Liao served the economic life of South Manchuria as nothing else did. In the high-water months of June, July, and August, there were reported no less than 10,000 vessels sailing up and down the stream; and even in other months there were always from six to eight thousand boats crowding its course. These junks made from four to eight trips a season, doing the important work of feeding the international business of the only port open to foreign trade in those days. RIVER BASINS These river systems give Manchuria her five major river basins. The Liao Plain is by far the most populous and important of them all. Its area, as has been pointed out, includes one fifth of the Province of Mukden and stretches from northeast to southwest. The mountain spurs, which come almost together not far from Tungkiangkou, divide the plain into northern and southern sections. The Northern Plain is the extensive expanse of level land drained by both the West and the East Liao and their countless branches. On the north it touches the edge of the Central Plain-which we shall examine later. The soil is clayey and black and exceedingly fertile. But, unlike the southern portion of the Liao Basin, a large part of the Northern Plain is still left in its virgin state as grazing-ground for cattle. For the most part it is covered with dense growths of grasses and other vegetation. When one passes south through Tungkiangkou into the valley of the Great Liao-as the union of the western and the eastern branch of the Liao is often called -a picture of the farming industry of the patient Chinese greets the eye. Here the fields bearing various crops spread to the horizon through all points of the compass, broken only here and there by a cluster of farmers' huts hidden behind high, crenelated walls-for Manchuria, with rural peace brooding upon it, is still, like the rest of bandit-infested China, under constant threat of sudden raids by the mounted bandits called Hunghutze. Here along the lower reaches of the Liao was witnessed the invasion of the first flying army of Chinese farmers centuries ago when Manchuria was still a closed and forbidden land. The quality of the soil and the agricultural development of this valley will be dealt with in detail in a chapter on farms and farmers. It is by far the richest section of Manchuria at present. About the only serious disadvantage of this section is the periodic flood from which it suffers. The great Liao has been left in its primitive state, allowed to overflow at its sweet pleasure in the rainy season. The valley, naturally, is covered more thickly than any other in Manchuria by farm villages; and they are more prosperous than in other districts. There are more roads in this valley than in the other four plains. In winter when everything is frozen hard these roads serve the traffic after a fashion. In summer, in the wet season, they turn into so many canals of deep, ever-churned mud which beggars all adjectives. With all that, there is no question that this plain enjoys the best transportation facilities of any in Manchuria. For the great South Manchuria Railway covers its eastern section; and through a portion of its western section passes the Chinese line of Peking-Mukden railway. The so-called Central Plain of Manchuria is that level land which rolls from the valley of the Itung River westward out to the great plains of Mongolia. Around the towns of Changchun-the northern terminus of the South Manchuria line-and Nungan the land is high, but the rest is a stretch of low land. Most of this plain is good farm land, although there are sections of it which suffer from an excessive amount of alkali. The plain reaches down to the valley of the East Liao River on the south. Here a great section, which has been incorporated into Manchuria under the Chinese administrations instead of the Mongol princes, is now under cultivation. The valleys of the Nonni and the Hulan-both of which flow into the Sungari-stretch away from the southwestern spurs of the Small Khingan Range (which forms the northeastern screen of the northern plain of Manchuria) westward to the foothills of the Great Khingans. Upon this plain stand the important cities of Tsitsihar and Suihua. Southward it extends to the valley of the Sungari. All this Northern Plain is much higher than the valley of the Liao. It is a sloping plateau. Only in the neighborhood of Anta one sees a stretch of low land, and between that and Tsitsihar there is marsh land covered with reeds and flags. In this section the population becomes thicker as one proceeds to the southern edge of it. The Hulan, the Nonni, and their branches afford the chief transportation facilities in this section of the country. Over a large section of the valley of the Nonni the soil is not of the best, containing more or less alkali. In some sections indeed it is saturated with soda and other salts. So much so that the extraction of soda from the soil is one of the ancient industries of Amur Province. The soda thus extracted from the soil of the steppes of this section is shipped down to Tientsin, Yingkou, and Dairen in the shape of bricks or cakes to be exported to the dyeing and silk districts of North China. Soil of this character of course is not fit for cultivation. Therefore and naturally it is largely left in its wild state. The fact that the major portion of this valley has been under the administration of Mongol chieftains accounts also for its undeveloped condition. To add to its trou bles, the valley suffers from many severe floods from the Nonni and its branches in the rainy season. The Sungari Plain extends on both sides of the great stream from Petuna, near which it receives the waters of the Nonni, for hundreds of miles to the point where the Sungari empties into the Amur. The lands about Petuna and Harbin are somewhat hilly and rolling. The level plain of the Sungari valley is along its northern bank, adjoining the plain of the Hulan valley and the district that spreads between Sansing and Paiyangmu. Along the southern bank of the river, level lands are few and far between. This is also true of the section between Sansing and Tassaka near where the Sungari joins the Amur. There are a few other plains in Manchuria, such as the valleys of the Tumen and the Yalu and along the shores of the Yellow Sea, but they are of minor proportions, not to be compared with the great plains described above. COAST LINE The coast line of Manchuria from the mouth of the Yalu on the east to Shanhaikwan, where the Eternal Wall of China meets the waters of the Gulf of Chihli and marks the farthest reach of the southern toe of Manchuria, is about as unemotional and regular as a model family man. No wealth of secret inlets, sheltered bays, or deep-bosomed harbors is there to lure the mariner, except at the tip end of the Liaotung Peninsula (which is leased to the Japanese) with its Port Arthur and the Port of Dairen. The coastal waters are also shallow, both on the Yellow Sea and on the Gulf of Chihli. There is no thirty-foot depth within two miles of the shore except at the two ports mentioned. These are some of the natural factors which conspired to make the Port of Dairen rise from the position |