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

by Edwin John Dingle

About him there were many hangers-on. With the military camp not a hundred feet away there was intense excitement, which every one in front of the foreigner was vainly attempting to subdue. Men came in with messages, and were quietly turned aside. Wong rose several times from his chair as he spoke with me, and hurriedly went to listen to some spies who had a story to tell him. 'Twas all hurry, all was organised capitally and worked smoothly, for there were many men on hand. Along the lines carriages of ammunition were going out towards Hanyang. From Hanyang captured carriages were coming, all tied low down with tarpaulins so that nobody could see. Meantime, there was a rumour in the camp that Yuan had been assassinated, and that the parties were talking peace. And here was Mr. Wong, Yuan's secretary, reading his dispatches and carrying out his wishes.

Most ardent preparations for further fighting counterbalanced the peace suggestions. Was there to be any more fighting? Ah, who knew? It was not wise to talk of such things. All this was exceptionally difficult business that Chinese should fight Chinese. But who could bring forward any way out of it. No; from Mr. Wong Kai Wen there was no news to be got, but he let drop little things that led one immediately to believe that Yuan's party were not in for talking peace. They had taken Hanyang, they would soon, so it appeared, have Wuchang, and that would make the Revolutionary cause lost altogether.

This was the impression which the Imperial camp gave to me. Then I went over to the Revolutionary camp, finding that both factions had many palpable differences. To go into General Li Yuan Hung's offices was to enter a semi-Occidentalised yamen. The staff were dressed in European clothes, they had no queues, their hats were mostly American felts, they talked English more or less, many of them had been trained in American universities. They treated you in an Occidental manner, told you their plans frankly, and one could feel that they were to be believed. They knew and they confessed that the military cause here was gone, but when I questioned them as to the ultimate issue of the Revolution they proudly pointed to certain epochs of history in my own country and asked me whether I thought it possible that the country could ever be again what it had been. The anti-foreignism of the north and the massacring of the foreigners at Sianfu in Shensi they deplored sincerely, and felt that it was in the banditti and the hooliganism in the Empire that they had a problem difficult of satisfactory solution.

I felt the sincerity of those men. Their enthusiasm got into me, I felt that they were a band of young reformers whose only fault lay, not in their ability, not in their determination, not in their belief in how things should be done, but in their little lack of stability and lack of unity. They believed that China must now change, and that the change would not be the kind of change that the Manchu Government would have brought in, but a real reform that would raise the masses of the people and bring China out into the foreground of the world. And as I spoke to those men I felt it, too. But there was one failing, that slight lack of stability. They needed leaders. Not for one moment wishing to minimise the extraordinary powers of calm foresight and sound administrative ability of General Li Yuan Hung, which had kept the whole party together during its most trying times of defeat, the Revolutionary party needed leaders who had been in the business before. They were all apprentices in the art of administrative and national rebuilding, and they needed a few master-men to guide them in their political journeyings. If they failed, however, it was not because they did not wish to do the right thing, not because they did not know how to do it; but because of the lack of downright practical experience; they were not able to give to current events their current bearing upon their one mutual aim.

Here they were, a strong man at the head of them, and all looking confidently towards him, like a lot of schoolboys with a teacher to whom they looked for everything. Immediately after Hanyang fell, the Wuchang party were scared for fear the city would be bombarded and they lose their heads. Within forty-eight hours, however, they had regained their courage. On November 30th, when I went over the river, as my boat pulled into mid-stream, the boatman told me blandly that he should expect at least treble rates, as he ran a great risk in coming at all—the Imperialists were sniping at every boat, he told me, and he felt it was only wise and fair to let me know. Just as he spoke I heard a bullet whizz past me. In a couple of minutes the big gun from Wuchang sent a shell away over my head, which drew fire from a field-piece in the unskilled hands of a very poor gunner on the Hankow side, the shell of which dropped noiselessly into the water a few yards in front of my little boat. Once on the other side, however, there was no further fear from firing. Rumours had been flying round to the effect that Wuchang was being evacuated, and, although on the river-banks people were building their boats and mending their nets as usual, it did not take the mind of a Spencer to take in the remarkable change that had so soon come over the city since the fall of Hanyang. A week previous I had been to Wuchang and was impressed everywhere with the doing and driving of every one in the streets and in the shops, with briskness of trade, and the cocksureness of the people. With their queues discarded they were then doing a roaring trade in small cloth and silk caps, made after a foreign pattern, which they wore proudly in defiance to the little round Manchu hat. These caps were met with at every turn, hung on nails in the wall above the street-vendors' stall; they were fetching as much as seventy cents apiece. To-day they could be had for twenty. Men who had made their purchases now laid aside the foreign article and fell back to the round hat with the little red knob on the summit. In the streets half the shops were closed, the other half doing a little trade and meanwhile preparing to take away most of the valuable stocks. Huge loads were standing outside the doors ready to be taken away as soon as the busy coolie gangs had time to attend to them; old men and women, carrying all their belongings in small baskets, were tiao-ing as hard as they could go; through the gates, now no longer guarded by a cocksure squad of military, but thrown wide open, came the constant hurrying stream of urban residents, who now were removing to the country. In China at such times as this one is held almost awestruck with the manner in which people clear out. Homes which perhaps had been held together for many generations were being evacuated in a couple of hours—the old father and the old mother took the children, the sons shouldered the heavy family furniture, the wives hobbled along behind with the babies, and altogether they silently went out of the city in a mournful procession. They hardly knew where they were going, but in the city trouble was brewing, and they were taking no risks of being shelled or burned out of their little hovels as had been done to thousands of their race over the river at Hankow.

