China's Revolution, 1911-1912: A Historical and Political Record of the Civil War

by Edwin John Dingle

Truly were those first days of the war a season of intense excitement and surprise.

By November 1st the Imperialists, already in possession of Kilometre Ten and the whole line from Peking, by persevering and undaunted behaviour, excellent discipline, and military common sense, had won their way to the Tachimen, the railway station behind the French Concession. That morning I was in the camp at the station. Foreigners had been looked upon with suspicion, and as I entered the station some of the officers looked askance at me. No other army would have allowed me to pass the barrier without having seen a pass. But pass I had none. As I sat chatting to a crowd of well-knit northern fellows, who seemed perfectly at ease and to have all they wished for—except cigarettes, for which they were constantly making inquiries—it was difficult to believe that one was in the very centre of the topical world. The eyes of every one were turned towards this great struggle between Chinese and Chinese. Every newspaper in London and New York was concentrating upon the war. China's Revolution was on the far political horizon, for what affected China just then affected the world. And as those Imperial fellows at their military base congratulated each other that at least they had the chance of being actually in war, they had but little idea of the importance attaching to the conflict. Shells that dropped around me, however, were bringing messages of a China that was to be.

Not a hundred yards from where I sat were four field-guns—deadly four-inchers, the modern Krupp—sending shells into Hanyang as fast as the gunners were able to work. The booming shook the whole city, sending frightened children to their mothers, themselves at their wits' ends with fear. Revolutionary batteries at Hanyang, not yet silenced or showing any signs of giving up the fight, dropped its shells sometimes nearer, sometimes farther, never into the battery here on the railroad.

As an interested spectator, I sat on a few sleepers and watched where the shells dropped from both sets of guns. It was a casual pastime, and no one seemed to mind my being there. The gunners would, with highest glee, explain how the four-inchers were worked, would point away towards Hanyang Hill and tell you they were trying to pot the temple overlooking the Yangtze, and when a shell from the enemy dropped anywhere near there was a shout of enthusiastic mirth. They would look at one astutely, smile, inquire into one's family associations in characteristic Chinese style, and were highly delighted if relevantly one could carry on conversation with them in Chinese. The average military observer would probably have declared the Imperial Army to be a peculiar military force. Into the daily routine the extravagant Chinese etiquette was worked in conjunction with a discipline quite strange to Chinese, and on the face of things it would not seem, viewed from camp life, that China's army was in any way a modern army. But that this Model Army of China is as much of a myth as some would have us believe, I, now in it all, could not for a moment endorse. The foreigner has always looked upon the Chinese as a man who would not fight him with the weapons of war; his main attack would be the weapons of commerce, of boycott, or of trust. But the Chinese Army to-day is certainly no myth. It is strong enough to preserve peace with other countries, if not to enter into any external strife with the idea of winning.

That the Revolutionists had the numbers I would have been the first to admit, but the trained fighter is the man who wins in battle. Not one-fifth of their troops were trained soldiers; they have been seen to come out into the fighting line, wearing the uniform of the military it is true, to put the butts of their pieces upon their hips and let fly, until they saw their own men falling dead in front of them, shot from behind. But with the Northern Army it needed only a stroll round their camp to convince the most casual of observers that the Revolutionary's enemy was an army, doing things as an army should. The army defending the Throne was the product of twelve years of strenuous work by a great genius. The Northern Army was founded upon principles set down by Yuan Shih K'ai, the genius of things military in China, and that genius, using his brains but seeing nothing of the fight, was just then directing the operations as they proceeded.

Whether the Imperialists were getting to know more about that for which they were fighting, whether a great many in the rank and file were anxious to throw up the sponge and go back to their homes, whether a certain section of them were anxious to change coats and go over to the other ranks and shoot down those by whose side they had been trained did not affect the general position. The Imperialists were the cogs of the machine, and for their life they could not stop fighting. They might have been half-hearted, as many said they were, but their organisation was almost perfect.

FOES MEETING AS FRIENDS.
A regiment of soldiers casting in their lot with the
Revolutionists against whom they had lately fought.

As I sat on the railway sleepers a crowd of soldiers soon gathered. Some held their rice-bowls up to me, and with their chopsticks as they ate asked me to chi-fan, and when I took a hard piece of bread from one of the infantry and began to munch at it to show that there was not the slightest ill-feeling they all screamed with laughter, and each swore that I was a good all-round sort of fellow. And then we fell to talking. "Ah!" indignantly yelled the officer, when I asked him why Chinese were fighting Chinese, "these men are rebels—ding kuai, ding kuai tih ren![[1]] They are making it nasty for the foreign Concessions, and our Government are going to put it down. They are not real soldiers. They are only robbers and wicked men; they can't fight. We [and the man stroked himself down] are the fighters." And then he invited me to go a little way with him, until we came in sight of the guns then sending out the shells. "We have guns here that would blow those fellows into that great river, and if they don't give up soon that's what we are going to do. We are not going to leave a house standing; it is Yuan Shih K'ai's orders, and in a few days it will all be over, and we shall all go back to Peking and have a holiday. Yuan Shih K'ai," he softly said, "is down at Kilometre Ten,[[2]] and he will not come up farther. He is a wonderful fellow. He has his fingers on the situation, and is merely waiting his time. The Revolutionists think that he is afraid because our men are not fighting to-day, but you wait; presently you will see all the people in this city killed. We are killing anybody we can see, and shall kill many, many more yet."