Part 15 (1/2)

Having conquered Eastern Turkestan, the Chinese next took steps for the recovery of Ili. Without the metropolitan province the undertaking of Tso Tsung Tang would lack completeness, while indeed many political and military dangers would attend the situation in Central Asia. But this was evidently a matter to be effected in the first place by negotiation, and not by violence and force of arms. Russia had always been a friendly and indeed a sympathetic neighbor. In this very matter of Ili she had originally acted with the most considerate attention for China's rights, when it seemed that they had permanently lost all definite meaning, for she had declared that she would surrender it on China sending a sufficient force to take possession, and now this had been done. It was, therefore, by diplomatic representations on the part of the Tsungli Yamen to the Russian Minister at Pekin that the recovery of Ili was expected in the first place to be achieved. At about the same time the Russian authorities at Tashkent came to the conclusion that the matter must rest with the Czar, and the Chinese official world perceived that they would have to depute a Minister Plenipotentiary to St. Petersburg.

The official selected for the difficult and, as it proved, dangerous task of negotiating at St. Petersburg, was that same Chung How who had been sent to Paris after the Tientsin ma.s.sacre. He arrived at Pekin in August, 1878, and was received in several audiences by the empresses while waiting for his full instructions from the Tsungli Yamen. He did not leave until October, about a month after the Marquis Tseng, Tseng Kwofan's eldest son, set out from Pekin to take the place of Kwo Sungtao as Minister in London and Paris. Chung How reached St. Petersburg in the early part of the following year, and the discussion of the various points in question, protracted by the removal of the court to Livadia, occupied the whole of the summer months. At last it was announced that a treaty had been signed at Livadia, by which Russia surrendered the Kuldja valley, but retained that of the Tekes, which left in her hands the command of the pa.s.ses through the Tian Shan range into Kashgar. Chung How knew nothing about frontiers or military precautions, but he thought a great deal about money. He fought the question of an indemnity with ability, and got it fixed at five million roubles, or little more than half that at which it was placed by the later treaty. There was never any reason to suppose that the Chinese government would accept the partial territorial concession obtained by Chung How. The first greeting that met Chung How on his return revealed the fate of his treaty. He had committed the indiscretion of returning without waiting for the Edict authorizing his return, and as the consequence he had to accept suspension from all his offices, while his treaty was submitted to the tender mercies of the grand secretaries, the six presidents of boards, the nine chief ministers of state, and the members of the Hanlin. Three weeks later, Prince Chun was specially ordered to join the Committee of Deliberation. On January 27 Chung How was formally cas.h.i.+ered and arrested, and handed over to the Board of Punishment for correction. The fate of the treaty itself was decided a fortnight later. Chung How was then declared to have ”disobeyed his instructions and exceeded his powers.” On March 3 an edict appeared, sentencing the unhappy envoy to ”decapitation after incarceration.” This sentence was not carried out, and the reprieve of the unlucky envoy was due to Queen Victoria's expression of a hope that the Chinese government would spare his life.

At the same time that the Chinese refused their ratification to Chung How's treaty, they expressed their desire for another pacific settlement, which would give them more complete satisfaction. The Marquis Tseng was accordingly instructed to take up the thread of negotiation, and to proceed to the Russian capital as Emba.s.sador and Minister Plenipotentiary.

Some delay ensued, as it was held to be doubtful whether Russia would consent to the reopening of the question. But owing to the cautious and well-timed approaches of the Marquis Tseng, the St. Petersburg Foreign Office acquiesced in the recommencement of negotiations, and, after six months' discussion, accepted the principle of the almost unqualified territorial concession for which the Chinese had stood firm. On February 12, 1881, these views were embodied in a treaty, signed at St. Petersburg, and the ratification within six months showed how differently its provisions were regarded from those of its predecessor. With the Marquis Tseng's act of successful diplomacy the final result of the long war in Central Asia was achieved. The Chinese added Ili to Kashgar and the rest of the New Dominion, which at the end of 1880 was made into a High Commissioners.h.i.+p and placed under the care of the das.h.i.+ng General Liu Kintang.

The close of the great work successfully accomplished during the two periods of the Regency was followed within a few weeks by the disappearance of the most important of the personages who had carried on the government throughout these twenty years of constant war and diplomatic excitement. Before the Pekin world knew of her illness, it heard of the death of the Empress Dowager Tsi An, who as Hienfung's princ.i.p.al widow had enjoyed the premier place in the government, although she had never possessed a son to occupy the throne in person. In a proclamation issued in her name and possibly at her request, Tsi An described the course of her malady, the solicitude of the emperor, and urged upon him the duty of his high place to put restraint upon his grief.

