CHAPTER XV
YUAN SHIH K'AI'S RETIREMENT
Perhaps the one personage in China most impressed by the utter inability of four hundred million Chinese to stand up against the forty million Japanese was the Chinese Resident in Seoul. Formerly in charge of the Chinese troops in Korea, he had been promoted to be China's representative at the Court of what was so soon to pass away. That impact of the new and the old, that utter collapse of the feeble resistance offered by the proud Imperial troops to the disciplined modern army of Japan, convinced the Resident that China was tottering to her fall unless she, like Japan, could absorb the knowledge and civilisation of the West. This lesson was—to use a Chinese phrase—"engraved upon his heart." That Resident was Yuan Shih K'ai.
YUAN SHI-K'AI.
Prime Minister of the Manchu Government and subsequently
First President of the Provisional Military Government
of the United Republic of China.
From that time onwards he set his hand to the plough of reform. And so straight a furrow did he plough, with never a swerve from his purpose, that he was everywhere spoken of as Yuan the Reformer. Discredited by the Japanese, neglected by the Chinese Government, vegetating for a time in that out-of-the-way port of Wenchow, it was not until 1898 that Yuan began to come to his own. As the result of a personal interview with the Emperor Kwang Hsu, he received his first military command under the Reform movement, being made expectant Vice-President of a Board with control of an army corps. In his new, environment Yuan had the opportunity of his life; he proved his real greatness by rising to the occasion. Beginning with the control of a few modern-trained soldiers, he so entered into the development of the idea in his brain that China's Model Army was the result, and their proved superiority over the Wuchang Modern Army at the engagements near Hankow was the proof that henceforth the properly trained, armed, and disciplined Chinese soldier is a force to be reckoned with. At this stage of his career Yuan united honesty of purpose with singleness of aim. He took the attitude of the old "sea dogs" of the British Navy—he was straight and true with his men, and worked with them. Honest himself, he saw to it that his officers were men of integrity. Foreigners applauded him, and when in 1900 he became Governor of Shantung, all the civilised world recognised that the man who would succeed Li Hung-chang had arrived. At this juncture Yuan Shih K'ai reached the parting of the ways, and showed to the world that even a great-minded and strong, purposeful Chinese statesman, with an intense desire for Reform in the country, is a Chinese still. Yuan had aided and abetted the young Emperor in his pursuit of Reform, but the time came when the military reformer had to choose whom he would serve—the Reform party and the Emperor Kwang-Hsu or the Conservative party and their leader the Empress-Dowager.
To carry out the Reform purpose it was necessary that the Emperor should have control of the new Northern Army, then under the command of Jung Lu, Governor-General of Chihli, and in order to obtain this control Jung Lu had to be put out of the way. At a secret interview with the Emperor on the 5th of the 8th moon, 1898, Yuan, after hearing all details of the Emperor's plan, which included the beheading of Jung Lu and the capture of the Empress-Dowager by means of the army, promised implicit obedience. (He had already assured the Emperor of his loyalty if placed in command of the troops. "Your servant," he said, "will endeavour to recompense the Imperial favour even though his merit be as a drop of water in the ocean or a grain of sand in the desert; he will faithfully perform the service of a dog or a horse while there remains breath in his body.")[[1]]
And with his vows hot upon his lips—went straight away and betrayed his sovereign. He was a Chinese, and seemed to choose the side that would best serve his own ends. The result is a matter of history. But it must ever be remembered that Yuan Shih K'ai struck the fatal blow which paralysed the Reform movement and prepared for the great humiliation of China in 1900.