Part 24

The Manchu Tien-Tsung overthrows the Ming King Hwai Tsung and occupies Peking 1643

Tea brought to Europe in English ships from Canton 1660

Kang-Hi, greatest and most artistic Manchu Emperor, ascends throne, Christianity almost established 1661

Galdan, Prince of Jungaria, conquers Kashgaria and becomes supreme in Central Asia 1678

First treaty with European power (Russia) 1689

Commerce with East India Company begins at Canton 1680

Yung-Ching ascends throne; anti-Christian 1722

Jesuits expelled 1724

English send first man-of-war, _Centurion_, to China, English being active at Canton, Ningpo, etc. 1742

First American vessel, _Empress of China_, from New York, Captain Green, reaches Canton, China 1784

First American Consul, Major Shaw, at Macao, China 1786

Philadelphia opens China trade with ship _Alliance_ 1788

Boston opens China trade with ship _Massachusetts_ 1789

Earl Macartney’s mission arrives at Peking, throwing light on the Empire, which appeared to contain 4,402 walled cities, population 333,000,000, the Tartar and Manchu army being 1,000,000 infantry and 800,000 cavalry. Government absolute 1793

Macartney ordered to depart, the Chinese deciding to seal the country against foreigners October 7, 1793

Sir G. L. Staunton, at London, in three volumes reveals the heart of China and the capital to the world, fixing the nations in their determination to open China to modernity 1798

First English Protestant missionary, Robert Morrison, arrives, and in American factory of Milner & Bull at Canton translates Bible and compiles Chinese-English dictionary 1808

Edict against Christianity 1812

Lord Amherst’s embassy, which failed because he would not make “kotow” to Emperor as a bearer of tribute from an inferior nation 1816

Exclusive rights of East India Company cease 1834

Lord Napier arrives at Macao to superintend British commerce 1834

Opium dispute begins; the trade prohibited by Emperor November, 1834

Opium burned at Canton by famous Chinese Commissioner Lin February, 1835

Captain Elliot and British merchants leave Canton May, 1839

British and American seamen fight Chinese at Canton July 7, 1839

Hongkong taken by British August 23, 1839

British retire from Macao August 26, 1839

American frigate _Powhatan_ and British sloop _Rattler_ fight Chinese pirates in Kowloon Bay, opposite Hongkong September 4, 1839

British trade with China ceases by edict of Emperor December 6, 1839

Opium war between England and China, in which old China received the soundest thrashing she ever received from any foreign nation; many engagements; many ports taken 1840

Treaty of peace signed before Nanking on board ship _Cornwallis_, Sir Henry Pottinger for England and Ki-Ying and Neu-Kien for China, China paying indemnity of $21,000,000, throwing open as treaty ports Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ningpo and Shanghai, and ceding Hongkong Island to Britain August 29, 1842

American Commissioner Cushing, Daniel Webster’s son Fletcher, etc., arrive at Canton 1844

Manchu yellow instead of Chinese blue adopted as official color 1855

Famous Empress Dowager Tse Hsi and Viceroy Li Hung Chang arise to power 1856

Non-fulfilment of Nanking treaty with Britain causes war again 1856

Coolie slave trade for Peru, Cuba, California, etc., opens at Macao 1860

Britain and France war with China 1860

Taiping rebellion, beginning at Canton, sweeps to Nanking; opposed by the American, Ward; Chinese Gordon, etc., on behalf of Manchus 1863

Yung Wing brings first Chinese students to America (Hartford) 1872

Terrific Mohammedan rebellion in Shensi, Kansu, Yunnan provinces and Turkestan, suppressed by ferocious General Tso Tsung-tang, Mohammedan leader, Yakub Beg, being assassinated in Turkestan May, 1877

Sir Robert Hart establishes Chinese national customs, first guarantee for foreign loans 1886

