China's Revolution, 1911-1912: A Historical and Political Record of the Civil War

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During these days Li Yuan Hung remained at Wuchang; here drilling was going on feverishly. There was organising and preparing for the great effort which was to strike at the central stronghold of the Imperialists. But in Li's heart there was the hope still that Yuan would show a more reasonable front. I was in close touch with Li about this time. Every one who saw him daily, looked upon a man, definite to a degree in aim and purpose, free from self-aggrandisement and selfishness in any form. His aim first and last was to uplift his country, to win the throne for the Han people, and to work with all his might for the downfall of Manchu rule, for by that alone, he believed, could China forge ahead as such a mighty nation deserved and as her brightest sons desired that she should. And now, although others declared that in the new Republican party there would be dissension and strife when the Government were brought down to a concrete basis, General Li Yuan Hung declared that he had sufficient faith in the cause to believe that all his political associates, far from desiring personal benefit, would readily concede the highest positions to the men best fitted to fill them. That was the keynote of Li Yuan Hung's popularity; he believed in the cause, and he had faith in his supporters. When at the start he refused to take the lead, and, essentially Chinese, tried all sorts of schemes to test the safety of his position, he nobly declared what his policy whilst in office would be. He declared that he would set out to work, at all costs and no matter what the personal consequences, for a course that would be straight and true for China and the Chinese.

He declared his ambition would first be concentrated in the overthrowing of the Manchus; what subsequently would be his course was to be decided mainly by the trend of resulting circumstances. At the gathering of the officers of the Revolutionary party, who were anxious to make him their leader, I do not think there was a single man present, even Liu King, who, looking into the future as far as he then could see, thought that in less than a month this Japanese-trained officer of the Hupeh Army, with nothing about him to strike one that he was a born leader of men, would have come to the very forefront of the platform of the political world. Liu King certainly did not believe Li Yuan Hung had so much in him.

It was believed—was there one foreigner in the three cities here who thought otherwise at the very start of the outbreak? —that the Revolution would break out, that the Imperial Army would come down in great force and massacre every manjack in the Revolutionary Army, and that that would be the end of it all. At the start there were so many thousands, not only in this centre but throughout the Empire, who were merely neutral, who were sitting on the fence, prepared to dive down either side at the moment it paid them to take the dive. But the men of the Revolutionary Army were confident. The units of the army knew that they had Li at the head, they knew that Li had always had the name of being the best man in the Hupeh Model Army, although he was not in supreme command, and they were content to fight under him. There was in all circles, however, except the military circle, a good deal of scepticism. Every one was on the look-out for sensations. No one knew what would happen, and no one cared to guess. But behind it all stood Li, looking on and seeing all. He had sworn allegiance to his party, and he expected his party to stand by him. He was the man who believed in the scheme he was prepared to pull through, and he believed in the men who were pulling with him. Yuan Shih K'ai doubted him, his ability, his political party, and thought them a set of upstarts. Therefore was it that he would not listen to their talk, and took their pleading with him to join their party as a sign of weakness. But Yuan, though he had made few political mistakes himself, never committed a bigger blunder than this. For the time he was prepared to hold aloof, and to fight on still, rather than take the cue of his adversary in battle and give up fighting for a lost cause.

The situation as it concerned foreigners in the Concessions was now most acute. Everybody was abusing the Consuls. Around the Concessions, mad with rage and neither side entertaining any bewildering affection for foreigners, were sixty thousand troops. The French community, tired of talking, so it seemed, took the bull by the horns and wired to the French Government over the head of their Consul, and that the same spirit actuated the greater part of the international population here will be judged from what comes hereafter. The French residents telegraphed from Hankow to Paris as follows:—

"French colony and others under the jurisdiction of the French consulate request me to ask you to communicate the following to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: We consider that we are now in a critical situation. In consequence of the departure of cruisers, the international landing force is reduced to five hundred marines. We are surrounded by sixty thousand belligerents. All is to be feared from the Imperialist troops if abandoned to themselves, or undisciplined Revolutionary troops. We are at the mercy of every anti-foreign movement. Insist on immediate dispatch of troops from Tientsin or Tonking."

A week previous a message was sent from Hankow by a high British authority—to be fair to the British Acting Consul-General, he did not know that the message was sent away—telling the world that with us all was well, and the next week the French people here wired to their Government, ignoring the representative here of the French nation, asking that troops be sent forthwith. Throughout the war up to the present time the Concessions had been sufficiently manned with troops to prevent an onslaught by either army. When the first big battle started there seemed to be excellent defence as the situation then was, but, whilst the scene of action was moving constantly down at the back of the Concessions towards the native city and danger each day becoming greater, no one believed it possible that the Consular Body were taking no steps to ensure efficient protection of foreign subjects and their interests here. When the Loyalist big guns were at the back of the Concession (British as they continued up to the taking of Hanyang) not until the local Press drew forceful attention to the fact that the British Acting Consul-General owed it to the British community to get the guns removed, and thus save the returning fire of the enemy being drawn into the Concession, was there any action taken. Again and again was indignation shown at the "face" the British were losing with the Chinese over the matter; but it seemed not to disturb consular authorities. Protest was made—once only, I believe—and the promise then was given that the guns should be shifted. But the promise was broken, and for weeks one heard the constant boom of the biggest gun the Imperialists had with them pounding away not three hundred yards from the British Concession border, in precisely the same position as the Loyalist officers promised King George's representative it should be shifted from. And in addition to that, on November 17th they again took up their old position with a battery at Tachimen, from which position they were also asked to remove, thus having wilfully ignored all British requests.

A study of the map of the field will show immediately that the position of the Concessions was, to say the least, eminently dangerous. The main battery behind the Concessions had guns pointing towards Wuchang, naturally drawing the Wuchang fire, shells from which dropped more often in the Concession than out of it when the aim was taken for Coffin Hill battery; it also had guns pointing to Hanyang, drawing that return fire, which had the gravest probability of falling over the Concession border. I should think that a mild estimate of shells dropped in the Concessions during that week would be one hundred. But there was another danger: in their flanking movement the Revolutionists were endeavouring to shell the Coffin Hill battery, meaning at once that their shells were fired, not by the sides of the Concessions but bang into them. There was another danger still: the Imperialists, if they were driven back, would undoubtedly make for the Concessions, and flee through them. "It's not human nature," as the British Acting-Consul said a day or two before to a British subject, "to expect the Revolutionists not to chase them."

It may easily be left to the reader to answer for himself whether a complement of five hundred troops—the maximum of a defence force that could be mustered from the gunboats that moment in the port—could hold the port against this grave possibility. It was surely not too much for international subjects to ask of their Consuls that troops be sent for and that a fair defence scheme be inaugurated forthwith for the protection of their lives and their property. Again, however, I should like to say that I am not writing in any carping spirit. I am among those who, far from anathematising or criticising, and remembering that it is the easiest thing in the world to ridicule, realise that at such times of crisis in China each Consul should be supported by every loyal subject. But it certainly seemed to me that the consular body—not one individual only, but the whole body—by its continued inaction rendered foreigners in Hankow a bad account of what they were there for. One could easily write up what the soldiery might have done if they once had run riot in the Concession, and such an eventuality to those who know their China is not without the range of what easily could have transpired; but it would be sensational and probably useless.

Now, when the French residents of Hankow telegraphed to Paris demanding that troops be sent forthwith from Tientsin or Tonking hands went up in horror that French consular control had so far got into disrepair as to bring about such a step. But when the British residents almost immediately followed suit it became patent that the situation was serious. Foreigners from the Japanese Concession (farthest removed from the native city of Hankow) to the British Concession (divided from the city by a thirty-foot road) were just then in greater direct danger than they had been since the campaign started. Five weeks had now elapsed since the war started, and on November 18th I think I am right in saying that not one-half of the protecting force was in the port, at the zenith of the danger, that was available a week after the Revolution broke out. That five hundred men available from all gunboats in port, with the Japanese largely preponderating, were enough to protect a settlement of approximately rectangular shape, four miles by one, was absurd on the very face of things. Four thousand men from all nations represented would not have been too many at that time. When hostilities were being carried on immediately outside the Concessions, when every day a man was shot fatally or wounded seriously in the streets of the British Concession, when shells dropped with startling rapidity into private houses and broke up the property of British residents, when the gravest danger was incurred by walking along the waterfront which extends the whole length of the Concession, when all shipping had to withdraw from the usual landing hulks, and when the official protests to remove the batteries from dangerous proximity back of the Concessions and so cause shelling over the foreign settlement to cease was persistently refused, surely, again, it was not too much to expect that the authorities were making due arrangements for troops to be sent to Hankow to prevent what every one undertook to believe would be inevitable—namely, the rushing through the Concessions of the enemy and the chasing of them by the victorious faction. The whole thing culminated on November 18th, when a meeting of British subjects was held. The following dispatch was the result of a long discussion on the general situation and what was best to be done:—

"HERBERT GOFFE, Esq. , H. B. M. Acting Consul-General, Hankow.

"SIR,—We the undersigned British residents beg respectfully that you will forward the following protest to His Majesty's Minister with a request that it be forwarded to the proper authorities:

1. "The London and China Express of October 20 says, It is officially stated that the policy of Great Britain in the present situation in China will be limited to taking every means considered necessary for the protection of the lives and the property of her nationals.'

"Whilst adequate protection had apparently been afforded to British subjects in Tientsin and Shanghai, in our opinion the reverse was the case in Hankow. This is proved by the fact that at the time when the British Vice-Admiral himself was in chief command of all forces at Hankow, his own sailors, and the local Volunteers and Police were insufficient properly to guard the British Concession, and the kind assistance of the Germans, Japanese, French, and Austrians was accepted. Since then the situation had become infinitely more dangerous, and it was found that protection was reduced absolutely to a minimum and the force of British gunboats was just what foreigners were accustomed to see in port in normal times. This argues that the situation was wrongly gauged by those in authority, and if information which was at their disposal had been obtained or listened to, this should not have occurred.

2. "We protest against the action taken by the authorities in forwarding a wireless message to Shanghai on or about the 17th November stating that "there had been no fighting here for some days," and "that business was being resumed," as reported in the North China Daily News of the 9th November and the Shanghai Mercury of 8th November respectively. Our reasons for so doing are that both statements are untrue, and that by sending such a message they have caused endless ill-feeling to the British Flag and disgust at an action which causes women and children to return here when it is undoubtedly unsafe for them to do so. So far from there being no fighting, fighting of a desultory nature and sniping have continued ever since the main action, on the 27th-28th October, and numerous bullets and shells continue daily to fall into the Concession. Although foreigners have so far escaped, numbers of Chinese in the Concession have been killed or wounded, and property damaged. As regards business being resumed, it has been at a standstill since the Revolution started.

3. "With the ordinary telegraphic communication completely cut off, we protest against the Admiralty regulations which do not allow the forwarding of important non-service messages by wireless for British subjects in circumstances of this description. On several occasions messages refused by Vice-Admiral Winsloe have been courteously received and dispatched by wireless by the German Admiral. We consider that these protests are only right and just, as we cannot for a minute believe that His Majesty's Government know the true state of affairs, and that in the present crisis British prestige and British interests have been sadly neglected. Finally, although this is hardly within the province of the British residents of Hankow, we would like to point out that at the present moment Ichang and Changsha are equally ill-protected. The urgent necessity for the dispatch of troops to this port is emphasised by the fact that heaviest fighting is now taking place and shells are bursting over our heads. The situation is most critical, and it is sincerely to be hoped that not only the British authorities, but the American, the German, the French, and Russian Consular bodies will see to it that as many gunboats as can reasonably be spared from the China squadrons be brought here at once. The Japanese, the only other nation having a Concession, may be relied upon to leave nothing undone."

TOMMY ATKINS ON GUARD.
A detachment of the Yorkshire Light Infantry
protecting the Foreign Settlement at Hankow.

The following telegram was authorised to be sent to the British Minister at Peking and the Foreign Office:—-

"Mass meeting British residents Hankow considers battalion urgently necessary protection British Concession—Pearce, Chairman."

A similar telegram was authorised to be sent to the China Association in London, asking the Association to urge the Government to send the help asked for. There were ninety-five British residents present at the meeting.

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Comment upon the foregoing would only be odious just now. By reproducing the correspondence, however, the reader will be able to ascertain the feelings of the British community when such persistent official indolence continued. Had the armies got out of hand, there might have been a much sadder story to tell.

THE SKETCH MAP OF THE BATTLEFIELDS.

It is necessary, in presenting the accompanying sketch map of the battlefields, to give some concise information descriptive of the sketch. The following written by my friend Mr. Stanley V. Boxer, B. Sc. , will therefore be found of especial interest:—

"The first battle of any importance occurred on October the 18th. On that occasion the gunboats decided the issue. The Revolutionists were entrenched behind the Foreign Racecourse, and in the afternoon made an attack toward Kilometre Ten. In advancing, they were exposed to a cross fire from the cruisers. They fell back again on the Racecourse. Next day, however, the gunboats retired, and the Revolutionists, taking advantage of their absence, gained a victory, capturing some truckloads of ammunition, &c. The loyalist army retired to Nie K'ou, to wait arrival of reinforcements from the north.

"A week now elapsed without further fighting. But the battle which resulted in the fall of Hankow commenced on October the 27th. The Revolutionists somewhat tamely allowed the bridges between Kilometre Ten and Nie K'ou to be captured. They retreated on their base, Kilometre Ten. A few well-directed shots from the gunboats, which had come up to participate in the fight, caused a second retreat. The Imperials advanced steadily along the back of the Concessions reaching Ta Chi Men Station. The Revolutionists retook this position but were again driven back. They fell back on Sin Shen Road, and fought bravely for three days, during which the road changed hands several times. On October 30th, also, there was a good deal of fighting between the Malu, at the back of Hankow, and the railway embankment. On Tuesday, October 31st, the Revolutionists gained a slight advantage, driving the Imperialists back along the railway line. Next day, Wednesday, November 1st, commenced the burning of Hankow. The Imperials had brought up their 3-in. guns to the Ta Chi Men crossing, about a quarter of a mile nearer Hankow than the station and placed them on the railway. From this position they shelled the city, about two thirds of which was destroyed this day and the day following. Though the city was in ashes however, frequent fighting took place in its ruined streets, greatly endangering the safety of foreigners on the Concessions. This desultory fighting went on till the fall of Hanyang. Nothing of much importance, however, occurred till November 17th.

"Much of the sharpest fighting occurred round the Waterworks. The gunners on the Heh Shan were kept very busy. The works themselves changed hands several times. On November 17th, the Revolutionists made a determined attempt to drive back the enemy. In the early morning they were across the Han in force, and advanced inwards from the Viceroy's embankment in one large crescent, stretching from near Ch'aeo K'ou to three miles on the other side of the Griffith John College. They even advanced as far as the Chinese Racecourse, but later in the day were forced to retreat.

"It should have been stated that the Imperials had moved out their guns to positions along the extension of the Sin Shen Road, while they had placed three very heavy guns on 'Coffin Hill.' From these guns, Tortoise Hill, Mei Tzu Shan, and Heh Shan, were in easy range, and constant bombardment ensued.

"But fresh hope was brought to the Revolutionists by the turning over of the fleet to the Republican side. On Sunday, November 19th, occurred that memorable engagement, when the torpedo boat ran the gauntlet, and the cruiser punished the Imperial batteries along the foreshore between the Japanese Concession and the Yangtse Engineering Works. In consequence, these batteries were very much strengthened, as shown in the map.

"At this time the capture of Nanking was momently expected, and the Imperials, realising that, if Hanyang was to be captured, it must be immediately, did all in their power to take the place. A party of three thousand set off from Siao Kan for Ch'ait'ien, intending to approach Hanyang from behind. What became of this detachment is uncertain, but it would appear that they were defeated. Their project was never realized.

"But the Imperials determined on another course. They managed to cross the Han at T'u Lu K'ou. Five large shrapnel guns were brought up to the Viceroy's embankment, two about a quarter of a mile from the Griffith John College. A heavy fire was directed toward the four hills on the other side of the Han, which formed the key to Hanyang. A battery, placed on the waist of the hills opposite the College replied. As the College was in direct line of fire, considerable damage was done. The Imperials, owing to a very swift creek, were unable to proceed down the side of the Han. They had therefore to cross the creek at San-Yen Ch'iao (Three-eyed Bridge), and take the four hills. Judging from the number of patients brought into Hanyang during the days of this fighting (November 21st-26th), and from the number of graves seen on a subsequent visit, very heavy fighting must have been carried on here. The hills were well adapted for defence, being covered with quarries, but ammunition on the Republican side was poor. The hills were eventually taken, though one at least was retaken. The whole time, the Revolutionists were assailed from two sides, from the Griffith John College battery, and from the Imperials on the north-west.

"It would appear that on Sunday, November 26th, began the evacuation. On Saturday, the Mei Tzu Shan battery had been silenced. On Sunday evening the Imperials effected a crossing between the Heh Shan and Tortoise Hill. Retreat followed from the San-yen Ch'iao hills, and so Heh Shan was forced to silence. Hanyang was captured on Monday, November 27th, the last place to be evacuated being the Tortoise Hill.

"After the fall of Hanyang, the Imperials retained their strong river batteries, but moved up their 'Coffin Hill' guns to a position on the railway a quarter of a mile on the other side of Sin Shen Road. They threw two bridges across the Han, one about half a mile below the Waterworks, one at the Wu Shen Miao. They also fortified the base of Hanyang Hill, planting their guns, as in the case of the Griffith John College battery and 'Coffin Hill,' under cover of foreign buildings. This time it was the American Baptist Mission Hospital that was exposed.

"Evacuation commenced, however, without any more serious fighting. The guns on the railway were removed. Incidentally two shrapnel guns and a quantity of ammunition were taken to the old position near the Griffith John College on New Year's Day, where they remained three days; but this was probably merely to prevent a possible crossing of the Revolutionists into forbidden territory. This ended the fighting in the vicinity of Hankow."

CHAPTER XI

THE FALL OF HANYANG

Three days before the naval escapade described in the last chapter started the great struggle made by the "Imps" for the recapture of Hanyang. Yuan Shih K'ai, impatient at the dauntless manner in which the enemy were standing their ground—and even gaining upon the Imperial Army—made an offer of 3,000,000 taels (some £375,000) for the recapture of Hanyang. The Revolutionary Army was now fighting as never before.

The important news that Shantung had gone over to the Revolutionists was received on the 16th in a laconic message, stating briefly that the entire province was now flying the white flag. This news was all the more important inasmuch as about ten days before the Government granted all the demands of the Shantung people, with the exception of the evacuation of Peking by the Manchus. This, it was thought, would be a sufficient sop to Cerberus, but it seemed not so, and the Shantungites had apparently decided to go the whole hog in the same manner as their local compatriots.

