China Revolutionized - John Stuart Thomson

The Assembly Hall at Wuchang, where the Eighth Hupeh Division under General Li Yuan Heng fired the volley that was heard round the world, and ushered in republican China. In the background is Serpent Hill.

The high tide of the revolution; Nanking’s walls; the crowded boat life of China.

The Honorable Doctor Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Chinese republic, Director-General of the National Railway development; leader of the Tung Men Hwai, the advanced party in China. By birth, a Southern Chinese (Kwangtung province), the type best known to foreigners.

A noted, partially loyal Chinese general was shortly put in command of the imperial troops in the ancient capital, Chingtu. His name was General Chao Ehr Feng, the famous commander who did the astonishing thing, both from a religious and military point of view, in 1910, of driving the Dalai Lama out of Lhasa and Tibet into Darjeeling, in India, and thus putting Buddhism and its pope at the feet of Confucian China. China also brought up her bloodiest general, Tsen Chun Hsuan, infamous for putting out the last terrific Mohammedan rebellion in mountainous Yunnan province of the clouds, in unnecessary rivers of blood. Foreigners scowled at the employment of this man, and Manchu China was a little uncertain. Promises meant nothing to Tsen. He was a man-eating tiger, the bloodiest man in the world, who pretended and looked to be nothing else, and was descended from as bloody generals. Peking meant business, and the railway policy, which was as much a war policy, seemed to be going through.

It was not long, however, before General Chao’s forces were cooped up in Chingtu, which was besieged by the rebelling province of Szechuen under the leadership of the president of assembly, Pu Tien Chun, and in the engagements General Chao was captured and decapitated. The strategic importance of the railways already built then appeared like the flash of a saber at the bare neck of the victim. Modern troops were hurried down to Hankau by rail in twenty-four hours and up the river to Ichang by steamer, in the rear and on the flank of the besiegers. Then something like thunder happened among the divisions which had been mobilized at the triple cities of Wuchang, Hanyang and Hankau. The Eighth Division, under General Li Yuan Heng, territorial troops of the modern army, hoisted the rebel tri-color sun flag of red, white and blue over the yellow dragon of the Manchus, put white bands on their arms and rebelled for the new-born republic of Han. They captured the leading arsenal, steel and coal plant at Hanyang, the populous commercial city of Hankau, and the luxurious viceregal capital of Wuchang on October 13, 1911. This put a high standard on the rebellion, for Li was a young well-trained general of the new school, a diplomat, a sturdy man in the field, a patriot who could not be bought and who was organizer enough to see that his men were not bought. Admiral Sah, with a fleet of gunboats and small cruisers, aided the imperial divisions under the bloody general, Chang Piao Tuan, which tried to retake the native city of Hankau. Li’s troops, especially his “Dare to Die” (Pu Pa Tsze) Brigade of shaven round-heads, fought bravely, although their artillery was only equipped with percussion shells, as compared with the time-fuse shells brought down from Peking, Tientsin and Kiaochou to supply the imperial troops. When ammunition ran out, the rebel troops used the bayonet charge with reckless daring. It was a new era in fighting in China when yellow men would charge, with only cold steel, across an area swept by machine guns. On October 21st, Generals Li and Hwang, with 15,000 ill-equipped rebels, won the battle of Kwang Shili in Hupeh against General Yin Tchang, the Manchu minister of war and commander-in-chief, with 20,000 finely equipped loyalists. Part of General Li’s force was a section of an army division which had gone over. Others of his new troops were recruited from the most famous boatmen of the world, the Szechuen trackers of the wild rapids and sublime gorges of the glorious Yangtze River, and from the indefatigable, cheerful mountain coolies of Hupeh province, who are as agile as a chamois.