Whatever they may have thought they could do, however, military experts declared that the Revolutionists had no position at all as long as the Imperial guns at Hanyang were able to pour shrapnel into them. With the railway cut off, the supplies of the Imperial forces would of course be cut off too, and in that way the Revolutionists would perhaps have been able to besiege them at Hanyang; but it would have been infinitely tedious. The cruisers, even if they had had ammunition, would under existing circumstances have been of little use. The four-point-seven guns at Hanyang would, with such decided advantage in being able to bang at them from a point where their own guns could not even been seen, have been able to silence them in a very short time. The damage that the Revolutionary guns would have caused to Hanyang would have been infinitesimal, and altogether the Imperial army would have held the trump card all the way along. On the face of things, it appeared little short of sheer madness for the Revolutionists to think of fighting so long as Hanyang were made the main Imperial base. But the Revolutionists themselves did not think so lightly of their chances. They were determined, and among the rank and file the war fever blinded the sight to all possibilities of defeat.
Sufficient has been said, perhaps, to show that further fighting would only take place to gratify the lust for blood of some of the grossly misguided leaders of the rival armies. Among the Republican leaders—General Li Yuan Hung and his party, as distinct from the military officers—the desire that war should forthwith cease was, I believe, absolutely sincere. General Li Yuan Hung had shown the world that what he said he meant: one could not point to a single public utterance from him and find that he had not done all that lay in his power consistently towards working out his promises. Li Yuan Hung was a man of political solidarity—not brilliant, but solid, sound, having an opinion and fearing no one in stating clearly and openly that opinion. Not in one thing, but in dozens throughout this dreadful season of disturbance he had shown that if he failed in carrying out what he said he meant to carry out, it had not been because of any inconsistency of his own so much as of treachery among his army and instability among members of his party. He had announced frankly all along what he wanted, and what he would be prepared to pay for realising sooner or later.
He now stated that he wanted peace—peace at all costs; to re-establish peace and to ensure that the fearful bloodshed should stop, he was prepared to make concessions. The general conduct of Li Yuan Hung, unmarred as it had been by any unharmonious note with other members of his party and marked throughout by a stability of purpose which had surprised the whole world, had been such that his promises could be relied upon. He had shown sufficient of himself to warrant respect from all, friends and enemies alike, for he had acted cleanly. And now he wanted peace.
Meantime many of the most influential foreigners in Hankow were doing all they could to assist in the bringing in of peace. Merchants, missionaries, officials, and others were all anxious to assist with their influence for peace, and if war, with all its carnage and bloodshed and savagery, were again to come to menace this central part of China, it would come only as a direct desire from the Imperial army and with far greater horrors than had yet been seen.
If further war were to come? So much had been seen during the past eight slow-moving weeks to show what devastation and utter social wretchedness could be wrought when men elect to settle their differences by force of arms. The killing of men, the burning of property—these are brutal features, but not the worst by any means. By the side of the horrors that come along in the wake of these ghastly battles, these are barely worth consideration. The slain are, after all, out of the misery they have helped to make. It is those who remain behind—those widows with the hungry, half-clad or naked children, homeless, foodless, friendless, with no roof above them at night but the cold, steely sky—these are the ones who suffer. The whole countryside, with its homeless and foodless people, its ruined, burnt-out hamlets and family homesteads, its ruined rice-crops, its cruel waste so wantonly forced upon it by the Imperialists, cried aloud in its weary desolation for peace. If the war were stopped, one thought that the bloody struggles of the past few weeks would become powerful agents of civilisation, reshaping and remoulding the Old China into a new land and a new people. But further war in that sad, sad country would tend only to make the passions of the armies wax fiercer and the hatreds more bitter.
Peace negotiations meantime hung in the balance. A fifteen-day armistice was agreed to, and by that time it was hoped that the Peace Conference would bring matters finally to a peaceful end.
* * * * *
His Excellency Tang Shao-yi is a magnificent fellow. He is calm, an infinitely human man, kindly disposed, easily approached, had borne a character that was clean. When he was appointed as plenipotentiary to the Peace Conference for Yuan Shih K'ai, the Revolutionists were pleased because Tang Shao-yi was known to be a man of extremely liberal views, sound, and not unsympathetic towards real reform. He had spent some considerable time abroad, and, coming with full power from Yuan Shih K'ai, was hailed with a good deal of pomp when he came to Hankow. In the British Municipal Building Tang Shao-yi had a suite of rooms, and rested in Hankow for a couple of days before going down to Shanghai, where, with mutual consent, the Peace Conference was to be held.
It must be made known that, as soon as Hanyang fell, Dr. Wu Ting Fang, than whom is no better-known Chinese diplomat in the world, assumed a very prominent position in the ambitious Republican party. Dr. Wu Ting Fang was generally recognised to be the best man suited to carry on peace negotiations from the Revolutionary party, and he, with several secretaries and advisers, met Tang Shao-yi and his advisers in Shanghai on December 18, 1911. This conference was looked upon throughout the civilised world as an epoch-making event: it was to be a red-letter day in future histories. "Peace, peace," ran the legend. Not only was one-quarter of the human race, and all that country and honour and liberty mean to them, immediately involved, but if one had the true prophetic eye he was able to look out upon a change whose effects would spread to the uttermost parts of the civilised globe. The effects of this Peace Conference then about to shape the future of this wonderful land were looked upon as immeasurable, illimitable. Dr. Wu Ting Fang, General Li Yuan Hung, able leaders of a movement shaking Chinese life to its vitals, on the one hand; Tang Shao-yi, Yuan Shih K'ai, representatives of the oldest faction of the whole human race, on the other hand—upon these men rested a world-wide responsibility it has seldom fallen to the lot of men to have had placed upon them.
"Peace, peace; at all costs let us have peace." So, sincerely as it seemed, cried both parties. That both sides were in earnest there is every reason to believe. Those who knew General Li Yuan Hung, the youngest hero of the world, were able more and more to testify with increasing knowledge of the man that he wished nothing more than that China should be freed from the Manchu yoke. All else he would forego to establish peace that should bring prosperity, a peace that should be permanent and knit the whole Empire together as nothing else could. Those who knew Dr. Wu Ting Fang realised that, as an able leader of modern thought and that party whose aim is progress, he was sincere in all that he did to bring about a China enlightened and able to stand in line with nations of the East and West. Tang Shao-yi was a man whose innate sincerity and true humility in high places had won the confidence of all who knew him. He was, as always he had been, veritably a political prince of peace. He loved his country.