Across China on Foot, Edwin John Dingle [ebook pc reader TXT] 📗

of a pedlar, Liu went out towards Li's camp, and met three spies on the look-out for a possible clue to the foreigners; they asked him where the ch'en-tai was and all about him, declaring that if he did not tell them all he knew they would take him to Li, and that he would then lose his head. Just behind were a few of Liu's best soldiers. Strolling up quite casually as if they knew least in the world of what was going on, they made their arrest, and clapped the handcuffs on them before their captives knew it. Liu ordered that two be beheaded immediately, which was done, and the other man was kept to show where Li's camp was and where Li himself was hiding.

And in this way Li the Invincible was captured also. This was the master-stroke of the situation. Li was brought back to the city with many other prisoners and a few heads, guarded by a strong body of the military.

Almost simultaneously, Huang, one of the other rebel chiefs, was captured; and at dusk one evening Li was put to death by the slow process. Afraid that if he were taken outside the city his followers might possibly re-capture him, he was murdered outside the chief yamen, about ten hacks being necessary by process adopted to sever the head from the body. Only two men have been put to death inside the walls since the city of Chao-t'ong was built, over two hundred years ago. After death had taken place, Li was served in the same way as he had served the village headman, and his heart and his tongue were taken from his body. Huang was killed in the usual way, and his head placed in a frame on the city gate.

And so there died two of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood must have rebelled at such premature dissolution, and by a death more hideous than imagination can depict or speech describe, just at a time in China's awakening when such fellows might have made for the uplifting of their country. And they died because they hated the foreigner.

After further desultory fighting, the remaining leader, losing heart, fled into Kwei-chow province, and for a time was allowed to wander away; but later, a sum of a thousand taels was offered for him, dead or alive, and I have no doubt of the reward proving too great a bait for his followers. He has probably been given up.[Q] In the month of May the Miao people rose to prolong the rioting, but their efforts did not come to much, although guerilla warfare was prolonged for several weeks, and British subjects were not allowed to travel over the main road beyond Tong-ch'uan-fu for some time after; indeed, as I write (July 1st, 1910), permission for the missionaries to move about is still withheld.

Then, following the rebellion, rumors spread all over the province to the effect that the foreigners were on the look-out for children, and were buying up as many as they could get at enormous prices to ch'i the railway to Yün-nan-fu, which by this time had been opened to the public. Daily were little children brought to the missionaries and offered for sale. Child-stealing became common; the greatest unrest prevailed again. Members of the Christian churches suffered persecution, and adherents kept at a safe distance. Scholars forsook the mission schools. Foreigners cautiously kept within their own premises as much as they could. Mission work was at a standstill, and all looked once more grave enough. Two women, caught in the act of stealing children at Chao-t'ong, were taken to the yamen, hung in cages for a time as a warning to others, and then made to walk through the streets shouting, "Don't steal children as I have; don't steal children as I have." If they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.

A man was lynched in the public streets in that city for stealing a child, and only by the adoption of the most stringent measures, which in England would be considered barbaric, were the mandarins able successfully to deal with the rumors and the trouble thereby caused. Even far away down on the Capital road, children ran from me, and mothers, catching sight of me, would cover up their little ones and run away from me behind barred doors, so that the foreigner should not get them.

This latter trouble was felt pretty well throughout the length and breadth of Yün-nan, and it must have been very disappointing to Christian missionaries who had been working around the districts of Tong-ch'uan-fu and Chao-t'ong-fu for over twenty years, and had got into close contact with scores of men and women, to see these very people taking away their children so that they should not be bought up by the very missionaries whose ministrations they had listened to for years.

In course of time, things settled down again, but at the time my manuscript leaves me for the publisher the danger zone has not been greatly reduced.

In concluding my few remarks on this serious outbreak, the like of which it is to be hoped will not be seen again in this province, it is only fair to chronicle the excellent behavior of the Chinese officials and of the Viceroy of Yün-nan in dealing with the situation. Although he is not, I believe, generally liked by the people as their ruler, Li Chin Hsi did all he could to quell the riots speedily, and saw to it that all the officials in whose districts the rebellion was raging, and who made blunders during its progress, were degraded in rank. It is difficult for Europeans thoroughly to grasp the situation. From Chao-t'ong to Yün-nan-fu, the viceregal seat, is twelve days' hard going, and all communication was done by telegraph—seemingly easy enough; but one must not discount the slow Chinese methods of doing things. Most of the troops were twelve days away, and in China—in backward Yün-nan especially—to mobilize a thousand men and march them over mountains a fortnight from your base is not a thing to be done at a moment's notice. By the time they would arrive, it might have been possible for all the foreigners to have been massacred and their premises demolished, especially as the exits were blocked on all sides. But no time was lost and no pains were saved; and although the Chao-t'ong foreign residents, who suffered in suspense more than most missionaries are called upon to suffer, may differ with me in this opinion, I believe that not one of the officials who took part in endeavors to keep the riots from assuming more actually dangerous proportions could have done more than was done. If a man neglected his duty he lost his button, and he deserved nothing else.

In Mr. P. O'Brien Butler, the able British Consul-General, the British subjects had the greatest confidence. He might have erred in having declined from harassing the Chinese Foreign Office to grant permission and protection to Britishers who wished to travel after the leaders of the rebellion had been captured, but he undoubtedly erred on the right side.

An unfortunate incident for the United Methodist missionaries was the fact that the Rev. Charles Stedeford, who was sent out by the Connexion to visit the whole of the mission fields, was able to come only so far as Tong-ch'uan-fu, and was forced to return to Europe without having seen any of the magnificent work among the Hua Miao.

After my manuscript went forward to my publishers, permission to travel and protection were granted to British subjects again on the main road leading up to the Yangtze Valley. The author was the first Britisher to go from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Chao-t'ong-fu, and as I write, as late as the middle of July, 1910, I am of the opinion that it is unwise to travel over this road for a long time to come, unless it is absolutely imperative to do so. At Kiang-ti I had considerable trouble in getting a place to sleep, and I was glad when I had passed Tao-üen.

At the invitation of missionaries working among them, I then spent some months in residence and travel in Miaoland, and only regret that an extended account of my experiences is not possible.

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