It was to save Feng Kuo-chang, then, that the young patriot Tsao-ao caused the ultimatum to be dispatched fourteen days too soon, i.e., before the Yunnan troops had marched over the mountain-barrier into the neighbouring province of Szechuan and seized the city of Chungking—which would have barred the advance of the Northern troops permanently as the river defiles even when lightly defended are impassable here to the strongest force. It was largely due to the hardships of forced marches conducted over these rugged mountains, which raise their precipitous peaks to the heavens, that Tsao-ao subsequently lost his life, his health being undermined by exposure, tuberculosis finally claiming him. But one thing at least did his resolute action secure. With Yunnan in open revolt and several other provinces about to follow suit, General Feng Kuo-chang was able to telegraph Peking that it was impossible for him to leave his post at Nanking without rebellion breaking out. This veiled threat was understood by Yuan Shih-kai. Grimly he accepted the checkmate.

Yet all the while he was acting with his customary energy. Troops were dispatched towards Szechuan in great numbers, being tracked up the rapids of the upper river on board fleets of junks which were ruthlessly commandeered. Now commenced an extraordinary race between the Yunnan mountaineers and the Northern plainsmen for the strategic city of Chungking. For some weeks the result was in doubt; for although Szechuan province was held by Northern garrisons, they were relatively speaking weak and surrounded by hostile Szechuan troops whose politics were doubtful. In the end, however, Yuan Shih-kai's men reached their goal first and Chungking was saved. Heavy and continuous mountain-fighting ensued, in which the Southern troops were only partially successful. Being less well-equipped in mountain artillery and less well-found in general supplies they were forced to rely largely on guerrilla warfare. There is little accurate record of the desperate fighting which occurred in this wild region but it is known that the original Yunnan force was nearly annihilated, and that of the remnant numbers perished from disease and exposure.

Other events were, however, hastening the debacle. Kueichow province had almost at once followed the example of Yunnan. A third province, Kwangsi, under a veteran who was much respected, General Lu Yun Ting, was soon added; and gradually as in 1911 it became clear that the army was only one chessman in a complicated and very ingenious game.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] This story is firmly believed by many, namely that a beautiful woman caused the loss of Korea.



CHAPTER XIII

"THE THIRD REVOLUTION" (Continued)

THE DOWNFALL AND DEATH OF YUAN SHIH-KAI

As had been the case during the previous revolts, it was not publicly or on the battlefield that the most crucial work was performed: the decisive elements in this new and conclusive struggle were marshalled behind the scenes and performed their task unseen. Though the mandarinate, at the head of which stood Yuan Shih-kai, left no stone unturned to save itself from its impending fate, all was in vain. Slowly but inexorably it was shown that a final reckoning had to be faced.

The reasons are not far to seek. Too long had the moral sense of educated men been outraged by common fraud and deceit for any continuance of a regime which had disgraced China for four long years to be humanly possible. Far and wide the word was rapidly passing that Yuan Shih-kai was not the man he had once been; he was in reality feeble and choleric—prematurely old from too much history-making and too many hours spent in the harem. He had indeed become a mere Colossus with feet of clay,—a man who could be hurled to the ground by precisely the same methods he had used to destroy the Manchus. Even his foreign supporters were becoming tired and suspicious of him, endless trouble being now associated with his name, there being no promise that quieter times could possibly come so long as he lived. A very full comprehension of the general position is given by perusing the valedictory letter of the leader of the Chinese intellectuals, that remarkable man—Liang Ch'i-chao, who in December had silently and secretly fled from Tientsin on information reaching him that his assassination was being planned. On the even of his departure he had sent the following brilliant document to the Emperor-elect as a reply to an attempt to entrap him to Peking, a document the meaning of which was clear to every educated man. Its exquisite irony mixed with its bluntness told all that was necessary to tell—and forecasted the inevitable fall. It runs:—

For the Kind Perusal of the Great President:—

A respectful reading of your kind instructions reveals to me your modesty and the brotherly love which you cherish for your humble servant, who is so moved by your heart-touching sympathy that he does not know how to return your kindness. A desire then seized him to submit his humble views for your wise consideration; though on the one hand he has thought that he might fail to express what he wishes to say if he were to do so in a set of brief words, while on the other hand he has no desire to trouble the busy mind of one on whose shoulders fall myriads of affairs, with views expressed in many words. Furthermore, what Ch'i-chao desires to say relates to what can be likened to the anxiety of one who, fearing that the heavens may some day fall on him, strives to ward off the catastrophe. If his words should be misunderstood, it would only increase his offence. Time and again he has essayed to write; but each time he has stopped short. Now he is going South to visit his parents; and looking at the Palace-Gate from afar, he realizes that he is leaving the Capital indefinitely. The thought that he has been a protege of the Great President and that dangers loom ahead before the nation as well as his sense of duty and friendly obligations, charge him with the responsibility of saying something. He therefore begs to take the liberty of presenting his humble but extravagant views for the kind consideration of the Great President.

The problem of Kuo-ti (form of State) appears to have gone too far for reconsideration: the position is like unto a man riding on the back of a wild tiger.... Ch'i-chao therefore at one moment thought he would say no more about it, since added comment thereon might make him all the more open to suspicion. But a sober study of the general situation and a quiet consideration of the possible future make him tremble like an autumn leaf; for the more he meditates, the more dangerous the situation appears. It is true that the minor trouble of "foreign advice" and rebel plotting can be settled and guarded against; but what Ch'i-chao bitterly deplores is that the original intention of the Great President to devote his life and energy to the interest of the country—an intention he has fulfilled during the past four years—will be difficult to explain to the world in future. The trust of the world in the Great President would be shattered with the result that the foundation of the country will be unsettled. Do not the Sages say: "In dealing with the people aim at faithfulness?" If faithfulness to promises be observed by those in authority, then the people will naturally surrender themselves. Once, however, a promise is broken, it will be as hard to win back the people's trust as to ascend to the very Heavens. Several times have oaths of office been uttered; yet even before the lips are dry, action hath falsified the words of promise. In these circumstances, how can one hope to send forth his orders to the country in the future, and expect them to be obeyed? The people will say "he started in righteousness but ended in self-seeking: how can we trust our lives in his hands, if he should choose to pursue even further his love of self-enrichment?" It is possible for Ch'i-chao to believe that the Great President has no desire to make profit for himself by the sacrifice of the country, but how can the mass of the people—who believe only what they are told—understand what Ch'i-chao may, perchance, believe?

The Great President sees no one but those who are always near him; and these are the people who have tried to win his favour and gain rewards by concocting the alleged unanimous petitions of the whole country urging his accession to the Throne. In reality, however, the will of the people is precisely the opposite. Even the high officials in the Capital talk about the matter in a jeering and sarcastic way. As for the tone of the newspapers outside Peking, that is better left unmentioned. And as for the "small people" who crowd the streets and the market-places, they go about as if something untoward might happen at any moment. If a kingdom can be maintained by mere force, then the disturbance at the time of Ch'in Chih-huang and Sui Yang Ti could not have been successful. If, on the other hand, it is necessary to secure the co-operation and the willing submission of the hearts of the people, then is it not time that our Great President bethinks himself and boldly takes his own stand?

Some argue that to hesitate in the middle of a course after indulging in much pomp and pageantry at the beginning will result in ridicule and derision and that the dignity of the Chief Executive will be lowered. But do they even know whether the Great President has taken the least part in connection with the phantasies of the past four months? Do they know that the Great President has, on many occasions, sworn fidelity before high Heaven and the noon-day sun? Now if he carries out his sacrosanct promise and is deaf to the unrighteous advice of evil counsellors, his high virtue will be made even more manifest than ever before. Wherein then is there need of doubt or fear?

Others may even suggest that since the proposal was initiated by military men, the tie that has hitherto bound the latter to the Great President may be snapped in case the pear fails to ripen. But in the humble opinion of Ch'i-chao, the troops are now all fully inspired with a sense of obedience to the Chief Executive. Who then can claim the right to drag our Great President into unrighteousness for the sake of vanity and vainglory? Who will dare disobey the behests of the Great President if he should elect to open his heart and follow the path of honour and unbroken vows? If to-day, as Head of the nation, he is powerless to silence the riotous clamour of the soldiery as happened at Chen-chiao in ancient time, then be sure in the capacity of an Emperor he will not be able to suppress an outbreak of troops even as it happened once at Yuyang in the Tang dynasty.[20] To give them the handle of the sword is simply courting trouble for the future. But can we suspect the troops—so long trained under the Great President—of such unworthy conduct? The ancients say "However a thing is done, do not hurt the feelings of those who love you, or let your enemy have a chance to rejoice." Recently calamities in the forms of drought and flood have repeatedly visited China; and the ancients warn us that in such ways does Heaven manifest its Will regarding great movements in our country. In addition to these we must remember the prevailing evils of a corrupt officialdom, the incessant ravages of robbers, excesses in punishment, the unusually heavy burdens of taxation, as well as the irregularity of weather and rain, which all go to increase the murmurs and complaints of the people. Internally, the rebels are accumulating strength against an opportune time to rise; externally, powerful neighbouring countries are waiting for an opportunity to harass us. Why then should our Great President risk his precious person and become a target of public criticism; or "abandon the rock of peace in search of the tiger's tail"; or discourage the loyalty of faithful ones and encourage the sinister ambitions of the unscrupulous? Ch'i-chao sincerely hopes that the Great President will devote himself to the establishment of a new era which shall be an inspiration to heroism and thus escape the fate of those who are stigmatized in our annals with the name of Traitor. He hopes that the renown of the Great President will long be remembered in the land of Chung Hua (China) and he prays that the fate of China may not end with any abrupt ending that may befall the Great President. He therefore submits his views with a bleeding heart. He realizes that his words may not win the approval of one who is wise and clever; but Ch'i-chao feels that unless he unburdens what is in his heart, he will be false to the duty which bids him speak and be true to the kindness that has been showered on him by the Great President. Whether his loyalty to the Imperative Word will be rewarded with approval or with reproof, the order of the Great President will say.