Her death occurred on April 18, from heart disease, when she was only forty-five, and her funeral obsequies were as splendid as her services demanded. For herself she had always been a woman of frugal habits, and the successful course of recent Chinese history was largely due to her firmness and resolution. Her a.s.sociate in the Regency, Tsi Thsi, who has always been more or less of an invalid, still survives.

The difficulty with Russia had not long been composed, when, on two opposite sides of her extensive dominion, China was called upon to face a serious condition of affairs. In Corea, ”the forbidden land” of the Far East, events were forced by the eagerness and compet.i.tion of European states to conclude treaties of commerce with that primitive kingdom, and perhaps, also, by their fear that if they delayed Russia would appropriate some port on the Corean coast. To all who had official knowledge of Russia's desire and plan for seizing Port Lazareff, this apprehension was far from chimerical, and there was reason to believe that Russia's encroachment might compel other countries to make annexations in or round Corea by way of precaution. Practical evidence of this was furnished by the English occupation of Port Hamilton, and by its subsequent evacuation when the necessity pa.s.sed away; but should the occasion again arise the key of the situation will probably be found in the possession not of Port Hamilton or Quelpart, but of the Island of Tsiusima. Recourse was had to diplomacy to avert what threatened to be a grave international danger; and although the result was long doubtful, and the situation sometimes full of peril, a gratifying success was achieved in the end. In 1881 a draft commercial treaty was drawn up, approved by the Chinese authorities and the representatives of the princ.i.p.al powers at Pekin, and carried to the court of Seoul for acceptance and signature by the American naval officer, Commodore Schufeldt. The Corean king made no objection to the arrangement, and it was signed with the express stipulation that the ratifications of the treaty were to be exchanged in the following year. Thus was it harmoniously arranged at Pekin that Corea was to issue from her hermit's call, and open her ports to trading countries under the guidance and encouragement of China. There can be no doubt that if this arrangement had been carried out, the influence and the position of China in Corea would have been very greatly increased and strengthened. But, unfortunately, the policy of Li Hung Chang--for if he did not originate, he took the most important part in directing it--aroused the jealousy of j.a.pan, which has long a.s.serted the right to have an equal voice with China in the control of Corean affairs; and the government of Tokio, on hearing of the Schufeldt treaty, at once took steps not merely to obtain all the rights to be conferred by that doc.u.ment, to which no one would have objected, but also to a.s.sert its claim to control equally with China the policy of the Corean court. With that object, a j.a.panese fleet and army were sent to the Seoul River, and when the diplomatists returned for the ratification of the treaty, they found the j.a.panese in a strong position close to the Corean capital. The Chinese were not to be set on one side in so open a manner, and a powerful fleet of gunboats, with 5,000 troops, were sent to the Seoul River to uphold their rights. Under other circ.u.mstances, more especially as the Chinese expedition was believed to be the superior, a hostile collision must have ensued, and the war which has so often seemed near between the Chinese and j.a.panese would have become an accomplished fact; but fortunately the presence of the foreign diplomatists moderated the ardor of both sides, and a rupture was averted. By a stroke of judgment the Chinese seized Tai w.a.n.g Kun, the father of the young king, and the leader of the anti-foreign party, and carried him off to Pekin, where he was kept in imprisonment for some time, until matters had settled down in his own country. The opening of Corea to the Treaty Powers did not put an end to the old rivalry of China and j.a.pan in that country, of which history contains so many examples; and, before the Corean question was definitely settled, it again became obtrusive. Such evidence as is obtainable points to the conclusion that Chinese influence was gradually getting the better of j.a.panese in the country, and the attack on the j.a.panese legation in 1884 was a striking revelation of popular antipathy or of an elaborate anti-j.a.panese plot headed by the released Chinese prisoner, Tai w.a.n.g Kun.

At the opposite point of the frontier China was brought face to face with a danger which threatened to develop into a peril of the first magnitude, and in meeting which she was undoubtedly hampered by her treaties with the general body of foreign powers and her own peculiar place in the family of nations. It is the special misfortune of China that she cannot engage in any, even a defensive, war with a maritime power without incurring the grave risk, or indeed the practical certainty, that if such a war be continued for any length of time she must find herself involved with every other foreign country through the impossibility of confining the hostility of her own subjects to one race of foreigners in particular. In considering the last war with a European country in which China was engaged, due allowance must be made for these facts, and also for the anomalous character of that contest, when active hostilities were carried on without any formal declaration of war--a state of things which gave the French many advantages. Toward the end of the year 1882, the French government came to the decision to establish a ”definite protectorate”

