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 {126} 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 {127} 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."

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 {128} 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 {129} 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.

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 {130} 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]

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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 {132} 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 {133} 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.

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 {134} 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 {135} 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, {136} 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 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 {137} 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.

{138}

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 {139} 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 {140} 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.

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 {141} 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 {142} 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.

* * * * *

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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]

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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."

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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 {146} 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 {147} 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.

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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 {149} 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 {150} forthwith. He then waited for the pardon that did not come.

"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."

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