Book: The Fight For The Republic in China

B >> Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale >> The Fight For The Republic in China




What was this Central Government? In order successfully to understand an
unparalleled situation we must indicate its nature.

The manoeuvres to which Yuan Shih-kai had so astutely lent himself from
the outbreak of the Revolution had left him at its official close
supreme in name. Not only had he secured an Imperial Commission from the
abdicating Dynasty to organize a popular Government in obedience to the
national wish, but having brought to Peking the Delegates of the Nanking
Revolutionary Body he had received from them the formal offer of the
Presidency.

These arrangements had, of course, been secretly agreed to _en bloc_
before the fighting had been stopped and the abdication proclaimed, and
were part and parcel of the elaborate scenery which officialdom always
employs in Asia even when it is dealing with matters within the purview
of the masses. They had been made possible by the so-called "Article of
Favourable Treatment" drawn-up by Yuan Shih-kai himself, after
consultation with the rebellious South. In these Capitulations it had
been clearly stipulated that the Manchu Imperial Family should receive
in perpetuity a Civil List of $4,000,000 Mexican a year, retaining all
their titles as a return for the surrender of their political power, the
bitter pill being gilded in such fashion as to hide its real meaning,
which alone was a grave political error.

In spite of this agreement, however, great mutual suspicion existed
between North and South China. Yuan Shih-kai himself was unable to
forget that the bold attempt to assassinate him in the Peking streets on
the 17th January, when he was actually engaged in negotiating these very
terms of the Abdication, had been apparently inspired from Nanking;
whilst the Southern leaders were daily reminded by the vernacular press
that the man who held the balance of power had always played the part of
traitor in the past and would certainly do the same again in the near
future.

When the Delegates came to Peking in February, by far the most important
matter which was still in dispute was the question of the oath of office
which Yuan Shih-kai was called upon to take to insure that he would be
faithful to the Republic. The Delegates had been charged specifically to
demand on behalf of the seceding provinces that Yuan Shih-kai should
proceed with them to Nanking to take that oath, a course of action which
would have been held tantamount by the nation to surrender on his part
to those who had been unable to vanquish him in the field. It must also
not be forgotten that from the very beginning a sharp and dangerous
cleavage of opinion existed as to the manner in which the powers of the
new government had been derived. South and Central China claimed, and
claimed rightly, that the Nanking Provincial Constitution was the
Instrument on which the Republic was based: Yuan Shih-kai declared that
the Abdication Edicts, and not the Nanking Instrument had established
the Republic, and that therefore it lay within his competence to
organize the new government in the way which he considered most fit.

The discussion which raged was suddenly terminated on the night of the
29th February (1912) when without any warning there occurred the
extraordinary revolt of the 3rd Division, a picked Northern corps who
for forty-eight hours plundered and burnt portions of the capital
without any attempts at interference, there being little doubt to-day
that this manoeuvre was deliberately arranged as a means of intimidation
by Yuan Shih-kai himself. Although the disorders assumed such dimensions
that foreign intervention was narrowly escaped, the upshot was that the
Nanking Delegates were completely cowed and willing to forget all about
forcing the despot of Peking to proceed to the Southern capital. Yuan
Shih-kai as the man of the hour was enabled on the 10th March, 1912, to
take his oath in Peking as he had wished thus securing full freedom of
action during the succeeding years.[6]

[Illustration: An Encampment of "The Punitive Expedition" of 1910 on the
Upper Yangtsze.

_By courtesy of Major Isaac Newell, U.S. Military Attache_.]

[Illustration: Revival of the Imperialistic Worship of Heaven by Yuan
Shih-kai in 1914: Scene on the Altar of Heaven, with Sacrificial
Officers clothed in costumes dating from 2,000 years ago.]

[Illustration: A Manchu Country Fair: The figures in the foreground are
all Manchu women and girls.]

[Illustration: A Manchu Woman grinding Grain.]

It was on this astounding basis--by means of an organized revolt--that
the Central Government was reorganized; and every act that followed
bears the mark of its tainted parentage. Accepting readily as his
Ministers in the more unimportant government Departments the nominees of
the Southern Confederacy (which was now formally dissolved), Yuan
Shih-kai was careful to reserve for his own men everything that
concerned the control of the army and the police, as well as the
all-important ministry of finance. The framework having been thus
erected, attention was almost immediately concentrated on the problem of
finding money, an amazing matter which would weary the stoutest reader
if given in all its detail but which being part and parcel of the
general problem must be referred to.