China-Japan war over Korea; Formosa lost; indemnity also paid 1894

Emperor Kwang Hsu’s reform edicts, influenced by Kang Yu Wei 1898

Siege of Peking by allies 1900

Russia-Japan war over Manchuria 1904

America, Britain and China at Shanghai agree to end opium curse 1909

Death of Emperor Kwang Hsu and Empress Dowager Tse Hsi together 1909

Republican rebellion, led by Generals Li and Hsu, and planned by Sun Yat Sen 1911

Abdication of Manchus 1912

One serious charge against the Manchu is that he has been continually signing away China: Formosa and Korea to Japan, Manchuria to Russia, Kwangchou Bay and Tonquin to France, Kiaochou to Germany, and Wei-Hai-Wei to Britain. The Manchus themselves are to blame for the lack of respect shown the throne and dynasty in the last fifty years. Prince Chun might have taken the throne himself, but in fear of the cabal of jealous princes he named his child Pu Yi. This system of a long regency had several times been put in force by the Manchu intriguer, especially by the Dowager Tse Hsi with Kwang Hsu. When the latter grew up and asserted himself, he was destroyed, and another child, this Pu Yi, named as his successor. The same murderous and unstable system has been followed in putting up a new child Dalai Lama at Lhasa every few years, the old Dalai being informed that “it is time for him to pass his soul on to a new incarnation”. He can commit hara-kiri or be murdered. The Chinese people felt that there was no emperor to worship and obey, but rather a cabal in usurpation at Peking, and an irreligious cabal at that. From the time of the Chou founders, 1200 B. C., to make light of the sacrifices by letting a child do a man’s duties, was a cardinal sin.

Moreover, the Manchu in his long rule at Peking debased the idea of government by women and eunuch favorites. No one concerned will ever forget the power of the notorious eunuch Li Lien Ying at Peking in the years which led to the coup d’état of 1898, when reformers and emperor were crushed to the ground. This notorious “grafter” really shared the throne power with the Dowager Tse Hsi, and the Emperor Kwang Hsu was in continual disgrace. The Manchus knew that it was unconstitutional to honor eunuchs. During the minority of Kang-Hi, the greatest emperor of the Manchus, the regents degraded the eunuchs and had the law engraved on iron plates of one thousand pounds each. Why did not Tse Hsi observe this law during her long regency? Did she think the people would not remember and that her successor, Prince Chun, and the dynasty would not suffer? Because of her hospitality when at the close of her life she permitted her portrait to be painted for the St. Louis Exposition by a talented American woman, and when she entertained several of the charming legation ladies at Peking, books have been written by her guests, in their womanly kindness of heart, and one book by a talented editor friend of mine at Hongkong, palliating her offenses as a tyrant, a reactionary and a murderess. The long cold history of British and American diplomacy; the domestic history of China during her period, the Boxer siege, the written testimony of the Emperor Kwang Hsu, her “dummy” policy, the experiences of the great reformers, including Yuan; her persecution over the whole world of Kang Yu Wei and Sun Yat Sen by her spy system; the national newspapers, the publications of Ching-Shan, her household controller; the statements of the American secretaries of her chief viceroy, Li Hung Chang; the republican revolution and Declaration of Independence of 1911, are all insistent that egotism and reaction sat closest to the heart of this powerful woman; that she belonged to the class of Catherine and not to the class of Elizabeth or Victoria. If this was the character for seventy years of the leader of the Manchus, what was the character of the followers!

Owing to the Manchu’s lack of an art sense, he has neglected the beautiful bridges and broad roads left by the Sung dynasty; the artistic towers left by the Tang dynasty; the gorgeous pagodas left by the artistically incomparable Ming dynasty; and the fine canals left by the Mongols. There should, perhaps, be less surprise over the difference in the intellectual powers of the Manchu and the Chinese. Three hundred and fifty years ago the Manchu was only a hunter, a warrior and fisherman, like his cousins, the Buriats and Tungus up in Siberia to-day; whereas for immemorial centuries the Chinese has been a merchant, a scientific agriculturalist, and a scholar, and has always earned his own living without benefit of government subsidy or class privilege in any way, which have enervated the Manchus of to-day and yesterday. The reaction of the patient Chinese in the October, 1911, rebellion against the Manchu conqueror was natural. The surprise is that it was withheld for three centuries. The Manchus have never mingled with the Chinese. All the large cities, even to distant Canton and Yunnan, 1,200 and 1,400 miles away from the center of power, have separate walled Manchu cities, or Tartar cities as they are generally called, which were taken from the original Chinese. In an effort to appease the complaints of insurgents, the Regent Prince Chun in 1909 recalled the edict which until that late year prohibited Manchus from marrying Chinese.