The real bombardment of Hanyang commenced at night on that date, and the sight was one never to be forgotten by those who had pluck enough to go to the high buildings and watch the guns opening. From a score of batteries on the Wuchang side of the river, from the big forts on the main hills inside Wuchang, from perhaps thirty guns raised on Hanyang Hill and four hills away to the right there came constant tiny flashes. The distant boom for hours in the dense darkness gave one an eerie feeling. The furious whizz of the shells as they swept over the foreign houses intensified one's peculiar fascination. Bullets sailing through the air bred in one a spirit of cool bravado. Around the countryside for miles one could count a score of fires—the whole population seemed to be burned out of house and home. At midnight there came a significant lull. Waiting and watching, watching and waiting on the tops of their houses, foreign civilians looked on to the passing tragedy, and were held spellbound in the dark. Those tiny flashes of blue seemed to be the sparks of a new life, but the morning brought the news that the Revolutionists had had the worst of it. When the Northern Army first arrived at Niekow it was part of their programme to dispatch a force through the lakes to the Han River at Hankow, from which place they could reach Hanyang in half a day. The boats were collected for the expedition, but for some reason or other it was called off. The project appears to have been taken up again, and this time carried through, with the result that the Imperialists, by November 20th, were in possession of Tsaitien, a busy market town on the Hanyang side of the Han twenty miles up. A foreign traveller, who was there at the time of the occupation, wrote up the following particulars about the situation then:—

"After we had passed Hsinkow on the way down by boat we noticed parties of grey-coated soldiers on the left bank marching down. There might be twenty in a party and sometimes a hundred. In conversation with them we learned that they were Chilhi or Shantung men, and belonged to Yuan Shih K'ai's army. Their General was named Wu, a very friendly man who said that he had a force of three thousand, and that they were bound for Hanyang. Our boat outstripped them, and on reaching Tsaitien we found it still under Revolutionary control, but with no soldiers there beyond the crews of some twenty fighting junks at anchor. There had been a thousand men in the place, but they had marched up the river before our arrival, said to be bound for Anluh. We reached there on Saturday evening, and at daybreak the following morning the gunjunks got up anchor and made for up-river. The Imperialists did not put in an appearance till Sunday afternoon about two o'clock, when some forty native boats came in crowded with soldiers. They had also on board half a dozen mules and probably guns, but these were not visible. They had large supplies of ammunition. By the time they landed all trace of the Revolutionists had disappeared. No one interfered with them, and they interfered with no one. There might have been close on a thousand men in that lot. All afternoon and evening there was heavy firing up-river. The people said it was the Revolutionists attacking the rear of the party up at Hsinkow, and that they had driven it back, but the puzzle was how the advance contrived to reach Tsaitien without either side apparently having seen the other. We left Tsaitien about ten o'clock on Monday, at which time the Imperialists were all in their tents engaged on their breakfast. There was no sign that they intended making any further move that day. It is impossible to reach Hankow by the Han route, as both parties fired on every boat seen. We therefore crossed the Machia Lake, and came out beyond Hanyang. Here a large force of several thousand Revolutionists was setting out by land for Tsaitien, and had the weather been favourable, they would have reached there last night. As it is, they will have to wait for fine weather, and then some further interesting news may be forthcoming from that quarter."

HOW THE IMPERIALISTS CROSSED THE HAN.
One of the three bridges built on boats across the river
while the revolutionaries were quarrelling among themselves.

Thus at last had the Imperialists crossed the Han. And with their crossing commenced one of the most determined battles in history, lasting five long days and four frightful nights of heaviest fighting. Day after day the close riflery work and Maxim fire was terrific. The Revolutionists for some time had the best of it. The slaughter among the Imperialists was fearful. The gunnery was heavy and deadly on both sides, but with Maxims the Revolutionists mowed down the enemy in hundreds each day. The death-roll no one was able to calculate. Each night the Imperial dead was taken away by train. The Imperial wounded were left on the field in the cold to die of their frightful wounds and hunger. The pressure did not allow of Red Cross work being done. To the left of the advancing Imperialists already referred to was the rapidly rushing Han, to the right a lake, in front a creek and high hill, defended by strong forces of Revolutionists. The hill in itself was a natural fort, but in the undulations of the ground and in the long grass the mountain guns and Maxims were as thick as blackberries. Every Imperial was fighting for his life, for he knew, once across the Han, that it was a fight to kill or be killed. Such scenes were probably never eclipsed in any war. The fusillading and incessant cannonading was harder than in any war of recent times. The Imperialists had given up the endeavour and were downcast at the meagre prospects of their success. To take Hanyang appeared altogether impossible. Their idea was to again make a wide flanking movement towards Siaokan, run a light railroad up to Siangyang, in North Hupeh, and so draw the Revolutionists away from the hills to open country. Certain it seemed to them that Hanyang would always remain a Revolutionary base. But as one sets out to write an accurate account of the situation in those last days in November, he is confronted by innumerable obstacles that render it almost futile. On the 26th every man in the Concessions, except the very few more closely associated with the happenings on the field, was under the impression that the Revolutionary Army was forging ahead, that it had by far the better position in the field, and that the taking of Hanyang was a task that the Imperialists were not by any means strong enough to accomplish. As I have said, the Imperialist officers thought so, too, but when on Saturday (the 25th) I learned that the Hunan men were becoming a little disaffected, I foresaw to some extent what turn events would take if it were proved impossible for General Li Yuan Hung and Commander Huang Hsuin successfully to handle this new and somewhat treacherous move on the part of the Hunan Army. Now the greatest blow that had yet fallen, and which could fall short of a complete smash-up, fell to the Republican cause here on November 27th.

Hanyang was captured—how will later be explained.

HUNAN SOLDIER.
One of the men who turned traitor,
causing the disastrous fall of Hanyang.

HUPEH SOLDIER.
From time immemorial at feud with the Hunanese,
but brought into co-operation in the early part
of the Revolution.

One found it the more difficult to write an accurate account of the situation which would remain true because from now onward it seemed to change its aspect hour by hour. Everything seemed to have taken a change for the worst. Chinese met in the streets and told each other the bad news with long faces. The sight of the dead being brought in from the field and prepared for burial, under the gaze of all and sundry, brought a peculiar depression into the very atmosphere. Foreign and Chinese communities waited hour by hour for what was coming. Rumours were wild on the lips of every one. No one could be believed, and what one actually saw could scarcely be taken as truth. The general situation was extremely grave to the Republican military cause, and the Imperialists were never stronger in numbers, and in the advantage that they held over their enemy in their positions in the field. In possession now of Hanyang Hill, it was expected that they would bring their big guns into position and blow Wuchang to pieces in three hours. There was nothing to stop them. They were the military masters of the situation. All the Chinese could do now was to sit tight, interfere as little as possible, endeavour to keep their heads on their shoulders by keeping out of the way of the executioner's knife, and wait to see what would happen.

Then slowly came the story of the fall of Hanyang. [1]

Sensational incidents during the day that Hanyang fell, with picturesque incidents and all the gore that the newspaper-reading public calls for were provided under the eyes of every one. Junkloads of helpless, bullet-driven men were drifting down the river in a ghastly succession. Have you ever seen a boat drifting on a rapid river? Have you ever watched a Chinese junk, ungainly and ugly perhaps, just going helplessly with the tide? And have you ever seen a cargo of human freight not knowing what to do to reach the shore or any place of safety? That morning the men had been riddled by bullets as they attempted to make away in the boats. They had had machine-gun fire rained into them, and, scampering like a lot of frightened birds in their cage, had crept all over to the covered end in their frenzy, hoping that the wood cover would save them. Tighter and tighter they pressed against each other. They trampled on each other, threw their rifles out into the river, their cartridge-cases, their general impedimenta, and then settled down to die as the boat slowly drifted down-stream. And there, when they were found, these thirty, forty, fifty men were sitting huddled grimly together, their glassy eyes staring upwards into the unknown. Mercilessly, with hideous brutality, they had been slaughtered as they sat, and now were in the sitting posture, dead, wedged in tightly one against the other. Some had fallen outward to the side of the boat, and their bodies now were hanging limply, swaying to and fro with the dull motion of the junk. Some, shot through the head, through the heart, through the limbs, had sunk exhausted to the bottom of the boat, where the water was fast rushing in through the splintered bulwarks, and lay, face down, in the water, drowned as they lay. Another boatload, equally helpless and void of all hope but the river, had their wounded at the bottom, some of the less seriously wounded putting their hands through the holes into the water and endeavouring vainly to get a motion on the boat. When these junks, after terrific labour, were brought into the side of the British Bund, the sight will never be forgotten—men, bleeding from the throat, from the side, limping as they dragged a shattered leg behind them up the steps, to fall exhausted at the top and carried away to the hospitals. 'Twas a bloody conflict that ended the fall of Hanyang.

THE IMPREGNABLE HANYANG HILL,
Shown in the background. It is the main strategic point
on the Yangtse. At one time it bristled with revolutionary
field-guns.

For the first time since the beginning of the revolutionary movement in China the Imperialist cause had scored an undeniable success, always excepting the savage burning of Hankow. The success of the Imperialists was rightly ascribed to their superior equipment and discipline, and that their loyalty to Peking, as well as their efficiency, had stood the supreme test of battle was in itself an event of first-rate importance. The strong feeling which has grown up almost all over China against the Manchu had still to be reckoned with. At this time it was an amusing diversion to read the opinions being printed in the home Press. After referring to the feeling among the proletariat against the Manchus, a writer in an editorial in the London Times said that "again a middle term may conceivably be found in the suggestion that, as an alternative to the withdrawal of the Court from Peking, the present Regent should resign his office into the hands of a Chinese Regent or Council of Regency. The singular ceremony which took place a few days ago in Peking, when the Regent, in the name of the infant Emperor, made atonement before the 'heavenly spirits' of the Imperial ancestors for the responsibility which he has to bear in the present troubles, may be taken as something more than a mere formal acknowledgment of the gravity of the crisis. In the solemn oath of allegiance to the new constitutional regime taken by the Regent, there is, in so many words, an admission that the Dynasty is in danger; and so grave an admission is, we imagine, at least as unprecedented as the circumstances which have provoked it. If it truly represents the chastened spirit of the rulers of China, it can hardly fail to make a deep impression upon the masses of the Chinese people, whose traditional reverence for the Throne as a sacred institution dates back to time immemorial, and has survived numberless revolutions in the past which, however disastrous to the occupants for the time being of the Throne, never permanently affected its inherent prestige."

But in a period of such national travail as China was passing through, it would have been unwise just then to build too much upon the claims of mere common sense, even where people in many ways so eminently sensible as the Chinese were concerned. Immense forces, of which we could not yet pretend to estimate the energy, had been set in motion for better or for worse; and, when once elemental forces have been set in motion, they cannot easily be arrested. In pleading for the maintenance of the Dynasty, Yuan Shih K'ai himself did not conceal his belief that its overthrow would be followed by a series of internal convulsions extending possibly over several decades. Time may prove Yuan to be right. But though we may hope that the world may be spared such a calamity, it was now impossible to look forward to the future without apprehension. The old order of things had departed, never to return. But it would have been then, and still is, idle to expect that a new and stable order of things can be immediately evolved by any magic wand out of the existing chaos. However rotten the old fabric may have been, it cannot be destroyed and a new fabric built up in a day. Japan went through some fifteen years of internal strife and turmoil before modern Japan emerged from the ruins of the old feudal Japan. And Japan not only had the good fortune to possess an influential class inspired by great patriotic ideals, ready to lead her in the path of national regeneration, but she had also, in the restoration of the Imperial authority, an ancient national tradition round which modern ideas of reform could crystallise. Whether China possessed a class equally competent to steer her through the breakers had yet to be seen—and has still; but it was only too clear, unfortunately, that the present Dynasty could never be a rallying point for patriotic enthusiasm such as the reigning Dynasty proved to be in Japan. The future alone could show whether any effective substitute could be found for it.

THE THREE-EYED BRIDGE,
Seven miles north of Hanyang, where some of the hottest fighting
took place. The Revolutionists held the bridge and the adjoining
hills till the fall of Hanyang made the position untenable.

The fall of Hanyang gave to the Imperial cause an impetus it was hard to estimate. But it had cost the Chinese as a people a lot during its fall.

* * * * *

During the first two days of December the author formed one of a party of Europeans whose duty it was to superintend the operations of a search party of the Red Cross Society around the neighbourhood of Chiakow and the four hills across the Han River, all of which formed the scene of one of the great battles. This was the belt of country which for days was held by the Revolutionary Army, encamped and fortified in the many hillocks and surrounding lake country, which by its very impassable nature was practically a fort. It was here that the Revolutionists must have fought with more dauntless courage than the Russo-Japanese War ever gave record of to the world. It was here that for days, at closest range, they were driven back by the Imperial shrapnel and rifle fire from the other side of the Han; here that they repeated daring onslaughts upon the enemy when it seemed that the end was near with the speedy cutting-up of the Imperialists; here that the Peking men again and again endeavoured to force an entry and were cut down hopelessly and retreated with but a scanty percentage of their own attacking regiments; here that the hills bristled with batteries that whistled shells simultaneously by the dozen into the enemy as they lay encamped in the open country behind the waterworks. Altogether those four hills, still looking up reverently to their Maker, seemed silently to tell forth stories of heroism that would make the memories of men who were cruelly tortured immortal among their own people. But it was here also that the Hupeh men and the Hunan men had their squabble; and in this was their downfall, as it could have been in nothing else, for the place was impregnable.

And as during those two days I rode my pony in and out those hillocks, through those swamps, around those lakes, and as I stood by the graves of men who gave their own cause away, I could not help wondering what might have been had the Revolutionary Army remained one in spirit. What would have happened is this: the Imperialists would never have crossed the Han. But by December 1st they were in full possession. Every man and thing seemed numbered, all was wonderfully organised; from far away up the Han on both sides down past the point where the Han bifurcates into the Yangtsze and down past Kinshan forts the Imperialists were in possession.

As it was the rebels had lost, the Imperialists had won: but as one went around the countryside and talked with the country people, peaceable souls who had only their small cabbage-patch to bring forth their wherewithal to live, the tales of savagery and cruelty and devilish treatment which the Imperialists said they found it necessary to bring into their "military measures" did not make one wonder that, although compelled at the point of the bayonet to submit, the whole of the rural population swore vengeance upon the army that had worked havoc among them. Such behaviour as the Imperial soldiers, in their devilry, persisted in was worse even than one would expect from the worst of Chinese. We all know that the Chinese are cruel, that they have no sympathies in the usual Western sense; we know that they delight in the torture of all things that have life. But such grossly inhuman conduct as was countenanced by the Imperial military authorities in this centre almost compelled one to exclaim that to the depths of Chinese barbarity one cannot probe. What one saw made one instinctively draw back, yet one did not see a tithe of what there was.

Of the searching for the dead I shall have but little to say. There were few dead to be found. We buried 207. As soon as the military stationed in command of the captured hill heard that the Red Cross Society was sending parties to search for the dead and to bury the corpses, they set about with their own burial parties to remove those who had been shot in that dreadful battle. The villages that had been razed to the ground, and incidentally rid of all the menfolk with a rifle shot or a few bayonet thrusts, had been made to bury their own dead; most of it was done by the girls before they were taken off to be made worse than slaves to the fiendish men who took them. But the tale had better be told in sequence.

If one is able to keep his mind free from the gruesome and the cruel, the fiendish tricks practised everywhere along the Han by the Imperial soldiers, he cannot but admire the smartness of the military training and the extremely creditable manner in which this Imperial Army had been handled. When it is remembered that from the four high hills overlooking the Han River the Revolutionists were able continuously to blow to smithereens anything that was attempted in the way of bridge-building, the making of the bridge by which the main body of the enemy passed over the river is little short of a marvel. At this point the Han, with no inconsiderable current, is no less than three hundred and fifty yards wide. The bridge by which the Imperialists crossed was composed of some one hundred and fifty boats of all sorts and sizes, each in its turn tied to an extremely stout hawser; over this the whole of the attacking force with their complete equipment was brought. Then from this point to another point some twenty li away, at the base of the hills, villages were indiscriminately scattered, some with twenty families, some with half a dozen. All had suffered the same fate and were now but places of ashes.

To the left was found a Revolutionary soldier, dead, half-eaten, dressed still in his black uniform. About the body, which was huddled in a decomposing heap on the ground, were noticed several bayonet wounds; it had been brought from a bed, upon which the wounded man had probably been done to death. Under the bed was found a lamp, on and around the bed were found huge chunks of charcoal and charred firewood; nothing else in the room was burned. Is it possible to think that those devils of men, first getting their prey like the beasts they are, then maiming him, then putting him on a bed, then getting the fire by which they intended burning him to death, had fired the lot and literally roasted their victim alive, and sat down to watch the last agonies? Such was my theory, and the circumstantial evidence, with the guarded explanation of the temple caretaker—who was spared because he could wait upon these vicious greycoats—made for none other. And there the body lay; dogs had come in and eaten off a leg, a part of the neck, a part of the body; the main bone of the leg had been wrenched off, and a dog near by still growled with another for possession. Soon the burial was made, the wistful onlookers, lucky that they had escaped, remarking blandly that we were performing hao si. Further gruesome details of a most gruesome duty it were reasonable not to expect given; sufficient has been written to show where the great battle took place and what its effects had been. Over the hills one came across one, two, a dozen peaked caps, a dozen uniforms. Near by were nightsoil pits and ponds of stagnant water; into these the unlucky victims had been thrown. Pools of blood there were everywhere, cartridge-cases and cartridges there were by the thousand, seven big guns with the breach-blocks gone, boxes of unopened field-gun cases, piles of 2¼ gun shells alongside the heavy pieces, pieces of bone, bloody bandages, and much else all too eloquent of the carnage and the battle. One man volunteered to show us where the corpse of a villager lay; he said the body had been hit fair by a big shell and now there was little left to show for what had been a soldier doing his duty for a cause of reform; when we came to the place a pool of blood and a few bones were all that the canine scavengers had left.

THE HANDY MAN ASHORE.
Residents in the British Concession owe much
to the bluejackets. They are seen here carting
bricks in rickshaws, with which to build barricades.

Farther on an old woman sat upon a heap of rubbish, which had been her home for forty years. She was ill-clad, cold, had had no food for four days, and thought that she, too, would die. Her husband, poor old man, had been killed by stray shots before the Imperialists made their rush; her sons, four of them—peaceable men, she said, who offered no resistance—were killed cruelly at sight; their wives had been carried off. "But I am not alone," she added; "others in the village suffered the same fate. Our young boys had their queues taken off to make them into rebels so that the soldiers would have an excuse to shoot them. And our 'little babies'"—the poor old lady was now wiping her eye—"our girls of fourteen and fifteen were carried off across the river. I wonder whether I shall see them again." I wondered, too, as I watched the old woman weeping. And the farther I went the more was I impressed with the cruelty of this war towards the civilian rather than to the military part of the community. The devastation was terrific.

Have you ever noticed how soon a Chinese can spoil or totally destroy things in general? Whether it be the mechanic in the factory, the cook in the kitchen, the boy about the house, the gardener, the boatman, the tinker, tailor, or sailor, it is undeniable that the Chinese is a pastmaster in the art of spoiling and damaging and putting things destructively to their wrong uses. One sees it, not in one district and among one class of the Chinese; it is universal in the country and the people. To go through China one is struck more than anything else by the manner in which everything is brought to a general condition of decay and uselessness. And so in war the Chinese have been showing us how destructive is their nature, how vile they are in pillaging and looting and destroying. For miles around the city of Hankow long stretches of burned and pillaged districts stand as painfullest evidences of the ravages of this horrible civil war. These northern victors could not have behaved worse had they specifically endeavoured, and this is much to say. All the cruelties, all the infamy in its several forms, all the wanton destruction, the stealing, the ravishing of pure women, the killing of little children, the kidnapping of young girls, the gross oppression practised by them all will go down to history as the conduct unworthy of any civilised nation. I am aware that in writing this I may call down considerable criticism, but I fail to see why such things should be kept back from public knowledge. China is making claims, as she long has been, that she is coming line to line with the civilisation of the West. She has claimed that she has got out of the rut of the past, and that now the world may confidently look for that which in history has made the nations of the world great—liberty, justice, and other so far unknown virtues in her present military campaign against those who truly, so far as we can tell, are urging for real reform.

Another instance before I close this chapter. Whilst I was riding round the country I collected a couple of shells from the field, and asked an old man to put them in his house for me until I should later return for them. He agreed and away I went. Some time after I returned to find four soldiers yelling at this old man and some of his neighbours who had foregathered to save him from the common doom. The soldiers had accused him of harbouring the empty shells for some rebels they were sure he was sheltering, and already their fingers were itching on the triggers of their rifles. "A foreign gentleman asked me to keep them for him; I am telling you the truth!" shouted the terrified old fellow. "You lie! you old blackguard, you'll have to die for this. Come out of your house!" Vainly were his neighbours endeavouring to mediate on his behalf, and were threatened with the same treatment if they did not desist at once. But at the moment I rode up. I took the shell-cases quietly, thanked the old man, asked what the trouble was, and was about to explain when one of the soldiers, with an eye filled with evil, wished me peace and told me that they were merely having fun with the old man, and that I could go on my way resting assured that no harm would be done. I went, but I do not know the fate of the old man.