As I went into the city I must have passed five thousand people—mostly in little processions of sixes and sevens, wending their way through the gates out of range of the fire of guns. I could not help but look upon them in pity, for disappointment was writ large upon their faces. They were some of the great percentage of the Chinese proletariat who delight to go with the crowd, like to shout with the majority. A fortnight earlier the Wuchang Republican party was on the top, was commanding all that came before it, and therefore did the thousands of the non-thinking portion of the community of the capital city delight in being loyal supporters. But now the tide for the time seemed to have turned, they were being bandied about from pillar to post daily, calamity after calamity seemed woefully to overtake them, and they almost wished, as they followed each slowly behind the other in common evacuation, that they had hesitated before plumping for the Revolutionaries. Tea-shops were almost deserted, rice-shops did no business, one felt that the military activity was greatly bluff. Wuchang had suddenly become a forlorn city, and the inhabitants disappointed people. Outside the Assembly Hall the revolutionary flags flapped in the wind, and there was little evidence that the conditions of affairs inside had altered very much, but as I walked up the steps, showed my card, and asked to see the General the staff officers looked askance at me, asked each other whether I was of German nationality, and told me that for some considerable time it would be quite impossible to see General Li. As I moved about the offices, however, I confess to some admiration at the way in which, under all their adverse circumstances and the consequent disappointment which the re-taking of Hanyang must have been to them all, the officers were going about their work with a quiet dignity and assurance that they were working on a thing that was not soon to pass away. One of the young fellows, a man of some four-and-twenty, who one could easily see had been educated in the States, told me that they, were all as confident as could be that their present position was as strong as ever it was.

"The taking of Hanyang," he told me, "is decidedly unfortunate, but we are making a new nation, a new country—we are not fighting military battles any more. There is now no further need for the killing of men. We are more concerned with the laying down of a new Government, and are desirous of having peace. Yuan Shih K'ai"—and here he paid a fitting tribute to Yuan's power, although he was not bewilderingly eulogistic of his political squareness—"does not want to fight, so he says. If he is true, why does he not withdraw his army at once and let there be peace? What we shall do now is to retire down towards Shanghai, where we shall probably hold our first delegates' meeting for the establishment of the Provisional Government, and by so doing we shall show to the world that we are by no means anxious to win our cause by killing our own countrymen. If he wishes to fight, all the world will know now that it is not merely because we are the Revolutionary party, but because he will still be the aggressor. Our policy of evacuating this city is because we feel it wise to do so, so that fighting may cease, and it is indirectly an appeal to the world on behalf of humanity—for it takes two to make a fight."

But this was very far-fetched, for the Revolutionists were equally keen to show that they had no intention of throwing up the sponge. Nanking's success subsequently had the effect of firing them with the fighting spirit again, and the fact that the Nanking troops were expected to arrive at Wuchang—although this turned out subsequently to be false—gave a new fillip of enthusiasm to the people. "They are not the new men, the recruits, they are the real trained soldiers," cried the man-in-the-street, "as good as the best that go to make up the Northern Army." The news spread rapidly from mouth to mouth, and the already excited soldiers showed increased anxiety because it was feared in their ranks that the rival leaders would so far be successful in their talk about peace that no further fighting would take place.

But no one could get any definite news of how much nearer we were to peace. Meantime at Hanyang and on the Yangtsze above and below that town strongest fortifications were being made. That Hanyang was the stronghold only a visit was needed to convince one; this, however, was difficult, for only the very privileged were afforded passes to go across the river. Things were buzzing at Hanyang; the Imperialist troops were itching for another battle, the whole place was fitted up in a most complete manner for further warfare, the Tortoise Hill was rendered absolutely impregnable, the camps were connected with both telephone and telegraph, and the Imperial army was going about its business as a body who understood thoroughly the business it was following.