Certain essential features can be very rapidly exposed. We have already
made clear the purely economic nature of the forces which had sapped the
foundations of Chinese society. Primarily it had been the disastrous
nature of Chinese gold-indebtedness which had given the new ideas the
force they required to work their will on the nation. And just because
the question of this gold-indebtedness had become so serious and such a
drain on the nation, some months before the outbreak of the Revolution
an arrangement had been entered into with the bankers of four nations
for a Currency Loan of L10,000,000 with which to make an organized
effort to re-establish internal credit. But this loan had never actually
been floated, as a six months' safety clause had permitted a delay
during which the Revolution had come. It was therefore necessary to
begin the negotiations anew; and as the rich prizes to be won in the
Chinese lottery had attracted general attention in the European
financial world through the advertisement which the Revolution had given
the country, a host of alternative loan proposals now lay at the
disposal of Peking.

Consequently an extraordinary chapter of bargaining commenced. Warned
that an International Debt Commission was the goal aimed at by official
finance, Yuan Shih-kai and the various parties who made up the
Government of the day, though disagreeing on almost every other
question, were agreed that this danger must be fought as a common enemy.
Though the Four-Power group alleged that they held the first option on
all Chinese loans, money had already been advanced by a Franco-Belgian
Syndicate to the amount of nearly two million pounds during the critical
days of the Abdication. Furious at the prospect of losing their
percentages, the Four Power group made the confusion worse confounded by
blocking all competing proposals and closing every possible door. Russia
and Japan, who had hitherto not been parties to the official consortium,
perceiving that participation had become a political necessity, now
demanded a place which was grudgingly accorded them; and it was in this
way that the celebrated six-power Group arose.

It was round this group and the proposed issue of a L60,000,000 loan to
reorganize Chinese finance that the central battle raged. The Belgian
Syndicate, having been driven out of business by the financial boycott
which the official group was strong enough to organize on the European
bourses, it remained for China to see whether she could not find some
combination or some man who would be bold enough to ignore all
governments.

Her search was not in vain. In September (1912) a London stockbroker,
Mr. Birch Crisp, determined to risk a brilliant coup by negotiating by
himself a Loan of L10,000,000; and the world woke up one morning to
learn that one man was successfully opposing six governments. The
recollection of the storm raised in financial circles by this bold
attempt will be fresh in many minds. Every possible weapon was brought
into play by international finance to secure that the impudence of
financial independence should be properly checked; and so it happened
that although L5,000,000 was secured after an intense struggle it was
soon plain that the large requirements of a derelict government could
not be satisfied in this Quixotic manner. Two important points had,
however, been attained; first, China was kept financially afloat during
the year 1912 by the independence of a single member of the London Stock
Exchange; secondly, using this coup as a lever the Peking Government
secured better terms than otherwise would have been possible from the
official consortium.

Meanwhile the general internal situation remained deplorable. Nothing
was done for the provinces whose paper currency was depreciating from
month to month in an alarming manner; whilst the rivalries between the
various leaders instead of diminishing seemed to be increasing. The
Tutuhs, or Military Governors, acting precisely as they saw fit, derided
the authority of Peking and sought to strengthen their old position by
adding to their armed forces. In the capital the old Manchu court,
safely entrenched in the vast Winter Palace from which it has not even
to-day been ejected (1917) published daily the Imperial Gazette,
bestowing honours and decorations on courtiers and clansmen and
preserving all the old etiquette. In the North-western provinces, and in
Manchuria and Mongolia, the so-called Tsung She Tang, or Imperial Clan
Society, intrigued perpetually to create risings which would hasten the
restoration of the fallen House; and although these intrigues never rose
to the rank of a real menace to the country, the fact that they were
surreptitiously supported by the Japanese secret service was a continual
source of anxiety. The question of Outer Mongolia was also harassing the
Central Government. The Hutuktu or Living Buddha of Urga--the chief city
of Outer Mongolia--had utilized the revolution to throw off his
allegiance to Peking; and the whole of this vast region had been thrown
into complete disorder--which was still further accentuated when Russia
on the 21st October (1912) recognized its independence. It was known
that as a pendent to this Great Britain was about to insist on the
autonomy of Tibet,--a development which greatly hurt Chinese pride.