* * * * *

The reader should understand that probably of all strategic points in the Chinese Empire there is none more naturally formidable than Hanyang. It was the pivot of the whole situation. With Hanyang gone, Wuchang was practically gone also—if the enemy had any guns at all. At dawn on November 27th the war correspondents brought the news that the Hunan men had refused to fight at Hanyang, and that the city was about to be taken. Bombarding and heavy fusillading had been going on all the day on the Sunday and throughout the night, but by midnight the Imperialists were known to be masters of the situation, and it was only a matter of time for them to march upon the fortified city of Hanyang. That city, as will have been gathered, every one looked upon as impregnable. There was treachery. The Hunan men were said to have shot their officers, to have left the hill, to have boarded junks that were drifting hopelessly down-stream in an attempt to retreat to Wuchang, only to find that after they had been shelled in the junks they drifted down-stream in the face of Maxim fire, placed to greet them at the bend of the river. What happened to them has already been described, but can better be imagined. [2]

As I was dressing on November 27th my bedroom door was slowly opened. A smart young Chinese, a man from Yale University and one of the smartest men of his year, crept in and cautiously closed the door behind him.

"Man," he said, "it's all up. We are going to lose Hanyang."

And then he began to tell me the story of the treachery. 'Twas a sad story, true; but it gave the city away. Coming over to me, with sincerity shining in his eyes, he exclaimed: "Come, you're a journalist; can't you help us? Can't you stop this dreadful carnage? The city has fallen completely. The Imperialists are in control of the hill and the city, with the arsenal, the powder factory, and much else."

In a nutshell it may be said that the Revolutionary military cause in this immediate centre was with the fall of Hanyang irretrievably lost. It will be futile in this volume to go into the way the men behaved; they fled, many of them cowards, others struck down still sticking manfully to their duty, others barbarously bayoneted as they endeavoured to hold their guns on the hill and in the valley on the river bank; but that they were shamefully routed was borne out by the fearful misbehaviour of the Imperialists. On they came like a pack of maddened animals for the onslaught. They had no mercy. Every one within reach fell at the point of the bayonet or was shot ruthlessly despite all humane methods brought to bear in surrender in war. The boating community, quietly adopting a neutral attitude, were served in the same heartless manner. Women, children, old men, babies—all were shot, and their corpses floated down-river in their drifting boats. Some of the sights were too terrible to behold. Old men and women were all subjected to the same cruel fate.

But leaving for the moment the fighting, we come to the Bund, in the afternoon, to watch the Red Cross Association conducting its errands of mercy. Out on the Bund—some shot through the head, through the limbs, through the body, all showing up in ghastly significance the horror of this war—we see ten, twenty, thirty, forty of the dead laid out for burial. Foreigners and Chinese all lend a hand to tie the bodies in matting, others heave them into the carts, the pavements are littered with the discarded coats and implements of war which the dead still held as evidence of this civil butchery; on a little way farther one finds a group of wounded on the grass plots waiting for the stretcher-bearers to return to take them to the hospitals. One was a mother with a little baby, the baby dying, the mother mortally wounded; others were civilians who had shown no fight; others were trained soldiers; others were recruits who had run at the sound of the machine-guns, shot in the back. Then there is the rumble of the wheels as cartload after cartload of the covered dead are conveyed out of sight, and the police set to work to pick up the blood-stained uniforms, the money-pouches, the little knick-knacks of the Chinese soldier's paraphernalia. All is so sad, so significant.

Meantime over across the way the shells were falling into the capital of Wuchang. The air was rent again and again by the sharp booming of the Imperial big guns on Coffin Hill. Men came and went, looked down at the pools of human blood that were swelling the rivers of blood through which China has yet to pass before this Revolution ends. The river was deserted. If a sampan ventured out into the stream rifles were set to work, and a hasty retreat was made. The people were downcast.

And this young Chinese, sent specially from General Li, who called upon me before I was dressed, had come asking whether I could not send a message from Li Yuan Hung to the world. "We don't want to fight any more!" he excitedly exclaimed. "General Li is genuinely anxious that peace should be declared, that slaughter on this wholesale scale should be stopped forthwith. Although this reverse has overcome the Revolutionary Army, our cause on the field is not by any means lost. Even if we have lost Hanyang, it does not follow that our fighting strength is gone, and if it becomes necessary General Li will alter the base of fighting operations, a scheme which the Imperialists had under consideration before their victory yesterday. None were more surprised than the Imperialists themselves when they were able to march up Hanyang Hill without having to fire a shot. But the fact that they are in possession of Hanyang does not necessarily mean that the military conquest is entirely won, for if needs be we shall be able continually to augment our army from other provinces until such time as in the very nature of things the Imperial Army will have been weeded out, man for man, or two to one, or three, or four if necessary."

I was sorry I was unable to help him.

I learned subsequently that, just an hour or so before Hanyang actually changed hands, Yuan Shih K'ai wired from Peking to the British Acting Consul-General here, asking him to inform General Li that he was anxious to hear what terms he proposed that peace might be established. This was just at the moment that Hanyang was passing.

What was to be the outcome of this Hunan dissension any one who knew the Hunanese would not be inclined to say offhand, but the fact that there has always been some little contempt mutually between the Hupehese and the Hunanese probably magnified the dissension in the military that occurred. One of the first arts of warfare is to cut off the pursuers. Now, when the Hunan men were in the city of Hanyang the Friday previous there was a little teashop squabble between a couple of dozen men, the Hupeh men being accused of flinching the hard graft of the front line. To this squabble is traced directly the capture of Hanyang by the enemy.

"We are always sent to the front," said the Hunanese; "we are getting less pay, doing more work, suffering heavier losses in our ranks."

Then one word brought forth another, the party offered to have a fight on the spot, some picked up their rifles and discharged a few shots, and one or two men were wounded. After that the Hupeh men were placed on the front line.

On the Saturday during a sharp engagement, in which the Revolutionists got the worst of it, a retreat at the double was made; the Revolutionary gunners opened with their three-inchers and endeavoured to cut off the pursuers, but instead dropped their shells among the first lines of their own men as they retreated. Upon this the Hunan men swore vengeance as they saw their comrades falling thickly around them. When they got under cover they refused to fight any more. They almost at once commenced to go back to Wuchang, where they declared they were going to talk terms with General Li, and so they lost one of the most impregnable positions in the whole of China—a veritable Chinese Gibraltar. And when the Imperialists were able to march upon Hanyang they never had such a delightful surprise in their lives. In conversation with an Imperial officer, who was leading the first regiment to get into the city, I was told that they had almost given up all idea of ever capturing Hanyang. Had the Revolutionary men been kept under better control while off duty this never would have happened. The Imperialists stood a far greater risk of having dissension creeping in among their men, but they took great care that no such loophole should be offered to them. In Wuchang the people, essentially Chinese, talked so wildly about this Revolutionary reverse that it was found necessary to remove the heads of several, and war talk became absolutely taboo on the streets.

The Imperialists then directed their attention to Wuchang. Every hour the Revolutionists expected a bombardment. "We shall put up a bit of a fight, but it will be quite useless to expect to hold the city," a prominent Revolutionary officer in the Foreign Office told me; "then our main army will go away at the back of the city and trek down to Kiukiang, concentrating at Nanking." But the Imperialists somehow hung fire. They did not seem anxious to take Wuchang. Li Yuan Hung is reported to have declared that he believed the Revolution was lost; he told his second that the Imperialists were sure to come and capture the city, behead him, and kill all those who had no queues. That the Imperialists were doing their best to find out all they could of affairs on the opposite side of the river was evident. They collared one of the Revolutionary spies, and he was promised pardon if he would tell his captors something about the inside movements of Wuchang.

He set about to tell his story. —how that the whole of the officials, from General Li downwards, were in a blue funk; how that there were some ten thousand troops now in Wuchang; how that the intention was to blaze away with all the bluff in the world on the foreshore whilst the army was clearing out by the back gates of the city; how that if the Imperialists cared to march upon Wuchang they could capture it forthwith. He then waited for the pardon that did not come.

DISMANTLED IMPERIAL GUN ON PURPLE MOUNTAIN, HANKING.
The author is seen standing in the foreground of the picture.

"Have you any more to say?" asked the officer to whom he told the story.

"No, I've told you all I know."

"Well," retorted the officer, "if this man has nothing more to tell us"—and he turned to a man who commanded the execution proceedings—"take him outside and have his head off." In a couple of minutes the big knife fell, and the head of the best spy in the Revolutionary official camp rolled to the ground.

[1] The following story as told me by a Red Cross worker who was in charge of the Emergency Hospital, of what he saw before the Imperialists took the Hanyang Hill, will be of interest:—

"At 7.30 a. m. our launch made a trip to our Emergency Hospital in Hanyang. As the launch was needed for work in Wuchang until ten, I sent her away as soon as we had landed. At once we began to notice that there was a change of some kind about the place. There were very few soldiers about, and movement that was being made was in the direction of Wuchang. I noticed too, that the ground along the riverside was pretty liberally sprinkled with unused rifle cartridges, many in their clips. These seemed to betoken a somewhat hurried embarkation at least, but I thought that it might have been caused by a hurried dispatch of troops in the night. On arrival at the hospital, one of the Army Red Cross men said, "You'd better go back. It is dangerous to be here." However, there were one or two cases awaiting our arrival, so we at once set to work to attend to them. A little later we noticed that the servants who had been so freely helping us had all disappeared, and presently I met one of them on the street carrying his bundles of goods off to the riverside. One of our number had some business inside the city walls, so we decided to go on with the work for the time being and await his report as to the state of things. After about an hour I had occasion to take a wounded man to the landing-place, some two hundred yards distant to await the arrival of the launch, and then found that there was some cause for uneasiness. All who could secure a sampan or other boat were hurriedly gathering their bits of goods together and making off up-stream against the current, all hands in the boat helping to row. It was the panic of the populace that feared the arrival of the enemy. I also overheard a quiet conversation between two Chinese coolies and gathered from their remarks that the Hunan raw recruits had been unable or unwilling to face the northern guns and had gone off by the regiment. Just then a dismantled gunjunk drifted down from somewhere up-stream. There was only one man on board, and his unseeing eyes were turned up to the full glare of the sun. He had evidently been the helmsman, and had died at his post. There were bullet marks on the woodwork, and a cap or two lay in the bottom of the boat, and I guessed what had become of the rest of the boatload. Promptly at ten o'clock I saw the launch steaming back to us, and almost at the same moment there was a movement on the part of some troops who had arrived on the Bund and wished quick transport to Wuchang. Some of them came down as the boat drew up, but I was informed that this launch was for wounded men only, of which there was quite a number now being brought in from the West Gate first-aid place. Whilst getting these on board, the Revolutionary Army Field Hospital Corps, with their stretchers rolled up and empty and their kit entire, marched up and began to make a move on our launch, saying that they also were Red Cross workers, but after a little difficulty I got them safely by to a boat farther up the river. They were told of the difficulty we were experiencing in getting coolies to carry their wounded down from the West Gate and other places, but they declined to stay any longer in a place that was "dangerous." Some field-pieces had been brought in by the retiring troops, and one gunner, unable to get off his gun, brought in the breech block. There was no "scuttle," but a systematic retreat of all sections of the army. On my way back to the hospital (the Baptist Church building) I met a regiment of troops marching up to the Bund. These had come from the top of Hanyang Hill immediately to the north of us, and as an officer had already been to tell us that the army was in retreat we decided to pack up everything—drugs, instruments, bandages, and all—and leave not even a splint behind. All the wounded were taken undressed, or with very rough dressing, to the launch as soon as we could secure bearers. Whilst making another trip to the launch with some gear, stray bullets pinged by my ear and plopped into the water. At the same time I heard a noise of firing at the west side of the city far more distinctly than on the previous day, and shrapnel began bursting in the city behind us. It was time we were off. Just as we were casting off some bearers were seen making their way towards us with another casualty, so we came alongside and took him in and then steamed away. When off Wuchang we were stopped by a zealous blackcoat, who presented the wrong end of his rifle to us and said that he would fire if we proceeded. We hove to and cast anchor, and waited for this man's officer, who came up, gave him a scolding, and made him stand to attention in front of the field-piece his comrades had got ready to fire. We hauled up the anchor and got under weigh once more, but only to be hailed again by the next guard of soldiers at the battery some fifty yards farther down-stream. Once again we hove to. This time it was to take on a wounded man, who, they said, was a spy. I guessed that this was part of their joke, as we knew perfectly well that a suspicion of being a spy would have been more than enough to have sealed that man's fate. Just as we had got under weigh for the third time in our short run to Hankow, the Imperialists fired a volley at us from somewhere in the neighbourhood of the China merchant's godown. Most of the bullets fell short, some struck the water by the side of the boat just below where a group of Red Cross workers were standing. We then realised that the greycoats had worked their way back to the side of the river again. A few moments more, and the waterway between Wuchang and Hankow had become a veritable hell. Scores of boats were on the river, some being full of fleeing soldiers and others crammed with civilians, trying to get away from the greycoats; but orders had been given in Wuchang that all deserting Revolutionaries were to be shot, and so all craft on the river came in for a terrible cross fire from rifle, machine gun, shrapnel, and shell. We ran alongside and got off our thirty wounded, and a little later, when some of the boats that had weathered the storm of shot and shell began to drift down, I suggested that we should take the launch out into midstream and pick up the boats as they came down-river on the chance of finding some still alive. In this way we rescued three soldiers unwounded, six civilians and soldiers wounded, mostly of serious character, and then towed two boatloads of dead across to the Wuchang side and sent off the three unhurt soldiers with them. One of the wounded we had picked up died almost immediately. Our attention was next attracted to a big boat crammed with men, women, and children which was trying to reach the Wuchang side of the river. Destitute of oars, the panic-stricken folk were using the loose floor boards in frantic attempts to escape. On our approach they set up terrible cries for mercy. By the time we got alongside we were close in to the Wuchang shore, not far from a huge timber-raft. The scene was truly piteous. Women were on their knees imploring us to spare them. One man was so beside himself with terror that he jumped into the air and threw himself on to the deck, evidently under the impression that he was plunging into the water. In vain we tried to tell them that we had come to save and to heal the wounded who were lying about the boat. Then a new difficulty arose. Just as we seemed to succeed in calming the fears of the terrified creatures a company of Revolutionary soldiers raced down the banks and along the huge raft with their rifles at "the ready." One or two dropped down behind the logs, covering us with their guns, whilst others ordered us to leave the boat alone or they would fire. I stood at the bow of the boat holding up both hands as a signal, but they would not recognise the large Red Cross flag floating above me or listen to my arguments. So, after having looked down the other end of the rifle for quite a time, we gave up the attempt and left the boatload to its fate. What that was we soon saw. Their goods were seized by the soldiery and they were led up the banks under arrest. The soldiers were evidently carrying out their orders to allow no one to retreat from Hanyang. A subsequent visit of the Red Cross launch to the creek near by the raft resulted in the bringing over of many wounded found there. Some, however, had already been taken into Wuchang for treatment in the overcrowded hospitals there. On this journey we learned something of the awful fate that had befallen the innocent in their attempt to reach a place of safety. One was the sole survivor of the family who had started out on their journey a few hours before. One little lassie of some twelve summers as I was carrying her to the shore told me that all her people had been killed with the exception of herself and her father, and he was also wounded severely. A woman was found who had been shot through the hand as she had tried to shelter her baby girl—the poor little mite had been shot through the head. I carried the child up to the shore, and sent the woman and her dying babe to the Margaret Hospital."

[2] Startling stories of the cruelty of the Imperial soldiers who visited the Hanyang battlefields after the retreat of the rebels were told by every one who went over the battlefields. One writer said:—

"I went with a party of Red Cross men all over the battlefields after the capture of Hanyang by the Imperialists. We went on bicycles, riding over the Han by the pontoon bridge, going out at eight o'clock in the morning and not returning until after six. During that time we covered a great deal of territory, and saw evidences of almost incredible cruelty on the part of the Imperial soldiers. We came up with a party of four or five of them wearing Red Cross badges, but carrying arms instead of first-aid kits. They told us that they were Red Cross men and thoroughly understood their duties, which were to bring in any wounded Imperial soldiers and to kill all the wounded rebel soldiers. There was plenty of evidence that they had been carrying out that programme, and they were very indignant when we interfered and prevented their killing a wounded rebel. We met several parties of this kind.

"All over the battlefield there were wounded rebel soldiers and non-combatants, who had lain for four or five days without food or water or any kind of attention. We were passing through one village when a woman called out to us that there was a wounded man there. We got off our bicycles and looked for the man, finding him under a bunch of straw in the road, where he had lain for several days without food or water, while hundreds of coolies passed by. We found that he had a compound fracture, and called for some of the villagers to help us carry him inside. None of them would help, and we had to carry him into a hut ourselves. The villagers gave him tea and water only when we insisted on it. We asked them why it was they would allow a wounded man to remain inside their village for such a long time without giving him any attention, and finally got at the reason. When the fighting started four wounded rebels and one wounded Imperialist came into the village, and a woman took them into her house and gave them food and a place to sleep. The following day a band of Imperial soldiers came to the village in search of their wounded men and were told of this. They went to the house, removed the wounded Imperial, then put all of the members of the family in the house, with the wounded rebels, walled up the doors, and set fire to the place. After telling us this story, the villagers took us to the house and we saw the bodies half burned amidst the ruins. As the villagers were afraid to help us in any way or to allow us to place the wounded rebels in their houses, we carried two to an abandoned hut in the middle of a field, dressed their wounds, and buried them down in straw as best we could. We had no guard to leave over them, nor did we have any stretcher-bearers with us, so we planned to come back and get them the following day. In order to protect them as much as possible, we pinned on each one a card stating that these people had been taken charge of by the foreign Red Cross, and asked all to protect them. When we went back the following morning, we found one of the men dead, his face mutilated by bullets fired at close range. The other one had not been harmed, though almost dead with fright. He said that only half an hour before we came a party of Imperial soldiers visited them. The wounded men showed them the card we had left and pleaded with them for mercy. The Imperials spat on them, and then walked just outside the door and fired. It seems that all of the guns were aimed at one man, which was the reason the other escaped, for the Imperials left immediately after the firing. There were many non-combatants wounded—we treated eight in one small village. One of them was a woman who had been shot through her small foot. Another had been shot through the leg; one old man, seventy-six years old, crawled an English mile with a broken leg to get assistance from us. All of the wounded people we treated had been wounded for four or five days and had remained all of that time without any kind of attention, because of the fear of the people that the Imperialists would wreak vengeance on any one that aided the wounded. The line of retreat was covered with ammunition, arms, haversacks, and clothing. I believe that there must have been a full trainload of ammunition alone.

"The missionaries in Hankow are doing noble work caring for the wounded. The seats of the churches have been turned into beds, and the missionaries risk their lives daily in caring for the wounded and rescuing them from the battlefields."

CHAPTER XII

THE REPUBLIC SEEKS RECOGNITION

Although Hanyang had fallen, the Revolution was by no means lost; this the intelligent reader will easily be able to see. During the past six weeks the Reformers had been so hard at work that a Republic had practically been recognised by the Powers, America being especially friendly. The following address by Dr. Wu Ting Fang had been sent out to the world, and had caused a profound impression:—

"THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA ASKS RECOGNITION.

"The Chinese nation born anew in the travail of revolution extends friendly greetings and felicitations to the world.

