Generals Chang of the Manchu camp at Nanking and elsewhere in the northeastern provinces). He will come forward in a moment. In the province where Shanghai is located, the President of the Assembly, Chang Chien, who proposes to visit American Chambers of Commerce, and who is well known as the host in China of visiting Pacific Coast Chambers of Commerce, was more than ready to declare for reform. He, with Wu Ting Fang, was insistent on the abdication of the Manchu dynasty, and the declaration of a republic. At Lhasa, in far away Tibet, was an Imperial resident who had been trained in reform at Shanghai, and in law at Yale. He was the eminent Wen Tsung Yao, destined to be the Assistant Foreign Minister of the first rebel government. For the most part however the radical reformers were new men unknown to the world, as the Manchus had naturally never given office to them. Whenever there is a movement towards liberty in Europe you generally find an English book, or an England-inspired man behind it. It will be noted that nearly all these Chinese reformers have come under American influence. Many causes, all important, helped to precipitate the crisis. Sheng Kung Pao and others had planned to compel the provinces and the gentry of the guilds, to sell out their many little railroads, many of which were paying well, to the central government, which intended to quickly nationalize the railroads under immense foreign loans. The local gentry feared that this meant the extinction of distributed small fortunes and opportunities; concessions of mines to foreigners; heavy interest; continuation of the unscientific Likin system of customs as a security; and payment of obnoxious bonuses. The bitter complaint written in blood, of the Hunanese of Changsha city on this subject was: "When a piece of meat is in the thief's mouth, it is hard to take it out." All may not agree with the Chinese position, but it is legal and wise to listen to the argument of the defense and not shout it out of court. "Why should we, with the richest mines on earth; the richest passenger, freight and labor field; with lands plethoric of water power and grain; and the lowest debt, if the oppressive indemnities were wiped out, pay foreigners such immense bonuses, interest and concessions, discounts and profits, to go out of our country" rang the cry, not only in Hupeh, Hunan, Szechuen, Shansi and Kwangtung provinces, but I have seen it in native papers printed under the shadow of foreign banks on the Bund at Tientsin in the north, and there was one large meeting of protest held by the Chinese of British Hong Kong in the Chui Yin hotel on September 3, 1911, delegates attending even from distant Szechuen province, where the "Railroad Protection Association" of Chingtu city in August, 1911, had issued a famous placard of protest in which the four banking nations in caricature were made to say: "The wealth of the four provinces of the Yangtze and the south is all given to us four foreign nations to swallow down at one gulp." A representative native Hankow paper wrote: "The merchants of Hupeh urge the people to take shares in their own railways; use your own money and do not go to foreigners; there is need of independence if you would preserve your liberty." Egypt was cited as the example of not following this course. You will note the Chinese believe that money, as well as hostile arms, can make slaves. Even if a foreign banker, statesman, or merchant does not fully agree with the local feeling of the Chinese, it is wise to look frankly at their side of the argument in making educational, financial and political plans in the future. There was much complaint that the Manchu princes had accumulated private hoards from the taxes levied largely in the south. Something then was brewing, especially in the southern and central provinces. Not a hair of a foreigner was to be touched. I would like to quote the written guarantee of the "Sia Hwei" (Reform Association) of Fukien province to the foreigners of Fuchau if I had time. Its sentences will forever stand as a bond of friendship between the East and the West. These Fukien people were as good as their word, for besides sending levies to the revolution, the "Hsiang lao" (head men) of the villages organized home guards for the protection of both foreigners and natives. When the revolution broke out at Wuchang, the soldiers of the brave 30th regiment escorted the American missionaries out of the line of fire from Serpent Hill, and when the missionaries sailed on the German freighter Belgravia for Shanghai, the revolutionary soldiers of Generals Li and Hwang shouted a peace message that will endure: "American republicans are brothers of ours." The heavy indemnities amounting to the awful sum of $250,000,000 have been a heavy load upon the Chinese people of the south and central provinces, who had nothing to do with the persecution of foreigners in 1900. The Chinese of the taxed south greatly appreciated therefore American and British action in returning part of the indemnities, but other nations should do likewise. The Westminster Gazette of London now supports this position. It is a growing wrong. Histories of peoples, not dynasties and oligarchies, such as John Richard Green's History of the English People; books which helped to bring about