LIBRARY CAUFORNIA SAN DIEGO -._ presented to the LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIF.GO by FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY Harriett Wimmer I n Meftioriam John Wimmer donor THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA : ;if 100 from i.r<- CHINESE EMPIRE From ^4 Way/arer in China by Elizabeth Kendall SCALE OK MII.I> r ft i N A S E A o 100 200 aoo 400 .wo ++**w Railroads S^ S O UTJ1___ TUB DEVELOPMENT OF C NA BY KENNETH SCOTT LATOURETTE FORMERLY OF THE COLLEGE OF YALE IN CHINA BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY KENNETH SCOTT LATOURETTE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published March iqrj THE author wishes to express his appreciation of the courtesy of Professor F. W. Williams, of Yale Univer- sity; Professor A. Fork6, of the University of California; and Professor W. F. Ogburn, of Reed College, to whose careful and kindly criticism is due a large part of any value that this book may have. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ix I. GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND OF CHINESE HISTORY . 1 El. ORIGIN AND FORMATIVE CENTURIES ... 15 HI. FROM THE HAN DYNASTY, THE END OF THE FORMA- TIVE PERIOD, TO THE FIRST WAR WITH ENGLAND, THE INITIAL SHOCK OF THE WESTERN IMPACT ON CHINA 40 IV. CHINESE CULTURE AT THE BEGINNING OF INTIMATE CONTACT WITH THE WEST 86 ( V. CHINA FROM ITS FULLER CONTACT WITH THE WEST TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN, 1834-1894 . . .139 VI. THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHINA, 1894-1916 174 VII. PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS OF CHINA .... 235 BIBLIOGRAPHY 261 INDEX . 269 INTRODUCTION THE eyes of the world are more and more turned toward China. We are coming to be profoundly interested in the fate of that great- est of Asiatic peoples. And it is well that we are. No other existing nation can look back over as long a past of continuous development as can China. When the foundations of Greece and Rome were being laid and when the great Hebrew prophets were in the midst of their ministry, a nation was being shaped and a civilization formed which have come down through the centuries with a comparatively unbroken history. There have been changes, but none of them as violent as those which have shaken the West during the same period. Only two other cultural groups that in India and that in the Mediterranean Basin have had as dominant an influence over as large a sec- tion of mankind. For Chinese culture has not only spread gradually over what is now China proper, with its three or four hundred million inhabitants, but it furnished the model for the old Japan, and has been to the widely scattered be INTRODUCTION peoples of the vast outlying sections of the Chinese Empire Mongolia, Manchuria, the New Territory, and Tibet what that of the Mediterranean world was to the Germanic peo- ples of Northern Europe. The history and the fate of a culture of such antiquity and of such influence, and of the people that could produce it, must be a matter of world interest. The Chinese are numerically the largest fairly homogeneous group of mankind. No one knows their exact number, but there are prob- ably between two hundred and fifty and four hundred millions of them. They form between a fifth and an eighth of the population of the globe. Their future cannot fail to be of vital significance to the entire world. This is es- pecially true since they are among the ablest of mankind, as is shown not only by their civiliza- tion, but by their industry, their thrift, their commercial ability, their physical vitality, and the achievements of their students in the uni- versities of the West. Chinese students in American universities have frequently carried off high scholastic honors in open competition with the flower of our youth. Mighty changes are taking place in China. It is undergoing a transformation whose re- INTRODUCTION suits no man can foresee. Those who know her best are the slowest to make dogmatic proph- ecies. It is certain, however, that the outcome will profoundly affect the entire world. The United States faces China from across the Pacific and will be especially interested. If Americans are not to blunder, if they are to make to the new China the unselfish contri- butions of which they are capable, if they are not to stumble into unnecessary conflict with Japan, if they are to share to the utmost in the trade and the industrial development of the new China, they must know her and must know her better than they do now. There are already many books on China in English, and a number of excellent histories. The author has felt, however, in his own teach- ing the need of a short sketch for college courses which devote, as is the case with most courses on the Far East in American institutions only six weeks or so to China; a sketch which in the light of the best modern scholarship will give the essential facts of Chinese history, an understanding of the larger features of China's development, and the historical setting of its present-day problems; a sketch which does not burden the student with unnecessary details of xi INTRODUCTION unfamiliar names and dates and which gives him the main movements that have led to the China of to-day. It is hoped that such a book will be of use as well to the general reader as an introduction to larger and more specialized works. The plan followed is: first, the develop- ment of China to the time when contact with Europeans first began to have a profound ef- fect on her, or about 1832; second, a descrip- tion of the civilization of China as it was before it had undergone the changes which have fol- lowed that contact; third, the history since the contact with Europeans; and fourth, the changes and the problems brought by that con- tact. At the end there has been added a brief critical bibliography for the use of students who may wish to go somewhat further into details than the text has done and who have neither the desire nor the leisure for the detailed works of specialists. A somewhat greater proportion of attention has been paid to American rela- tions with China than would have been wise had the book not been intended primarily for use in the United States. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA CHAPTER I GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND OF CHINESE HISTORY CHINA as we see it on the map is composed of two parts. The smaller and the more im- portant is China proper, or the Eighteen Prov- inces. Three provinces have been added in the last few decades by extending the provincial form of government to Manchuria. There are thus twenty-one in all, but Manchuria scarcely belongs geographically to China proper and it is better here still to speak of the eighteen as a unit. The larger borders on China proper and is made up of various districts that have been conquered at one time and another, usually in an endeavor to protect the Eighteen Provinces against attack and to extend China to its nat- ural boundaries. The Eighteen Provinces are the historic China and the main home of the Chinese people. The outlying districts, with the exception of Manchuria, have not been 1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA extensively settled by Chinese and are mostly semi-autonomous states inhabited by alien peoples. China proper is eminently fitted by nature to be the home of a great civilization. It has a soil of fabulous fertility. For thousands of years its best sections have been subjected to nearly continuous farming, and, thanks partly to the skill of the cultivators and partly to its own original strength, it still shows no signs of ex- haustion. In the North is the loess, very fertile, in places hundreds of feet deep, and probably built up by the dust from the plains of Central Asia carried south and east by the winds of many millenniums. In the central and north- eastern districts is the great alluvial plain formed of deposits laid down through the ages by the muddy waters of the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers. In other sections there are numerous smaller plains and valleys; as, for example, the valleys that debouch at Canton, and the highly cultivated area around Ch'engtu, 1 the capital of the chief province of West China. Added to the fertility of the soil is a favor- able climate. China lies almost entirely in the 1 For pronunciation of Chinese names see note on p. 117. 2 GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND temperate zone, which with its marked sea- sonal changes seems to be favorable to the development of a vigorous race. The summers are hot, and in places the humidity makes them enervating, but even in the South the winters bring a stimulus to greater activity. The heaviest rainfall comes as a rule in the late winter, spring, and summer when it is of most use to the growing crops. Then China proper is well supplied with rivers. It is, in fact, largely made up of the great valleys of the streams that drain the eastern slopes of the high plateau of Central Asia. These streams not only provide for ir- rigation where this is needed, but furnish easy and inexpensive means of communica- tion and transportation. Large ocean steam- ers go to-day without difficulty to Hankow, six hundred miles up the Yangtze River. The level stretches of the Great Plain the most densely populated section of China lend themselves readily to the construction of canals, so that the natural waterways have for generations been connected by artificial ones. The Grand Canal, designed originally to carry the tribute rice to the capital, reaches from Hangchow on the south to Peking on the north, THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA a distance of a thousand or twelve hundred miles. Even in these days of railroad trans- portation the streams seem destined to hold their own as an inexpensive means of moving bulky, imperishable freight. This facility of communication and the absence of serious mountain barriers have made it comparatively easy to unite the Eighteen Provinces and hold them together as one political, racial, cultural, and economic whole. China proper seems des- tined by nature to be the home of a united nation. It is significant that it is in the south- ern and western sections, separated from the North and subdivided within themselves by more marked mountain barriers than exist in the central and northern provinces, that the greatest variations of language and race ap- pear and that political unrest most frequently originates. The greatest differences in dialect are to be found in South and Southwest China and it is in these regions that rebellion against the centralized authority of the North has usually begun. China is richly supplied with minerals. The precious metals are not plentiful, but the min- erals used in industry are unusually abundant. Every one of the Eighteen Provinces has work- 4 GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND able deposits of coal, and in one province alone a German geologist has estimated that there is enough to last the entire world at the present rate of consumption for many cen- turies. There are extensive deposits of iron. Great fields of petroleum are known to exist. Antimony, tin, and copper are found in quan- tities. When one remembers that coal and iron are an indispensable basis of our modern industrial development, one sees how well China is fitted to take her place among the great manufacturing lands of the globe, es- pecially since these gifts of nature are supple- mented by an industrious, numerous, and in- telligent population, and an enormous supply of food products and raw materials. With this natural endowment it is not strange that the land has become the home of an able people, or that this people has achieved unity, and has given itself largely to the ma- terial side of life. The Chinese are primarily men of affairs, administrators, merchants, farmers. Their scholarship and religion have a preeminently practical turn. For this their natural surroundings seem in part responsible. The boundaries of China have had a great influence on her history and on the character 5 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA of her people and civilization. On the east is the Pacific Ocean which in the old days dis- couraged rather than encouraged commerce. No great peoples on its shores invited to inter- course. Even Japan had little to give in ex- change in trade. In the South, which was nearest India and the West, and where frequent harbors are to be found, there did indeed grow up some commerce. But until very recently the South has not been predominant in mould- ing Chinese life. To-day, the Pacific invites to commerce, and the Chinese in the future may not be as exclusively a landsman as he has been in the past. To-day the sea is a highway over which come commerce, invaders, and new ideas and influences. The steamship and the cable have made of it the path by which the new era has come to China. But until the last century the sea was a barrier across which but little trade made its way. It shielded China from outside influences and the Chinese showed little disposition to cross it. China's land boundaries reinforced her iso- lation. On the west, northwest, and southwest are great mountain chains, some of them among the highest in the world. They are but- tressed by vast elevated semi-arid plateaus. 6 GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND In the old days these formed barriers which shut her off from the rest of the civilized world, and were the homes of those nomadic peoples whose pressure into the fertile valleys to the east and south has been so large a factor in her history. The isolation was nearly complete. On the southeast and the northeast, to be sure, the barriers are not so effective, but until the last hundred years there were not in either of these directions peoples from whose culture China could learn much. A long caravan route led from the most northwesterly province, Kansu, across the plateaus and the mountains to the modern Turkestan, Persia, and the Near East. By this route commerce was carried on with Central and Western Asia and the Mediter- ranean world. By this route Buddhism first came to China, and the early travelers from Western Europe, the Venetian merchant Marco Polo and the Franciscan missionaries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, found their way to distant Cathay. Some Greek in- fluences, Nestorian Christianity, and other cultural contributions from the West came to China by this path. Relatively speaking, how- ever, the intercourse was scanty and intermit- 7 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA tent. Man and nature conspired to hinder the merchant and the traveler. The warlike no- mads of the Central Asiatic plateau made the journey perilous or impossible. At intervals strong rulers in China reduced the tribesmen to submission, and trade revived. The mighty generals of the Han and the T'ang dynasties maintained a fair semblance of order along the road. So did the Mongol and still later the Manchu emperors, but for the most part the fierce tribesmen and the petty states of the dis- trict made commerce dangerous or impossi- ble. Then, too, the route was a long one. From the western gate in the Great Wall that sepa- rated China proper from the lands of the no- mads it is between twelve and fifteen hundred miles to Kashgar and the eastern end of the pass that leads across the continental divide into what is now Asiatic Russia, the outposts of the Occident. These hundreds of miles are across deserts broken by infrequent oases. Even in earlier days when the rainfall through that arid region seems to have been greater than now, and when the oases were larger and more frequent, the journey was an arduous one. This isolation by land, added to the scanty 8 GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND access by sea, meant a number of things for China. In the first place, her older civilization received relatively few contributions from the outside. Some early influences may have come in from the ancient culture of the Euphrates- Tigris Valley. A few traces are found of Greek influence from the outlying fragments of Alex- ander's broken empire. Buddhism came in, and with it contributions of religion, art, philoso- phy, and language from India and Central and Southern Asia. The Arabs brought to Canton and other southern ports some knowledge and some products from the West. These con- tributions, however, with the exception of Buddhism and possibly some others in pre- historic times, had, as far as we now know, comparatively little influence on the forma- tion of Chinese culture. There was lacking that intimate contact between different cultural groups that has been so large a factor in the growth of the Mediterranean world and West- ern Europe. Our Western civilization is of composite origin. To it Babylonians, Egyp- tians, Cretans, Phoenicians, Persians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and Northern Europeans have all contributed. From Babylonia we get part of our moral code; from Egypt comes our 9 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA calendar; from Crete came much that shaped the Greek world; from the Phoenicians we get our alphabet; from the Persians came a stimulus to a simpler faith and the vision of a well-organized world-empire. The Hebrews have given us our religion; the Greeks the basis of our philoso- phy, our art, and our science; the Romans the foundations of much of our law and govern- ment; and the peoples of Northern Europe have given us our blood, our love of freedom, and our representative institutions. The stim- ulus that comes from the constant touch of one people and one cultural group with another, made possible by geographic conditions, ac- counts in no small degree for the progress of the West. Even the civilization of India owes more to outside influence than we have some- times thought. In China this stimulus has, until the present age, been almost entirely lacking. Its absence has meant that progress has been at a slower rate than in the West. It partly explains that retardation that has seemed to so many Westerners stagnation and even decline. The wonder is not that progress in civilization was slow, but that civilization con- tinued to exist. Chinese culture, produced al- most unaided by one race, is a monumental 10 GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND tribute to the ability of that race, and a sound basis for optimism for the future. This lack of intimate contact with other cul- tural groups bred in the Chinese a feeling of intense pride and disdain. They had known no other people with a civilization equal to their own. Outside races, as far as they were aware, had derived from the Middle Kingdom what culture they possessed. Japan and Korea, for example, had copied the arts, the literature, the religion, and the government of their larger neighbor. What wonder that the Chinese, es- pecially the educated Chinese, should have a profound contempt for foreigners ! To him they were barbarians. They were tributary to his emperor. If at times they overran the Middle Kingdom, they did so only to be assimilated and to lose in time their racial and cultural identity. It was but natural that at first Eu- ropeans should be regarded as another group of barbarians who had nothing to teach the Celes- tial Empire, and who, even if they triumphed by force of arms, would in time return home or be absorbed or become tributary to the Son of Heaven. It was but natural that for decades, even after their first disastrous de- feats at the hands of Europeans, the Chinese 11 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA should refuse to adopt Western methods or make use of Western inventions and learning. It was but natural that they should be outdis- tanced by Japan. Japan, in addition to being smaller and more highly centralized, had been accustomed through the centuries to adopt and adapt to her needs the alien culture of China and found no especial difficulty in treat- ing similarly the civilization of Europe. China had no such precedent. All her precedents were, in fact, to the contrary. As a result she was slow to awake and begin adjusting herself to the new era. The great land barriers that shut m China from the rest of the civilized world have as well been the homes of those nomadic or semi- nomadic peoples who are such a constant factor in her history. Central Asia has been the source of those waves of invasion that from time to time have swept down into Western Asia and Europe. Huns, Turks, and Mongols, to men- tion only a few, have in turn burst out of the East and carried devastation to the West. But these peoples had their homes nearer China than Europe and pressed far more insistently on the occupants of the fertile valleys and plains of the Middle Kingdom. It is but a part 12 GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND of that struggle that has been so frequent a factor in human history, the effort of the people of the hills and the deserts to obtain possession of fertile, well-watered valleys, and the more sunny lands of the South. Egypt, the Tigris- Euphrates Valley, the Mediterranean world of Imperial Rome, each had much the same ex- perience. Yueh Chi, Hiung Nu (probably identical with the Huns), Tatars, Mongols, Manchus, and many others have each in turn pressed southward and ruled for a time part or all of China. Each in turn was partially or entirely assimilated by the conquered, and over each in turn the Chinese reasserted their independence. So constant and so powerful a factor has left its indelible impress on Chinese history and on the Chinese of to-day. Fre- quent infusions of the blood of the peoples of the uplands have gradually modified the orig- inal stock. In the North where the mixture has been more marked the people differ materially in appearance and language from their kinsmen in the South. The Great Wall, extending for hundreds of miles along the northern marches, is an impressive monument to the defense measures of the Chinese government. Mon- golia, Sinkiang, and Tibet, most of the vast 13 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA districts of the empire that fringe the Eighteen Provinces, were conquered by vigorous mon- archs largely in the effort to prevent future invasions by reducing the barbarians to sub- mission in their own homes. The Han, the T'ang, the Yuan, and the Ta Ch'ing dynasties each carried the war into the enemies' territory and secured peace by adding their lands to the imperial domain. Such is the geographical setting of Chinese history. It is now our duty to enter upon the narrative of that history itself. CHAPTER II ORIGIN AND FORMATIVE CENTURIES THE origin of the Chinese people and of their culture is shrouded in obscurity. Chi- nese annals know of none other than an in- digenous source. Foreign scholars have spent much time on the problem, but have as yet failed to trace any definite, undisputed line of descent to immigrants. One interesting theory, supported by some brilliant students, attempts to assign the earliest Chinese culture to the Sumerians, the founders of the civiliza- tion of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. Accord- ing to this theory the first Chinese came over- land from this ancient valley, and brought with them the foundations of the culture and or- ganization of the Middle Kingdom. Many curi- ous parallels have been drawn between Chinese civilization and that of the Sumerians, parallels that are too numerous and too striking to be lightly dismissed. We must wait for further discoveries in China and Central Asia before we dare give a final opinion. We do know, however, that Chinese culture first definitely 15 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA appears in what is now North Central China. It is significant that this is where the trade routes across Central Asia from the West enter China, and that Chinese civilization is not as old as that of the ancient centers of the Western world. One cannot help but suspect something more than a coincidence. In the beginnings of Chinese history it is difficult, as in that of all peoples, to separate the mythical from the true. Native historians profess to take us. back to three thousand years or more before Christ and to give us a long list of the monarchs who reigned from then to the better-known, historical periods. Some of these characters like Romulus and Remus were more real to later generations than many whose existence is better authenticated. Every Chi- nese schoolboy is familiar with the names of Yao, Shun, and Yii, the last of whom is said to have drained the land of a great flood and to have founded the first dynasty. 1 This dynasty and a second 2 passed, however, before we come to a point where we feel ourselves on fairly solid ground. Each of these two dynasties is reported to have fallen as the re- sult of the wickedness of a final representative 1 Hsia. 2 Shang. 16 FORMATIVE CENTURIES who gave himself to debauchery and misgov- ernment. A few bronze utensils have come down to us from these ages, and attempts have been made to reconstruct critically an accurate picture of the culture they represented, but very few facts are as yet certain. We do know that during these centuries the Chinese people were gradually spreading from their home in North Central China, driving out or absorbing the earlier non-Chinese inhabitants of the land, and slowly developing in culture. When we come to the third dynasty, that of the name of Chou, we find ourselves on firmer ground. The date usually given for its begin- ning is 1122 B.C. It was founded by a group of vigorous men. The prince of the feudatory states of Chou, Wen Wang, protested against the misrule of the decaying dynasty. He was imprisoned for his pains and was released only on payment of a heavy ransom. After his death his son Wu Wang raised the standard of revolt to avenge his father and to end tyranny. He became the first emperor of the new dynasty. The brother of Wu Wang, known to posterity as the Duke of Chou, consolidated the power of the new royal house while acting as regent for the second emperor. The names of these 17 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA three men, Wen Wang, Wu Wang, and Chou Kung, 1 have come down to posterity as house- hold names, lauded by the Classics and by orthodox scholars of all the centuries. So well had the founders done their work that the family held the throne until 256 B.C. This nearly nine centuries of rule is, with but one exception, that of the ruling house of Japan, longer than any other known to history. By the time the Chou dynasty began, Chinese civilization had already begun to take on very definite characteristics. The govern- ment was patriarchal and was under the em- peror, the Son of Heaven, in whose hands was centered the power of the state. The state was divided, however, into hereditary principali- ties, over which succeeding emperors exerted less and less authority. The people were al- ready living a settled agricultural life. Irriga- tion was in use, intensive farming was prac- ticed, and a carefully ordered system of land tenure had been worked out. Religion con- sisted partly in animism, the worship of spir- its in natural objects, in the earth, the air, the 1 "Wu" means "military" and "Wang," "king." "Wen" means "literature" or "civilization." "Kung" means "duke." 18 FORMATIVE CENTURIES water, partly in the veneration of ancestors, and partly in a belief in a Supreme Being. There was a system of divination, part of which consisted in heating bones and tortoise shells and in the interpretation of the future and the will of Heaven by the cracks left on the surface in the process of cooling. There were the beginnings of writing, the first of those characters that have been developed into the written Chinese language of to-day. There was a vigorous rude art that has come down to us in the form of sacrificial vessels, decorated with the figures of mythical monsters, among them the predecessors of the familiar dragon and phcenix of Chinese art of to-day. The family was the strongest social unit, as indeed it has been through all the changes of the succeeding centuries. During the nearly nine centuries of the Chou dynasty, Chinese culture continued to develop and took on more and more the forms of thought and social organization that are the foundations of the China of to-day. The race gradually expanded into new territories. In the process of expansion, however, and as weaker rulers succeeded the vigorous founders of the dynasty, the authority of the emperor 19 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA declined until it became a mere shadow. The government was increasingly decentralized, and fell into the hands of the territorial princes. China was, in fact, gradually resolved into a group of many states, virtually inde- pendent of each other, owing only a nominal allegiance to the emperor, and organized on a basis corresponding somewhat to the feudal system of Europe. The constitution of the China of the Chou dynasty has been compared, not inaptly, to that of the Germany of the early eighteenth century. But for later devel- opments China might have separated perma- nently into a number of independent nations of closely related language and culture, and so have come to resemble ancient Greece or modern Europe. There were the beginnings of formal international law and even of di- versity of culture. Wars were frequent, both between the states and with the neighboring non-Chinese peoples. Some of the latter were beginning to adopt Chinese manners and to be gradually incorporated into the Chinese race. The dynasty is especially noteworthy, how- ever, for its literature and for vigorous thinkers and seers whose influence has moulded all suc- ceeding generations. The Chinese written lan- 20 FORMATIVE CENTURIES guage took on a form that with some modifica- tions has persisted until to-day. The literary language of the period differs no more and pos- sibly less from the literary language of to-day than does the English of Chaucer from the Eng- lish of the twentieth century. The founders of the dynasty had begun the organization of schools and had encouraged scholarship by choosing officials through competitive exam- inations. Partly as a result of these schools and partly as the result of the principle that the prince must govern by the aid of the most in- telligent and best-educated men of his domains, there grew up a class of men who were at once statesmen, scholars, and philosophers. Most of these had given themselves to public life as administrators or as advisers of princes, and looked at ethics, philosophy, literature, and all formal learning from the standpoint of men who are interested first of all in the welfare of society. The names of numbers of philosophers have come down to us. Three of these, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Mencius, are in their in- fluence on posterity so much more important than the others, that we must pause to de- scribe them. Of Lao Tzu but little is known. Some 21 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA scholars have even questioned his existence. We do not know exactly when he lived, al- though one insistent tradition puts him in the sixth century B.C. as an older contemporary of Confucius. We are not at all sure that the book ascribed to him 1 was written by him or that it contains any of his exact words. His teaching was apparently rather obscure, and consisted partly in an insistence that true peace was to be attained only by ceasing to strive and by ordering one's life by the fundamental principles embodied in the older Chinese term "Tao," meaning "way" or "road." For the material trappings of civilization he had but little use. Civilization to his mind had largely failed, and he saw the cure apparently in mys- ticism and a return to a simpler, less formally cultured life. The faith that grew up from his teachings is called "Taoism." We shall later see how this faith, always too mysterious and too difficult of understanding to be followed by the masses, underwent a complete transforma- tion and to-day preserves but little if any of the spirit of its founder. Of Confucius (551-479 B.C.) we know a great deal more. He was born in a feudal state, 2 in 1 The Tao Teh Ching. 2 Lu. 22 FORMATIVE CENTURIES what is now the Province of Shantung. Part of his life was spent in administrative offices and his outlook was always that of an official. His ethics, his religion, his entire thought had running through them the desire to direct all learning, all art, and all religious ceremonies to the service of society. His most important office was that of prime minister in his native state, and in a truly characteristic manner that ministry was ended by his resignation when his prince began to give himself to sensual indulgence and to neglect the affairs of state. He gathered around him a group of pupils, whom he carefully instructed, always with the aim of producing men of cultured character for the service of the state. From the plentiful sayings that have come down from him, col- lected by his faithful disciples, we see a man of keen moral insight and high purpose, per- sistent, well poised, reserved, with a belief in a ruling Providence, but speaking of it so little that he has been regarded by many as an ag- nostic, and preserving a discreet reticence on the subject of the popular superstitions and worship of the times. He deplored the current disorders and sought the cure for them in a return to the principles of the great philoso- 23 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA pher-monarchs of antiquity. He claimed for himself no originality, but desired merely to transmit and interpret the best of the past. Perhaps this voluntary identification with the best of the scholarly traditions of the nation accounts in part for his influence on China. He is the embodiment and the model of that class of statesmen-scholars that has moulded China. A name associated closely with that of Con- fucius is Mencius. He was born in 372 B.C., not far from the birthplace of Confucius. He was an ardent admirer of his great predecessor, but did not give himself to slavish imitation. An original thinker, he was a profound believer in the native goodness of human nature, and bat- tled manfully with rival philosophers who be- lieved in original sin, either in the form of total depravity or as an admixture with original goodness. Possibly as a corollary to this con- viction he believed much more in the ordinary man than did Confucius and distinctly held that the subject had the right to rebel against a tyrannous prince. For that reason he was more highly in favor with the revolutionists of 1912 than was his more conservative master. The chief literature of the Chou dynasty has 24 FORMATIVE CENTURIES come down to us in what are usually known as the " Classics." These are the Four Books and the Five Canons. The Four Books are the ' * Ana- lects," * the sayings of Confucius and his dis- ciples, the "Doctrine of the Mean" 2 and the "Great Learning," 3 two short treatises on ethical culture compiled by successors of Con- fucius, and the "Book of Mencius," 4 com- prising the teachings of that philosopher. The Five Canons are the "Canon of Changes " ; 5 the "Canon of History," 6 a compilation by Con- fucius of the historical records of the past as he found them; the "Canon of Odes," 7 also com- piled by Confucius, a collection of the odes and ballads current among the people of the time; the "Canon of Rites," 8 a collection of rules describing the ceremonial code of the private man; and the "Spring and Autumn Annals," 9 or the annals of Confucius's native state, com- piled by the great teacher himself, a rather dry chronicle much expanded by later commenta- tors. These Classics have become the standard literature of the nation. Although they are per- haps scarcely looked upon by the Chinese as 1 Lun YU. Chung Yung. 3 Ta Hsioh. 4 Meng Tzu Shu. I Ching. Shu Ching. 7 Shih Ching. 8 Li Chi. Ch'un Ch'iu. 25 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA records divinely inspired, they form the closest parallel to the sacred books of other peoples. The Chou dynasty is notable not only as a period of vigorous thinking, but as one of active internal commerce. The various states strove to strengthen themselves by encouraging trade. Foreign commerce may even have grown up across the caravan routes of Central Asia, and Chinese products may have found their way to the West and Western ideas and objects to China. Toward the end of the dynasty changes began to take place which were to lead to the consolidation of China and the formation of the Chinese imperial government much as we know it to-day. The closing centuries of the dynasty are known technically as the period of the " Contending States." The different prin- cipalities that made up the empire fell to war- ring with one another on a gigantic scale with fearful results in carnage and in destruction of property. The imperial dignity was reduced to a shadow. Gradually by sheer strength and skill out of the struggle emerged as a leader the state of Ch'in. After years of warfare it suc- ceeded in conquering the other states, in put- ting an end to the remnants of the power of the 26 FORMATIVE CENTURIES Chou dynasty, and in giving its name to a new dynasty which ruled from 255 to 206 B.C. This state of Ch'in was situated in Northwest China, and had developed its military strength in guarding the frontiers against the nomads of the desert. It is quite probable that it embod- ied strong strains of nomad blood. It had cer- tainly evolved a superior military and political organization and by force of merit had suc- ceeded in making its ruler the master of the empire. The princes of Ch'in, after subduing the other states, finally assumed the imperial throne made vacant by deposing the last of the Chou monarchs. The first of the new line to take the title of emperor is one of the greatest rulers of history. He was not only a vigorous warrior, but an able administrator. He felt it to be necessary to found the Chinese state entirely anew. To this end he wished to abol- ish the last traces of feudalism and to make of the empire a highly centralized monarchy. He called himself the " First Emperor," * as he ap- parently wished to divorce the new imperial title and functions from the traditions of the help- lessness of the later rulers of the house of Chou. He even went to the extreme of at- 1 Shih Hwang, or Ch'in Shih Hwang, as he is better known. 