On the 15th August, 1912, the deplorable situation was well-epitomised
by an extraordinary act in Peking, when General Chang Cheng-wu, one of
the "heroes" of the original Wuchang rising, who had been enticed to the
capital, was suddenly seized after a banquet in his honour and shot
without trial at midnight.

This event, trivial in itself during times when judicial murders were
common, would have excited nothing more than passing interest had not
the national sentiment been so aroused by the chaotic conditions. As it
was it served to focus attention on the general mal-administration over
which Yuan Shih-kai ruled as provisional President. "What is my crime?"
had shrieked the unhappy revolutionist as he had been shot and then
bayonetted to death. That query was most easily answered. His crime was
that he was not strong enough or big enough to compete against more
sanguinary men, his disappearance being consequently in obedience to an
universal law of nature. Yuan Shih-kai was determined to assert his
mastery by any and every means; and as this man had flouted him he must
die.

The uproar which this crime aroused was, however, not easily appeased;
and the Advisory Council, which was sitting in Peking pending the
assembling of the first Parliament, denounced the Provisional President
so bitterly that to show that these reproaches were ill-deserved he
invited Dr. Sun Yat-sen to the capital treating him with unparalleled
honours and requesting him to act as intermediary between the rival
factions. All such manoeuvres, however, were inspired with one
object,--namely to prove how nobody but the master of Peking could
regulate the affairs of the country.

Still no Parliament was assembled. Although the Nanking Provisional
Constitution had stipulated that one was to meet within ten months
_i.e._ before 1st November, 1912, the elections were purposely delayed,
the attention of the Central Government being concentrated on the
problem of destroying all rivals, and everything being subordinate to
this war on persons. Rascals, getting daily more and more out of hand,
worked their will on rich and poor alike, discrediting by their actions
the name of republicanism and destroying public confidence--which was
precisely what suited Yuan Shih-kai. Dramatic and extraordinary
incidents continually inflamed the public mind, nothing being too
singular for those remarkable days.

Very slowly the problem developed, with everyone exclaiming that foreign
intervention was becoming inevitable. With the beginning of 1913, being
unable to delay the matter any longer, Yuan Shih-kai allowed elections
to be held in the provinces. He was so badly beaten at the polls that it
seemed in spite of his military power that he would be outvoted and
outmanoeuvred in the new National Assembly and his authority undermined.
To prevent this a fresh assassination was decided upon. The ablest
Southern leader, Sung Chiao-jen, just as he was entraining for Peking
with a number of Parliamentarians at Shanghai, was coolly shot in a
crowded railway station by a desperado who admitted under trial that he
had been paid L200 for the job by the highest authority in the land, the
evidence produced in court including telegrams from Peking which left no
doubt as to who had instigated the murder.

The storm raised by this evil measure made it appear as if no parliament
could ever assemble in Peking. But the feeling had become general that
the situation was so desperate that action had to be taken. Not only was
their reputation at stake, but the Kuomingtang or Revolutionary Party
now knew that the future of their country was involved just as much as
the safety of their own lives; and so after a rapid consultation they
determined that they would beard the lion in his den. Rather
unexpectedly on the 7th April (1913) Parliament was opened in Peking
with a huge Southern majority and the benediction of all Radicals.[7]
Hopes rose with mercurial rapidity as a solution at last seemed in
sight. But hardly had the first formalities been completed and Speakers
been elected to both Houses, than by a single dramatic stroke Yuan
Shih-kai reduced to nought these labours by stabbing in the back the
whole theory and practice of popular government.