the American revolution; the American missionary, Dr. Macklin's Chinese translation of Henry George's Progress and Poverty; great paeans of liberty and political pain the world over, were translated and read. The book Service was re-read. It was written in 1897 by Tan Sze Tung, the son of a governor of Hupeh province. Tan was one of the martyrs for liberty, who were beheaded in 1898. Thomas Paine's The Crisis, which was good enough to be read by Washington before battle to the American regiments of 1776, was translated and read to the Chinese republicans. The preliminary dance was opened in September, 1911, by far western Szechuen province, Peking issuing this edict in the yellow Peking Gazette: "Whoever shall serve us by killing rebels, shall be rewarded regardless of rules;" a sort of Sicilian Mafia or Tammany Beckerism you see! The Peking government had practically confiscated the railways of the Szechuenese, as the paper which they were given in exchange, bore no guarantee of interest, and no reliance was put upon the value of the security by the provincial gentry, bankers and farmers. When provinces and states lose confidence in the sincerity of a fixed central government, which is not run by responsi ble parties which can be recalled, that government totters to its fall. A national anthem was given to the nation to sing. May China be preserved! In this time of the Manchu dynasty, we are fortunate to see real splendor; May the heavens protect the imperial family. The south only sang it in parodies, and in September the men of Szechuen rebelled and "fired the shot heard round the world." In a month, the soldiers of General Li's 8th division at Wuchang "fired the volley that was heard around the world." What followed rapidly lives in everyone's mind; the rushing of northern troops by railway to the triple cities at Hankow; the rolling to and fro of victory and repulse. General Li's troops, especially the "Pu Pa Tsze" (Dare to Die Brigade) of shaven round-heads, fought bravely. They were a sort of Cromwellians. When ammunition ran out, the rebel troops used the bayonet charge with daring. It was a new era in fighting in China when yellow men would charge, with only cold steel, across an area swept by fire from machine guns. The cause and not the command, had given them the new courage. Many of these men were recruited from the most famous boatmen of the world, the Szechuen trackers of the wild rapids and sublime gorges of the glorious Yang Tze River, and from the indefatigable, cheerful mountain coolies of Hupeh province. Province after province seceded until fourteen were in the fold of liberty. Reform was as hot as a prairie fire, and almost as hard to administer. On October 29, a remarkable thing occurred among the divisions being massed for an attack on the rebel's capital. The 20th division, under Chang the first, as we have called him, mustered in the Lanchou camp, formed the famous Army League, and made reform demands on the packed National Assembly at Peking, just as Caesar's immortal 13th legion, before the rebellion, sent demands to the Roman Senate, whose orders they were supposed to take. The nineteen constitutional articles were granted and are a sort of Magna Charta in China. On Novem ber 3 at the front, the Imperial 3rd division made a bloody name for itself in the respect of massacre of noncombatants and arson. Hankow, a prosperous city of nearly a million was reduced to the appearance of a wrecked village. On the republican right wing at glorious Nanking, General Chang Hsun (we will call him Chang the second) was the imperial commander. He led his 9th division in similar bloody massacres as those which occurred at Hankow. On November 26, 1911, the republicans under Generals Hsu and Hwang Shing attacked the strong hill forts above Nanking with determination. Dogged charges were made across the open and up the zig-zag of Purple Hill. Who will sing the feats of the new Chinese arms-yes, the Chinese who the world said would never make soldiers, even if they had a great cause at heart. The fighting was not as magnificently solid and desperate as Pickett's gray charge at Gettysburg; Thomas' impetuous charge up Missionary Ridge; the shining Cuirassiers' wild ride into the valley of death at Waterloo; Linievitch's grim defense of Putiloff Hill; the shouting sweep of Oku's Japanese up Nanshan Heights, or the silent plunge of Oyama's massive ranks into the Liaoyang valley, or against the black Mukden lines. It was as determined, daring and brilliant however as any land engagement in the South African or Spanish-American wars, and far braver and stronger than the theatrical engagements, with air ship accessories of the Italy-Tripoli war. The world's critics must now change their criterions. A strong cause will make a strong battle anywhere the world over, no matter what the color of the soldier, or the cut or tint of his battle flag. Liberty is equally proud of the children she begets, no matter what the clime. The Canton artillery sang a rugged song of Liberty. It is worth quoting, not only because it has poetical merit, but because it shows the spirit that was and is working in the souls of men: Freedom will work on this earth, Come Liberty, because of the black hell of our slavery, Come enlighten us with a ray of thy sun. |