CHAPTER XVII
THE SZECHUEN REVOLT
It was long before the outbreak of the Revolution that Szechuen was in the throes of a revolt that threatened early to spread to most dangerous limits from every aspect. The cause of the trouble was the building of railroads. Szechuen demanded exclusion from the scheme for the nationalisation of the railways. The literati and the students took the matter in hand, declared determinedly that the province should build its own railways, and in a very short time the province was in an uproar. We have but little space to deal with the history of the disturbances, but seeing that when it was at its worst there existed a serious anti-foreign spirit, it will be well to give a brief review on the affair.
For several years one had become accustomed to the startling pronouncements from Peking as to what the Government of China intended to do with regard to the establishment of railroads throughout the length and breadth of the land, and what the consequent opening up of the country would be. During the past few years of China's alleged awakening we had, however, waited in vain for the much-debated new lines. In each Provincial Assembly one of the foremost among the matters of agenda had always been the railway which came no nearer, and the public had grown accustomed to the talk and instinctively had arrived at the position where they do not expect any concrete result in the shape of railroad actualities.
The announcement made during the spring of 1911 would seem to have indicated, however, that that time was past with the coming into public office of his Excellency Tuan Fang as Director-General of Railways. Whilst he held public office Tuan Fang was a man who, next, perhaps, to Yuan Shih K'ai, was looked upon as the prince of officials, was famous for the tact and ability with which he approached all matters having anything to do with the foreigner, was highly respected by the people, was astute, far-seeing, progressive in the truest sense, and generally respected as a public pillar in the coming of the New China. But one day, when the funeral of the late Empress was taking place, he was unfortunate enough, as will be seen in a footnote printed below, to commit one of the greatest breaches against Imperial etiquette. The wrath of the Throne was brought down upon him. Tuan Fang was dismissed peremptorily, put his papers in his pocket, and cleared out of the service in apparent disgrace. That, however, was in the old days. China, since then, had been quickly undergoing a process of mighty change, and Tuan had changed with the times. He was now taken into office by the Government, and among other things that came directly under his control was the management of the railways proposed to become and those already under construction. So that it was now reasonably expected that some progress would be made—not so speedy as the programme would indicate, perhaps—but certain was it that no man at the time in the whole of the Government arena was more capable of handling that particularly needed adjunct of national progress as the modern railroad admittedly is in China. In China the railway question is one of the most vital importance. By virtue of size alone China, it was seen, must seek the aid of every railway-building nation in the world if she was to complete her proposed schemes. The problems of railways here in China only touch the difficulties of construction and initial expense. The stage where the relation of the railways to society and commerce becomes more and more complicated has not yet arrived. China is innocently free for the most part from such vexatious questions as the competition of rates and fares, the combination of railway systems, the pooling of traffic, and State or private ownership. The conditions prevailing in China are rather the result of historical evolution, and cannot possibly be regarded as the outcome of any policy. If a railway has rails, then in China it can very well be called a railway—and China has shown us that she has been satisfied, and the Chinese Government has always been the victim of circumstances, guided wholly by the golden age in the past rather than an intelligent outlook for the golden age of the future. The railways that China possesses had always been, and still are, the most flagrant examples of how railways should not be run. They had been a disgrace to a nation that has put forward a claim to be making endeavours to get out of the grip of antediluvianism. They have lost money, have been allowed to get into the sorriest state of disrepair that can be imagined, and altogether have been white elephants. But the spirit of railway construction during the last few years took hold of the Government. In the enlightened provinces of north and east China the people talked railways, they thought railways, they dreamed railways, and with the advent of Tuan Fang as the Director-General of Railways they seemed set upon building railways. The need of opening up this wonderful Empire is an oft-repeated tale, not needing to be reiterated. In every province in the west of the Empire there is known to be a wealth in the earth that will in time allow China to vie with the United States in natural resources. For her own intercommunication and exchange of products China's first need is the railway. If her exports are to increase in a proportionate measure with her opportunity of natural development, China must have a network of railroads to enable her speedily to transport her products to the coast. The need is there, and aided by the Great Four Nation Loan, China (so it seemed at the commencement of 1911) would be able to move with enormous strides. She now had the money, and she had now chosen the man. It was only to be hoped that his Excellency Tuan Fang, in entering upon his important mission to the New China, would not find his hands tied by that unmoving element of the Old China which still rigidly maintained an attitude of short-sighted independence.
