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CHAPTER XXXIII

CHINA ARMING

WHILST the Chinese Government functions much as usual although sadly hampered by many things and the Manchu Court bowing to the whims of the old Empress Dowager, entertains the ladies of the foreign Legations: whilst the Peking authorities tinker at the roads and bemoan the fact that metropolitan funds will not permit them restoring the great lou or Tartar gate-towers of the Tartar wall: and the provinces haggle over the 1900 indemnity contributions and swear there is not a cash left, whilst all these things go on, and the great war is watched, there is one thing, and one thing alone, which is receiving constant and unremitting attention-one thing about which the Manchu Court, the Central Government, and the provincial authorities have firmly made up their minds, and are resolved shall be properly attended to-one thing on which everyone is willing to spend money, and is indeed spending vast sums of money. That thing is the

re-armament of China.

It is, of course, no new story. Each collision with

foreign Powers has seen much the same thing happen. As early as the 'sixties of last century, when the Anglo-French allies had left the capital, and Gordon had finished his task of crushing the Taiping rebellion, and desired to return home, the Chinese, whilst they loaded him with honours (which, modest man, he refused to accept), called for memoranda, explaining why they were invariably beaten by their enemies, and asking how they should act on future occasions to remedy the old faults. In this the modern Chinese Government was not following the example of the last of the Mings when the Manchus, pouring in from Manchuria, were threatening Peking. Then a Portuguese company of arquebusiers marched all the way from Portuguese Macao to the capital to tender their services, but the fates willed that they should never come into action.

Gordon gave the desired memoranda, and later on, when he furtively visited Peking for the last time, he left other notes. These documents, which

are well known to students of Chinese affairs, all deal with the subject in much the same way. They are, in fact, in the nature of a pis aller, nothing more or less, for they assume, perhaps too confidently, that China will be, will always be, more or less on the defensive, even when it is she who attacks, and that if she is to conquer it will only be through the employment of those qualities which the nature of the country, cut up as it is by numberless water-ways and natural obstacles, make of great value. Surprise attacks and a ceaseless harrying of the enemy, night attacks

at all hours, and in all kinds of weather, raids on baggage-trains and lines of communication, and the use of much light artillery, that can be rapidly transported, are the things on which Gordon dwelt with particular emphasis. He deprecated open attacks pushed forward in the face of the enemy's fire (which would be attempting the impossible in his eyes), and counselled ceaseless spade and trenchwork-doubtless convinced that Chinese leaders would never be made to lead their attacks unflinchingly in person. Curiously enough, in the 1900 siege of the Peking Legations the Manchu war party followed Gordon's advice to the letter. Pushing up by sapping and mining, and aided by the oil-smeared torch, bit by bit the Legation lines were broken into and the defenders forced back inch by inch, whilst a fierce musketry and cannon fire tormented them by day and by night, and made regular sleep impossible. Had there been time enough, in spite of the efforts of the moderates of the Peking Government, who were always endeavouring to hold back the attack, knowing full well the vengeance which would come afterwards, the Legations would have fallen, thanks partly to the explicit Gordon memoranda. This is, however, such ancient history-it is five years ago-that everybody has forgotten it.

Even with the beginning of the new system, begun tentatively in the 'sixties and 'seventies, but allowed to relapse into decay until the Tonkin war and the modernising of Japan gave it a fresh im

petus, side by side the old or semi-old still held sway in Chinese military affairs. Whilst the value of the new methods was grudgingly admitted, the archaic could not be buried so quickly.

They were charming, these last grand reviews of the old Chinese provincial armies during the 'eighties and 'nineties. The troops, arrayed in resplendent uniforms made up of red and blue, or red and green, or even grey and green tunics, sombre black turbans, beautiful long "tiger" t'ao-ku, or leg coverings, of varied colouring that flapped in the wind, and sandalled feet, were armed with every kind of weapon, and stood at attention in a vast double line on their parade-ground, so that they should seem twice as many as they were really, and make everyone enchanted with provincial strength. Above them waved banners, innumerable banners, not square, business-like flags that are unromantically modern, but real triangular banners, very long, and very graceful, with fretted edges like the teeth of a saw, and embroidered and written over in every possible way with fantastic, snake-like characters. Half of

these banners at least had a brightly-coloured ground which might be yellow, green, violet, or even the beautiful Chinese vermilion red. On some the characters were cut out, leaving snaky-looking gaps in the bunting, which meant nothing to the uninitiated, but everything to the literate few.

With all this brave show flapping and waving in front of them, the mandarins would ride on to the grounds in their Manchu official clothes, with more

VOL. II

banners and more men armed with uncouth-looking tridents and big two-handed swords running rapidly alongside of them in their sandalled feet, whilst big gongs, heavily thumped, clanged forth the joyful news that the great men had arrived to inspect the outward view of things. Then the trumpets would blare out, not sweet-throated cavalry trumpets like those of Europe, whose notes hover and float on the air, but the long, hoarse, fierce Tartar trumpets that wail a tremulous top note, crescendo and diminuendo succeeding one another quite oddly and strangely, and then, suddenly dropping two octaves, boom forth a blood-curdling bass that shakes the ground. The trumpets would blare for a long time more or less together, but not too much so, for that would have taken away the barbarism of the whole thing and made them disciplined, which may be necessary, but is never attractive. Then even the trumpets would become silent and everybody doubly attentive.

Suddenly a great shout would go up and the long line, opening in three or four places, would let out the pairs of champions. Oh, those beautiful champions, now so long departed, killed for ever by the inventions of Herr Krupp and many others! Stripped to the waist, with faces hideous with red and green war-masks and blood-coloured hair, with arms and chests covered with knotted muscles, they were the delight of the crowd and the terror of every little baby Chinaman held up on high to see the valiant sight. The first champion of each pair

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