The method he employed was simplicity itself, and it is peculiarly
characteristic of the man that he should have been so bluntly cynical.
Though the Provisional Nanking Constitution, which was the "law" of
China so far as there was any law at all, had laid down specifically in
article XIX that all measures affecting the National Treasury must
receive the assent of Parliament, Yuan Shih-kai, pretending that the
small Advisory Council which had assisted him during the previous year
and which had only just been dissolved, had sanctioned a foreign loan,
peremptorily ordered the signature of the great Reorganization Loan of
L25,000,000 which had been secretly under negotiation all winter with
the financial agents of six Powers[8], although the rupture which had
come in the previous June as a forerunner to the Crisp loan had caused
the general public to lose sight of the supreme importance of the
financial factor. Parliament, seeing that apart from the possibility of
a Foreign Debt Commission being created something after the Turkish and
Egyptian models, a direct challenge to its existence had been offered,
raged and stormed and did its utmost to delay the question; but the
Chief Executive having made up his mind shut himself up in his Palace
and absolutely refused to see any Parliamentary representatives.
Although the Minister of Finance himself hesitated to complete the
transaction in the face of the rising storm and actually fled the
capital, he was brought back by special train and forced to complete the
agreement. At four o'clock in the morning on the 25th April the last
documents were signed in the building of a foreign bank and the Finance
Minister, galloping his carriage suddenly out of the compound to avoid
possible bombs, reported to his master that at last--in spite of the
nominal foreign control which was to govern the disbursement--a vast sum
was at his disposal to further his own ends.

Safe in the knowledge that possession is nine points of the law, Yuan
Shih-kai now treated with derision the resolutions which Parliament
passed that the transaction was illegal and the loan agreement null and
void. Being openly backed by the agents of the Foreign Powers, he
immediately received large cash advances which enabled him to extend his
power in so many directions that further argument with him seemed
useless. It is necessary to record that the Parliamentary leaders had
almost gone down on their knees to certain of the foreign Ministers in
Peking in a vain attempt to persuade them to delay--as they could very
well have done--the signature of this vital Agreement for forty-eight
hours so that it could be formally passed by the National Assembly, and
thus save the vital portion of the sovereignty of the country from
passing under the heel of one man. But Peking diplomacy is a perverse
and disagreeable thing; and the Foreign Ministers of those days,
although accredited to a government which while it had not then been
formally recognized as a Republic by any Power save the United States,
was bound to be so very shortly, were determined to be reactionary and
were at heart delighted to find things running back normally to
absolutism[9]. High finance had at last got hold of everything it
required from China and was in no mood to relax the monopoly of the salt
administration which the Loan Agreement conferred. Nor must the fact be
lost sight of that of the nominal amount of L25,000,000 which had been
borrowed, fully half consisted of repayments to foreign Banks and never
left Europe. According to the schedules attached to the Agreement, Annex
A, comprising the Boxer arrears and bank advances, absorbed L4,317,778:
Annex B, being so-called provincial loans, absorbed a further
L2,870,000: Annex C, being liabilities shortly maturing, amounted to
L3,592,263: Annex D, for disbandment of troops, amounted to L3,000,000:
Annex C, to cover current administrative expenses totalled L5,500,000:
whilst Annex E which covered the reorganization of the Salt
Administration, absorbed the last L2,000,000; The bank profits on this
loan alone amounted to 11/4 million pounds; whilst Yuan Shih-kai
himself was placed in possession by a system of weekly disbursements of
a sum roughly amounting to ten million sterling, which was amply
sufficient to allow him to wreak his will on his fellow-countrymen.
Exasperated to the pitch of despair by this new development, the Central
and Southern provinces, after a couple of months' vain argument, began
openly to arm. On the 10th July in Kiangse province on the river
Yangtsze the Northern garrisons were fired upon from the Hukow forts by
the provincial troops under General Li Lieh-chun and the so-called
Second Revolution commenced.

