Across the Amur River on Siberian soil (I can hear George Kennan revive his reminiscences) lies Blagovestchensk. This city was the scene, in 1900, of one of the most cruel massacres of the ages, which should reveal fully to the world the real heart of the oligarchal Russian army and government with which we have had to deal, afar off as yet. Thousands of unarmed Chinese shopkeepers and gold miners (who had absolutely nothing to do with Boxerism one thousand miles away) were led to the riverside, and at the word of command from General Chitchegoff the Russian troops at the point of the bayonet drove the innocent victims into the swift Amur, where many were drowned. Blagovestchensk is a thriving modern city. It is the center of the opulent Siberian gold industry, and has many live American advance agents who would welcome the American railway by a bridge over from Aigun! It is lighted by electric light, has clubs, hotels, libraries, docks, river steamers when the river is open (!), theaters, colleges, factories, flour and sawmills, splendid churches, fine brick residences, roads and horses.
Besides its exceedingly rich mines, Manchuria produces in the south, oak-leaf silk which we in America call Shangtung because it is like the silk of Shangtung, which was the first known of the wild silks; cotton, jade, maize, barley, pulse, the very valuable soy-bean, wheat, oats, the very valuable kaoliang (tall millet), the grain of which produces spirits and the stalk of which produces paper; hsiao mi (short millet), poppy, polygonum, used for blue dye; castor oil bean, sesamum, ginseng, paper spruce, fine fruit and flowers, salt, bean oil, famous vermicelli from loutou beans, the best tobacco produced in China, hemp (abutilon avicennæ), true hemp, charcoal, peas, fine reed matting, indigo, etc. Northern Manchuria, besides much of the foregoing, produces the famous black pigs of Kirin; soda bricks, cattle, leather, bear and deer skins; a vast amount of the world’s finest furs, including squirrels, tiger and dog skins, which last are produced on dog farms largely for the American market; gray bricks, tamara salmon, sturgeon, etc. The land is a future granary to feed the manufacturing hundreds of millions in America, who, despite intensive farming, will have exhausted the natural productiveness of their country.
IX
THE NATIVE LEADERS
In the revolution chapter of this book we have given many names of the new leaders. Others who have attained prominence are the following. Most of them have seen foreign service, or been educated in America, Britain, Germany or Japan. In March, 1912, a descendant of the Ming emperors came forward at Peking to add to the complexity of the situation. He endeavored to obtain the allegiance of Yuan’s rebelling northern troops, who seemed loyal to no cause or person. He was the so-called “Marquis” Chu Cheng Yu. A Ming claimant would more naturally make his appeal at the old Ming capital, Nanking, but Nanking was now all for the republic.
Tang Shao Yi, Yuan’s assistant, educated in America, visited America on many commissions; a superior man, worthy of special mark in the coming China; Yuan’s representative at the Shanghai peace conferences.
Yen Shih Si and Yang Shih Chi, assistants of Tang at the Shanghai peace conferences; Board of Finance and Railways, Peking, 1911.
M. Y. Sung, manager of the “Chung Hua” republican bank at Shanghai, and manager of the China Merchants’ Steamship Company.
Shih Shao Chi, known as “Alfred Sze”, American educated; served on American embassies; very popular and able.
Chang Chih Yen, republican Board of Commerce, Shanghai.