27 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA tempting to destroy most of the existing liter- ature of the preceding ages. Apparently the old order was to his mind so hopeless that it was better to destroy all records of it and to start afresh. Copies of the existing books were not so numerous but that it was possible to collect most of them for burning. He vigor- ously defended the northern frontiers against the invasions of the nomadic peoples and com- pleted the Great Wall, that artificial barrier which stretches for so many hundred miles along the northern boundaries of the Eighteen Provinces, the mightiest piece of construction done by hands of men until the nineteenth century. Beside it the seven wonders of antiq- uity dwindle into comparative insignificance. It is a happy coincidence that from the word "Ch'in" our word "China" is probably de- rived, for to this vigorous monarch of that state and dynasty must be given the credit for the first union of China in a form resembling that in which we now know it. At least one connection with the past he did not break. Taoism as it came from the hands of its founder was not a cult for the mass of the common people. It was too abstruse and too mystical. It early began to decline from its 28 FORMATIVE CENTURIES pristine purity and fell largely into the hands of demon exorcists and of searchers for physi- cal immortality. These strove to find the elixir of life and to drive out the demons that to the mass of the Chinese then as now are omnipres- ent and the cause of disease and death. To this degenerate doctrine of Taoism, a doctrine that with modifications has come down to the pres- ent, the First Emperor gave willing and fearful heed. Its survival may be partly due to his patronage. Nor was this vigorous ruler op- posed to learning as such. His opposition was only to the reactionary form that he felt it had taken during the past few centuries. Under him writing was further developed, and the invention of the writing brush and the fore- runner of paper are ascribed to his reign. Other phases of the national life aroused his interest. He encouraged commerce. He was a great builder. He was a vigorous administrator of justice. Because he antagonized the so-called " Conf ucianists," he has not been popular with orthodox Chinese historians, but he was one of the greatest creative minds and one of the most vigorous rulers that the nation has pro- duced. His achievement in uniting China is in some respects greater than would have been 29 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA that of Charlemagne had he succeeded in weld- ing together Western Europe so permanently that the subsequent disunion into warring nations would have been impossible. The effort of uniting the empire seems to have exhausted the house of Ch'in. The feeble successors of the First Emperor could not hold together the dominions of their illustrious pro- genitor. When once the heavy hand of the strong man had been withdrawn, the latent dissatisfaction with the new order of things broke out. The old feudal princes strove to regain their power and to restore the system by which they had profited during the last days of the Chou. The scholars of the old school that had been ruthlessly opposed by the Ch'in were still numerous and influential. Civil strife broke out; the Ch'in dynasty disappeared, and for a number of years war was the order of the day. So thoroughly had the First Emperor's work been done, however, that the anarchy of the later years of the Chou could not perma- nently return. Out of the struggle emerged the founder of a new dynasty, the Han. This dynasty lasted, with a marked division caused by a usurpation early in the first century A.D., from 206 B.C. to 214 A.D., and its four centuries SO FORMATIVE CENTURIES are among the most notable in the annals of China. The work of consolidation begun by the First Emperor was carried on and com- pleted. That strong man's policy of vigorous centralization which had aroused so much op- position was followed, but in a milder form. The feudalism of the Chou was reinstituted, but was much modified and curtailed. The power of the emperor was supreme and under a number of vigorous monarchs became increas- ingly such in practice as well as in theory. The system of civil-service examinations, so promi- nent in later dynasties, was partly developed and became for the first time a prominent feature of the constitution of the state and a means of strengthening the central power. By these examinations candidates for office were chosen, not on the basis of birth, but of merit and education. The system led to a bureau- cracy, admission to which was competitive, a bureaucracy which centered in the emperor and strengthened his power in contrast with that of the local hereditary chieftains. Care was taken to give to the new dynasty the forms and the sanctions of antiquity. The learned men, so frowned on by the First Emperor, were encouraged to come out of hiding. Confucius 31 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA was accorded higher official honors than in any preceding age, partly perhaps because it was seen that in him, a revered teacher of an- tiquity, there was a real friend of benevolent absolutism, and partly to win the support of the influential scholar class and to use them through the civil-service system to offset the power of the local princes. The constitution of the Han, while not so radical a departure from the past nor so highly centralized as that of the First Emperor, was built on the model fur- nished by him. It has endured, with natural developments and modifications, but un- changed as to essentials, through all the chang- ing centuries, and is to be found at the basis of the political organization of even the new China. The Han period was as well one of extensive conquests and territorial expansion, largely under the direction of the ruler who is rightly called the "Military Emperor." l At the acces- sion of the dynasty China included roughly only that part of the Eighteen Provinces which lies west of the great western province of Szechuan and in and to the north of the 1 Wu Ti, known as Han Wu Ti, to distinguish him from emperors of other dynasties with the same title. 32 FORMATIVE CENTURIES Yangtze Valley. Under the generals of the Han the Chinese conquests were extended until the boundaries of the empire inclosed nearly if not quite as large an area as that occupied by its Western contemporary, the Roman power, at its height. On the south and southwest they reached beyond what is now the southwestern boundary of China, and into what were later to become the southwestern and western prov- inces (Yunnan, Kweichow, and Szechuan). These sections were not at this time to be per- manently incorporated into Chinese territory. That was to be postponed for some centuries. But they were marked out as part of the logical possession of the Chinese. On the north, part of what is now Southern Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and Northern Korea was subdued. But the great wars of the times were against the nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples of the North and Northwest, some of whom were probably the ancestors of the Huns who were later to work havoc in Europe. In a series of campaigns these were pushed back or subju- gated. This apparently was done, partly to rid China of her traditional invaders, and partly to open up the overland trade routes to the West. In our own day intrepid exploration has 33 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA brought to light the fortified outposts of the Han generals, extensive, long-abandoned fron- tier walls so situated that they could protect the Chinese end of the road to the Occident. Along this overland route there was inter- course with the West. Just how extensive it was we do not know. It must at best have been difficult. The great distances, the elevation of the passes, the desert nature of much of the road, and the dangers from robbers must have prevented it from growing to any great vol- ume. Chinese products we know went to the West. Roman ladies wore Chinese silks, and other products that combined light weight and small bulk with large value found their way to the markets of Egypt, Syria, and Rome. Chinese travelers penetrated as far as the Persian Gulf and brought back some knowl- edge of the Roman Orient. Traces of Greek culture left in the wake of the conquests of Alexander long survived in Persia and in the districts to the northwest of India. Some of them made their influence felt in China. Grapes, for instance, and glass, seem to have been introduced to China during this period, and grapes at least are called in Chinese by what is probably a modification of their Greek 34 FORMATIVE CENTURIES name. There was some Greek and Central Asiatic influence on art. The most influential foreign contribution of the period, however, was Buddhism. Gautama Buddha, the founder of the faith, had lived and taught in India at about the time that Confucius was teaching in China. He repre- sented a development from the older Indian faith, the predecessor of present-day Hindu- ism. After a long search for the light through the traditional religious channels of his time, and after long struggles and agony of soul, he came out into a peace and a joy that with the enthusiasm of a discoverer he tried to commu- nicate to others. His teaching, briefly summa- rized, was as follows: Human life is filled with suffering. Suffering is caused by desire, desire for the gratification of the senses, for prosperity, and for an eternal life of bliss. If one would be rid of suffering he must rid himself of its cause. Desire, Gautama taught, was to be conquered by following an eight-fold path. This path especially emphasized a life filled with self- forgetful, loving service and righteous deeds. If the eight-fold path were faithfully followed it would lead to the extinction of desire, Bud- dhahood (enlightenment), or Nirvana. As 35 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA taught by Gautama the system was not in the strict sense of the word a religion. One was neither to look for nor to receive divine aid in achieving enlightenment, or salvation. There was no ever-present, unchanging, supreme God. The gods of the older faiths might have an actual existence, but like man they were subject to change and were inferior to the en- lightened man. They had best be ignored. A life of righteousness, of self-forgetful, loving service, was the only life that would avail to free one from the chain of existence and suffering. After Gautama's death his teachings under- went great modifications. His way of life and the spiritual rebirth it necessitated could be intelligently followed only by the few. His doctrines were popularized and were patron- ized by the state, but in the process they be- came the foundation of Buddhism, a religion, which, while professing loyalty to the simple ethical teachings of the founder, differed from them materially and deified Gautama. This transformation proceeded with the years until the founder would hardly have recognized the system that bore his name. In some states to the northwest of India it underwent still fur- 36 FORMATIVE CENTURIES ther transformations l and in its art at least came under Greek influence. These states to the northwest of India were directly in touch with China by the overland trade routes opened up by the Han generals, and it was only natural that Buddhism should find its way to China. This it did as early as the first century after Christ. It did not, however, achieve an immediate, widespread popularity, and it was some centuries before it obtained a firm foot- hold. The Han dynasty, with its long period of peace and unified rule, was marked by an ad- vance in many elements of Chinese culture. Literature was highly developed. The written character took on the form which it has kept, with only slight modifications, to the present time. The literary style then developed is still a standard and is greatly admired and even followed by present-day writers. Histories were composed, among them one of the most famous ever produced by a Chinese, 2 one which will compare favorably with the works of the great Greek and Roman historians. The 1 Especially under the King Kanishka, of the Kushan dynasty. 1 That by Ssu Ma Ch'ien, now partially translated into French and edited by E. Chavannes. (See Bibliography.) 37 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA i writings of Confucius were recovered and edited, and extensive commentaries were writ- ten on them. Under state patronage, the Con- fucian school became more and more dominant among the intellectual classes. Its teachings, it is true, underwent modifications and reflect the influence of the current Taoist thought, but in their essentials they held firmly to the spirit of the great sage. Taoism, in the corrupt form it had taken on in the days preceding the Ch'in dynasty, was extremely popular. With its demonology and with its promise of immor- tality it appealed to the popular mind, for then as now the mass of the people were profoundly superstitious and craved a more definite an- swer to the problem of life beyond the grave than was supplied by the pragmatic school of Confucianism. Painting developed, although no examples of the work of the time have come down to us. Sculpture was in wide use, as the many examples that still exist testify. It was of a very different type from that of to-day, for it had not yet been influenced materially by Indian Buddhistic art. Great developments were made in the potter's art. True paper was possibly made for the first time, and naturally helped in the dissemination of thought. Alto- 38 FORMATIVE CENTURIES gether the Han dynasty covers one of the main formative periods of Chinese culture. The China of the later ages then first took definite form, and it is likely that a Chinese of the early nineteenth century would have had but little more difficulty in feeling at home in the Han period, had he by any chance found himself transferred there, than would an Englishman of the Early Victorian period in the age of Elizabeth. CHAPTER III FROM THE HAN DYNASTY, THE END OP THE FORMATIVE PERIOD, TO THE FIRST WAR WITH ENGLAND, THE INITIAL SHOCK OF THE WESTERN IMPACT ON CHINA AFTER more than four centuries of rule the Han dynasty became hopelessly corrupt and inefficient. Once in the first century after Christ it had been so weak that a usurper 1 had succeeded for a time in seizing the reins of power, but it had enjoyed a rebirth and for a time its glory seemed as great as ever. During the second century after Christ, however, the dynasty gave indications which show the astute observer that it was about to forfeit permanently its right to the imperial title. The emperors were elevated to the throne during boyhood or even infancy and were dominated by regents. The power of the palace eunuchs increased, always a sign in China of dynastic weakness. Misrule became fearfully evident and rebellion arose. The empire was divided into warring states and Chinese unity and the Han dynasty disappeared. 1 Wang Mang. 40 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 Then followed nearly four centuries of dis- union characterized by civil strife and foreign invasion. First was what is known to the Chinese as the period of the ''Three King- doms." The empire broke into three parts, each with its prince, and each struggling for the mastery. One of these parts perpetuated for a time the Han name. Great generals were developed and mighty deeds of strategy and prowess were performed. 1 It is a period looked back upon by later generations as one of ad- venture and military skill and is renowned in song and story. But continued division meant continued weakness. Short-lived rival dynas- ties arose, each seeking to conquer the other. One or two achieved a complete or a nearly complete union of all China, only to disappear in a few years. Non-Chinese peoples on the north and west took advantage of the disunion and increased the disorder by repeated inva- sions and conquests. They established them- selves in North China, and for a time the coun- try was divided by the Yangtze River between 1 The most famous man of the time was Chu Ko Liang, prime minister and general of the kingdom in West China which perpetuated the Han name. He subdued the wild tribes of the West and waged successful war against rival Chinese states. He was noted for his strategy and his invention of war machines. 41 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA the non-Chinese states on the north and the dominions of the native Chinese on the south. It was one of the many times in which a polit- ical division has existed between the North and the South. A difference in spirit and tradi- tion exists to-day, in spite of political unity, and is one of China's ever-present problems. The non-Chinese invaders adopted Chinese customs and were assimilated by their more civilized subjects. They left permanent traces of their conquests in a large infusion of blood and in a modification of the language. The Chinese of the North are still racially and lin- guistically different from those of the South. They are larger physically, and the dialects of the two sections are often so different as to be mutually unintelligible. It is interesting to remember that about this time a similar con- quest of the civilized Roman Empire was being made by Northern barbarians, and that the Huns who had a share in that conquest were probably closely related in blood to some of the peoples who were overrunning North China. It would only be introducing useless confu- sion into a work of this length to enumerate the dynasties and states and the famous rulers, 42 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 generals, statesmen, scholars, and priests of these centuries of disunion. It was not, how- ever, a period barren of progress in civilization. Occasional ruling houses were able to main- tain peace over limited sections for long periods. Under them the arts of peace flour- ished. Strangers were coming from the out- side; new blood and possibly new ideas were coming in with the Northern invaders. It was a period of flux when the hold of the past on the nation was weakened and new ideas were being eagerly welcomed. China was probably more open-minded and plastic than it was again to be until the twentieth century. The strong- est moulding influence from abroad was Bud- dhism. It was important, not alone for its re- ligious effect, great as that was, but for the cultural influences from Central Asia and from India for which it was the vehicle. While Bud- dhism had come in during the Han dynasty, it had not achieved wide popularity. During the centuries of disunion, however, it found a dif- ferent reception. Many Buddhist priests now arrived from India. Some came by the overland route across Central Asia, others by sea to the southern ports of China. They translated the Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and revised 43 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA existing translations. They were welcomed as a rule with great cordiality, for not only were the people more receptive to new ideas in gen- eral, but a religious awakening had taken place in China after the downfall of the Han. It had shown itself in a decline in the popularity of the less mystical Confucian school and in a more enthusiastic adherence to the more mystical Taoism. Although at times vigorously op- posed by reactionary monarchs and by Con- fucian scholars, the more highly organized Buddhism, with its impressive ritual, its elab- orate philosophy, its well-organized priest- hood, its popularized system of ethics, and its ready tolerance of non-Buddhist beliefs, achieved on the whole a widespread acceptance among people and rulers. Chinese were for the first time allowed to take the vows of the Bud- dhist priesthood. Chinese monks traveled to In- dia to visit Buddhism in its native country and to bring back relics and manuscripts of sacred works. 1 The earliest and most famous of these, Fa Hsien, spent fourteen years in a most ardu- 1 Buddhism was at this time gradually disappearing from India. It was in part obliterated by persecution and it was in part absorbed by orthodox Hinduism. It is interesting to note that its period of rapid expansion into Eastern Asia coincides with the period of decline in the land of its birth. 44 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 ous and hazardous journey, going out by way of Central Asia and returning by sea to the south coast of China with his coveted scriptures. The narrative of his adventures and observa- tions still makes interesting reading and is one of the best sources for the history of mediaeval India. Buddhism was becoming acclimatized in China and was ceasing to be so evidently exotic. As time went on Buddhist influence was seen not only in the winning of active adherents, but in its effects on native cults as well. Taoism copied the Buddhist priesthood and monastic life. In imitation of Buddhism it erected tem- ples and created a pantheon, raising Chinese worthies to the divine rank and representing them by images. Its ideas of the future life conformed more and more closely to the Bud- dhist heaven and hell. Even Confucianism felt the influence, much as during the Han dynasty it had been modified by Taoism. Both then and in succeeding centuries the philosophy of Confucian thinkers was to show the effect of contact with Buddhism, now in a vigorous reaction from it and now in the adoption of some of its ideas. Confucian temples were increasingly erected and images or tablets of 45 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Confucius and prominent Confucian scholars were placed in them, partly, it seems likely, in an attempt to compete with Taoist and Buddhist shrines. The spread of Buddhism is important from the religious and philosophical standpoint, but it is also highly important because of the other cultural contributions that now reached China. It was a vehicle on which came many innovations from India. Buddhist art had a profound influence. The images in the temples, the pictures of saints, with their traditional Buddhist forms, pagodas, and temples, all tes- tified to the contact with the foreigner. Like many other things that have come to them from without during the centuries, the Chinese made Buddhism their own and modified its art and its theology, but the foreign influence is still very apparent. It is interesting to observe that some Greek art, through its influence on Buddhist iconography in Central Asia, has penetrated China, although it was so altered that the connection has only recently been disclosed. All told, Chinese life was profoundly modified by Buddhism and other foreign contributions that came with it, more profoundly, probably, than it has been during 46 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 historic times by any foreign civilization until the present era. Buddhism did not stop at the boundaries of China. It spread to Korea and in the sixth cen- tury even reached Japan. In Japan it became the first great civilizing influence that had touched the vigorous peoples of those islands. Chinese as well as Indian culture came with it, and the Land of the Rising Sun became a civi- lized state, looking up to its great continental neighbors as a model. The period of disunion which had begun in A.D. 214 was not to last forever. A general who had served the monarch of one of the states into which the empire was divided, revolted, and succeeded in uniting all China under his sway. In 589 he founded a dynasty, 1 but this, somewhat like the Ch'in dynasty that pre- ceded the Han, did not outlast two decades. In 620 it collapsed before the insurrection of another general who, with the aid of one of the groups of Northern nomads, made himself master of the imperial throne and established a new dynasty that was to last for nearly three centuries (618 to 907). This dynasty, the 1 The Sui. 47 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA T'ang, is a name to be remembered. Under it China reached a high eminence of power and culture. It extended Chinese territory, made possible a great development in civilization, and the Chinese race became more numerous and prosperous than at any preceding time in its history. This dynasty coincided with a period of general decline and weakness in the Mediterranean world, and for a while China was probably the greatest state in the world. The territorial conquests of the T'ang were extensive. The hardy peoples of Central Asia and Mongolia were reduced to submission. China's protection was sought by and extended to a declining royal house in Persia. Tibet had recently adopted Buddhism and had been con- solidated into a state. It was brought by the T'ang into a close tributary alliance with China, and Chinese civilization penetrated it and influenced it largely. The T'ang power even made itself felt decisively in Northern India. The southern portion of modern Man- churia was conquered. Korea, after one un- successful attempt, was reduced to a group of trib utary states . South China was incorporated into the empire. It had been invaded by the Ch'in and the Han, but the conquest was now 48 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 renewed and made permanent. The Chinese rule was even extended over much of the present French Indo-China (Tongking and Annam). The great monarch under whom most of this territorial expansion took place was T'ai Tsung, or T'ang T'ai Tsung, as he is usually designated to distinguish him from emperors of the same name in other dynasties. T'ang T'ai Tsung is considered by many Chinese scholars to be the greatest monarch that the nation has ever had. He was unquestionably the most powerful man in the world of his day and deserves to be ranked among the mighti- est monarchs of the ages. He was followed by a vigorous woman l who successively ruled three nominal emperors. She reminds one strongly of the great empress dowager of the Manchu dynasty. 2 Under her and with the aid of the generals trained in the preceding reign, the conquests of T'ai Tsung were main- tained and even extended. The control of these two vigorous monarchs over China to- gether covered nearly eighty years. Under them the dynasty was so firmly established that it maintained itself until 907 in spite of frequent rebellions and weak rulers. 1 Wu Fu. 2 See below, p. 157. 49 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Under the T'ang Chinese culture reached a new height of development. Taoism was fa- vored by the rulers partly because of the fan- cied descent of the dynasty from the founder of the sect. It had by this time largely taken on the form so well known to-day, a mixture of its primitive mysticism, now an almost negligible element, of the demon exorcism and search for the elixir of life that had been so prominent a feature during the Ch'in and the Han dynasties, and of Buddhism. Buddhism had varying for- tunes. The first emperor of the dynasty had frowned on it, and state supervision was usually enforced, but most of the emperors regarded it with tolerance and many greatly aided it. The Confucian philosophy was also honored with that impartial tolerance that with occa- sional exceptions has been the characteristic of the people and the monarchs of China. The stricter members of the Confucian school looked with disdain on Taoism and Buddhism, however, and one famous scholar l of T'ang times attacked Buddhist superstitions and veneration of relics with a trenchant sar- casm that makes interesting reading even to- day. 1 HanWenKung. 50 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 Learning was favored. The civil-service ex- aminations of preceding dynasties were reor- ganized and developed. For the capstone of the system there was formed the Hanlin Academy, which was to endure to our own time. Admis- sion to it has been regarded through the years as the highest reward of scholarship. The court gazette, possibly the oldest newspaper in the world, was begun as the official organ for the publication of decrees, appointments, and such other information as the central govern- ment wished to give out. Schools were organ- ized and encouraged. Literature blossomed. Poets flourished who are still regarded as among China's greatest. Some of these were a bibulous lot, and the most famous l is said to have perished in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon in a lake. A vigor- ous prose was developed in a style that to-day remains a model. Painting reached a high state of perfection. 2 Some of the T'ang land- scapes and figures that survive are notable for their beauty and refinement of feeling. They furnished inspiration to the budding art of 1 Li Po, or Li Tai Po. * The most famous painter of the time is probably Wu Tao Tzu. 51 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Japan, and in spite of differences in ideals and technique easily bear comparison with the best that the West has produced. Freed partly from the ravages of civil war the population increased beyond all previous num- bers. Material prosperity came. Both internal and external commerce flourished. Trade was carried on with the West by the caravan routes across Central Asia, now reopened and made safe by the conquests of the T'ang armies. Merchants from India and from other coun- tries of Southern Asia frequented the ports of South China. In this trade the Arabs predomi- nated and were the commercial predecessors of the present Europeans. Many other foreigners found their way to China. The Manicheans, followers of the Persian prophet Mani, came and propagated their faith. The Nestorian form of Christianity, one of the divisions of the Eastern Church, had spread extensively through Central and South- ern Asia and continued to be popular there for some centuries. Its priests found their way to the capital city of the T'ang and attracted im- perial notice and favor. The power and fame of the empire attracted to it representatives of less civilized peoples, and Chinese culture was 52 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 copied in many parts of Eastern Asia. The Japanese came in numbers to the capital and carried back with them to the island empire the written language, the art, the political organ- ization, and the Buddhism of their great conti- nental neighbor. In time, however, the dynasty disintegrated. Rebellions became more numerous. A succes- sion of weak monarchs sat on the throne. The palace eunuchs increased in power and cast their baleful influence over the administration, and the imperial title was usurped by a com- mon adventurer. China, however, felt perma- nently the effects of the work of the earlier T'ang rulers and was never again to sink for long to the disunion and misery that pre- ceded them. Following the house of T'ang the empire was for over half a century (907-960) in the hands of a succession of military chieftains. The period is known as that of the "Five Dynas- ties," for five were founded in quick succession by as many generals. The boundaries of China had shrunk sadly under the weak hands of the last T'ang emperors, and now no one of these five ephemeral dynasties exercised control even over all of China proper. Tatar tribes found 53 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA North China an easy victim. One of the few redeeming features of the years of disorder was the invention of printing by means of carved wooden blocks (ca. 953). It antedated the in- vention of printing in Europe by more than hah* a millennium, and has been vastly influen- tial in Chinese literary life. Out of the chaos of kaleidoscopic dynasties there arose a strong man who by force of arms conquered his rivals, unified the country, and succeeded in establishing his house so securely that it lasted under the dynastic name of Sung for over two centuries (960 to 1280). The China of the Sung dynasty did not reach the territorial limits set by the T'ang. It had an almost constant struggle with the Tatar tribes of the North, one of which, the Kin Tatars, or "Golden Horde," finally established itself in North China, took from the Sung monarchs the possession of the northernmost provinces, and levied tribute on the remainder. These two centuries, in spite of constant and frequently unsuccessful warfare, were marked by an unusually brilliant culture. Poetry, art of various kinds, and literature flourished. Schools were established, some of which sur- vive to-day, educational foundations older 54 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 than any in Europe. Famous histories were written. The period was especially noted for its original philosophy and for its innovations and speculations in the art of government. The philosophy centers around Chu Hsi (1130- 1200), the greatest scholar of his age. In early life he was influenced by Buddhism and Tao- ism, but in later years he reacted against them, and became an earnest student and interpreter of the writings of the Confucian school. His philosophy dominated the thought of that school for nearly seven centuries. His com- mentaries on the Classics remained standard down to our own day. He attempted to rule out of Confucianism its supernatural elements, and it is due largely to him that during the past several centuries the tendency of the school has been strongly toward agnosticism in religion. Chu Hsi was the greatest exponent of a re- vived Confucianism. Buddhism lost in popu- larity and the works of the great Chinese sages, grew in favor. Confucianism rose to greater heights of state patronage than ever before, and took on the form that it was to preserve until our own day. Less lasting were the governmental reforms of Wang An Shih. This man was a brilliant 55 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA scholar and poet and a daring innovator in administration. To his mind the Chinese state, always paternalistic, should extend its func- tions to include a wide range of hitherto un- touched activities. He proposed a system which closely resembled in parts some of the suggestions of Western Socialists of to-day. The commerce of the empire was to be na- tionalized. Taxes were to be paid in land products and manufactures, and the govern- ment was to buy all surplus products, transport them to places where they were needed, and sell them. It was an attempt to do away with the profits of the middleman. Moreover, the poorer cultivators were to have state advances of capital to help them with their crops, a measure that would relieve the farmer of the exactions of private money-lenders. Public works, which had heretofore been built by compulsory labor, were now to be constructed by the proceeds of an income tax, so that their cost would be shifted from the poor to the rich. To defend the empire against barbarians, a system of extensive enrollment in the militia was planned. It was designed to place the bur- den of defense on all. The civil-service exam- ination system was reorganized and subjects 56 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 of more practical import for officials were in- troduced. Wang An Shih insisted that if a man were to be an official he must show power of independent thinking and must know some- thing of government and economics. He brought out new commentaries on the Classics, using them to illustrate his views. He won the ear of the emperor and for a time had the op- portunity of trying out his suggestions on the nation. The ignorance of the people, the dis- honesty of the officials, and the opposition of the moneyed classes as well as of the scholars of the orthodox Confucian school, proved too much for him, however, and his system broke down. His career remains an interesting ex- ample of that strain of radicalism which seems inherent in Chinese nature. There had been famous reformers in earlier dynasties, and he reminds one strongly of the extremist tenden- cies of many of his countrymen of to-day. The violence of this radicalism may partly account for the unyielding conservatism by which in past generations it has been met and over- come. The culture of the Sung dynasty was note- worthy for art as well as for philosophy and political theory. Painting reached its highest 57 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA development. The works of the Sung artists have never been surpassed in China for deli- cacy of touch and feeling and have been the inspiration of some of the best art in Japan. Landscape painting was especially developed in the attempt to portray the soul back of nature. It ranks with the best that the human hand has produced. Poetry flourished. The dynasty was an age of refinement. The Sung dynasty, although brilliant in its culture, was fatally weak in its military de- fenses and finally was driven out by invaders from Central Asia, the Mongols. These Mon- gols were originally a group of tribes in what is now Northern Mongolia. Under a series of able leaders they became welded together into a powerful fighting machine. In the early thirteenth century, by superior strategy and discipline and under the able leadership of Genghis Khan and his successors, they over- ran Mongolia, the northern provinces of China, Central Asia, Northern India, and penetrated into Europe. In Europe they made themselves masters of the Russians and left an impression that in manners and institutions survives to- day. They invaded Hungary and Poland. It is not strange that having conquered distant 58 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 lands they should cast longing eyes on the fer- tile valleys immediately to their south. They first directed their arms against the Kin Tatars in North China, and after a long struggle suc- ceeded in overturning their state, taking their capital on the site of Peking in 1215 the year of Magna Carta. The Sung emperor joined with the Mongols against the Kin, but after the downfall of the latter the allies fell into a dispute over a division of the spoils. The Mongols turned against the Chinese and after a struggle of several decades succeeded in cap- turing Nanking, their capital, and putting an end to the dynasty (1280). Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler, now be- came Emperor of China, and established his line as the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368). Con- quests were carried farther. Korea was won. Burma and the present French Indo-China were successfully invaded. Even the Japanese islands were attacked, although unsuccess- fully. The empire so established was one of the mightiest that the world has seen, reach- ing from the Black Sea on the west to the Yellow Sea on the east, and from Northern Mongolia on the north to the Himalayas and Annam on the south. Peace was maintained 59 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA along the overland trade routes of Central Asia and commerce by sea was encouraged between the ports of South China and the Near East. Merchants and missionaries from Western Europe reached China, or Cathay as they called it, and took back with them stories of the splendor of the court of the emperor and of the prosperity and wealth of his dominions. Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, lived for some years at Kublai's court and in his employ traveled extensively over the empire. The nar- rative of his travels was widely read in Europe and helped to make China well known. The order of St. Francis was then in the first flush of its missionary enthusiasm and brothers of the order came to Peking. They were hos- pitably received and made at least some converts. Their work was not followed up, however, and none of their churches survive. Interesting narratives of their experiences are all that remain. Kublai was a patron of the arts of peace as well as of war. The construction of the Grand Canal * is attributed to him. Order and justice were maintained and the nation grew in wealth and population. His successors were for the 1 See above, p. 3. 60 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 most part feeble rulers. They failed to identify themselves with the Chinese. They held China as a subject country and did not wisely asso- ciate Chinese with themselves in the highest offices. Disputed successions were the rule and civil strife and disorders were common. Still a few changes occurred in the national life. The novel and the drama first became prominent, although it is -doubtful whether they were foreign or indigenous in origin. Neither has reached the high degree of perfection to which they have attained in the West, partly, per- haps, because the scholar class of China has never given itself to their production. After less than a century of power the Mon- gol dynasty disappeared in a welter of disorder. Out of it there emerged, as at the break-up of preceding dynasties, a general, best known to later generations by the title Hung Wu, 1 who succeeded in establishing a new ruling house. Hung Wu had for a time been a Bud- dhist monk, having taken up that life after the loss of his family and nearer relatives in a pesti- lence. He joined a rebel band as a subordinate, but by his ability rose to chief command. His band grew to an army and succeeded first in 1 His personal name was Chu Ytian Chang. 