There are other words of which Ch'i-chao wishes to tender to the Great President. To be an independent nation to-day, we must need follow the ways of the present age. One who opposes the current of the world and protects himself against the enriching influence of the world-spirit must eventually share the fate of the unselected. It is sincerely hoped that the Great President will refrain to some extent from restoring the old and withal work for real reform. Law can only be made a living force by both the ruler and the people obeying it with sincerity. When the law loses its strength, the people will not know how to act; and then the dignity of Government will disappear. It is hoped that the Great President will keep himself within the bounds of law and not lead the officials and the people to juggle with words. Participation in politics and patriotism are closely related. Bear well in mind that it is impossible to expect the people to share the responsibilities of the country, unless they are given a voice in the transaction of public business. The hope is expressed that the Great President will establish a real organ representing the true will of the people and encourage the natural growth of the free expression of public opinion. Let us not become so arrogant and oppressive that the people will have no chance to express their views, as this may inspire hatred on the part of the people. The relation between the Central Government and the provincial centres is like that between the trunk and branches of a tree. If the branches are all withered, how can the trunk continue to grow? It is hoped that the Great President, while giving due consideration to the maintenance of the dignity of the Central Government, will at the same time allow the local life of the provinces to develop. Ethics, Righteousness, Purity and Conscientiousness are four great principles. When these four principles are neglected, a country dies. If the whole country should come in spirit to be like "concubines and women," weak and open to be coerced and forced along with whomsoever be on the stronger side, how can a State be established? May the Great President encourage principle, and virtue, stimulate purity of character, reject men of covetous and mean character, and grant wise tolerance to those who know no fear in defending the right. Only then will the vitality of the country be retained in some degree; and in time of emergency, there will be a reserve of strength to be drawn upon in support of the State. All these considerations are of the order of obvious truths and it must be assumed that the Great President, who is greatly wise, is not unaware of the same. The reason why Ch'i-chao ventures to repeat them is this. He holds it true that a duty is laid on him to submit whatever humble thoughts are his, and at the same time he believes that the Great President will not condemn a proper physic even though it may be cheap and simple. How fortunate will Ch'i-chao be if advice so tendered shall meet with approval. He is proceeding farther and farther away from the Palace every day and he does not know how soon he will be able to seek an audience again. He writes these words with tears dropping into the ink-slab and he trusts that his words may receive the attention of the Great President.

So ends this remarkable missive which has become an historic document in the archives of the Republic. Once again it was whispered that so great an impression did this fateful warning produce on the Emperor-elect that he was within an ace of cancelling the disastrous scheme which now enmeshed him. But in the end family influence won the day; and stubbornly and doggedly the doomed man pushed on with his attempt to crush revolt and consolidate his crumbling position.

Every possible effort was made to minimize the effect of international influence on the situation. As the sycophantic vernacular press of the capital, long drilled to blind subservience, had begun to speak of his enthronement as a certainty on the 9th February, a Circular Note was sent to the Five Allied Powers that no such date had been fixed, and that the newspaper reports to that effect were inventions. In order specially to conciliate Japan, a high official was appointed to proceed on an Embassy to Tokio to grant special industrial concessions—a manoeuvre which was met with the official refusal of the Tokio Government to be so placated. Peking was coldly informed that owing to "court engagements" it would be impossible for the Emperor of Japan to receive any Chinese Mission. After this open rebuff attention was concentrated on "the punitive expedition" to chastise the disaffected South, 80,000 men being put in the field and a reserve of 80,000 mobilized behind them. An attempt was also made to win over waverers by an indiscriminate distribution of patents of nobility. Princes, Dukes, Marquises, Viscounts and Barons were created in great batches overnight only to be declined in very many cases, one of the most precious possessions of the Chinese race being its sense of humour. Every one, or almost every one, knew that the new patents were not worth the paper they were written on, and that in future years the members of this spurious nobility would be exposed to something worse than contempt. France was invited to close the Tonkin frontier, but this request also met with a rebuff, and revolutionists and arms were conveyed in an ever-more menacing manner into the revolted province of Yunnan by the French railways. A Princedom was at length conferred on Lung Chi Kwang, the Military Governor of Canton, Canton being a pivotal point and Lung Chi Kwang, one of the most cold-blooded murderers in China, in the hope that this would spur him to such an orgy of crime that the South would be crushed. Precisely the opposite occurred, since even murderers are able to read the signs of the times. Attempts were likewise made to enforce the use of the new Imperial Calendar, but little success crowned such efforts, no one outside the metropolis believing for a moment that this innovation possessed any of the elements of permanence.

Meanwhile the monetary position steadily worsened, the lack of money becoming so marked as to spread panic. Still, in spite of this, the leaders refused to take warning, and although the political impasse was constantly discussed, the utmost concession the monarchists were willing to make was to turn China into a Federal Empire with the provinces constituted into self-governing units. The over-issue of paper currency to make good the gaps in the National Finance, now slowly destroyed the credit of the Central Government and made the suspension of specie payment a mere matter of time. By the end of February the province of Kueichow was not only officially admitted by the Peking Government to be in open revolt as well as Yunnan, but rebel troops were reported to be invading the neighbouring province of Hunan. Kwangsi was also reported to be preparing for secession whilst in Szechuan local troops were revolting in increasing numbers. Rumours of an attempted assassination of Yuan Shih-kai by means of bombs now circulated,—and there were many arrests and suicides in the capital. Though by a mandate issued on the 23rd February, the enthronement ceremony was indefinitely postponed, that move came too late. The whole country was plainly trembling on the edge of a huge outbreak when, less than four weeks later, Yuan Shih-kai reluctantly and publicly admitted that the game was up. It is understood that a fateful interview he had with the British Minister greatly influenced him, though the formal declaration of independence of Kwangsi on the 16th March, whither the scholar Liang Ch'i-chao had gone, was also a powerful argument. On the 22nd March the Emperor-elect issued the mandate categorically cancelling the entire monarchy scheme, it being declared that he would now form a Responsible Cabinet. Until that date the Government Gazette had actually perpetrated the folly of publishing side by side Imperial Edicts and Presidential Mandates—the first for Chinese eyes, the second for foreign consumption. Never before even in China had such a farce been seen. A rapid perusal of the Mandate of Cancellation will show how lamely and poorly the retreat is made:

DECREE CANCELLING THE EMPIRE (22ND MARCH)

After the establishment of the Min Kuo (i.e. the Republic), disturbances rapidly followed one another; and a man of little virtue like me was called to take up the vast burden of the State. Fearing that disaster might befall us any day, all those who had the welfare of the country at heart advocated the reinstitution of the monarchical system of government to the end that a stop be put to all strife for power and a regime of peace be inaugurated. Suggestions in this sense have unceasingly been made to me since the days of Kuei Chou (the year of the first Revolution, 1911) and each time a sharp rebuke has been administered to the one making the suggestion. But the situation last year was indeed so different from the circumstances of preceding years that it was impossible to prevent the spread of such ideas.

It was said that China could never hope to continue as a nation unless the constitutional monarchical form of state were adopted; and if quarrels like those occurring in Mexico and Portugal were to take place in China, we would soon share the fate of Annam and Burmah. A large number of people then advocated the restoration of a monarchy and advanced arguments which were reasonable. In this proposal all the military and civil officials, scholars and people concurred; and prayers were addressed to me in most earnest tone by telegram and in petitions. Owing to the position I was at the time holding, which laid on me the duty of maintaining the then existing situation, I repeatedly made declarations resisting the adoption of the advice; but the people did not seem to realize my embarrassment. And so it was decided by the acting Li Fa Yuan (i.e. the Senate) that the question of Kuo-ti (form of State) should be settled by the Convention of Citizens' Representatives. As the result, the representatives of the Provinces and of the Special Administrative Areas unanimously decided in favour of a constitutional monarchy, and in one united voice elected me as the Emperor. Since the sovereignty of the country has been vested in the citizens of China and as the decision was made by the entire body of the representatives, there was no room left to me for further discussion. Nevertheless, I continued to be of the conviction that my sudden elevation to the Great Seat would be a violation of my oath and would compromise my good faith, leaving me unable to explain myself; I, therefore, declined in earnest words in order to make clear the view which hath always been mine. The said Senate however, stated with firmness that the oath of the Chief Executive rested on a peculiar sanction and should be observed or discarded according to the will of the people. Their arguments were so irresistible that there was in truth no excuse for me further to decline the offer.

