History Assignment

In Cheng and Lestz with Jonathan, The Search for Modern China, A Documentary Collection, 190-197.

CHAPTER II The End of the Dynasty

1 I . 1 Wu TINGFANG ON CHINA'S

PROGRESS, 1908

In the following document, the then Chinese ambassador to the United States, Wu Tingfang (1842-1922), a reform-minded professional diplomat, discusses th.e policies adopted by the Qing government on the eve of the Republican revolution. Wu had grown up in Singapore and worked as a journalist and lawyer in Hong Kong before joining the Chinese govern­ ment. His optimistic summary of the accomplishments of the reform movement was deliberately one-sided and made a powerful case for a China advancing peaceably toward a new sociopolitical system. There is no sense in the ·document that reform was a dead letter a"nd that other more powerful forces were now stirring in Chinese political life. Still, Wu Ting­ fang was not one to be marooned by shifting political currents. When domestic politics br�ught about a drastic change in Wu's own professional identity after the 1911 Revolution, he emerged as the new republic's chief representative in negotiations with Qing authorities for the Manchu abdi­ cation.

The tenth and final meeting of THE CIVIC FORUM for the season of 1907- 1908 was held on the evening of May 5, in Carnegie Hall. His Excellency Dr. Wu Ting-fang, Chinese minister to the United ·States, was the speaker of the evening. An audience of nearly 1,000 was present, and the interest was unflag­ ging. General Stewart L. Woodford, formerly United States minister at the court of Spain, presided at the meeting.

Wu TING FANG ON CHINA'S PROGRESS\ 191

THE AWAKENING OF CHIN A

The mere meQ.tioning of this subject-"The Awakening of China"-is suffi­ cient to make my countrymen thrill with pleasure and flush with pride. China, the country which made the dying Missionary, the f:imous Xavier, exclaim ·in 1552, "O Rock, Rock, when wilt thou open?" is at last, indeed, opened, and changes are taking place in that hoary Empire, which bid fair to constitute the miracle of the Twentieth Century.

China has been dubbed "The Sick Man of the Far East," "The Sleeping Lion," "The Tottering Empire"; and other names more or less picturesque and complimentary have been bestowed upon her. With some people it is the con­ viction that China has only a historical interest, that her glory is of the past,­ that the leopard may change its spots, but China remains forever in her ruts, the same yesterday, to-day and to-morrow.

But while this gloomy picture of the state of affairs might have been partly true of China of·a few decades ago, it is no longer true now. The "Sick Man" is rapidly convalescing, the "Sleeping Lion" is awake, and the hoary and tot­ tering Empire has had new blood injected into her system. China is moving, and she is moving with a rapidity difficult for one who has not personally witnessed the wonderful changes to understand and realize ....

First and foremost, is the spread of education-and by this I mean the dif­ fusion of general knowledge, knowledge of men and of affairs of the world. It is a far cry from the time when high officials in Peking, to whom the wonderful performance of the Morse telegraph apparatus was shown and explained, expressed ·simply their opinion that China got along without it for four thousand years; to the present day when every official residence and department in Peking is connected by the telephone and every provincial yamen, or administrative office, is supplied with the telegraph service.

Repeated defeats at the hands of the foreign powers soon convinced our people of the futility of matching bows and arrows against modern guns and explosives, while our wooden junks went down before the onslaught of armored cruisers and battleships like wheat before the scythe. The inability of our former so-called modern army and navy to encounter those of other nations demon­ strated to us clearly that modern weapons of war without the properly trained men to handle them and without scientific leaders to direct and control are of no more v;lue than bows and arrows and wooden junks.

For several years there was loud and threatening talk of doing violence to the integrity of the Empire, and one work actually appeared under the ominous and unfortunate title of "The Breakup of China." No sooner did books and newspapers containing discussions of this subject appear than they were trans­ lated into our language, and the wild rumors of impending violence filled the minds of the people with indignation and alarm, impelling them, one may say,

1 9 6 1 T H E E N D O F T H E D Y N A S T Y

was completed, it was already seven or eight o'clock. There was no time for discussion and evaluation of the day's activities and the army was ordered to bivouac at Songlindian.