61 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA driving the Mongols out of South China and then out of the North. The new dynasty, which rejoiced in the name "Ming," or "bril- liant," lasted from 1368 to 1644. The founder made his chief residence at Nanking (the " Southern Capital " as contrasted with Peking, the "Northern Capital"). Here the mighty city walls and the tombs of his family still bear witness to his power. Under this native dy- nasty the boundaries of China were confined in the main to the Eighteen Provinces, or China proper, although Burma was forced to pay tribute and Tongking was reduced. Of the successors of the founder little need be said. One of them moved the capital again to Pe- king, where it has since remained. Wars were carried on with the Mongols, for they did not tamely submit to the loss of power and were for this dynasty the successors of those Central Asiatic peoples who through every period of Chinese history have been pressing down toward the fertile valleys of the south and west. The Japanese harassed the coast of China and under their mighty captain Hideyo- shi invaded and for a time overran Korea. The culture of the dynasty was not marked by any great creative work. It was content to 62 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 reproduce the past and to expend its energy in conventional ways. The civil-service examina- tions were thoroughly reorganized, but were based on a stereotyped form that discouraged creative thought and that became a bulwark of conservatism. The scholarly activity of the period went not so much into new thought as into the compilation of collections of older works. The idea of such collections was not new, for some had been made in Sung times and even before; but they were now issued in very large numbers. Encyclopaedias were com- piled, still another type of literature that had been largely developed by Sung scholars. There was one philosopher, indeed, Wang Yang Ming, who thought vigorously and inde- pendently. He had a long and honorable offi- cial career, interrupted at one time by years of severe adversity. He had learned to look within himself for strength and knowledge and not to the outer world. He was the advocate of self-reliance, of conscious and intuitive judgment. He has been greatly honored in Japan, where he was very popular with the older military class. Painting lacked the great creative power and the delicacy of feeling of the Sung and the T'ang. Lacquer-work, porce- 63 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA lain, and bronze-work reached a high stage of development and occasionally rose to the plane of true art. But though it was lacking in originality, the period was for the mass of people one of peace, material prosperity, and expansion. Population increased beyond any previous figures, and the Chinese race not only pressed more and more insistently upon the non-Chinese races in the Eighteen Provinces, but emigrated to the Philippines and the Malay Peninsula. From the standpoint of to-day, however, the Ming dynasty is especially noteworthy as the period in which Europeans first began to come in numbers to China by sea. It was the period so familiar to all students of European history as the age of discoveries. The hardy mariners of Southwestern Europe were trying to dis- cover a sea route to the fabled riches of the East, the land of spices. The hope of finding Cathay and the court of the Great Khan, made known by Marco Polo and the travelers of the Mongol period, helped to lure them on. In the last decade of the fifteenth century Columbus sailed westward in the hope of reaching India and Cathay. The Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached India in the 64 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 same decade (1498). Within twenty years the Portuguese Empire had been established in India and Portuguese traders were coming to China. The first of these arrived in South China in 1517. They followed in the route of the Arabs whose trade on the Indian coast they had broken up, and naturally came to those ports on the China coast with which the Arabs had traded for so long. It was years, however, before the China, reached thus by sea via the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Ma- lacca, was identified with the Cathay reached overland by Marco Polo and the Franciscans. The early Portuguese traders were truculent fellows for the most part, half merchant, half pirate, and raised much disorder in the ports of South China. They finally established them- selves on a strip of seacoast at Macao, not far from Canton, which they had rented from the Chinese and which they have held through all the succeeding years. After the Portuguese came the Spaniards. These established themselves in the Philip- pines and were but little in China. The peo- ples of Northern Europe, not to be outdone by the Portuguese and the Spaniards, desired a share in the lucrative trade of the East. Dur- 65 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ing the sixteenth century the Dutch made themselves independent of Spain and sent their mariners to the East Indies. Some reached China and settled first on the Pescadores Islands and then, when driven out by the Chinese, on Formosa. Still later came the English. Following the traders came Christian mis- sionaries. This was the period of the Refor- mation and the Counter-Reformation. The Jesuits, the great exponents of the Counter- Reformation, were zealous missionaries, not only in Protestant countries, but in non-Chris- tian lands. They sent representatives to the heart of North and South America and to the countries of the Far East. Peoples as widely removed from each other as the Japanese and the Indians of Paraguay and the Mississippi experienced their apostolic zeal. St. Francis Xavier, one of the companions of the founder of the Jesuits, came to India and Japan, and died on an island in sight of China in 1552. Follow- ing him came others, some of whom went to Peking and achieved a considerable reputation through their knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. This coming of the Europeans is important, 66 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 but not because it led immediately to any great changes in China. They were looked upon by the Chinese as of no more consequence than many of the other peoples who from time to time had come to the Middle Kingdom. They are important rather because they were fore- runners of that intercourse with Europe which was to go on continuously until the present in ever-accelerating volume, and which has in our own day produced such mighty changes. Before the middle of the seventeenth cen- tury the Ming dynasty began to show un- mistakable signs of decay. Monarchs of less vigorous character than the founder occupied the throne. The palace eunuchs grew in in- fluence. Unrest showed itself among the peo- ple. The dynasty seemed doomed to an early collapse. Another Chinese dynasty would likely have taken its place within a few years had not the Manchus interfered. The Man- chus were a group of tribes living in what is now South Manchuria and were one of those Asiatic peoples that had throughout Chinese history been pressing in from the frontiers. They were related to the Mongols and to the Kin Tatars, with both of whom we have be- come familiar in the preceding pages. 67 ' THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA The Manchus had acquired something of Chinese culture and had cast longing eyes upon the great land to the south. Under an able leader, Nurhachu, one of the most remark- able warrior-statesmen Asia has produced, they were welded together into an efficient fighting machine and in the first half of the seventeenth century began an attack upon the Chinese northeastern frontiers. In the course of a few years they met with a number of striking military successes, due in part to the inefficiency of the Ming generalship. As they continued to press toward the south a rebellion in China gave them an unexpected opportunity and placed them in Peking. This rebellion had broken out in North China, and taking advan- tage of the weakness and misgovernment of the Mings had assumed alarming proportions. Its leader 1 proclaimed himself emperor and succeeded in capturing Peking. The Ming emperor in despair committed suicide. The Ming forces that had been operating against the Manchus now found themselves between two fires. Led by their general, Wu San Kwei, they submitted to their foes of the North, and the united armies of the Chinese and Man- 1 Li Tzu Ch'eng. 68 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 chus marched on Peking. The Chinese rebel was defeated and his forces were broken up. The Manchus, did not restore the Mings to power. They placed one of their own number upon the imperial throne (1644), establish- ing what they called the "Ta Ch'ing," or " Great Pure" dynasty. The nation, however, did not submit without a struggle. Some of the Ming imperial line had fled to the south of the Yangtze, and here, defended by loyal generals, they attempted to stem the tide of invasion. The effort, was futile. Divisions and palace intrigues weakened the Ming defense. The Manchus pressed southward. The tide of battle flowed back and forth. The carnage was fearful; the sack of Yang Chow on the Grand Canal by the Manchu forces, for exam- ple, forms one of the most ghastly chapters of history. Resistance was stubborn. The Mings slowly lost ground, until, after nearly two decades, the last of the line to claim the throne was driven into Southwest China and then into Burma. There he was delivered by a Burmese army into the hands of the victorious Manchus and the last remnants of Ming power came to an end. On the sea, from the vantage-point of Formosa, from which he had 69 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA driven the Dutch, a pirate chief l kept up a gallant opposition for a few years, but on his death resistance from even that quarter broke down. The Manchus now proceeded to organize the government in such a way as to insure the permanence of their rule. The Chinese were held as subjects and were made to adopt the Manchu method of dressing the hair the shaved forehead and the queue as a badge of loyalty. With a wise statesmanship, however, they identified themselves with the Chinese as far as that seemed consistent with their role of conquerors. They left largely unchanged the system of administration that they found in operation. In the higher civil positions they associated Chinese with themselves. The civil service examinations were retained practically unchanged. Chinese and Manchus were ad- mitted to them and to all but the highest of- fices of state on an equal footing. The legal code of the Mings was adopted with but slight modi- fications, a code that was not the exclusive work of the Mings, but had been the growth of ages. Confucius was honored, and was given added titles of respect. Buddhism and Taoism were 1 Koxinga. 70 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 recognized, and Buddhism especially was fos- tered. Chinese literature was patronized and the Manchus themselves were encouraged to become proficient in it. Manchu garrisons were, however, established in various strategic places, and the attempt was made to keep up military discipline. In the course of a few dec- ades these garrisons suffered the inevitable effects of a life of inactivity supported by gov- ernment pensions. Their military discipline declined and they ceased to be effective as a fighting force. In 1911, when the revolution broke out that ended the dynasty, they offered no serious opposition to the Chinese insurgents. The first century and a half of Manchu rule was marked by vigor and efficiency. The pe- riod was nearly covered by two reigns, those of K'ang Hsi (1662-1723) and Ch'ien Lung (1736-1796), one sixty-one and the other sixty years in length. These two monarchs were among the strongest that the nation has had. During their time China was one of the best- governed lands on the earth and was second to none in population and to but two in area. These two men gave an impetus to the dynasty that was to carry it over the reigns of weaker rulers down into the twentieth century. We 71 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA shall proceed to sketch the history of this cen- tury and a half more in detail, for it connects up directly with the present. The period was marked by a vigorous home policy. Rebellions were put down with a heavy hand. The most serious of these broke out during the earlier years of K'ang Hsi, headed by the Chinese general, Wu San Kwei, who had allied himself with the Manchus when they had first marched on Peking and who greatly facil- itated if not indeed made possible their suc- cess. This king-maker had been rewarded with the governorship of extensive domains in the Southwest, an almost semi-independent satrapy. From that vantage-point he declined the emperor's invitation to come to Peking, sent him apparently with the desire to curtail his dangerous power, and had raised the stand- ard of revolt. The rebellion was subdued only after the greatest exertions. To prevent future rebellions and the growth of feudatory, semi- independent states within the empire, the pro- vincial governments were reorganized. No official was allowed to hold office in his native province and the higher authority in each prov- ince was divided among several offices which were carefully arranged to check and balance 72 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 one another. Other rebellions were put down with an equally vigorous hand. Remnants of non-Chinese peoples still exist within the bor- ders of the Eighteen Provinces, principally in the South and Southwest. These have to a large extent preserved their own tribal form of government and their own languages. Their territories have been encroached upon by the Chinese only slowly. During this early Man- chu period these native tribes were more firmly reduced to submission and were made to keep the peace. They were placed as far as possible under the direct rule of the central government, but complete amalgamation with the Chinese has never yet been effected. Great attention was paid personally by the emperors to the details of administration. K'ang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung were noted for frequent progresses through their dominions, and for their attention to public works, es- pecially to the great dikes that held in bounds the Yellow River and the other streams of the North. Both were builders. Temples were erected and restored and imperial tablets show- ing the interest of the rulers in various public enterprises are still to be found in many parts of the country. By the careful supervision pos- 73 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA sible in an Oriental monarchy only to rulers of unusual endurance and energy, the wheels of government were kept in motion, justice was done, and the country was made prosperous. Both the great emperors were intelligent patrons of Chinese culture. Confucius had never been more generously honored than by these Manchus. The Sung dynasty philoso- phers especially Chu Hsi were revered and their commentaries on the Classics made the official interpretation of these ancient doc- uments. Chinese scholarship was encouraged and thus bound by ties of loyalty to the for- eign ruling house. Both K'ang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung were themselves authors of no mean ability and were masters of Chinese literature. Under imperial direction scholars compiled books on all the branches of learning known to the nation. Ancient works were sought out and were issued in imperial revised edi- tions. Great encyclopaedias were prepared, and a dictionary that still remains standard. 1 It was not a period of creative genius. No important new schools of thought arose. It was, however, a time of great interest in all branches of culture. Art was encouraged, es- 1 Known as "K'ang Hsi's Dictionary." 74 pecially work in porcelain, in brass, and in lacquer. The china of these years is note- worthy and is still eagerly sought by collectors. These vigorous Manchu emperors were in- terested in everything that made for the ma- terial prosperity of their subjects. Inter-pro- vincial trade was encouraged by improved roads. Agriculture was stimulated by a fixed low tax on land instead of one subject to official caprice, and by great conservancy works of dikes and irrigation systems. Population grew rapidly. Increasing prosperity is in all nations one of the best recommendations for the ruling power, and especially in China is it looked upon as an indication of Heaven's favor. A wise statesmanship had insured for the Manchu power a much longer life than that of the Mon- gols. The period was marked as well by a vigorous foreign policy. The boundaries of the empire were carried farther than ever before. Through all Chinese history, it will be recalled, the out- lying districts of Central Asia had been a source of frequent invasions. There were two ways of dealing with these. One was to meet them at the borders of China proper. To this end the Great Wall had been built and maintained. 75 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA The other was to eliminate the danger at its source by conquering the invaders in their homes, incorporating them into the empire, and insisting that they keep the peace. It was chiefly the latter plan that the Manchus adopted. Manchuria, as the home of the dy- nasty, was already a part of their domain. To the west of Manchuria lies the great semi-arid region known as Mongolia. The tribes of Inner Mongolia, the section contiguous to China, had early submitted to Manchu domination. Partly through voluntary submission, partly by an extensive war of conquest, Chinese rule was expanded into the section to the north, Outer Mongolia. The reduction of Mongolia brought China into conflict with Tibet. In the seventh cen- tury this region had been converted to a sect of Buddhism, and its priests had in the course of centuries become the temporal as well as the spiritual rulers of the land. In the fifteenth century this Buddhist sect was reformed by a vigorous character 1 who made the priesthood celibate and established its rule over the coun- try more firmly than ever, in a form that has endured until the present. The head of this 1 Tsongkhaba, born 1417. 76 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 Tibetan Buddhist Church is known as the Dalai Lama. He is held to be the incarna- tion of one of the Buddhist saints (or Bod- hisattvas), and at the death of one Dalai Lama the spirit is believed to be immediately reincarnated in another, so that the succes- sion is perpetual. Now the inhabitants of Mongolia were at this time adherents of this Lama sect of Buddhism, and although ruled directly by their own spiritual chief, the Dalai Lama was so closely connected with them that the subjugation of Tibet became a neces- sity if peace in Mongolia was to be assured. K'ang Hsi soon found in a disputed succession an opportunity for interfering in the internal affairs of Tibet, and in the interests of his candidate invaded the country, put him into power at Lhassa, and maintained him by a garrison. Tibet thus became tributary to China and has remained so ever since. Prob- ably as much from the dictates of state policy as from conviction K'ang Hsi and his successors became patrons of Lamaistic Buddhism and showed it great favors. Most of Mongolia and Tibet were now part of the Manchu Empire. It became necessary, however, to round out the frontier to its nat- 77 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ural boundaries, the great divide that sepa- rates what is now the Chinese Empire from the Russian dominions in Western and Northern Asia. The principal territory still unoccupied was that along the ancient overland caravan routes to the West, the section known to West- ern geographers as Chinese Turkestan and some districts north of it, Hi and Dzungaria. Trouble arose in Mongolia over the presence of independent, restless tribes on its bound- aries, and the disturbance became at once the excuse and the occasion for the reduction of these territories. By a series of campaigns, largely under Ch'ien Lung, they were con- quered and annexed, and were organized into the so-called "New Territory" (Sin Kiang). Except on the north the Chinese boundaries now stretched without interruption to the continental divide. Invasions into Tibet by the peoples of the Himalaya region led to the reduction of some of the hardy mountaineers that occupy the northern borders of India. So thoroughly were they awed that they sent tribute to the court of Peking until brought under the growing British authority in India. In the southwest, where the mountain passes 78 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 are low and invite intercourse, troubles arose with Burma. To settle them Burma was in- vaded and reduced to submission. In witness of Chinese suzerainty it sent tribute to Peking every ten years, a practice which continued until 1886 when it was ended by the new mas- ters of Burma, the British. Annam was invaded, and that country, which had been part of the Ming domains, was com- pelled still further to recognize Chinese over- lordship. These vigorous Manchu emperors, then, had not only ruled China proper well and with jus- tice, but they had extended Chinese territory to its natural boundaries and had made the border nations feel their prowess and prom- ise to keep the peace. Under no preceding dynasty had the population been so large, prosperity so great, or had the well-defined boundaries of the empire extended over so wide an area. The great Manchu emperors were as vigor- ous in their dealings with Europeans as with the peoples of Central Asia. Europeans, it will be remembered, had begun to come to China by sea during the Ming dynasty. They were now increasing in number. The English, in 79 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA face of the opposition of the Portuguese, began trade, and carried it on under the direction of that British East India Company which at this time held a monopoly on all English trade in the Far East. Other European nations opened commerce. The chief products ex- ported were tea, fine cottons, silks, and china. The chief imports were opium and specie. In 1784 the Americans sent their first ship to China, and during the next few decades their commerce rose to fairly large proportions. To obtain furs to exchange for Chinese products, American vessels went to the northwest coast of America. One of these discovered the mouth of the Columbia River. 1 A little later an American merchant, John Jacob Astor, es- tablished at the mouth of that river a fort, Astoria, as a dep6t from which to ship furs to Canton. Thus arose part of the early Ameri- can connections with the Oregon country that were later to lead to its incorporation into the Union. The Manchus and the Northern Chinese were not a seafaring people, and looked with annoyance on these active Western traders, some of whom were little better than pirates. 1 The Columbia, under Captain Grey. 80 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 They failed completely to recognize the im- portance and power of Western nations and thought of them as barbarians inferior in civi- lization to the Chinese and tributary to them politically. Since at times they caused disor- der, and since their trade was said to result in a balance unfavorable to China, and to drain the land of its specie, they finally were limited in their intercourse to one port, Canton. Here commerce was carried on under the greatest restrictions. Foreigners were not allowed to reside within the city wall, and even outside the wall were not permitted to purchase, but merely to rent, ground on which to erect their residences or "factories." No foreign women were allowed on the premises. All trade was carried on through a limited body of merchants (the " co-hong ") . No outsider was permitted to learn Chinese, and a kind of lingua franca grew up, called by Westerners "pidgin English." This was largely made up of English, but con- tained fragments of other languages, European and Asiatic, and was organized according to the Chinese idiom. It is still in extensive use. High customs duties were levied, and accord- ing to no published schedule. No foreign con- suls were recognized, although some were sent, 81 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA for all foreigners were treated as subjects of the emperor. If they became too restive, the Chinese brought them to terms by suspending all trade. Amid such conditions friction between Chinese and Europeans was frequent and cer- tain. To adjust the differences and to seek greater privileges, embassies were sent to the imperial court by various powers, especially the English and the Dutch. These were all regarded by the Chinese as bearers of tribute from subject nations, a sign of the obedience of European monarchs to the emperor, the "Son of Heaven," and but little was accomplished by them. The Chinese power was as yet too strong, communication with Europe as yet too difficult, and trade too unimportant, to war- rant a serious armed effort to wrest better terms from China or to open her to foreign rule. No treaties were made. On the north relations were opened up with Russia. This great power, half Asiatic, half European, had been gradually expanding across Northern Asia until in the seventeenth century it had reached the Pacific. It was one of the most daring pieces of pioneering that has ever been known, for thousands of miles of 82 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 wilderness separated these eastern outposts from the capital of the Czar. These adventur- ous pioneers came into contact with the Chi- nese. Embassies were sent to Peking and from Peking to Moscow. Trouble over boundaries arose and war broke out. To conclude peace and arrange differences, a treaty was signed in 1689, 1 the first between China and a European power. Official intercourse was continued in- termittently and overland commerce main- tained, a commerce in which Northern furs were exchanged for Southern teas. Supplemen- tary treaties were subsequently made, and a Russian mission was allowed to reside at Peking. But it was not as equals that the Rus- sians were received. They were rather regarded as another of those Central Asiatic barba- rian tribes who had troubled the empire from time to time and with whom it was the busi- ness of Peking to maintain friendly relations. The vigorous foreign policy of the great Manchu rulers was seen as well in their treat- ment of Christian missionaries. The Jesuits, it will be remembered, had entered China during the Ming dynasty, and had won some con- verts. During the early years of the Manchus 1 The Treaty of Nerchinsk. 83 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA they were in favor with some of the higher officials, including even the emperor. They numbered among them some able scholars who continued the work of their predecessors of the Ming dynasty in reorganizing the im- perial calendar. They carried on geographic surveys of the empire, and introduced to the court a fuller knowledge of Western learning. A fairly large number of converts was won. Other Catholic missionary orders followed the Jesuits, and came to differ decidedly from their policy of allowing Christian converts to con- tinue certain Chinese customs connected with the veneration of ancestors, and from their translation of the term for God. The dispute was referred both to the emperor and to Rome. The two differed in their decisions. The em- peror was angered, and fearing that loyalty to Rome might lead to a divided allegiance and to possible rebellion among converts, he pro- scribed Christianity. Missionary work con- tinued, however, although semi-secretly and subject to occasional persecution. After Ch'ien Lung inferior men came to the throne. The Manchu race began to suffer from too many years of success, and its vigor de- clined. Outwardly the empire was as brilliant 84 THE HAN DYNASTY TO 1840 as ever, but inwardly unrest began to show it- self. Secret political organizations were con- stituted in opposition to the dynasty. Rebel- lions sprang up, some of them difficult to reduce, and disorder arose on the distant fron- tiers. The Manchu power was manifestly waning. During this period began a more ex- tensive growth of European trade. European impact on the empire increased. The irresisti- ble growth of the pressure of Western nations on China and the weakness and ignorance of the Chinese authorities led to a series of mo- mentous events, some of which are still in progress. But before going on to sketch the opening of China to Western nations and the effect upon Chinese culture, it is well to pause for a time and to find out what that Chinese culture was. CHAPTER IV CHINESE CULTURE AT THE BEGINNING OF INTIMATE CONTACT WITH THE WEST IT would be impractical in a work of limited scope to attempt a full description of Chinese culture as it was before the advent of European influence. Such a description can be found in many larger works primarily devoted to the subject. It seems in place, however, to point out the salient characteristics of that civiliza- tion. Present-day events and problems cannot be understood nor the changes wrought by contact with the West appreciated without a knowledge of the older Chinese life. The new China is arising out of the old. There is no break, although the transition is very marked. The civilization and life of to-day are not en- tirely products of the present age, but are bound up inseparably with the past. The primary emphasis in Chinese culture has been upon the materialistic. The Chinese have been primarily interested in this life, in making it happy and comfortable. They have been the successful merchants of the 86 CHINESE CULTURE older Far East and have carried on not only their own commerce, but much of the trade in the Philippines, in the Straits Settlements, the Malay States, and Siam. They are successful farmers, and with them farmers have been ranked high in the social scale, far above the soldier and even above the merchant, for the farmer produces food, the basis of life. Their political organization has had as its primary aim the prosperity of the people. They meas- ure the success of any government by the ma- terial well-being of the nation. Continued hard times are sufficient to cause unrest and even revolution. Their ethics emphasize man's duty to man rather than man's duty to God. Even their religion has a materialistic bent. They pay their religious dues as a rule with the spe- cific purpose of getting blessings in this life or in the life to come. Their worship is on the prin- ciple of giving that they may get. Their offer- ings to spirits and gods are principally for tem- poral success, for health, for children. When they think of the world to come, it is chiefly as an extension of this life. To the Chinese this life is not, as to the Indian, a passing shadow, but a reality. They have not willingly in- dulged in transcendental speculation. 87 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA They have as well always emphasized soci- ety as contrasted with the individual. The state and the family are all-important. The will of the individual is subordinated to that of the group. Learning and education have had as their final aim the service and welfare of society, not the culture of the individual or the knowledge of the absolute. The Chinese have emphasized tjie ethical because they have seen that righteousness is essential to social pros- perity. With all this emphasis on the practi- cal there is still a deep strain of emotionalism which shows itself in a real appreciation of the beautiful in nature, in literature and in art, in a love of poetry and music, and not infre- quently in mysticism. But the Chinese cannot be said to be primarily religious or mystical as are so many of the peoples of the Near East and of India. They are intent rather on this life. For that reason they fit in readily with the modern industrialism of the practical West, and adjust themselves easily to its ideals. They have the same tendency to emphasize commerce and industry, social organization and the state. Great as is the difference be- tween the old China and the new Occident, the distinction is rather one of externals. In spirit 88 CHINESE CULTURE the Chinese are much more nearly akin to the modern West than they are to many sections of the East, to India, for instance, or even to Japan. Another general feature of the older Chinese culture that should be borne in mind is the fact that it is indigenous. Some influences we have seen coming from abroad from the earliest times, but on the whole Chinese civilization is a native product, far more than is that of Western Europe. This was due primarily, as has already been said, to geographic isolation. To the same cause we have seen that we may trace the slowness of progress in civilization, and the feeling of self-satisfaction and of bigoted contempt for the culture of other peoples. One last general comment that should be made is that the older Chinese civilization was not decadent. It progressed much more slowly than did culture in the West, and in its later years it did not have the tendency to branch out into newer creative lines that it had shown in its earlier years. One can, however, dis- tinctly trace progress from dynasty to dy- nasty. Most of the nineteenth century was one of comparative stagnation, but that was THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA because of the weakness of the Manchus. Stag- nation and even decline had been characteris- tic of the later years of most of the great dy- nasties of China. One does well to remember that within so short a period as a century and a half ago, when the Manchus were at their height, China was among the best-governed and most highly civilized nations on earth, and that its reputation in the West was such that it was held up by many as an ideal in industry and in the arts of living. Knowing the practical nature of the Chinese, one is not surprised at the development of the economic side of their life. In agriculture they have attained a high state of proficiency. Soil fertility has been carefully maintained, partly by methods which are yet to be used in the West. The night soil, for instance, which is so rich in nitrates and which in our cities of the West is usually allowed to run to waste through our sewers, is by the thrifty Chinese returned to the land to restore the strength removed by food crops. Careful use is made of legumes, of rotation of crops, of green manuring, and of tillage. Intensive farming is carried on with a care and a success scarcely known in the West. Many varieties of grain have been developed. 90 CHINESE CULTURE Those of rice alone tax the memory of an expert. The more costly food products are neglected for the less expensive. Thus not much beef or mut- ton is eaten, for the raising of these is costly in grain and pasture; greater food values from a given piece of land are obtained by feeding the grain directly to human beings. Milk and but- ter are not eaten, possibly originally for much the same reason. Pigs and chickens are widely used for meat, since they are scavengers and can be fed on what otherwise would be wasted. Fish are extensively consumed and the thrifty farmer even raises them in his temporary ir- rigation ponds. Bean curd, made from the soy bean, is a popular cheap substitute for meat. The coolie, with his rice or his millet, his greens and bean curd, supplemented on feast-days by a little pork, fowl, or fish, has an inexpensive, well-balanced food ration. Irrigation is highly developed, and extensive dikes have been built to drain low-lying lands. Many works have been written on agriculture. Much of this knowledge was, of course, empirical. Little of it was scientifically organized. It was de- veloped because of the pressure on human in- genuity brought by the struggle of a crowded population for existence. There have been a 91 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA prodigal expenditure of human labor, an ab- sence of labor-saving machinery, and a reck- less deforesting of the hills leading to impover- ished hillsides and to flood plains covered with debris. In spite of defects, however, the system reflects credit on the intelligence and industry that could produce it. Something was known of mining. The im- mense deposits of coal and petroleum were but little used, but some of the metals were mined, including especially iron, copper, and silver. Salt wells were drilled, and natural gas was utilized to evaporate the brine. In manufactures China had not, of course, developed modern labor-saving machinery, the application of steam or electricity to ma- chinery, or the factory system. In these pro- cesses she had not passed the industrial level of the Europe of the later Middle Ages. Man- ufactures were in households and small shops. Human labor was used lavishly. Industry tended to be localized. Certain sections were noted for crockery, others for furniture, others for silks, and still others for cottons. Within individual cities industries were grouped by streets, much as in mediaeval Europe. They were organized, too, in guilds with an elaborate 92 CHINESE CULTURE apprentice system. There were ingenious mechanical devices, and one does well to re- member that the invention in China of the mariner's compass and of printing antedate their use in the Occident. The system of pro- duction was probably as efficient as any to be found in the West before the Industrial Revolution. The Chinese have developed an elaborate system for distributing and marketing the products of the fields, the mines, and industry. The streams are largely navigable, and many types of craft have been developed for river use, from the great junk of the ocean and the lower Yangtze to the small boat that threads the shallow tributary streams. Canals and canalized rivers have been used to supplement the streams. Water conveyance of heavy, non- perishable freight, including grains, it is well to remember, is less expensive than land con- veyance, even by steam. The water systems were supplemented by roads, some of which were admirable when kept in repair by vig- orous monarchs. Vehicles were clumsy and labor-consuming, however, a crude cart being used in the North and the wheelbarrow in the South. Famines often occurred in one prov- 93 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ince because grain could not be carried in quantity from a neighboring province where plenty abounded. The transportation system of China, however, compared favorably with that of the Europe before the nineteenth cen- tury. It helped to bind the country together into an economic whole. Commerce has been highly organized. Chi- nese merchants are among the most skillful in the world, and not only have they con- ducted the business of their own vast empire, but they have had a large share in the com- merce of all the Farther East. The Chinese seems to be a trader almost by nature. The older commercial organization, however, was formed almost entirely on the guild and the partnership system. The modern stock com- pany was unknown. Guilds existed for every kind of enterprise, and the student of the Western mediaeval guild system can even yet see a similar one in operation in China. Mer- chants of one province residing in another have their guild. Each kind of trade and each in- dustry is organized into one. The guild gave the protection to its members that the gov- ernment did not give and regulated each trade and each branch of commerce with great 94 CHINESE CULTURE strictness. Apprenticeship, prices, and wages were very largely determined by them. Like their European counterparts each usually had its shrine and its patron divinity. In the individual shop the organization has been usually by partnership, not by the joint-stock company. That modern method of facilitating great combinations of capital under the super- vision of a directorate was unknown, and ex- cept for the guild, business was usually divided into small units. A partial exception was a sys- tem of banking centering in one of the prov- inces of the North, 1 with branches in most of the principal cities of the empire. Even this, however, was not a joint-stock concern. The currency system was clumsy. The familiar round copper "cash" with the square hole in the center was the unit of exchange for all smaller transactions of daily life. As it takes between twenty-five hundred and three thousand of these to equal in value a gold dol- lar, they could manifestly be used, even for smaller transactions, only because the price level was very low. Wages for unskilled labor were but a few cents a day and prices were scaled accordingly. For transactions involving 1 Shansi. 