SOLDIERS.
By Mrs. Bishop.
Some of us really had been there since 5 a.m.; but not till about 9.30 did the trumpets sound. Then the great green Viceroy's chair with its multitude of bearers appeared through the city gates, forty banner-men all drooped their beautiful silken banners in the wet before him, whilst the army as one man went on its knees. The Viceroy entered the tribune, and the review began. But that entry could not have been better, if so well done, at Drury Lane. And the rest, too, was excellently staged. There was the usual extraordinary mixture of foreign and native drill,—fours about, hollow squares with the cavalry inside, the "thin red lines o' 'eroes," and volley-firing, with, in between, wonderful advances of the banner-men, shaking the long poles, round which their banners were rolled, and shouting defiance at the foe. Then in and out and round about darted the Tigers, in ochre-yellow cotton made almost in the foreign fashion, coatees cut short, and trousers not baggy, and tucked in at the boot, as it seemed, at first glance. Then they turned round, and revealed the tiger stripings on their backs and on their ochre-yellow hoods. They came on with long catlike strides, then leapt, then hid behind shields painted to represent the tiger's open jaws, then strode stealthily again, and went through many cotillion figures, their round painted shields sometimes forming a tent for all the tigers, sometimes a series of ladders. Then for a very long time men singly or in twos danced before the Viceroy, showing their skill with two-pronged forks made to catch the enemies' clothes, and rakes, and what in the end looked like a highly painted japanned table-top. Then suddenly, from opposite corners of the parade-ground, darted wild horsemen, each in fantastic attire and on a dashing pony, representing an attacking force of savages; and the army fired on every side at once. Then the artillery appeared with the most marvellous of cannon, slight and somewhat dragon-shaped, and muzzle-loading of course, requiring to be laboriously wheeled round after each volley, and resting on some strange, outlandish supports, that had puzzled us foreigners much whilst carried round upon the shoulders of what now proved to be the artillery.
We all felt somewhat mockingly inclined, we Americans, English, and Japanese, looking on from behind the blinds we so often pushed aside to see better. But the worst of it all was, it was all well done; the men appeared well drilled; and though, as the rain fell more and more, the Tigers no longer bounded as at first, and even their stride lost somewhat of its stealth in the general slipperiness, yet the heartrending thought to all of us was, the thing was meant to be real. As a spectacle it was so successful! But those poor men down there would march in that style against modern weapons of precision, used in accordance with modern tactics, and of course had run away! "Poor old China! Poor old China!" rose like a chorus from the pitiful ones. And we wondered, Did the Viceroy realise what he was looking on at? Did his cheeks burn, as our own did? Or did he really know no better, and think it a fine sight, as it was?
The whole wound up with a display on the part of the archers. Silken-clad young men with official red silk-tasselled caps, and the corners of their long gowns tucked up, followed each by a soldier-servant holding above the heads of the crowd a quiver full of arrows, made their way up to the Viceregal tribune, and shot at a target white and long-shaped with three red bulls'-eyes one above the other. Each time they did so a big, very big drum was beaten, and a man sprang forward, and picked up the arrow, holding it very ostentatiously at arm's-length. The theatrical effect again was very good; but as far as we could any of us see not one hit any of the bulls'-eyes, and through opera-glasses the paper surface appeared intact, when the Viceroy got into his chair and went off in much the same state as he had come; only every one was wet through now, and the poor little boys with the Reeves' feathers looked particularly deplorable. On a rough computation, on this occasion at Chungking five hundred soldiers turned out, three hundred of whom, including forty banner-men, were versed in foreign drill and wore scarlet waistcoats. The others were either tigers or orange-clad.
As to the Viceroy, he must have been used to it; for was he not going round the province from Fu city to Fu city reviewing troops? and did it not always rain? He therefore must be accustomed to the archers' consequent failures. But we wondered somewhat sorrowfully whether we had had the great privilege of assisting at one of the last Viceregal reviews of the kind, one of the last survivals of antediluvian periods. All nations have passed through similar stages, as the Scottish sword-dances, Highland flings, and English beefeaters remind us. Or could it be that China is going to persist in living still longer in the Middle Ages? In the one case—for we Europeans are nothing, if we are not practical—let us at once buy up one of the painted shields, and Tiger uniforms, and too often brandished banners with their tribes of attended bannerets. In the other, let us stand back, and look aside, lest our hearts should be too much torn by pity when the great catastrophe comes, and China meets a foe who follows his thrusts home, and is determined to reap the full fruit of his victories.
CHAPTER XV.
CHINESE STUDENTS.
Number of Degrees.—Aged Bachelors.—Up for Examination.—Necessary Qualifications.—Crowding.—Scarcity of Posts.—Chinese Dress.
Far more formidable than the soldiery are the literati of China. Soldiering is despised in China; learning is esteemed. The literati also are far more numerous; they arrive in great armies, nominally ten thousand strong or more, and each young man of any standing has his pipe-bearer and three or more servants, possibly in the case of military students a horse or two and attendant grooms as well. In the summer of 1897 at Chengtu there were fourteen thousand candidates, who had already passed the first of the five examinations necessary before entering the highest body in China, the Hanlin College. They were all what is commonly Englished into B.A.'s; that is, Shiu Tsai, or Budding Talent. And there were ninety-six degrees to be conferred! Picture the disappointment in a land where for twelve centuries no official post of any kind has been conferred without preliminary examination. Men go up year after year, year after year, in many cases collecting contributions from friends and patrons towards travelling expenses. Sometimes these contributions are given under promise that, if the needy student do not pass this year, he will not try again. But this is a promise made to be broken. And I believe it is really true, if a man go on competing for his B.A. and failing, at the age of eighty he is considered to have passed.
In 1891 the Governor of Yunnan said that it was also permissible under certain circumstances to bring to the notice of the Throne cases of scholars well advanced in years who have failed to pass their examinations for the degree of chüjen, and begged to recommend for favourable consideration the case of Lien Hsiang-yang, a Bachelor of over eighty years of age, who had failed to pass at the last examination. He had obtained his degree of Bachelor only nine years before, and in the eyes of the memorialist his praiseworthy endeavours to scale the heights of Parnassus ought to meet with some recognition.