Like all minorities that try to intrench their privileges, the Manchu is much of a “snob”. It is not uncommon to hear this sneer at Peking regarding the Chinese women of the south: “Oh, she’s a woman from the southern provinces; you can’t expect manners from her.” The fact is that the Chinese women of Nanking, Hangchow, Soochow, Canton and other southern cities have more refined manners than the rough-riding Manchus, the daughters of raiders. The wearing of the queue and the skull cap is a Manchu custom, imposed in the seventeenth century upon the conquered Chinese. One of the first things the Han republicans did in the October, 1911, revolution was to cut off the queue which they declared was a sign of servitude to the dynasty which they were trying to displace. The head-dress of the Manchu women shows the bunching of the hair over each ear instead of behind the head and on the neck, as is the Chinese custom. The Manchus do not deform the feet, nor paint, both of which have been Chinese customs. The gown of the Manchu women is longer than that of the Chinese women, the latter showing the divided skirt, or rather wide trousers. Other distinctive Manchu styles are the jewel-buttons, denoting rank, worn on the peak of the conical official hat; the peacock’s feather worn at the back of the hat; the peacock design in embroidery; the yellow riding jacket.

Manchus drink kaoliang spirits in place of rice samshu. Their battle flags have been triangular instead of oblong. The peculiar daylight audiences given by the throne to the grand councilors and viceroys showed the fear of publicity, and a recognition of estrangement from the people. They seemed to think that a throne that was surrounded with a good deal of mystery, exclusiveness, smoke of incense and darkness was stronger than a throne that was clearly outlined in the love of the people. A curious worship of the Manchu leaders, who are more superstitious than religious, is that of the fox. The great Fox Temple at Mukden, the ancestral temple of the dynasty, is famous. The Chinese leaders have never been as crude as this in their grossest superstition. The Chinese, especially the hard-working southerners who pay most of the taxes, have objected to the pensions accorded to a million Manchus gathered under the eight banners, and quartered, with the privilege to bear arms, in walled cities, barracks and arsenals throughout the land. In the fall of the Manchus, intrenched so long behind a spy system, control of taxation, trade routes and judicial appointees, all oppressive systems and tyrants should take notice that however intrenched they may seem to be against the people, the people will in the end become supreme, with a long, long memory of the wrongs that they have endured against their will, and the theme of “Restitution” on their tongues. To quote the words of Wu Ting Fang, the Jefferson of China, well known to Americans and Britons: “The hand of the people is now at the plough, and they must of necessity push on to the uttermost end of the furrow.”

The books written on Manchuria include James’ _Long White Mountain_; Sir Francis Younghusband’s _Narrative of Travels in Manchuria_, 1896; Hosie’s _Manchuria, Its People, Etc._; Howarth’s _Origin of the Manchus_; Doctor J. Ross’ _Manchus or the Reigning Dynasty_; E. H. Parker’s _Manchus in China_. Doctor A. Wylie translated the Manchu grammar and the _Tsing Wen Keung_. These are all British writers. Professor I. Zacharoff compiled a Russian-Manchu dictionary and wrote on the Manchus in 1875, and Von Mollendorff composed a Manchu grammar. It is possible that in exile from the throne the Manchus may revive the little literature and language that they possess; or, champion intriguers that they and their race are, Prince Tuan, Prince Su, the Tsai Princes, General Yin Tchang and others may continue to plot from Jehol, Kalgan, Urga, Mukden, Dalny and other places of exile. Manchu literature consists of only two hundred and fifty works, nearly all of which are translations of the Chinese classics.

