Across China on Foot

by Edwin John Dingle

On Easter Tuesday, fighting took place on the main road to the north, when the pen-fu and his men achieved a creditable success. The rebels almost to a man were taken, and among the prisoners was a girl who had been distributing the beans, a lovely damsel of eighteen, said to have been the fiancée of the leader of that band. Both her legs were shot through and she was considerably mutilated; but although the pen-fu thought this sufficient punishment, instructions came from the capital that she must die. She was accordingly taken outside the city and beheaded. This caused some consternation among the rebels, as the death of the girl was looked upon as an omen of direct misfortune.

For a very long time she had been going around the country dropping beans into the ground outside any houses she came across, the superstition being that wherever a bean was dropped there in the very spot, perhaps at the very moment, for aught that we know, an invincible warrior would spring up. She had dropped some millions of beans, but the ranks were not swelled as a consequence.

The ch'en-tai had also been out all night, and as men were captured so they were beheaded on the spot without mercy and their heads subsequently hung outside the city gates. The headman of a small village—some forty li from the city—succeeded in capturing one of the leaders, and great credit was due to him; but soon the leader was rescued again by his followers, who then brutally killed and mutilated the body of the headman, causing him to undergo the ignominy of having his tongue and his heart cut out. Fighting was going on everywhere, and by the end of March things were at their height. The fact that rain was badly needed tended only to aggravate the situation, and that lustrous comet made things worse. Day by day miserable processions brought the wounded into the city, and the last day of the month, taken by sudden fright and almost getting out of hand, the panic-stricken people raised the cry that the rebels were marching direct for the city gates. Through the capital tactics adopted by the mandarins, however, this was prevented; but, on the following day, the chapel belonging to the United Methodist Mission at an out-station was burnt to the ground and the houses of the people razed and looted. The caretaker, a faithful Hua Miao convert, was taken, stripped of his clothing, and threatened with an awful death if he did not betray the foreigners. He refused manfully to divulge any information whatsoever, and was on the point of being sacrificed, when the ch'en-tai came unexpectedly upon the scene with his military. He released the Miao, captured thirty-six rebels, killed sixteen more where they stood, and carried away many of their horses and the dreaded Boxer flag around which the men rallied.

And now comes the smartest thing I heard of throughout the rebellion.

A man named Li was the most dreaded of the trio of rebel chiefs, a man of marvelous strength, and who seemed to be able to fascinate his men and get them to do anything he wished—and Liu, the ch'en-tai, set himself the task of capturing him. Disguising himself in the garb of a pedlar, Liu went out towards Li's camp, and met three spies on the look-out for a possible clue to the foreigners; they asked him where the ch'en-tai was and all about him, declaring that if he did not tell them all he knew they would take him to Li, and that he would then lose his head. Just behind were a few of Liu's best soldiers. Strolling up quite casually as if they knew least in the world of what was going on, they made their arrest, and clapped the handcuffs on them before their captives knew it. Liu ordered that two be beheaded immediately, which was done, and the other man was kept to show where Li's camp was and where Li himself was hiding.

And in this way Li the Invincible was captured also. This was the master-stroke of the situation. Li was brought back to the city with many other prisoners and a few heads, guarded by a strong body of the military.

Almost simultaneously, Huang, one of the other rebel chiefs, was captured; and at dusk one evening Li was put to death by the slow process. Afraid that if he were taken outside the city his followers might possibly re-capture him, he was murdered outside the chief yamen, about ten hacks being necessary by process adopted to sever the head from the body. Only two men have been put to death inside the walls since the city of Chao-t'ong was built, over two hundred years ago. After death had taken place, Li was served in the same way as he had served the village headman, and his heart and his tongue were taken from his body. Huang was killed in the usual way, and his head placed in a frame on the city gate.

And so there died two of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood must have rebelled at such premature dissolution, and by a death more hideous than imagination can depict or speech describe, just at a time in China's awakening when such fellows might have made for the uplifting of their country. And they died because they hated the foreigner.

After further desultory fighting, the remaining leader, losing heart, fled into Kwei-chow province, and for a time was allowed to wander away; but later, a sum of a thousand taels was offered for him, dead or alive, and I have no doubt of the reward proving too great a bait for his followers. He has probably been given up.[^[Q]] In the month of May the Miao people rose to prolong the rioting, but their efforts did not come to much, although guerilla warfare was prolonged for several weeks, and British subjects were not allowed to travel over the main road beyond Tong-ch'uan-fu for some time after; indeed, as I write (July 1st, 1910), permission for the missionaries to move about is still withheld.

Then, following the rebellion, rumors spread all over the province to the effect that the foreigners were on the look-out for children, and were buying up as many as they could get at enormous prices to ch'i the railway to Yün-nan-fu, which by this time had been opened to the public. Daily were little children brought to the missionaries and offered for sale. Child-stealing became common; the greatest unrest prevailed again. Members of the Christian churches suffered persecution, and adherents kept at a safe distance. Scholars forsook the mission schools. Foreigners cautiously kept within their own premises as much as they could. Mission work was at a standstill, and all looked once more grave enough. Two women, caught in the act of stealing children at Chao-t'ong, were taken to the yamen, hung in cages for a time as a warning to others, and then made to walk through the streets shouting, "Don't steal children as I have; don't steal children as I have." If they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.