95 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA larger amounts the unit was the ounce of silver, called the "tael." Silver was not coined, but was usually cast by private firms into small ingots. In every transaction these were tested for fineness and weighed. The ounce (or tael) was different in various districts, as were, in- deed, most of the weights and measures. At times China has had paper money issued by the government, but her experience with it has not been entirely satisfactory. It has too frequently been based on an inadequate metal reserve, and depreciation has followed with all the attendant evils of speculation, uncertainty, and loss. Credit was and is extensively used. Pawn- shops are universal, and are a much more rep- utable means of borrowing and loaning than is apt to be the case with similar institutions in the West. A highly organized banking system is in existence. Voluntary loan associations of various kinds for various purposes and of vary- ing amounts of capital are common. In these, several men will band together, each contribut- ing an equal share, and each having the use of the entire capital for a given period. On the whole, then, the Chinese economic system has been efficient. By it the nation was 96 CHINESE CULTURE bound together into an economic unit. Great cities arose, ever the sign of high economic development. It was, however, a very dif- ferent system from that which has arisen in the West from the Industrial Revolution. Now that the latter has invaded China, the effect, as we shall see in later chapters, has been revolutionary and for the time being demor- alizing. The political organization of China was highly developed. No other surviving one can show a so nearly continuous history stretching over so many centuries. In ideal it was pri- marily for the people. It existed to secure and to further their welfare. Its objects were pri- marily the well-being of the entire nation. The ruler existed for the people, not the people for the ruler. The military was supposedly used merely for defensive policing purposes. Al- though the army has always played an im- portant part in Chinese history, and although dynasties have invariably owed their founda- tion to successful generals, the soldier has not been exalted as highly as in Japan and the Oc- cident. He has been regarded as a destroyer of life and property and has been ranked among the lowest classes of society. The producer and 97 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA the creative thinker, the scholar, were ranked above him. The practical turn of the Chinese mind, with its emphasis upon physical well-being, is clearly seen throughout the political constitution. At the head was the emperor. One of his titles was "Son of Heaven." The theory, however, was far removed from that of the divine right of kings of Western absolutists. The decree of Heaven was supposed to be given primarily with the good of the people in mind, and if the emperor failed to rule them justly or if he neglected their prosperity and gave himself to selfish luxury, the theory regarded with com- placency rebellion and the foundation of a new dynasty. It justified that succession of royal houses which is so characteristic of Chinese history. The authority of the emperor was ab- solute. He was the fountain of law, of justice, and of administration, and his word was final. The institution was paternalistic, and the em- peror took in theory, and, if an able ruler, in practice, an interest in every detail of national life. The emperor ruled, however, by means of a bureaucracy. One man could not hope, of course, to attend to all the details of govern- 98 CHINESE CULTURE ment and his power was delegated to subor- dinates in a carefully worked-out, descending scale. At the top were the court officials; there was the council of state; there were central boards in charge of military affairs, the judici- ary, public works, and various other branches of administrative, judicial, and legislative ac- tivity; there was a board of censors, charged to speak fearlessly its criticisms of the gov- ernment; there were official historiographers whose duty it was to record impartially public events and the acts of the emperor. Below these central bodies the system rami- fied through the empire. There were viceroys, usually at the head of two provinces. In the province the central power was shared by the governor, the treasurer, the salt commissioner, the commissioner of education, and the pro- vincial judge. These acted as checks on one another and so made sedition difficult. Under- neath the provincial authorities were the offi- cials of another series of divisions and sub- divisions, heads of circuits, of counties, of districts. All of these were appointed from the capital, and under the Manchus no official could hold office in his own province. Rebel- lion and the growth of local independence and 99 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA decentralization, always the danger of so large a state, were thus guarded against. This immense official class was recruited by a series of civil service examinations, to which all but members of a few despised occupations were eligible, regardless of birth or station. In theory the emperor was to govern with the aid of the wisest and the ablest of the realm. Was not the government for the benefit of all, and should not the wisest and ablest be searched out to aid in it? These examinations, then, with their three successive grades and degrees, were for the purpose of selecting the best men in the empire. They were based primarily on the ancient Classics and had mostly to do with ethics, history, and statecraft. Too frequently they were stereotyped and encouraged literary style and memory at the expense of independ- ent creative thinking. Too often corruption crept in, and literary degrees were sold to meet the necessities of the state and of dishonest officials. On the whole, however, they were fairly efficient and surprisingly democratic. They brought into competition for government positions and into official service most of the highly trained minds of the nation. Sons of the humblest might rise to the highest positions. 100 CHINESE CULTURE On even rude farmhouses in out-of-the-way districts one might see displayed characters indicating that some relative of the occupant had won a degree. Thanks to this system China was largely freed from a ruling caste that owed its power to hereditary right. No other part of the constitution so contributed to the continuance and the efficiency of the government. Underneath the bureaucracy were the vil- lage elders and the heads of families, a humble but a no less important part of the govern- ment. The village was in many respects self- governing, and family control was universal and strong. Guilds exercised many of the powers of regulation over trade and industry which in most other countries have fallen to the government. The central government was a policing and tax-gathering agency. It gave coherence to the country and provided for the common defense, but in local, and especially in rural and village, administration, the nation was largely self-governing with a strong tend- ency to democracy. There was a carefully organized code of laws, reissued and amended by each dynasty, but representing the growth of ages of experience 101 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA and legislation. Justice was too frequently bought and sold, many of the punishments seem to us inhuman, and torture, though ille- gal, was all too frequent. The theory of jus- tice was there, however, and long-established precedent for reliance on and respect for law. Measured by modern standards taxation was not heavy. It consisted principally of a land tax and the income from the manufacture and sale of salt, a government monopoly. It was collected partly in kind. Occasionally duties on internal commerce were levied. The ex- penses of the state of the ancient type were not large when compared with those of the modern one. There were a number of general character- istics of the government that need to be noted. In the first place, there was no permanent rul- ing house dating back to the foundation of the nation, as in Japan. There the imperial house is popularly believed to have endured from ages eternal. It furnishes a tangible center and object for patriotic devotion and loyalty. Amid all the changes of government it remains unchanged. It adjusts itself readily to the modern constitutional form of government. Revolution means a change in ministries, not a 102 CHINESE CULTURE change in dynasties. In China, however, there is no traditional center for national loyalty. There have been many ruling houses. One dis- appears and another arises, usually out of a welter of civil war. This, in an age of transi- tion like the present, makes the situation peculiarly difficult. Without such an heredi- tary, time-honored center of coherence, strong men are apt to seize in turn the central power as emperor or president, and civil war and dis- integration are likely to follow. There is, however, a real stability in the centralized bureaucracy. It is the slow prod- uct of all the long centuries of China's national life. It is something around which the new China can be formed, and it is not likely that it will soon be abandoned whether the govern- ment be called a republic or a monarchy. It forms a convenient framework for a modern centralized constitution. Then, too, the lack of a permanent dynasty is paralleled by a high development of democratic autonomy in the clan, the guild, and the village, which, if the individual can be brought to think in terms of the larger unit, are an excellent preparation for national democracy. Another characteristic of the government 103 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA has been its paternal interest in every phase of the life of its members. It did not content it- self with the duties of police and defense, but it encouraged trade, industry, agriculture, and learning. In ideals it is nearly akin to modern conceptions of governments with their exten- sive and varied functions. One does not won- der that several times in its history it has pro- duced socialistic thinkers, or that many of its leaders should to-day incline toward socialism. And yet, while interested in all phases of na- tional life, it also practiced the principle of laissez-faire. It left much to individual initia- tive and in local affairs the village was largely autonomous. Still another characteristic of the govern- ment, not exclusively Chinese, by the way, has been the failure to realize in practice the high ideals held in theory. Corruption was rife, especially during the declining years of each dynasty. Offices were bought and sold. Offi- cials used their positions avowedly to acquire fortunes by means that were so familiar to the populace as scarcely to call forth more than formal censure. The system was honey- combed with dishonesty and greed. Legal de- cisions went to the longest pocket-book. Here 104 CHINESE CULTURE and there high-minded officials stood out against the tide, but only an unusually able monarch could enforce a fair degree of integ- rity throughout the nation. Another characteristic was a lack of nation- alism such as one finds in Japan. There was racial consciousness and pride, but there was little if any of that patriotism that leads men to die for their country. Loyalty when it ex- isted was to princes or generals and not to the nation. One part of the empire might be at war and another part be indifferent or even be aiding the enemy. This lack of national coherence was in strange contrast to the cen- tralized bureaucracy. It was scarcely surpris- ing, however, in so large a land in the absence of modern distance-annihilating agencies; it is strange rather that there was so much co- herence. But the lack of unity was seen and is still seen in the deep-seated inter-provincial and inter-village jealousies, and in the subor- dination of national to local interests. It is especially apparent in the division between North and South, the dividing line being roughly the Yangtze River. It is a division that is in part linguistic, in part economic, in part traditional, and even in part racial. This 105 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA lack of unity was not so grave a defect in the old days when China was not in intimate com- petition with highly organized states. The sys- tem was in fact well adapted to existing condi- tions, for probably by no other plan could so large an area have been held permanently to- gether without the aid of modern means of communication. It has been, however, an al- most fatal weakness in the contest with modern highly organized states, such as Japan and the nations of Europe. As long as it exists only the mutual jealousies of the powers can save the nation from loss of independence and even dismemberment. It accounts partly for the partial dependence and loss of autonomy of the present time. Fortunately, in the old bu- reaucratic constitution there is a skeleton at hand on which to build the reconstructed na- tion. In spite of weaknesses, however, the con- stitution has on the whole proved effective for the main needs of the people. For centuries, although with many and frequently long inter- ruptions, it has held together an area as large, roughly speaking, as Western Europe or the United States east of the Mississippi. At four different intervals it has for a century or more 106 CHINESE CULTURE at a time controlled as imperial territory ad- ditional lands, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and the New Territory, that are together nearly twice the size of China proper. It has done this without the aid of telegraphs, rail- ways, or the other means of communication that bind together the great states of to-day. When we remember that without these aids Western Europe divided into separate nations, and that only their timely discovery prevented the United States from doing likewise, when we remember that the Chinese Empire is larger in area and population than any empire of antiq- uity, not even excepting that of Rome, our re- spect is enhanced for its constitution and for the ability of the people that could produce it. And when we compare China with other states, we must say that on the whole its great realms have been governed well. Corruption and in- efficiency there have been, but these have also existed elsewhere. Until the last few hundred years there existed no large state, probably, which was governed with less injustice and with more efficiency and economy. The formal educational system of China, as we have hinted above, was in part an adjunct of the state. It was devised primarily to pro- 107 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA vide officials. The bureaucracy was the one learned profession and naturally attracted much of the best intellect of the nation. In fact as well as in theory the ablest and the best- trained men were drawn to give themselves to the task of government. The keenness of com- petition in the civil -service examinations can scarcely be realized by Westerners. The height of the ambition of every self-respecting fam- ily was to have sons who had achieved an entrance into the charmed circle of learned officialdom. And yet in education direct government supervision began only with the examination. Primary education and the preparation; of candidates for the examinations were left entirely in private hands. After the student had passed the examinations there were a few state-aided colleges where, if he were fortunate, he might study. The government often encouraged or directly undertook through the Imperial Academy l extensive literary ef- forts, such as new editions or collections of famous works, encyclopaedias, and dictionaries. But the preliminary steps to the examinations it did not supervise nor aid. The result was that formal education had as its aim the pass- 1 Han Lin. 108 CHINESE CULTURE ing of examinations. No attempt was made to encourage the pupil to think for himself, or to develop him for his own sake. His memory was crammed with texts and their official commen- taries, and he was trained in a narrow groove of literary expression and style. Only a very small proportion of the candidates ever reached the coveted goal and the rest became poorly paid clerks, or recruited the ranks of the school- teachers. The best products of the system furnished fine examples of minds splendidly drilled on narrow but exacting classical lines. The system illustrated at once the best and the worst effects of a training for examinations carried to its logical conclusion. The evils were many and obvious. The edu- cation of women was neglected. The great mass of the men were illiterate. Only about one in twenty could read, and for most of even these favored few literacy meant the use of the few characters needed in a special trade. Among the educated independent thinking was sacrificed for memory, style, and calligraphy. An unreasoning conservatism inevitably fol- lowed. There were, however, some good results. A premium was placed on learning, and the 109 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ideal maintained that the best talent should be given to the use of society as represented by the body politic. National cohesion was promoted by the resulting unity in language and literature. To the system China is in- debted for much that is best in her culture. The test of social usefulness was applied to scholarship and it was a natural if not a read- ily taken step to the practical and technical education of the modern Occident. The Chinese written language and litera- ture on which this education was based were highly developed, as would naturally be the case when so much able attention had been concentrated on them. The written charac- ters have a varied origin. The earliest were, as with all peoples, attempts to picture natural objects. Thus, the mouth was y, the modern Q. To speak was a mouth with a tongue in it, (j, to-day 3- The moon was ^j), to-day written ^. A tree was fa (to-day written /ft) representing the branches and roots and ground. The sun was O> to-day written JJ. A man was A, a creature of two legs. A child, or a son, was ^, a crude picture of an infant, to-day written ~f. A sheep was ^p, a ram with its horns prominent, to-day written ~. 110 CHINESE CULTURE A little later an attempt was made to pic- ture ideas by combining characters. Thus east was jf, the sun, Q, rising behind a tree, ?fc, for when the earliest Chinese, an inland peo- ple, looked toward the dawn they saw a forest between it and them. The verb "to sit,"^, was represented by two men ( A A ) seated on the ground (i), a common posture in China. The verb " to be born," " to bear," " to begin," is ^, originally ^C> a sprout (*!*) proceeding out of the ground ( *t ). Bright was B$, a com- bination of the sun (0) and the moon (^). In the spoken Chinese several ideas are frequently represented by the same sound, the context or a combination with a synonym determining the meaning. In the beginnings of the written language, there would be a written character to represent one idea and none to represent another idea expressed in the vernacular by the same sound. It was quite a natural step, then, to write both words by the same character. Thus Jj originally represented a spoken word "fang" meaning "square." It was later used to represent the idea of a "locality" or "place" which had the same sound "fang" in the vernacular but was not represented by a written character. Still 111 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA later, to avoid confusion, when the character was used to mean locality there was added the character meaning earth, i, and the charac- ter jfi resulted. So ~JJ ("fang") still meant "square" and "& ("fang") meant a "place." Thus by combining a character indicating the sound with another indicating the idea, one obtained a new compound character, and the phonetic element was introduced into the writ- ten language. This method has been exten- sively employed until to-day the majority of written signs or characters belong to this class. The part of the character indicating the sound has been designated the phonetic and the part indicating the meaning the radical. Thus the character j$J is pronounced fu, and by itself is an adverb of negation meaning "no," or "not." Combined as a phonetic with the radical IJ meaning knife, it becomes $lj, a character used to write another word pro- nounced fu and meaning "to cut," or "to hew." The same phonetic combined with the character [J meaning "mouth," becomes Pj$ and is used to express the word pronounced fu, meaning "to oppose," "to refuse." The same phonetic written with the radical -H- meaning "grass" (an abbreviated form for yy, 112 CHINESE CULTURE originally written "f*"f% a picture of grass) be- comes jjjjj and represents a word fu which means "luxuriant." The same phonetic writ- ten with the radical /fv meaning "heart" (also written once written \J^, a rude picture of the heart and its ventricles) becomes 'I'^jJ and represents a spoken word fu, meaning "sorry /'anxious," or "excited." Written with the radical for "hand" J (originally a picture of the hand $} the same phonetic forms the character ^ representing the word fu that means "to shake off," or "to wave to and fro." One ought to add, however, that some of the combinations are by no means as simple as the above. Most dictionaries of the written lan- guage are now arranged either by radicals or phonetics. There are according to the stand- ard list, two hundred and fourteen radicals, a list that most foreign students of the language learn early. The written language composed of these characters is condensed in its expressions and highly developed. It appeals to the eye rather than to the ear, and few scholars can under- stand it when read aloud unless they are fa- miliar with the passage or can see it. It was originally developed when writing was a 113 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA cumbersome process and done with clumsy instruments. It was hence produced in as condensed a form as possible and probably never, unless at its earliest beginnings, ex- actly reproduced the spoken language. After instruments of writing improved and the char- acters were simplified, the same condensed form was continued. The centuries of effort by scholars of taste and intellect have resulted in a written language notable for its richness of expression and its niceties of meaning. In the hands of a master it becomes a rare vehicle for the expression of thought. New combina- tions of characters are readily produced to express new ideas. The language is remark- ably adjustable to such changes in thought as are taking place to-day and to the new ideas and new objects that are coming in from the West. The written language thus developed has had and to-day still has many advantageous fea- tures. In addition to its richness and its flexi- bility, it is a tie which binds the different parts of the empire together. The vernacular de- velops dialects so different that they are mu- tually almost unintelligible, but the written language is the same throughout the empire; 114 CHINESE CULTURE scholars who cannot understand each other's speech can still read the same books and com- municate by writing. The local pronuncia- tions of the characters differ, but the written language appeals to the eye rather than to the ear, and hence is independent of the variations in dialect that are certain to develop in a land as large as China when communication is as difficult as it has been. It is an element of unity which has had no small part in holding the nation together. The written language was taken over by the Japanese and is used by them to-day with modifications, although their spoken language is very different indeed from that of China. As a result Japanese students study Chinese much as American college stu- dents of the last generation studied Latin, and Chinese can learn to read Japanese with but little effort. Many new terms have been taken over bodily in recent years from Japan where they were coined by combining Chinese char- acters to express new ideas from the West. The written language has its weaknesses, however. The labor of learning the characters is far greater than that of learning even the illogical spelling of the English written lan- guage. It consumes much time which with a 115 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA phonetic alphabet could be used to advantage elsewhere. It promotes illiteracy and adds difficulty to the task of primary education. The form of the written language, removed as it is from the vernacular, is still another burden for the student. Even the Chinese must learn it almost as he would another closely related language, so different is it from the vernacular in its rules of composition, its style, and even its vocabulary. It adds to the difficulty of edu- cation and of communicating ideas to the mass of the people. Extensive education in the knowledge derived from the written page has thus been the privilege of a comparative few, and a difficult task even for them. The mere labor of memory and of the development of form and style has helped to divert the em- phasis from the thought to the means of ex- pressing that thought, and has been an ob- stacle to independent thinking. The spoken language resembles closely in its structure the written language. It is mono- syllabic in nature. There is but little inflection and what little there is is done largely by the addition of particles. It is very poor in separate sounds. No more than nine hundred are in use in any one part of the empire, and in some 116 CHINESE CULTURE sections the number is half that. This means confusion. Thus the word represented in Roman letters as "Hsi" (pronounced like the English "she") represents several scores of different things or ideas. Among others it may mean "west," or "few," or "to draw in the breath," or "old," or the interrogative "why," or "to write," "to dry," "a mat," or "the neighing of a horse." To prevent confusion a number of devices are in use. The meaning may be indicated by the context, as is the case in English with " bear " (the verb), " bear " (the noun), and "bare" (the adjective). The meaning is also made clear by combining words in pairs. Sometimes this is done by repetition, sometimes by the use of two words of nearly synonymous meaning. Another device is a system of tones. Each syllable may be pro- nounced in a number of tones, in the North four, in the South as many as nine or more; the tone is inseparable from the word. Thus the syllable "fu," when pronounced in one tone means "not"; in another, "rich"; in an- other, "corrupt"; and in still another, "to store up." 1 The systems now in use by Westerners for representing Chinese by Roman letters are numerous and are mostly cou- 117 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA The spoken language has developed a num- ber of different dialects. These are often mu- tually unintelligible, but they have the same root stock, as, for instance, have English and German. Through the North of China and most of the Yangtze Valley the dialects are sufficiently alike to be mutually intelligible, and differ but little more than do the dialects of English. This Northern group of dialects is usually called by foreigners the mandarin, or official language, because one of its forms is the language of Peking and of the court. Along the coast from Shanghai southward, and in the Southern provinces, however, the dialects dif- fer greatly both from the mandarin and from each other. A native of Canton, for example, cannot understand a native of Shanghai or Peking. He can much more readily learn the dialects of these places than can a European, fusing and unscientific. Because it is the one in widest use the Wade system is followed as a rule in this book. The vowels are given their European, not their English value. The con- sonants ch, t, k, ts, and p, when followed by the inverted apos- trophe, have their English value. When not followed by it, ch has approximately the value of the English j, t of d, k of hard g, ts of ds, and p of 6. Thus Taoism is more like the English "Dowism." A few names, such as Confucius and Mencius, and prominent geographical names, such as Canton, Hankow, and Peking, do not follow the system accurately, and hw is used for Wade's AM, as being less confusing. 118 CHINESE CULTURE however, since the structure is essentially the same. This diversity is an obstacle to national union and helps to keep the different sections of the empire apart. The spoken language of China can be, and at the present time is, frequently represented by the characters, but the great mass of Chinese literature is in the written language. This literature is very voluminous and espe- cially rich in ethics, philosophy, history, and poetry, although religion, science, mathemat- ics, drama, and the novel are all represented. The great mass of the literature has been pro- duced by the scholarly official class, and the outlook of that class, as we have seen, is es- sentially that of the cultured statesman. The emphasis has consequently been on ethics, his- tory, and philosophy, on poetry, and on essays noted as much for their style as for their subject-matter. The so-called "practical" branches of mathematics, astronomy, medi- cine, agriculture, science, and pseudo-science are also represented. Many of the works are voluminous. One set of official histories alone, for instance, occupies in an ordinary edition some seventy octavo volumes. Dramas and novels exist, but are usually not in the best 119 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA literary style and do not compare favorably with similar works in the West. Religion is largely represented by Buddhist and Taoist books, but only part of these appeal in their style to the Chinese scholar of taste. The most prominent works are the so-called "Clas- sics," which have been previously described. 1 The classical literature of the Chinese is nota- ble for the loftiness of its moral tone and for its beauty of style. It loses nothing in these char- acteristics in comparison with the best that the West has produced. The invention of printing in China antedates its invention in the West, and books have for centuries been cheaply and widely distributed. Only the very poorest could plead poverty as an excuse for being without them. Literature as well as learning has been held in the highest esteem. The written characters are sacred and are not to be put to ignoble uses. The paper on which they are printed is care- fully collected from places where it might be trampled, and is burned. Incinerators for this purpose are placed along the streets by char- itably disposed persons. Chinese art and literature fit in naturally 1 See above, p. 25. 120 CHINESE CULTURE with each other, for the most highly developed form of art has been painting, and the great painters have frequently been poets as well. Then, too, the writing instrument is the brush pen and calligraphy in itself is a fine art. Skill- ful penmen have national reputations. The best paintings have in them the emotional touch of the poet and the penman's emphasis of line. The artist has endeavored to put into his landscape or his portrait the spirit back of the originals rather than to reproduce them exactly, and to do it largely by lines rather than by an exact reproduction. Perspective and an adherence to nature seem to the West- erner to be lacking, but the best examples can- not but appeal to him as the work of masters. Architecture and sculpture have not had the attention that has been paid them in Europe and have not risen to the heights reached by painting. There has been some admirable statuary produced, largely in connection with Buddhist shrines, and the sweep of the Chinese roof is in some temples a thing of beauty. Metal-work, lacquer, and porcelain have at times risen from the level of the handicraft to that of art. Chinese art has shown many foreign influ- 121 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ences, some of them Greek, some of them In- dian, and other and earlier ones possibly from the islands of the Pacific. Its highest develop- ment was under the T'ang and the Sung. Ex- cept possibly in porcelain and metal nothing has been produced for some centuries that is worthy to be compared with the achievements of these dynasties. In her religious life China has as a rule been tolerant. Various faiths exist side by side and live in comparative peace with one another. At times there have been persecutions and occasionally the government has frowned on certain sects, once in a long while Confucian- ism, but more often Buddhism, Taoism, or Christianity. But there have never been the religious wars that have marked the Near East and the West, and the average Chinese is at once an animist, a Confucianist, a Buddhist, and a Taoist without any sense of inconsist- ency. His ethics are Confucian or Buddhist; he calls in Buddhist or Taoist priests at critical times of illness or burial; and he honors the manes of his ancestors, propitiates evil spirits, and seeks blessings from beneficent ones. Only Mohammedanism and Christianity deny to their followers the privilege of eclecticism. 122 CHINESE CULTURE Underlying all organized faiths is animism, a belief in spirits or invisible essences. This seems to have been the primitive religion of China. It is for the great mass of the ignorant dominant to-day. To the average Chinese the air and the earth and natural objects are in- habited by spirits, some of them beneficent, more of them evil. Spirits are the cause of disease and misfortune and must be avoided or propitiated. Shrines are erected throughout the countryside and in the cities. By any road- side one may see one, usually with a tree grow- ing over it. In one of the provincial capitals an ancient gun that did good service in the T'ai P'ing Rebellion was thought to be the abode of a mighty spirit, and written prayers were posted on it and incense offered. In many cities at the point where one street ends in an- other, a stone is placed declaring itself in large characters to be from the sacred mountain, T'ai Shan (although it is but infrequently genuine). It is a warning to spirits to go back the way they came. The merchant can be seen at the opening or closing of the day burning incense sticks at his shop door. The worship of ancestors is almost universal. To the aver- age Chinese their spirits have power to harm or 123 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA to bless the living. They are represented to him by tablets, in his home and in the an- cestral hall. Before these offerings are made. The spirits are honored at the graves by food, and by paper houses and paper money for use in the world beyond. To some of the edu- cated the honor paid to ancestors may be but little if at all different in motive from that given at the grave in Western lands: one uses food, the other flowers. To the great mass of the nation, however, the honor becomes wor- ship and is expected to obtain blessings and to avert calamity. Closely allied to animism is the so-called "feng shui," or doctrine of "wind and water." Its basis is a belief in lucky and unlucky spots. The earth and the air are supposed to be filled with good and evil influences, and these must be taken into consideration before the site of any building is chosen, or any grave is located, or a city begun. A profession numbering many thousands has arisen to determine such spots. This doctrine of wind and water has made diffi- culty for railways, because railway cuts, be- sides desecrating graves, disturb the config- uration of the land. Telegraph poles were at times objected to. The erection of pagodas 124 CHINESE CULTURE outside of the cities has been partly to insure good influences. Somewhat similar is the belief in lucky and unlucky days and omens. No betrothal is properly constituted before the horoscopes of the contracting parties are determined. There are lucky and unlucky days for beginning journeys and business undertakings. The three great formal religions of China are Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. It will be remembered that Taoism began during the Chou dynasty as an ultra-mystical, quietistic faith. Its obscure statements of belief could never be comprehended by the masses, and by its philosophy it was naturally limited in scope to the few mystical souls who found themselves spiritually akin to its founder. During the later years of the Chou, however, and during the short-lived Ch'in, it became primarily a search for the elixir of life as a means to physical immortality. Other super- stitions crept in as time went on, and in recent centuries the chief function of the Taoist priest has been the exorcism of the demons that have so prominent a place in the Chinese imagina- tion as the cause of disease, death, and mis- fortune. Taoism has copied extensively from 125 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Buddhism. Its temples were originally built largely under the stimulus of competition. Its priesthood and its ceremonies have come to resemble that of the foreign faith, and it has in imitation of its rival created a pantheon. It talks of a western heaven in imitation of the Buddhist paradise. It seems, however, at the present time to lack any real appeal to the higher spiritual side of man's nature, and caters almost entirely to the crass superstition of the mass of the people. Buddhism has been in a somewhat better ethical and spiritual condition. It has held up before the nation the ideal of a moral life with heaven as a reward and hell as a punishment. Some of the pictures of hell in its temples vie in their horror with the conceptions of mediaeval Europe. It has introduced terms and ideas into the Chinese language that are of use in expressing some of the highest religious con- ceptions known to man. Many sects have grown up within it around religious leaders of moral and mystical insight, and it has been the main channel through which earnest souls have sought satisfaction for their spiritual longings. Chinese Buddhism differs very widely from primitive Buddhism, and seems to have ap- 126 CHINESE CULTURE propriated many elements from other faiths as well as to have undergone extensive modifica- tions from within. Primitive Indian Buddhism early developed different forms as it spread northward and southward. The northern form 1 existed and appears to have had its ori- gin mainly in Central Asia, and since early Buddhist missionaries to China came largely from this direction, it predominates in China. But the southern form, 2 the type that to-day predominates in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, has also had some influence, and in both types the Chinese themselves have modified exten- sively the faith as brought them from abroad. In many respects Chinese Buddhism closely resembles, in ceremonies, doctrine, priest- hood, and organization, the Eastern Christian churches, although no one has yet determined with certainty whether the elements they hold in common were borrowed by Buddhism from Christianity, or by Christianity from Bud- dhism, or were derived by both from a common source. The similarity is so striking that early Catholic missionaries referred it piously to the work of the Devil. There are monasteries, with 1 Called "Mahayana," or the "Greater Vehicle." * Called "Hinayana," or the "Lesser Vehicle." 127 nuns and monks. The ritual in places closely resembles that of some Christian bodies. There is a Trinity, a doctrine of salvation by vicarious suffering, and other teachings that are strangely like the Christian. Some schol- ars have referred the similarities in part to contact with Nestorian Christianity, a divi- sion of the Eastern Church that is known to have been widespread in Central Asia during the European Middle Ages. Pilgrimages to sa- cred mountains, which are partly Buddhist in their origin, are in great vogue and remind one again of mediseval Europe. In spite of its elements of life, Chinese Bud- dhism has been largely formal and superstitious. The mass of the priesthood has been ignorant and even vicious. It has ceased, on the whole, to be able to read comprehendingly the sacred books or to understand the liturgy of the serv- ice. To all but a few the higher doctrines of the faith have been meaningless and the religious life has been a matter of blind routine and a means of livelihood. Lay adherents have principally been women and children. In Chinese the term corresponding to "Con- fucianism" is "the teaching of the learned.'* There has been much dispute as to whether it 128 CHINESE CULTURE is a religion. Although discounted by many Chinese thinkers there are certainly religious elements in it. The worship of ancestors is ah integral part of it, and the imperial sacrifices at the imposing Temple of Heaven in Peking also belong with it. Confucius himself, as the greatest teacher of the sect, gradually passed through a process of deification until the Man- chu dynasty in its last years completed the apotheosis by declaring him to be "the Equal of Heaven and Earth." Official temples have been erected to him in the chief cities, and official sacrifices offered at stated times. He and his disciples are represented in these temples by tablets and form a kind of pan- theon. Confucianism, however, has placed its chief emphasis upon the moral rather than the reli- gious. It has represented the ethical, philo- sophical, and religious reaction of the learned upon the facts of life and of the universe. It has, consequently, lacked much of the gross superstition of the masses and at times has been skeptical on religious matters. Since the training of the scholar had official position primarily in view, Confucianism has looked on ethics from the standpoint of the state and of 129 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA society. It has, as is the usual way with official cults, been a conservative force and a bulwark of the existing order. It has presented to the nation an unusually lofty ethical standard. The five cardinal virtues of Confucius were kindness, rectitude, decorum, wisdom, and sincerity, and in his rule, "What you do not like yourself, do not do to others," one recog- nizes a parallel to the golden rule of Jesus. It is doubtful whether a higher moral standard than that of the Confucian school is to be found outside the Christian Bible. The system, while it was worked out primarily by the learned, was meant for the entire nation and has pro- foundly influenced it. The so-called "Sacred Edict," for instance, which as finally developed was an attempt by the Manchu emperors to present in popular form a comprehensive sys- tem of ethics, was in reality largely a summary of the Confucian teachings as interpreted by the Sung philosophers. "The teaching of the learned" like Japanese Bushido, " the way of the warrior," and European "chivalry," the ethical code of the knight has become the moral ideal of the great mass of the nation. Mohammedanism has existed in China for some centuries, and to-day has several million 130 CHINESE CULTURE adherents. They are largely descendants of foreign immigrants who have intermarried so extensively with the Chinese, that usually the racial difference between them and the pure natives is not noticeable. They are to be found mostly in the northwest and southwest sec- tions of the empire, although they exist in smaller numbers in practically every province. Islam has not been in China a proselyting faith, and its members seem to have had only infrequent communication with the rest of the Moslem world. Of Christianity mention has been made above and its further progress will be chroni- cled later. In the social organization the emphasis has been laid on the family rather than on the in- dividual. The family means not only the father and mother and the children, but the larger circle of blood relationship. Large sections of the family frequently live together, and in some districts whole villages are made up of one clan group. The immediate ancestors are represented by tablets in the home and the remote ancestors by tablets in the ancestral hall of the family clan. The sons marry early, usually before they are able to support house- 131 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA holds of their own. They bring their wives to the paternal home and stay there even after the children come, so that one will often find several generations living together under the same roof tree. Great emphasis has been placed on family solidarity. Of the "five relationships " familiar to every schoolboy, within which are supposed to be summed up the duties of man to his fel- lows, three have to do with the family. These are the relationship between husband and wife, between younger brother and older brother, and between father and son. 1 The basis of much of the national ethics has been duty to parents rather than duty to God. If a man indulges in dissipation, he sins, not because he has defiled the temple of God, but because he has injured the body transmitted to him by his ancestors. He is to serve his parents during their life, and after their death to sacrifice to their spirits. Ancestral worship thus becomes a part of his mental background and of his daily life. No crime is considered greater than to die without leaving sons to perpetuate the name of the ancestors and to honor their spirits. 