Beleaguered in Pekin 5

Beleaguered in Pekin 5

Being a man of great wealth and having a perfect knowledge of the

situation, he steered a course that would obviate his striking on

either rock. He subscribed to the Boxer organizations where they

obeyed him, and punished them where they were refractory, and soon had

Shantung, which was in a ferment when he took charge, fairly well in

hand.

 

He gave it to be understood that they would, in time, be able to

exterminate foreigners; but they must patiently drill and practice

gymnastics until such time as he considered that they had reached

perfection, and must not on any account injure a foreigner too early,

as it would bring down trouble before the government was prepared to

meet it. At the same time he allowed them to pillage and murder the

native Christians freely, well knowing this would please the Court, and

would not be actively taken up by the foreign powers as an infringement

of treaty-rights, which it certainly was.

 

Evidently his idea was, too, that Tung Fu Hsiang’s plan to drive out

and exterminate all foreigners was an entirely impossible one, and that

if he could keep his province from committing any overt act that would

lead to a foreign war, for a year’s time, the Chihli authorities, all

the Manchus, and Tung Fu Hsiang himself would have brought on the war

and ruined themselves, while he, Yuan, would then have a chance to cut

loose from the conservatives, and come to the front in the new regime,

which must come, as a reformer. That he will do this I fearlessly

prophesy.

 

The Boxer organization was not started by Tung Fu Hsiang, but was,

by his advice, given imperial sanction and infused with new life and

activity. A similar organization, known in olden times in China under

the same name, was a volunteer militia for national defense. The recent

revival has not only been for defense, but to exterminate the Christian

religion and the people who brought it.

 

[Illustration: A MONGOLIAN LLAMA

 

Great learning is possessed, according to the Chinese standard, by

these priests. The young student or candidate on the left is receiving

instruction.]

 

That the Chinese people have much to complain of from the aggressive

attitude of many native Christians, and particularly the Roman Catholic

Christians, no sane man will deny. For years it has been the practice

of the priests and of many of the Protestant missionaries to assist

their converts in lawsuits against the heathens, and to exert an

unjust influence in their behalf. To “get even” with an enemy it is

only necessary for a convert to tell his priest or pastor that he has

been persecuted in some way for his religious belief, to induce the

missionary to take up the cudgel in his defense. I have heard heathen

Chinese often assert that these men (converts) appear good enough to

their priests, who see very little of their ordinary behavior, but

behind the father’s back they are overbearing and malicious to all

their neighbors, who hate them because they fear them.

 

After years of residence in China, I have come to the conclusion

that it has been a mistake of the Powers to insert in their treaties

provisions making the preaching of Christianity a treaty-right, in

spite of Chinese objection. Nearly all of the riots in China have come

from attempts to force the Chinese officials to stamp deeds conveying

property to missionaries for residences or chapels. The animosity

incurred in forcing a missionary establishment upon an interior city,

town, or village is not obliterated in a lifetime. It may be barely

tolerated in time of peace, only to be demolished when the country

is disturbed. This applies to the China that has been—barbarian,

uncivilized China.

 

Should the reformers come into power, and religious toleration be

granted as the result of civilization, then there would be no reason

why the missionaries should not work in the more remote parts of the

empire; but China, as it has been and is, would be much more peaceful

for all concerned if the proselyting work was carried on only in the

treaty ports. I don’t expect any of the missionary body to agree to

this statement, but doubtless many of their supporters, thinking

people, who will take the trouble to reason it out, will believe it,

supported as it is by the testimony of all the residents of China

acquainted with the problem. There are many reasons for the Chinaman’s

hatred of the foreigners, but his religion is the chief one.

 

In the late riots the railways have been attacked and destroyed, but

that came only after a half-year’s successful campaign against the

converts had led them to want to root out the people who brought both

the religion and the railways. While I am a Christian myself, and

would gladly see China a Christian nation, I cannot help seeing that

the policy which has been pursued in forcing Christianity upon the

Chinese, in the aggressive manner we have, practically at the point

of the sword, has not been a success, and has given to such men as

Tung Fu Hsiang a powerful argument with which to persuade his ignorant

followers to exterminate alike the foreigner and his converts.

