever on the foreigner. Indeed, Young China
often shows that she would rather rule herself. For a few years our
influence will be felt. And how can we better make our influence
felt than by raising up men who, when we are no longer wanted, will
be able to carry on that influence that we are striving to exert? It
is a question that is worth while facing.
The lesson had been learned to some effect. From the outset of this
People's Revolution, the stern measures of General Li Yuan Hung to
safeguard person and property of natives and foreigners alike, and
the fair and impartial spirit shown by the Revolutionists in carrying
these measures out, have astonished the world and won golden opinions
for General Li himself. The celebrated Edict, the first issued by
the Republican leader, was as follows:--
"I am to dispel the Manchu Government and to revive the rights of
the Han people. Let all keep orderly and not disobey military
discipline. The rewards of merit and the punishment of crime are
as follows:--
"Those who conceal any Government officials are to be beheaded.
"Those who inflict injuries on foreigners are to be beheaded.
"Those who deal unfairly with the merchants are to be beheaded.
"Those who interrupt commerce are to be beheaded.
"Those who give way to slaughter, burning, adultery are to be
beheaded.
"Those who attempt to close the markets are to be beheaded.
"Those who supply the troops with foodstuffs will be rewarded.
"Those who supply ammunition are to be rewarded.
"Those who can afford protection to the Foreign Concessions are
to be highly rewarded.
"Those who guard the churches are to be highly rewarded.
"Those who can lead on the people to submission are to be highly
rewarded.
"Those who can encourage the country people to join will be
rewarded.
"Those who give information as to the movements of the enemy are
to be rewarded.
"Those who maintain the prosperity of commerce are to be rewarded.
"The Eighth Moon of the 4,609th year of the Huang Dynasty."
{277}
Those who the most closely scrutinised the consequent conduct of the
Revolutionary troops will be able to testify to the impartial way in
which the terms of the Edict were carried out. Neither extenuating
circumstances nor official rank saved a transgressor. Li Yuan Hung
meant what he said, and right throughout the Revolutionary movement
his word was his bond. From one example learn all. When Hanyang
went over to the Revolutionists they installed a "_fu_" magistrate in
Hanyang, one Li Ping, who had been charged by the late Government
with being in league with Kang Yu Wei, the famous reformer, and had
been sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. While in prison he met a
criminal named Cheo, and these two soon struck up a friendship. On
being released by the Revolutionists Li was placed in office, and
arranged for Cheo to be his secretary. Cheo was in a position to
receive the incoming money for the Revolutionary Cause. Thirty
thousand taels in one amount was subscribed, of which Cheo handed in
only twenty thousand, keeping the balance for himself. This leaked
out subsequently. Cheo was immediately decapitated, and his head was
hung outside the west gate of the city. Cheo had only been two and a
half days out of prison.
[1] See "Imperial History of China."
[2] Dr. W. A. P. Martin's "Cycle of Cathay."
[3] "China Under the Empress-Dowager," by J. O. P. Bland and E.
Backhouse. London: William Heinemann, 1911.
[4] "The ostensible purpose for which numbers enrolled themselves was
the worship of the idols, and more especially of the Goddess of
Mercy. The real object, however, was a political one. The agitated
state of the country seemed to Hai-Shan (a conspicuous member of the
White Lily sect) a sufficient reason why the standard of rebellion
should be raised. At a great meeting of the initiated he declared
that the goddess was about to come to the earth in human form to
deliver them from their oppressors, and that now was the time to
declare themselves against the Mongols. This proposition was
received with the utmost enthusiasm. A white horse and a black cow
were sacrificed to Heaven in order to secure its intervention on
their behalf, and having adopted a red scarf to be worn round their
heads as their distinctive mark, they broke out in rebellion against
the Government" (MacGowan's "Imperial History of China").
[5] Each Boxer carried about his mascot or talisman, a piece of
yellow paper on which was printed in red ink a figure of Buddha
without feet but with four halos. On this paper were ideographs
which were to be repeated at intervals as a charm. It is said that
the late Empress-Dowager repeated this incantation seventy times a
day, and at each repetition the chief eunuch shouted, "There goes
another foreign devil!"
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