Therefore I took refuge behind the excuse of "preparations" in order that the desire of the people might be satisfied. But I took no steps actually to carry out the programme. When the trouble in Yunnan and Kueichow arose, a mandate was officially issued announcing the decision to postpone the measure and forbidding further presentation of petitions praying for the enthronement. I then hastened the convocation of the Li Fa Yuan (i.e., a new Parliament) in order to secure the views of that body and hoping thus to turn back to the original state of affairs, I, being a man of bitter experiences, had at once given up all ideas of world affairs; and having retired into the obscurity of the river Yuan (in Honan), I had no appetite for the political affairs of the country. As the result of the revolution in Hsin Hai, I was by mistake elected by the people. Reluctantly I came out of my retirement and endeavoured to prop up the tottering structure. I cared for nothing, but the salvation of the country. A perusal of our history of several thousand years will reveal in vivid manner the sad fate of the descendants of ancient kings and emperors. What then could have prompted me to aspire to the Throne? Yet while the representatives of the people were unwilling to believe in the sincerity of my refusal of the offer, a section of the people appear to have suspected me of harbouring the desire of gaining more power and privileges. Such difference in thought has resulted in the creation of an exceedingly dangerous situation. As my sincerity has not been such as to win the hearts of the people and my judgment has not been sound enough to appraise every man, I have myself alone to blame for lack of virtue. Why then should I blame others? The people have been thrown into misery and my soldiers have been made to bear hardships; and further the people have been cast into panic and commerce has rapidly declined. When I search my own heart a measure of sorrow fills it. I shall, therefore, not be unwilling to suppress myself in order to yield to others.

I am still of the opinion that the "designation petitions" submitted through the Tsan Cheng Yuan are unsuited to the demands of the time; and the official acceptance of the Imperial Throne made on the 11th day of the 12th month of last year (11th December, 1915) is hereby cancelled. "The designation petitions" of the Provinces and of the Special Administrative Areas are hereby all returned through the State Department to the Tsan Cheng Yuan, i.e., the acting Li Fa Yuan (Parliament), to be forwarded to the petitioners for destruction; and all the preparations connected therewith are to cease at once. In this wise I hope to imitate the sincerity of the Ancients by taking on myself all the blame so that my action may fall in line with the spirit of humanity which is the expression of the will of Heaven. I now cleanse my heart and wash my thoughts to the end that trouble may be averted and the people may have peace. Those who advocated the monarchical system were prompted by the desire to strengthen the foundation of the country; but as their methods have proved unsuitable their patriotism might harm the country. Those who have opposed the monarchy have done so out of their desire to express their political views. It may be therefore presumed that they would not go to the extreme and so endanger the country. They should, therefore, all hearken to the voice of their own conscience and sacrifice their prejudices, and with one mind and one purpose unite in the effort of saving the situation so that the glorious descendants of the Sacred Continent may be spared the horrors of internal warfare and the bad omens may be changed into lucky signs.

In brief I now confess that all the faults of the country are the result of my own faults. Now that the acceptance of the Imperial Throne has been cancelled every man will be responsible for his own action if he further disturbs the peace of the locality and thus gives an opportunity to others. I, the Great President, being charged with the duty of ruling over the whole country, cannot remain idle while the country is racing to perdition. At the present moment the homesteads are in misery, discipline has been disregarded, administration is being neglected and real talents have not been given a chance. When I think of such conditions I awake in the darkness of midnight. How can we stand as a nation if such a state of affairs is allowed to continue? Hereafter all officials should thoroughly get rid of their corrupt habits and endeavour to achieve merits. They should work with might and main in their duties, whether in introducing reforms or in abolishing old corruptions. Let all be not satisfied with empty words and entertain no bias regarding any affair. They should hold up as their main principle of administration the policy that only reality will count and deal out reward or punishment with strict promptness. Let all our generals, officials, soldiers and people all, all, act in accordance with this ideal.

This attempt at an Amende honorable, so far from being well-received, was universally looked upon as an admission that Yuan Shih-kai had almost been beaten and that a little more would complete his ruin. Though, as we have said, the Northern troops were fighting well in his cause on the upper reaches of the great Yangtsze, the movement against him was now spreading as though it had been a dread contagious disease, the entire South uniting against Peking. His promise to open a proper Legislative Chamber on 1st May was met with derision. By the middle of April five provinces—Yunnan, Kueichow, Kwangsi, Kwangtung and Chekiang—had declared their independence, and eight others were preparing to follow suit. A Southern Confederacy, with a Supreme Military Council sitting at Canton, was organized, the brutal Governor Lung Chi Kwang having been won over against his master, and the scholar Liang Ch'i-chao flitting from place to place, inspiring move after move. The old parliament of 1913 was reported to be assembling in Shanghai, whilst terrorist methods against Peking officials were bruited abroad precipitating a panic in the capital and leading to an exodus of well-to-do families who feared a general massacre.

An open agitation to secure Yuan Shih-kai's complete retirement and exile now commenced. From every quarter notables began telegraphing him that he must go,—including General Feng Kuo-chang who still held the balance of power on the Yangtsze. Every enemy Yuan Shih-kai had ever had was also racing back to China from exile. By the beginning of May the situation was so threatening that the Foreign Legations became alarmed and talked of concerting measures to insure their safety. On the 6th May came the coup de grace. The great province of Szechuan, which has a population greater than the population of France, declared its independence; and the whole Northern army on the upper reaches of the Yangtsze was caught in a trap. The story is still told with bated breath of the terrible manner in which Yuan Shih-kai sated his rage when this news reached him—Szechuan being governed by a man he had hitherto thoroughly trusted—one General Chen Yi. Arming himself with a sword and beside himself with rage he burst into the room where his favourite concubine was lying with her newly-delivered baby. With a few savage blows he butchered them both, leaving them lying in their gore, thus relieving the apoplectic stroke which threatened to overwhelm him. Nothing better illustrates the real nature of the man who had been so long the selected bailiff of the Powers.

On the 12th May it became necessary to suspend specie payment in Peking, the government banks having scarcely a dollar of silver left, a last attempt to negotiate a loan in America having failed. Meanwhile under inspiration of General Feng Kuo-chang, a conference to deal with the situation was assembling at Nanking; but on the 11th May, the Canton Military Government, representing the Southern Confederacy, had already unanimously elected Vice-President Li Yuan Hung as president of the Republic, it being held that legally Yuan Shih-kai had ceased to be President when he had accepted the Throne on the previous 13th December. The Vice-President, who had managed to remove his residence outside the Palace, had already received friendly offers of protection from certain Powers which he declined, showing courage to the end. Even the Nanking Conference, though composed of trimmers and wobblers, decided that the retirement of Yuan Shih-kai was a political necessity, General Feng Kuo-chang as chairman of the Conference producing at the last moment a telegram from the fallen Dictator declaring that he was willing to go if his life and property were guaranteed.

A more dramatic collapse was, however, in store. As May drew to an end it was plain that there was no government at all left in Peking. The last phase had been truly reached. Yuan Shih-kai's nervous collapse was known to all the Legations which were exceedingly anxious about the possibility of a soldiers' revolt in the capital. The arrival of a first detachment of the savage hordes of General Chang Hsun added Byzantine touches to a picture already lurid with a sickened ruler and the Mephistophelian figure of that ruler's ame damnee, the Secretary Liang Shih-yi, vainly striving to transmute paper into silver, and find the wherewithal to prevent a sack of the capital. It was said at the time that Liang Shih-yi had won over his master to trying one last throw of the dice. The troops of the remaining loyal Generals, such as Ni Shih-chung of Anhui, were transported up the Yangtsze in an attempt to restore the situation by a savage display,—but that effort came to nought.

The situation had become truly appalling in Peking. It was even said that the neighbouring province of Shantung was to become a separate state under Japanese protection. Although the Peking administration was still nominally the Central Government of China, it was amply clear to observers on the spot that by a process of successive collapses all that was left of government was simply that pertaining to a city-state of the antique Greek type—a mal-administration dominated by the enigmatic personality of Liang Shih-yi. The writ of the capital no longer ran more than ten miles beyond the city walls. The very Government Departments, disgusted with, and distrustful of, the many hidden influences at work, had virtually declared their independence and went their own way, demanding foreign dollars and foreign banknotes from the public, and refusing all Chinese money. The fine residuum of undisputed power left in the hands of the Mal-administrator-in-chief, Liang Shih-yi, was the control of the copper cash market which he busily juggled with to the very end netting a few last thousands for his own purse, and showing that men like water inevitably find their true level. In all China's tribulations nothing similar had ever been seen. Even in 1900, after the Boxer bubble had been pricked and the Court had sought safety in flight, there was a certain dignity and majesty left. Then an immense misfortune had fallen across the capital; but that misfortune was like a cloak which hid the nakedness of the victim; and there was at least no pretence at authority. In the Summer of 1916, had it not been for the fact that an admirable police and gendarmerie system, comprising 16,000 men, secured the safety of the people, there can be little doubt that firing and looting would have daily taken place and no woman been safe. It was the last phase of political collapse with a vengeance: and small wonder if all Chinese officials, including even high police officers, sent their valuables either out of the city or into the Legation Quarter for safe custody. Extraordinary rumours circulated endlessly among the common people that there would be great trouble on the occasion of the Dragon Festival, the 5th June; and what actually took place was perhaps more than a coincidence.

