The Awakening of China by W.A.P. Martin

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Affairs were drifting into this desperate predicament when Chang
of the Cavern became in a sense the saviour of his country. This
he effected by two actions which called for uncommon intelligence
and moral force: (1) By assuring the British Government that he
would at all costs maintain peace in Central China; (2) by refusing
to obey an inhuman decree from Peking, commanding the viceroys to
massacre all foreigners within their jurisdiction--a decree which
would be incredible were it not known that at the same moment the
walls of the capital were placarded with proclamations offering
rewards of 50, 30 and 20
[Page 227]
taels respectively for the heads of foreign men, women, and children.

It is barely possible that Chang was helped to a decision by a
friendly visit from a British man-of-war, whose captain, in answer
to a question about his artillery, informed Chang that he had the
bearings of his official residence, and could drop a shell into
it with unerring precision at a distance of three miles. He was
also aided by the influence of Mr. Fraser, a wide-awake British
consul. Fraser modestly disclaims any special merit in the matter,
but British missionaries at Hankow give him the credit. They say
that, learning from them the state of feeling among the people, he
induced the viceroy to take prompt measures to prevent an outbreak.
At one time a Boxer army from the south was about to cross the
river and destroy the foreign settlement. Chang, when appealed
to, frankly confessed that his troops were in sympathy with the
Boxers, and that being in arrears of pay they were on the verge
of revolt. Fraser found him the money by the help of the Hong Kong
Bank; the troops were paid; and the Boxers dispersed.

The same problem confronted Liu, the viceroy of Nanking; and it
was solved by him in the same way. Both viceroys acted in concert;
but to which belongs the honour of that wise initiative can never
be decided with certainty. The foreign consuls at Nanking claim it
for Liu. Mr. Sundius, now British consul at Wuhu, assures me that
as Liu read the barbarous decree he exclaimed, "I shall repudiate
this as a forgery," adding "I shall not obey, if I have to die for
it." His words have a heroic ring; and
[Page 228]
suggest that his policy was not taken at second-hand.

A similar claim has been put forward for Li Hung Chang, who was at
that time viceroy at Canton. Is it not probable that the same view
of the situation flashed on the minds of all three simultaneously?
They were not, like the Peking princes, ignorant Tartars, but Chinese
scholars of the highest type. They could not fail to see that compliance
with that bloody edict would seal their own doom as well as that
of the Empire.

Speaking of Chang, Mr. Fraser says: "He had the wit to see that
any other course meant ruin." Chang certainly does not hesitate
to blow his own trumpet; but I do not suspect him of "drawing the
longbow." Having the advantage of being an expert rhymer, he has
put his own pretensions into verses which all the school-children
in a population of fifty millions are obliged to commit to memory.
They run somewhat like this:

"In Kengtse (1900) the Boxer robbers went mad,
And Peking became for the third time the prey of fire and sword;
But the banks of the Great River and the province of Hupei
Remained in tranquillity."

He adds in a tone of exultation:

"The province of Hupei was accordingly exempted
From the payment of an indemnity tax,
And allowed to spend the amount thus saved
In the erection of schoolhouses."

In these lines there is not much poetry; but the fact which they
commemorate adds one more wreath to
[Page 229]
a brow already crowned with many laurels, showing how much the viceroy's
heart was set on the education of his people.

In the interest of the educational movement, I was called to Chang's
assistance in 1902. The Imperial University was destroyed in the
Boxer War, and, seeing no prospect of its reestablishment I was
on the way to my home in America when, on reaching Vancouver, I
found a telegram from Viceroy Chang, asking me to be president
of a university which he proposed to open, and to instruct his
junior officials in international law. I engaged for three years;
and I now look back on my recent campaign in Central China as one
of the most interesting passages in a life of over half a century
in the Far East.

Besides instructing his mandarins in the law of nations, I had to
give them some notion of geography and history, the two cooerdinates
of time and place, without which they might, like some of their
writers, mistake Rhode Island for the Island of Rhodes, and Rome,
New York, for the City of the Seven Hills. A book on the Intercourse
of Nations and a translation of Dudley Field's "International Code,"
remain as tangible results of those lectures. But the university
failed to materialise.