"As the Republic of China it now asks that recognition by the civilised Powers which will enable it, with the assistance of their kindly offices, to erect upon the foundations of honest government and friendly trade and intercourse with all peoples, a peaceful and happy future.

"The Chinese people are not untried in self-government. For countless ages they ruled themselves; they developed observance of the law to a degree not known among other races; they developed arts and industries and agriculture and knew a peace and contentment surpassingly sweet.

"Down upon them swept the savage hordes of an alien and warlike race. The Chinese people were conquered and enslaved. For 270 years this bondage existed. Then the Chinese people arose and struck a blow for freedom. Out of the chaos and dust of a falling throne emerges a free and enlightened people—a great natural democracy of 400,000,000 human beings.

"They have chosen to set up a Republic and their choice we believe is a wise one. There is no class of nobility among the Chinese and they have no recognised royal family to set up in place of the departing Manchu Royal House. This is a great democracy. The officials spring from the people and to the people they return. There are no princes, lords, dukes among the Chinese. With the Manchu throne removed there is left a made-to-order Republic. Already we have provincial assemblies and our National Assembly. Already we have a Republic with a full set of competent officials.

"Within a very few days our constitutional convention will meet: arrangements for it were made long ago. At this convention there will be fully authorised delegates from every province in China. A constitution of the most enlightened character will be adopted and new officers of the provisional government elected. Following this will come, under the provisions of the constitution, the provincial and national elections.

"It is imperative that our government be recognised at this time in order that business may not be subjected to prolonged stagnation. There is peace everywhere save at Hankow, but business cannot proceed until the new Republic shall be welcomed among the nations of the world.

"We ask recognition in order that we may enter upon our new life and our new relationships with the great Powers.

"We ask recognition of the republic because the republic is a fact.

"Fourteen of the eighteen provinces have declared their independence of the Manchu Government and promulgated their allegiance to the Republic. The remaining provinces will, it is expected, soon take the same course.

"The Manchu dynasty finds its power fallen away and its glitter of yesterday become but a puppet show. Before going it has stripped itself of authority by consenting to the terms of the proposed constitution which already have been made public.

"The most glorious page in Chinese history has been written with a bloodless pen.

"(Signed) WU TING FANG
            "(Director of Foreign Affairs.)             "

And towards this end the Revolutionists were working. During the war each day had brought news of some province or part of a province having gone over. Li Yuan Hung and his associates were never morally stronger than when Hanyang fell. The military defeat mattered but little, for the Chinese are a democratic people, and each day brought more moral support.

The dynasty was still left standing, but in all other respects the desires of the Revolutionists had been sanctioned by the Sovereign. The Throne itself had been stripped of its power and prestige, and had been forced to act at the dictation of the National Assembly. The surrender on paper appeared to be complete, though it must be steadily kept in mind that in China, less perhaps than in any other land, are promises and concessions always held to be irrevocable. Yuan Shih K'ai had been invested with an authority which was practically supreme. He was at once Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy employed against the Yangtsze Revolutionists. In the best interests of the Chinese people it was to be hoped that they had been inspired by an unfeigned desire on both sides to reach an accommodation without further bloodshed; but in no country are delusive negotiations more habitually employed than in China as a means of gaining time, and it was at least conceivable that in the present crisis each leader would believe that time was on his side. In a few days it was expected that Yuan Shi K'ai's party would show what degree of influence it could exert over the insurgent provinces. The number of these provinces continued to grow, and, in at least some instances, the movement in them seemed to be deeply tinged with a particularism which tended strongly towards separatism.

The Empire was, indeed, as a writer in the Times put it, "bubbling like a cauldron," but a good many of the bubbles may subside, under judicious handling, with surprising rapidity. What seemed certain, however, so far as anything is certain in China, was that the old Monarchy had fallen never to rise again, and that it would drag down much in China in its fall. It had long survived its day. Its servants, like the servants of Solomon in the Koran, had propped up a corpse and summoned kings and princes to do it homage. They bowed down before it, says the story, so long as it stood upright. But at last the worms gnawed away the staff on which it rested, it lay prone in the dust, and the world fell into confusion.

With the fall of Hanyang, millions of people, Chinese and foreigners, were speaking or thinking chiefly of one question those days, What would be the fate of the rebellion? Bound up in this question were many others, its corollaries. Would the rebellion be now speedily crushed, or succumb only after a prolonged civil war which would sap the already decimated resources of the country, partly suspend and disorganise business, and cause enormous destruction to life and property? Or would the Revolutionary forces quickly defeat the Government armies, acquire following and resources by success, and replace the existing Government at Peking with another and, if so, what kind of Government?

One may understand, and to some extent sympathise with, the motives and ideals of the Revolutionists without approving their course. It was generally agreed that the Government of China wanted reforming, but there was wide divergence of opinion as to method. Two general hypotheses for reform seemed practicable: to impose constitutionalism upon the present monarchical system and Dynasty, or to wipe them out and begin anew.

It would profit nothing to change the Government of China unless the change meant improvement. If the present Dynasty would be overthrown, what would replace it? Another Dynasty, or a Republic? A new Dynasty would, under existing circumstances, take for its head some popular leader since none of the Chinese Royal House was fitted for the place. This might improve conditions in China, and it might not. A successful republic, with conditions as they were, was practically impossible; and it is questionable if a republican form of government is suited to the Chinese nation and people. None of the elements of genuine republicanism existed in the Empire. The course of events, as caused by the Revolutionary party, was being closely observed. They had set out to fight for their freedom, and now, with the fall of Hanyang, the military cause seemed lost. All nations were interested in the fate of China. Already one Power, the United States, was devising ways and means to safeguard against abrupt and inharmonious international action, in case any action became necessary. The Times expressed the view that the Revolution would fail. Present indications were that the opinion was well founded. But even if it failed, that revolt was to leave a deep psychological impression on the reigning Dynasty, the Chinese, and the world.

But what was happening elsewhere?

On December 2nd the following message was flashed over the wires: "Nanking city has fallen. Foreigners safe. Revolutionists entering city." For many days a most determined battle had been going on at Nanking. The Revolutionists, fired with a zeal intensified because of the fall of Hanyang, were endeavouring to get into the city—a feat which seemed for long impossible. The capture of the city of Nanking was the counterpoise to Hanyang's loss. Every one knows much more about Nanking. This city was the old capital of China, and of more political importance probably than Hanyang—it would be made the capital—and so the Revolutionists thought they still had the better part of the bargain. There is no space to dwell upon all the terrible blood-shed, of the Manchu decapitations, and much of the savagery which rendered the days leading up to the capture of Nanking hideous to one's memory. But it has so vital a bearing on the situation that some reference to the city's capture is necessary.

"The long-expected happened this morning at 7 a. m. ," said an American writer on December 2nd, "and the city is gone over. The first intimation that the end was near was Friday morning early. The previous night there had been very heavy fighting at Hsiakuan, Taiping Gate, and the South Gate, especially about the fort just outside the gate (Yu Hua Tai). General Chang, commanding the Imperialists, asked the co-operation of the foreigners in the city, the terms upon which he agreed to the surrender of the city being as follows:—

"1. No killing of the people in the city, or of the Manchus.

"2. No killing of his soldiers or officers.

"3. Safe conduct for himself out of the city on his way north via Pukow, together with his own men.

"These were rather staggering for our faith to propose to a victorious army which had its enemy demoralised, and most of the officers were only too willing to admit it. Furthermore, neither Chang Hsuin nor any one else knew who was in command of the rebels, nor where he might be found. However, arrangements were immediately made for our going out of the South Gate, and within half an hour we were off, Mr. Tseo, U. S. Vice-Consul Gilbert, and myself, together with four of the bodyguard of General Chang. We went through the South Gate just at twelve noon. The comparatively few loyal troops stationed on the South Gate, Tung Tsi Gate, Hung Wu Gate, and the Chao Yang Gate in turn sent word on ahead down the wall not to fire on us as we skirted the wall trying to find the rebel forces. We carried the American flag and also a white flag. A few of the thatched-roof houses along the way were burned, but few other signs of war could be seen. As we neared the Chao Yang Gate the shells being fired from the lower peak of Purple Mt. , apparently into the Imperial or Manchu city, whistled through the air, but far enough away to be only interesting. It was not till we got within sight of the Ming tombs that we could see the rebels, most of whom were on the top of the mountain, but we made for a small group on the lower foothills, and about two o'clock came up to them.

"A quiet, self-contained person seemed to be in charge of the group, and upon asking him where the general in command was, he replied that he was that person, so we were extremely fortunate, and stated our errand at once. The first two propositions were agreed to very readily, but of course the third was impossible. We then got his terms of surrender, which were:—

1. Chang Hsuin must surrender, but could live in any place in the city he chose, where his life would be fully protected until the final settlement of China's present difficulties.

2. All of his troops must lay down their arms in a certain drill-ground in the city, and come out of Taiping Gate empty-handed, and be permitted to depart one by one.

3. Government funds in the hands of the military authorities, amounting to about $800,000, must be turned over to the new Power.

4. The above terms must be complied with by eight o'clock on December 2nd—that is, the next morning.

"After a pleasant farewell we returned to General Chang's yamen, arriving about five p. m. The General positively refused to consider the terms, declaring that he would have to fight till death, and could not be persuaded to alter his mind. We told him that, such being the case, we felt no longer safe under his protection, and would ask for safe conduct out of the city, which was readily granted, and plans were made for those not absolutely needed for the Red Cross work to leave the city early the next morning. However, about ten o'clock, General Chang's secretary again came over, saying that the General with a number of his men had fled the city by the I Feng Gate and were to cross the river at Pukow and try to make their way northward. In about an hour we were able to confirm this rumour as fact, and so Dr. Macklin, who was personally well acquainted with the highest officer, who had not gone out with his General, and whose sentiments he knew, found out that he and his soldiers—about a thousand—were willing to run up the white flag at daylight, so we decided not to leave the city. About five o'clock Dr. Macklin with his officer went to the Taiping Gate, where they were soon joined also by the American Vice-Consul. The firing was quite heavy by this time, it having begun before daylight, but as soon as the white flag together with the American flag was seen the General sent a messenger down to see what it meant, and when he knew it was the peace representative of the day before and that the soldiers were willing to surrender, he was willing that the loyal officer with the Vice-Consul, Dr. Macklin, and Mr. Garrett come outside and arrange the details. This they did at once, and General Ling, the rebel leader, and General Chao, the one highest in command of the loyal troops in the city, stepped aside and made arrangements that were mutually satisfactory, the character of which was not fully divulged. General Chao then made his men stack arms, and they marched out empty-handed, and the laying down of arms of the remaining loyal troops had proceeded satisfactorily all day, judging by all appearances. It was not long before white flags were flying on Lion Hill forts, the Drum Tower, and many other places. The troops began to pour into the city and were detailed off to their respective stations according to previously arranged plans apparently, and the city began to rejoice after its long days of waiting and uncertainty. Occasional shots have been heard throughout the day, but probably nearly all of them are for the moral effect upon those inclined to take advantage of a possible confusion to-night to loot."

Any one entering Nanking the day after would never have known from the look of things that anything had happened. Most of the Revolutionary soldiers had entered the city. An extra large force of police were patrolling the streets; the people were going about their business as usual and perfect order prevailed. The Revolutionists, unmoved from Wuchang, had gained Nanking and lost Hanyang: the Imperialists had lost Nanking and had gained Hanyang. This was the position when peace was thought of. On the last day of November I was personally asked, as one representing the China Press of Shanghai, to publish the following statement to the world as embodying General Li Yuan Hung's wishes:—

"I desire an armistice in order to communicate with the other republican centres, that I may ascertain their views whether the conflict will be carried on or whether the Republicans will meet in conference with the constitutional monarchists to arrange a compromise.

"I myself have all along desired to put an end to the internecine warfare, the bloodshed and suffering, the destruction of property, and the dangers of foreign intervention.

"To this end I now declare my willingness to make any concession which will insure an end to the slaughter. My plan is to have the Republicans and the Government proclaim an armistice so that the issues can be discussed by proper representatives of both parties.

"If, however, the united Republicans of the nation desire the war to continue, I am willing to remain in the field and continue to the bitter end."

* * * * *

The issues were now, so it seemed, a Monarchical Government or a Republican Government—the Manchus, every one believed, had been eradicated for ever. And at this juncture it will give the reader a better idea of the political situation in Peking if I reproduce an official statement published a few days previous by Yuan Shih K'ai. It reads as follows:—

"China has, through centuries, been in a sense loosely governed. We have had what might be termed a crude or patriarchal form of monarchy, the slackness of the governing body resulting in the people developing little respect for government and very little understanding of the responsibilities of a people toward a government. The present agitation for a Republic has carried to the people as a mass only the idea that popular government means no taxes and no government. I can see in it, under existing conditions, no promise of stability, at least not for several tens of years. Among the progressives of the Empire there are now two schools of thought, one favouring a Republic and the other a constitutional monarchy. I doubt whether the people of China are at the present time ripe for a Republic or whether under present conditions a Republic is adapted to the Chinese people. The situation in China is complicated by a number of different factors perhaps not understood abroad.

"In the first place there still exists among the masses a strong sectional and provincial feeling. While this has undoubtedly died out among those educated on modern lines, still this is only a comparatively small element of the country's vast population. In considering the form of government to give stability it is necessary to consider the vast majority of the people rather than the small minority.

"It is already manifest that the interests of the different sections of the country are very diverse. We find the advocates of Republicanism splitting among themselves. The educational, army, local gentry, and commercial parties have all divergent views. Small groups are being formed and struggling for ascendancy. If that is permitted to develop on a large scale, there will be a split-up and this evidently will bring foreign interference and partition. Although the Manchu government has done nothing that has drawn to it the hearts of the people, yet with the power of the people restricted as provided by the nineteen articles forming the constitutional bill of rights, the real governing power would be in the hands of the people.

"The adoption of the limited monarchy would bring conditions back to the normal, would bring stability, much more rapidly than that end could be attained through any experimental form of government unsuited to the genius of the people or to conditions as they are found in China.

"My love for China and the Chinese people is certainly as great as that of any of those who are advocating the radical step of establishing a Republic. My sincerity in the cause of reform has been demonstrated. I have undertaken what is really a stupendous task, not through any desire for power, nor love of fame but solely in the hope of being able to restore order out of chaos and to do some good for China.

"I am still hopeful of reaching some compromise that will satisfy all elements of the people sincerely desirous of preserving the integrity of the country and restoring peace and stable government throughout the land. I believe the Chinese to be a reasonable people and that there is no desire on the part of any considerable element to see the country disrupted and destroyed. What I am working for is a compromise with the advanced or Republican party with a view to ending the suffering and removing the troubles and complications with which this country is beset and threatened.

"With regard to the character and magnitude of the 'independence' movements. I do not regard the situation to have been carried beyond the possibility of compromise. Governmental authority has, it is true, been overthrown in the capitals of most of the provinces and a few men in each have framed something similar to a declaration of independence, but this does not seem to me to imply absolute secession of these provinces. In most of these capitals, the control is in the hands of conservative citizens who are holding the situation on something like a neutral basis. Their object is primarily to keep down anarchy. They desire to preserve order, to protect life and the property of the people. While the more radical elements are insisting upon a republic the better elements seem to me to be neutral. I have favoured a project to gather together from the different provinces the men who enjoy the confidence of the people in order that there may be a thorough discussion of the great question of what the form of China's government shall be.

"I believe that question should be discussed sanely and soberly. It is too big a question to be discussed in heat and passion.

"My only reason in favouring the retention of the present Emperor is that I believe in a constitutional monarchy. If we are to have that form of government, there is nobody else whom the people would agree upon for his place.

"Of course the reforms wiping out the distinctions between Chinese and Manchus must be made effective in any event.

"The great question, the overshadowing question, is the preservation of China. To accomplish this end all patriots should be willing to sacrifice secondary considerations of policy and of course all considerations of self. My sole aim in this crisis is to save China from Dissolution and the many evils that would follow. If we are to save China there must be a stable Government and at once. Every day's delay is dangerous. I hope the same progressive thought of the country will see this, and will co-operate with me to secure the all-important end.

"The task I have undertaken is as thankless as it is stupendous. I am being subjected to misrepresentation, criticism, attack from all sides. This is to be expected. I must stand it.

"But I do not intend to let it swerve me from my endeavour to do what I conceive to be my highest duty, which is to labour solely for the end of preserving China from disruption and from dissolution."

But about this time it was fortunate that the start of peace came, as a surprise to us all. Before Hanyang fell Yuan Shih K'ai had been endeavouring—so it was reported from Peking—to get peace talk started. He was afraid of what was coming.

December 4th should be the day upon which the historian of the Revolution will fix as the most important moment in the whole of this war. For at 8 a. m. a truce for three days commenced, and high authority on both sides stated that both Imperialists and Revolutionists hoped strongly that the lull of fighting would be productive of definite terms of peace. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, till eight o'clock in the morning—after then, what? And seeing that in China no thinking person is foolish enough to think himself a prophet, even of the most truly expected, it seems that to give a general idea of the situation at the front at this time would be perhaps the best that one can do. During these days I had several conversations with high officers in both camps, and was perhaps better informed on the possibilities than most folk, but from the first I made up my mind that a great surprise awaited me if the peace talk were successful. I was frequently in the camps of both parties. As for the Revolutionary party, there was hardly any camp left, if buildings made it. For a large fire at the Provincial Assembly Hall had pretty well ruined that magnificent edifice, and General Li Yuan Hung and his bewildered associates shifted their offices to a smaller and more sheltered spot in Wuchang. But it was very little use going to them for information, for they themselves were wondering what the victors intended to do. They themselves had made full arrangements for clearing out, had very little hope that Wuchang would be saved, believed that Yuan's army would now sweep them up, and so had but scant belief in the sincerity of Yuan Shih K'ai in calling for peace.

THE UBIQUITOUS BOY.
The last to leave the Sing Seng Road when the Imperialists
took possession was a boy, who coolly blazed off all his
ammunition. The first to return was the small boy—in
search of fun or treasure.

One morning I called at the office, just below the Tachimen Railway Station, to interview the secretary of Yuan—a Mr. Wong Kai Wen—who had full administrative control here. To be in the presence of Mr. Wong is to be with a man who makes you feel his deep thoroughness. His essential alertness holds you. His deep, penetrating eyes look at the thing and take in the vital parts at a glance. He is acute, not to be deceived; frankness, touched with a little Chinese sleekness, looks you straight in the eyes when he speaks to you, and altogether the man Yuan chose to wait behind and direct affairs at this end magnificently fills the bill. About him there were no signs of the military. He knows practically nothing about the way to lead an army into battle, but not a single thing of official note passed him. He looked just like a respectable member of the teacher community. His long dark-blue wadded gown and his ordinary round hat, Chinese shoes and socks, his small queue, his slender moustache, which he thoughtfully pulled at when he talked to me—all these and many other characteristics told me that he was typically Chinese. There was nothing foreign about him in appearance. The things he used were Chinese exclusively. In short, he was a polished Chinese gentleman. But when he addressed me he spoke magnificent English—knows English etiquette as we know it ourselves. These were the rough impressions I got of the man when I found him in a little back room of a private house near to the Imperial base just after Hanyang had been captured.

About him there were many hangers-on. With the military camp not a hundred feet away there was intense excitement, which every one in front of the foreigner was vainly attempting to subdue. Men came in with messages, and were quietly turned aside. Wong rose several times from his chair as he spoke with me, and hurriedly went to listen to some spies who had a story to tell him. 'Twas all hurry, all was organised capitally and worked smoothly, for there were many men on hand. Along the lines carriages of ammunition were going out towards Hanyang. From Hanyang captured carriages were coming, all tied low down with tarpaulins so that nobody could see. Meantime, there was a rumour in the camp that Yuan had been assassinated, and that the parties were talking peace. And here was Mr. Wong, Yuan's secretary, reading his dispatches and carrying out his wishes.

