An American Diplomat in China

by Paul S. Reinsch

Mr. Grant, of the National Printing Bureau, on Friday rushed into the legation compound in his automobile, with the report that looting was going on in the southern part of the city. We ascended the wall. From the Chenmen Tower we saw excited groups moving up and down the main streets, but nothing was happening save the bringing in of a few wounded men. To investigate the cause of the excitement I went with Mr. Belin in our private rickshaws to the Chinese city, passing to the end of the broad Chenmen thoroughfare. The street was still crowded, the people were excited though well behaved; the shops all had their shutters up. Near the south end of the street some shopkeepers posted in front of their shops told us that the return of Chang Hsun's troops from outside the walls had been reported. Looting had been expected but had not taken place. We proceeded to the Temple of Heaven, where great crowds were walking about among the tents of the troops. On returning, we entered a shop to look at some antiques, remaining half an hour. When we came out our rickshaws had disappeared. Doctor Ferguson joined us as we searched for our men. Suddenly, Belin shouted to a rickshaw man, who with a dozen others was conveying some of Chang Hsun's petty officers southward. We insisted that the non-commissioned officer occupying the rickshaw get out, and he finally complied.

The rickshaws had been requisitioned by these bandits. Upon our return to the Legation, my rickshaw-runner had just arrived, excited to the point of tears. Our two coolies had drawn the men who originally commandeered them up to the Imperial City; there they were requisitioned again to convey other men back to the Temple of Heaven. But my man, when opposite the entrance to Legation Street, had upset his bandit into the road and made a quick entry into the Legation Quarter, where the angry and sputtering trooper dared not follow him. That the rickshaws belonging to foreigners should thus be pressed into service shows the disregard which these troopers had for everything but their own desires.

As we returned to the Legation we noticed a wonderful colour effect. Coal-black clouds were banked against the western sky, above which were lighter clouds or angry shreds of flaming colour. Against this the dark walls and towers of Peking stood out in sharp relief. In the streets the crowds still surged, in restless expectancy. Suddenly the sunset light disappeared; the sky became black with clouds; a sharp gust of wind whirled the dust of the Chinese city northward; then came a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, and a heavy downpour, which cooled the excited heads and drove all to shelter. The late afternoon had been weird and fantastic, and appeared to presage the happening of still stranger things.

I was lunching with a friend at his race-course house on Sunday, the 8th of July, when word was brought to me that a certain Colonel Hu, coming from Chang Hsun, had persuaded the French minister that the city was in imminent danger of sacking, fighting, and general disturbances. The only salvation, Colonel Hu had said, lay in asking Hsu Shi-chang to come from Tientsin to mediate. The French minister thereupon induced his Entente colleagues to agree to transmit a note to General Tuan Chi-jui urging him to prevail upon Hsu Chi-Chang to come as mediator. This seemed to me ill-advised. It meant, at a time when Chang Hsun was already as good as defeated, that he would be solemnly treated as entitled to dictate the terms and personnel of mediation by influential members of the diplomatic corps. I returned to Peking and saw my colleagues, urging my opinion strongly. The British chargé withdrew his consent; he had just received a telegram from his consul in Tientsin reporting that General Tuan was absolutely opposed to mediation. The action contemplated was not taken, though Chang Hsun persisted in his attempts to gain recognition from the diplomatic corps. The French minister, who hated Dr. Wu Ting-fang—this would explain his support of Chang Hsun—gradually came to see the obverse side of his policy as certain Germanic affiliations of Chang Hsun became known.

Kang Yu-wei presented himself at my house on the 8th, seeking refuge, and I assigned him rooms in one of our compounds. He informed me that Chang Hsun had had full assurances of support on the part of Hsu Chi-Chang and other important monarchists. Next day he informed me that Prince Tsai Tze was anxious to consult me.

I arranged to have the Prince come to the house assigned to Mr. Kang, where I had two hours' conversation with the Manchu and the sage. Kang Yu-wei commenced with a long disquisition on the advantages of a constitutional monarchy. He wished to explain his action and to prove to me that he was not a reactionary, but was aiming only for progress under the monarchical form, which he considered most suitable to China.

All this time the Prince was silent. He seemed greatly depressed, not inclined to say anything at first. After inquiries about his health, I asked him what he would like to say to me. With eyes of real sadness he looked me full in the face, saying: "What shall we do? My house has been drawn into this affair without our consent. It has been forced on us. We did not wish to depart from the agreements we had made with the Republic. But Chang Hsun would not listen to us. He thought he saw the only way. Now what shall we do?"

I told him that I appreciated the difficulty in which the Imperial Family found itself, but that I of course could not know the details of the situation sufficiently to give any opinion. One thing, however, seemed to me certain: if the leaders of the republican government knew the true attitude of the Imperial Family, and if the Emperor would formally and absolutely dissociate himself from the movement of Chang Hsun, I believed that they would not make the Imperial Family suffer. I asked him whether they had considered having the Emperor issue a decree, absolutely and for all time renouncing all rights to the throne and declaring his complete fealty to the Republic.

The Prince regarded me aghast. "Oh, no! No matter how desirable that might be from many points of view, it is not in the power of the Emperor to do it. The rights he has inherited are not his. They came to him in trust from his ancestors. He will have to maintain them, and hand them on to his descendants. He, and we of his family, shall not do anything to make these rights prevail against the State, but as the sons of our ancestors, we cannot repudiate them."

Never had I been so deeply impressed with the complexity of Chinese affairs as by this answer—an Imperial family maintaining traditions of empire in the midst of a republic, an emperor continuing to reside in the Imperial Palace, a neighbour of the republican President in his residence, and yet no desire to enter again into politics and to grasp the sovereign power! I could now understand why the Chinese had allowed the Emperor to remain in the palace; it was the house of his ancestors, from which he might not be driven. That common reverence was the one point of understanding between Chinese and Manchus.