It was now already pitch black and the groups of troops and horses got completely mixed up. Things became further complicated because there was only one main road to the campsite and front and rear units were jammed one on top of the other during the march. The higher ranking officers . became

· impatient and rode off into the night leaving behind no officers above the rank of company com�ander. The company commanders were all new and were unwilling to take responsibility for the march. With no one to take charge, the soldiers left their units and simply wandered around on their own. By the time the army reached the campsite, it was already midnight and the rearmost units wer� still lagging behind.

That evening it was decided that there would be another maneuver starting at seven o'clock the following day. Who could guess that night it would begin to rain and _ that the rain would grow heavier and heavier. It was Brigade Commander Lu's opinion that the arr�y should take the train to Baoding since it would be most inconvenient for the exercise if the uniforms of the officers and men were to become soaked. He went to General Duan Qirui t0 seek his orders and was cursed by General Duan who accused Lu of using this pret�xt to improve his standing with the troops. General Duan said: "How can you be afraid of getting your uniforms wet? Do you mean that you don't go to war when it rains ?" The Brigade Commander thought that this was just a maneuver and not real warfare. Had it been actual war, it would have been out of the question tO use the train. Infuriated by this rebuke, the Brigade Commander took sick leave and left Baoding by train. And so the order to begin the march remained in effect.

By now it was raining cats and dogs and ·it was simply impossible to start out. Somehow Geneial Duan got a fantastic idea: why not use a "scientific" method to stop the· rain? He· ordered our artillery to· fire at the sky in ordCr to shock the heavy rain clouds and thus stop the rain. After the order was passed down everyone started firing wildly at the sky. Heaven and earth shook and the common people, not knowing the reason for the uproar, wep� very much alarmed. Though we fired for a long time, the rainfall failed to subside. In fact, it grew even heavier. General Duan was angry and showed his stubborn char­ acter: "Rain or no rain, we're moving out ! " The order to march was immedi­ ately sent down and we started to march. Food and fodder had to be bought on the spot. Our tents originally weighed fifty to sixty catties but after being soaked through their weight rose to over a hundred catties. The woks and kitchen gear could also not be conveniently carrjed and the transport troops · lagged behind . . . . [The remaining p_ortion of this section describes the difficul- ties of the ensuing bivouac.]

2 . A G I T A T I O N I N T H E A R M Y

I had felt dissatisfaction with the politics of the Manchus and sympathy for the revolution for some time. But the circumstances prompting my decision to take action came about during my second year at Xinminfu [1 908] . . . . One day, Platoon Leader Sun Jiansheng of the Engineers Battalion came to my quarters as I was reading The Family Letters of Zeng Guofan. He was very unhappy and said:. "Do you still want to be a loyal subject and filial son ? " I -replied: "What's wrong with being a loyal subject and filial son ? " He said: "I do not oppose someone being a filial son but I am aga_inst someone being a loyal subject !" He also said: "Wait a moment. I'll show you two books and you will know that I am right." He fetched two books: one of them was The Three Massacres ofjiading and the other was The Ten Day Massacre of Yangzhou. I relTlember that when he showed me these two books his appearance was quite peculiar. He looked about carefully before removing them from inside his uniform. After he left them with me h'e said yery sternly: "Read them only when there is no one close by. Never let anyone see you reading them! This is not something to be trifled with." After saying this, he hurriedly departed.

Even though I had known a little bit about the racial hatred between the Manchus and Han people, my concept was q�ite hazy. I knew nothing about the fact that the Manchus had killed and abused the Han people during the period of the conquest. After I finished reading these two books inscribed in blood and tears, I broke out in a cold sweat. When I closed my eyes I could see the cruel and bestial faces of the Tartars and could hear the miserable cries of millions of Han people who were treated Worse than chickens or dogs. Invol­ untarily, I began grinding my teeth and swore that I would take revenge to wipe out. this humiliation and restore the freedom of our race.

I was always a "person with strong feelings of rebelliousness and could not quietly endure a corrupt and vile status quo. Having felt the sort of stimulation that came from reading these two books, the volcano in my heart began to erupt. My blood was heated to the boiling point and my passions could not be cooled. Within the army, other hot-blooded officers with a sense of conscience also felt indignant and deeply hated the harmful incompetence and corruption of the Manchu court. Feeling an amorphous but uniform sense of need, a few of us who were close secretly b egan to organize a group. We discussed issues and encou raged each other to carry out work to overthrow this corrupt gov­ ernment.