Most ardent preparations for further fighting counterbalanced the peace suggestions. Was there to be any more fighting? Ah, who knew? It was not wise to talk of such things. All this was exceptionally difficult business that Chinese should fight Chinese. But who could bring forward any way out of it. No; from Mr. Wong Kai Wen there was no news to be got, but he let drop little things that led one immediately to believe that Yuan's party were not in for talking peace. They had taken Hanyang, they would soon, so it appeared, have Wuchang, and that would make the Revolutionary cause lost altogether.

This was the impression which the Imperial camp gave to me. Then I went over to the Revolutionary camp, finding that both factions had many palpable differences. To go into General Li Yuan Hung's offices was to enter a semi-Occidentalised yamen. The staff were dressed in European clothes, they had no queues, their hats were mostly American felts, they talked English more or less, many of them had been trained in American universities. They treated you in an Occidental manner, told you their plans frankly, and one could feel that they were to be believed. They knew and they confessed that the military cause here was gone, but when I questioned them as to the ultimate issue of the Revolution they proudly pointed to certain epochs of history in my own country and asked me whether I thought it possible that the country could ever be again what it had been. The anti-foreignism of the north and the massacring of the foreigners at Sianfu in Shensi they deplored sincerely, and felt that it was in the banditti and the hooliganism in the Empire that they had a problem difficult of satisfactory solution.

I felt the sincerity of those men. Their enthusiasm got into me, I felt that they were a band of young reformers whose only fault lay, not in their ability, not in their determination, not in their belief in how things should be done, but in their little lack of stability and lack of unity. They believed that China must now change, and that the change would not be the kind of change that the Manchu Government would have brought in, but a real reform that would raise the masses of the people and bring China out into the foreground of the world. And as I spoke to those men I felt it, too. But there was one failing, that slight lack of stability. They needed leaders. Not for one moment wishing to minimise the extraordinary powers of calm foresight and sound administrative ability of General Li Yuan Hung, which had kept the whole party together during its most trying times of defeat, the Revolutionary party needed leaders who had been in the business before. They were all apprentices in the art of administrative and national rebuilding, and they needed a few master-men to guide them in their political journeyings. If they failed, however, it was not because they did not wish to do the right thing, not because they did not know how to do it; but because of the lack of downright practical experience; they were not able to give to current events their current bearing upon their one mutual aim.

Here they were, a strong man at the head of them, and all looking confidently towards him, like a lot of schoolboys with a teacher to whom they looked for everything. Immediately after Hanyang fell, the Wuchang party were scared for fear the city would be bombarded and they lose their heads. Within forty-eight hours, however, they had regained their courage. On November 30th, when I went over the river, as my boat pulled into mid-stream, the boatman told me blandly that he should expect at least treble rates, as he ran a great risk in coming at all—the Imperialists were sniping at every boat, he told me, and he felt it was only wise and fair to let me know. Just as he spoke I heard a bullet whizz past me. In a couple of minutes the big gun from Wuchang sent a shell away over my head, which drew fire from a field-piece in the unskilled hands of a very poor gunner on the Hankow side, the shell of which dropped noiselessly into the water a few yards in front of my little boat. Once on the other side, however, there was no further fear from firing. Rumours had been flying round to the effect that Wuchang was being evacuated, and, although on the river-banks people were building their boats and mending their nets as usual, it did not take the mind of a Spencer to take in the remarkable change that had so soon come over the city since the fall of Hanyang. A week previous I had been to Wuchang and was impressed everywhere with the doing and driving of every one in the streets and in the shops, with briskness of trade, and the cocksureness of the people. With their queues discarded they were then doing a roaring trade in small cloth and silk caps, made after a foreign pattern, which they wore proudly in defiance to the little round Manchu hat. These caps were met with at every turn, hung on nails in the wall above the street-vendors' stall; they were fetching as much as seventy cents apiece. To-day they could be had for twenty. Men who had made their purchases now laid aside the foreign article and fell back to the round hat with the little red knob on the summit. In the streets half the shops were closed, the other half doing a little trade and meanwhile preparing to take away most of the valuable stocks. Huge loads were standing outside the doors ready to be taken away as soon as the busy coolie gangs had time to attend to them; old men and women, carrying all their belongings in small baskets, were tiao-ing as hard as they could go; through the gates, now no longer guarded by a cocksure squad of military, but thrown wide open, came the constant hurrying stream of urban residents, who now were removing to the country. In China at such times as this one is held almost awestruck with the manner in which people clear out. Homes which perhaps had been held together for many generations were being evacuated in a couple of hours—the old father and the old mother took the children, the sons shouldered the heavy family furniture, the wives hobbled along behind with the babies, and altogether they silently went out of the city in a mournful procession. They hardly knew where they were going, but in the city trouble was brewing, and they were taking no risks of being shelled or burned out of their little hovels as had been done to thousands of their race over the river at Hankow.

As I went into the city I must have passed five thousand people—mostly in little processions of sixes and sevens, wending their way through the gates out of range of the fire of guns. I could not help but look upon them in pity, for disappointment was writ large upon their faces. They were some of the great percentage of the Chinese proletariat who delight to go with the crowd, like to shout with the majority. A fortnight earlier the Wuchang Republican party was on the top, was commanding all that came before it, and therefore did the thousands of the non-thinking portion of the community of the capital city delight in being loyal supporters. But now the tide for the time seemed to have turned, they were being bandied about from pillar to post daily, calamity after calamity seemed woefully to overtake them, and they almost wished, as they followed each slowly behind the other in common evacuation, that they had hesitated before plumping for the Revolutionaries. Tea-shops were almost deserted, rice-shops did no business, one felt that the military activity was greatly bluff. Wuchang had suddenly become a forlorn city, and the inhabitants disappointed people. Outside the Assembly Hall the revolutionary flags flapped in the wind, and there was little evidence that the conditions of affairs inside had altered very much, but as I walked up the steps, showed my card, and asked to see the General the staff officers looked askance at me, asked each other whether I was of German nationality, and told me that for some considerable time it would be quite impossible to see General Li. As I moved about the offices, however, I confess to some admiration at the way in which, under all their adverse circumstances and the consequent disappointment which the re-taking of Hanyang must have been to them all, the officers were going about their work with a quiet dignity and assurance that they were working on a thing that was not soon to pass away. One of the young fellows, a man of some four-and-twenty, who one could easily see had been educated in the States, told me that they, were all as confident as could be that their present position was as strong as ever it was.

"The taking of Hanyang," he told me, "is decidedly unfortunate, but we are making a new nation, a new country—we are not fighting military battles any more. There is now no further need for the killing of men. We are more concerned with the laying down of a new Government, and are desirous of having peace. Yuan Shih K'ai"—and here he paid a fitting tribute to Yuan's power, although he was not bewilderingly eulogistic of his political squareness—"does not want to fight, so he says. If he is true, why does he not withdraw his army at once and let there be peace? What we shall do now is to retire down towards Shanghai, where we shall probably hold our first delegates' meeting for the establishment of the Provisional Government, and by so doing we shall show to the world that we are by no means anxious to win our cause by killing our own countrymen. If he wishes to fight, all the world will know now that it is not merely because we are the Revolutionary party, but because he will still be the aggressor. Our policy of evacuating this city is because we feel it wise to do so, so that fighting may cease, and it is indirectly an appeal to the world on behalf of humanity—for it takes two to make a fight."

But this was very far-fetched, for the Revolutionists were equally keen to show that they had no intention of throwing up the sponge. Nanking's success subsequently had the effect of firing them with the fighting spirit again, and the fact that the Nanking troops were expected to arrive at Wuchang—although this turned out subsequently to be false—gave a new fillip of enthusiasm to the people. "They are not the new men, the recruits, they are the real trained soldiers," cried the man-in-the-street, "as good as the best that go to make up the Northern Army." The news spread rapidly from mouth to mouth, and the already excited soldiers showed increased anxiety because it was feared in their ranks that the rival leaders would so far be successful in their talk about peace that no further fighting would take place.

But no one could get any definite news of how much nearer we were to peace. Meantime at Hanyang and on the Yangtsze above and below that town strongest fortifications were being made. That Hanyang was the stronghold only a visit was needed to convince one; this, however, was difficult, for only the very privileged were afforded passes to go across the river. Things were buzzing at Hanyang; the Imperialist troops were itching for another battle, the whole place was fitted up in a most complete manner for further warfare, the Tortoise Hill was rendered absolutely impregnable, the camps were connected with both telephone and telegraph, and the Imperial army was going about its business as a body who understood thoroughly the business it was following.

Whatever they may have thought they could do, however, military experts declared that the Revolutionists had no position at all as long as the Imperial guns at Hanyang were able to pour shrapnel into them. With the railway cut off, the supplies of the Imperial forces would of course be cut off too, and in that way the Revolutionists would perhaps have been able to besiege them at Hanyang; but it would have been infinitely tedious. The cruisers, even if they had had ammunition, would under existing circumstances have been of little use. The four-point-seven guns at Hanyang would, with such decided advantage in being able to bang at them from a point where their own guns could not even been seen, have been able to silence them in a very short time. The damage that the Revolutionary guns would have caused to Hanyang would have been infinitesimal, and altogether the Imperial army would have held the trump card all the way along. On the face of things, it appeared little short of sheer madness for the Revolutionists to think of fighting so long as Hanyang were made the main Imperial base. But the Revolutionists themselves did not think so lightly of their chances. They were determined, and among the rank and file the war fever blinded the sight to all possibilities of defeat.

Sufficient has been said, perhaps, to show that further fighting would only take place to gratify the lust for blood of some of the grossly misguided leaders of the rival armies. Among the Republican leaders—General Li Yuan Hung and his party, as distinct from the military officers—the desire that war should forthwith cease was, I believe, absolutely sincere. General Li Yuan Hung had shown the world that what he said he meant: one could not point to a single public utterance from him and find that he had not done all that lay in his power consistently towards working out his promises. Li Yuan Hung was a man of political solidarity—not brilliant, but solid, sound, having an opinion and fearing no one in stating clearly and openly that opinion. Not in one thing, but in dozens throughout this dreadful season of disturbance he had shown that if he failed in carrying out what he said he meant to carry out, it had not been because of any inconsistency of his own so much as of treachery among his army and instability among members of his party. He had announced frankly all along what he wanted, and what he would be prepared to pay for realising sooner or later.

He now stated that he wanted peace—peace at all costs; to re-establish peace and to ensure that the fearful bloodshed should stop, he was prepared to make concessions. The general conduct of Li Yuan Hung, unmarred as it had been by any unharmonious note with other members of his party and marked throughout by a stability of purpose which had surprised the whole world, had been such that his promises could be relied upon. He had shown sufficient of himself to warrant respect from all, friends and enemies alike, for he had acted cleanly. And now he wanted peace.

Meantime many of the most influential foreigners in Hankow were doing all they could to assist in the bringing in of peace. Merchants, missionaries, officials, and others were all anxious to assist with their influence for peace, and if war, with all its carnage and bloodshed and savagery, were again to come to menace this central part of China, it would come only as a direct desire from the Imperial army and with far greater horrors than had yet been seen.

If further war were to come? So much had been seen during the past eight slow-moving weeks to show what devastation and utter social wretchedness could be wrought when men elect to settle their differences by force of arms. The killing of men, the burning of property—these are brutal features, but not the worst by any means. By the side of the horrors that come along in the wake of these ghastly battles, these are barely worth consideration. The slain are, after all, out of the misery they have helped to make. It is those who remain behind—those widows with the hungry, half-clad or naked children, homeless, foodless, friendless, with no roof above them at night but the cold, steely sky—these are the ones who suffer. The whole countryside, with its homeless and foodless people, its ruined, burnt-out hamlets and family homesteads, its ruined rice-crops, its cruel waste so wantonly forced upon it by the Imperialists, cried aloud in its weary desolation for peace. If the war were stopped, one thought that the bloody struggles of the past few weeks would become powerful agents of civilisation, reshaping and remoulding the Old China into a new land and a new people. But further war in that sad, sad country would tend only to make the passions of the armies wax fiercer and the hatreds more bitter.

Peace negotiations meantime hung in the balance. A fifteen-day armistice was agreed to, and by that time it was hoped that the Peace Conference would bring matters finally to a peaceful end.

* * * * *

His Excellency Tang Shao-yi is a magnificent fellow. He is calm, an infinitely human man, kindly disposed, easily approached, had borne a character that was clean. When he was appointed as plenipotentiary to the Peace Conference for Yuan Shih K'ai, the Revolutionists were pleased because Tang Shao-yi was known to be a man of extremely liberal views, sound, and not unsympathetic towards real reform. He had spent some considerable time abroad, and, coming with full power from Yuan Shih K'ai, was hailed with a good deal of pomp when he came to Hankow. In the British Municipal Building Tang Shao-yi had a suite of rooms, and rested in Hankow for a couple of days before going down to Shanghai, where, with mutual consent, the Peace Conference was to be held.

It must be made known that, as soon as Hanyang fell, Dr. Wu Ting Fang, than whom is no better-known Chinese diplomat in the world, assumed a very prominent position in the ambitious Republican party. Dr. Wu Ting Fang was generally recognised to be the best man suited to carry on peace negotiations from the Revolutionary party, and he, with several secretaries and advisers, met Tang Shao-yi and his advisers in Shanghai on December 18, 1911. This conference was looked upon throughout the civilised world as an epoch-making event: it was to be a red-letter day in future histories. "Peace, peace," ran the legend. Not only was one-quarter of the human race, and all that country and honour and liberty mean to them, immediately involved, but if one had the true prophetic eye he was able to look out upon a change whose effects would spread to the uttermost parts of the civilised globe. The effects of this Peace Conference then about to shape the future of this wonderful land were looked upon as immeasurable, illimitable. Dr. Wu Ting Fang, General Li Yuan Hung, able leaders of a movement shaking Chinese life to its vitals, on the one hand; Tang Shao-yi, Yuan Shih K'ai, representatives of the oldest faction of the whole human race, on the other hand—upon these men rested a world-wide responsibility it has seldom fallen to the lot of men to have had placed upon them.

"Peace, peace; at all costs let us have peace." So, sincerely as it seemed, cried both parties. That both sides were in earnest there is every reason to believe. Those who knew General Li Yuan Hung, the youngest hero of the world, were able more and more to testify with increasing knowledge of the man that he wished nothing more than that China should be freed from the Manchu yoke. All else he would forego to establish peace that should bring prosperity, a peace that should be permanent and knit the whole Empire together as nothing else could. Those who knew Dr. Wu Ting Fang realised that, as an able leader of modern thought and that party whose aim is progress, he was sincere in all that he did to bring about a China enlightened and able to stand in line with nations of the East and West. Tang Shao-yi was a man whose innate sincerity and true humility in high places had won the confidence of all who knew him. He was, as always he had been, veritably a political prince of peace. He loved his country.

And finally Yuan Shih K'ai. All knew him or of him. Some praised him, but it was a penalty of his greatness that some anathematised him. China to him also was as dear as his fame or his life. There were two pictures: a dawn of peace and tranquillity, a China freed from all racial bitterness, a China plunging manfully out and in her plunge being assisted by all the Powers of the world; the other picture shows a China going down to the deeps of internal despair, renewed hostilities, further bloodshed. And all those who knew what the war had been, those who had seen those twelve thousand mothers' sons hacked and hewn and blown into eternity by infuriated members of their own great race entertained merely one common hope.

I went down to Shanghai and remained in that city whilst the Peace Conference was in progress. To go from the scene of action in Central China to Shanghai was to pass at one stroke from the din of war to the tranquillity of peace and undisturbed civilisation. Hard indeed was it for any one who had been through the crisis in Hankow actually to realise the peace of China's great metropolis—the contrast was so enormous as to force it upon one's imagination that the war was over, that peace assuredly had come. One missed the cannonading, the utter devastation and universal suffering, the burnt-out hamlets and the homeless thousands all over the countryside.

Tang Shao-yi, when he called upon Li Yuan Hung, was reported to have been very surprised at the meagre following that still stood by the Revolutionary leader—of course, several delegates had already left for Shanghai, and he predicted that it would be only a matter of time when we should see the Republicans forced in the very nature of things to take the monarchical course. That General Li Yuan Hung and his supporters had been willing to sink their personal ambitions on behalf of the general welfare of the country had again and again been declared by their leader in the press and by other means. But Tang Shao-yi seemed, when I interviewed him in Hankow just before he sailed for Shanghai, to believe that this was mere Chinese bluff; he declared that they had no other course, and that they did this because they foresaw that their popularity soon would be greatly diminished when the gilt from the official gingerbread had rubbed off.

In the Hankow neighbourhood there were thousands who had no food to eat, no clothes, who had no idea of how they were going to keep body and soul intact during the coming winter, and some of the older conservative school were beginning to question whether it was, after all, worth the candle, and whether it would have been better to have gone in the same old way, bad as that had been. The result of the war in which they took so lively an interest was coming upon them as a horrible nightmare, and I am of the opinion that, although they were as much passively in favour of reform as they had been, four-fifths of the people were horribly tired of waiting for the good times which then seemed farther off than ever. All this was depressing to Tang, coming among it for the first time. But Tang Shao-yi was most generous in his references to General Li Yuan Hung. He thought that the zeal, the disinterestedness, and the abilities with which Li Yuan Hung had carried out so successfully the general principles of the Revolution, the persecution he had suffered and the ignominy that his army had brought to him, and the firmness and independence that he had shown under all circumstances should have had a strong claim upon the sympathies of all people. But the great preponderance of the common people, those who had been hit hardest in the burning of their homes and the loss of all they possessed, were inevitably downcast and wished that it would all pass away and bring anything else so long as peace came with it. Therefore, all looked eagerly to the peace delegates. It was a season most trying to the Revolutionary party, for they were all waiting to see what the outcome of the negotiations would be; and this lull allowed of a little respite for talk. One department at Wuchang was suspected of taking away the power from another, one man from another; some thought that it would be better for General Li to go away and talk peace, whilst others declared that he could not get away because the party would not let him.

Tang Shao Yi, however, would not talk much about the general situation. He told me that he knew very little, that I should know much more than he of what had happened, and would be able to make a fairly good bid as to what would happen in the immediate future, and in spite of the fact that he was Yuan Shih K'ai's chief peace delegate he could not tell what was in Yuan's mind. "And you see," he continued softly, "both sides are now so earnestly seeking for peace that it seems to me that there should not be much trouble about a complete settlement. We realise that they [referring to the Wuchang party] are so strong that we shall have to concede a good deal. There surely cannot be any more war, and if every one means what he says and is prepared to do his best for the best common interests, I think we shall soon complete the Peace Conference."

Tang Shao Yi then looked into the fire. For some time neither of us spoke. He held his rheumatic-stricken arm under his fur gown, then looked up and switched off from political theorising to small talk.

The Revolutionary delegates, when this Peace Conference was arranged, were in a frame of mind determined not to give way. A criterion of their attitude and aims for the Conference may be drawn from the following interview I was privileged to secure as I travelled down-river to Shanghai on board the same steamer with three of General Li Yuan Hung's delegates. The chief man was one Hu Ying, whose main statement was as follows:—

"Our attitude towards Yuan Shih K'ai is summed up in a single sentence. If he obstinately upholds the Manchu Dynasty against the wishes of the people, then he is doomed for ever. He may succeed in overriding the wishes of the people for awhile, but no single man, however able, will be able to stand in the way of the people.

"We do not wish this to be a fight with arms. We know that it would take a good deal of time for us to be able to stand man for man with the Imperial Army, but we know that we have half the world at our back."