What greater proof was ever given of the irreconcilable differences between the Manchus and Chinese, than the ominous silence of the Chinese members of the momentous meeting of the Grand Council called by the Empress Dowager Tse Hsi at Peking on June 16, 1900, to decide on the final attitude toward the “Boxers”. When the Manchus showed an insane determination to destroy their dynasty, the Chinese members by silence assented, and the republican rebellion of 1911 was only the outward manifestation of the spirit of the silence of 1900.

XVII

CHINA’S ARMY AND NAVY

The revolution of 1911 made known to the world the Chinese generals on the northern and southern sides, who were really able to command a modern army in action as well as in field maneuvers. Generals Li, Ling, Ho, Hwang, Hsu, etc., were the leading southerners. Generals Feng, Chang, Chao and Sheng were among the leading northerners in active service. All of these are Chinese. The much-heralded Manchu generals proved a failure, and few of the old-style Tartar generals, like Chiang and Chen of Pechili province; Na Yen, of Kalgan; Tuan, of the Red Banner Corps; Prince Su, of the Peking Gendarmerie, etc., were called upon to serve in the field. The latter decidedly had the ferocious temperament, but they lacked the knowledge of modern tactics. General Chao Ehr Feng, conqueror of the Tibet mutiny and the Dalai Lama in 1910, an effective old-style general, was cooped up in Chingtu City at the opening of the rebellion in September, 1911. General Yin Tchang, the Manchu general-in-chief; Brigadiers-General Ha and Liang, who visited America in 1910; Major General Ho; Prince Tsai Tao, the Manchu minister of war; Prince Yu Lang, of the dapper gray Imperial Guards, etc., never got much nearer the war than the point of mobilization, and their private car on the Hankau-Peking railway, with the engine pointed northward! The military princes of the royal blood, Tsai Pu, Tsai Jin, Duke Ling, Prince Pu, etc., all kept their dress uniforms innocent of the dust of field and the grime of powder. Prince Tsai Hsu, royal admiral of the navy, kept aboard his luxurious steam yacht which the Kiangnan Dock Company of Shanghai built for him, and sulked away from Admiral Sah’s service fleet, which was making a last dash to cut the rebel’s left flank between Wuchang and Hankau.

The modern Chinese army dates back to 1894 and the defeat in the China-Japan War over Korea. Viceroys Li Hung Chang and Yuan Shih Kai were bent on drilling an effective service. Chiefly German and Japanese instructors were hired, though there were a few other foreigners also. General Upton (U. S. A.), of Civil War fame, once made a trip to China and planned with Viceroy Li Hung Chang the establishment of a Chinese West Point in the north, which has been begun in the Pei Yang Military College at Tientsin. Emperor William personally instructed General Yin Tchang in Germany. An army of Imperial Guards and ten divisions, mostly territorial for facility in recruiting and mobilizing, was whipped into shape chiefly in the northern provinces, and twenty other divisions were partly formed as provided for by the famous Army Edict of April 16, 1906. Modern arsenals, headquarters offices, field maneuvers, Red Cross, foreign instructors, the Pei Yang Military College, etc., were all provided for. The old-style provincial turbaned troops allotted to each viceroy, and the pensioned soldiers of the eight Manchu banners were not all disbanded. They were quartered among the 4,000 walled cities. No conscription was necessary, as the men seemed anxious to serve for the wage, or the promise of six dollars a month. The plan was to keep the men three years with the colors, three years with the reserve, and thereafter for ten years with a landwehr on the German plan. By 1900 the new army was not cohesive, or the reactionary empress dowager, Prince Tuan, General Tung Fu of Kansu, and Yu Hsien, of Shangtung, would have wiped out the foreigners in the legations and Admiral Seymour’s international relief expedition at Tientsin. When the 1911 rebellion opened, the Eighth Division joined the republicans at Wuchang, and earned immortal glory. Their brothers of the Third Division opposed them at Hankau. The Ninth Division of Shangtung and Kiangsu territorials held Nanking for the imperialists, but the Kiangsu Brigade of that division later deserted. The Twentieth Division of Manchurian territorials at Lanchow Camp near Peking earned immortal glory by sending up to the National Assembly and the throne nineteen constitutional articles which they said had to be signed before they would war for the throne. This was _lèse majesté_ with a vengeance! The Guards Division was at Peking, where it stayed, watching the hoards of bullion and sycee more than constitutional articles! The Sixth Division was in Shansi province. The First Division of Manchu troops, and the Second and Fourth Divisions at times shuttlecocked along the railway between Hankau and Peking. The Fifth Division was at Tsinan, capital of Shangtung province.

