Still, things are bad, and the brigands have come to be regarded as a necessary evil, and are “arranged with.” They are not scrupulous as to human life, and when they catch a rich merchant from the south, they send an envoy to his guild with a claim for ransom, strengthened by the threat that if it is not forthcoming in so many days, the captive’s head will be cut off. Winter, when the mud is frozen hard, is the only time for the transit of goods by land, and long trains of mule carts may then be seen, a hundred or more together, starting from Newchwang, Mukden, and other southern cities, each carrying a small flag, which denotes that a suitable blackmail has been paid to an agent of the brigand chiefs, and that they will not be robbed on the journey! Later, when I was on the Siberian frontier of Manchuria, the brigands were in great force, and having been joined by half-starved deserters from the Chinese army, were harrying the country, and the peasants were flying in terror from their farms.
Among the curious features of Manchurian brigandage, is that its virulence rises or falls with good or bad harvests, inundations, etc. For many of the usually respectable peasant farmers, in times of floods and scanty crops, join the robber bands, returning to their honest avocations the next season!
In spite, however, of this terrorism in the northeast, Manchuria is one of the most prosperous of the Chinese viceroyalties, and its foreign trade is assuming annually increasing importance.[29]
I was disappointed to find that the Manchus (or Tartars) differ little in appearance from the race which they have subdued. The women, however, are taller, comelier, and more robust in appearance, as may be expected from their retaining the natural size and shape of their feet, and not only their coiffure but their costume is different, the Manchu women wearing sleeveless dresses from the throat to the feet, over under dresses with wide embroidered sleeves. With some exceptions, they are less secluded than their Chinese sisters, and have an air of far greater freedom.
Most of the Manchu customs have disappeared along with the language, which is only spoken in a few remote valleys, and is apparently only artificially preserved because the ruling dynasty is Manchu. It is only those students who are aspirants for literary degrees and high office in the viceroyalty who are obliged to learn it.
People of pure Manchu race are chiefly met with in the north. Manchus, as kinsmen of the present Imperial dynasty, enjoy various privileges. Every male adult, as soon as he can string a short and remarkably inflexible bow (no easy task), becomes a “Bannerman,” i.e. he is enrolled in one of eight bodies of irregulars, called “Banners” from their distinctive flags, and from that time receives one tael (now about three shillings) per month, increased to from five to seven taels a month when on active service. These “Bannermen,” as a rule, are not specially reputable characters. They gamble, hang about yamens for odd bits of work, in hope of permanent official employment, and generally sublet to the Chinese the lands which they receive from the Government.
It is a singular anomaly that bows and arrows are relied upon as a means of defence in an empire which buys rifles and Krupp guns. Later, in Peking, which was supposed to be threatened by the Japanese armies, it was intended to post Bannermen with bows and arrows at the embrasures of the wall, and on the Peking and Tungchow road I met twenty carts carrying up loads of these primitive weapons for the defence of the capital! Bow and arrow drill is one of the most amusing of the many military mediæval sights of China. The Chinese Bannermen are descendants of those Chinese who, in the seventeenth century, espoused the cause of the Manchu conquerors of China. The whole military force of the three provinces of the viceroyalty is 280,000 men. Tartar garrisons and “Tartar cities” exist in many of the great provincial cities of China, and as the interests of these troops are closely bound up with those of the present Tartar dynasty, their faithfulness is relied upon as the backbone of Imperial security.
From its history and its audacious and permanent conquest of its gigantic neighbor, its mixed population and numerous aboriginal tribes, its mineral and agricultural wealth, and a certain freedom and breeziness which constitute a distinctive feature, Manchuria is a very interesting viceroyalty, and the two months which I spent in it gave it a strong hold upon me.
Mud is a great feature of Newchwang, perhaps the leading feature for some months of the year, during which no traffic by road is possible, and the Bund is the only practicable walk. The night I arrived rain began, and continued with one hour’s cessation for five days and nights, for much of the time coming down like a continuous thundershower. The atmosphere was steamy and hazy, and the mercury by day and night was pretty stationary at 78°. About 8.46 inches of rain fell on those days. The barometer varied from 29° to 29.3°. Afterwards, when the rain ceased for a day, the heat was nearly unbearable. Of course, no boat’s crew would start under such circumstances. Rumors of an extensive inundation came down the river, but these and all others of purely local interest gave place to an intense anxiety as to whether war would be declared, and what the effect of war would be on the great trading port of Newchwang.
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