Early on the 6th June an electric thrill ran through Peking—Yuan Shih-kai was dead! At first the news was not believed, but by eleven o'clock it was definitely known in the Legation Quarter that he had died a few minutes after ten o'clock that morning from uraemia of the blood—the surgeon of the French Legation being in attendance almost to the last. A certificate issued later by this gentleman immediately quieted the rumours of suicide, though many still refused to believe that he was actually dead. "I did not wish this end," he is reported to have whispered hoarsely a few minutes before he expired, "I did not wish to be Emperor. Those around me said that the people wanted a king and named me for the Throne. I believed and was misled." And in this way did his light flicker out. If there are sermons in stones and books in the running brooks surely there is an eloquent lesson in this tragedy! Before expiring the wretched man issued the following Death Mandate in accordance with the ancient tradition, attempting as the long night fell on him to make his peace with men:—

LAST MANDATE OF YUAN SHIH-KAI

The Min Kuo has been established for five years. Unworthily have I, the Great President, been entrusted with the great task by the citizens. Owing to my lack of virtue and ability I have not been able fully to transform into deeds what I have desired to accomplish; and I blush to say that I have not realized one ten-thousandth part of my original intention to save the country and the people. I have, since my assumption of the office, worked in day and thought in the night, planning for the country. It is true that the foundation of the country is not yet consolidated, the hardships of the people not yet relieved, and innumerable reforms are still unattended to. But by the valuable services of the civil officials and military men, some semblance of peace and order has been maintained in the provinces and friendly relations with the Powers upheld till now.

While on the one hand I comfort myself with such things accomplished, on the other hand I have much to blame myself for. I was just thinking how I could retire into private life and rest myself in the forest and near the springs in fulfilment of my original desire, when illness has suddenly overtaken me. As the affairs of the State are of gravest importance, the right man must be secured to take over charge of the same. In accordance with Article 29 of the Provisional Constitution, which states that in case the office of the Great President should be vacated for certain reasons or when the Great President is incapacitated from doing his duties, the Vice-President shall exercise authority and power in his stead. I, the Great President, declare in accordance with the Provisional Constitution that the Vice-President shall exercise in an acting capacity, the authority and power of the Great President of the Chung Hua Min Kuo.

The Vice-President being a man of courtesy, good nature, benevolence and wisdom, will certainly be capable of greatly lessening the difficulties of the day and place the country on the foundation of peace, and so remedy the defects of me, the Great President, and satisfy the expectations of the people of the whole country. The civil and military officials outside of the Capital as well as the troops, police and scholars and people should doubly keep in mind the difficulties and perils of the nation, and endeavour to maintain peace and order to the best of their ability, placing before everything else the welfare of the country. The ancients once said: "It is only when the living do try to become strong that the dead are not dead." This is also the wish of me, the Great President.

(Signed) TUAN CHI-JUI, Secretary of State and Minister of War

TSAO JU-LIN, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Communications.

WANG YI-TANG, Minister of Interior.

CHOW TZU-CHI, Minister of Finance.

LIU-KUAN-HSIUNG, Minister of Navy.

CHANG TSUNG-HSIANG, Minister of Justice and Agriculture and Commerce.

CHANG KUO-KAN, Minister of Education.

6th day of the 6th month of the 5th year of Chung Hua Min Kuo.

This tragic denouement did not fail to awaken within very few days among thinking minds a feeling of profound sympathy for the dead man coupled with sharp disgust for the part that foreigners had played—not all, of course—but a great number of them. Briefly, when all the facts are properly grouped it can be said that Yuan Shih-kai was killed by his foreign friends—by the sort of advice he has been consistently given in Constitutional Law, in Finance, in Politics, in Diplomacy. It is easy to trace step by step the broad road he had been tempted to travel, and to see how at each turning-point the men who should have taught him how to be true and loyal to the Western things the country had nominally adhered to from the proclamation of the Republic, showed him how to be disloyal and untrue. The tragedy is one which is bound to be deeply studied throughout the whole world when the facts are properly known and there is time to think about them, and if there is anything to-day left to poetic justice the West will know to whom to apportion the blame.

Yuan Shih-kai, the man, when he came out of retirement in 1911, was in many ways a wonderful Chinese: he was a fount of energy and of a physical sturdiness rare in a country whose governing classes have hitherto been recruited from attenuated men, pale from study and the lotus life. He had a certain task to which to put his hand, a huge task, indeed, since the reformation of four hundred millions was involved, yet one which was not beyond him if wisely advised. He was an ignorant man in certain matters, but he had had much political experience and apparently possessed a marvellous aptitude for learning. The people needed a leader to guide them through the great gateway of the West, to help them to acquire those jewels of wisdom and experience which are a common heritage. An almost Elizabethan eagerness filled them, as if a New World they had never dreamed of had been suddenly discovered for them and lay open to their endeavours. China, hitherto derided as a decaying land, had been born anew; and in single massive gesture had proclaimed that she, too, would belong to the elect and be governed accordingly.

What was the foreign response—the official response? In every transaction into which it was possible to import them, reaction and obscurantism were not only commonly employed but heartily recommended. Not one trace of genuine statesmanship, not one flash of altruism, was ever seen save the American flash in the pan of 1913, when President Wilson refused to allow American participation in the great Reorganization Loan because he held that the terms on which it was to be granted infringed upon China's sovereign rights. Otherwise there was nothing but a tacit endorsement of the very policy which has been tearing the entrails out of Europe—namely militarism. That was the fine fruit which was offered to a hopeful nation—something that would wither on the branch or poison the people as they plucked it. They were taught to believe that political instinct was the ability to misrepresent in a convincing way the actions and arguments of your opponents and to profit by their mistakes—not that it is a mighty impulse which can re-make nations. The Republic was declared by the actions of Western bureaucrats to be a Republic pour rire, not a serious thing; and by this false and cruel assumption they killed Yuan Shih-kai.

If that epitaph is written on his political tombstone, it will be as full of blinding truth as is only possible with Last Things.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] The incident of Chen-chiao is very celebrated in Chinese annals. A yellow robe, the symbol of Imperial authority, was thrown around General Chao Kuang-ying, at a place called Chen-chiao, by his soldiers and officers when he commanded a force ordered to the front. Chao returned to the Capital immediately to assume the Imperial Throne, and was thus "compelled" to become the founder of the famous Sung dynasty.

The "incident of Yuyang" refers to the execution of Yang Kuei-fei, the favourite concubine of Emperor Yuan Tsung of the Tang dynasty. The Emperor for a long time was under the alluring influence of Yang Kuei-fei, who had a paramour named An Lo-hsan. The latter finally rebelled against the Emperor. The Emperor left the capital and proceeded to another place together with his favourite concubine, guarded by a large force of troops. Midway, however, the soldiers threatened to rebel unless the concubine was killed on the spot. The clamour was such that the Emperor was forced to sacrifice the favourite of his harem, putting her to death in the presence of his soldiers.



CHAPTER XIV

THE NEW REGIME,—FROM 1916 TO 1917

Within an hour of the death of Yuan Shih-kai, the veteran General Tuan Chi-jui, in his capacity of Secretary of State, had called on Vice-President Li Yuan-hung—the man whom years before he had been sent to the Yangtsze to bring captive to Peking—and welcomed him as President of the Republic. At one o'clock on the same day the Ministers of the Allied Powers who had hastily assembled at the Waichiaopu (Foreign Office), were informed that General Li Yuan-hung had duly assumed office and that the peace and security of the capital were fully guaranteed. No unrest of any sort need be apprehended; for whilst rumours would no doubt circulate wildly as soon as the populace realized the tragic nature of the climax which had come the Gendarmerie Corps and the Metropolitan Police—two forces that numbered 18,000 armed men—were taking every possible precaution.

In spite of these assurances great uneasiness was felt. The foreign Legations, which are very imperfectly informed regarding Chinese affairs although living in the midst of them, could not be convinced that internal peace could be so suddenly attained after five years of such fierce rivalries. Among the many gloomy predictions made at the time, the most common to fall from the lips of Foreign Plenipotentiaries was the remark that the Japanese would be in full occupation of the country within three months—the one effective barrier to their advance having been removed. No better illustration could be given of the inadequate grasp of politics possessed by those whose peculiar business it should be to become expert in the science of cause and effect. In China, as in the Balkans, professional diplomacy errs so constantly because it has in the main neither the desire nor the training to study dispassionately from day to day all those complex phenomena which go to make up modern nationalism. Guided in its conduct almost entirely by a policy of personal predilections, which is fitfully reinforced by the recollection of precedents, it is small wonder if such mountains of mistakes choke every Legation dossier. Determined to have nothing whatever to do, save in the last resort, with anything that savours of Radicalism, and inclining naturally towards ideals which have long been abandoned in the workaday world, diplomacy is the instinctive lover of obscurantism and the furtive enemy of progress. Distrusting all those generous movements which spring from the popular desire to benefit by change, it follows from this that the diplomatic brotherhood inclines towards those truly detestable things—secret compacts. In the present instance, having been bitterly disappointed by the complete collapse of the strong man theory, it was only natural that consolation should be sought by casting doubt on the future. Never have sensible men been so absurd. The life-story of Yuan Shih-kai, and the part European and Japanese diplomacy played in that story, form a chapter which should be taught as a warning to all who enter politics as a career, since there is exhibited in this history a complete compendium of all the more vicious traits of Byzantinism.

