The books written on Manchuria include James’ Long White Mountain; Sir Francis Younghusband’s Narrative of Travels in Manchuria, 1896; Hosie’s Manchuria, Its People, Etc.; Howarth’s Origin of the Manchus; Doctor J. Ross’ Manchus or the Reigning Dynasty; E. H. Parker’s Manchus in China. Doctor A. Wylie translated the Manchu grammar and the Tsing Wen Keung. These are all British writers. Professor I. Zacharoff compiled a Russian-Manchu dictionary and wrote on the Manchus in 1875, and Von Mollendorff composed a Manchu grammar. It is possible that in exile from the throne the Manchus may revive the little literature and language that they possess; or, champion intriguers that they and their race are, Prince Tuan, Prince Su, the Tsai Princes, General Yin Tchang and others may continue to plot from Jehol, Kalgan, Urga, Mukden, Dalny and other places of exile. Manchu literature consists of only two hundred and fifty works, nearly all of which are translations of the Chinese classics.
What greater proof was ever given of the irreconcilable differences between the Manchus and Chinese, than the ominous silence of the Chinese members of the momentous meeting of the Grand Council called by the Empress Dowager Tse Hsi at Peking on June 16, 1900, to decide on the final attitude toward the “Boxers”. When the Manchus showed an insane determination to destroy their dynasty, the Chinese members by silence assented, and the republican rebellion of 1911 was only the outward manifestation of the spirit of the silence of 1900.
XVII
CHINA’S ARMY AND NAVY
The revolution of 1911 made known to the world the Chinese generals on the northern and southern sides, who were really able to command a modern army in action as well as in field maneuvers. Generals Li, Ling, Ho, Hwang, Hsu, etc., were the leading southerners. Generals Feng, Chang, Chao and Sheng were among the leading northerners in active service. All of these are Chinese. The much-heralded Manchu generals proved a failure, and few of the old-style Tartar generals, like Chiang and Chen of Pechili province; Na Yen, of Kalgan; Tuan, of the Red Banner Corps; Prince Su, of the Peking Gendarmerie, etc., were called upon to serve in the field. The latter decidedly had the ferocious temperament, but they lacked the knowledge of modern tactics. General Chao Ehr Feng, conqueror of the Tibet mutiny and the Dalai Lama in 1910, an effective old-style general, was cooped up in Chingtu City at the opening of the rebellion in September, 1911. General Yin Tchang, the Manchu general-in-chief; Brigadiers-General Ha and Liang, who visited America in 1910; Major General Ho; Prince Tsai Tao, the Manchu minister of war; Prince Yu Lang, of the dapper gray Imperial Guards, etc., never got much nearer the war than the point of mobilization, and their private car on the Hankau-Peking railway, with the engine pointed northward! The military princes of the royal blood, Tsai Pu, Tsai Jin, Duke Ling, Prince Pu, etc., all kept their dress uniforms innocent of the dust of field and the grime of powder. Prince Tsai Hsu, royal admiral of the navy, kept aboard his luxurious steam yacht which the Kiangnan Dock Company of Shanghai built for him, and sulked away from Admiral Sah’s service fleet, which was making a last dash to cut the rebel’s left flank between Wuchang and Hankau.
The modern Chinese army dates back to 1894 and the defeat in the China-Japan War over Korea. Viceroys Li Hung Chang and Yuan Shih Kai were bent on drilling an effective service. Chiefly German and Japanese instructors were hired, though there were a few other foreigners also. General Upton (U. S. A.), of Civil War fame, once made a trip to China and planned with Viceroy Li Hung Chang the establishment of a Chinese West Point in the north, which has been begun in the Pei Yang Military College at Tientsin. Emperor William personally instructed General Yin Tchang in Germany. An army of Imperial Guards and ten divisions, mostly territorial for facility in recruiting and mobilizing, was whipped into shape chiefly in the northern provinces, and twenty other divisions were partly formed as provided for by the famous Army Edict of April 16, 1906. Modern arsenals, headquarters offices, field maneuvers, Red Cross, foreign instructors, the Pei Yang Military College, etc., were all provided for. The old-style provincial turbaned troops allotted to each viceroy, and the pensioned soldiers of the eight Manchu banners were not all disbanded. They were quartered among the 4,000 walled cities. No conscription was necessary, as the men seemed anxious to serve for the wage, or the promise of six dollars a month. The plan was to keep the men three years with the colors, three years with the reserve, and thereafter for ten years with a landwehr on the German plan. By 1900 the new army was not cohesive, or the reactionary empress dowager, Prince Tuan, General Tung Fu of Kansu, and Yu Hsien, of Shangtung, would have wiped out the foreigners in the legations and Admiral Seymour’s international relief expedition at Tientsin. When the 1911 rebellion opened, the Eighth Division joined the republicans at Wuchang, and earned immortal glory. Their brothers of the Third Division opposed them at Hankau. The Ninth Division of Shangtung and Kiangsu territorials held Nanking for the imperialists, but the Kiangsu Brigade of that division later deserted. The Twentieth Division of Manchurian territorials at Lanchow Camp near Peking earned immortal glory by sending up to the National Assembly and the throne nineteen constitutional articles which they said had to be signed before they would war for the throne. This was lèse majesté with a vengeance! The Guards Division was at Peking, where it stayed, watching the hoards of bullion and sycee more than constitutional articles! The Sixth Division was in Shansi province. The First Division of Manchu troops, and the Second and Fourth Divisions at times shuttlecocked along the railway between Hankau and Peking. The Fifth Division was at Tsinan, capital of Shangtung province.
