Port Arthur was now effectively invested and threatened, and to provide for their personal safety, Kung, the taotai of the place, together with several military leaders, abandoned Port Arthur as hastily as possible. The effort made by one Englishman, anxious to preserve some Chinese dignity, to save Port Arthur, was received with considerable surprise and not by any means appreciated.
The position of foreigners in the employ of the Chinese government has always been anomalous, but the exigencies of the war have shown up the relationship between Chinese and foreigners in a vivid and highly instructive light. Their rooted aversion to foreigners, which springs from fear, does not withhold the Chinese from flying to seek foreign aid in their extremity. On these occasions they betray a superstitious feeling towards the foreigners, regarding him as a sort of medicine man who can see through a millstone or work any other miracle. Their idea is to hire him by the job, and when the job is done cast him off as any other laborer. When war came upon them, the Chinese fleet was in a quandary, scuttling about from one snug harbor to another, the officers knowing nothing of their enemy, his movements, or his capacities. Though they were told they had the strongest fleet, they would have preferred not to put its presumed superiority to too severe a test, yet they had the imperial order to destroy the enemy unconditionally. In this extremity, the authorities cast about for extemporized foreigners to help them.
A hardy Scandinavian came first to the rescue, offering to scout, pilot, or fight for them, run a torpedo boat, or do anything that youthful daring might legitimately venture. Only he stipulated for a twenty-knot steamer, performing, however, in the meantime, the emergency service in a common tugboat of less than half that speed. The promise of a fast steamer was broken, as every promise of every Chinese official, with few exceptions, from the beginning of time has been broken, and until the end of the war the hardy Norseman had to content himself on the deck of that same wet and lively tugboat. Comical indeed were the adventures he had with his convoys of troops, munitions, and stores, which never would follow the program laid down for them, sometimes bolting from the smoke of their own escort, and[and] he chasing them back into their own ports whose forts would open fire on him. This was the uniform experience of Europeans who served the Chinese. The zeal and loyalty were all on the side of the aliens, whose hearts were broken in hopeless efforts to make the Chinese do their duty to their own country. Every foreigner who served China, no matter in what capacity, unless he belonged to the class which is content to draw pay and say nothing, had the same strenuous battle with his employers to compel them to interest themselves in their own service. The Chinese, on their part, failed to comprehend the folly of the foreigner who was not content to draw his pay and keep quiet.
At Port Arthur there were some half dozen rival generals, but no one in command, each caring only for his own camp, and all at loggerheads with the others. The head of the port, the poor taotai, of the literary graduate order, was a brother of the present minister to England. There was also the admiral of the Pei-yang squadron, the most likely man to assume the responsibility of a general command; but for fear of getting himself disliked by Taotai Kung or the generals, he kept his hands out of mischief. Finally, the English harbor master at Port Arthur went to Tien-tsin, and showed the condition of affairs to the viceroy. The result was that the viceroy sent instructions to Kung, which the latter ignored, flying from Port Arthur at the first chance. The collapse of Chinese resistance was proceeding at a rate which more than astonished the Japanese themselves. With Kinchow and Talien-wan captured almost without a blow, although amply supplied with the means of making a vigorous and protracted defense, and all the soldiers joining in an ignominious rush for Port Arthur, it seemed that the Chinese were exhibiting all that reluctance to make trouble which characterized Crockett’s famous 'coon, demonstrating their willingness to come down to any required extent if Marshal Oyama would only consent not to shoot.
The force under Yamagata, advancing from Feng-hwang in two divisions, one towards Port Arthur and one on the road to Mukden, met no resistance that was strong enough to intercept their advance, although there was some fighting at two or three stands. The right division advanced northwestward and entered the Manchoorian highlands by the Mo-thien-ling pass where a force was gathered to oppose it. The left division marched towards Siu-Yen where another Chinese force was encamped. It was the outpost of this division, pursuing the Chinese fugitives through Taku-shan, which made junction with the second army and completed the chain of communication.