The first acts of President Li Yuan-hung rapidly restored confidence and advertised to the keen-eyed that the end of the long drawn-out Revolution had come. Calling before him all the generals in the capital, he told them with sincerity and simplicity that their country's fortunes rested in their hands; and he asked them to take such steps as would be in the nature of a permanent insurance against foreign interference in the affairs of the Republic. He was at once given fervent support. A mass meeting of the military was followed by the whole body of commissioned men volunteering to hold themselves personally responsible for the maintenance of peace and order in the capital. The dreadful disorders which had ushered in the Yuan Shih-kai regime were thus made impossible; and almost at once men went about their business as usual.

The financial wreckage left by the mad monarchy adventure was, however, appalling. Not only was there no money in the capital but hardly any food as well; for since the suspension of specie payments country supplies had ceased entering the city as farmers refused to accept inconvertible paper in payment for their produce. It became necessary for the government to sell at a nominal price the enormous quantities of grain which had been accumulated for the army and the punitive expedition against the South; and for many days a familiar sight was the endless blue-coated queues waiting patiently to receive as in war-time their stipulated pittance.

Meanwhile, although the troops remained loyal to the new regime, not so the monarchist politicians. Seeing that their hour of obliteration had come, they spared no effort to sow secret dissensions and prevent the provinces from uniting again with Peking. It would be wearisome to give in full detail the innumerable schemes which were now hourly formulated, to secure that the control of the country should not be exercised in a lawful way. Finding that it was impossible to conquer the general detestation felt for them, the monarchists, led by Liang Shih-yi, changed their tactics and exhausted themselves in attempting to secure the issue of a general amnesty decree. But in spite of every argument President Li Yuan-hung remained unmoved and refused absolutely to consider their pardon. A just and merciful man, it was his intention to allow the nation to speak its mind before issuing orders on the subject; but to show that he was no advocate of the terrorist methods practised by his predecessor, he now issued a Mandate summarily abolishing the infamous Chih Fa Chu, or Military Court, which Yuan Shih-kai had turned into an engine of judicial assassination, and within whose gloomy precincts many thousands of unfortunate men had perished practically untried in the period 1911-1916.

Meanwhile the general situation throughout the country only slowly ameliorated. The Northern Military party, determined to prevent political power from passing solely into the hands of the Southern Radicals, bitterly opposed the revival of the Nanking Provisional Constitution, and denounced the re-convocation of the old Parliament of 1913, which had already assembled in Shanghai, preparatory to coming up to the capital. It needed a sharp manoeuvre to bring them to their senses. The Chinese Navy, assembled in the waters near Shanghai, took action; and in an ultimatum communicated to Peking by their Admiral, declared that so long as the government in the hands of General Tuan Chi-jui refused to conform to popular wishes by reviving the Nanking Provisional Constitution and resummoning the old Parliament, so long would the Navy refuse to recognize the authority of the Central Government. With the fleet in the hands of the Southern Confederacy, which had not yet been formally dissolved, the Peking Government was powerless in the whole region of the Yangtsze; consequently, after many vain manoeuvres to avoid this reasonable and proper solution, it was at last agreed that things should be brought back precisely where they had been before the coup d'etat of the 4th November, 1913—the Peking Government being reconstituted by means of a coalition cabinet in which there would be both nominees of the North and South—the premiership remaining in the hands of General Tuan Chi-jui.

On the 28th June a long funeral procession wended its way from the Presidential Palace to the railway Station; it was the remains of the great dictator being taken to their last resting-place in Honan. Conspicuous in this cortege was the magnificent stage-coach which had been designed to bear the founder of the new dynasty to his throne but which only accompanied him to his grave. The detached attitude of the crowds and the studied simplicity of the procession, which was designed to be republican, proved more clearly than reams of arguments that China—despite herself perhaps—had become somewhat modernized, the oldest country in the world being now the youngest republic and timidly trying to learn the lessons of youth.

Once Yuan Shih-kai had been buried, a Mandate ordering the summary arrest of all the chief monarchist plotters was issued; but the gang of corrupt men had already sought safety in ignominious flight; and it was understood that so long as they remained on soil under foreign jurisdiction, no attempt would be made even to confiscate their goods and chattels as would certainly have been done under former governments. The days of treachery and double-dealing and cowardly revenge were indeed passing away and the new regime was committed to decency and fairplay. The task of the new President was no mean one, and in all the circumstances if he managed to steer a safe middle course and avoid both Caesarism and complete effacement, that is a tribute to his training. Born in 1864 in Hupeh, one of the most important mid-Yangtsze provinces, President Li Yuan-hung was now fifty-two years old, and in the prime of life; but although he had been accustomed to a military atmosphere from his earliest youth his policy had never been militaristic. His father having been in command of a force in North China for many years, rising from the ranks to the post of Tsan Chiang (Lieutenant-Colonel), had been constrained to give him the advantage of a thoroughly modern training. At the age of 20 he had entered the Naval School at Tientsin; whence six years later he had graduated, seeing service in the navy as an engineer officer during the Chino-Japanese war of 1894. After that campaign he had been invited by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, then one of the most distinguished of the older viceroys, to join his staff at Nanking, and had been entrusted with the supervision of the construction of the modern forts at the old Southern capital, which played such a notable part in the Revolution. When Chang Chih-tung was transferred to the Wuchang viceroyalty, General Li Yuan-hung had accompanied him, actively participating in the training of the new Hupeh army, and being assisted in that work by German instructors. In 1897 he had gone to Japan to study educational, military and administrative methods, returning to China after a short stay, but again proceeding to Tokio in 1897 as an officer attached to the Imperial Guards. In the autumn of the following year he had returned to Wuchang and been appointed Commander of the Cavalry. Yet another visit was paid by him to Japan in 1902 to attend the grand military manoeuvres, these journeys giving him a good working knowledge of Japanese, in addition to the English which had been an important item in the curriculum of the Naval School, and which he understands moderately well. In 1903 he was promoted Brigadier-General, being subsequently gazetted as the Commander of the 2nd Division of Regulars (Chang Pei Chun) of Hupeh. He also constantly held various subsidiary posts, in addition to his substantive appointment, connected with educational and administrative work of various kinds, and has therefore a sound grasp of provincial government. He was Commander-in-Chief of the 8th Division during the famous military manoeuvres of 1906 at Changtehfu in Honan province, which are said to have given birth to the idea of a universal revolt against the Manchus by using the army as the chief instrument.

On the memorable day of October 11, 1911, when the standard of revolt was raised at Wuchang, somewhat against his will as he was a loyal officer, he was elected military Governor, thus becoming the first real leader of the Republic. Within the space of ten days his leadership had secured the adhesion of fourteen provinces to the Republican cause; and though confronted by grave difficulties owing to insufficiency of equipment and military supplies, he fought the Northern soldiery for two months around Wuchang with varying success. He it was, when the Republic had been formally established and the Manchu regime made a thing of the past, who worked earnestly to bring about better relations between the armies of North and South China which had been arrayed against one another during many bitter weeks. It was he, also, who was the first to advocate the complete separation of the civil and military administration—the administrative powers in the early days of the Republic being entirely in the hands of the military governors of the provinces who recruited soldiery in total disregard to the wishes of the Central Government. Although this reform has even to-day only been partially successful, there is no reason to doubt that before the Republic is many years older the idea of the military dictating the policy and administration of the country will pass away. The so-called Second Revolution of 1913 awakened no sympathy in General Li Yuan-hung, because he was opposed to internal strife and held that all Chinese should work for unity and concerted reform rather than indulge in fruitless dissensions. His disapproval of the monarchy movement had been equally emphatic in the face of an ugly outlook. He was repeatedly approached by the highest personages to give in his adhesion to Yuan Shih-kai becoming emperor, but he persistently refused although grave fears were publicly expressed that he would be assassinated. Upon the formal acceptance of the Throne by Yuan Shih-kai, he had had conferred on him a princedom which he steadfastly refused to accept; and when the allowances of a prince were brought to him from the Palace he returned them with the statement that as he had not accepted the title the money was not his. Every effort to break his will proved unavailing, his patience and calmness contributing very materially to the vast moral opposition which finally destroyed Yuan Shih-kai.

Such was the man who was called upon to preside over the new government and parliament which was now assembling in Peking; and certainly it may be counted as an evidence of China's traditional luck which brought him to the helm. General Li Yuan-hung knew well that the cool and singular plan which had been pursued to forge a national mandate for a revival of of the empire would take years completely to obliterate, and that the octopus-hold of the Military Party—the army being the one effective organization which had survived the Revolution—could not be loosened in a day,—in fact would have to be tolerated until the nation asserted itself and showed that it could and would be master. In the circumstances his authority could not but be very limited, disclosing itself in passive rather than in active ways. Wishing to be above all a constitutional President, he quickly saw that an interregnum must be philosophically accepted during which the Permanent Constitution would be worked out and the various parties forced to a general agreement; and thanks to this decision the year which has now elapsed since Yuan Shih-kai's death has been almost entirely eventless, with the exception of the crisis which arose over the war-issue, a matter which is fully discussed elsewhere.