1 The other two are the relationships between prince and minister and friend and friend. 132 CHINESE CULTURE The family has acted as a unit far more than in the West. It usually centers around the an- cestral hall, which is often endowed. It fre- quently provides for the education of its chil- dren, especially of the more promising. It looks after its indigent members and its aged, and often after the family graves. The state rec- ognize family solidarity by holding the theory of joint responsibility. The penalty for murder was inflicted not only on the individual culprit, but on his relatives as well, with a severity nicely adjusted to the degree of relationship. Even distant cousins might be punished if the offense of the culprit was particularly heinous. The morals of the entire family must be im- perfect, it was argued, if one of its members was guilty of crime. Given the family system, this was not an altogether unjust deduction. This family solidarity has many points of strength. It is a preventive of a too hurried departure from the past. It furnishes a mo- tive for and makes possible the preservation of excellent moral standards and restraints and is an aid to government. China's high ethical system and her persistent adherence to it dur- ing the centuries, in theory and often in prac- tice, have to no small degree been the result of 133 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA her emphasis on the family. The duty of leav- ing descendants was a fortunate provision for the endurance of the race in an age when pestilence, war, and famine kept up the death- rate. The loyalty to the family has certain potential points of national strength. If the unity of the smaller group could be expanded in its scope until it became national, patriot- ism and national solidarity would be greatly strengthened. This development has been long delayed, but it may now be at hand. On the other hand, this family system has had certain grave defects. It has hindered ini- tiative. It has been extremely hard for the in- dividual to break away from the dead hand of the past. All the pressure of the traditional moral code and of the family group has tended to subordinate the will of one to the will of all, to discourage departure from the ways of the fathers. That is perhaps one reason why China has found it so difficult to discover leaders in recent years. There have been but few men in the past century who have stood out suffi- ciently from the mass to command the respect and adherence of the nation. Even some of the few who have emerged have been lacking in the moral courage required for persistent 134 CHINESE CULTURE independent action. Reforms are started amid enthusiasm, and great programmes of local or national reorganization are mapped out. But even more frequently than in the West, these are apt to be dropped before permanent results have been achieved. This dearth of political leadership and con- stancy may be due in part to the size of the nation. In the Greek city-state, where the pop- ulation was relatively small, it was compara- tively easy for a leader to emerge and dominate the group. It is much more difficult to become the leader of a loosely organized population of three hundred millions. The mere mass of numbers has an inertia that requires more than ordinary persistence and energy to move and guide. National leadership is a more difficult matter than in the smaller, more highly organ- ized Japan or in the states of Europe. Since individual initiative has been so dif- ficult and the tendency has been to honor the past, it follows that conservatism has been en- couraged and progress discouraged. When individuals or the nation as a whole finally break away from the past, as has been the case in recent years, extremes of radicalism are apt to follow. Unaccustomed to progress, the nat- 135 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ural tendency when the break comes is to go to extremes. Too rapid change results and chaos follows. Still another evil of the Chinese family sys- tem has been the premium on numbers. This has been salutary in time of war, pestilence, or famine, for it has helped the race to survive and recuperate quickly. Whenever these checks on population are limited by peace, however, the race multiplies too rapidly and extreme poverty and all its ills follow. The position of women in the old China was midway between that of the modern Occident and of the older Orient. She has been more honored than in India or in Mohammedan lands. At times she has been educated, and there have been a few notable instances in which empresses or empress dowagers have governed. In every age many homes have been dominated by vigorous mothers or grand- mothers. The husband and wife are ideally to hold each other in mutual regard and both are to be honored by their children. But in many respects the position of woman has not been the equal of that of her sister in the West. Concubinage has been allowed. Divorce has been freely permitted, usually at the instance 136 CHINESE CULTURE of the husband and on a number of grounds, some of them trivial. Women, while more fre- quently educated than in most Asiatic coun- tries, have not been as frequently educated as men. The widespread custom of foot-binding, enforced by the sanction of long practice, has been a physical hindrance. The girl has not been as much valued as the boy and with the advent of poverty has been the first to be sold into slavery. The Chinese nation has been on the whole a democracy. Family name and influence have counted for much, it is true, but that is like- wise the case in democratic America. The descendants of Confucius have formed a specially honored clan. The only formal no- bility under the Manchus, however, was almost entirely confined to the Manchus themselves. The educated official class, sometimes called by foreigners the "literati," formed a kind of ruling caste, but membership was on the basis of merit, not of birth, and all but followers of a few despised occupations might rise to any position in the empire that was not reserved to the Manchus. There was no extensive hereditary nobility as in Europe and Japan. This democracy has been a source of strength 137 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA and of weakness. It has permitted the best men constantly to come to the front, regard- less of birth, but it has also deprived the na- tion of the stability given to many countries by a ruling caste whose hereditary business it is to lead. This in brief was the civilization of the old China, the China that is being completely transformed by contact with the peoples of the West. In spite of the changes of the past dec- ades, it is still predominant, even in the coast cities where the transformation has been most marked. In all but a few respects it is to be found practically unchanged in the remote corners of the empire. Whatever the future of the country and however thorough -going the transformation, this older civilization will be the foundation of the culture of the future. CHAPTER V CHINA FROM ITS FULLER CONTACT WITH THE WEST TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 1834-1894 WE now turn from the older history and civilization of China to her intercourse with the aggressive Occident. We have seen how the nation developed without intimate con- tact with the West, or indeed without the moulding influence of any civilization but that of India. We have seen the beginnings of inter- course with Western Europe, first overland during the times of the Mongols, and then after the fifteenth century by sea. We have also seen that the nation as a whole was but little influenced by this contact. In 1834 for- eign intercourse was practically confined to one port, Canton, and was carried on under rigid restrictions. Only a few scattered Catho- lic fathers ministered to their flocks and these largely in secret and against official prohibi- tions. During the last few decades of the eight- eenth century and the early decades of the 139 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA nineteenth century, however, changes were taking place in Europe that were to lead West- ern nations to knock at the gates of China and eventually to batter them down. These changes are usually known as the Industrial Revolution, and are so familiar to all students of recent history as scarcely to need recapitulation. A series of inventions had made possible the application of power to machinery. The steam engine came into use. The peoples of Western Europe ceased to be primarily agricultural and gave themselves more and more to manufac- turing by the new methods. Factories and factory towns grew up. Manufactured goods increased more rapidly than the local demand and foreign markets were sought. A great im- petus was given to foreign commerce, an im- petus that was strengthened by the coming of the steamboat and the steam railway. The na- tions of Western Europe and America sought to open new markets and to develop old ones. They reached out for new sources of raw material. Later, as capital accumulated they looked for new places to invest it. Their pur- chasing power multiplied and they bought more eagerly the products of other lands. A great increase in population followed and led to 140 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN a still further growth in manufactures, in the demand for raw materials, for foodstuffs and luxuries, and in international trade. With each decade the effects of the Industrial Revolution have been more apparent. There has been a growing world-unity. Europeans have gone everywhere, and wherever they have gone they have taken their civilization and the industrial and commercial methods and ideals that are the products of the Industrial Revolution. The nations have been bound together by rapid transportation and improved methods of communication, by the steamship, the railway, and the telegraph. Europeans have poured into the Americas. Within a century they and their children have added some tens of mil- lions to the population of the United States. The movement to Canada and parts of South America has been equally striking. Africa has been explored and divided among the powers. The South Sea islands have been acquired. The ancient nations of Western and Eastern Asia have been invaded commercially and their markets and natural resources have been de- veloped. The non-European peoples of the world are conforming more and more to Eu- ropean industrial and commercial methods and 141 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA are being profoundly influenced by European civilization. No similar transformation has ever before taken place on so large a scale. Along with other countries, China has felt the effects of this expansion of the industrial- ized West. Mighty changes have resulted. It is the history of these changes and their effects that we are to study in the remaining chapters. China had closed her doors to outside influence only to have them opened against her will. For the first time her people and her ancient cul- ture were brought into intimate contact with strong peoples possessing an alien civilization equal and possibly superior to her own. For a time she resisted, but Occidental culture has come in upon her as a flood and the result has been partial disintegration and mighty trans- formation. The end of the process no one can yet clearly foresee. The earliest agent of the new age was Eng- land. She dominated the foreign commerce of China during the nineteenth century and for most of the time was the outstanding influence in her foreign affairs. It is only in the last few decades that England's commercial predomi- nance has been seriously disputed. The reasons for her leadership are not far to seek. She was 142 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN the first nation to feel the Industrial Revolu- tion. She began the new processes in manu- facturing. Other Western nations followed her more or less tardily and for some decades could not seriously compete with her. Even before the new age England had been the chief Eu- ropean power in India and the Far East. It was not until other countries, Germany, Japan, and Russia, began to share the new industrial methods that her leadership was seriously threatened. The signs of pressure on China caused by the new life in the West first became apparent dur- ing the last decade of the eighteenth and the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Two embassies were sent by England to the Chinese court to request more favorable trad- ing privileges. These embassies l were treated, however, as though they had been sent to bear tribute from subject peoples. No concessions were granted and nothing lasting was accom- plished. British trade with China grew up under the monopoly of the East India Company. Before the middle of the nineteenth century the increasing British commerce could no longer 1 The Macartney and the Amherst missions. 143 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA brook the restrictions involved. Independent merchants fought them in Parliament and in 1834 they were abolished. The British govern- ment now sent out a special representative who was instructed to obtain further trading concessions from China. He was to open nego- tiations directly with the Chinese government, and not with the group of merchants through which the government had heretofore dealt with foreigners. The English insisted, in other words, that the Chinese open their country to foreign nations on the basis of equality. This demand led to friction, for the Chinese con- tinued to regard the English as barbarians. Under the circumstances there could be but one outcome, war. Unfortunately for the good name of Great Britain, the question came to an issue over the opium question. For some years one of the principal British exports to China had been opium, chiefly opium raised in India. The traffic had been frowned upon by the Chinese government, partly because it led to the export of silver and partly because of the demoralizing moral and physical effects of the drug. The Chinese repeatedly declared the traffic illegal, and occasionally made half- hearted attempts to stamp it out. The venality 144 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN of the local authorities, however, had thwarted attempts at restriction and had even permitted an increase. Finally, in 1839 the imperial court resolved on a determined effort and sent to Canton a special commissioner 1 to put an end to the traffic. This commissioner, a vigor- ous fellow, was very much opposed to foreign trade in general and especially to that in opium. He forced the surrender of all the drug then held in stock by the foreign merchants and destroyed it. This and some other acts, in which the British were treated with arrogance and with what was from their standpoint rank injustice, led to increased friction and finally to open hostilities (1840-42). From the British standpoint the war was primarily to secure just treatment of their subjects by the Chinese and to open China to trade on terms more nearly fair to foreigners. To the Chinese and to most of the world, however, it seemed to be designed primarily to force opium upon the Chinese. Hostilities were confined almost ex- clusively to naval attacks on the cities of the southern coast. The British were uniformly successful and finally, after several abortive attempts at negotiations, concluded a treaty, 1 Named Lin. 145 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA known as the Treaty of Nanking. The terms that were important from the standpoint of later years were as follows : (1) Canton, and four other ports south of the Yangtze River, including Shanghai, were to be opened to foreign trade. Thus was in- augurated the system of treaty ports that has endured to the present day. It is through these ports and the many others that have since been opened that commerce has been carried on. (2) The island of Hongkong was ceded to Great Britain. The island was at that time practically unoccupied, and gave the British a strategic position near Canton free from Chinese restrictions from which they could carry on commerce with China. It has since grown into one of the great commercial centers of the world. (3) Fair tariff rates were to be imposed at the treaty ports to take the place of the arbitrary official exactions of the past. These rates were shortly established by a supplementary agree- ment. They were low, mostly on a basis of five per cent, ad valorem. China thus partially surrendered the right to fix her own customs duties. (4) An indemnity was exacted, establishing 146 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN the precedent that China must pay in cash for her unsuccessful wars with Western powers. It is a custom that has since helped to saddle her with a huge debt. (5) Official correspondence between the two nations was to be conducted on equal terms, a provision that paved the way for recognition of consuls and later of ministers. The Western world watched the war with great interest. Following the treaty with Great Britain others were sought by and made with the United States and with France. The American treaty was drawn up at considerable length by a special mission under Caleb Gush- ing, and for some years served as a model for other treaties with China. There was one im- portant addition to the terms of the treaty with England, that of exterritoriality. Ameri- can citizens were to be tried for offenses com- mitted in China, not by Chinese law and Chi- nese courts, but by American law and American officials. Sad experience in the past had proved that Chinese laws and Chinese courts were not to be trusted to do justice when a foreigner was involved. It was the precedent for that ex- tensive system of exterritoriality that to-day removes foreigners from the jurisdiction of the 147 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Chinese government and that has created in China imperia in imperio. It is the basis for the foreign "settlements" in some of the main treaty ports, by which the important commer- cial centers of China have fallen largely under alien jurisdiction. By these treaties the old days of restricted trade at Canton were brought to an end. No longer was commerce to be carried on at only one port and through an official monopoly. No longer were consuls to be without legal stand- ing and foreigners to be turned over to Chinese courts for farcical trials. No longer were tariff duties to be levied without published schedules, subject to the whims of officials. The effect of the treaties in the Occident was a greatly accentuated interest in China. Com- merce with the West was expected to grow rapidly, and missionaries, especially represent- atives of Protestant churches in England and America, came in increased numbers. Chinese conservatism and bigotry, however, were as yet scarcely touched. The mass of the nation knew nothing whatever of the war with Eng- land and the subsequent treaties. Those who did thought of Westerners as merely another group of those barbarians who had from time 148 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN to time harassed the empire. No one suspected that it was the dawning of a new day. Con- tinued friction was inevitable. The treaties were but the first steps toward intercourse, and in carrying out their terms there were repeated difficulties. There were riots in Canton, where the people were bitterly opposed to a change in the old order, and the opening of the city to foreign residence was deferred. There was trouble in the other open ports, although these very naturally were less disposed to quibble over treaties that had brought them a share in the profitable foreign trade. Commerce in- creased, stimulated by the greater freedom and by the pulsing new industrial life in the West. Clipper ships cut down the time of the voyage to Europe and America and steamboats began to appear in Chinese waters. Friction con- tinued, and it was evident that foreign nations would insist upon still further concessions and upon a further opening of China. In 1856 war broke out again with Great Britain. The immediate occasion was a dis- regard by the Chinese for the British flag on a small vessel engaged in the opium traffic. 1 The 1 This was the lorcha Arrow, and the war is at times called the "Arrow War." 149 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA underlying cause was still the increased com- mercial pressure, brought by industrial growth in the West. There was as well the inadequacy of existing commercial concessions and of ar- rangements for official intercourse, the disre- gard by the Chinese of the existing treaty pro- visions, and the kidnapping of Chinese coolies for contract work in other countries. The opium traffic helped, for no mention was made of it in the first treaty with Great Britain and it still continued. The war dragged on from 1856 to 1860. After some months the French joined with the English. At first hostilities were confined to the South, but the English came to see that if satisfactory relations were to exist, negotiations must be entered into di- rectly with the capital and not with commis- sioners in the provinces. The war was accord- ingly carried to the North and the forts that commanded the entrance to Tientsin, the port of entry to Peking, were captured. At Tientsin treaties were concluded, not only with the French and English, but with the American and Russian ministers, who had followed in the wake of the allied fleet. The main provisions of these treaties were as follows: (1) Ministers of foreign powers were to 150 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN reside at Peking. With direct communication with the court it was thought that there would be less friction. (2) Five more ports were opened to foreign commerce and foreign ships were allowed to trade in the Yangtze River. (3) Foreigners were to be allowed to travel in the interior of the country. (4) Christianity was to be tolerated through- out the empire. Toleration in the treaty ports had been virtually granted by the earlier trea- ties, but this was now extended to all sections of the country and liberty of conversion was acknowledged. (5) The tariff duties as fixed under earlier treaties were to be revised. China thus con- tinued to sacrifice her tariff autonomy. When the representatives of the powers re- turned to Tientsin a year later (1859) to ex- change ratifications, they found that the mouth of the river (Peiho) that led to Tientsin had been strongly fortified. The foreign min- isters were urged to go to Peking by a less di- rect route, the one usually taken by repre- sentatives of subject states on their way to the capital. The British and French declined and their fleets attempted to force direct passage to 151 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Tientsin only to be severely repulsed. In spite of these events, however, the American minister went on to Peking in a manner hardly befitting the dignity of his nation and exchanged rati- fications. The British and French returned to the attack, and finally found it advisable to force their way to Peking. Here, in retaliation for the mistreatment of some prisoners at the hands of the Chinese, the allied army burned the imperial summer palace. The emperor had fled northward, but through his brother 1 he negotiated a new treaty by which, in addition to the provisions enumerated in the ones at Tientsin, a piece of the mainland opposite Hongkong was ceded to Great Britain. Tien- tsin was opened as a treaty port. Chinese sub- jects were allowed the privilege of unrestricted emigration. Missionaries were permitted to re- side and to own property in the interior, and an additional indemnity was granted. Thus the foreigner forced the Chinese to take an- other long step toward opening their land to trade and toward taking their place with the nations of the world. During the negotiations at Peking, the Rus- sian minister offered his friendly offices as 1 Prince Kung. 152 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN mediator. After the treaties were signed, Rus- sia suggested a return for her services. She was seeking to extend her Asiatic territory south from the Amur River along the Pacific, in search of an ice-free seaport and a share in the opening trade of the Far East. She asked and was given the region to the east of the Ussuri River, a long strip of territory reaching southward toward Korea. Near the southern end of this district she built a seaport town, Vladivostok, that was later to be the terminus of her trans-Siberian railway. Thus by posing as a friend of China she prepared to share in her dismemberment. On the whole, however, the policy of Eu- ropean powers at this time was not one of ter- ritorial aggression. Colonial expansion was temporarily unpopular. What they wanted was security for commerce. They were quite eager to see a strong government in China that would be liberal and stable, and that would make possible the peaceful development of trade. It was not until the last two decades of the nineteenth century that they were again to be seized by earth-hunger. The victory of the allies over the Chinese was made easier by a serious rebellion that 153 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA' during those years was raging in South China and that for a time threatened to tear in pieces the empire and even to end the Manchu dy- nasty. The leader 1 was a Southerner who had come in contact with Christian teaching. He believed that he had a special mission to ex- terminate the worship of idols and to introduce the worship of the One God, and attained such marked success that he attracted official at- tention. The government attempted to sup- press the movement, but succeeded merely in aggravating it until it became a political rebel- lion (1850) which had as its object the driving- out of the Manchus and the establishment of a new dynasty that was to be known by the name of T'ai P'ing. This title, meaning in Chinese "Great Peace," was a frightful mis- nomer. The rebellion rapidly spread through South China and won over many of the prov- inces. Wherever it went it brought destruc- tion. Temples were destroyed, for it still professed a religious purpose, cities and towns were pillaged, and adherents of the Man- chus were ruthlessly slaughtered. The rebel forces captured Nanking and made it their capital. They made one dash to the north in 1 Hung Hsiu Ch'Uan. 154 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN an attempt to capture Peking, but this proved unsuccessful and thereafter they confined their activities to the South and to the Yangtze Valley. The T'ai P'ings almost completely lost whatever of high religious motive they may originally have had, and became little bet- ter than a well-organized band of plunderers. They threatened for a time the Manchu dy- nasty, however, and were finally put down in 1864 and 1865 only by the most vigorous exer- tions. 1 The imperial forces were assisted ably by some foreigners, one of whom, Ward, or- ganized a force of Chinese with foreign officers, the nucleus of a corps that later became famous as the "Ever Victorious Army." After Ward's death it was commanded by Major Charles George Gordon, that Englishman whose career was to end so spectacularly and heroically in the Sudan. Under him it helped to hasten the downfall of the T'ai P'ing power. The rebellion gave rise to two definite insti- tutions that have survived until to-day. The first of these is the system of internal customs duties, or "likin," that was first instituted to help defray the cost of suppressing the rebel- 1 Ts'eng Kwo Fan, who finally succeeded in suppressing them, was probably the greatest statesman of his generation. 155 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA lion. These duties are levied at customs bar- riers that are placed every few miles along the trade routes of the empire and that remind one strongly of the local customs barriers of mediaeval Europe. They are still maintained, although a wasteful source of revenue, for they are a convenient form of peculation. Only a fraction of the funds collected escapes the hands of greedy officials and reaches the coffers of the government. The second institution is the collection of foreign customs duties by foreigners. These duties were fixed by tariff agreement with foreign powers. During the disorders of the rebellion Shanghai fell into the hands of a political secret order. The native customs establishment was demoralized, and a board, made up of foreigners appointed by the consuls with the approval of the local Chinese officials, took over the collection of the duties. The system was later extended to the treaty ports of South China and finally to those of all China. To-day the collection of all maritime customs duties is made through foreigners, under the direction of a foreign inspector- general who is responsible to one of the gov- ernment boards at Peking. China thus lost another part of her sovereignty. The system, 156 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN however, in many important respects has been of great service to China. Sir Robert Hart, who more than any other one man was re- sponsible for its organization and develop- ment, had at heart the best interests of the na- tion. As the years went by he gathered around him, and placed in each treaty port, men of real ability and broad education who proved friendly, sagacious advisers to the Chinese in the years of transition and who were centers of reform. The customs service began and de- veloped a national postal system and charted and lighted the rivers and seacoasts. As an example of honest, efficient, progressive ad- ministration it has been of invaluable aid to the Chinese. The years between the T'ai P'ing Rebellion (1850-65), and the Chino-Japanese War (1894- 95) can best be treated as a unit, and can in general be characterized as a period of gradual weakening of the Manchus and of gradual in- crease of foreign influences. The Manchu power was slowly but surely declining. For most of the four decades the emperors were minors. The real authority was in the hands of the crafty and able empress dowager, Tz'u Hsi. This remarkable woman 157 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA was one of the most vigorous rulers of the Manchu dynasty. Intensely fond of power, with but one brief interval she was the virtual master of China from the accession of her son l in 1861 to her death in 1908. The nominal emperors were puppets in her hands. Her own son came to the throne as a minor and on at- taining his majority proved to be a dissolute weakling. He died in 1875 and his vigorous mother obtained the succession for a mere child, her nephew, known by the title Kwang Hsu. On attaining his majority he was al- lowed but a few months of real authority and was dominated by the more aggressive per- sonality of his aunt. But for the strong hand of this woman and the aid of able Chinese statesmen, 2 the dynasty might have collapsed some years before it did. There were other rebellions than that of the T'ai P'ings, although there were none that equaled it in extent. Both in Southwest and Northwest China revolts broke out that were 1 Tung Chih. 2 Among these were Ts'eng Kwo .Fun, already mentioned; Tso Tsung Tang, who put down the rebellion in the North- west; Li Hung Ch'ang, the controlling voice in foreign af- fairs for years; Chang Chih T'ung, a great reforming viceroy; Yiian Shih K'ai, later the president of the republic. 158 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN difficult to suppress. Palace eunuchs increased in number and influence. The line of the con- querors from the North was evidently losing its vigor. When once the last strong personality it had produced should have gone, it would almost certainly lose its hold on the nation. More important, however, was the contact with Western powers. Improved means of communication, the growing industry, com- merce, and enterprise of the West, increased the number of points of contact. This was seen in a variety of ways. First of all, there was a steady although slow growth in commerce. The total foreign trade, for instance, increased from about $220,000,000 in 1875 to about $270,000,000 in 1890. The imports consisted chiefly of cotton goods and opium princi- pally the former, for the cotton mills of Eng- land could produce cloth much more cheaply than could the hand-looms of China. In re- turn China exported tea and silk, and for many years was the chief source of the world's supply of the former commodity. Trade was principally in the hands of the British, and was carried on mostly through large merchant houses, some of which had come down from pre-treaty days. A peculiar organization de- 159 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA veloped. Few foreign merchants learned Chi- nese, but conducted their business through native middlemen and by means of the "pidgin English" that had begun its growth in pre- treaty days. The commercial houses could be located only in the treaty ports. The number of the latter was increased from time to time, and very frequently there were marked off in them foreign concessions. Following out the exterritorial idea, these were governed by for- eigners and owed only a partial allegiance to Chinese sovereignty. All foreigners were tried before their own consuls or national officials. There is, for instance, a United States Court in Shanghai with jurisdiction over Americans. Natives accused by foreigners were tried be- fore mixed courts in which Chinese judges were assisted by foreign advisers or "assessors." Policing these concessions came also under foreign supervision. Originally each of several nations was given a concession in a treaty port, and each concession was under the supervision of a consul. Thus at Shanghai, the French, British, and Americans each had a district which for most practical purposes was under the control of the nation to which it had been granted. The American and British conces- 160 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN sions were later united into what is called the "International Settlement" and are to-day in charge of a foreign " Municipal Council." Thus there grew up throughout China in the strate- gic commercial cities of the empire small im- peria in imperio. Almost unconsciously, partly through weakness and partly through arro- gance, China was permitting her sovereignty and her territorial integrity to be compro- mised. Each of these foreign settlements be- came a foothold for Western civilization, a center from which Western influences could spread and prepare the way for the transfor- mation of China. Most of these treaty ports were in the South and along the lower Yangtze. Largely because of this, South China came to be more radical and progressive, and opposi- tion to the foreigner died out more quickly than in the North. The province l whose capi- tal, Canton, had the first foreign settlements has provided a disproportionate number of leaders for the new China. The increasing contact with the West in the three decades before 1895 was seen, not only in commerce and in the growth of foreign settle- ments in the port cities, but in the augmenta- 1 Kwangtung. 