over Tonquin. Events had for some time been shaping themselves in this direction, and the colonial ambition of France had long fixed on Indo- China as a field in which it might aggrandize itself with comparatively little risk and a wide margin of advantage. The weakness of the kingdom of Annam was a strong enough temptation in itself to a.s.sert the protectorate over it which France had, more or less, claimed for forty years; but when the reports of several French explorers came to promote the conviction that France might acquire the control of a convenient and perhaps the best route into some of the richest provinces of interior China without much difficulty, the temptation became irresistible. French activity in Indo- China was heightened by the declaration of Garnier, Rocher, and others, that the Songcoi, or Red River, furnished the best means of communicating with Yunnan, and tapping the wealth of the richest mineral province in China. The apathy of England in her relations with Burmah, which presented, under its arrogant and obstructive rulers, what may have seemed an insuperable obstacle to trade intercourse between India and China, afforded additional inducement to the French to act quickly; and, as they felt confident of their ability and power to coerce the court of Hue, the initial difficulties of their undertaking did not seem very formidable.

That undertaking was, in the first place, defined to be a protectorate of Annam, and, as the first step in the enterprise, the town of Hanoi, in the delta of the Red River, and the nominal capital of Tonquin, was captured before the end of the year 1882.

Tonquin stood in very much the same relations.h.i.+p to China as Corea; and, although the enforcement of the suzerain tie was lax, there was no doubt that at Pekin the opinion was held very strongly that the action of France was an encroachment on the rights of China. But if such was the secret opinion of the Chinese authorities, they took no immediate steps to arrest the development of French policy in Tonquin by proclaiming it a Chinese dependency, and also their intention to defend it. It is by no means certain that the prompt and vigorous a.s.sertion of their rights would have induced the French to withdraw from their enterprise, for its difficulties were not revealed at first; but if China is to make good her hold over such dependencies, she must be prepared to show that she thinks them worth fighting for. While Li Hung Chang and the other members of the Chinese government were deliberating as to the course they should pursue, the French were acting with great vigor in Tonquin, and committing their military reputation to a task from which they could not in honor draw back. During the whole of the year 1883 they were engaged in military operations with the Black Flag irregulars, a force half piratical and half patriotic, who represented the national army of the country. It was believed at the time, but quite erroneously, that the Black Flags were paid and incited by the Chinese. Subsequent evidence showed that the Chinese authorities did not taken even an indirect part in the contest until a much later period. After the capture of Hanoi, the French were constantly engaged with the Black Flags, from whom they captured the important town of Sontay, which was reported to be held by imperial Chinese troops, but on its capture this statement was found to be untrue.

The French were in the full belief that the conquest of Tonquin would be easily effected, when a serious reverse obliged them to realize the gravity of their task. A considerable detachment, under the command of Captain Henri Riviere, who was one of the pioneers of French enterprise on the Songcoi, was surprised and defeated near Hanoi. Riviere was killed, and it became necessary to make a great effort to recover the ground that had been lost. Fresh troops were sent from Europe, but before they arrived the French received another check at p.h.u.kai, which the Black Flags claimed as a victory because the French were obliged to retreat.

Before this happened the French had taken extreme measures against the King of Annam, of which state Tonquin is the northern province. The king of that country, by name Tuduc, who had become submissive to the French, died in July, 1883, and after his death the Annamese, perhaps encouraged by the difficulties of the French in Tonquin, became so hostile that it was determined to read them a severe lesson. Hue was attacked and occupied a month after the death of Tuduc, and a treaty was extracted from the new king which made him the dependent of France. When the cold season began in Tonquin, the French forces largely increased, and, commanded by Admiral Courbet, renewed operations, and on December 11 attacked the main body of the Black Flags at Sontay, which they had reoccupied and strengthened.

They offered a desperate and well sustained resistance, and it was only with heavy loss that the French succeeded in carrying the town. The victors were somewhat recompensed for their hards.h.i.+ps and loss by the magnitude of the spoil, which included a large sum of money. Desultory fighting continued without intermission; Admiral Courbet was superseded by General Millot, who determined to signalize his a.s.sumption of the command by attacking Bacuinh, which the Black Flags made their headquarters after the loss of Sontay. On March 8, he attacked this place at the head of 12,000 men, but so formidable were its defenses that he would not risk an attack in front, and by a circuitous march of four days he gained the flank of the position, and thus taken at a disadvantage the Black Flags abandoned their formidable lines, and retreated without much loss, leaving their artillery, including some Krupp guns, in the hands of the victors.