Now, Mr. Hu Ying, this same man, some years ago narrowly escaped losing his head for being mixed up in an alleged Revolutionary escapade that cost his more enthusiastic confederate his head. He was the President of the Foreign Office of the Hupeh Government when I interviewed him. He was a man who to a very large extent had been the prime mover in the Republican dream of the future. For many years a strong Revolutionist, he had, however, been called upon to study the arts of Revolutionism in prison. For when the Revolution broke out he was still behind the prison bars in Wuchang, and under normal conditions would have passed the remainder of a miserable life dreaming of the great reforms he now hoped to help forward. He was a man who incontestably had the confidence of Li Yuan Hung. Mr. Hu was only one of a number of delegates sent down to join with Dr. Wu Ting Fang in upholding the Republican side of the argument against Tang Shao Yi and his assistants. They all represented General Li Yuan Hung and thoroughly understood his ideas. Mr. Hu and another of the delegates—a Mr. C. T. Wang, who was a graduate of an American University and in China held the responsible position of the National Secretaryship of the Y. M. C. A. in China—were chosen to assist Dr. Wu by representatives of the various Revolutionary provinces represented at Wuchang. Hu Ying was a short, rather stout Chinese, who told me frankly that he felt fearfully out of it because he could not speak my foreign words, and a man who would never be taken seriously at first sight as one capable of shaping the foreign policy of the Chinese Empire. As a matter of fact, he was nervous with foreigners—it may be, of course, that his long term in prison had made him so—and looked up rather timidly over the steel rims of his glasses as he spoke. He laughed with buoyant candour over his own jokes, and was somewhat of a caricature in his foreign felt hat that was the only sign about him that he had ambitions for Occidentalising his country.

This hat was worn far back over his head in much the same way as he had been used to wearing the little round one; his glasses were tilted forward considerably on his little squat nose, his uneven teeth did not tend to enhance his personal beauty, and as one looked down upon him the only item in his general appearance that came in for admiration were his exquisitely furred silk gowns. 'Twas cold, so he wore three of them, the top one a brilliant flowered blue. He was also a little short-sighted, had a slight stoop, endeavoured vainly to grow a moustache, had a queueless head of outrageously unkempt hair, and did not look a statesman. But he was one. In those jet-black eyes one could often see the fire of unquenchable enthusiasm as he spoke of the possibilities of his own country. He was, perhaps, what one would be justified in calling a typical Revolutionist. There was a cut about them all that was non-Chinese, and yet at heart, in word, and thought, they themselves were essentially Chinese. Perhaps this was not so striking at Shanghai and other places on the coast, but one could tell in the Wuchang centre at a glance those who were rampant Revolutionists; the foreign cap worn on the rough, queueless head, the foreign boot, the alleged foreign coat sometimes and other desiderata of clothing, neither foreign nor Chinese, which had become sadly out of joint—these were the undeniable characteristics.

"Of course, you have been a Revolutionary for some years, have you not?" I asked Hu Ying.

Well, yes, he had. Some years ago—and he looked half-ashamedly at me, as if he were not quite sure whether it were now a fit subject for review—a very dear friend of his had been beheaded, and he had expected to be, for being rather outspoken and acting daringly along the direct line of their thought in regard to the way in which their country should progress. His references to prison life were not enthusiastic, although for sheer helplessness he laughed heartily now and again during the conversation as he recalled certain epochs of his years in gaol. He thought it most unjust, of course, and now that he was out and had been entrusted with the responsible duties of partly moulding the foreign policy of a New China, he saw plainly that his duty lay in working as hard as he could—and this, he informed me, he fully intended doing. The man who had lost his head would have been a good man, too, just at this juncture, but the poor fellow, a master in the Boone University in his time, had now paid the price with his head.

"And I think that every man in China who believes in his country and his own race can be nothing else than a Revolutionist—we are reformers rather, and no matter whether we belong to the Republican party, the Monarchical party, or any other party, if we love our country as we should, we must all be Revolutionists."

His ensuing references to the Manchurian Dynasty, not bubbling over with praise, could have no purpose were they printed here, save to show how great was the hatred of the Wuchang party towards the old rulers of China. During the conversation he referred to his companion, Mr. Sun Fa Shu, a portly, aristocratic gentleman dressed immaculately in latest foreign fashion—a long green tweed overcoat, a slouch cloth hat, gloves, walking-stick, and all the rest of it.

Mr. Sun all along had been the right-hand man of General Li Yuan Hung. Nothing happened in the Revolutionary court without Mr. Sun's knowledge. He it was who framed all the Revolutionary edicts that had awakened the world, and was looked upon as the scholar of the camp. To his finger-tips he was an aristocrat. He spoke low and slowly, thoughtfully always, gave little gestures now and again to add to his meaning and to make it clear in Chinese, and showed great approbation when we caught the drift of his argument. Both these men in their conversation were charitable to every member of the Government, eulogistic of some, and would not have me for a moment believe that they wished to say anything wrong about any one. They were, they said, merely telling me truthfully what they thought. I referred to the length of time negotiations would take, and suggested that people would tire of waiting for the good times supposed to be coming. Did they think that the great bulk of the common people of China actually understood what the issues were?

Mr. Sun, with his gold-rimmed spectacles shining in the sunlight, looked from my feet straight into my eyes. He spoke with low emphasis. "There is, perhaps, no other nation in the world," he began, "that loves peace and is so good-natured and patient as the Chinese. Yet when they are provoked they strike back with vigour. The Manchu arrogance and corruption are things which very few nations could bear. That we have borne them for over two hundred years shows our patience, but"—and he raised his delicate finger with a slight shake to show his feeling on the point—"to everything there is a limit. The blow has now been struck, and the hundreds and thousands of patriots in China will never lay down their arms until the Manchu Dynasty is wiped out of existence and the Chinese once more manage their own affairs and in their own way." Here he stopped, turned slightly in the indignation which his own thoughts gave him, and remained looking at his companion, who said nothing.

"But if the Manchu Dynasty has done some harm, surely you must admit that it has taught the people, no matter in what way, how to preserve peace and to love it?" I asked perseveringly.

"Much of the backwardness of the Chinese nation, as a nation," retorted Sun Fa Shu, "has been due largely to the misrule of the Manchu Dynasty. Everybody knows it. Everybody admits it. Its first principle has been how to keep the people of China as ignorant and as poor as possible. For knowledge and wealth, when acquired by the Chinese, cannot but impair the supremacy of the Manchus, which has been maintained, like highway robbery, by sheer force. A China emancipated, therefore, means a China prosperous and enlightened. Except one or two nations whose principles are not above those of the Manchus, and who delight in land-grabbing and carnage of warfare, we feel sure that the world desires China to be a progressive and enlightened country."

"But do you think the Revolutionary party, as it is, strong enough to establish conditions which shall permanently make for peace and real progress?"

At this point Mr. Hu Ying spoke. He said that he was convinced that they could, and if at first they could not institute ideal conditions, they would if they were given time. "The Anglo-Saxons," he continued, "have taught the world the great lesson of government by representation—the Revolutionary movement aims at what they have shown us. We aim at the overthrow of a decadent Court, and the establishment of a Government which shall respond to the will of the people. In the endeavour to bring about such a representative government, Young China, we know full well, has much to learn. But it has been conceded by all people that there is no school so efficient as the——"

Hu Ying was waiting for a word when the third delegate, a graduate from one of the American universities and an ardent enthusiast in the New Government, gave the translation as "the school of experience, the school of 'hard knocks,'" and thereby caused a smile.

"And," went on Hu, "let us have a chance to learn, and in a decade or two the world shall see the possibilities and genius of our people for representative government."

"What do you consider the main point upon which the two parties will have difficulty in seeing eye to eye about at the Peace Conference?" I asked of the three.

Simultaneously they spoke, and then the two gave way to Sun Fa Hsu. With fitting dignity he replied that the one solitary point which the Revolutionists would never waive was their demand for the abolition of the Manchu Dynasty. And so these three representatives of the Revolutionary party of Wuchang were of one determined mind upon this vital question; their party would waive anything else, perhaps, but not that. They were immovable. I suggested that perhaps if peace terms could not be arranged they might be forced to give way even on this point also. But they said they would not; "No, if there must be Manchu rule again, then we must again go to war, much as we do not wish to. And there are thousands who will die before they again submit.

"When that point is settled," said Sun Fa Hsu with some vigour, "then all other points can easily be adjusted. Upon that alone everything hinges. We are fighting for the freedom of our people from the Manchu yoke."

"Do you in Wuchang still hold out so strongly for the Republican form of government as you did? I know that General Li Yuan Hung is anxious for a Republic, but do you think there are many who would rather see a Republic than anything else?"

"Whether we should have a Constitutional Monarchy or a Republic we are prepared to leave with the people. What they want we want, and we are prepared to leave the matter for a decision by the vote of the people. For our part, we advocate a Republican form of government, as the Chinese are democratic in their nature and their habits. Even under an absolute monarch careful observers of the Chinese political tendency have remarked that the Chinese Government is a democracy superseded by a monarchy. In other words, the Imperial rule has not been a natural outgrowth of the political habits of the Chinese people, but has been allowed to exist simply because no better substitute has been found. We think we have now found the substitute. It is in a president who is responsible to the people, and yet who, at times when emergency demands, could wield powers greater even than those exercised by a king or an emperor."

"Do you think that Yuan Shih K'ai will be the first President?"

Mr. Sun did not speak for some time. He waited for me to ask the question a second time, and even then did not seem inclined to commit himself. At length he replied:—

"I do not know. Our attitude to Yuan Shih K'ai may be summed up in a single sentence. If he obstinately upholds the Manchu Dynasty against the wishes of the people, then he is doomed for ever. He may succeed in overriding the wishes of the people for a while, but no single man, however able, will be allowed to stand in the way of the people. On the other hand, the opportunity now presents itself for Yuan Shih K'ai to earn the everlasting gratitude of the nation in yielding to their wishes in putting an end to the Manchu Dynasty once and for all. If he does this, Yuan Shih K'ai will show himself a wise man. We know that it would take some time for us to stand man for man with the Imperial Army, but we have half a world at our back."

DR. WU TING-FANG.
Minister of Law in the new Republic.

The above sentiments may be taken as a fair example of the views held by the Revolutionary leaders on the point of meeting at the Peace Conference. These men, hitherto unknown to the world—always excepting men of the stamp of Wu Ting Fang and Tang Shao-yi—were now making history on a gigantic scale, reformers who had just sprung into being as it seemed, but whose whole past bore testimony to the manner in which they had been working for China's great era of reform and progress.

* * * * *

In the following chapter will be found a résumé of the Peace Conference, unsatisfactory as it was in most respects.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PEACE CONFERENCE—A MONARCHY OR A REPUBLIC?

The Peace Conference met at Shanghai on December 18th.

Dr. Wu Ting Fang, who was the Chief Commissioner on the Revolutionist side, is well known. He was educated in Hongkong, and afterwards qualified for the Bar in England. He practised in Hongkong for a little time, and also acted as Police Magistrate. Later on he joined the Chinese Government service under the late Marquis Li Hung-chang. He became Minister to the United States, Spain, and Peru in 1896, and was appointed Vice-President of the Board of Commerce and then of the Waiwupu in Peking. In 1906 he became Vice-President of the Board of Punishments, and was engaged in revising the Chinese code of laws. He retired in that year, and in 1907 went to the United States a second time to represent China as Envoy. He is a firm believer in rational diet. He originated and was made President of the Rational Diet Society and anti-Tobacco Movement in Shanghai, which became very popular.

Of the Revolutionary delegates, Wen Tsung-yao also hailed from Hongkong, and was educated in the Government Central School in that colony over twenty years ago. After that he was engaged in the Peiyang University in Tientsin. From 1905 to 1908 he went to Canton as Secretary to ex-Viceroy Tsen Chuan-hsuan, and in June, 1908, he was appointed to Lhassa as Assistant-Amban, and was removed from office after the ex-Dalai Lama was deposed by Edict. Wang Chung-hui is a Cantonese student who graduated from college in America. He also studied in Europe, and is versed in law. Wang Chao-ming is celebrated for his attempt to assassinate the ex-Prince Regent, for which offence he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released when the recent pardon was granted to all reformers and political offenders. Wang Cheng-ting, who is a returned student from the United States, and Hu Ying are delegates appointed by General Li Yuan Hung.

                #Tang              Wu                 Shao-yi         Ting-Fang*             +------------------------------+   #Er Kuan  |      o                o      | Wen   Chan.                 | o                          o | Tseng Yao.                 *             |                              |   #Hsu      |                              | Wang   Ting Lin.                 | o                          o | Chou Wei.                 *             |                              |   #Chao     |                              | Wang   Chun Ni.                 | o                          o | Chow Ning*             |                              |   #Feng     |                              | New   Ih Tung.                 | o                          o | Yung Kee.                 *             |               o              |             +------------------------------+                      Wang Chen Ting.                 *  * Republicans.                 #Imperialists.                  

Up to the time my manuscript went forward to the publishers I was unable to get any special information regarding the Imperial delegates. Of Tang Shao-yi, however, much is known. He had played many an important part on the political platform of his country, and was, undoubtedly, a man calculated safely to direct the affairs of the Imperial side into safe channels. At the time he was appointed to represent Yuan Shih K'ai he occupied an important position, and, because he had had a career most successful as a diplomat, was chosen as the man of all the men the Imperial body were able to secure as most likely to commit no political errors. Tang Shao-yi is one of the ablest statesmen in China to-day.

The table at the Conference was arranged as on opposite page.

For more than four hours these two Cantonese—Wu and Tang—with their colleagues, held secret conference in the Town Hall of Shanghai, with the object of deciding on terms of peace which were expected to involve a decision as to the future form of government in China. At the end of the session the following statement, initialed by both commissioners, was handed out as a memorandum of the happenings of the day:—

"1. Exchange of credentials.

"2. Commissioner Tang agrees to wire Yuan Shih K'ai conveying the demand of the Republicans that the order to stop fighting and capturing of places by the Manchu Army should be carried out effectively in Hupei, Shansi, Shensi, Shantung, Anhui, Kiangsu, and Fengtien, and that no further conference should be held until a satisfactory reply from Yuan Shih K'ai has been received.

"3. Commissioner Wu agrees to wire to General Li Yuan Hung of Hupei and the Republican Generals of Shansi and Shensi ordering them to discontinue fighting and further attacks upon the Manchu troops."

At the opening of the Conference Mr. Tang made a short address. He told of his appointment to come to Shanghai for the Conference, and expressed the hope that it would be successful. He then presented his credentials to Dr. Wu. The latter examined them, and then expressed a similar hope that the Conference would result in great good for China. His credentials were then given to Mr. Tang, and the Conference was begun. Although these assistants were admitted to the meeting they had no voice in its affairs, the two commissioners alone carrying on the discussion. No one of Dr. Wu's assistants was allowed to address Mr. Tang directly, nor were any of Mr. Tang's assistants allowed to address Dr. Wu. Instead they could offer suggestions to their leaders, either by written note or by whispers. Tang Shao-yi expressed his personal readiness to accept Dr. Wu's demands for a Republic, but deferred a definite answer until he had communicated with Yuan Shih K'ai. With the exception of an agreement that the armistice should be extended for a week, ending December 31st, this was the result of the Conference, as told in the official statement given out at the end. The statement, headed "Authentic Account of To-day's Peace Conference," was as follows:—

"1. It is mutually agreed that the armistice should be extended for a period of seven days, i.e. , from December 24, 8 a. m. , to December 31, 8 a. m.

"2. Dr. Wu Ting Fang advocated the necessity of establishing a Republican form of government for China. He believed that China is fully prepared to welcome a new Republic. He said, in substance, as follows:

"The people of China will accept no other form of government than a Republic founded upon the will of the people. Since we can appoint delegates to represent us both in the various provincial assemblies and in the National Assembly at Peking, why are we not qualified to elect a President as the Chief Executive of the nation?

"The Manchus have shown their utter impossibility to govern the people for 267 years. They must go out. A government may be well likened to a trading company: if the manager through incapacity or dishonesty causes the failure of the concern, he has no business to continue in office. A new manager must be elected by the shareholders. The Republican Party does not intend to drive the Manchus out, nor to ill-treat them. On the contrary, they want to place them on perfect equality with the Chinese, enjoying together the blessings of liberty, equality, and fraternity."

The official statement of the day's proceedings, as handed out to the Chinese newspapers, was practically the same as that given to the foreign papers, except that it contained the following additional statement as being made by his Excellency Tang Shao-yi:—

"Personally, I am in favour of a Republic, which is the only solution of the present crisis. But we must not in the Conference overlook the integrity of Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and other dependencies."

To which Dr. Wu replied:—

"The Republic does not denote the integrity and union of the eighteen provinces only."

Tang Shao-yi replied to this:—

"I will have to telegraph to Yuan Shih K'ai as regards the Republican question."

This Conference between the plenipotentiaries of the Peking Government and the Revolutionary groups was looked upon as a meeting of tremendous importance to the nation of China. Indeed, it was not too much to say that the fate of the Empire was to turn on the issue. The whole world would observe the proceedings and criticise the outcome with intense interest. Tang Shao-yi and Wuting-Fang, chief plenipotentiaries of the opposing parties, were to either earn the applause of civilisation or be condemned for having failed to rise to the opportunity of setting China firmly in the path of progress, which was to be presented by this extraordinary collocation of circumstances.

First may be considered what the situation probably would be if hostilities were resumed. At present the Yangtze River approximated a dividing line between territories controlled by the Government and Revolutionaries. Some localities north of the river had been in revolt, but a majority of these had returned to Imperial allegiance, being apparently satisfied with the concessions granted, and others showed a disposition to do the same. It seemed reasonable to assume that if the nation were to have civil war the country would divide north against the south, with the Yangtze River as a general line of demarcation.

The Peking Government had the advantage of being recognised by foreign nations, a condition which would continue while it remained in possession of the capital and any considerable region surrounding it. It had almost all of the modern drilled army, and a great majority of the trained officers. It had better military equipment. The Government still controlled the Imperial railways of North China, the Peking-Hankow Railway, and the Tientsin-Pukou Railway over the greater part. Thus it would be able to concentrate troops at any given point along or north of the Yangtze more easily than the Revolutionists. Moreover, the Imperial troops were accustomed to and equipped to endure a cold climate, and winter had the northern part of the country in its grip. What forces the Revolutionaries could put in the field north of the Yangtze River was not definitely known. Except a few thousand trained troops, any army assembled for the purpose of advancing upon Peking or resisting an advance of the Imperial Army would be composed of raw recruits officered in the main by inexperienced men. Such an army would be ill provided to undertake a winter campaign in the north. Without further analysis the mooted march of a Revolutionary Army to Peking could be dismissed as visionary, unless it was assumed that the Imperial Army was disloyal and would desert the Government. There was now no very tangible basis for such an expectation. Yuan Shih K'ai, the creator of the new army which had always been loyal to him, still held the respect of the soldiers. It was one thing for the new army and its leaders to be dissatisfied with the old order of things at Peking: it was quite another to assume that it was dissatisfied with the form of government proposed by Yuan Shih K'ai, its former and present commander. The army knew Yuan, and what to expect from him. It did not know the Revolutionary leaders, except one here and there, and it did not know what treatment it would receive from a Revolutionary Government after what had happened. If it were assumed that the Northern Army would remain loyal to Yuan Shih K'ai, an early occupation of Peking by the Revolutionists was practically impossible. This was a task which would require a campaign of a year or perhaps more—if it could ever be accomplished. The Imperialists might not have been able to penetrate south of the Yangtze, but they would have had no great difficulty in holding the territory under their control. And in the event of schisms and disintegration of the Republicans, the Government should have been able in time to recover its dominion in all the provinces. This was a phase which the Revolutionists had to consider. Hitherto the processes of disintegration and discontent had worked almost altogether in their favour.