Within a month after my arrival the viceroy was ordered to remove
to Nanking to take up a post rendered vacant by the death of his
eminent colleague, Liu. Calling at my house on the eve of embarking
he said, "I asked you to come here to be president of a university
for two provinces. If you will go with me to Nanking, I will make
you president of a university
[Page 230]
for five provinces," meaning that he would combine the educational
interests of the two viceroyalties, and showing how the university
scheme had expanded in his fertile brain.

Before he had been a month at that higher post he learned to his
intense disappointment that he was only to hold the place for another
appointee. After nearly a year at Nanking, he was summoned to Peking,
where he spent another year in complete uncertainty as to his future
destination. In the meantime the university existed only on paper.
In justice to the viceroy I ought to say that nothing could exceed
the courtesy and punctuality with which he discharged his obligations
to me. The despatch which once a month brought me my stipend was
always addressed to me as president of the Wuchang University,
though as a matter of fact I might as well have been styled president
of the University of Weissnichtwo. In one point he went beyond his
agreement, viz., in giving me free of charge a furnished house
of two stories, with ten rooms and a garden. It was on the bank
of the "Great River" with the picturesque hills of Hanyang nearly
opposite, a site which I preferred to any other in the city. I there
enjoyed the purest air with a minimum of inconvenience from narrow,
dirty streets. To these exceptional advantages it is doubtless due
that my health held out, notwithstanding the heat of the climate,
which, the locality being far inland and in lat. 30 deg. 30', was that
of a fiery furnace. On the night of the autumnal equinox, my first
in Wuchang, the mercury stood in my bedroom at 102 deg.. I was the
guest of the Rev. Arnold Foster of the London Missionary
[Page 231]
Society, whose hospitality was warm in more ways than one.

The viceroy returned from Peking, broken in health; the little
strength he had left was given to military preparation for the
contingencies of the Russo-Japanese War; and his university was
consigned to the limbo of forgotten dreams.

Viceroy Chang has been derided, not quite justly, as possessing a
superabundance of initiative along with a rather scant measure of
finality, taking up and throwing down his new schemes as a child
does its playthings. In these enterprises the paucity of results
was due to the shortcomings of the agents to whom he entrusted
their management. The same reproach and the same apology might be
made for the Empress Dowager who, like the Roman Sybil, committed
her progressive decrees to the mercy of the winds without seeming
to care what became of them.

Next after the education of his people the development of their
material resources has been with Chang a leading object. To this
end he has opened cotton-mills, silk-filatures, glass-works and
iron-works, all on an extensive scale, with foreign machinery and
foreign experts. For miles outside of the gates of Wuchang the
banks of the river are lined with these vast establishments. Do
they not announce more clearly than the batteries which command
the waterway the coming of a new China? Some of them he has kept
going at an annual loss. The cotton-mill, for example, was standing
idle when I arrived, because in the hands of his mandarins he could
not make it pay expenses. A Canton merchant leased it on easy terms,
and made it
[Page 232]
such a conspicuous success that he is now growing rich. It is an
axiom in China that no manufacturing or mercantile enterprise can
be profitably conducted by a deputation of mandarins.

Chang is rapidly changing the aspect of his capital by erecting
in all parts of it handsome school-buildings in foreign style,
literally proclaiming from the house-tops his gospel of education.
The youth in these schools are mostly clad in foreign dress; his
street police and the soldiers in his barracks are all in foreign
uniform; and many of the latter have cut off their cues as a sign
of breaking with the old regime. In talking with their officers I
applauded the prudence of the measure as making them less liable
to be captured while running away.

Chang's soldiers are taught to march to the cadence of his own
war-songs--which, though lacking the fire of Tyrtaeus or Koerner,
are not ill-suited to arouse patriotic sentiment. Take these lines
as a sample:

"Foreigners laugh at our impotence,
And talk of dividing our country like a watermelon,
But are we not 400 million strong?
If we of the Yellow Race only stand together,
What foreign power will dare to molest us?
Just look at India, great in extent
But sunk in hopeless bondage.
Look, too, at the Jews, famous in ancient times,
Now scattered on the face of the earth.
Then look at Japan with her three small islands,
Think how she got the better of this great nation,
And won the admiration of the world.
What I admire in the Japanese
Is not their skill in using ship or gun
But their single-hearted love of country."

[Page 233]
Viceroy Chang's mode of dealing with his own malady might be taken
as a picture of the shifting policy of a half-enlightened country.