At this stage of the question diplomacy intervened, and on May 11 a treaty of peace was signed by Commander Founder, during the ministry of M. Jules Ferry, with the Chinese government. One of the princ.i.p.al stipulations of this treaty was that the French should be allowed to occupy Langson and other places in Tonquin. When the French commander sent a force under Colonel Dugenne to occupy Langson it was opposed in the Bacle defile and repulsed with some loss. The Chinese exonerated themselves from all responsibility by declaring that the French advance was premature, because no date was fixed by the Fournier Convention, and because there had not been time to transmit the necessary orders. On the other hand, M. Fournier declared on his honor that the dates in his draft were named in the original convention. The French government at once demanded an apology, and an indemnity fixed by M. Jules Ferry, in a moment of mental excitement, at the ridiculous figure of $50,000,000. An apology was offered, but such an indemnity was refused, and eventually France obtained one of only $800,000.

After the Bacle affair hostilities were at once resumed, and for the first time the French carried them on not only against the Black Flags, but against the Chinese. M. Jules Ferry did not, however, make any formal declaration of war against China, and he thus gained an advantage of position for his attack on the Chinese which it was not creditable to French chivalry to have a.s.serted. The most striking instance of this occurred at Foochow, where the French fleet, as representing a friendly power, was at anchor above the formidable defenses of the Min River. In accordance with instructions telegraphed to him, the French admiral attacked those places in reverse and destroyed the forts on the Min without much difficulty or loss, thanks exclusively to his having been allowed past them as a friend. The French also endeavored to derive all possible advantage from there being no formal declaration of war, and to make use of Hongkong as a base for their fleet against China. But this unfairness could not be tolerated, and the British minister at Pekin, where Sir Harry Parkes had in the autumn of 1883 succeeded Sir Thomas Wade, issued a proclamation that the hostilities between France and China were tantamount to a state of war, and that the laws of neutrality must be strictly observed. The French resented this step, and showed some inclination to retaliate by inst.i.tuting a right to search for rice, but fortunately this pretension was not pushed to extremities, and the war was closed before it could produce any serious consequences. The French devoted much of their attention to an attack on the Chinese possessions in Formosa, and the occupation of Kelung; a fort in the northern part of that island was captured, but the subsequent success of the French was small.

The Chinese displayed great energy and resource in forming defenses against any advance inland from Kelung or Tamsui, and the French government was brought to face the fact that there was nothing to be gained by carrying on these desultory operations, and that unless they were prepared to send a large expedition, it was computed of not less than 50,000 men, to attack Pekin, there was no alternative to coming to terms with China. How strong this conviction had become may be gathered from the fact that the compulsory retreat, in March, 1885, of the French from before Langson, where some of the Chinese regular troops were drawn up with a large force of Black and Yellow Flags--the latter of whom were in Chinese pay--did not imperil the negotiations which were then far advanced toward completion. On June 9 of the same year a treaty of peace was signed by M. Patenotre and Li Hung Chang which gave France nothing more than the Fournier Convention.

The military lessons of this war must be p.r.o.nounced inconclusive, for the new forces which China had organized since the Pekin campaign were never fully engaged, and the struggle ended before the regular regiments sent to Langson had any opportunity of showing their quality. But the impression conveyed by the fighting in Formosa and the northern districts of Tonquin was that China had made considerable progress in the military art, and that she possessed the nucleus of an army that might become formidable.

But while the soldiers had made no inconsiderable improvement, as much could not be said of the officers, and among the commanders there seemed no grasp of the situation, and a complete inability to conduct a campaign.

Probably these deficiencies will long remain the really weak spot in the Chinese war organization, and although they have men who will fight well, the only capacity their commanders showed in Tonquin and Formosa was in selecting strong positions and in fortifying them with consummate art. But as the strongest position can be turned and avoided, and as the Chinese, like all Asiatics, become demoralized when their rear is threatened, it cannot be denied that, considerable progress as the Chinese have made in the military art, they have not yet mastered some of its rudiments. All that can be said is that the war between France and China was calculated to teach the advisability of caution in fixing a quarrel upon China. Under some special difficulties from the character of the war and with divided councils at Pekin, the Chinese still gave a very good account of themselves against one of the greatest powers of Europe.

During the progress of this struggle a coup d'etat was effected at Pekin of which at the time it was impossible to measure the whole significance.

