Indignation and horror filled the minds of all right-thinking people when they learned in what manner that order had been carried out. The dreadful story was told with tears and shuddering; many longed to protest, and express their burning wrath at the barbarous treatment of the poor harmless Chinese workpeople, but how was that possible in Russia? Besides, on the 17th itself, Blagovèstshensk and the entire province of the Amur had been put under martial law; consequently anyone who dared to protest would have been instantly dragged before a court-martial. Some of those who compassionated the Chinese tried at least to prevent the continuance of the reign of terror. A few instances occurred where people who had managed to conceal Chinese servants or guests in their houses, went to the local authorities with urgent petitions that they might be allowed to offer personal surety for these survivors of the massacre; and some who had exceptional influence succeeded in saving one or two. But such cases were rare, and nearly all who were preserved in this way had to remain in custody of the police throughout the siege.
The rich young merchant Yun-Tcha-San (a man with a European education, speaking both Russian and French) succeeded in escaping in this manner, by heavily bribing the officials; but he is reported to have said that had he known what frightful humiliations he would be subjected to, he would rather have perished in the river.
A lady well known in the town, Madame Makeyeva, went to the governor, with whom she was personally acquainted, to beg that her young Chinese servant, who had been five years in her house, might remain with her. This servant had been of the greatest value to the family; if anyone were ill he nursed and tended them, watching by their bedside day and night. But when General Gribsky found that it was for a Chinese Madame Makeyeva was entreating, he cried, “A Chinaman!” and drawing his hand across his throat, added, “That’s how we shall treat them all.” And when Madame Makeyeva persisted in her entreaties, explaining further that the man in question had long wished to become a Christian, the governor merely answered, “I do not issue orders for either the imprisonment or the release of these people, it has nothing to do with me”; following up this with the declaration of his intention (which he subsequently carried out) to lay the whole blame of the drowning and slaughtering on the shoulders of his subordinates, Batarèvitch, prefect of police, and Captain Volkovinsky.
The same lady had a similar reception from the highest spiritual authority of the place, the Bishop of the Orthodox Church. When Madame Makeyeva begged him on her knees to baptise her Chinese servant, this apostle of Christian love told her drily that she should not intercede for Chinamen, that it was not right to have them about one; finally recommending her to go to the civil authorities, whose business it was. The worldly power sent her to the spiritual, and the latter back to the former; but after much difficulty she actually succeeded in gaining her end. Few were so persevering in their efforts as she; I only found a very few instances of Chinese being successfully interceded for by their Russian employers, although I made very careful and exhaustive inquiries on the subject. The Chinese and Manchurians of the native quarter found no such advocates, and they were all drowned or otherwise murdered without exception.
Apologists for the massacre were found even among people of culture, who argued that even had there not been the danger that the Chinese would set the town on fire, we were not called on to strengthen our enemies by sending their compatriots to reinforce them, or to waste our own provisions by keeping them under guard and so having to feed them. As to the former excuse, the natives could have been rendered perfectly harmless by being massed together in one place; and as for the latter, the Chinese had ample provision for their extremely modest needs in their own shops, which after their death were plundered by Cossacks, police, and others.
In the attempt to justify their brutal action a false report was spread by the police that arms, gunpowder, and even dynamite were found in the Chinese shops and houses; and though this was never confirmed in any way, many persons were only too ready to believe it. As a matter of fact, the possibilities of loot, as well as the repudiation of debts owed to Chinese creditors, played a large part in causing both the massacre and the justifying of it. When the Chinese were arrested the Cossacks and police took their money and ransacked their dwellings; and not only the lower but the higher officials enriched themselves considerably by this means, the booty that this or that police officer or member of the local administration had obtained for his share being discussed quite openly. Many debtors of the Chinese profited by the terrible end of their unfortunate creditors, as it is not customary for Chinese business men to keep written memoranda; their methods are based upon personal trust, and their own honesty is proverbial. If in any instances such memoranda did exist, care was taken that they should disappear, in case any claim should afterwards be made by heirs possibly existing in China; while on the other hand Russian creditors of the Chinese repaid themselves a hundredfold, with the connivance of the police. It would take too long to relate all the examples of the wholesale looting that was carried on by “respectable” merchants and others; but one or two typical instances may be recorded.
A rich landowner, proprietor of a large steam-mill, Buyanov by name, of whom some Chinese had hired a warehouse for their goods, when the owners of the property stored there had been drowned, put up a wooden hoarding between the warehouse and the next house to it, in order that he might possess himself of the dead men’s property unobserved by inquisitive eyes. Another man of property, also named Buyanov, and a cousin of the above, made a subterranean passage from his own dwelling to the shop of a Chinaman who had lived with him, and conveyed the property of the deceased to his own premises. And a tradesman named Prikastshikov simply had the wares of a Chinaman who had hired a shop from him carried on waggons through by-streets to his own shop in a different part of the town, having made use of a duplicate key which was in his possession. These two last cases came before the courts in Blagovèstshensk, and the perpetrators of the thefts were punished; but the great majority of these instances of plunder were never revealed, chiefly because the police and the authorities were themselves interested in shielding the guilty. After the drowning of the Chinese it was decided that the police should take charge of their property till legal heirship should be established, and this proved a source of much profit to the police officials, as may be guessed when the character of our police is taken into account, together with the fact that in the Chinese quarter were some hundreds of shops and warehouses containing valuables worth many millions. After the war the police authorities in a few cases surrendered property (for a substantial consideration, of course, sometimes amounting nearly to the value of the goods themselves,) to Chinese who proved themselves to be the owners, having fortunately survived, or their legitimate representatives; but it depended entirely upon the ransom offered whether the police would recognise or reject such claims, not upon any legal formalities. The calm way in which high officials appropriated property left in their charge was exemplified by the case of the deputy-prìstav Shabanov, surprised by a gentleman, (a justice of the peace who had been appointed guardian of a Chinese property,) as he was in the act of removing several cartloads of the goods in question from the place where they were stored. Although this aroused considerable comment, and even came before the courts, the trial was without result, and Shabanov was not even removed from his position as deputy-prìstav.
During several successive days the bodies of the murdered Chinese went floating down the Amur in such masses as made counting them difficult, and covering a considerable expanse of the river. Yet at first no mention was made of this in the two local newspapers, nor was there any allusion to the fate of the Chinese inhabitants of the town. Only on the fourth or fifth day after the holocaust did an article appear in The Amur Province, expressing indignation at the cruel and gruesome affair. This article was copied in Petersburg journals, and thus the civilised world for the first time learned how these thousands of helpless people had been done to death. The other organ of Blagovèstshensk, The Amur Gazette, confined itself to the meagre announcement that “the Chinese residing on Russian territory had been sent away, a suggestion having been made to them that they should cross to the other side of the river.” Grodekov, the governor-general of the province, informed the authorities in Petersburg that “the Chinese throw their dead and wounded into the river, and forty such corpses have been counted.” Thus is history written!
With much the same amount of veracity various officials sent reports of the hostilities between the Russians and the Chinese. They told of battles that had never taken place, of countless Chinese hosts, which they pretended had been annihilated, when in reality only women and children had been seen, and so forth. In the Amur province, for example, much amusement was caused by the report sent from Colonel Kanonovitch stating that in the so-called “Pyàtaia Pad” he had overcome an immense army of Chinese, for which exploit he received a decoration. It soon transpired that in the place mentioned Kanonovitch had only encountered two Japanese women!