161 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA tion of Christian missionary efforts. Christian missions, as we have seen, had begun long before the first treaties in spite of official oppo- sition. Catholic Christians, the fruits of the missionary activity that dated from the six- teenth century, were scattered widely through the empire. In the early nineteenth century English and American Protestants had sent a number of representatives to China. Some of these located at Canton, where they labored heroically against tremendous odds, and some worked among the Chinese emigrants in Siam, Burma, and the Archipelago. With the signing of the first group of treaties, the opening of the five treaty ports, and the occupation of Hong- kong, missionary efforts were redoubled. Both Protestant and Catholic missionaries increased in numbers. The second group of treaties, finally ratified in 1860, gave fuller privileges to missionaries and granted them, as we have seen, the right of residing and holding prop- erty in the interior, outside the port cities to which the residence of other foreigners was restricted. The Catholics, with the advantage of an older work, were far more important numerically than the Protestants. They had as well the aid of the French government, which 162 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN for political purposes posed as their protector and gave to them a certain official influence that made it easier to attract converts. In the twenty -five years from 1846 to 1870, the num- ber of Catholic missionaries increased from 100 to 254 and the number of converts from 400,- 000 to 404,000. These numbers are estimated to have been 705 and 1,092,000 respectively in 1881, eleven years later. The Protestant body also grew, and, in proportion to its size, more rapidly. For example, the number of its mis- sionaries increased from 473 in 1876 to 1296 in 1889, and the number of church members from 9 in 1847 to 400 in 1857, 3,132 in 1865, 13,515 in 1877, 37,287 in 1890, and 55,093 in 1893. This Christian missionary movement was, of course, important from the religious and moral standpoint, for it brought the Chinese into contact with Western religious ideals. It was also extremely important as an influential agent of other branches of Western culture. Missionaries were more widely scattered than merchants, for they lived in the interior as well as in the port cities. They were in China pri- marily to give the best of Western civilization to the Chinese, and because of this conscious 163 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA purpose were more influential agents of the West than were the merchants. They estab- lished schools in which Western as well as Chi- nese learning was taught. The first Chinese to graduate from a Western university 1 got his preliminary training in one of these schools. For many years the best and for a time the only schools in China in which Western subjects were taught were under missionary direction. Missionaries established printing presses and so brought foreign ideas to many Chinese who were outside their schools. Western medical science was brought to China by Christian hospitals and physicians. Among the mission- aries were many men of statesmanlike vision, who clearly saw the situation in which China found herself and realized that sooner or later she must adjust herself to Occidental life. They tried accordingly to fit her for the transi- tion. They were representative of the Occident at its best, and brought the Chinese into con- tact with a different side of the foreigner from that which was conspicuous in too many mer- chants and diplomats. The readjustments of the past few decades have been extremely diffi- cult for China, but they would have been much 1 Yung Wing, a graduate of Yale. 164 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN more so had it not been for the work of the missionary body. The contact of China with the West during these years was furthered by slowly improving diplomatic relations. Following the treaties of 1858 and 1860 foreign ministers took up their residence in Peking. They were not very cor- dially received, and it was years before they were admitted to audience with the emperor. Even then the audience was held in the hall which was set aside for the reception of embas- sies from tribute-paying states. A bureau of foreign affairs 1 was organized, however, which was official recognition of the fact that regular intercourse was unavoidable. Among the early ministers in Peking was a remarkable American, Anson Burlingame. Affable, chivalrous, and enthusiastic, he was impressed with the future prospects of such a people as the Chinese and wished to further their intercourse with Western powers. He sympathized with the Chinese officials in their bewilderment and their ignorance, and after seven years of service as American envoy, pro- posed to them to send an official mission abroad to seek for more favorable terms than 1 The Ts'ung-li Ya-men. 165 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA had been granted in the earlier treaties. In 1867 this embassy started, with three envoys, two Chinese and Mr. Burlingame, who, upon resigning as United States minister, was him- self persuaded to accept the position of am- bassador of China. It was the first embassy abroad and was watched rather cynically by European courts. It visited the United States, then England and the Continent. Unfortu- nately Mr. Burlingame died before his rather anomalous task was concluded, and without him the mission came to an untimely end. It was, however, a long step in advance in the mutual acquaintance of China and the West. In 1876, six years after Burlingame's death, a Chinese legation was established in London, the first of several that were later instituted in various foreign capitals. China was slowly beginning to accept the fact of foreign inter- course. Diplomatic relations were by no means al- ways cordial or entirely smooth. China found herself in serious trouble from time to time with each of the three strong European powers whose territories touched hers. By 1862 the British expansion from India into Burma had reached a stage where it be- 166 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN came desirable to control the ancient trade route that connected with Southwest China. In the process of peaceful exploration during the years that followed, a British officer lost his life on the Chinese side of the frontier. This led to strained diplomatic relations, but in the end China made ample recompense and opened additional ports to trade. Several other points of dispute were settled in the agreement that ended the episode. By a con- vention, concluded in 1886 after the British conquest and annexation of Burma, China for- mally renounced all her claims to suzerainty over that country. There was also trouble with Russia. One of the rebellions that marked for China the mid- dle of the nineteenth century had involved the far-western part of the empire bordering on the Russian dominions. For years practically all the vast region known as the " New Territory " had been lost to Chinese rule. To protect their possessions from disorder the Russians had crossed the border and had occupied territory that centered around the frontier post of Kuldja. A masterly campaign had restored Chinese authority over the oases and the 167 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA deserts of the great plateau. The general 1 in charge had led an army of twenty thousand men or more across the wilds, had supported them partly by setting them at work to till the soil, and by sheer force of discipline and strat- egy had subdued an enemy numerically vastly superior to his own force. It was a campaign that deserves to place the commander among the ranks of great conquerors. It is notewor- thy, too, in an officialdom notorious for its corruption, that the commander was abso- lutely untainted by the prevailing dishonesty, although entrusted with almost unchecked power and large funds. After the Chinese had regained control of the region the Russians showed such reluctance to return Kuldja that friction ensued and nearly ended in war. Fi- nally (1881), an agreement was made whereby most of the territory was restored to China in return for an indemnity. For many years France had been building up for herself a sphere of influence in Annam. In 1864 she extended her territory by acquiring Cochin China, just to the south of Annam. A few years later she attempted to acquire Tong- 1 Tso Tsung T'ang, a fellow provincial and protege of Ts'eng Kwo Fan, who had put down the T'ai P'ing Rebellion. 168 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN king, a province of Annam which touched the southern border of China. It was an iniquitous attack on a defenseless neighbor. Annam was tributary to China and appealed to her for pro- tection. China came to her aid. France in a high-handed way set Chinese suzerainty at nought, and friction followed which culmi- nated (1884) in war. China was worsted, al- though the defeat was not entirely an inglori- ous one. By the treaty of peace (1885) France's protectorate over Annam and Tong- king was recognized by China and steps were taken to mark definitely the boundary be- tween the territories of the two powers. These three incidents presaged the trouble that China might later expect from the earth- hunger of the West when once it was fully aroused and when once her impotence was clearly discerned. One other point of contact of Chinese with foreigners was through Chinese emigration. Chinese laborers are patient, efficient, and able to live and work in many different climates. Emigration of these laborers, or coolies, was encouraged by transportation companies and labor contractors. Numbers found their way or were taken to Cuba, Porto Rico, Peru, and 169 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA other Latin-American countries, to the sugar plantations of Hawaii, to Australia, and to the Pacific Coast of the United States. In this last district they were at first greatly valued, for in these then newly settled regions there was a dearth of cheap labor. Before many decades, however, they aroused opposition. White la- borers objected to them on the ground of the long hours and the low wages they were will- ing to accept. In their alarm, many Ameri- cans believed their west coast was about to be deluged with cheap, unassimilable Asiatic la- bor whose competition would lower greatly the standard of living of the native workingman. Anti-Chinese riots occurred, and finally, in 1882, with the acquiescence of China, an ex- clusion act was passed by which the immigra- tion of Chinese laborers was forbidden for ten years. The act has since been twice renewed, and is now without a time limit. All this contact with foreigners was not without results in China itself. In the first place, there were occasional anti-foreign dem- onstrations, signs of restlessness under the in- creasing influx of foreigners. There were no- table riots in Tientsin and later in the Yangtze Valley. Far more important, however, were 170 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN the conscious attempts at readjustment to the new age. A Chinese 1 finished his course at Yale in 1854, the first of his race to graduate from a Western institution of higher learning. He had been impressed with what he had seen abroad and perceived that China must sooner or later take her place among the nations of the world. He conceived the idea of inducing the government to send students to American schools, who on their return to China would help to guide her through the inevitable trans- formation. He was finally successful in obtain- ing the appointment of an educational com- mission. A number of boys were sent to the United States, but before they could complete their college training a conservative reaction caused their recall. From among them, how- ever, were later to come some of the leaders of the reform movement. In addition to this educational mission a few tentative changes were made in the old exami- nation system in the attempt to make it con- form more nearly to new conditions. Two gov- ernment schools were established to prepare young men for the foreign office and the diplomatic service by giving them training 1 Yung Wing. 171 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA in both Western and Chinese languages and learning. The telegraph was introduced. Arsenals were built, and the attempt was made to remodel the naval and land forces of the empire to meet Western requirements. Some of the more strategic ports were fortified in accordance with approved European methods. A few miles of railway were in existence, although the first line built had been purchased by the govern- ment in 1876 and torn up. These changes, however, were largely on the surface. The great mass of the Chinese, both rulers and ruled, were as yet untouched and went on their way as though there were no outside world with mighty nations and great civilizations. Foreigners were despised as bar- barians. China was practically unchanged. Foreign influences had scarcely affected her. It was only a question of time, however, until these influences would make themselves felt and the nation would awake to find itself in a new age, an age to which it would need to adjust itself whether it wished or not. By the early nineties indications of the approaching change were increasingly apparent. The intro- duction of steam in trans-oceanic traffic had 172 TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN added to the size and speed of sea-going ves- sels. The completion of the Suez Canal had shortened the distance from Europe to the Far East by some thousands of miles. The cable and the telegraph were aiding in the practical annihilation of time and space. China's island neighbor, Japan, had opened her doors to the foreigner and had whole-heartedly given her- self to the task of reorganization. Manufac- turing and commerce were increasing in the West at an unprecedented rate, and with them wealth and population. Europeans were press- ing into all corners of the earth for markets, raw materials, and outlets for their surplus population. They had explored Africa and had divided it among themselves. They had poured into Australia and New Zealand. They had crossed the prairies and the mountains of the North American continent to the Pacific Slope and were dominating Hawaii. Russia was feel- ing the impulse of the new life and was en- larging her domains in Asia. British power in India had been extended and consolidated. France was reaching out from the southeast. It was only a question of time until China's bar- riers would crumble and leave her struggling for life in the fierce competition of the new age. CHAPTER VI THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHINA 1894-1916 THE underlying cause of the transformation of China was the growing pressure upon her of Western peoples and culture. The immediate cause of its beginning was the war with Japan in 1894-95. The Japanese had long been re- garded by the Chinese as inferior and even tributary. Their civilization was much younger than that of China, and had been taken, in fact, almost entirely from it. During the time when all Eastern Asia was enjoying a vigorous life under the T'ang dynasty, Chinese cul- ture had entered Japan and had been eagerly adopted. In the succeeding centuries com- munication had been kept up in spite of oc- casional interruptions. The written language of Japan, her philosophy, much of her reli- gion and her moral code, her art, her constitu- tion, and even her dress and her manners were either of Chinese origin or had been profoundly affected by Chinese models. The Japanese, with fine independence and vigor, had, how- 174 THE TRANSFORMATION ever, freely modified the foreign culture to meet their own needs. They had not been slavish imitators, but had rather been quick- ened by the contact into developing a civiliza- tion that bore distinct marks of the Japanese genius. Chinese civilization has much the same relation to Japan that the culture of the ancient world has to modern Europe. Shortly after the European age of discoveries, or from about 1600 on, the Japanese had closed their doors to foreign commerce even more completely than had China. With only one nation, the Dutch, was trade allowed, and this through only one port and in strictly limited amounts. Emigration was forbidden and Christianity was proscribed. In 1854, however, Japan had been compelled by Commodore Perry to ad- mit the foreigner. Much more quickly than China, Japan realized that a new age was upon her and that she must conform to it. The proc- ess was greatly facilitated by the fact that she was a much smaller state than China, that her government was more highly centralized, and that the foreigner came when because of internal developments she was ripe for some kind of change. By 1894 Japan had nearly completed the readjustment. She had reor- 175 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ganized her government into a constitutional monarchy. She had begun the transformation of her industry, commerce, and education after Western models. She had reformed her army and her navy and was ready to enter on that period of remarkable development which in the last quarter-century has made her one of the leading powers of the world. This new, progressive Japan seemed certain sooner or later to come into contact with the larger, more unwieldy, more conservative China. The two must almost inevitably con- tend for the hegemony of the Far East. They were near to a clash in 1873 when China had refused to punish certain uncivilized Formosan tribes for their mistreatment of some wrecked Japanese sailors, and Japan, taking the law into her own hands, had sent a punitive expedi- tion to the island. They came nearly to blows again in 1876 when Japan extended her new provincial organization to the Riukiu Islands, a group lying between Formosa and Japan. China claimed them as dependencies and for a time hostilities seemed imminent. The is- lands were finally peacefully left in Japan's hands. War came at last over Korea. Korea's geo- 176 THE TRANSFORMATION graphical position made her the connecting link between the two peoples. She had been the main highway through which Chinese cul- ture had come to the old Japan. She had been invaded several times by the Japanese, once in the latter part of the sixteenth century l in an attempt to use her as a gateway to the conquest of China. From the time of this invasion she had occupied a position of rather shadowy vas- salage to Japan. She was also claimed by the Chinese as a tributary state. This latter rela- tionship she recognized more readily than the former, especially since she was nearly Chinese in her culture, and China seemed the more powerful. When Japan opened her doors to the foreigner, Korea remained so tightly closed that she acquired the sobriquet of the "Hermit Kingdom." She scornfully broke off all connection with Japan, whom she now re- garded as a betrayer of Oriental culture. In 1876 the Japanese returned and with the con- sent of China forced Korea to make a treaty and open a port to trade. Treaties with Eu- ropean powers followed and Western influ- ences entered. As a result two groups came into being, one intensely conservative, the 1 Under Hideyoshi. 177 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA other in favor of reform. The first looked to China for aid, the second to Japan. Both China and Japan interfered from time to time, and in 1885 the two agreed that neither would send troops to Korea without notifying the other. Disorder was rife in the little kingdom and the government was hopelessly corrupt and inefficient. Japan suggested reforms only to find them blocked by Chinese intrigues. China, naturally, was not eager to further in Korea changes which she was not willing to adopt for herself. This was especially em- barrassing, since by furthering reforms she would be playing into her rival's hands. Japan felt that the Korean Peninsula from the mili- tary standpoint was so strategically situated that in self-defense she must have a deciding voice in its affairs. She could not permit it to be controlled by a strong military power, and she feared not only China, but Russia. It was, moreover, a natural field for her commercial expansion. By 1894 friction had so increased that when a rebellion arose in Korea and both Japan and China, in pursuance of a previous mutual agreement, sent troops to restore or- der, open war broke out. 1 China had under- 1 The Chinese resident at Seoul was Yuan Shih K'ai, a 178 THE TRANSFORMATION estimated her island antagonists, for she had regarded them as semi-barbarous dwarfs and had thought that a sharp party struggle then in progress had hopelessly divided them. To her surprise the Japanese forgot their internal differences, united against her, and inflicted on her a sharp defeat. It is unnecessary to go into the details of the war. The Chinese army was overcome time and again, the Chinese navy, although made up of modern ships, was partly destroyed and the survivors captured, and a number of strategic points were seized, including Wei-hai-wei in the Shantung Penin- sula, and Port Arthur. Both of these places had been strongly fortified with Western arma- ments under some of the progressive Chinese. Port Arthur commanded the Liaotung Pen- insula and the entrances to the fertile expanses of Manchuria. Its possessor could threaten North China and Korea. The treaty (of Shimonoseki) that closed the war gave some- what more favorable terms to China than her performance on the field would have justified her in expecting, but they were humiliating lieutenant of Li Hung Ch'ang, who was the leading figure in the foreign affairs of China during the last part of the century. 179 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA enough. 1 The complete independence of Korea was acknowledged, definitely ending Chinese suzerainty. Japan was given Formosa and the Pescadores, a group of islands between For- mosa and the mainland. She was also given the Liaotung Peninsula, including Port Arthur, and a huge war indemnity. Several additional ports in China were opened to foreign trade. As between China and Japan the question of the leadership of the Far East seemed to be decisively settled. The European powers had watched with interest the progress of the war and some of them viewed with alarm the terms of the treaty of peace. Russia had been seeking to build up for herself an empire on the Pacific and was extending her influence into Man- churia and North China. She was already at work on a Siberian railway to connect Eu- ropean Russia with the Pacific. It was part of a magnificent plan of Asiatic expansion that included all her eastern frontiers from the trans-Caspian regions and the borders of 1 China's agent in the peace negotiations was Li Hung Ch'ang. While in Japan he was attacked by a fanatic, and it is said that the Japanese statesmen were so chagrined by the disgrace of such grave national discourtesy that they modified their demands. 180 THE TRANSFORMATION Persia to the shores of the Yellow Sea. Her steady, long eastward advance had led her to believe in it as a kind of manifest destiny, and an ice-free port, for centuries an object of her diplomacy, seemed almost within her grasp. The cession of the Liaotung Peninsula threat- ened a decided check to her plans. She did not as yet greatly fear Japan, but looked with an- noyance upon her ambitions. Germany was alarmed by what she thought to be the Yellow Peril. In the eyes of her emperor Japan's vic- tory was but the beginning of the military reorganization of Eastern Asia. Unless it were kept in control the yellow race would some- time oust the European from the Far East and possibly invade Europe itself. Accordingly Germany, Russia, and Russia's ally, France, protested against the annexation of the Liao- tung Peninsula. Japan was not in a position to resist, and agreed with what grace she could muster to re-cede it in return for an additional indemnity. The war with Japan was followed by conse- quences momentous for China. In the first place, it led to territorial aggression by Euro- pean powers. As we have seen, Western nations were by the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 181 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA tury entering on a period of commercial and territorial expansion and competition as a re- sult of the Industrial Revolution. No longer was England the only power which enjoyed the fruits of the new methods. No longer were colonies unpopular, as they had been earlier in the century. Imperialism had become a slo- gan. The powers of Europe were feverishly di- viding among themselves the undeveloped sec- tions and the weaker peoples of the world. They were striving to obtain from the weaker nations commercial preferences and concessions for the investment of capital in railways, mines, facto- ries, and plantations. It was not only because their trade was developing rapidly and be- cause their investment-seeking capital was accumulating, but because they feared for the future and believed that unless they obtained special grants from the weaker, poorly or- ganized peoples, some other power would later do so. The Chino-Japanese War revealed unmistakably the weakness of China. The ancient empire was seen to be impotent to defend itself even against its smaller Asiatic neighbor. And yet, with its vast population and its immense natural resources, it was cer- tain to become a rich field for commerce and 182 THE TRANSFORMATION for the investment of capital. In the desire to insure for itself a share in her future each power now began to take steps to build up spheres of influence and to divide China. In compensation for her services in obtaining the retrocession of the Liaotung Peninsula Rus- sia asked and received permission to carry her Siberian railway directly across Northern Manchuria instead of following the longer and more difficult route through her own territory. Count Witte was in the midst of his plans for railway and industrial expansion, which in- cluded all Russia and pushed forward her com- mercial boundaries along a frontier extending from the northern confines of Persia to the North Pacific. It was an attempt to dominate the carrying trade of the continent of Asia by judiciously placed trunk-lines. France asked and obtained certain mining and railway privi- leges in South China and a rectification favora- ble to herself of the boundary between the French Possessions and China. Great Britain, disturbed by the French demands, obtained boundary concessions on the Burmese frontier. In 1897 Germany took advantage of the mur- der of two German missionaries in Shantung to demand a ninety-nine-year lease, as the 183 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA cession was euphoniously called, of Kiaochow Bay. Kiaochow commands the province of Shantung, fertile of soil and rich in minerals, and can be made to drain even a larger hin- terland. On this bay Germany began building a model city, Tsingtao, and to develop its com- mercial and military possibilities built rail- ways, made harbor improvements, and erected fortifications. She opened mines in the great coal-fields of Shantung and projected a system of railways to tap much of North China. Fol- lowing the German example, and ostensibly to secure the balance of power and the mainte- nance of peace in China, Russia demanded and received the "lease" of Port Arthur, the very port of which Russia and the other powers had deprived Japan. She was also permitted to connect Port Arthur by rail with the Siberian trunk-line. This turned over to her the virtual control of the vast territory of Manchuria, a sparsely settled and extremely fertile district, and was a long step toward an ice-free port. As compensation for the German and Russian leases, Great Britain asked and was given a lease of the fortified port of Wei-hai-wei on the northern coast of Shantung, and an extension of territory on the mainland opposite Hong- 184 THE TRANSFORMATION kong. Not to be outdone, France obtained the lease of a port l in South China. Even Italy made demands, 2 which, however, were refused. Not content with leases the powers began marking out for themselves "spheres of influ- ence." A sphere of influence consists of claims for preference in the section covered. Privi- leges in commerce, in furnishing capital for rail- ways, and in the development of mines are to be granted. No territory within the sphere is to be alienated to another power. England strove to reserve the great Yangtze Valley for herself and persuaded the Chinese government to promise that no portion of it should go to an- other; Russia agreed to seek for no concessions there in return for a similar promise from Great Britain in regard to territory north of the Great Wall. 3 France marked out a more or less shadowy sphere in the provinces of South China, and Germany, adjacent to her leased territory in Shantung. In case China were to be partitioned, the control of these spheres would lead to something more definite. Eng- 1 Kwang-chow-wan. 2 For Sanmen in Chehkiang Province. 8 One exception was made in a railway concession from Shan-hai-kwan to Newchwang which had been previously granted to a British corporation. 185 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA land was confirmed in her predominance in the control of the Chinese customs service by the stipulation that as long as her trade in China was larger than that of any other power, the head of the customs service should be a British subject. The Chinese government had with much re- luctance decided to build railways. It lacked capital and would need to borrow. Here was another opportunity for the powers. Railways are strategic both from the political and from the commercial standpoint. A struggle for rail- way concessions followed and many were granted, carrying with them the privilege of supplying the capital and of controlling the construction and the operation. A Franco- Belgian firm was backed by the French and Russian ministers in a successful demand for the contract for the trunk-line from Peking to Hankow, which, with the roads in North China, Manchuria, and Siberia, would give the heart of the country rail connections with Europe. This was done in competition with a British firm and really marked the invasion by Russia of the British preserve in the Yangtze Valley. Russia was making a widespread at- tempt to wrest from England the control of the 186 THE TRANSFORMATION commerce of Asia. Since she could not hope as yet to displace her on the sea, she was attempt- ing to fight her by great railway systems. From her trans-Caspian roads she was reach- ing south toward Persia and India. By her Siberian and Manchurian lines, now to be sup- plemented by one from Peking to Hankow, which when carried on to Canton would be the main trade route of China proper, she hoped to dominate the greatest of the Asiatic empires. As a counter-attempt, English capitalists pro- jected a railway from Shanghai to Nanking, to be joined to the isolated British line from Tien- tsin to Newchwang in Manchuria by a road from Nanking 1 to Tientsin. This last road Great Britain was forced to divide with Ger- man interests, now strongly intrenched in Shantung. American capitalists obtained a contract for the line from Hankow to Canton, but later sold it to the Chinese government before any construction work had been done. Aside from the Canton-Hankow railway contract the United States had had no part in this scramble in China. She had been too oc- cupied with the development of the virgin 1 More strictly speaking, from Pukow, just across the Yangtze from Nanking. 187 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA resources of her own great land to be struggling for them elsewhere. She did have some com- merce in China, however, and just at this time had come into possession of what was virtually Asiatic territory, the Philippines. Under Sec- retary Hay she now (1899) suggested to the powers that they observe in China the princi- ple of the "open door," that is, that no part of China should be marked off for exclusive devel- opment. This principle was accepted by the great powers, cordially so by Great Britain, since her traditional economic predominance in China was threatened by her rivals, and some- what more guardedly by the others. It was more strongly stated in 1900 in an agreement between Great Britain and Germany, an agree- ment which was later accepted by all the pow- ers but Russia. The disastrous defeat at the hands of Japan and the subsequent leases and concessions to European powers had a profound effect upon the Chinese mind. Foreign countries could no longer be ignored. For the first time a large proportion of the thinking men of the nation and even of the common folk began to realize that Western countries must be reckoned with. One group, the reactionaries, attempted to 188 THE TRANSFORMATION meet the situation by riots in a blind effort to rid themselves of the foreigner and all his works. Another, the progressives, realized that China was entering a new age, whether she would or not, and that she must adjust her- self to it. They felt that Japan had defeated them because she had heartily adopted such Western methods as she needed. They be- lieved that European powers had been able to prey upon China, not because of any greater native ability, but because of their learning, their methods, and their organization. To meet Japan and Western nations successfully, then, and to avoid becoming a puppet in their hands, it was necessary to adopt Western methods. This progressive group was still in the minority, but it was an increasing minor- ity that bade fair soon to become a majority. 1 The events of the past few years had given impetus to its growth and to its activity. As might be expected its leaders were from Can- ton where there had been a longer opportunity to become acquainted with the foreigner. In 1898, after the Japanese War and the humili- 1 One of the best-known and most influential members of this group was K'ang Yu Wei, of Kwangtung. Liang Ch'i Ch'ao, who was later to become famous as one of the greatest writers of the progressive school, was also among them. 189 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ating concessions to Europeans, reform socie- ties sprang up throughout the empire. Trans- lations of foreign works were eagerly read, foreign schools were filled to overflowing, and numbers of students went to Japan to seek for the new learning in the formerly despised island empire. The progressives succeeded in winning the ear of the young emperor, 1 who by this time had attained his majority and was old enough to assert himself against the conserva- tive and vigorous empress dowager. He gave himself heartily to the movement and in the spring of 1898 issued a number of decrees which were designed to begin such a transformation in China as had taken place in Japan. The old civil service examinations were to be reorgan- ized and Western subjects were to be placed on the examination list. Colleges and schools with curricula combining the old and the new learning were to be established throughout the empire. A national bureau was to be formed for the translation and dissemination of for- eign works. The government was to be given a complete overhauling; useless offices were to be abolished and new boards were to be estab- lished. The privilege of memorializing the 1 Kwang HsU. 190 THE TRANSFORMATION throne directly was no longer to be confined to the higher officials, but was to be given all members of the civil service. The military system was to be completely reorganized. The progressives, however, were still in the minority. The great mass of Chinese official- dom was intensely conservative and found an able leader in the empress dowager. The con- templated innovations were viewed with con- sternation. The salvation of the country was held to lie in returning to the ideals approved by the ancients, and in ousting the foreigner rather than in adopting his methods. In the autumn of 1898 the empress dowager suddenly asserted herself, seized the reins of govern- ment, and forced the emperor into virtual re- tirement. The reform edicts were canceled, and wherever possible Hberalist movements were suppressed. The leading progressives were executed or fled to foreign lands. The official reaction was reinforced by popu- lar attacks on foreigners, which culminated in 1900 in the Boxer uprising. This outbreak was a last blind, desperate attempt of the Chinese to rid themselves of the unpopular alien. It was based on the conviction that the ills which had befallen the nation were due to his pres- 191 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA ence. If he could be ousted and the door closed against him and his new ways, all would again be well. The uprising was begun and led by a society in North China called "The Righteous Harmony Fists," or "Boxers." It was in North China that the coming of the foreigner was more recent and the significance of that coming less understood, and that the recent territorial aggressions of the powers had been largely concentrated. Late in 1899 the Boxers began anti-foreign riots which spread through North China during the next few months. Missionaries and their converts, living as they did in scattered groups outside the treaty ports, were the most exposed and suffered most severely. The empress dowager, after some hesitation, apparently allowed herself to be persuaded that the Boxers were possessed of supernatural power and that they were invul- nerable to foreign bullets. She gave them her sanction and edicts were issued ordering offi- cials to kill the foreigner wherever he was found. The viceroys and governors 1 of the 1 Principal among these were the aged Li Hung Ch'ang, Ylian Shih K'ai, Liu K'un I, and the scholar reformer Chang Chih Tung, whose pamphlet advocating progress, and trans- lated under the title "China's Only Hope," was well known in its day. 192 THE TRANSFORMATION East and South disregarded the edicts, but in most of the more northerly provinces they were carried out. Scores of missionaries and hun- dreds of Chinese Christians were killed, often with fiendish cruelty. The foreigners in Peking delayed leaving the city until it was too late to escape, and shut themselves up in the legation quarters where they were besieged for over two months. The chancellor of the Japanese lega- tion was killed by Chinese soldiers, and the German minister was foully murdered. In the mean time the powers had not been inactive. Troops were hurried to China, and there started for Peking a joint relief expedi- tion in which British, Japanese, Russians, Americans, and Germans joined. The allied forces reached Peking after some hard fighting and one check near Tientsin, and took the city and looted it. The imperial court fled west- ward. 1 With the fall of the capital the uprising subsided. The powers were now face to face with the problem of what should be done with China. There was a strong opinion in some quarters that she should be partitioned, but other coun- sels prevailed. In the end no territory was 1 To Si-an-fu, an ancient capital of China. 193 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA taken from her, but conditions of peace were imposed that were designed to mete out pun- ishment for the outbreak, to obtain indemnity for the foreign lives and property destroyed, and to insure against a similar outbreak in the future. Among the specific terms were the following: The death penalty was to be inflicted upon some of the officials who had been most notori- ous in their cruelty toward foreigners. Civil-service examinations were to be sus- pended for five years in all places where the outrages had occurred. This deprived the people of these districts of the privilege of competing for the highly coveted degrees which were the door to official service. Officials who in the future failed to prevent anti-foreign outrages within their jurisdiction were to be dismissed and punished. The foreign office was no longer to be a sub- ordinate department, but the leading ministry of state. This would insure attention to foreign affairs as the leading business of the govern- ment. It was, moreover, expressly stipulated that representatives of other countries were to be granted audiences with the emperor as with the monarchs of other civilized nations. 194 THE TRANSFORMATION Some coast defenses in North China were to be razed and arms and war material were not to be imported for two years. A heavy indemnity (450,000,000 taels, or roughly 300,000,000 dollars gold) was levied on China to pay for foreign losses during the up- rising. The customs duties and some other rev- enues were pledged to its payment and the former were raised slightly to help meet the burden. The American portion of the indem- nity proved to be more than sufficient to meet the military expenses and the claims of citizens of the United States and the surplus was later voluntarily returned to China. It was set aside by the Chinese government for the payment of scholarships for Chinese students in America. Some hundreds of these "indemnity students" have since been in the United States. Permanent guards of foreign troops were to be placed in the capital to protect the lega- tions, and the powers were permitted in addi- tion to guard the railway line from Peking to the coast to prevent a recurrence of the siege. The legations have since been fortified and now resemble armed camps in the heart of an enemy's territory. The Chinese government was to erect a 195 THE 'DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA monument in Peking to the memory of the German minister and was to send to Germany a mission of apology. Serious complications in Manchuria followed the Boxer year. To Russia the disorders had seemed a most convenient opportunity for strengthening her hold in that region. If China were to be partitioned, as appeared for a time to be possible, she would hope to come in for the lion's share. She had hurried troops into Manchuria on the outbreak of the troubles, os- tensibly to protect her railways, citizens, and other special interests. When the uprising had ended and order had been restored, she showed no inclination to withdraw, but rather tried to strengthen her hold. In December, 1900, a preliminary understanding with the local au- thorities gave her the control of the civil and military administration of the province. A few months later negotiations were begun with China for an agreement which would have made Manchuria a Russian protectorate in everything but name and would have given Russia preferential rights in all the vast Chi- nese dominions which bordered on her posses- sions. The convention failed of ratification 196 THE TRANSFORMATION only on the strongest objections from influen- tial Chinese and representations by Japan and Great Britain. Russia still kept her troops in Manchuria, however, and persisted in her policy of obtaining special privileges, com- mercial and political. Great Britain, Japan, and the United States protested, and in 1902 she agreed with the Chinese to withdraw her troops within eighteen months. This conven- tion she began going through the form of carry- ing out, but only far enough to concentrate her forces along her railways. She retained her control of the maritime customs of New- chwang, the principal port, and established there a civil administration. In 1903 she made further demands which included the virtual reservation of the commerce of Manchuria to her subjects. These demands were withdrawn, but Japan and the United States attempted by treaty so to insure the open door that they could not be renewed. Still Russia persisted. Through railway service was established be- tween Moscow and Port Arthur and a Russian viceroyalty of the Far East was created which amounted to claiming Manchuria as a province of the Czar's empire. Russia still delayed with- drawing her troops, and openly disregarded 197 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Japanese interests and carried on intrigues in Korea. Japan was especially interested in Korea and Manchuria. She had a rapidly growing population which was already overcrowded. Arable land in Japan is limited and her hope of continued prosperity is in emigration and in engaging her surplus population in manufac- turing. If she does the first, she must try for reasons of national strength to keep the emi- grants under her control. If she does the other, she must keep open her natural market, the ad- joining continent. Russia by her intrigues in Manchuria and Korea was cutting off Japan's natural field for emigration and commercial expansion. The Russian ownership of these districts would have meant for Japan economic distress and would have planted an aggressive military power at her doors. She foresaw a probable conflict and exerted every effort to prepare herself in case her efforts to avert it were unsuccessful. She increased her army and navy, and in 1902 made an agreement with Great Britain which assured her of the aid of that power in the Far East in case another power were to come to the aid of Russia. Great Britain was fearful of the Russian advance, not 198 THE TRANSFORMATION only on China, but on the boundaries of India, and was quite willing to set against it the doughty Japanese. She did not foresee the leading part that the little islanders were later to play in the commerce and politics of the Far East. The Japanese repeatedly protested to Russia against her policies in Manchuria and Korea, but to no avail. They tried agreements with Russia (in 1896 and 1901) to respect their interests in Korea, only to have them treated as "scraps of paper." One party, led by the famous Ito, would even have welcomed an alli- ance with Russia. The Russian authorities re- garded Japan with contempt as a possible mili- tary antagonist and at times treated her with scant ceremony. The island empire finally struck and struck suddenly. As a result of the war the Russian fleets were annihilated and in spite of a stubborn resistance the Russian arm- ies were driven back. Port Arthur fell and the railways in Southern Manchuria were cap- tured. It is hard to say what the outcome would have been had the struggle been pro- longed. Japan was not far from the end of her resources, and revolution at home and the difficulty of bringing adequate supplies of troops and provisions across the vast reaches 199 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA of Siberia by a single-track railroad were fear- ful handicaps to Russia. Both sides were ready to welcome President Roosevelt's in- tervention. Negotiations at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, followed, and a treaty was made, which among other things recognized Japan's paramount interests in Korea and transferred to her all the Russian privileges and property in Southern Manchuria. Port Arthur and the Russian railways of the section were handed over to her. The two powers agreed to evacu- ate Manchuria and Chinese sovereignty was still recognized. China formally sanctioned the transfers and assignments and the open door was theoretically still maintained. Japan could not be expected, however, to withdraw completely from a territory purchased at so great a cost of blood and treasure or to exert herself to see that equal commercial opportu- nity was accorded all nations. She had now, moreover, become a factor to be reckoned with in Far-Eastern affairs and had achieved recog- nition as a first-class power. After a futile at- tempt to administer Korea as a protectorate, she formally annexed it (1910), and as a result became increasingly interested in the future of China. 