In July, 1884, the Chinese world was startled by the sudden fall and disgrace of Prince Kung, who had been the most powerful man in China since the Treaty of Pekin. A decree of the empress-regent appeared dismissing him from all his posts and consigning him to an obscurity from which after nine years he has not yet succeeded in emerging. The causes of his fall are not clear, but they were probably of several distinct kinds. While he was the leader of the peace party and the advocate of a prompt arrangement with France, he was also an opponent of Prince Chun's desire to have a share in the practical administration of the state, or, at least, an obstacle in the way of its realization. Prince Chun, who was a man of an imperious will, and who, on the death of the Eastern Empress, became the most important personage in the palace and supreme council of the empire, was undoubtedly the leader of the attack on Prince Kung, and the immediate cause of his downfall. Prince Kung, who was an amiable and well intentioned man rather than an able statesman, yielded without resistance, and indeed he had no alternative, for he had no following at Pekin, and his influence was very slight except among Europeans. Prince Chun then came to the front, taking an active and prominent part in the government, making himself president of a new board of national defense and taking up the command of the Pekin Field Force, a specially trained body of troops for the defense of the capital He retained possession of these posts after his son a.s.sumed the government in person, notwithstanding the law forbidding a father serving under his son, which has already been cited, and he remained the real controller of Chinese policy until his sudden and unexpected death in the first days of 1891. Some months earlier, in April, 1890, China had suffered a great loss in the Marquis Tseng, whose diplomatic experience and knowledge of Europe might have rendered his country infinite service in the future. He was the chosen colleague of Prince Chun, and he is said to have gained the ear of his young sovereign.

While willing to admit the superiority of European inventions, he was also an implicit believer in China's destiny and in her firmly holding her place among the greatest powers of the world. In December, 1890, also died Tseng Kwo Tsiuen, uncle of the marquis, and a man who had taken a prominent and honorable part in the suppression of the Taeping Rebellion.

In 1885 an important and delicate negotiation between England and China was brought to a successful issue by the joint efforts of Lord Salisbury and the Marquis Tseng. The levy of the lekin or barrier tax on opium had led to many exactions in the interior which were injurious to the foreign trade and also to the Chinese government, which obtained only the customs duty raised in the port. After the subject had been thoroughly discussed in all its bearings a convention was signed in London, on July 19, 1885, by which the lekin was fixed at eighty taels a chest, in addition to the customs due of thirty taels, and also that the whole of this sum should be paid in the treaty port before the opium was taken out of bond. This arrangement was greatly to the advantage of the Chinese government, which came into possession of a large revenue that had previously been frittered away in the provinces, and much of which had gone into the pockets of the mandarins. This subject affords the most appropriate place for calling attention to the conspicuous services rendered, as Director-general of Chinese Customs during more than thirty years, by Sir Robert Hart, who, on the premature death of Sir Harry Parkes, was appointed British Minister at Pekin, which post, for weighty reasons, he almost immediately resigned. It is impossible to measure the consequences and important effect of his conduct and personal influence upon the policy and opinion of China, while his work in the interests of that country has been both striking and palpable. To his efforts the central government mainly owes its large and increasing cash revenue, and when some candid Chinese historian sums up the work done for his country by foreigners, he will admit that, what Gordon did in war and Macartney in diplomacy, Hart accomplished in those revenue departments which are an essential element of strength, and we must hope that this truthful chronicler will also not forget to record that all these loyal servants were English, members of a race which, after fighting China fairly, frankly held out the hand of friends.h.i.+p and alliance. In connection with this subject it may be noted that the emperor issued an edict in 1890 formally legalizing the cultivation of opium, which, although practically carried on, was nominally illegal. An immediate consequence of this step was a great increase in the area under cultivation, particularly in Manchuria, and so great is the production of native opium now becoming that that of India may yet be driven from the field as a practical revenge for the loss inflicted on China by the compet.i.tion of Indian tea. But at all events these measures debar China from ever again posing as an injured party in the matter of the opium traffic. She has very rightly determined to make the best of the situation and to derive all the profit she can by taxing an article in such very general use and consumption; but there is an end to all representations like those made by prominent officials from Commissioner Lin to Prince Kung and Li Hung Chang, that the opium traffic was iniquitous, and const.i.tuted the sole cause of disagreement between China and England.

During these years the young Emperor Kw.a.n.gsu was growing up. In February, 1887, in which month falls the Chinese New Year, it was announced that his marriage was postponed in consequence of his delicate health, and it was not until the new year of 1889, when Kw.a.n.gsu was well advanced in his eighteenth year, that he was married to Yeh-ho-na-la, daughter of a Manchu general named Knei Hsiang, who had been specially selected for this great honor out of many hundred candidates. The marriage was celebrated with the usual state, and more than $5,000,000 is said to have been expended on the attendant ceremonies. At the same time the empress-regent issued her farewell edict and pa.s.sed into retirement, but there is reason to believe that she continued to exercise no inconsiderable influence over the young emperor.