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

by Edwin John Dingle

The letter continued: "Are you not the most famous and most able man among the Chinese? Have you forgotten that, after you had been relieved of your command of the northern troops and your political influence had been weakened, you narrowly escaped being murdered as well as cashiered? All this is evidence of the Manchu's jealousy of the Chinese. Since Hupeh was made independent, many other provinces have joined the cause with heart and soul. The Manchu Government has fallen into a swoon and can no longer stand by its own strength. So it is trying the scheme by which it quelled the Taiping rebellion—using Chinese to kill Chinese. If you are willing to be reinstated on such a commission, then you have superhuman patience.

"In your dispatch you state emphatically that the Government must be constitutional. In reply I wish to explain that in this age, whether a government be monarchical or republican, it must ultimately be founded on constitutionalism, and there is little difference between a republic and a constitutional monarchy. The form of the new government will be settled in the conference of delegates from the various provinces. Whatever form it takes, it will not violate constitutionalism. It is generally agreed among the people that the Manchus must not be allowed to have any voice in this conference. If we had agreed to your terms, had you any means of compelling the Manchu Government to fulfil its promises?

"For you to live in retirement for your own enjoyment as you have done is of no benefit to China. The success of the present movement has come by the strength not of man but of God. What man could convert Szechuan, Kiangsi, Anhui, Kiangsu, Kwangtung, Kwangsi, Yunnan, Kweichow, Shansi, and Shensi to republicanism? Besides all the gunboats and torpedo destroyers have turned revolutionary. There is no Manchu force to hinder us from marching on Peking with the exception of your little army. The renaissance of the Chinese and the maintenance of China's sovereignty depend on you. If you are really in sympathy with the Chinese, you should take your opportunity to turn Republican with your troops and attack Peking. If you are hankering after the dignities and honours that the Manchu Government may confer, then you should pray that the revolutionary army may hasten its march to the Yellow River. For, when the Manchus see that they cannot withstand the revolutionary advance, they will give you all the higher honours to induce you to fight for them. If we should yield now, it is to be feared that the honours bestowed on you would vanish in a few days. Remember the proverb, 'When the rabbits are caught the hounds are cooked.' Your merit would be so great that you would not avoid jealousy, and your power would make you liable to constant suspicion. It would be impossible for you to retire again to Changtehfu. I would remind you that the Empress Dowager is still living and that she will never forgive the slaughter of the reformers. Consider if there is any affection between yourself and the Manchus. All of us, working together can complete the emancipation of the Chinese, and none of us are willing to continue under the rule of the Manchus.

"As to your suggestion that foreign Powers may seize this opportunity of bringing about the partition of China we have read many articles from foreign papers, and we feel sure that none of them will do us any harm during our civil war. We have learned from a wireless telegram to a certain gentleman that Peking is in great agitation and that the young Emperor has fled. Should this be true, the ruling race has already lost its dignity and has no right to present our territory to any foreign Power.

"It is reported that the Manchu Government has recalled you. If that is so, I offer two suggestions for your consideration. First: It may be that the Government suspects your loyalty and intends by recalling you to deprive you of your military authority; in that case, you may disobey the summons by virtue of the military rule that a general need not obey an imperial edict when he is on service abroad. Second: If Peking is actually in a critical condition—I must tell you a story. During the Boxer rising, when the international force entered Peking, they summoned Li Hung-chang. That was an opportunity for Li to become Emperor. But he was stubborn and lost the chance. You may learn from his experience. Mencius said that a man with complete education will protect the people. I am but a military man and do not know much. I have learned largely from Mencius, so that I have no desire except to protect the people. It is believed that your experience and ability are much higher than mine. Yet I am sorry for you that you have to consider things so very long before you can make up your mind. Remember that we should not hesitate or delay in doing what is benevolent or righteous. We should do the right thing at once.

"All the brethren of this land are waiting for you. Do not face me any longer with a mask."

* * * * *

This was Li Yuan Hung's last appeal to Yuan. All along Li had been anxious to avoid further bloodshed, but it soon became evident that the fight was to be to the bitter end. So after that short-lived lull, foreigners, with their trade quite paralysed, settled down again for war. About the Concessions, in the clubs, in the houses, in the godowns, wherever foreigners congregated there was a feeling of deadening suspense hanging over all. That something terrible was about to happen every one agreed, but what no one cared to guess. In the native city, what of it was left, the abject desolation which the charred ruins and half-burned-up streets and shops presented to one, where a cold and hungry lot of people were endeavouring all too vainly to revivify trade, sunk into one's very being. One was glad, if he thus unwisely ventured far from the Concessions, to get back again and to walk along the Bund and look out over the unruffled river and hope for better times to come. There was no shipping, no life, no trade. The Concessions were in practically a state of siege, and all were waiting—for what, again, we knew not. All that one had to trouble about was the time that the mails closed and the time the boats were going down-river.

The Imperialists now commenced to draw a cordon around the city of Hankow. They were busy trenching, were busy building up their batteries on the plains from the end of the Sing Sien Road to the banks of the Han, the way to cross which they could not easily determine. No one was allowed out of the city or into the city unless he had his pass and could give reasonable cause for wanting to go either way. Every man, woman, or child without a pass was cruelly turned back, often with a thrust of the bayonet as a warning not to attempt it again. Foreigners who ventured out of the Concessions were deliberately shot at.

On November 13th the heaviest bombardment that had yet taken place started suddenly in the late afternoon, but for some time it was a puzzle whether it was meant to be a bombardment of the British Concession or of Hankow native city and Wuchang opposite. Shells were dropping quite as often in British as in Chinese territory. The night was drenching and dreary. Rain poured down and overflowed the flat battlefield behind the Concessions and the native city, and the luck of the Imperialists seemed out. Their spirits in the circumstances were damped by the weather, and the fight they were putting up against the high-spirited Hunanese, now augmenting the Revolutionary forces to the tune of fifteen thousand men, was but weak and half-hearted. The shells could be heard in the peculiar atmospheric deadness, which the forsaken appearance of the river seemed to accentuate, sailing through the air above our heads, the excited natives would yell and swear that they could see them and that they were coming directly to the spot where we were watching in the rain, and then would scamper off. Far away in the Concessions people were wondering why the Revolutionists had started shelling the British. Now the trouble seemed to have come indeed, and many wished they had left the port when they had the chance. Holes were being knocked through heavy walls, shells dropped in the roadway, in people's gardens, in people's bedrooms. A Russian naval officer, in a sick-bed in the Roman Catholic Hospital, wishing that he were well to watch the bombardment, lay probing for the reason the Revolutionists had taken this dislike to the British, and wondering what would happen after the British gunboats had smashed up the place. He could find no satisfactory reason. But suddenly this naval officer heard a crash; like a bolt of lightning a shell had entered the window; he felt the plaster of the walls striking him on the body as he lay there stupefied, watching the ceiling then falling in. It was the thirteenth shell that had come into the hospital compound since the war started, and over it waved peacefully the Red Cross flag.