The first doctor he consulted was a Chinese of the old school. Besides
administering pills composed of

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,"

the doctor suggested that one thing was still required to put the
patient in harmony with the course of Nature. Pointing to a fine
chain of hills that stretches in a waving line across the wide city,
he said: "The root of your trouble lies there. That carriage-road
that you have opened has wounded the spinal column of the serpent.
Restore the hill to its former condition and you will soon get
well."

The viceroy filled the gap incontinently, but found himself no
better. He then sent for English and American doctors--dismissing
them in turn to make way for a Japanese who had him in charge when
I left Wuchang. For a paragon of intelligence and courage, how
pitiful this relapse into superstition! Did not China after a trial
of European methods also relapse during the Boxer craze into her old
superstitions? And is she not at this moment taking the medicine
of Japan? To Japan she looks for guidance in the conduct of her
public schools as well as for the training of her army and navy.
To Japan she is sending her sons and daughters in growing numbers.
No fewer than eight thousand of her young men, and, what is more
significant, one or two hundred of her young women from the best
families are now in those islands inhaling the breath of a new
life.

[Page 234]
Some writers have sounded a note of alarm in consequence of this
wholesale surrender on the part of China. But for my part I have
no fear of any sinister tendency in the teachings of Japan, whether
political or educational. On a memorable occasion twelve years ago,
when Marquis Ito was entertained at a banquet in Peking by the
governor of the city and the chancellor of the Imperial University, I
congratulated him on the fact that "Japan exerts a stronger influence
on China than any Western power--just as the moon raises a higher
tide than the more distant sun"--implying, what the Japanese are
ready enough to admit, that their country shines by borrowed light.

After all, the renovating effect, for which I look to them, will
not come so much from their teaching as from their example. "What
is to hinder us from doing what those islanders have done?" is an
argument oft reiterated by Viceroy Chang in his appeals to his drowsy
countrymen. It was, as I have said, largely under his influence that
the Emperor was led to adopt a new educational programme twelve
years ago. Nor can there be a doubt that by his influence more than
that of any other man, the Empress Dowager was induced to reenact
and to enlarge that programme.

To show what is going on in this very decade: On September 3, 1905,
an edict was issued "abolishing the literary competitive examinations
of the old style," and ordering that "hereafter exclusive attention
shall be given to the establishment of schools of modern learning
throughout the Empire in lieu thereof." The next day a supplementary
decree ordained that
[Page 235]
the provincial chancellors or examiners who, like Othello, found their
occupation gone, should have the duty of examining and inspecting the
schools in their several provinces; and, to give the new arrangement
greater weight, it was required that they "discharge this duty in
conjunction with the viceroy or governor of the province."

An item of news that came along with these decrees seemed to indicate
that a hitherto frivolous court has at length become thoroughly in
earnest on the subject of education. A sum of 300,000 taels appeared
in the national budget as the annual expense of a theatrical troupe
in attendance on the Court. At the instance of two ministers (Viceroy
Yuan and General Tieliang) Her Majesty reduced this to one-third of
that amount, ordering that theatricals should be performed twice
a week instead of daily; and that the 200,000 taels thus economised
shall be set apart for _the use of schools_. How much this
resembles the policy of Viceroy Chang who, exempted from raising
a war indemnity, set apart an equal amount for the building of
schoolhouses! An empire that builds schoolhouses is more certain
to make a figure in the world than one that spends its money on
batteries and forts.

In addition to adopting the new education there are three items
which Chang proclaims as essential to a renovation of Chinese society.
In the little book, already cited, he says:

[Page 236]
The crippling of women makes their offspring weak;
The superstition of _Fungshui_ prevents the opening of mines,
And keeps China poor."

How could the man who wrote this fall back into the folly of
_Fungshui?_ Is it not possible that he closed that new road
in deference to the superstitions of his people? In either case
it would be a deplorable weakness; but his country, thanks to his
efforts, is now fully committed to progress. She moves, however, in
that direction much as her noble rivers move toward the sea--with
many a backward bend, many a refluent eddy.