Had China’s army not been territorial, the rebellion might never have got into swing, because it would have been impossible to have intrigued with a mixed Eighth Division. Again, had China’s army not been territorial, President Yuan could have used the Third, Fourth, Sixth and Twentieth Divisions at Peking in March, 1912, to suppress the mutiny, whereas these divisions remained in sympathy with the First Manchu Division and the Imperial Guards Division, and refused to obey the constitutional head of the government at a climacteric time. A mixed army is not easily mobilized, but when mobilized it is more amenable to discipline, and the ignoring of local feeling in view of the larger aims of statesmanship. England’s, Germany’s and France’s armies are territorial. Italy’s and America’s regular armies are not. America’s vast militia army, however, on which she mainly depends, is, of course, territorial.
General Yin Tchang, who had much to do with organizing the effective ten divisions of the northern army, is a graduate of Peking University. He served five years in the Austrian infantry, and as minister to Germany, at Emperor William’s request, he enjoyed that unusually able and enthusiastic monarch’s private instruction in army matters. In 1900 General Yin Tchang came in contact with the allied forces at Tientsin, and held his retreat together well enough to elicit much admiration. General Yin and the regent, Prince Chun, both visited Hongkong in 1901 and there gained sympathy from us all for the great promise which they showed in guiding the New China. Yin Tchang’s excellent idea was to take the provincial armies away from the viceroys, and make the new divisions answerable to the Board of War (Ping Pu) at Peking. Prince Tsai Tse’s, the finance minister’s plan, was to inform each governor what amount he was to send to Peking as the province’s share in maintaining a central army. There was considerable conflict over this issue, many southern governors saying that they paid for two armies, one modern army which was held in the north, of which they never received their allotted division or brigade, and the old-style provincial troops which they had to maintain to preserve order. General Ha Han-Chang, a Chinese by blood, came next to Yin in drilling the new army. He is also a Pei Yang graduate, and trained with the Japanese army. General Liang-Pi, a Manchu, had an experience similar to that of General Ha, before accepting command of the First Brigade. None of these men is like Tieh-Liang and the other well-known old-style generals, strong in classics but weak in tactics. They reversed the order. General Li Chin Hsi at remote Yunnan City raised and drilled an excellent division. The division at Canton went all to pieces before the republican troops of General Wu Sum, but the Shansi divisions were effectually held together by General Sheng Yun, a Mongol, who later captured the Tongkwan pass, which commands the road from the west to Peking. Many soldiers of the southern divisions, in the first few weeks of the revolution, fired from the hip, as they were not used to the recoil on the shoulder. They, of course, soon did better. One of the best and most popular marksmen of the Singapore Rifle Team which competed at Bisley in 1910 was Sergeant Tan Chow Kim, a Cantonese Chinese.
The name of Frederick T. Ward should be linked with “Chinese” Gordon’s in connection with Chinese military records. General Ward, born at Salem, Massachusetts, lost his life in the service of China. He organized and led the only great army that China ever had before 1906. His name stands linked with Gordon’s as the maker of the “Ever Victorious Army,” the conqueror of the Taiping horde.
A modern rage for dull-colored new uniforms has struck gorgeously gowned old China. I shall recite an amusing instance. In the fall of 1911 a band of rebels organized in Sining, in far-western Kansu province. They chose a boy of fifteen as their prophet leader because he bore peculiar birthmarks. He was given the fanciful name of Savior of the Land (Chu Shih Waang). The generals reported that the new force should wear modern uniforms of cotton. The stores were swamped with orders, and every bolt of foreign cotton was immediately bought up, no matter what its design. The Imperial Guards wear gray, and the other divisions wear blue and khaki.