200 THE TRANSFORMATION The effect upon China of the Boxer year and of the subsequent developments, including the Russo-Japanese War, was revolutionary. At last and in no unmistakable terms events had shown her that she must reform or lose her na- tional existence. Even the most blindly con- servative could not fail to read the lesson. The foreigner could not be expelled. He was there and there to stay. The Boxer uprising had re- sulted, not in ousting him, but in placing China more than ever under his control. The Russo-Japanese War was humiliating to China, for she saw two nations fighting over her soil while she stood helpless. It was also encourag- ing, for she perceived that it was possible for an Asiatic power by adopting the foreigner's methods to defeat him at his own game. The much-feared Russians had been worsted by Oriental islanders. As a result of these lessons the walls of Chinese conservatism broke down in rapid suc- cession and the country entered feverishly on a campaign of reform. China at last was awake to the new age and attempted to fit herself to enter it by changes which startled the world. The empress dowager saw that unless the Manchus could place themselves at the head 201 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA of the movement they would be swept aside. She received foreigners at court and endeav- ored to establish more cordial official relations with them. The building of railways was en- couraged and no special hindrance was placed in the way of granting concessions to foreign capital. The new education was aided. The old-style examinations were abolished and schools were opened throughout the empire in which were taught both Western and Chinese subjects. By the end of 1910 there were 35,198 government schools with an enrollment of 875,760. Government effort was supplemented by private initiative, and many private in- stitutions were founded. Students flocked to Europe, to America, and especially to Japan. It was cheaper to go to Japan than to the Oc- cident, and a similarity in customs and lan- guage made it easier to get the new learning there than at its source. The number study- ing in Tokyo ran up into the thousands. A public press sprang up and newspapers were printed in a form of the written language that approached the vernacular and was easily read by the man of average education. Transla- tions of foreign books were made and were eagerly read. English was studied in all higher 202 THE TRANSFORMATION schools as a means of acquiring Western learn- ing without the aid of the translator. A post- office had been started under the direction of the maritime customs service and now grew apace. Telegraph lines were built by the gov- ernment to connect all the principal cities. By the end of 1908, twenty-five hundred miles of railway were open in China proper and seven- teen hundred more were under construction. Hankow at the heart of the empire and on the great Yangtze River was connected with Europe by rail. From Shanghai, Peking, Can- ton, and Tsing-tao lines reached out into the surrounding country. Work was begun on the road from Canton to Hankow, to tie the South up with the rest of the empire and with Eu- rope, and on a line from the central Yangtze Valley into the great western province of Szechuan. The French completed a railway from the coast to the capital of the southwest- ern province of Yunnan. Modern cotton mills and match factories were started and new coal, iron, and antimony mines were opened. Chinese organized companies after Western methods to handle these and other enterprises. Attempts were made to stamp out foot-binding and to eradicate opium-smoking. The latter 203 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA reform proved and has continued to prove re- markably successful. The importation of the drug, its production, and its use have been reduced to a minimum and in many places en- tirely stopped. When one considers the grip of the habit on its victims, their numbers, at least twenty or thirty millions, and the profits paid to producers, merchants, and the government, the achievement is most note- worthy. Foreign commerce grew. It increased from 360,000,000 taels (about $270,000,000) in 1898 to 583,000,000 taels (about $418,000,- 000) in 1904. Foreign cotton goods were more and more used, foreign machinery came in, and kerosene appeared as an illuminant in even the remote districts. An attempt was made to introduce uniform coinage and to end the monetary chaos of the empire. There was a remarkable growth in national feeling. The Chinese had racial coherence, but they lacked national consciousness. Now the disgrace of China's helpless condition began to be keenly felt. The reorganization of the army and navy, already begun by intelligent lead- ers, 1 was loudly demanded and partially ac- complished. Funds for it were raised partly by 1 Principal among these was Ylian Shih K'ai. 204 THE TRANSFORMATION private societies. A beginning was made at a reformation of law courts and codes in the attempt to remove the excuse for exterritorial- ity. A more direct control of the maritime cus- toms service was sought and the effort made to check the complete authority over it exerted by its organizer, Sir Robert Hart, The effort was partially successful and Hart retired to England. A demand arose for a constitutional government of a Western type. A commission was sent abroad to study Western forms of government and to suggest a constitution for China. In 1906 a plan for governmental re-organ- ization was announced. The central minis- tries of state were made over and a scheme adopted for the gradual introduction of repre- sentative bodies. Provincial assemblies were to be opened in 1909, a national assembly in 1910, and by 1915 a national parliament was to be organized and the transformation to a consti- tutional monarchy to be completed. The pro- vincial assemblies were opened at the time set. They were chosen by a carefully restricted elec- torate and had consultative powers only. On the whole they conducted themselves with dig- nity and gave high promise for the future of 205 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA representative institutions. The national as- sembly met as scheduled in 1910. The new national spirit had shown itself in a boycott on American goods in 1905 as an expression of disapproval of the treatment ac- corded Chinese in the United States. In this transformation of China, Christian missionaries played a prominent part. They were more widely scattered and were in more intimate contact with the people than any other group of foreigners. They were for the most part men and women of ability and were interested, not only in the religious, but in the social, physical, political, and economic regeneration of China. They sought to bring the best of the West to China. They founded schools. and colleges throughout the empire. Inadequate as many of these were, they were more efficient than the hastily organized gov- ernment schools, and a large proportion of the leaders of the new China have come from them. Hospitals were widely established in which the scientific methods of the Occident were sub- stituted for the clumsy and often superstitious practices of the Orient. A few medical schools were founded a first step toward training a modern Chinese medical profession. Preven- 206 THE TRANSFORMATION tive medicine and public sanitation were talked of as means of reaching disease at its source. Famine was attacked, not only by the organi- zation of relief, but by plans for removing at least some of its causes by reclamation proj- ects, forestry, and improved methods of agri- culture. Wholesome Western literature was translated and distributed. Churches were organized throughout the empire, centers of light and hope and of revolutionary, regen- erating influences. By 1911 the number of Protestant church members had passed the 200,000 mark, four times the number of twenty years before. The Catholic Church counted nearly a million and a half as Catholic Chris- tians, a substantial increase, although not so great proportionately as that of their Protest- ant brethren. The reform movement in China finally swept aside the Manchus. These lost in 1908 their last great leader, the empress dowager. She and the unfortunate emperor died within a few days of each other and an infant l was elevated to the throne under a regency that proved unequal to the situation. A republican 1 Known by his reigning title Hslian T'ung, "promulgating universally." 207 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA movement had for some time been agitated, largely by Cantonese in China and abroad, under the leadership of the foreign-trained Sun Yat Sen. It was the extreme wing of the reform party and saw in democracy the ideal for the new China. For years Sun had been traveling among the Chinese abroad, preach- ing a republic and building up a constituency. In the spring of 1911 unrest became acute. The central government attempted to place the railways of the empire, many of them owned in the provinces, under imperial control, and to complete them by funds raised by for- eign loans. This aroused bitter opposition in the provinces. The extremists took advantage of the unrest and in October, 1911, led a re- bellion which broke out at Wuchang opposite the great commercial city of Hankow, the key to the central Yangtze Valley. The revolt speedily assumed alarming proportions. The Manchus in a panic called to their aid Yuan Shin K'ai. Ytian had been prominent under the empress dowager, first as Chinese resident in Korea before the fateful war with Japan and later in the coup d'etat of 1898 when he was accused of betraying the young emperor. As governor of Shantung during 1900 he showed 208 THE TRANSFORMATION his good judgment by opposing the Boxer mad- ness. He was unpopular with the regency and had been dismissed from court after the death of the empress dowager. He was primarily a soldier, a leader of the new army, thoroughly convinced of the necessity of reorganizing China by adopting Western ideas; but being a Northerner he represented a more conserva- tive type of reformer. He was given full con- trol of the imperialist fortunes. After a few weeks of localized fighting, Yiian announced to the Manchus that the revolutionary move- ment had become so strong that it seemed to him best that the dynasty should abdicate. This it did, entrusting the future disposition of the country to his hands. In the mean time the provinces south of the Yangtze had organized themselves into a republic with Nanking as their capital and had elected Sun Yat Sen as provisional president. Early in 1912 Sun agreed to resign in the interests of unity and Yiian Shih K'ai was elected the provisional president of the Republic of United China. This change to a republic, so startling to the West, was in reality logical. The Manchus had become weak and as foreign conquerors could not be tolerated by the awakened patriotism of 209 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA the new China. There was no recognized na- tive dynasty to which the Chinese could turn, and there was no man who would be univer- sally acceptable as the founder of a new one. In the old days the country would have been thrown into prolonged civil strife from which some successful general might eventually have emerged as the founder of a new dynasty. But foreign powers would have intervened had that been attempted in 1912, for it would have put in jeopardy their citizens and their com- merce. A republic was, seemingly, the only form of government that would prevent exten- sive civil strife for the moment and maintain China's independence. It was, moreover, not entirely foreign to China's previous training. Her government had had many features, par- ticularly in the village organization and in the civil service, which readily lent themselves to a republican organization. The chief change was in the substitution of an elected president for an hereditary emperor, and in the introduction of democratic ideals of increased popular con- trol in all branches of the government, ideals which were not in a strict sense a necessary accompaniment of a republic. The founders of the republic, radical South- 210 THE TRANSFORMATION erners, had in mind a very democratic form of constitution. The franchise was to be granted with as few restrictions as possible and was even in some sections to be opened to women as well as to men. Party government was to be instituted, and the national assembly and a responsible cabinet, rather than the president, were to be the dominating factors in the state. Yiian Shih K'ai, however, representing the Northern and more conservative element, be- lieved in a strong executive and a centralized government. The North and the South, as we have seen, had always been somewhat different in spoken language, and even in blood, and at times they have been divided politically. The South had been longer in contact with the for- eigner and was now more ready to adopt his ways. There ensued a struggle between the radical group which was in control in the South, and the more conservative group, led by Yiian, with its stronghold in the North. Friction was almost constant and became acute over alleged political murders by the president, and his removal of southerners from office. The issue was joined chiefly over the question of a foreign loan. The new govern- ment was in dire need of funds and could not 211 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA immediately obtain them in sufficient amounts from taxation. A combination of foreign capi- talists, representing Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia, and Japan, offered to make a loan. It was to be a large one and was to be secured by a lien on Chinese revenues, principally the income from the salt monopoly. It involved increased po- litical as well as financial control and evidently compromised still further Chinese indepen- dence. So prominent was the political side that President Wilson refused to give official back- ing to the American capitalists, and these with- drew, leaving the loan to be made by the repre- sentatives of the five powers. The Southern radical party 1 was opposed to the loan, and obstructed its ratification by the national as- sembly. Finally, in the spring of 1913, Ytian signed it on his own authority, without the sanction of the assembly. At once a rebellion broke out in the South, in an attempt to depose the president who, it was alleged, had sold his country to the foreigner. The uprising was quickly put down and Yuan professed to find that the radical party had been back of it. It had certainly obstructed administration by 1 The Kwo Ming Tang. 212 THE TRANSFORMATION long delays in the national assembly, where but little had been accomplished toward or- ganizing a permanent government. The prov- inces, too, were tending to become more and more independent of Peking. The times seemed to demand prompt action and the guidance of a single strong hand. In October, 1913, Yiian forced through the national as- sembly his election as president for a term of five years. That done, he dissolved the radical party and expelled its members from the na- tional assembly on the ground of their connec- tion with the rebellion of the summer. The expulsion of the radical party left the assembly with only a minority of its members and after a few weeks the president obtained the disso- lution of what was left. He took the step only after consulting the governors of the provinces and an Administrative Conference, composed of over seventy experienced men chosen by himself. He dismissed as well the provincial assemblies, the representative bodies that had come into existence during the last years of the empire, and prepared to strengthen the hold of the capital on the provinces by a cen- tralized military government. This made Yiian virtually a dictator, depending on the army 213 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA for support. He still professed, however, to be loyal to the republic, and took steps to gather a convention which should provide the nation with a revised provisional constitution. This convention was elected on the basis of a limited franchise and was made up of the conservatives and the moderates. It promul- gated in 1914 a revision of the provisional constitution which lengthened the president's term to ten years and virtually gave him the power of choosing his own successor or of continuing himself in office. It provided for a council of state appointed by the president and a parliament, but the president was given an absolute veto over the latter and in other ways was to be the dominant figure. Given the right president it probably provided the form of government best suited to serve as the natural transition from the monarchy of the Manchus to a democratic republic. Arrangements were begun for a council which should draft a per- manent document, supposedly much on the same lines as this revision of the provisional constitution. The permanent constitution was to be ratified finally by a national convention. By the autumn of 1915 there arose in some quarters a demand, encouraged by many of the 214 THE TRANSFORMATION military chiefs, that Yuan become emperor. For a time he seemed to resist, but he finally went through the form of submitting the ques- tion to a group of some two thousand electors who were supposed to represent the nation. These were so carefully chosen from among Ytian's adherents that they declared almost unanimously for the change, and in December, 1915, the decision to make it was announced. The establishment of the empire, however, was destined not to be accomplished. The powers at first seemed to favor it, but within a few weeks Japan, Great Britain, France, and Rus- sia, led by Japan, protested against it. With these opposing its fate was sealed. A rebellion broke out in the South and West, led partly by the republicans and partly by military leaders who saw a chance of furthering their personal ambitions. In March, 1916, Yiian yielded and announced the restoration of the republic. This, however, was a confession of weakness, and although followed by other concessions which greatly limited his power and granted much that the radicals had asked, it did not allay the unrest. Most of the provinces south of the Yangtze revolted and demanded nothing short of the resignation and exile of Yiian. The 215 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA country seemed to be splitting up into frag- ments. Not only provinces but cities declared their independence. The income of the gov- ernment fell behind and a serious financial panic threatened. Anarchy seemed at hand. Some of the leaders of the revolting provinces met at Nanking to decide on action independ- ent of Peking. A new turn to events was given by the sudden death of Yuan in June, 1916, probably because the strain of his office and of the rebellion had aggravated a long-stand- ing weakness. Li Yuan Hung, the vice-presi- dent, automatically came to the presidential chair. Li first came into prominence in 1911 as the revolutionary general at Wuchang. He has had a modern training, primarily on mili- tary lines, and uses English with some degree of ease. He has had an admirable record for integrity, simplicity, directness of thought and speech, and wise, prompt action. Although by no means an extremist he has been known to be more favorable to the radical Southern wing than was Yuan, and during the latter part of his predecessor's administration had been kept in Peking under careful surveillance. His ac- cession to power meant the attempt to unite both radicals and conservatives in the admin- 216 THE TRANSFORMATION istration. The members of the National as- sembly, which had been dissolved by Yuan, again came together at Peking and took up their work where it had been interrupted by the coup d'etat of the autumn of 1913. While these internal developments were tak- ing place, new and startling events supervened in China's foreign relations. The revolution had been the signal for uprisings in the out- lying dependencies of the empire and the loosening of the control of the central govern- ment over them. Both Tibet and Mongolia became for a time virtually independent. The European powers whose territories bordered on these districts were not slow to take advantage of the situation. Russia, whose influence in the region had been weakened since her war with Japan, made overtures to the "independent" government in Outer Mongolia, that portion of Mongolia bordering on Siberia, which would have made of it a Russian protectorate. Great Britain extended her claims in Tibet. Already in the preceding decade she had sent an expedi- tion to Lhassa under Younghusband and had entered into an agreement with China which, while respecting Chinese suzerainty, excluded other powers, and so made Tibet a buffer state 217 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA against a possible Russian advance on India. The Peking government entered into negotia- tions with both powers. In 1913 she agreed to acknowledge extensive Russian commercial and political privileges in Outer Mongolia in return for the recognition of her suzerainty. In the case of Tibet she refused to ratify a convention with Great Britain whereby the dependency was to be divided into two dis- tricts, an inner and an outer one. China was to retain her suzerainty over both but was to cease to interfere in the affairs of Outer Tibet. A final agreement has not been reached. Japan in the mean time looked with longing eyes on Eastern Inner Mongolia, the district bordering on Southern Manchuria. It was evi- dent that only a strong hand in Peking could save these great domains for China. The great European War of 1914 started new and immensely significant developments. Japan and England were bound together by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. This, originally made in 1902, had been renewed and extended in 1905, and had again been renewed with slight modifications in 1911. Japan, too, had been gradually drawn into the group of the Entente Powers. The new friendliness of Eng- 218 THE TRANSFORMATION land, France, and Russia, which was one of the features of the first decade of the twentieth century and which had shown itself so strongly at Algeciras and in Persia, and finally in the union against the Central Powers in 1914, had embraced Japan. France and Japan had en- tered into an agreement in 1907 regarding Far-Eastern affairs, which paved the way for a reconciliation with Russia, France's ally. When in 1909 the United States, in the inter- ests of the open door, suggested the neutraliza- tion of the Manchurian railways, Russia and Japan had both taken alarm at the threat to their special interests, and in July, 1910, en- tered into an agreement to preserve the status quo. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance did not bind Japan to go to war unless Great Britain were attacked in the Far East, and the Japanese were probably under no obligation even then to do more than to help protect British shipping and colonies against the en- emy. Japan, however, took an active part in the war, and not only assisted in driving Ger- man warships from the Far-Eastern waters, but captured German possessions in the Pa- cific, and sent immense quantities of munitions to Russia via the Siberian Railway. Her most 219 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA important acts, however, were in China. From Japan's standpoint it appears to be a matter of life and death that she be assured an open door to her great neighbor. There is the natural field for her commercial expansion, and with- out this expansion her future as a great power is dark. China possesses great quantities of coal and iron and a huge population which can be organized into a mighty industrial force. She is potentially a fabulously rich market. What wonder that the Japanese should desire to lead her and to establish that leadership so firmly that it cannot be disputed by Western powers! Already her merchants had pene- trated to all parts of the country. Already heavily subsidized steamers traversed the waters of China and competed successfully with the long-established English lines. Jap- anese manufactures, cottons, matches, to- baccos, and medicines, were already flooding Chinese markets. She had seventeen per cent of China's foreign trade. The great war offered the opportunity for which she had been look- ing. While the nations of Europe were busy at home, she could gain so great a hold on her neighbor that they would be forced to recog- nize it after the war. As an ally of Great Brit- 220 THE TRANSFORMATION ain she could drive out Germany, and as the price of her aid she could demand a freer hand in China. This she did. Tsing-tao was be- sieged by a joint British and Japanese force under the leadership of the latter, and after a few weeks of gallant defense surrendered. Japan occupied not only the German leased territory, but the German railways and mines in Shantung. In a short time she began making a series of demands on China, demands which amounted to her undisputed leadership in the foreign and even the internal affairs of the un- wieldy republic. These were in five groups : (1) In regard to the province of Shantung, China was to give her consent to any transfer of German rights and privileges to Japan that the latter might obtain. China was to promise not to alienate to any third power any territory in Shantung or along its coast either by sale or by lease. She was to grant Japan the privilege, subject to German consent, of financing the building of certain railways in Shantung. She was to open additional treaty ports. These de- mands would not only make Japan the succes- sor of Germany in this wealthy and strategic province, but they would give her more than Germany had ever had. 221 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA (2) In regard to South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia (the part of Mongolia contiguous with South Manchuria): the lease of Port Arthur, Dalny, and the Japanese rail- ways in Manchuria was to be extended to ninety-nine years. Japanese subjects were to have the privilege in South Manchuria of buy- ing or leasing land for trade, manufacturing, and agriculture, a privilege which was not given to foreigners elsewhere in China. Japa- nese were also to be allowed to reside and to travel anywhere in South Manchuria. With these privileges came an extension of the juris- diction of Japanese courts in South Manchuria. Other concessions in regard to mines, railways, government loans, and the employment of advisers were demanded. These, if granted, would be a large additional step toward hand- ing over South Manchuria to Japan. The Japanese sphere of influence was to be ex- tended in Eastern Inner Mongolia. (3) The largest iron-works in China l were already mortgaged to Japanese capital. At the right moment these were to be made the joint concern of China and Japan, and China was not to sell her interest in the company without 1 At Hanyang, opposite Hankow. 222 THE TRANSFORMATION Japan's consent, nor to allow mines near those of the company to be worked without the company's consent. This would give Japan control of the best iron-works in China, with great deposits of coal and iron. This last is needed badly by Japan, for the island empire has practically no iron ore. (4) China was to agree that she would lease or sell no island port or harbor along her coast to any third power. (5) The fifth group included a number of very radical demands. China was to employ Japanese advisers in political, financial, and military affairs, virtually insuring them the direction of her central government. Japanese were to have the privilege of owning land for the building of hospitals, churches, and schools, and of propagating religious ideas. The police departments of important places in China were to be jointly administered by Japanese and Chinese. China was to purchase from the Japanese a fixed proportion of her arms, fifty per cent or more. Certain railway concessions were to be granted them in the Yangtze Val- ley. In the province of Fuhkien, opposite the Japanese-owned Formosa, they were to be allowed to work mines, build railways, and 223 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA construct harbor-works, and were to be con- sulted before any foreign capital should be borrowed. A wave of indignation swept over China when these demands became known, and some opposition was aroused in Europe, especially in England. British merchants did not view with equanimity the increasing Japanese competi- tion in China or the sacrifice of their interests entailed by the Japanese alliance. The Chinese government was at first disposed to resist, but it could not expect military aid from Europe or America, and unaided it could not hope to resist Japan successfully. Japan modified her demands somewhat, but finally (May, 1915) prescribed an ultimatum insisting on most of the points in the first four groups. These China was forced to grant. The fifth group was left over for further discussion. The effect was to make Japan the dominant power in China, at least until the European War should be over. However, instead of leading to an alliance between the Japanese and Chinese, in which the latter should give themselves will- ingly to the leadership of the island kingdom and the two present a united front to the world, it aroused among all Chinese a help- 224 THE TRANSFORMATION less but bitter hatred of Japan. This hatred was intensified by various acts which were in- terpreted as being unwarranted aggression on a defenseless neighbor, among them disregard of Chinese rights in Shantung, aid to re- volts, and demands for excessive indemnity for losses during the rebellion of 1913. Japan has hoped, and still hopes, to lead China into the new age. While disclaiming all desire to end Chinese independence, she feels herself pecul- iarly fitted to be the apostle of the Occident to the Far East. She believes that she under- stands the Chinese better than do Westerners, and her leading spokesmen have suggested that Europe and America furnish the capital and Japan the brains for the industrializing of China. Just what the future is to be no one can foresee. It may be that Japan will be able to overcome the prejudice against her in China and in the West and that she will succeed in the peaceful development of her great neigh- bor. It may be also that her vision will not be realized, but will end in disaster for both na- tions. For the present Japan's hold has been strengthened by an agreement with Russia published during the summer of 1916 by which the two powers undertake to respect each 225 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA other's interests. Disorders in Eastern Inner Mongolia at about the same time have given the excuse for further demands on China which aim at an extension of Japan's influence in that region. But much depends on the out- come of the great war, and the shifting of international alliances which may follow. The revolution which drove out the Man- chus and established the republic was, as has been suggested, merely part of the great wave of change that was sweeping over China. The culture of the West was rapidly and profoundly modifying the older civilization. The political revolution accelerated the change. There was an eager attempt to conform to Western ways in dress. The queue disappeared in most sec- tions, partly because it was a badge of subjec- tion imposed by the Manchus after their con- quest of China, and partly because it differed from the foreign headdress. Foreign clothes appeared in the cities and became the style for those who could afford them. Strange and ludicrous sartorial combinations resulted which were neither Chinese nor Western and which were typical of the confusion in all branches of life. Social customs began to change. The old 226 THE TRANSFORMATION rules of courtship and marriage were modified. No longer were the young people kept separate with no opportunity of seeing each other. No longer was marriage arranged entirely by the parents through go-betweens without the couple having seen each other until the wed- ding day. The elaborate ceremonies of polite- ness, the joy of the older, leisured age, began to be crowded out by the brusque ways of the Occident. The old aristocratic titles of respect, nicely adjusted to social rank, began to pass from ordinary usage, and common uniform democratic terms, corresponding to "Mister" or the "Citizen" of the French Revolution, began to take their places and to be applied to all classes. Women demanded larger privileges, and the spectacle was seen of Amazon corps in the revolutionary army, and of a group of women demanding the suffrage of the national assembly in Nanking. The suffrage was granted them in at least one extremely radical Southern province. 1 Throughout the country even the man in the street spoke glibly of liberty, democracy, and the republic, and began to express opin- ions on public affairs. The new ideas were 1 Kwangtung, of which Canton is the capital. 227 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA spread by lecturers who endeavored to instruct the people in the duties of the new age, and by a growing public press whose language devi- ated more and more from the classical toward a more easily comprehended style, approaching the colloquial. Telephone systems were in- stalled in the leading cities. The increased use of the telegraph and of the postal service was at once a symptom and a cause of the trans- formation. Each part of the country was kept in close touch with every other. All important actions of the central government brought to Peking a deluge of telegrams from the prov- inces expressing public opinion. The feeling of national consciousness in- creased, and patriotism with it. These were at times seemingly nullified by the tendency, ever present in China in times of disorder, to split into warring fragments. It is remarkable, however, that patriotic fear of foreign inter- vention has so far held the country together. The intense general hatred of the Japanese aroused by the events of 1914 and 1915 would have been impossible two decades before. Government schools suffered sadly from the unrest and the financial straits of revolution- ary days, but by 1916 had nearly recovered. 