POSTSCRIPT NO. I

In taking leave of this eminent man, who represents the best class
of his countrymen, there are two or three incidents, which I mention
by way of supplement. In his telegram to Vancouver, besides engaging
me to assume the office of president of the proposed university, he
asked me to act as his legal and political adviser. In the agreement
formally made through the consul in New York, in place of these
last-named functions was substituted the duty of instructing his
junior mandarins in international law. The reason assigned for
the change was that the Peking Government declined to allow _any
foreigner_ to hold the post of adviser. The objection was represented
as resting on general policy, not on personal grounds. If, however,
the Peking officials had read my book on the Siege, in which I
denounce the treachery of Manchu government and favour the
[Page 237]
position of China, it is quite conceivable that their objection
might have a tinge of personality.

When Viceroy Chang was starting for Peking, I called to see him
on board his steamer. He held in his hand a printed report of my
opening lecture at the beginning of a new term, and expressed regret
that in the hurry of departure he had been unable to find time to
attend in person. On that occasion (the previous day) several of
his higher officials, including the treasurer, judge, and prefect,
after giving me tiffin at the Mandarin Institute, brought sixty
junior officials to make their salaam to their instructor. This
ceremony performed, I bowed to Their Excellencies, and requested
them to leave me with my students. "No," they replied, "we too
are desirous of hearing you"; and they took seats in front of the
platform.

Viceroy Chang seems to have manifested some jealousy of Sir Robert
Hart, in criticising the Inspector-General's proposal for a single
tax. He likewise criticised unfavourably the scheme of Professor
Jenckes for unifying the currency of the Empire--influenced, perhaps,
by the fear that such an _innovation_ might impair the usefulness
of a costly plant which he has recently erected for minting both
silver and copper coin. For the same reason perhaps he objects, as
I hear he does, to the proposed engagement of a Cornell professor
by the Board of Revenue in the capacity of financial adviser.

With all his foibles, however, he is a true patriot; and his influence
has done much to move China in the right direction. O for more men
like Chang, the "Longbow of the Cavern!"

[Page 238]
I append a weighty document that is not the less interesting for
being somewhat veiled in mystery. I regret that I am not at liberty
to disclose its authorship. The report is to be taken as anonymous,
being an unpublished document of the secret service. To the reader
it is left to divine the nationality and personality of its author.
Valuable for the light it throws on a great character in a trying
situation, the report gains piquancy and interest from the fact that
the veil of official secrecy has to be treated with due respect.
My unnamed friend has my thanks and deserves those of my readers.

OFFICIAL INTERVIEWS WITH VICEROY CHANG DURING THE CRISIS OF 1900

"At our interview of 17th June, described at length in my despatch
to you of 18th June, the Viceroy explained his determination to
maintain order and to afford the protection due under treaty; he
also emphasised his desire to be on friendly terms with England.

"Early in June, the three cities of Wuchang, Hanyang and Hankow had
been full of rumours of the kidnapping of children and even grown
persons by means of hypnotism; and though a concise notification by
the Viceroy, that persons spreading such tales would be executed,
checked its prevalence here, the scare spread to the country districts
and inflamed the minds of the people against foreigners and, in
consequence, against converts and missions.

"On the 25th June, the Viceroy, as reported in a separate despatch
of 28th June, to Lord Salisbury, sent a special envoy to assure me
that H. E. would not accept or act upon any anti-foreign decrees
from Peking. At the same time he communicated copy of a telegraphic
memorial from himself and seven other high provincial officers
insisting on the suppression of the
[Page 239]
Boxers and the maintenance of peace. This advice H. E. gave me
to understand led to the recall of Li Hung Chang to the north as
negotiator.

"Distorted accounts of the capture of the Taku forts and the hostilities
of the north caused some excitement, but the Viceroy's proclamation
of 2nd July, copy of which was forwarded in my despatch of 3rd
July to the Foreign Office, and the vigorous police measures taken
by His Excellency soon restored calm which, despite occasional
rumours, continued until the recent plot and scare reported in my
despatch to you of 23rd of August. In the same despatch I described
how, in compliance with my wish, H. E. took the unprecedented step
of tearing down his proclamation embodying an Imperial Decree which
had been taken to imply license to harry converts. To foreigners
during the past two months the question of interest has been whether
the Viceroy could and would keep his troops in order. The Viceroy
himself seemed to be in some doubt until the return of his trusted
officers, who were attending the Japanese manoeuvres when the
northern troubles began. Every now and then reports of disaffection
have been industriously circulated, but the drilled troops have
never shown any sign of disloyalty.