Meanwhile, in the closing months of 1916, the position was not a little singular. Two great political parties had arisen through the Revolution—the Kuo Ming Tang or Nationalists, who included all the Radical elements, and the Chinputang or Progressives, whose adherents were mainly men of the older official classes, and therefore conservative. The Yunnan movement, which had led to the overthrow of Yuan Shih-kai, had been inspired and very largely directed by the scholar Liang Ch'i-chao, a leader of the Chinputang. To this party, then, though numerically inferior to the Kuo Ming Tang, was due the honour and credit of re-establishing the Republic, the Kuo Ming Tang being under a cloud owing to the failure of the Second Revolution of 1913 which it had engineered. Nevertheless, owing to the Kuo Ming Tang being more genuinely republican, since it was mainly composed of younger and more modern minds, it was from its ranks that the greatest check to militarism sprang; and therefore although its work was necessarily confined to the Council-chamber, its moral influence was very great and constantly representative of the civilian element as opposed to the militarist. By staking everything on the necessity of adhering to the Nanking Provisional Constitution until a permanent instrument was drawn up, the Kuo Ming Tang rapidly established an ascendancy; for although the Nanking Constitution had admittedly failed to bring representative government because of the difficulty of defining powers in such a way as to make a practical autocracy impossible, it had at least established as a basic principle that China could no longer be ruled as a family possession, which in itself marked a great advance on all previous conceptions. President Li Yuan-hung's policy, in the circumstances, was to play the part of a moderator and to seek to bring harmony to a mass of heterogeneous elements that had to carry out the practical work of government over four hundred millions of people.

His success was at the outset hampered by the appeal the military were quick in making to a new method—to offset the power of Parliament in Peking. We have already dealt with the evils of the circular telegram in China—surely one of the most unexpected results of adapting foreign inventions to native life. By means of these telegraphic campaigns a rapid exchange of views is made possible among the provincial governors; and consequently in the autumn of 1916, inspired by the Military Party, a wholly illegal Conference of generals was organized by the redoubtable old General Chang Hsun on the Pukow railway for the purpose of overawing parliament, and securing that the Military Party retained a controlling hand behind the scenes. It is perhaps unnecessary to-day to do more than note the fact that the peace of the country was badly strained by this procedure; but thanks to moderate counsels and the wisdom of the President no open breach occurred and there is reason to believe that this experiment will not be repeated,—at least not in the same way.[21]

The difficulty to be solved is of an unique nature. It is not that the generals and the Military Party are necessarily reactionary: it is that, not belonging to the intellectual-literary portion of the ruling elements, they are less advanced and less accustomed to foreign ways, and therefore more in touch with the older China which lingers on in the vast agricultural districts, and in all those myriad of townships which are dotted far and wide across the provinces to the confines of Central Asia. Naturally it is hard for a class of men who hold the balance of power and carry on much of the actual work of governing to submit to the paper decrees of an institution they do not accept as being responsible and representative: but many indications are available that when a Permanent Constitution has been promulgated, and made an article of faith in all the schools, a change for the better will come and the old antagonisms gradually disappear.

It is on this Constitution that Parliament has been at work ever since it re-assembled in August, 1916, and which is now practically completed. Sitting together three times a week as a National Convention, the two Houses have subjected the Draft Constitution (which was prepared by a Special Parliamentary Drafting Committee) to a very exhaustive examination and discussion. Many violent scenes have naturally marked the progress of this important work, the two great parties, the Kuo Ming Tang and the Chinputang, coming to loggerheads again and again. But in the main the debates and the decisions arrived at have been satisfactory and important, because they have tended to express in a concrete and indisputable form the present state of the Chinese mind and its immense underlying commonsense. Remarkable discussions and fierce enmities, for instance, marked the final decision not to make the Confucian cult the State Religion; but there is not the slightest doubt that in formally registering this veritable revolution in the secret stronghold of Chinese political thought, a Bastille has been overthrown and the ground left clear for the development of individualism and personal responsibility in a way which was impossible under the leaden formulae of the greatest of the Chinese sages. In defining the relationship which must exist between the Central Government and the provinces even more formidable difficulties have been encountered, the apostles of decentralization and the advocates of centralization refusing for many months to agree on the so-called Provincial system, and then fighting a battle a outrance on the question of whether this body of law should form a chapter in the Constitution or be simply an annexure to the main instrument. The agreement which was finally arrived at—to make it part and parcel of the Constitution—was masterly in that it has secured that the sovereignty of the people will not tend to be expressed in the provincial dietines which have now been re-erected (after having been summarily destroyed by Yuan Shih-kai), the Central Parliament being left the absolute master. This for a number of years will no doubt be more of a theory than a practice; but there is every indication that parliamentary government will within a limited period be more successful in China than in some European countries; and that the Chinese with their love of well-established procedure and cautious action, will select open debate as the best method of sifting the grain from the chaff and deciding every important matter by the vote of the majority. Already in the period of 1916-1917 Parliament has more than justified its re-convocation by becoming a National Watch Committee. Interpellations on every conceivable subject have been constant and frequent; fierce verbal assaults are delivered on Cabinet Ministers; and slowly but inexorably a real sense of Ministerial responsibility is being created, the fear of having to run the gauntlet of Parliament abating, if it has not yet entirely destroyed, many malpractices. In the opinion of the writer in less than ten years Parliament will have succeeded in coalescing the country into an organic whole, and will have placed the Cabinet in such close daily relations with it that something very similar to the Anglo-Saxon theory of government will be impregnably entrenched in Peking. That such a miracle should be possible in extreme Eastern Asia is one more proof that there are no victories beyond the capacity of the human mind.



Meanwhile, for the time being, in China as in countries ten thousand miles away, ministerial irresponsibility is the enemy; that is to say that so-called Cabinet-rule, with the effacement of the Chief Executive, has tended to make Cabinet Ministers removed from effective daily control. All sorts of things are done which should not be done and men are still in charge of portfolios who should be summarily expelled from the capital for malpractices.[22] But although Chinese are slow to take action and prefer to delay all decisions until they have about them the inexorable quality which is associated with Fate, there is not the slightest doubt that in the long run the dishonest suffer, and an increasingly efficient body of men take their place. From every point of view then there is reason for congratulation in the present position, and every hope that the future will unroll peacefully.

A visit to Parliament under the new regime is a revelation to most men: the candid come away with an impression which is never effaced from their minds. There is a peculiar suggestiveness even in the location of the Houses of the National Assembly. They are tucked away in the distant Western city immediately under the shadow of the vast Tartar Wall as if it had been fully expected when they were called into being that they would never justify their existence, and that the crushing weight of the great bastion of brick and stone surrounding the capital would soon prove to them how futile it was for such palpable intruders to aspire to national control. Under Yuan Shih-kai, as under the Manchus, they were an exercise in the arm of government, something which was never to be allowed to harden into a settled practice. They were first cousins to railways, to electrical power, to metalled roadways and all those other modern instances beginning to modify an ancient civilization entirely based on agriculture; and because they were so distantly related to the real China of the farm-yard it was thought that they would always stand outside the national life.

That was what the fools believed. Yet in a copy of the rules of procedure of the old Imperial Senate (Tzuchengyuan) the writer finds this note written in 1910: "The Debates of this body have been remarkable during the very first session. They make it seem clear that the first National Parliament of 1913 will seize control of China and nullify the power of the Throne. Result, revolution—" Though the dating is a little confused, the prophecy is worthy of record.

The watchfulness of the special police surrounding the Parliament of 1916-1917 and the great number of these men also tells a story as eloquent as the location of the building. It is not so much that any contemplated violence sets these guardians here as the necessity to advertise that there has been unconstitutional violence in the past which, if possible, will be rigidly defeated in the future. Probably no National Assembly in the world has been held up to greater contempt than the Parliament of Peking and probably no body deserves it less. An afternoon spent in the House of Representatives would certainly surprise most open-minded men who have been content to believe that the Chinese experiment was what some critics have alleged it to be. The Chinese as a people, being used to guild-house proceedings, debates, in which the welfare of the majority is decided after an examination of the principles at stake, are a very old and well-established custom; and though at present there are awkwardnesses and gaucheries to be noted, when practice has become better fixed, the common sense of the race will abundantly disclose itself and make a lasting mark on contemporary history. There can be no doubt about this at all.

Take your seat in the gallery and see for yourself. The first question which rises to the lips is—where are the young men, those crude and callow youths masquerading as legislators which the vernacular press has so excessively lampooned? The majority of the members, so far from being young, are men of thirty or forty, or even fifty, with intelligent and tired faces that have lost the Spring of youth. Here and there you will even see venerable greybeards suffering from rheumy coughs who ought to be at home; and though occasionally there is a lithe youngster in European clothes with the veneer he acquired abroad not yet completely rubbed off, the total impression is that of oldish men who have reached years of maturity and who are as representative of the country and as good as the country is in a position to-day to provide. No one who knows the real China can deny that.

The Continental arrangement of the Members' desks and the raised tribune of the Speaker, with its rows of clerks and recorders, make an impression of orderliness, tinged nevertheless with a faint revolutionary flavour. Perhaps it is the straight black Chinese hair and the rich silk clothing, set on a very plain and unadorned background, which recall the pictures of the French Revolution. It is somehow natural in such circumstances that there should occasionally be dramatic outbursts with the blood of offenders bitterly demanded as though we were not living in the Twentieth Century when blood alone is admittedly no satisfaction. The presence of armed House police at every door, and in the front rows of the strangers' gallery as well, contributes to this impression which has certain qualities of the theatre about it and is oddly stimulating. China at work legislating has already created her first traditions: she is proceeding deliberately armed—with the lessons of the immediate past fully noted.