The campaign was short and inglorious. The South, ill-furnished with
munitions and practically penniless, and always confronted by the same
well-trained Northern Divisions who had proved themselves invincible
only eighteen months before fought hard for a while, but never became a
serious menace to the Central Government owing to the lack of
co-operation between the various Rebel forces in the field. The Kiangse
troops under General Li Lieh-chun, who numbered at most 20,000 men,
fought stiffly, it is true, for a while but were unable to strike with
any success and were gradually driven far back from the river into the
mountains of Kiangse where their numbers rapidly melted away. The
redoubtable revolutionary Huang Hsin, who had proved useful as a
propagandist and a bomb-thrower in earlier days, but who was useless in
serious warfare, although he assumed command of the Nanking garrison
which had revolted to a man, and attempted a march up the Pukow railway
in the direction of Tientsin, found his effort break down almost
immediately from lack of organization and fled to Japan. The Nanking
troops, although deserted by their leader, offered a strenuous
resistance to the capture of the southern capital which was finally
effected by the old reactionary General Chang Hsun operating in
conjunction with General Feng Kuo-chang who had been dispatched from
Peking with a picked force. The attack on the Shanghai arsenal which had
been quietly occupied by a small Northern Garrison during the months
succeeding the great loan transaction, although pushed with vigour by
the South, likewise ultimately collapsed through lack of artillery and
proper leadership. The navy, which was wholly Southern in its sympathies
and which had been counted upon as a valuable weapon in cutting off the
whole Yangtsze Valley, was at the last moment purchased to neutrality by
a liberal use of money obtained from the foreign banks, under, it is
said, the heading of administrative expenses! The turbulent city of
Canton, although it also rose against the authority of Peking, had been
well provided for by Yuan Shih-kai. A border General, named Lung
Chi-kwang, with 20,000 semi-savage Kwangsi troops had been moved near
the city and at once attacked and overawed the garrison. Appointed
Military Governor of the province in return for his services, this Lung
Chi-kwang, who was an infamous brute, for three years ruled the South
with heartless barbarity, until he was finally ejected by the great
rising of 1916. Thoroughly disappointed in this and many other
directions the Southern Party was now emasculated; for the moneyed
classes had withheld their support to the end, and without money nothing
is possible in China. The 1913 outbreak, after lasting a bare two
months, ignominiously collapsed with the flight of every one of the
leaders on whose heads prices were put. The road was now left open for
the last step Yuan Shih-kai had in mind, the coup against Parliament
itself, which although unassociated in any direct way with the rising,
had undoubtedly maintained secret relations with the rebellious generals
in the field.

Parliament had further sinned by appointing a Special Constitutional
Drafting Committee which had held its sittings behind closed doors at
the Temple of Heaven. During this drafting of the Permanent
Constitution, admittance had been absolutely refused to Yuan Shih-kai's
delegates who had been sent to urge a modification of the
decentralization which had been such a characteristic of the Nanking
Instrument. Such details as transpired showed that the principle of
absolute money-control was not only to be the dominant note in the
Permanent Constitution, but that a new and startling innovation was
being included to secure that a _de facto_ Dictatorship should be
rendered impossible. Briefly, it was proposed that when Parliament was
not actually in session there should be left in Peking a special
Parliamentary Committee, charged with supervising and controlling the
Executive, and checking any usurpation of power.

This was enough for Yuan Shih-kai: he felt that he was not only an
object of general suspicion but that he was being treated with contempt.
He determined to finish with it all. He was as yet, however, only
provisional President and it was necessary to show cunning. Once more he
set to work in a characteristic way. By a liberal use of money
Parliament was induced to pass in advance of the main body of articles
the Chapter of the Constitution dealing with the election and term of
office of the President. When that had been done the two Chambers
sitting as an Electoral College, after the model of the French
Parliament, being partly bribed and partly terrorised by a military
display, were induced to elect him full President.

On the 10th October he took his final oath of office as President for a
term of five years before a great gathering of officials and the whole
diplomatic body in the magnificent Throne Room of the Winter Palace.
Safe now in his Constitutional position nothing remained for him but to
strike. On the 4th November he issued an arbitrary Mandate, which
received the counter-signature of the whole Cabinet, ordering the
unseating of all the so-called Kuomingtang or Radical Senators and
Representatives on the counts of conspiracy and secret complicity with
the July rising and vaguely referring to the filling of the vacancies
thus created by new elections.[10] The Metropolitan Police rigorously
carried out the order and although no brutality was shown, it was made
clear that if any of the indicted men remained in Peking their lives
would be at stake. Having made it impossible for Parliament to sit owing
to the lack of quorums, Yuan Shih-kai was able to proceed with his work
of reorganization in the way that best suited him; and the novel
spectacle was offered of a truly Mexican situation created in the Far
East by and with the assent of the Powers. It is significant that the
day succeeding this _coup d'etat_ of the 4th November the agreement
conceding autonomy to Outer Mongolia was signed with Russia, China
simply retaining the right to station a diplomatic representative at
Urga.[11]

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