Prolongation of hostilities, therefore, would seem to presage a temporary, perhaps a permanent, division of the Empire into two parts, and the subjection of the country and the people to the horrors and disasters which inevitably attend such internecine struggles. The calamities which would befall under these circumstances were obvious. Six months of such conditions would probably create a counter-revolution in the southern provinces. Conditions in the north would have been somewhat similar, but probably not so bad, as the Government had a firmer grip on affairs and would be able to keep outlawry within bounds. In this discussion it is assumed, of course, that Chinese would be left to fight it out among themselves, without foreign intervention. Foreign intervention, which it would be difficult to avoid if hostilities were to be prolonged indefinitely, would bring its own problems and dangers. Such aspects were presented by the alternative of war.

These were some of the chief considerations which were to weigh upon the plenipotentiaries. There seemed only one point of serious divergence—whether the new Government would follow the Monarchical or the Republican form. If the former were elected, it probably would mean that the present Dynasty would be retained, although perhaps reigning under a different name, for neither Revolutionists nor Monarchists had another emperor to propose. If a Republic were to be decided upon, the Government which would be instituted would differ only in title from a Constitutional Monarchy; therefore, the argument was more about mere terms than about realities. Objections to the retention of the monarchy were based upon two principal theories. One was that with the Manchu Dynasty on the throne the liberty of the Chinese would not be secure—that the Dynasty must be overthrown and the capital removed from Peking in order to shake off for ever the atmosphere and associations of the old regime. Another objection was that, under the monarchical form, Yuan Shih K'ai would be virtual dictator, and then he would use his power to place himself on the throne. In certain quarters Yuan was certainly credited with having this ambition—as one Chinese put it, he wanted to be China's Napoleon, not her George Washington. But it seemed that if Yuan had this ambition, a Republic such as would of necessity exist in China would be exactly what he would want. Napoleon began his rise to power as a Republican. If Yuan desired to make himself emperor, he could adopt no more favourable course than to accept the presidency of a Republic now, biding his time, as Napoleon did, until the inevitable reaction set in, and the transition back to an Empire would be comparatively easy. On the other hand, continuation of the Dynasty and Imperial forms constituted a check on such ambition, if it existed, for it provided a focus for loyalty of the people without in any practical way hampering administration of the Government on constitutional lines. Should Yuan Shih K'ai concede the point at issue and assent to a Republic, what then? A Republic would have the same difficulties as a Constitutional Monarchy, difficulties which well might baffle the ablest statesmanship. If peace should be established, there still would remain all the great problems which make China an invalid among nations, accentuated by famine, and the strain of the Revolution. Could a Republic solve these offhand? Or would a republic have a better prospect? If there were any difference in favour of either of the two forms of government a Constitutional Monarchy would have less difficulty. A Republic would be handicapped in its attempts to restore order, and put the administration of the Government back on a normal basis by expectations of the people which it could not fulfil. To do this it would be compelled to have money. It would be compelled, almost immediately, to make a foreign loan, a policy which Revolutionists had been denouncing in the Peking Government. It would be compelled to continue many forms, conditions, and processes which Revolutionists had criticised in the Manchu Government, and had led the people to expect would be abolished immediately. It would have to resume collection of taxes in localities where the Revolutionary Press had led the people to believe they would be reduced or abrogated altogether. It would, until a new code be devised and put into operation, have to administer the existing laws. In short, a Republican Government would be absolutely compelled to do many of the things which its leaders had been criticising the Manchu Government for permitting. It would have to reckon with a large number of upstart leaders and their henchmen brought forth by the Revolution, and who one and all looked forward to securing good positions in the new Government. What the immediate future of China would be under a Republic none could at the time of the Conference foresee.

And although the issue of the Revolution remains still in doubt, one was at the start of the Conference in a better position to realise the nature and strength of its motive forces. Clearly this Revolutionary movement in China was not inspired solely or even mainly by the desire to press through a reform, too long delayed, of the corrupt Chinese Government. Nor was the general cry that the Manchus must be eliminated due solely or even mainly to a well-grounded disbelief in the will or the power of the Tartar Dynasty to break with its tradition of misrule. The movement, which had spread like wildfire throughout the length of China, from the province of Chihli in the extreme north to that of Kwangtung in the extreme south, was clearly a national uprising of the Chinese against what was regarded as a degrading foreign domination. It had borrowed the political cries of the Liberal West; it had clothed itself, in those centres where it was victoriously established, with the forms of republican government; but its dynamic force was derived, at least among the ignorant masses, for whom constitutional government was a meaningless phrase, from the traditional feelings of a people which had for three hundred years past been restive under the Tartar yoke. Nothing could show this more clearly than what had everywhere been the first act of emancipation—the cutting of the queue, for the shaven head and queue were imposed in the seventeenth century upon the Chinese as a symbol of subjection by the conquering Manchus. Everywhere people had, from the start of the Revolution, been taking off their queues, and, although an Imperial edict had made it optional for the people to discard or retain them, the Imperialists had killed hundreds of peaceable folk merely because they were found without their queues. The rebellion thus took its place in a series of national uprisings against the Tartar rulers, and it was, as will be seen in the later portion of this volume, not without significance that it gained its most conspicuous initial successes precisely in those maritime provinces in which the appearance of the dispossessed Chinese Ming Dynasty held out longest against the Manchu usurpers. If the movement had taken on fresh forms, said a writer in a London journal, this was due to the exigencies of changed conditions. The Kwangsi rebels in 1850 set up as Emperor, with the name of Tien-te ("heavenly virtue") a youth said to be the representative of the last Ming Dynasty. The movement languished until the redoubtable Hung Siu-tsuan swept the Pretender aside, courted foreign favours by declaring himself a Christian, and, after capturing Wuchang and Nanking, proclaimed himself the first Emperor of the Taiping Dynasty as Tien Wang ("heavenly king"). His hideous atrocities, continued the writer quoted, and a too fantastic description of the physical attributes of the deity—the outcome of a "vision" intended to impress the missionaries—alienated all foreign sympathy, and on the eve of his complete success his power was shattered by the Government troops, organised and led by "Chinese Gordon." The secret of his power lay in the absence of the legitimate "Son of Heaven" of the old Dynasty, in his claim to a new commission from Heaven itself.

YIN CHANG.
Minister of War of the Manchu Government at the beginning
of the Revolution, and Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial
Troops in Hupeh Province.

TANG SHAO-YI.
Peace Commissioner for the Manchu Government and Premier
of the Provisional Military Government of the
United Republic of China.

FENG KUO-CHANG.
Commander-in-chief of the First Expedition of the
Imperial Troops for the Relief of Hupeh.

Now, General Li Yuan Hung and those associated closely with him made no such claim. The younger Revolutionists were, for the most part, trained in the schools of the West, and their appeal for Western sympathy took a new form. At the time it was impossible to foresee how, in the long run, the idea of a democratic Republic would appeal to a people steeped in the political philosophies of Confucius, with its conception of parental rights and filial duties as the fundamental basis of government.

So far, indeed, the claim that from Chihli to Kwang-tung, and from Shantung to Szechuen, the provinces had approved the Republic seems to have been justified. It would seem, then, that, no scion of the old Imperial house being available, the Chinese would have been able to reconcile themselves to the creation of a United States of China, under an elected President, in which case it was at the time interesting to speculate whether a too patent breach with the past might be avoided by retaining a ceremonial "Son of Heaven," who, like the King Archon at Athens or the Rex Sacrificulus of Rome, would continue to offer the traditional sacrifices to the Fountain of Authority.

It was to decide this and much more that the Peace Conference of last December was convened, but nothing but disappointment followed.

The plenipotentiaries, themselves actually agreeable to the main issue at stake, were overruled by Yuan Shih K'ai. Day after day wires were passing frequently between Yuan and Tang, and all looked anxiously towards Shanghai for the final word of the war. The Republic seemed already to have been born, and the five-coloured flag in Shanghai's streets heralded its dawn. But Yuan was obstinate, obdurate as a mule. In the end, after endless discussions on the situation, he repudiated Tang Shao-yi's power, declared that Tang could not finally negotiate upon any question, although his credentials showed that in him full power had been invested, and in the end the Conference merely "fizzled out."

The next scene presents Dr. Sun Yat Sen on the Republican platform. The civilised world then looked to him to solve this political conundrum—and he was voting plump for the Republic. He had now arrived in Shanghai, and his presence totally altered the situation. [1]

[1] The following article, from the pen of Charles Spurgeon Medhurst, setting forth the claims of a Republic and a Monarchy, and printed in the China Press of Shanghai, on December 13, 1911, will be of interest to the reader at this juncture:—

"Representative government with a scion of the Dynasty, not necessarily the infant Emperor, as its head, or representative government without any link with the past, is the problem on which hangs the issue of peace or war in China, and yet, so far as the freedom of the country is concerned, the difference between these two ideals is as the distinction between the good old English russet grown in the West of England, and a bellflower cultivated on the western slopes of the Pacific. Both are good eating apples. The preference for one before the other is a matter of taste. One may, indeed, almost say that the Imperialists are Republicans, and that the Republicans are Imperialists, for the Republican insists as strongly as his brother Imperialist that there must be a strong central authority, and the Imperialist clasps hands with his Republican comrade in his anxiety that the control of national affairs shall be in the hands of the people. To borrow an expressive simile recently used by Dr. Wu in reference to something else, the bottle is different but the brand is the same. Each side is pledged to give the nation freedom from all authority, excepting such as the nation itself imposes upon itself. Between Imperialist and Republican the difference is, in reality, one of form and not of substance. A general recognition of this fact will clear the atmosphere, and make it easier to perceive the imperative needs of the moment. There is the more urgent demand that this should be brought about because in their enthusiasm over the prospects of the new dawning day many of our Chinese friends have mistakenly persuaded themselves that Democracy is the greatest gift the Occident has for the Orient. But the last mail brought us a message from Dr. Inge, the Dean of St. Paul's in London, that Democracy is perhaps one of the silliest of modern fetishes. It is incumbent, therefore, on those of us in China who agree with the Dean to speak out plainly at this critical juncture, lest our Chinese hosts blindly step on to a devious and a dangerous path. The duty becomes still plainer when we recall a recent speech by Dr. Sun Yat Sen, in which he hinted that universal suffrage for men and women would be the note to which the tune of the new Republic would be keyed.

"For any good result to come from a universal suffrage there must have been many previous years of universal education, but even with this advantage Democracy becomes for the most part little more than a dream, a good catchword but impossible politics. Constitutional government has nowhere as yet been perfected. The best we have is an adaptation of realities still unrealised. Like everything else at this stage of our progress, it is a compromise. Its methods give no sign of finality; in all countries it is what must take place in China, an adaptation to existing circumstances. None know better than the Chinese that co-operative compromise with the ideas of others is the foundation of all order. What else are the mutations of the Yin and the Yang? If these do not harmonise disorder ensues. In the same way there can be no peace in China until Republicans and Imperialists work together. That autocracy has been abused is no reason why Republicans should seek to replace it by a system which many residents of democratic countries, as witness the observations of the London dean, are beginning to regard as false in its premise. Because a revolution has shown it to be the will of the country that there should be a change in the administration of Chinese affairs there is no reason why Imperialists should not unite with Republicans in friendly conference, and see if between them it be not possible to evolve an administration better than any now existing, and thus magnify their proud position of being the oldest nation in the world. Both sides are Chinese. Why not meet and set younger civilisations an example in civics?

"If democracy be a dream, self-government is an illusion. There never has been and never will be any society, or any body, which is self-governed. We are not even free to wear the clothes our inclination suggests. Madame Fashion cuts the cloth and purchases the material. Government (to quote a French expression) is always an 'affair of two.' Like love-making, it is a matter of one yielding to the other. In the same way self-respect is not self-respect but the approbation of my lower to my Higher, the God within me. Self-control is not self-control, but the obedience of my passional nature to the Divine enshrined within. Self-government is not self-government, but the government of one part by another part, of the unfit by the fit, of the masses by the classes, of the uneducated by the educated. Anything else would be incompetence, injustice, not liberty. There cannot be equality and fraternity in government. There is much truth in Lao Tzu's paradox, 'When the people are difficult to control it is because they possess too much worldly wisdom.' Democracy is an idol many of its worshippers are ceasing to respect, and facts should be known before a temple to its honour is erected in China. What is wanted is an Autocracy in its proper place, not an autocracy of birth, of money, or of clamour, but an autocracy of character, of self-sacrifice, and ability. This is China's hour, a challenge to her strong men to devise something characteristic of herself, and not merely to imitate Western Constitutions.

"If this is to be successfully accomplished, preconceived ideas must be kept fluid when the peacemakers meet in the coming Conference. Republicans must remember that to imagine a Democracy without an oppression is idle. Imperialists must consider that to interfere with the rights of another is wrong. Republicans must not forget that every democratic government rules by majorities, and that when the wishes of the minority are overridden an Autocracy in its wrong place has been substituted for Democracy. Imperialists must not lose sight of the truth that the yoke laid on the defeated party is no easier to bear because the coercion comes from an opposing political body and not from one or two accredited officials, and that coercion of any sort invites rebellion. Let both sides consider that wisdom does not always dwell with majorities. History supplies many instances where the minority of one was right and all the rest wrong. Being right, he might perhaps efface himself and yield to the general wish, but he cannot properly be coerced. If Democracy be right, then coercion is necessarily wrong, whether the pressure be exercised by individuals or majorities.

"The proper basis for an orderly arrangement of men's common interests is that all concerned shall discuss in a friendly way with a view to agreement. If this prove impossible, then as a general rule (subject to the elastic dictates of common sense) the question should, if possible, be shelved as being unripe for decision. If government by party, such as exists under all Constitutional Governments be right, if it be right for one party because stronger to compel the other party because weaker to submit to its ruling, then might becomes right. In that case Imperialists and Republicans should continue their fight until one has crushed the other; in that case the Powers whose interests are jeopardised by the continuance of the conflict should step in and apply their might also, that right may be enthroned. If, however, Force be always evil, if the universal practice of Constitutional Governments in regard to minorities be wrong, it follows that whichever side refuses to compromise in the present struggle is also wrong, because by such refusal reliance is placed on the strength of the arm, instead of on the might of TRUTH.

"In any event it is ironical inconsistency to employ the harsh arbitrament of war to decide such a question as the supremacy of the will of the people until, at least, a vote has been taken and the consent of those who have lived within the area of the fight has been obtained to the unavoidable destruction of their property. As there is no conscription in China the position of the soldier need not be taken into account. At present the few have spoken for the many, the leaders on both sides have imposed their will on their followers, and the masses are afraid to speak. I cannot guess what the verdict on the Revolution would be were every one heard from individually, nor does it affect the point at issue. The simple fact remains that grave wrongs have been inflicted on thousands who have had no chance to assent or to protest, and that for the rest of their lives they will be worse off than they would have been under the most tyrannical government. If it be argued that this 'evil' was unavoidable, that the Revolution was a cruel necessity, the answer is that it should be concluded as speedily as possible and recompense given to those who have suffered. Every unrequited wrong committed in its name, or on its account, will be a weak spot in the new Government's armour.

"If these paragraphs are felt to be mere counsels of perfection, they at least emphasise the terrible hurt that will be inflicted on Righteousness should the fighting be resumed. Conciliation, submission, compromise are the foundations of Truth and of Liberty, the binding forces of society everywhere. It is not strength but weakness which refuses to swerve from an assumed position. The bravest men are not afraid of inconsistency. As Michael Wood says: 'Humility is the strength of God: the power of everything worth having. It does not grovel: it is strong. It is seeing true: it is having your values right. It is knowing what matters and what is rubbish to be flung away.' Or as Jacob Boehme put it: 'He to whom Eternity is as Time and Time as Eternity is free from all strife.' In a word, Democracy can only succeed where all the people are aristocrats, and now is the time for the leaders on both sides to prove their aristocracy and their fitness to rule, by gracefully yielding each to the other. China has always set the world an example in this particular. She will surely not fail on the eve of what will doubtless be the most glorious chapter of her memorable history."

[Transcriber's note: this page was entirely taken up by part of footnote 1, which is now on page 196 in its entirety.]

[Transcriber's note: this page was entirely taken up by part of footnote 1, which is now on page 196 in its entirety.]

[Transcriber's note: this page was entirely taken up by part of footnote 1, which is now on page 196 in its entirety.]

[Transcriber's note: this page was entirely taken up by part of footnote 1, which is now on page 196 in its entirety.]

HWANG HSING.
Generalissimo of the Nanking Provisional Military Government
and Chief of the General Staff of the Republic of China.

DR. SUN YAT-SEN.
First Provisional President of the Republic of China.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMING OF SUN YAT-SEN

Sun Yat-sen for many years has been known the world over as the most effective Revolutionary China has ever produced. For many years he had been the leader of a revolutionary movement among Chinese abroad, and his life was practically devoted to travelling to foreign countries, keeping his exiled countrymen versed upon the latest political phases of China.

At the time of the Peace Conference the situation had become so strained, there were so many parties all genuinely anxious to assume control—out of the best motives probably—that it seemed necessary for one strong man to come in safely to direct the Revolutionary cause. That strong man was Dr. Sun Yat-sen. It was known on the day the Conference met that Sun Yat-sen was in Singapore. For many days the people had been looking for him, and disappointment was freely expressed in Shanghai more particularly (where he was best known) because of his non-appearance. It seemed that he was now, at the moment when he could do his country the most good, determined to stay away. After the Conference had broken up, however, Sun arrived, and immediately the people took him to their hearts, recognising in him the one man who now would be strong enough to establish a stable Government.

Sun cannot be called a typical Chinese; he is a typical and extremely able Chinese of the new school. He has lived most of his life abroad, and from his earliest years, when in Canton he attended the London Mission with his Christian parents, has been constantly in close touch with men and things foreign. As has been said, practically all his life, but particularly since 1895, Sun has been looked upon as the most active Revolutionary among the Chinese. His escapes at the hand of the Chinese Government had been many. For years he had been banished, and his head was ever sought after. His deliverances had been marvellous. Newspapermen the world over have constantly interviewed Sun in his wanderings, and it is felt that so much is known of President Sun that nothing of a general nature need be added here. It will be more interesting to pass on to see what Dr. Sun has to say, in a remarkably well written story, of the reason why his country is in revolt. [1]

"The conspiracy in which I took part as a leader at Canton in October, 1895," wrote Dr. Sun Yat-sen, "was one of a series which must ultimately triumph in the establishment of a Constitution in our Empire. The whole of the people in China, excepting the Imperial agents, who profit in purse and power by the outrages they are able to perpetrate, are with us. The good, well-governed people of America will not fail to understand that Chinese numbering many millions in their own land and thousands in exile, could not entertain such feelings about their Empire without good cause. Over each province there is what the English would call a Governor. There are no laws, as you know laws. The Governor of each province makes his own laws. The will of each officer is the law. The people have no voice. There is no appeal against the law created for his own purposes by the officer or the Governor, no matter how unjust, no matter how cruelly carried out. These Governors universally persecute the people and grow wealthy by squeezing them all into poverty. Taxes, as taxation is understood by Americans, are unknown. We pay only a land tax, but the Governors and officers take money from the masses by innumerable systems of extortion. Every time a Governor or magistrate or chief officer takes charge of a district, the first thing he does is to find out who are the rich, who are favourably disposed toward him and who against him. He selects first one of those whom he has reason to believe dislikes him, forces one of those on his side to make a criminal charge against the selected man, and has him arrested on the charge, which is invariably false. The Governor enriches himself by each case, as the only thing in the nature of a law he knows is that of the Dynasty, empowering him to take as his own as much as he likes, usually the whole of the property of every man whom he arrests and punishes. The arrested man has no appeal. He has no advocates. He has no hearing. Only his accusers are heard. Then he is barbarously tortured to confess the guilt he knows not.