Had China’s army not been territorial, the rebellion might never have got into swing, because it would have been impossible to have intrigued with a mixed Eighth Division. Again, had China’s army not been territorial, President Yuan could have used the Third, Fourth, Sixth and Twentieth Divisions at Peking in March, 1912, to suppress the mutiny, whereas these divisions remained in sympathy with the First Manchu Division and the Imperial Guards Division, and refused to obey the constitutional head of the government at a climacteric time. A mixed army is not easily mobilized, but when mobilized it is more amenable to discipline, and the ignoring of local feeling in view of the larger aims of statesmanship. England’s, Germany’s and France’s armies are territorial. Italy’s and America’s regular armies are not. America’s vast militia army, however, on which she mainly depends, is, of course, territorial.

General Yin Tchang, who had much to do with organizing the effective ten divisions of the northern army, is a graduate of Peking University. He served five years in the Austrian infantry, and as minister to Germany, at Emperor William’s request, he enjoyed that unusually able and enthusiastic monarch’s private instruction in army matters. In 1900 General Yin Tchang came in contact with the allied forces at Tientsin, and held his retreat together well enough to elicit much admiration. General Yin and the regent, Prince Chun, both visited Hongkong in 1901 and there gained sympathy from us all for the great promise which they showed in guiding the New China. Yin Tchang’s excellent idea was to take the provincial armies away from the viceroys, and make the new divisions answerable to the Board of War (Ping Pu) at Peking. Prince Tsai Tse’s, the finance minister’s plan, was to inform each governor what amount he was to send to Peking as the province’s share in maintaining a central army. There was considerable conflict over this issue, many southern governors saying that they paid for two armies, one modern army which was held in the north, of which they never received their allotted division or brigade, and the old-style provincial troops which they had to maintain to preserve order. General Ha Han-Chang, a Chinese by blood, came next to Yin in drilling the new army. He is also a Pei Yang graduate, and trained with the Japanese army. General Liang-Pi, a Manchu, had an experience similar to that of General Ha, before accepting command of the First Brigade. None of these men is like Tieh-Liang and the other well-known old-style generals, strong in classics but weak in tactics. They reversed the order. General Li Chin Hsi at remote Yunnan City raised and drilled an excellent division. The division at Canton went all to pieces before the republican troops of General Wu Sum, but the Shansi divisions were effectually held together by General Sheng Yun, a Mongol, who later captured the Tongkwan pass, which commands the road from the west to Peking. Many soldiers of the southern divisions, in the first few weeks of the revolution, fired from the hip, as they were not used to the recoil on the shoulder. They, of course, soon did better. One of the best and most popular marksmen of the Singapore Rifle Team which competed at Bisley in 1910 was Sergeant Tan Chow Kim, a Cantonese Chinese.

The name of Frederick T. Ward should be linked with “Chinese” Gordon’s in connection with Chinese military records. General Ward, born at Salem, Massachusetts, lost his life in the service of China. He organized and led the only great army that China ever had before 1906. His name stands linked with Gordon’s as the maker of the “Ever Victorious Army,” the conqueror of the Taiping horde.