CHAPTER II

THE LAND

MANCHURIA is the name that covers in a rather vague way that stretch of northeastern territory which the Chinese know under the name of Tungsanhsin-the Eastern Three Provinces of Amur, Kirin, and Mukden. To the north of it, across the Amur River, is Siberia. A bit of the Maritime Province of Siberia and Chosen mark its eastern boundary. On the west the more or less elastic administrative line of Eastern Inner Mongolia and the easternmost edge of the Eternal Wall meeting the sea at Shanhaikwan mark its limit; and on the south the waters of the Gulf of Chihli and of the Yellow Sea frame in the apex of this irregular inverted triangle whose base is on the Amur.

PHYSICAL COMPLEXION

The heights of the Great Khingan ranges screen it on the northwest; and on the southeast, those of the Changpai range. Sheltered between these two mighty mountain screens lie vast stretches of billowy plains famous throughout the Far Eastern lands as the granary of Asia. The northern section of it is drained by the Sungari and the Nonni, which, flowing into the Sungari near Petuna, forms one system. The southern portion is watered by the Liao, the Yalu, and the southern branch of the Sungari.

In newspapers and on the lips of politicians and trayelers one meets constantly nowadays the expressions,

North and South Manchuria. The Russians who first used these terms had not the remotest idea as to the exact line which divided the North from the South. They don't know it now. Neither is there a single geographical authority up to this very day who can trace the line on the map with precision. It is about as elusive as the line between the Chinese army and the Chinese bandits. In the now classic days of "Spheres of Influence" the North meant the Russian and the South meant the Japanese sphere in Manchuria. Years that came and went changed the geographical complexion of the expressions a lot. But year by year the expressions have found their way into many important documents: in the supplemental agreements of June, 1898, on the Chinese Eastern Railway between China and Russia, for example, and in the Japan-China treaty of December, 1906.

The most popular and widely accepted meaning of the expressions, as they pass current now, is that South Manchuria takes in the whole of Mukden and that part of eastern Inner Mongolia under the administrative jurisdiction of the Province of Mukden and also the southern half of Kirin. This is an area of about 136,965 square miles. Northern Manchuria covers the rest of the eastern three provinces, namely, the whole of Amur and the northern half of the Province of Kirin, about 245,662 square miles of the country. Therefore, in terms of transportation facilities, the Chinese Eastern Railway serves North Manchuria and South Manchuria is covered by the South Manchuria Railway.

Students who consider the geographical details of China in general and of Manchuria in particular should always keep in mind the central fact that not even in China proper has there been a scientific survey of the whole land since the days the Sacred Dragons lorded over it. Such surveys as have been carried out in recent

years are of fragmentary character. If there is no official or private survey of China Proper, it goes without saying that there is no such thing about outlying and outside Dependencies like Manchuria and Tibet. Imposing figures parading through many a learned tome are at best a mathematical fiction whose accuracy depends altogether on the shrewdness of the guesser. This statement also holds true for the figures of population as well as for the square mileage of its area. In a small section of the country, such as the leased territory of Kwangtung under the Japanese administration, it is different. There the whole land is surveyed carefully, and the census register is as dependable as in any section of Japan proper or in the City of New York.

This accounts for many astounding discrepancies in socalled "official" figures of various parentage. The Fengtien (or Mukden) official report of 1909 puts the area of the Mukden Province at 18,679 square ri (one ri is 5.955 square miles). Japanese army authorities in their report of 1910 placed it at 9,330 square ri. The Agricultural Research Statistical Report of the Fengtien Province of 1911 placed it at 20,476 square ri. An Army Authority connected with the Kwantung Government General in 1916 declared it to be 12,721 square ri; and the same year the experts of the South Manchuria Railway Company put it at 14,932, which was later revised to 15,151 square ri.

The following figures of the South Manchuria Railway experts are usually taken to be as correct a guess as any of them:

THE RIVERS

When the Amorites founded a great empire under Hammurabi in 2100 B.C., centering on a small river town called Babylon, it was the River Tigris that took the humans by the hand and led them down the farspeeding avenue of their destiny. So here in Manchuria, also, it was the rivers, not the flags, which the economic and cultural developments of the Tungus, the original Manchus, followed. The Amur, the longest of the rivers, is 2,500 miles in length. Some 2,000 miles of that distance are navigable. The Chinese call it Heilungkiang-Black Dragon River. There is little doubt that the name came from the somber color of its sweeping flood. The Shilka and the Argun Rivers come together at Strelotchnoi and give birth to the Amur. From that point on it makes its majestic way along the Manchurian boundary until it empties into the Gulf of Tartary east of the town of Nikolaievsk, made famous by the unspeakable massacre of 700 Japanese-men, women, and babies, including the family of the consul-in March, 1920.

In its southeasterly course down to Chichakha, near where it mingles with the waters of the Sungari, the Amur gathers in such major streams as the Khumar from the south and the Zaya and the Burega from Siberia on the north, before it passes out of Manchuria at Khabarovsk. Up to Mitrofanova, some 1,900 miles from its mouth, a river steamer can make its way. It is so broad that at many points a man standing on its bank may easily fancy himself looking across a bay. Even while passing through mountain gorges it measures some 2,000 feet in width.

"Sungari-oola" is the name by which the natives know the Sungari. In Manchu it means the River of Heaven. It rises amid the snows of the Changpai Ranges and winds its way over the plains of Kirin Province. In the