This being the home of a literary race, papers and notebooks are on most Members' desks. As the electric bells ring sharply an unending procession of men file in to take their seats, for there has been a recess and the House has been only half-filled. Nearly every one is in Chinese dress (pien-yi) with the Member's badge pinned conspicuously on the breast. The idea speedily becomes a conviction that this after all is not extraneous to the nation, but actually of the living flesh, a vital and imperative thing. The vastness and audacity of it all cannot fail to strike the imaginative mind, for the four or five hundred men who are gathered here typify, if they do not yet represent, the four or five hundred millions who make up the country. You see as it were the nation in profile, a ponderous, slow-moving mass, quickly responsive to curious sub-conscious influences—suddenly angry and suddenly calm again because Reason has after all always been the great goddess which is perpetually worshipped. All are scholarly and deliberate in their movements. When the Speaker calls the House in order and the debate commences, deep silence comes save for the movement of hundreds of nervous hands that touch papers or fidget to and fro. Every man uses his hands, particularly when he speaks, not clenched as a European would do, but open, with the slim fingers speaking a language of their own, twisting, turning, insinuating, deriding, a little history of compromises. It would be interesting to write the story of China from a study of the hands.

Each man goes to the rostrum to speak, and each has much to say. Soon another impression deepens—that the Northerners with their clear-cut speech and their fuller voices have an advantage over the Southerners of the kind that all public performers know. The mandarin language of Peking is after all the mother-language of officialdom, the madre lingua, less nervous and more precise than any other dialect and invested with a certain air of authority which cannot be denied. The sharp-sounding, high-pitched Southern voice, though it may argue very acutely and rapidly, appears at an increasing disadvantage. There seems to be a tendency inherent in it to become querulous, to make its pleading sound specious because of over-much speech. These are curious little things which have been not without influence in other regions of the world.

The applause when it comes proves the same thing as applause does everywhere; that if you want to drive home your points in a large assembly you must be condensed and simple, using broad, slashing arguments. This is precisely what distinguishes melodrama from drama, and which explains why excessive analysis is no argument in the popular mind. Generally, however, there is not much applause and the voice of the speaker wanders through the hall uninterrupted by signs of content or discontent. Sometimes, although rather rarely, there is a gust of laughter as a point is scored against a hated rival. But it dies away as suddenly as it arose—almost before you have noted it, as if it were superfluous and must make room for more serious things.

With the closing of a debate there is the vote. An electric bell rings again, and with a rough hand the House police close all the exits. The clerks come down into the aisles. They seem to move listlessly and indifferently; yet very quickly they have checked the membership to insure that the excessively large quorum requisite is present. Now the Speaker calls for the vote. Massively and stiffly, as at a word of command the "ayes" rise in their seats. There is a round of applause; the bill has been carried almost unanimously. That, however, is not always so. When there is an obstreperous mood abroad, the House will decline to proceed with the agenda, and a dozen men will rise at a time and speak from behind their desks, trying to talk each other down. The Speaker stands patiently wrestling with the problem of procedure—and often failing since practice is still in process of being formed. Years must elapse before absolutely hard-and-fast rules are established. Still the progress already made since August, 1916, is remarkable, and something is being learned every day. The business of a Parliament is after all to debate—to give voice to the uppermost thoughts in the nation's mind; and how those thoughts are expressed is a continual exposition of the real state of the nation's political beliefs. Parliament is—or should be—a microcosm of the race; parliament is never any better or any worse than the mass of the people. The rule of the majority as expressed in the voting of the National Assembly must be taken as a fundamental thing; China is no exception to the rule—the rule of the majority must be decisive. But here another complexity of the new Chinese political life enters into the problem. The existence of a responsible Cabinet, which is not yet linked to the Legislative body in any well-understood way, and which furthermore has frequently acted in opposition to the President's office, makes for a daily struggle in the administration of the country which is strongly to be condemned and which has already led to some ugly clashes. But nevertheless there are increasing indications that parliamentary government is making steady headway and that when both the Permanent Constitution and the Local Government system have been enforced, a new note will be struck. No doubt it will need a younger generation in office to secure a complete abandonment of all the old ways, but the writer has noted with astonishment during the past twelve-month how eager even viceroys belonging to the old Manchu regime have become to fall in with the new order and to lend their help, a sharp competition to obtain ministerial posts being evident in spite of the fact that the gauntlet of Parliament has to be run and a majority vote recorded before any appointment is valid.

One last anomaly has, however, yet to be done away with in Peking. The deposed boy Emperor still resides in the Winter Palace surrounded by a miniature court,—a state of affairs which should not be tolerated any longer as it no doubt tends to assist the rumours which every now and again are mysteriously spread by interested parties that a Restoration is imminent. The time has arrived when not only must the Manchu Imperial Family be removed far from the capital but a scheme worked out for commuting the pension-system of so-called Bannerman families who still draw their monthly allowances as under the Manchus, thanks to the articles of Favourable Treatment signed at the time of abdication of 1912. When these two important questions have been settled, imperialism in China will tend rapidly to fade into complete oblivion.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Although the events dealt with in Chapter XVI have brought China face to face with a new crisis the force of the arguments used here is in no wise weakened.

[22] Since this was written two Cabinet Ministers have been summarily arrested.



CHAPTER XV

THE REPUBLIC IN COLLISION WITH REALITY: TWO TYPICAL INSTANCES OF "FOREIGN AGGRESSION"

Such, then, were the internal conditions which the new administration was called upon to face with the death of Yuan Shih-kai. With very little money in the National Treasury and with the provinces unable or unwilling to remit to the capital a single dollar, it was fortunate that at least one public service, erected under foreign pressure, should be brilliantly justifying its existence. The Salt Administration, efficiently reorganized in the space of three years by the great Indian authority, Sir Richard Dane, was now providing a monthly surplus of nearly five million dollars; and it was this revenue which kept China alive during a troubled transitional period when every one was declaring that she must die. By husbanding this hard cash and mixing it liberally with paper money, the Central Government has been able since June, 1916, to meet its current obligations and to keep the general machinery from breaking down.

But in a country such as China new dangers have to be constantly faced and smoothed away—the interests of the outer world pressing on the country and conflicting with the native interest at a myriad points. And in order to illustrate and make clear the sort of daily exacerbation which the nation must endure because of the vastness of its territory and the octopus-hold of the foreigner we give two typical cases of international trouble which have occurred since Yuan Shih-kai's death. The first is the well-known Chengchiatun incident which occurred in Manchuria in August, 1916: the second is the Lao-hsi-kai affair which took place in Tientsin in November of the same year and created a storm of rage against France throughout North China which at the moment of writing has not yet abated.

The facts about the Chengchiatun incident are incredibly simple and merit being properly told. Chengchiatun is a small Mongol-Manchurian market-town lying some sixty miles west of the South Manchurian railway by the ordinary cart-roads, though as the crow flies the distance is much less. The country round about is "new country," the prefecture in which Chengchiatun lies being originally purely Mongol territory on which Chinese squatted in such numbers that it was necessary to erect the ordinary Chinese civil administration. Thirty or forty miles due west of the town cultivation practically ceases; and then nothing meets the eye but the rolling grasslands of Mongolia, with their sparse encampments of nomad horsemen and shepherds which stretch so monotonously into the infinities of High Asia.

The region is strategically important because the trade-routes converge there from the growing marts of the Taonanfu administration, which is the extreme westernly limit of Chinese authority in the Mongolian borderland. A rich exchange in hides, furs, skins, cattle and foodstuffs has given this frontier town from year to year an increasing importance in the eyes of the Chinese who are fully aware of the dangers of a laissez aller policy and are determined to protect the rights they have acquired by pre-emption. The fact that notorious Mongol brigand-chiefs, such as the famous Babachapu who was allied to the Manchu Restoration Party and who was said to have been subsidized by the Japanese Military Party, had been making Chengchiatun one of their objectives, brought concern early in 1916 to the Moukden Governor, the energetic General Chang Tso-lin, who in order to cope with the danger promptly established a military cordon round the district, with a relatively large reserve based on Chengchiatun, drawn from the 28th Army Division. A certain amount of desultory fighting months before any one had heard of the town had given Chengchiatun the odour of the camp; and when in the summer the Japanese began military manoeuvres in the district with various scattered detachments, on the excuse that the South Manchuria railway zone where they alone had the right under the Portsmouth Peace Treaty to be, was too cramped for field exercises, it became apparent that dangerous developments might be expected—particularly as a body of Japanese infantry was billeted right in the centre of the town.

On the 13th August a Japanese civilian at Chengchiatun—there is a small Japanese trading community there—approached a Chinese boy who was selling fish. On the boy refusing to sell at the price offered him, the Japanese caught hold of him and started beating him. A Chinese soldier of the 28th Division who was passing intervened; and a scuffle commenced in which other Chinese soldiers joined and which resulted in the Japanese being severely handled. After the Chinese had left him, the man betook himself to the nearest Japanese post and reported that he had been grievously assaulted by Chinese soldiers for no reason whatsoever. A Japanese gendarme made a preliminary investigation in company with the man; then returning to the Japanese barracks, declared that he could find no one in authority; that his attempts at discovering the culprits had been resisted; and that he must have help. The Japanese officer in command, who was a captain, detailed a lieutenant and twenty men to proceed to the Chinese barracks to obtain satisfaction from the Chinese Commander—using force if necessary. It was precisely in this way that the play was set in motion.