 

[Illustration: INDIVIDUAL EXAMINATION ROOMS FOR CIVIL SERVICE DEGREES

 

A remarkable feature of Chinese social and political customs is the

method of selection for public office. The candidates for examination

are installed in the little rooms or houses shown in this picture;

a supply of water is placed in the large jars at the entrance, and

the candidate is expected, regardless of the pangs of hunger, to

remain constantly in this little room until he shall have passed this

examination, which sometimes lasts two or three days.]

 

The Boxers are principally of two sorts: the ignorant villager and

the city loafer or vagabond. The first easily becomes a fanatical

enthusiast; the latter has joined simply to obtain loot. When it

became an assured fact that the Empress sanctioned the movement the

ranks were rapidly filled, because rewards and preferment were held out

as inducements to serve, and the majority of China’s population, being

poverty-stricken in the extreme, would join any movement that promised

an increased income. The Boxer headquarters was the palace of Prince

Tuan in Peking. From this place emissaries were sent with instructions,

first into Shantung and afterward throughout Chihli, to coöperate with

the already-existing secret societies, as well as to organize new

companies. Every city, town, and village was visited, the head men

consulted, and the young men and boys enrolled.

 

Their gymnastic exercises, from which they derive their name, were

taught them, and they were promised that when they had attained

perfection they would be given service under the Empress with good

pay and rapid promotion. They were told that if they would go

regularly through the ceremonies prescribed every day, in from three

to six months they would acquire indomitable courage, and would be

invulnerable to bullets and sword-cuts, and that the youngest child

would be a match for a grown man of the uninitiated. That thousands

believed this nonsense there is no doubt; and thousands of little boys

from ten years of age upward eagerly enrolled. The exercise consisted

of bowing low to the ground, striking the forehead into the earth

three times each toward the east, then south, then throwing themselves

upon their backs and lying motionless for several minutes, after which

they would throw themselves from side to side a number of times, and,

finally rising, go through a number of posturings, as though warding

off blows and making passes at an enemy. As a uniform they were given a

red turban, a red sash to cross the chest, and red “tae tzio,” or wide

tape, to tie in the trousers at the ankle.

 

The time set for their uprising was fixed for the Chinese eighth moon,

seventeenth day, being two days after the annual “harvest festival,”

or pa yueh chieh. The premature explosion of the movement was not

anticipated by those who originated it, but it is largely due to

its going off at half-cock, so to speak, that enabled the Powers to

combat it so readily after they were aware of its existence as a real

government agency.

 

Doubtless the government intended before that time to give arms and

ammunition to all grown men; but, in the first place, they were to arm

themselves with swords and spears only. They were told, among other

things, that at the time of their uprising myriads of regiments of

angelic soldiers would descend from the skies to assist them in their

righteous war against foreigners.

 

The Empress herself believed this story as well as the possibility

of their being invulnerable to foreign bullets. She is exceedingly

superstitious, and in the early part of May consulted the Chinese

planchette to read her destiny. Two blind men, holding the instrument

under a silk screen, wrote in the prepared sand underneath the

following message from the spiritual world:

 

“Ta Chieh Lin T’ou

Hung Hsieh Hung Liu

Pai Ku Ch’ung Ch’ung

Chin Tsai Chin Ch’in

Tan Kan

T’ieh Ma Tung Hsi Tscu

Shui Shih Shui Fei

Ts’ai pai shiu.”

 

The interpretation of this would read in English:

 

“The millennium is at hand;

Blood will flow like a deluge;

Bleaching bones everywhere

Will this autumn time be seen.

Moreover, the iron horse

Will move from east to west;

Who’s right and who’s wrong

Will then be clearly established.”

 

The millennium is used by the Chinese as a critical period in a

cycle of years. The iron horse is supposed to mean war. The Empress

understood this to mean that in the war which she intended to commence

it would be clearly shown by her success that she was right.

 

[Illustration: A GROUP OF PROMINENT CHINESE OFFICIALS

 

These men are connected with the Tsung-li-yamen.]

 

The Boxers, however, completely spoiled all her plans by their

eagerness to obtain loot. Being promised the spoil of the foreigners

after the contemplated uprising in the eighth moon, they regarded the

property of the Christians and their teachers as already mortgaged to

them; and, fearful lest the government troops would acquire some of

it, they commenced the campaign themselves before the appointed time.

How the government at first made feeble efforts to restrain them, and

afterward completely gave in and joined with them is now a matter of history.