Early in the scheme which made for the nationalisation of the railroads it was seen that Szechuen would not pull with the other provinces—Hunan was another. It was one of the unaccountable phenomena of the times in several of the central provinces of China that the gentry and the literati were impressed in a manner the reverse of satisfactory over the loaning of money by the Powers to China. Several places had been on the verge of a revolt as a result of the Government's decision, and in some places there was a marked dislike to the Imperial methods of opening up the country. The first thing that impresses the observer of social conditions in China to-day is the magnitude of the industrial forces that are everywhere at work—the man who does not work finds little to eat. In seven-eighths of this enormous Empire the bulk of the country's work is performed by the energies of human beings and beasts of burden. China—that is, the common people of the country—has not learned the lesson of harnessing to the chariot of industrial progress one of the great natural forces, and they are taught from the cradle to believe that when once a labour-saving machine is introduced, that exact number of people whose combined work is accomplished by the machine will commence to starve. The ordinary Chinese looks out of his almond-shaped eyes, but does not see wherein lies the wealth of the land. That the United States of America increased its mechanical horse-power from two million in 1870 to roughly twelve million in 1900, and has enjoyed greater wealth with its increase—and that his own country could do the same, mattered not to the ordinary Chinese. He argues in a very elementary manner. He has so many mouths to feed; there is so much work to be done; when all the work that there is to be done is done by hand labour, even then there are thousands of mouths that cannot be filled, and if labour-saving machinery is introduced, what will become of the millions who will be thrown out of employment? So argues the ordinary Chinese, and for fear of making matters worse than they are, he votes plump against the introduction of foreign machinery. This was the spirit of the proletariat towards the opening of the country by railway lines. But the change was bound to come, and although the people of Szechuen showed plainly that they intended tooth and nail to fight against this that they little understood, the Government seemed to show most strongly that it intended to push the building of the lines. The question was, of course, of thrilling interest to China as a nation, and of vital importance to the whole of the East and the West. In former times the people themselves had had the opportunity to build their own railways, the same as private companies did in Europe and America. They stolidly refused, they believed such an innovation of the devil to be directly against the welfare of the country. For ages the Chinese Government thought the same, but when the partly-awakened China reached out to grasp its last chance of swinging commercially into line with other great nations of the world, there was to be no hesitancy. China must have railways. She could not build them herself—she had no money. Europe and America could build them; Europe and America had the money, and were doing what any other right-thinking nation would characterise as a gracious act (although not quite free from the loaves and fishes element), and it was the duty of the Chinese Government to rule with an iron hand against any hysterical hooligans whose Imperial short-sightedness rendered them a dangerous element in the country.
There was for several months during the initial trouble no anti-foreign movement. A Society boasting the name of the One Aim Society—the one aim being to get the railway loan rescinded—was formed, many scholars of repute being the leaders, who prided themselves upon conducting their campaign in quite a civilised fashion, and not in the old way of destroying public buildings and so forth. Where agitation existed against the missionaries and foreigners the leaders stepped in, agitated for and subsequently succeeded in getting many of the commoner ringleaders beheaded. For many hundreds of square miles the countryside was pamphleted to the effect that "not a blade of grass belonging to a foreigner must be touched," the writer going on to declare that "if we do this, we shall only injure our own cause and give the foreign nations a pretext to step in and divide up our country.... This has nothing to do with the missionaries of any nation. If foreign nations have money to lend, and China wishes to borrow, they have a perfect right to lend upon the very best terms that they can get. We, therefore, cannot blame the foreigners, but only our own Government."
Whilst, however, this was the authoritative attitude of the promoters of the agitation, there were many of the "roughs" of the country—that party which has been eternally agitating against both Government and foreigners—who hoped to take advantage of the trouble to promote its own aims. Towards this end some curious proceedings were reported to have transpired. The press became irrepressible, the cartoons against foreigners were vile—such things as Chinese soldiers being tied to branches of trees and shot by foreign soldiers, with letterpress telling the people that this was the treatment meted out by the British to the Chinese soldiers at Pienma; Russian soldiers driving Jews into the sea at the point of the bayonet; the picture of an Englishman separating husband and wife with a flaring explanation that this was how the British treated the people of India, and so on ad libitum. This spirit came gradually. At the start of the rebellion the people probably thought that to shield the foreigner would save their reputation in their barbarous conduct throughout the province, but when they came to see plainly enough that the Imperial hand was stronger than they had deemed it to be, they turned their attention to what might have proved a very dangerous spirit of anti-foreignism—but the foreigners cleared out of the province luckily before any massacring was generally spoken of. At the time I am writing it is not known whether the property of foreigners was allowed to remain untouched or not.
After the outbreak at Wuchang things in Szechuen took a decided turn for the worst. Outlawry became rife everywhere. Slaughter on a gigantic scale was carried on; Chengtu, the capital, was besieged for several weeks; foreigners were ordered out of the province and only with great difficulty in many cases were able to get away; Chao Erh Fang (the Viceroy) was killed; from end to end of the province nothing but anarchy and lawlessness prevailed. When the trouble was at its height Tuan Fang was ordered to Szechuen to quell the rebellion. He went, but, good man that he was, never came back. When the killing of the Manchus was in progress, he was killed by his own men, and his head brought down to Wuchang.
At the time of writing the province of Szechuen is in such a condition of unrest and complete disorganisation that it is quite impossible to tell what will occur within a year—that is, whether there is likely then to be any prospect of real peace. It is certain that for many months yet the missionaries will not be able to return to their stations, and it will probably take many years, even with the marvellous recuperative powers the Chinese possess, before the province regains its normal conditions. For Szechuen is different from many provinces in China. The difficulties are different. The people—the tribal element, particularly—is a thorn in the flesh of Chinese officialdom, and at the present juncture in this volume to ponder upon this element in the national life will be probably of interest. Indeed, to read aright the signs of the times in China were never harder than to-day.
The Revolution, with the hope of a Republic, or some wonderfully altered system of government, has changed the whole front that China has been making to the world, and no matter how one may view the turn of current events and the probable effect of all this change upon the national life and character of the Chinese, he is wise who tempers his enthusiastic study of the Revolution and the Reform movement with a just estimate of the possibilities of the menaces that face Dr. Sun Yat Sen and his Republican party or Yuan Shin K'ai and his Monarchical party, in pursuing their respective policies. Some of the menaces come from without. Most, however, come from within, and at the present time, to those who know their China best, it is abundantly clear that the New China's greatest hope is in fleeing from herself.