The detachment marched off to the headquarters of the offending Chinese detachment, which was billeted in a pawnshop, and tried to force their way past a sentry who stood his ground, into the inner courtyards. A long parley ensued with lowered bayonets; and at last on the Chinese soldier absolutely refusing to give way, the lieutenant gave orders to cut him down. There appears to be no doubt about these important facts—that is to say, that the act of war was the deliberate attack by a Japanese armed detachment on a Chinese sentry who was guarding the quarters of his Commander.

A frightful scene followed. It appears that scattered groups of Chinese soldiers, some with their arms, and some without, had collected during this crisis and point-blank firing at once commenced. The first shots appear to have been fired—though this was never proved—by a Chinese regimental groom, who was standing with some horses some distance away in the gateway of some stabling and who is said to have killed or wounded the largest number of Japanese. In any case, seven Japanese soldiers were killed outright, five more mortally wounded and four severely so, the Chinese themselves losing four killed, besides a number of wounded. The remnant of the Japanese detachment after this rude reverse managed to retreat with their wounded officer to their own barracks where the whole detachment barricaded themselves in, firing for many hours at everything that moved on the roads though absolutely no attempt was made by the Chinese soldiery to advance against them.

The sound of this heavy firing, and the wild report that many Japanese had been killed, had meanwhile spread panic throughout the town, and there was a general sauve qui peut, a terrible retribution being feared. The local Magistrate finally restored some semblance of order; and after dark proceeded in person with some notables of the town to the Japanese barracks to tender his regrets and to arrange for the removal of the Japanese corpses which were lying just as they had fallen, and which Chinese custom demanded should be decently cared for, though they constituted important and irrefragible evidence of the armed invasion which had been practised. The Japanese Commander, instead of meeting these conciliatory attempts half-way, thereupon illegally arrested the Magistrate and locked him up, being impelled to this action by the general fear among his men that a mass attack would be made in the night by the Chinese troops in garrison and the whole command wiped out. Nothing, however, occurred and on the 14th instant the Magistrate was duly released on his sending for his son to take his place as hostage. On the 16th the Magistrate had successfully arranged the withdrawal of all Chinese troops five miles outside the town to prevent further clashes. On the 15th Japanese cavalry and infantry began to arrive in large numbers from the South Manchuria railway zone (where they alone have the Treaty right to be) and the town of Chengchiatun was arbitrarily placed by them in a state of siege.

Here is the stuff of which the whole incident was made: there is nothing material beyond the facts stated which illustrate very glaringly the manner in which a strong Power acts towards a weak one.

Meanwhile the effect in Tokio of these happenings had been electrical. Relying on the well-known Japanese police axiom, that the man who gets in his story first is the prosecutor and the accused the guilty party, irrespective of what the evidence may be, the newspapers all came out with the same account of a calculated attack by "ferocious Chinese soldiers" on a Japanese detachment and the general public were asked to believe that a number of their enlisted nationals had been deliberately and brutally murdered. It was not, however, until more than a week after the incident that an official report was published by the Tokio Foreign Office, when the following garbled account was distributed far and wide as the Japanese case:—

"When one Kiyokishy Yoshimoto, aged 27, an employe of a Japanese apothecary at Chengchiatun, was passing the headquarters of the Chinese troops on the 13th instant, a Chinese soldier stopped him, and, with some remarks, which were unintelligible to the Japanese, suddenly struck him on the head. Yoshimoto became enraged, but was soon surrounded by a large number of Chinese soldiers and others, who subjected him to all kind of humiliation. As a result of this lawlessness on the part of the Chinese, the Japanese sustained injuries in seven or eight places, but somehow he managed to break away and reach a Japanese police box, where he applied for help. On receipt of this news, a policeman, named Kowase, hastened to the spot, but by the time he arrived there all the offenders had fled. He therefore repaired to the headquarters of the Chinese to lay a complaint, but the sentry stopped him, and presented a pistol at him, and under these circumstances he was obliged to apply to the Japanese Garrison headquarters, where Captain Inone instructed Lieutenant Matsuo with twenty men to escort the policeman to the Chinese headquarters. When the party approached the Chinese headquarters, Chinese troops began to fire, and the policeman and others were either killed or wounded. Despite the fact that the Japanese troops retired, the Chinese troops did not give up firing, but besieged the Japanese garrison, delivering several severe attacks. Soon after the fighting ceased, the Chinese authorities visited the Japanese barracks, and expressed the desire that the affair be settled amicably. It was the original intention of the Japanese troops to fight it out, but they were completely outnumbered, and lest the safety of the Japanese residents be endangered, they stopped fighting. On examination of the dead bodies of seven Japanese soldiers, who were attacked outside the barracks, it was discovered that they had been all slain by the Chinese troops, the bodies bearing marks of violence."

Without entering again into the merits of the case, we would ask those who are acquainted with recent history whether it is likely that Chinese soldiers, knowing all the pains and penalties attaching to such action, would deliberately attack a body of twenty armed Japanese under an officer as the Japanese official account states? We believe that no impartial tribunal, investigating the matter on the spot, could fail to point out the real aggressors and withal lay bare the web of a most amazing state of affairs. For in order to understand what occurred, on the 13th August, 1916, it is necessary to turn far away from Chengchiatun and see what lies behind it all.

At the back of the brain of the Japanese Military Party, which by no means represents the Japanese nation or the Japanese Government although it exercises a powerful influence on both, is the fixed idea that South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia must be turned into a strongly held and fortified Japanese enclave, if the balance of power in Eastern Asia is to be maintained. Pursuant to this idea, Japanese diplomacy was induced many months ago to concentrate its efforts on winning—if not wringing—from Russia the strategically important strip of railway south of the Sungari River, because (and this should be carefully noted) with the Sungari as the undisputed dividing-line between the Russian and Japanese spheres in Manchuria, and with Japanese shallow-draft gun-boats navigating that waterway and entering the Nonni river, it would be easily possible for Japan to complete a "Continental quadrilateral" which would include Korea, South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, the extreme western barrier of which would be the new system of Inner Mongolian railways centring round Taonanfu and terminating at Jehol, for which Japan already holds the building rights[23]. Policing rights—in the outer zone of this enclave,—with a total exclusion of all Chinese garrisons, is the preliminary goal towards which the Japanese Military Party has been long plainly marching; and long before anybody had heard of Chengchiatun, a scheme of reconnoitring detachments had been put in force to spy out the land and form working alliances with the Mongol bands in order to harass and drive away all the representatives of Chinese authority. What occurred, then, at Chengchiatun might have taken place at any one of half-a-dozen other places in this vast and little-known region whither Japanese detachments have silently gone; and if Chinese diplomacy in the month of August, 1916, was faced with a rude surprise, it was only what political students had long been expecting. For though Japan should be the real defender of Chinese liberties, it is a fact that in Chinese affairs Japanese diplomacy has been too long dictated to by the Military Party in Tokio and attempts nothing save when violence allows it to tear from China some fresh portion of her independence.

And here we reach the crux of the matter. One of the little known peculiarities of the day lies in the fact that Japan is the land of political inaction because there is no tradition of action save that which has been built up by the military and naval chiefs since the Chinese war of 1894-95. Having only visualized the world in international terms during two short decades, there has been no time for a proper tradition to be created by the civil government of Japan; and because there is no such tradition, the island empire of the East has no true foreign policy and is at the mercy of manufactured crises, being too often committed to petty adventures which really range her on the side of those in Europe the Allies have set themselves to destroy. It is for this reason that the Chinese are consistently treated as though they were hewers of wood and drawers of water, helots who are occasionally nattered in the columns of the daily press and yet are secretly looked upon as men who have been born merely to be cuffed and conquered. The Moukden Governor, General Chang Tso-lin, discussing the Chengchiatun affair with the writer, put the matter in a nutshell. Striking the table he exclaimed: "After all we are not made of wood like this, we too are flesh and blood and must defend our own people. A dozen times I have said, 'Let them come and take Manchuria openly if they dare, but let them cease their childish intrigues.' Why do they not do so? Because they are not sure they can swallow us—not at all sure. Do you understand? We are weak, we are stupid, we are divided, but we are innumerable, and in the end, if they persist, China will burst the Japanese stomach."

Such passionate periods are all very well, but when it comes to the sober business of the council chamber it is a regrettable fact that Chinese, although foreign friends implore them to do so, do not properly use the many weapons in their armoury. Thus in this particular case, instead of at once hurrying to Chengchiatun some of the many foreign advisers who sit kicking their heels in Peking from one end of the year to the other and who number competent jurisconsults, China did next to nothing. No proper report was drawn up on the spot; sworn statements were not gathered, nor were witnesses brought to Peking; and it therefore happened that when Japan filed her demands for redress, China had not in her possession anything save an utterly inadequate defence. Mainly because of this she was forced to agree to forgoing any direct discussion of the rights and wrongs of the case, proceeding directly to negotiations based on the various claims which Japan filed and which were as follows:—

1. Punishment of the General commanding the 28th Division.

2. The dismissal of officers at Chengchiatun responsible for the occurrence as well as the severe punishment of those who took direct part in the fracas.

3. Proclamations to be posted ordering all Chinese soldiers and civilians in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia to refrain from any act calculated to provoke a breach of the peace with Japanese soldiers or civilians.

4. China to agree to the stationing of Japanese police officers in places in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia where their presence was considered necessary for the protection of Japanese subjects. China also to agree to the engagement by the officials of South Manchuria of Japanese police advisers.