On the 9th of November the Japanese advanced and attacked Namquan pass, a strongly fortified neck between Society Bay and Talien-wan. There was no concerted defense, and each Chinese detachment was separately routed. Some thousands of refugees from Kinchow, who were flying towards villages in the vicinity, were mistaken for the enemy and were fired upon from the rear of the defenses, many being killed.
Again the Chinese authorities in Peking decided to seek peace through the influence and intervention of western powers between herself and Japan. On the morning of November 15 the emperor gave an audience to the diplomatic representatives in Peking, and all the ministers were present. His Majesty’s action in thus receiving the diplomatists caused considerable stir in high Chinese circles, such a violation was it of imperial Chinese etiquette. This audience was granted on the occasion of the presentation of letters of congratulation by the ministers, on the sixtieth birthday of the dowager empress. For the first time in Chinese history the audience was held in the imperial palace itself. As an especial mark of courtesy the foreign ministers entered by the central gate, the gate through which the emperor only is usually allowed to pass.
The ministers had audience with the emperor separately, and the reception was of a distinctly formal character, lasting but a few minutes. The audience took place in the hall where His Majesty was accustomed to hear the Confucian classics expounded. He was seated cross-legged on the Dragon Throne, surrounded by a numerous body of princes and officials. In front of His Majesty was placed a small table covered with yellow satin, which concealed the lower half of his person. In the short interviews with each minister, who stood some ten feet from His Majesty, Prince Kung and Prince Ching acted alternately as masters of the ceremonies, and interpreted the speeches. The emperor spoke entirely in the Manchoo tongue. He appeared small and delicate, possessing a fine forehead, with expressive brown eyes, and an intellectual countenance. The emperor’s position, surrounded as he was by the dignitaries of his court, gave him an imposing appearance, although to a close observer he looked and spoke like a lad of sixteen or seventeen years. His Majesty did not indulge in any social conversation with the visitors, but spoke formally to all. The interview was granted in the hope that western sympathy would be secured for the threatened orientals.
Now that the approach to Port Arthur has brought the Japanese army almost to the walls, let us take a brief retrospect of the operations of the month. On the 24th of October the debarkation of the second army on the Liao-Tung peninsula began, to the northwest of the Elliot islands, at Kwa-yuen. No opposition of any kind was encountered, but natural difficulties such as shallow beaches and great range of tides impeded the operation, so that all the stores were not landed until the evening of the 30th. The troops however were put in motion at once, and on October 28th the advance guard reached Pitszwo, a place of some importance at the junction of the Niuchwang, Port Arthur, and Taku-shan road. This place was twenty-five miles from the port of debarkation. Forty-five miles farther southwest, the troops came upon Kinchow, at the point where the two post roads of the peninsula met. On November 6 the Japanese captured this town without difficulty, and the next day Field Marshal Oyama’s troops, pressing close on the heels of the flying enemy, reached the formidable isthmus a couple of hours after them, and to the accompaniment of a thunderous bombardment from the fleet, seized the defenses without a struggle. After such a singular display of blundering and cowardice on the part of the Chinese, what followed was not astonishing. The troops passing the isthmus, found themselves on the shore of Talien-wan Bay, one of the best harbors in North China. Ample preparations for defense had indeed been made, but they were not utilized by the cowardly soldiers. The Japanese themselves were taken by surprise. They had not contemplated such a fiasco.
Meanwhile the army had continued its march towards Port Arthur. Their line of communication to the rear, both by land and sea, was perfect. The commissariat was in the best condition for service. The hospital corps was active and modern in its manner of work. Nurses of the Red Cross Society, both men and women, accompanied the army and were provided with everything in the power of the commander to grant, being shown every courtesy. On the other hand, efforts made by hospital corps to reach the Chinese wounded from the Chinese side of the lines, met with utter failure. Two Red Cross nurses were turned back by the Chinese authorities at Tien-tsin, they declining to be responsible for the safety of non-combatants. The Taotai Sheng said, “We do not want to save our wounded. A Chinaman cheerfully accepts the fates that befall him.”