"A point of H. E.'s policy which has caused considerable suspicion
is the despatch of troops northward, At the end of June some 2,000
or 3,000 men passed through Hankow bound for Nyanking where the
Governor was said to want a body-guard. They were unarmed and did
no mischief beyond invading the Customs and China Merchants' Steam
Navigation Company's premises. During July some 5,000 troops, of
whom perhaps half were drilled men, went from Hukeang provinces
overland to Honan and on to Chihli. They were led by the anti-foreign
Treasurer of Hunan; and their despatch was explained by the
constitutional duty of succouring the Emperor. Since July I have
not heard of any further detachments leaving, though it was said
that the total would reach 10,000. Possibly the Viceroy sent the
men because he did not feel strong enough to defy Peking altogether,
because failure to help the court would
[Page 240]
have excited popular reprobation, and also in order to get rid of
a considerable part of the dangerous 'loafer' class.

"About the 20th July there was a persistent report that the Viceroy
was secretly placing guns on the opposite banks of the river. The
German military instructors assured me that the report was baseless;
and Lieutenant Brandon, H. M. S. _Pique_, thoroughly searched
the bank for a distance of three miles in length and breadth, without
discovering a trace of a cannon. The only guns in position are the
two 5-inch Armstrong M. L. within the walls of Wuchang, and they
have been there for a long time and are used 'merely for training
purposes.'

"So early as our interview of June 17th, the Viceroy expressed
anxiety as to missionaries at remote points in the interior; and I
had about that time suggested to the various missions that women and
children would be better at a treaty port. The missions themselves
preferred to recall all their members, and at the Viceroy's request
supplied lists of the stations thus left to the care of the local
authorities. Since then, even in Hupeh, there have been a few cases
of plundering, especially in the large district of Sin Chan on the
Hunan border, while at Hangchow-fu, in Hunan, the London Mission
premises were wrecked early in July and for a time throughout the
whole province it appeared probable that the Missions would be
destroyed. The chief cause of this, as of the riots in Hupeh, was
the dissemination of an alleged decree of 26th June praising the
Boxers and ordering the authorities to imitate the north in
exterminating foreigners. This decree seems to have reached local
authorities direct; and those hostile to foreigners acted upon
it or let its existence be known to the gentry and people. The
chapels in Hunan were all sealed up; and it was understood that
all mission and convert property would be confiscated. Towards the
end of July, however, the Viceroy and the Hunan Governor issued
a satisfactory proclamation, and I have heard no more complaints
from that province, the western part of which seems tranquil.

"Besides safeguarding foreign life and property in his own province
the Viceroy has frequently been asked to aid missionaries retiring
from Kansuh, Shensi, Shansi, and Honan. In
[Page 241]
every case H. E. has readily consented. Detailed telegrams have
been sent again and again not only to his frontier officers, but to
the governors of other provinces with whom H. E. has expostulated,
when necessary, in strong terms. Thus, when Honan seemed likely
to turn against us, the Viceroy insisted on the publication of
favourable decrees, and even went so far as to send his men to
establish a permanent escort depot at Ching Tzu Kuan, an important
post in Honan where travellers from the north and northwest have
to change from cart to boat. Happily the acting Governor of Shensi
has cooeperated nobly. But the refugees who testify invariably to the
marvellous feeling of security engendered by reaching Hupeh, will,
I doubt not, agree that they owe their lives to Chang Chi-tung's
efforts; for simple inaction on his part would have encouraged the
many hostile officers to treat them as Shansi has treated its
missionaries.

"At times during the past two anxious months the Viceroy's action
in sending troops north, the occurrence of riots at various points,
H. E.'s communication of decrees in which the Peking Government
sought to gloss over the northern uprising, and his eagerness to
make out that the Empress Dowager had not incited the outbreak and
had no hostile feeling against foreigners have inevitably made one
uneasy. But on looking back one appreciates the skill and constancy
with which H. E. has met a most serious crisis and done his duty to
Chinese and foreigners alike. It is no small thing for a Chinese
statesman and scholar to risk popularity, position, and even life
in a far-seeing resistance to the apparent decrees of a court to
which his whole training enforces blind loyalty and obedience.
His desire to secure the personal safety of the Empress Dowager on
account of her long services to the Empire is natural enough; nor
need he be blamed for supplying some military aid to his sovereign,
even though he may have guessed that it would be used against those
foreign nations with whom he himself steadfastly maintains friendship
and against whose possible attack he has not mounted an extra gun."

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