CHAPTER XI
THE FALL OF HANYANG
Three days before the naval escapade described in the last chapter started the great struggle made by the "Imps" for the recapture of Hanyang. Yuan Shih K'ai, impatient at the dauntless manner in which the enemy were standing their ground—and even gaining upon the Imperial Army—made an offer of 3,000,000 taels (some £375,000) for the recapture of Hanyang. The Revolutionary Army was now fighting as never before.
The important news that Shantung had gone over to the Revolutionists was received on the 16th in a laconic message, stating briefly that the entire province was now flying the white flag. This news was all the more important inasmuch as about ten days before the Government granted all the demands of the Shantung people, with the exception of the evacuation of Peking by the Manchus. This, it was thought, would be a sufficient sop to Cerberus, but it seemed not so, and the Shantungites had apparently decided to go the whole hog in the same manner as their local compatriots.
The real bombardment of Hanyang commenced at night on that date, and the sight was one never to be forgotten by those who had pluck enough to go to the high buildings and watch the guns opening. From a score of batteries on the Wuchang side of the river, from the big forts on the main hills inside Wuchang, from perhaps thirty guns raised on Hanyang Hill and four hills away to the right there came constant tiny flashes. The distant boom for hours in the dense darkness gave one an eerie feeling. The furious whizz of the shells as they swept over the foreign houses intensified one's peculiar fascination. Bullets sailing through the air bred in one a spirit of cool bravado. Around the countryside for miles one could count a score of fires—the whole population seemed to be burned out of house and home. At midnight there came a significant lull. Waiting and watching, watching and waiting on the tops of their houses, foreign civilians looked on to the passing tragedy, and were held spellbound in the dark. Those tiny flashes of blue seemed to be the sparks of a new life, but the morning brought the news that the Revolutionists had had the worst of it. When the Northern Army first arrived at Niekow it was part of their programme to dispatch a force through the lakes to the Han River at Hankow, from which place they could reach Hanyang in half a day. The boats were collected for the expedition, but for some reason or other it was called off. The project appears to have been taken up again, and this time carried through, with the result that the Imperialists, by November 20th, were in possession of Tsaitien, a busy market town on the Hanyang side of the Han twenty miles up. A foreign traveller, who was there at the time of the occupation, wrote up the following particulars about the situation then:—
"After we had passed Hsinkow on the way down by boat we noticed parties of grey-coated soldiers on the left bank marching down. There might be twenty in a party and sometimes a hundred. In conversation with them we learned that they were Chilhi or Shantung men, and belonged to Yuan Shih K'ai's army. Their General was named Wu, a very friendly man who said that he had a force of three thousand, and that they were bound for Hanyang. Our boat outstripped them, and on reaching Tsaitien we found it still under Revolutionary control, but with no soldiers there beyond the crews of some twenty fighting junks at anchor. There had been a thousand men in the place, but they had marched up the river before our arrival, said to be bound for Anluh. We reached there on Saturday evening, and at daybreak the following morning the gunjunks got up anchor and made for up-river. The Imperialists did not put in an appearance till Sunday afternoon about two o'clock, when some forty native boats came in crowded with soldiers. They had also on board half a dozen mules and probably guns, but these were not visible. They had large supplies of ammunition. By the time they landed all trace of the Revolutionists had disappeared. No one interfered with them, and they interfered with no one. There might have been close on a thousand men in that lot. All afternoon and evening there was heavy firing up-river. The people said it was the Revolutionists attacking the rear of the party up at Hsinkow, and that they had driven it back, but the puzzle was how the advance contrived to reach Tsaitien without either side apparently having seen the other. We left Tsaitien about ten o'clock on Monday, at which time the Imperialists were all in their tents engaged on their breakfast. There was no sign that they intended making any further move that day. It is impossible to reach Hankow by the Han route, as both parties fired on every boat seen. We therefore crossed the Machia Lake, and came out beyond Hanyang. Here a large force of several thousand Revolutionists was setting out by land for Tsaitien, and had the weather been favourable, they would have reached there last night. As it is, they will have to wait for fine weather, and then some further interesting news may be forthcoming from that quarter."
HOW THE IMPERIALISTS CROSSED THE HAN.
One of the three bridges built on boats across the river
while the revolutionaries were quarrelling among themselves.
Thus at last had the Imperialists crossed the Han. And with their crossing commenced one of the most determined battles in history, lasting five long days and four frightful nights of heaviest fighting. Day after day the close riflery work and Maxim fire was terrific. The Revolutionists for some time had the best of it. The slaughter among the Imperialists was fearful. The gunnery was heavy and deadly on both sides, but with Maxims the Revolutionists mowed down the enemy in hundreds each day. The death-roll no one was able to calculate. Each night the Imperial dead was taken away by train. The Imperial wounded were left on the field in the cold to die of their frightful wounds and hunger. The pressure did not allow of Red Cross work being done. To the left of the advancing Imperialists already referred to was the rapidly rushing Han, to the right a lake, in front a creek and high hill, defended by strong forces of Revolutionists. The hill in itself was a natural fort, but in the undulations of the ground and in the long grass the mountain guns and Maxims were as thick as blackberries. Every Imperial was fighting for his life, for he knew, once across the Han, that it was a fight to kill or be killed. Such scenes were probably never eclipsed in any war. The fusillading and incessant cannonading was harder than in any war of recent times. The Imperialists had given up the endeavour and were downcast at the meagre prospects of their success. To take Hanyang appeared altogether impossible. Their idea was to again make a wide flanking movement towards Siaokan, run a light railroad up to Siangyang, in North Hupeh, and so draw the Revolutionists away from the hills to open country. Certain it seemed to them that Hanyang would always remain a Revolutionary base. But as one sets out to write an accurate account of the situation in those last days in November, he is confronted by innumerable obstacles that render it almost futile. On the 26th every man in the Concessions, except the very few more closely associated with the happenings on the field, was under the impression that the Revolutionary Army was forging ahead, that it had by far the better position in the field, and that the taking of Hanyang was a task that the Imperialists were not by any means strong enough to accomplish. As I have said, the Imperialist officers thought so, too, but when on Saturday (the 25th) I learned that the Hunan men were becoming a little disaffected, I foresaw to some extent what turn events would take if it were proved impossible for General Li Yuan Hung and Commander Huang Hsuin successfully to handle this new and somewhat treacherous move on the part of the Hunan Army. Now the greatest blow that had yet fallen, and which could fall short of a complete smash-up, fell to the Republican cause here on November 27th.