"The terrible injustice of this procedure is to be seen in that a magistrate or chief officer never visits that punishment upon any one who has Imperial influence. Yet any man who has influence with the magistrate or is in any way a creature of his, can arrest, by his own will, any person against whom he has a grievance, choose any crime he likes to name for the purpose, drag the person before the magistrate, accuse him, and ask that he be punished. Again, the accused person has no appeal, no defence. He is merely faced with the accusation, and if he denies it, is put under torture for three days. If at the end of three days the accused refuses to confess himself guilty, punishment is meted to him in severity according to the influence of the accuser, and the necessity the magistrate feels of appeasing him. The punishment for every offence charged, from petty larceny upward, is almost invariably beheading. Beheading saves prison expense, and effectually silences the accused. So much aloof do the Mandarins keep from the people that many are usually ignorant of this terrible work of the officers of the Dynasty, and when told of it, refuse to believe. Some Mandarins refuse to believe, out of fear of incurring the displeasure of officers. The unhappy masses know the truth too well. The intelligent, the most enlightened, know of it. Exiles in all other parts of the world know of it. Bitter hatred of the Dynasty and of the Imperial officers prevails in every province of the Empire. There is a great democracy in the Empire, waiting and praying for the moment when their organisation can be made efficient and the Dynasty removed and replaced by a constitutional government.

"Our conspiracy to seize Canton failed, yet we are filled with hope. Our greatest hope is to make the Bible and education, as we have come to know them by residence in America and Europe, the means of conveying to our unhappy fellow-countrymen what blessings may lie in the way of just laws, what relief from their sufferings may be found through civilisation. We intend to try every means in our power to seize the country and create a government without bloodshed. I think we shall, but if I am doomed to disappointment in this, then there is no engine in warfare we can invoke to our aid that we will hesitate to use. Our four hundred millions must, and shall, be released from the cruel tyranny of barbaric misrule and be brought to enjoy the blessings of control by a merciful, just government, by the arts of civilisation.

"The conspiracy at Canton, though it failed, was but a momentary repulse and has in no way damped our ardour. A brief history of the conspiracy and my own adventures connected with it may convey some ideas of the difficulties which still lie before us, yet which we know we shall in due time surmount. We have a head, a chief, and a body of leaders, all earnest, intelligent, courageous men. They were elected according to constitutional principles by a body of us, who met, necessarily, in secret. We have a branch of our Society in every province. Our meetings of the leaders were held at various houses, the rendezvous being constantly changed. We had between thirty and forty centres in the districts of the town, with members ready to ride at a given moment to the number of at least one thousand in each centre to take control of the public affairs of the district. Communications with each of these districts were made by the employment of messengers. Our communications were by word of mouth. Our intention was to attack no individual person.

"There is no Government, no organisation, no legal system, no form of official control except the influential citizens, who, under the favour of the magistrate or Governor of the province, usurp the use of the Imperial commissioners and soldiers to carry out their barbarous tyranny. We had no ruling body, officials, or officers as such institutions are understood by Europeans, to seize. We had elected bodies of our followers who had been taught a system of constitutional rule, for each district, all ready to take office at a given signal and put the system into practice. The soldiers were ready to join us. For the soldiers are as great sufferers from tyranny as the poor masses.

"Now, herein lay our chief difficulty. To effect revolution in China would be easy but for one thing—the great difficulty in controlling the citizens. The people, never having known laws, never having been used to any proper discipline, are utterly demoralised. Life and property would be in danger from the masses the moment they became excited. From the soldiers, who are of the most degraded class, we expected trouble. They would certainly engage in looting the moment they had discovered a change in the order of things.

"The only problem we had to solve in order to completely succeed was how to control the people, to make order a certainty, simultaneously with the establishment of a form of government, and how to check the excitement and outrages of the inhabitants while they were being taught to realise the fact that the long-endured tyranny was overcome. For months we worked hard completing our plans to this end, and things had reached that condition that each of the thirty odd leaders had an armed bodyguard of one hundred men. This gave us three thousand armed men on the spot. Another three thousand were to join us from another province on a given date. With this body of men, armed, not to attack any officials, but to control the masses of people and make them obey our constitutional laws, we should have in a few hours reached the dynasty of impotence.

"Unhappily, we had to contend with the possibilities of disloyalty among our own followers. So great is the fear of the torture-chamber. Into so many tributaries does the main stream of corruption flow. However, all was prepared. A date was fixed—one day in October, 1895. We leaders met to receive a telegram from our agent in Hongkong, who was to inform us that all was right the moment he knew the three thousand men had set out to our assistance. At the same time, he was to dispatch a chartered steamer up the Canton River, laden with arms for the three thousand men who were to control the people and keep order, and bringing seven hundred coolies to do the fetching and carrying, the labourer's work needful to carry out the scheme of establishing our Government. We met at the rendezvous at Canton, runners and every one at hand. The message arrived to say that all was right. We dispatched our runners to let every one be prepared at every centre, burned our papers, and proceeded to disband ourselves into units, each to carry out his own allotted portion of revolution. The moment before we disbanded a second message arrived saying, 'Something has happened, the three thousand men cannot come.' Our runners were out, and could not be overtaken and recalled. We had to trust to the discretion of the centres to await the men. The only thing we could do, for the time being, to divert suspicion, was to wire our Hongkong agent to keep back the coolies. He misunderstood. The coolies arrived. No one received them. They wandered about, not knowing what they were in Canton for.

"So the conspiracy was thwarted. The runners had accused the people, and set tongues wagging. The Viceroy had been told, 'Something is going to happen.' He would not believe his informant, and all might have become quiet, but the arrival of the coolies confirmed the information. The Government did not start. The unhappy coolies were hunted by the Imperial Commissioner and his staff, and many of them beheaded. We leaders dispersed; many fled into the interior. The Commissioner and Imperial Guard sought the leaders. They seized and beheaded sixteen persons, only seven of whom had anything to do with the movement. The remainder were occupants of houses where it was supposed some of us had met. The leaders all got away. I went on board my own steam-launch and sailed down to Hongkong, where I stayed a week. The Imperial officers were seeking me, and I passed them several times in the street without their recognising me. At the end of the week, during which I had made arrangements for my family, my wife and children and my mother, to follow me, I stepped on board a steamer under the eyes of my stupid pursuers without their noticing me. When I arrived in London, I was captured for the first time, after having been pursued around the world for one year. But the fault was not that of the English people. Indeed, the noble-hearted way in which the English people came to my assistance, and rescued me from the death for which I was assuredly destined, make us shed tears of gratitude.

"In saving my life the English people have earned the love of every one of our millions of cruelly ill-used people, and strengthened our hope of one day soon enjoying the blessing of a just government, such as that which has made your mighty nation so great and so good."

English friends on this occasion had warned him to steer a wide course away from the Chinese Legation, for there he would technically be on Chinese soil and could be arrested, but these friends either neglected to tell Dr. Sun where the Legation was or he forgot the directions they gave him. At any rate, one day as he was walking through a certain street two Chinese accosted him. They asked him to go with them to their lodging, where they could discuss the Revolution at home. When he demurred they seized him and pushed him through the door of a nearby house. It was the Chinese Legation.

A white man, who was Sir Halliday Macartney, English Secretary of the Legation, told Sun that he was under arrest and that he would be secretly taken out of London and back to Canton. The prisoner was locked in a room on the top floor of the Legation until arrangements could be made for the official kidnapping. Dr. Sun tried throwing messages out of the window weighted with coins, but one of them was picked up by one of the Legation servants and shown to the Minister, and the windows were nailed up.

In his desperation Sun managed to bribe an English servant to carry a message, telling of his plight, to a Dr. Cantlie, one of his friends. Dr. Cantlie laid the matter before the Government, which took immediate action. The building was hedged about by detectives and policemen so closely that the prisoner could not be smuggled out to a steamer. Finally, seeing the futility of longer holding him, the Chinese Minister turned Sun loose.

The nervy little doctor went right back to the Far East and began to hatch another Revolution against his enemies.

This time it was from Japan that he operated. But because he was not thoroughly wise in the matter of some Japanese business policies he was swindled out of all the funds he had raised to buy arms by one Nakimura.

He left Japan and went to live in Singapore. He slipped into China again and started another uprising. This, too, was ill-timed, and many patriots lost their heads under the executioner's heavy blade.

Dr. Sun managed to slip across the lower border into Annam disguised as a blind beggar. No sooner was he across the border than he began again, wandering from one Chinese colony to another in Annam, in Tongkin, down in the Straits Settlements, over in the Philippines—always preaching revolution.

In 1898 K'ang Yu-wei, one of the reformers whom Sun had been allied with, travelled too fast in his efforts to win the ear of the puppet Emperor, was betrayed by Yuan Shih K'ai, so it was said, and had to flee to save his head. Then the Empress-Dowager laid a heavy hand upon all reformers within reach. Once more Sun escaped. After the Boxer uprising, which was not at all of Sun's doing and was entirely out of sympathy with his schemes, the Empress-Dowager seemed to be bitten by the general sentiment for reform and she promised much for China that raised the hopes of the new element. But like most Manchu promises, they were not to be depended on.

DRILLED IN THE UNITED STATES.

Back Sun went to America, and he added a new detail to his propaganda. He found a young graduate of Leland Stanford University, Homer Lee, who was military mad and incidentally an enthusiast on the subject of freedom for China. Lee was made General of the Reform Cadets, who were Chinese youths of San Francisco, fitted out with uniforms and guns and taught to do the hay foot, straw foot in hired halls night after night.

The idea spread to other cities in the United States and to Manila. The Reform Cadets became a wide-spread organisation. American drillmasters were hired to coach them; they had target practice and they gave exhibition drills.

Out in San Francisco the agents of the Chinese Government once tried to prevail upon the city and State authorities to break up the organisation because it was technically an armed band of aliens on American soil. The effort failed.

Such was the man who may become yet the greatest man among the Chinese in his own country as he has been out of it. In due course Dr. Sun Yat-sen was proclaimed President, with a provisional Government at Nanking.

Sun Yat-sen, revolutionist in the most conservative land under heaven, fugitive for fifteen years from the keenest and most relentless trailers of men, hidden spirit of strange secret societies whose ramifications have made mole tracks through every land where Chinamen are—this man is now President of the Republic of China by decree of the Provisional Military Assembly at Nanking.

Out of the underground passages of plot and intrigue the nature of which no Occidental could hope to understand, and through which this wiry little man has been wriggling and back tracking for more than a dozen years, a new national figure suddenly jumps to command the attention of the world. During years past the world has occasionally caught glimpses of the round black head and narrow, ascetic features of this Dr. Sun, now in Singapore, now in London, now in San Francisco.

There had been little paragraphs in the world's news about an agitator, a Radical, who seemed to be tilting with straws at the impregnable citadel of the Manchu clan in Peking. The Revolution began in China and even then, when the name of Sun Yat-sen was coupled with it people outside of China cracked jokes about a faker, a charlatan, who was trying to capitalise the upheaval at home for his own benefit.

Then over night things happened in China. The next morning the world learned at its breakfast-table that out of the welter and uproar of revolution in old China a leader had arisen to gird an ancient land under new harness of government. And it also became manifest that the Revolution, which had started by concerted movements in the heart of China and spread with the rapidity of a powder-train, and the little man who had been dodging and twisting through the world for so many years were closely related—extraordinarily so.

Sun Yat-sen started many revolutions. Each was stronger than the last; each achieved a little more. The final one, striven for and plotted through channels not yet known, has succeeded. Sun Yat-sen was the man of the hour in China.

An odd circumstance that brings an added thrill of romance into the story of his life is that though President of united China he still bears upon his head a price totalling about 700,000 taels. The rewards for his head offered by provincial governments and the central authorities in Peking during the last fifteen years have not been recalled, even though payment upon delivery might be doubtful.

Yet the fact that his head was worth hundreds of "shoes" of silver during all the latter years of his activity has been one of the lightest burdens that Dr. Sun has carried about on his narrow shoulders. He took long chances, apparently he suffered many close calls from death, but he persisted.

I believe that when he was a young man he was studying medicine under the care of an English physician in Hongkong. Thence he went to England and after study in a preparatory school he was graduated from a medical college and returned to China. He practised the new medicine, against which there was a violent prejudice on the part of the Chinese in Macao, in Canton and Hongkong.

Dr. Sun is forty-three now, he was scarcely more than twenty-five when he began to move for the spreading of a revolutionary spirit in the hearts of his countrymen. Just where he began and with what material nobody but the closest of his associates knows.

It seems that his first idea was for reform through peaceful means, if it were possible for the Chinese people to penetrate the jealous conservatism of the Manchu masters. To this end the little doctor began to organise clubs of advanced thinkers among the young Chinese of the south.

For some time during the early part of 1912 things seemed to go fairly smoothly, and President Sun seemed to have been successful in winning the confidence of Yuan Shih K'ai, when, like a bombshell, the press of the world (especially the London Times) deprecated one of the messages Sun sent to Yuan. This strengthened the Imperial cause. Abdication of the Court, which had definitely been fixed, did not take place. Several of the Manchu princes refused to clear out, for many days the complex situation at Peking, Shanghai, Nanking, and Wuchang rendered it impossible for one to see what would eventuate.

The Court, however, did abdicate, and left the ground clear. There was a continuous rumpus in Peking during the following three months, and in March of 1912 the capital was in a big uproar—the soldiers broke loose, there was much pillaging and looting, Yuan Shih K'ai seemed entirely to have lost the situation and the whole country seemed to be lost. Yuan Shih K'ai meantime had been proclaimed President, Dr. Sun gracefully withdrawing in his favour. A big discussion took place over the site for the capital, and just as Yuan was about to come down to Nanking to settle matters the outbreak at Peking quashed the whole affair. But this was only one of the political troubles. Some adjusted themselves: others did not. There was a lack of money. Soldiers, going unpaid, took the law into their own hands, and looted on a great scale. The banditti rose up in formidable strength. Officialdom was abused. Decapitations were rife. Up to the end of March the interior of China was devoid of all law and order. In the coast places and big towns where order was fairly easy to maintain, officials were busy making laws and drawing up reforms. But whilst reforms were being thus aimed at in some places, in others there was absolute chaos. The old order had been taken away, and there was nothing better to put up in its place.

But it is hopeless to give a correct comprehensive estimate of what was being done. All we knew was that China was changing—in some places for the worse, in others for the better, but changing irrevocably, and it was only in the final balancing could one see how things were to "pan out."

On March 10, 1912, Yuan Shih K'ai took the Oath, which read as follows:—

"Since the Republic has been established, many works have now to be performed. I shall endeavour faithfully to develop the Republic, to sweep away the disadvantages attached to absolute monarchy, to observe the laws of the Constitution, to increase the welfare of the country, to cement together a strong nation which shall embrace all five races. When the National Assembly elects a permanent President, I shall retire. This I swear before the Chinese Republic."

The following is a detailed statement, as translated from the Chinese, of the conditions of the Provisional Republican Constitution:—

THE PROVINCIAL REPUBLICAN CONSTITUTION.

Chapter 1.General.

Article 1. —The Republic of China is established by the people of China.

Article 2. —The sovereignty of the Republic of China is vested in the whole body of the people.

Article 3. —The territory of the Republic of China consists of the twenty-two provinces, Inner and Outer Mongolia, Tibet, and Kokonor.

Article 4. —The Republic of China will exercise its governing rights through the National Assembly, Provisional President, Ministers of State and Courts of Justice.

Chapter II.People.

Article 5. —The People of the Republic of China will be treated equally without any distinction of race, class, or religion.

Article 6. —The People will enjoy the following liberties:—

1. No citizen can be arrested, detained, tried, or punished unless in accordance with the law.

2. The residence of any person can only be entered or searched in accordance with the law.

3. People have the liberty of owning property and of trade.

4. People have the liberty of discussion, authorship, publication, meeting, and forming societies.

5. People have the liberty of secrecy of letters.

6. People have liberty of movement.

7. People have liberty of religion.

Article 7. —People have the right of petition to the Assembly.

Article 8. —People have the right of petition to the administrative offices.

Article 9. —People have the right of trial at legal courts.

Article 10. —People have the right to appeal to the Court of Administrative Litigation against any act of officials who have illegally infringed their rights.

Article 11. —People have the right of being examined to become officials.

Article 12. —People have the right of election and being elected to representative assemblies.

Article 13. —People have the duty of paying taxes in accordance with law.

Article 14. —People have the duty of serving in the army in accordance with law.

Article 15. —The rights of the people enumerated in this chapter may, in the public interest, or for the maintenance of order and peace or upon other urgent necessity, be curtailed by due process of law.

Chapter III.National Assembly.

(Tsangyiyuan.)

Article 16. —The legislative functions of the Republic of China are exercised by the National Assembly or Tsangyiyuan.

Article 17. —The National Assembly is formed of the members of Tsangyiyuan elected by various districts as provided in Article 18.

Article 18. —Five members in each province, Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, and Tibet and one member from Kokonor will be elected. The measures for the election will be decided by each district. At the time of the meeting of the National Assembly each member has one vote.

Article 19. —The official rights of the National Assembly are as under:—

1. To decide all laws.

2. To decide Budgets and settle accounts of the Provisional Government.

3. To decide the measures of taxation, monetary system, and uniform weights and measures.

4. To decide the amount of public loan and agreements involving any obligation on the State treasury.

5. To ratify affairs mentioned in Articles 34, 35, and 40.

6. To reply to any affairs referred for decision by the Provisional Government.

7. To accept petitions of the people.

8. To express views and present them to the Government regarding laws and other matters.

9. To question Ministers of State and demand their presence at the Assembly to give reply.

10. To demand the Provisional Government to inquire into cases of the taking of bribes or other illegal acts of officials of the Government.

11. The National Assembly may impeach the Provisional President if recognised as having acted as a traitor, by vote of three-fourths of the members present at a quorum of four-fifths of the whole number of members.

12. The National Assembly may impeach any of the Ministers of State if recognised as having failed to carry out their official duties or having acted illegally, on the decision of two-thirds of the members present at a quorum of three-fourths of the whole number of members.

Article 20. —The National Assembly may hold its meetings of its own motion and may decide the date of the opening and the closing of the same.

Article 21. —The meetings of the National Assembly will be open to the public, but in case of the demand of any Minister of State or in case of the majority's decision a meeting may be held in camera.

Article 22. —The matters decided by the National Assembly shall be promulgated and carried out by the Provisional President.

Article 23. —When the Provisional President uses his veto against the decision of the National Assembly his reasons should be declared within ten days and the matter should be placed before the National Assembly for further discussion. If two-thirds of the members attending re-affirm the former decision that decision shall be carried out as stipulated in Article 22.

Article 24. —The speaker of the National Assembly will be elected by open ballot of the members, and if the ballot be one-half of the total votes he is declared elected.

Article 25. —The members of the National Assembly have no responsibility to outsiders for the speeches and decisions made in the Assembly.

Article 26. —Except for flagrant offences or during internal disturbance or foreign invasion the members of the Assembly cannot be arrested during the session without the consent of the Assembly.

Article 27. —The standing orders of the National Assembly shall be decided by the National Assembly itself.

Article 28. —The National Assembly shall be dissolved when the National Convention comes into existence, which will succeed to all the rights of the National Assembly.

Chapter IV.—Provisional President and Vice-President.

Article 29. —Provisional President and Vice-President will be elected by the National Assembly by vote of two-thirds of the members present at a quorum of three-fourths of the whole number.

Article 30. —Provisional President represents Provisional Government and controls political affairs and promulgates laws.

Article 31. —Provisional President executes laws and issues orders authorised by law and has such orders promulgated.

Article 32. —Provisional President controls and commands the Navy and Army of the whole country.

Article 33. —Provisional President decides official organisations and discipline but such should be approved by the National Assembly.

Article 34. —Provisional President is empowered to make appointments and dismissals of civil and military officials. However, the Ministers of State, ambassadors and ministers accredited to foreign Powers, should be approved by the National Assembly.

Article 35. —Provisional President declares war, negotiates peace and concludes treaties with the approval of the National Assembly.