228 THE TRANSFORMATION The modern type of student is more and more predominating and is crowding the schools, both government and missionary. He is often unruly and poorly disciplined and not so given to the forms of politeness as was his predeces- sor of the old age. He breaks out at times into riots and is radical in his ideas of government and of society. He pays less attention than formerly to the literature and the ancient Classics of his own land. He puts in his time at Western subjects, especially those having to do with government, commerce, and industry. He is more athletic than his predecessor, for military drill is almost universal in the schools, and in the better ones Western gymnastics, competitive games, and the other accessories of physical education have been introduced. He represents the transition stage through which the youth of China must pass before a disciplined product of the new age can emerge, a product which will be trained in well-organ- ized schools where the curricula will show a wise combination of the old and the new learn- ing. Already the newer type of student has provided the nation with some extremely able, well-trained, high-minded leaders. With the general popularity of things West- 229 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA era has come a more sympathetic attitude toward Christianity. No longer as in other days does the scholar hold the doctrine of the missionary in utter contempt. No longer is the membership of the church made up exclu- sively of the relatively uneducated, of the lower middle class. The missionary, as an ad- vance agent of the Occident, a man usually of unblemished reputation and frequently of broad learning, has found himself sought as an adviser in many matters outside of his church work. Evangelistic meetings have been held, attended by tens of thousands, large numbers of whom are of the student and official classes. Thousands have been enrolled as inquirers and later admitted to church membership. True to the new nationalist movement, Chinese have been asking and have received a larger share in the leadership of the church and independent Chinese churches have here and there been organized. The church has frequently received notable official recognition. Shortly after the revolution, for example, the president asked that it set aside a day of special prayer for the success of the government. Some patriotic Chinese have been alarmed at the desertion of the old forms, and at the 230 THE TRANSFORMATION threatened decline of morality among those who have partially abandoned the precepts of Confucius. A movement to strengthen Con- fucianism has been started and the sacrifices to Heaven by the head of the state and the hon- ors to Confucius, discontinued at the time of the revolution, have been reinstated. The struggle against the opium evil was somewhat abated during the disorder of the revolution, but later became more vigorous than ever. An earnest effort at moral reform has been made all along the line, for traditional Chinese teaching has inculcated the belief that only a righteous people can expect national prosper- ity. There has been in places an attempt to stamp out official corruption, and to establish integrity and justice in the courts and in civil and military administration. There has been an effort to make the govern- ment more efficient. Extensive changes have been instituted in judicial procedure and or- ganization. A revision of the code is in prog- ress. Supervision by the central govern- ment of railways, commercial enterprises, and schools has been planned and in part begun. Tax reform has been projected. There have been some successful attempts at public sani- 231 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA tation. Partly under government, although still chiefly under missionary direction, a modern medical profession is arising. The changes in the economic life and organ- ization have continued. Foreign manufactures have continued to grow in popularity. More railways have been built or projected. For some months Sun Yat Sen was in charge of an official bureau whose business it was to plan and execute a thorough system which would bind the country together politically and com- mercially. The problem of the currency has been grappled with, although without much success, and new banks have been established on Western models. New cotton mills have been built, and Chinese capital has commenced to organize on the plan of the Western stock company. Extensive reclamation projects are planned to extend the area of arable lands and reduce the causes of famine. Agricultural and forestry schools and experiment stations have been founded to add to the quantity and the quality of the output of field and forest. Prices of all commodities and wages of labor are rising. This, of course, is due largely to the forced adjustment to the price scales of other nations. With the ease and rapidity of trans- 232 THE TRANSFORMATION portation the time has passed when cotton or tea or grain can be very much cheaper in China than in the rest of the world. Even more per- ishable commodities, such as eggs and meat, are exported in cold storage to other lands and their prices in China come up accordingly. The price of eggs, for example, has more than doubled in a decade. Wages naturally follow the increase, although more slowly. Those for unskilled labor have risen fifty per cent or more in the coast cities, where the increase in prices has been most marked. All of these changes are more in evidence near the coast, the main rivers, the great high- ways of commerce, and in the cities. Away from the chief centers of population and the main lines of trade, the older customs and ideas still persist, often largely unchanged. Prices are as they always have been, and the new age has had but little effect. The mass of the rural population, as in all countries, is the last to change. But even here signs of progress are to be seen. The Standard Oil Company's prod- ucts and those of the Asiatic Petroleum Com- pany have penetrated the remotest corners. Matches, cotton goods, the products of Japa- nese and of the British-American tobacco 233 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA companies, and even patent medicines, have gone everywhere. China has at last been per- meated by the civilization of the Occident. The people of China are adjusting themselves and their culture to the ways of the industrial- ized West. CHAPTER VII PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS OP CHINA AN account of the history of China is hardly complete without a discussion of the problems that she faces to-day. These have come partly from her past and partly from the new condi- tions of the present. They have resulted mainly from the attempt to adjust the civiliza- tion of the old China, whose development and characteristics were discussed in the earlier chapters, to the civilization of the peoples of the West, whose coming has been the topic of the last two chapters. Their name is legion. They affect every phase of Chinese life. Unless they are solved successfully and promptly, temporary and possibly permanent disintegra- tion may be the result, both for the state and for the economic, the intellectual, the social, and the moral life of the people. No one can accurately forecast the future. One can merely analyze the situation and in certain places point out tendencies. The problem which most attracts attention is the political one. The outstanding impression 235 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA is that the balance is poised between disintegra- tion and total loss of independence either to Japan or to a group of powers, on the one hand, and successful reorganization and the recovery of complete autonomy, on the other. At times during the past few years the bal- ance has seemed to swing in favor of the for- mer, for the disintegrating forces are many and strong. In the first place, China has partially sacrificed her independence. Two of her prin- cipal sources of revenue, the maritime customs and the salt monopoly, are under the admin- istration of foreigners, and are largely directed to the payment of foreign debts. Through ex- territoriality foreigners are not subject to Chinese law and large districts in her most im- portant cities are under foreign jurisdiction. It is as though the chief business and residence districts of New York, Washington, Philadel- phia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, and San Francisco were governed by their foreign residents and were guarded by foreign troops. It has gone so far that in the park along the water-front in Shanghai, the chief port of China, there is displayed the sign, "Chinese and dogs not admitted." A revision of the treaties by which these con- 236 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS ditions are enforced is made difficult by the "most-favored nation" clause, by which priv- ileges granted to one are given automatically to all. The unanimous consent of the powers is virtually necessary to any extensive alteration. Moreover, the powers which surround China are jealous of one another and selfishly ambi- tious. So keen is competition in the modern world for markets, for raw material, for a chance to invest capital, and for military ad- vantage, that as long as China remains too weak to handle herself, each power is afraid that any advantage gained by another may lead to a disturbance of the balance of power. They all insist that any privilege or territory granted to one must be met by similar conces- sions to the rest. Russia seeks for an ice-free port and more territory. Germany, Great Britain, and France have each feared that an- other might be granted special privileges, and to forestall the possibility of losing its propor- tionate share each demands special conces- sions. Peking has played the dangerous game of offsetting one power by another, but it is the policy of the opportunist sparring for time. It has already led to two wars in which China has stood by, a helpless spectator, while her 237 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA provinces were devastated. Japan has viewed with alarm the threatened partition among the European powers. She has felt that it would mean the closing of the open door and her own industrial and commercial death. She has taken the opportunity of the European War to intrench herself as strongly as possible in China against the day when Europe shall again be free to give its attention to the Far East. The United States has been so busy in develop- ing its own virgin resources and its internal markets that it has had but little economic in- terest in China and has attempted to act as a benevolent, disinterested friend, but there are at times indications that with the passing of the frontier and the increased interest in for- eign investments American idealists are to have a harder time than heretofore in overcom- ing the appeal of capitalists and merchants who will seek at least an open market and pro- tection for their surplus capital and products. Were China left to herself she would proba- bly, after a period of exhausting civil strife, work out a stable government, but the jeal- ousies and special interests of the powers can- not allow her to engage in such a struggle. Moreover, the Chinese government is poor. 238 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS Its system of revenue has been based on the needs of the simple Oriental government of the older type. To-day it must assume the burdens of the modern state, of expensive military and naval establishments, of education, of health supervision, of inspection, and of aid to indus- try, transportation, and commerce. The func- tions of governments have enormously ex- panded in the past century and China must conform if she is to cease to be the victim of powers that have already done so. Her reve- nues could be largely augmented by a more efficient administration, but this comes slowly. She cannot raise her maritime customs duties without the consent of the powers and these are interested in keeping them low. She cannot largely add to the price of salt or to the land tax or any direct tax without threatened revo- lution among a people already jealous of the central government. Even with a free hand and a strong central government, she would have difficulty, for the masses of her people are des- perately poor and every increase in taxation, however small, means added poverty and un- rest. The highly efficient government of Brit- ish India has found it extremely difficult un- der the same general circumstances to find 239 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA sufficient revenue. China has tried to put off the evil day by borrowing, but this has only aggravated the evil. It has necessitated setting aside large portions of her revenue for interest and the payment df the installments on her debts as they have come due. This has re- duced the amount available for current ex- penses and has necessitated new and heavier loans. Unless her revenues can be largely in- creased, bankruptcy seems inevitable. The difficulty is further enhanced by the divisions of the country. Each province is jealous of every other and of the central gov- ernment. The South and the North eye each other with mutual distrust. Differences in the spoken language accentuate the division. Even individual cities at times declare their "independence." Continued united action under a strong central government is abso- lutely necessary in this day of fierce interna- tional competition and China has not yet found that possible. There is a further handicap in the lack of an ancient royal line around which the nation can unite. Japan owes much of her success to her imperial house with its tradition of unbroken rule and to the intense loyalty that it inspires. 240 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS In China every military adventurer gathers a faction around him in the hope of overcoming his rivals and dominating the nation as "presi- dent" or "emperor." There has been, too, a deeply rooted tradi- tion of corruption that augurs ill for the disin- terested efficiency of officials. Positions are shamelessly bought and sold, and used as a means of enriching the holder and his family by illegal "squeezes." Occasionally monarchs have struggled with partial success to purify the system, but human weakness and tradition have proved too strong. Many republican leaders have striven manfully for reform and with noteworthy success, but their successes have as a rule been local and temporary. Some competent observers believe corruption to be more shameless and more prevalent under the republic than it was even in the last years of the Manchus. There is, too, a frequent lack of practicality and of persistence in reforms. Great plans of reorganization have been projected, admirable on paper, but impossible of speedy execution; they have been begun only to be abandoned for some new plan when the first difficulty was encountered. In this, it is true, China has 241 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA much in common with all countries during their periods of revolution, but she dare not risk her future on uncertain experiments. China lacks efficient, well-trained leadership. This is partly due to the dearth of men who have been educated scientifically, a dearth which will disappear with the progress of edu- cation. But, as we have seen, there is a more fundamental weakness. The family system and family solidarity are poor training for inde- pendent, self-controlled, individual initiative. The size of the country is an added obstacle, for it is much more difficult for a man to emerge as a national figure from three hundred millions than it is from fifty or a hundred mil- lions. The very bulk of the nation both calls for an unusually high type of leadership to overcome its inertia and to direct it, and checks the ambition of those who might otherwise emerge. Against these weaknesses there are several grounds for hope. There is the political capac- ity of the Chinese. Centuries of experience are behind them, and a government which at its best bears comparison with any in the West until the nineteenth century. Long practice has established the tradition that the keenest 242 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS and most highly trained intellects of the nation should give themselves to the service of the state. The people are law-abiding, peace- loving, easily organized, and experienced in local self-government. A new wave of patriot- ism is sweeping the country and has had prac- tical results in the really noteworthy opium reform and in a restraint from bloodshed after the downfall of the Manchus, which, although not complete, is without precedent in the his- tory of China. There is ground for hope. Then there is the economic problem. First of all there is the growing population. No one knows just how many Chinese there are, but the number is probably not much less than three hundred millions and it may be more. Careful estimates seem to indicate that in spite of famine, pestilence, and civil strife, it has not declined in the past hundred and fifty years. During the earlier more prosperous years of the Manchu dynasty it rapidly increased. Hand in hand with the practically universal ancestor worship has gone the conviction that there is no greater crime than to die without leaving male posterity to carry on the sacrifices at the graves of one's forbears. Marriage is early, usually before the bride and groom are 243 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA twenty. Concubinage is common among the well-to-do, and for women respectability and marriage are practically synonymous. Under such conditions, if famine, pestilence, and civil war are once eliminated or considerably re- duced, population will multiply rapidly. Ex- tensive civil war is not permitted by the pow- ers; famine is being fought by Chinese and foreigners with all the zeal and skill of a hu- manitarian and scientific age; disease is being reduced and will be reduced much further by modern medical science; voluntary restraint of the birth-rate can come only slowly. A rapid advance in population would seem to be inevi- table. Eventually modern methods of agricul- ture, reclamation projects, improved methods of industry, transportation, and commerce will provide added food and wealth, but these will come slowly. The immediate future would seem to have in store increased poverty and unrest for the masses of the nation. China cannot find in unrestricted emigration a relief for the congestion. In Manchuria and Mon- golia, it is true, there are great unoccupied fer- tile areas, and in many parts of China there is wild land that can be reclaimed. But the white race has preempted most of the vacant 244 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS districts of the world and has forbidden other races to trespass. Australia, the United States, and Canada all have strict exclusion acts di- rected against the Chinese. They are not per- mitted to share with their white brothers the virgin lands of the temperate zones. The economic difficulty will be augmented by the forced adjustment to the industrial and commercial organization of the West. China must compete with an Occident that is the product of the Industrial Revolution. Older methods of production and of distribution must be abandoned for newer ones, or inter- national competition will drive her to the wall. In the transition confusion and distress are prevalent. Two generations ago China was the chief source of the world's tea, and tea made up the bulk of her exports. To-day tea, pro- duced by better methods in India, Ceylon, and other Eastern lands, is competing with that from China, produced by older methods, and is driving it from the market. Its export has actually declined. Even foreigners living in China frequently use tea grown in Ceylon. A hundred years ago Europeans were buying from China finer cottons called "nankeens,** and the Chinese local market was supplied 245 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA entirely by local manufactures made on hand- looms. Woolens were not used. To-day the export trade in cottons has ceased, and in the home market the native hand-woven cloth is being driven from the market by the products of the factories of England and Japan. In China herself power-driven, labor-saving ma- chinery is taking the place of the older meth- ods. She is being industrialized. Steamboats are substituted for junks, and railways for wheelbarrows and carts. Cotton factories with modern machinery are springing up. The result is distress for many native craftsmen. Moreover, Chinese commercial organization will need to be readjusted to the new ways. In place of the old partnership with the check of each member on the other must come the joint-stock company, in which stockholders delegate the care of their interests to a board of directors. Only thus can the great amounts of capital needed in modern business be obtained and administered. It is taking time to learn efficiency in the new processes, and Chinese business honesty has not always been equal to the burden placed on the directors. Sad tales are told of misappropriation of companies' funds. 246 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS The situation is aggravated by the confusion in the currency system. China is still on the silver basis and subject to all the fluctuations in foreign exchange which that entails. Various kinds of money are in circulation. The older standards of value were the ounce of silver (the "tael") and the copper "cash.** Only the cash was coined, and since it is worth about one twenty-fifth of a cent it could be used only for smaller transactions. Since for larger trans- actions silver bullion was used, which had to be tested and weighed for fineness each time it changed hands, and since the tael varied in value with each district or city, there was need for a uniform coinage of larger value. This was partially furnished by silver dollars. Most of the dollars of a generation ago were coined in Mexico, but there later came in the Hongkong, Straits Settlements, and American trade dol- lars, the Japanese yen, and other pieces of about the same weight and fineness. In recent years various provinces and the central govern- ment have coined dollars, dimes, half-dollars, five-cent and twenty-cent pieces, and copper cents. No one dollar is universally accepted as standard and the result is local exchange rates, often varying with each principal city and 247 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA from day to day. Added to this is an unregu- lated issue of paper money by the government, by banks, and by various private concerns. Much of this paper is hopelessly depreciated. The result of all this is, of course, confusion, and legitimate business is fearfully handi- capped. Currency reform is one of the most pressing needs of China's commercial system but the government is poor and the existing chaos is backed by strongly intrenched bank- ing interests which profit by it. No permanent relief has yet been obtained. The economic situation is further disturbed by a rise in prices, due largely, as has already been indicated, to adjustment to the higher levels of the West. Since the cost of living ad- vances more rapidly than wages, the result is temporary distress. China suffers, too, from the lack of sufficient commercial capital. Capital will enter in time from Europe, America, and Japan, but it is timid and insists on a stable government or on being backed by its home government. The latter alternative brings with it political con- trol and further sacrifice of Chinese inde- pendence. China is, moreover, handicapped by her 248 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS bondage to foreigners. She cannot levy a high tariff to protect native industries. She is too poor to subsidize manufactures extensively. Many of her best mines and factories are con- trolled by outsiders and are not operated with her industrial welfare as their object. In spite of the confusion in the economic life, the situation has its hopeful side. The Chinese seem to be men of business almost by instinct. In shrewdness and ability they are not a whit behind their Western competitors, as is shown by their achievements in Hong- kong, Shanghai, and the Straits Settlements, where they have matched their wits against the European. They will make excellent work- men for the factory system, for they are indus- trious, persistent, frugal, and intelligent, and are readily organized. China has boundless resources of mine and field, and seems des- tined, when once she has been thoroughly or- ganized, to have an industrial future second to that of no other land. Added to the political and economic problem is that of education. A modern state even of the autocratic type must be based on universal education if it is to be efficient and if it is to compete successfully in industry and com- 249 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA merce with other states. Education must not be confined to classical channels, but must include technical and professional branches. In the modern state the training for the trades and professions formerly given by the home, the guild, and the apprentice system must be provided by formal education in the school. There is in China, it will be remembered, a strong tradition in favor of education. For centuries civil officials have been recruited from the scholar class. In wealth and beauty of literature and in eagerness for learning China has an enviable record. Moreover, a fair beginning toward educational reorganiza- tion has been made. The government has a number of very good schools, and missionary agencies have an admirable system beginning in the primary grades and culminating in col- leges and universities. There are beginnings of technical and professional institutions. In medicine, for example, the Rockefeller millions are to be used liberally for founding and main- taining model schools and hospitals. But China has only begun to solve her prob- lem. Her poverty is in no other place a more evident handicap. Funds for public instruc- tion are limited and even when supplemented 250 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS by private contributions are woefully inade- quate. The function of the state under the old regime was restricted to the examination of can- didates and to the maintenance of a few higher schools. There was no great system of univer- sal compulsory education. That had to be built from the ground up. Even were there state funds for schools the masses of the people are too poor to attend. The average family cannot spare the labor of the children for longer than a very few years of the most ele- mentary education. A still greater immediate difficulty is the lack of competent teachers. These must be trained in modern school meth- ods and in Western learning, and the task of providing them in sufficient numbers for the fifty million or so children of school age is no slight one. As it is, it is impossible to find suffi- cient adequately trained instructors for even the schools that are now in existence. Many come back from Japan after a few months or a year or two of training in the new learning and pose as competent. Although the preparation of the teachers is probably better now than it was a decade ago, their numbers are still fear- fully inadequate. There is a lack of good texts. At present English is used as a medium of in- 251 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA struction in many higher schools because of the dearth of manuals and other modern material in Chinese, but this is costly in time and effort. New handbooks for the Chinese language and literature must be provided which will con- form to the standards of modern pedagogy. An admirable beginning has been made, nota- bly by a modern Chinese publishing concern, the Commercial Press, but it is only a begin- ning. Then there is the problem of language. Beautiful as is the written language, it is very difficult to acquire. A simplified style ap- proaching the vernacular is being worked out, but more must be done. The character must be simplified and even a phonetic system must be adopted if years of the child's life are not to be wasted and if the mass of the common peo- ple is to be raised from illiteracy. The state must look to the schools, too, to provide a uniform vernacular. Ideal political unity can- not be attained while dialects differ so greatly as to be mutually unintelligible. Some efforts have been made toward both of these ends, but as yet they have been little more than ten- tative. The Chinese must be aroused to crea- tive thinking. It will not do for them merely 252 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS to learn what has been accumulated by their own ancients and by the West. There are a few indications that this will come. There are here and there a few signs of original thinking among the modern scholars, especially those trained in Europe and America. But there are only a few, scarcely enough as yet to give a firm foundation for the claim that China is again to be the home of a growing civilization that will add largely to the treasures of the world's culture. Then there are the problems of family life, of social relationships, and the closely related ones of physical well-being, morality, and reli- gion. The revolution in China has extended, as we have seen, to all these phases of the na- tion's life. Old social customs are changing. There is more freedom of intercourse between the sexes, and altered customs of engagement and marriage. There are new ideas of the status of women. With the passing of the an- cient conventions the moral restraints which they enforce are apt to be loosened. It is not that Occidental customs do not embody just as high moral ideas, but that the liberty which the change involves is apt to breed license. The story comes from an interior city of one 253 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA woman of good social standing whose idea of the liberty of the new age expressed itself in standing for hours at a street corner, smoking foreign cigarettes. The family ties are apt to be loosened, and with the weakening of family solidarity is likely to go much of the whole- some restraint and deference to authority that it embodied. With the passing of time-hon- ored styles of dress is going the older courtesy with its elaborate ritual of politeness. The result for a time is rudeness and the end of much of that fine art of living which the gentle- men of that past generation possessed to a high degree. The deference to teachers is not what it once was. Riots and strikes against school authorities are almost universal. Youths who breathe such an atmosphere do not readily submit themselves to the state or to the will of the majority. With the industrializing of China will come all the questions of our complex modern life. Her cities, already congested and possessed of a minimum of sanitation, will increase in size. Some are already doing so. With their growth will arise added problems of public health and morals, of poverty and of the slum. The fac- tory system of labor will, unless carefully con- 254 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS trolled, bring with it all the evils that state regulation in the West has even now only par- tially met. Already in the cotton mills in Shanghai and in match factories at Tientsin there have appeared the too familiar exploita- tion of the labor of women and children by low wages, long hours, and insufficient precautions against disease and accident. Moreover, the older faiths are threatened. Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism at times share in the disfavor in which the old order is held by the new. The superstitious elements in these faiths cannot stand before modern science, and their followers fail to discriminate between the true and the false, but cast over the one with the other. Taoism has in it but little that is not superstitious, and seems doomed, although for the time it may enjoy a revived popularity from the fact that many of its gods are deified national heroes, and may maintain itself for years on popular credulity. Buddhism has much more of solid value and may succeed in freeing itself sufficiently from its crasser elements to minister permanently to the deeper spiritual longings of the nation. The religious elements in Confucianism are relatively so subordinated to the ethical that 255 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA at times it is questioned whether it can prop- erly be called a religion. Much of the ethics of Confucianism will unquestionably survive and deservedly so, but with the loosening of family ties ancestor worship which is so fundamental to them will probably be less important. The social structure and the religious structure of China are so interwoven that one cannot well be changed without the other suffering. Is China in the end to lose much or all of her faith, and to become a materialistic nation, centering itself on physical wealth and force and forgetting the things of the spirit? With all this disintegration of the old, how- ever, there are signs of hope for the future. Here and there cities are planning enlarged streets, boulevards, and parks in place of the city wall, and the introduction of pure water and the sanitary disposal of sewage. Electric lighting is being widely introduced, an im- proved police service is being attempted, and thoughtful leaders are taking to heart the lessons learned by the industrialized West. Christianity seems to have a bright future as a regenerating influence. Its following is rapidly increasing both in numbers and qual- ity. The missionaries are able and statesman- 256 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS like. They are as a rule chosen carefully and include many of the finest representatives of the culture, character, and faith of the Occi- dent. They are attempting to avoid the mis- takes that the church has made in the West. There is an earnest effort at cooperation be- tween the various Christian bodies and many dream of unity and of a single national church. The church is making the attempt to exert a leavening influence in all phases of Chinese life: through the school, the hospital, literature, and the activities that center around its services Chinese life is being touched at all angles. The social message of the New Testament is being stressed, and this side of Christianity, the emphasis on which is so characteristic of the present generation, seems singularly congenial to the best traditions of China. The emphasis upon the regeneration of human society, the bringing of the Kingdom of Heaven in this life, coincides in general with the aim of the best of the teachings of Con- fucius and his followers. Confucianism and Buddhism have opened the way for the eth- ical teachings of Christianity. Buddhism and Taoism have fostered the mystical tendencies of the Chinese and have prepared the ground 257 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA for the elements of elevated mysticism which are so vital a part of the message of the Chris- tian Church. Moreover, missionaries are more and more sharing the direction of the church with the Chinese, in a spirit which appeals to the new patriotism and which tends to create that inde- pendence and self -support in the church that is the ideal of all foreign missionary endeavor. As a result the Christian Church seems to have a large future as a force for the regeneration of the new China. It has ethical standards in accord with and reinforcing the best of the older Chinese systems. Its high religious faith can inspire the people and their leaders with the courage, initiative, self-control, patience, and self-forgetfulness which are so sorely needed in the China of to-day. If it is to be permanent in China, Christianity must assim- ilate the best in the older religious and ethical systems of the land. That means that it must be modified, that it must take over some of the older national customs and holidays, that it must restate its theology in terms more in accord with the traditional thought of China. But it can do all these without in any way sacrificing its essential elements. 258 PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS Such, then, are the problems of China. They are many and serious and at times it seems doubtful whether they will be solved. Those who know the Chinese most intimately, how- ever, seem to have the most faith in their fu- ture. The natural stability of the people, their admirable qualities of head and heart, appar- ently equal to that of any other race, their mighty past, the virgin resources of their fa- vored land, all seem to augur for them a great future. It may be that for a time they will be divided and even lose their national inde- pendence. That has happened before, and a proverb of theirs says that when the nation has long been united it must for a time be divided. But the same proverb declares that after being divided it will as certainly be re- united. That reunion and regained independ- ence if they come may well be accompanied by a high type of culture that will possess original and valuable contributions for the civilization of the world. THE END BIBLIOGRAPHY AN exhaustive bibliography and even a complete list of the best books is outside the scope of this book. The effort has been made, however, to give a few of the best works in the fields in which students are apt to be most interested. With these as a beginning, further titles can readily be found in larger works and hi works of refer- ence. The books given below will as well serve as a good nucleus for a useful reference library in case it is desired to form one. Bibliography CORDIER, H. Bibliotheca Sinica, 4 vols. 2d ed. Paris, 1904-08. The best and the only exhaustive bibliography of works in European languages. WYLIE, A. Notes on Chinese Literature. New edition. Shanghai, 1902. xxix, 307 pp. This is a brief critical bibliography of the principal Chinese works. It contains as well a list of transla- tions of Chinese works into Western languages. It is sadly in need of revision. General Books on China Articles under " China" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, llth ed. 1910-11. Vol. 6, pp. 166-230. A brief, but inclusive and accurate account. BALL, J. D. Things Chinese. New York, 1906. vii-xii, 816 pp. 261 BIBLIOGRAPHY BASHFORD, J. W. China, and Interpretation. New York, 1916. 620pp. MARTIN, W. A. P. The Lore of Cathay. New York, 1901. 480 pp. RICHARD, L. Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire. Translated by M. Kinnelly. Shanghai, 1908. xvii, 714 pp. WILLIAMS, S. W. The Middle Kingdom. 2 vols. New York, 1899. (The last revision was in 1882.) This is still the standard general work in English on China as it was before it had been changed by contact with the West. History BOULGER, D. C. History of China. 3 vols. London, 1881-84. (There is a shorter edition, London, 1900, 436 pp.) This follows largely the accounts of the standard Chinese histories, and attempts little of independent research or judgment. BLAND, J. O. P. Recent Events and Present Policies in China. Philadelphia, 1912. xi, 481 pp. A verbose, pessimistic account of the years around the Revolution. BROWN, A. J. The Chinese Revolution. New York, 1912. x, 217 pp. A hastily written but readable account from the missionary standpoint. CHAVANNES, E. Memoires historiques, 1895-1905. A scholarly translation of the famous Chinese his- torian, Ssu Ma Ch'ien of the Han dynasty. Valuable for its notes and its voluminous prolegomena. CORDIER, H. Histoire des relations de la Chine avec lea 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY puissances occidentales, 1860-1902. 3 vols. Paris, 1901-02. Scholarly and valuable. GILES, H. A. A Chinese Biographical Dictionary. 1897. A storehouse of biographical detail and anecdote. GOWEN, H. H. An Outline History of China. 2 vols. Boston, 1913. A short, rather anecdotal sketch, burdened with too much detail and too many proper names for the student unfamiliar with Chinese. HIRTH, F. The Ancient History of China. New York, 1908. xx, 383 pp. A well-written account by a recognized authority. It is probably the best short review in English of the period before the Christian era. HOBNBECK, S. K. Contemporary Politics in the Far East. New York, 1916. xii, 466 pp. This is an excellent recent account. KENT, P. A. The Passing of the Manchus. New York, 1912. xi, 404 pp. Li UNG BING. Outlines of Chinese History. Shanghai, 1914. xix, 644 pp. This is in English and is edited by a foreigner. It attempts to combine the results of Chinese and West- ern scholarship. It seems hastily done, however, and its last pages are disfigured by an anti-Manchu bias. It contains some interesting illustrations and maps. MAcGowAN, J. Imperial History of China. This follows closely the accounts of Chinese his- torians and has little of the fruits of modern critical foreign scholarship. It is a good one-volume sum- mary. MAYERS. Chinese Reader's Manual. 1874. Reprinted, Shanghai. 1910, xvi, 444 pp. 263 BIBLIOGRAPHY The best brief inexpensive reference book for prom- inent names and dates. MORSE, H. B. The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 1834-60. New York, 1910. xxxix, 727 pp. PARKER, E. H. China: Her History, Diplomacy, and Commerce. New York, 1901. xx, 332 pp. PARKER, E. H. Ancient China Simplified. London, 1908. xxi, 332 pp. PARKER, E. H. China, Past and Present. London, 1903. Both these last are readable accounts by a man who knows China well. POTT, F. L. H. A Sketch of Chinese History. Shang- hai, 1908. xix, 224. (Revised ed. 1915.) This probably is the best short account for one who is fairly familiar with Chinese names. POTT, F. L. H. The Emergency in China. New York, 1913. xii, 309pp. A brief account of recent events from the stand- point of the Christian missionary. REINSCH, P. S. Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East. Boston, 1911. viii, 396 pp. Ross, E. A. The Changing Chinese. New York, 1911. xxi, 356 pp. Very readable impressions of a trained observer, who was in China for only a year. It is one of the best of the introductory books to modern China, but it has some errors which a more intimate knowledge would have rectified. SMITH, A. H. China in Convulsion. 2 vols. New York, 1901. An account of the Boxer year by an eye-witness. WEALE, B. L. P. The Reshaping of the Far East. 2 vols. New York, 1911. 264 BIBLIOGRAPHY An excellent treatment of the political and inter- national situation at the outbreak of the Russo- Japanese War. YULE, H. The Book of Ser Marco Polo. London, 1875. (New edition by H. Cordier, London, 1915.) This is the best English edition of the travels of the famous Venetian. Relations with the United States COWAN, R. E. Bibliography of the Chinese Question in the United States. San Francisco, 1909. 68 pp. FOSTER, J. W. American Diplomacy in the Orient. Bos- ton, 1903. Excellent. MILLARD, T. F. F. America and the Far-Eastern Ques- tion. New York, 1909. xxix, 576 pp. SMITH, A. H. China and America To-day. New York, 1907. 256 pp. U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization. Description and Travel BISHOP, I. L. The Yangtze Vattey and Beyond. New York, 1900. 2 vols. BOREL, The New China. New York, 1912. 282 pp. DINGLE, E. J. Across China on Foot. New York, 1911. xvi, 445 pp. GASCOYNE CECIL, Lord WILLIAM. Changing China. New York, 1910. xvi, 342 pp. LITTLE, MRS. A. Intimate China. London, 1899. xx, 304 pp. LITTLE, A. The Far East. Oxford, 1905. viii, 334 pp. D'OLLONE, H. M. G. In Forbidden China. Boston, 1912. 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY A description of the travel in Tibet, Mongolia, and West China by an expedition. It is valuable for its accounts of non-Chinese peoples. Social Life DOUGLAS, R. K. Society in China. London, 1901. xvi, 415 pp. MAcGowAN, J. Men and Manners of Modern China. London, 1912. 351 pp. SMITH, A. H. Village Life in China. New York, 1899. SMITH, A. H. Chinese Characteristics. New York, 1894. Both of these describe from intimate knowledge the life hi a part of North China. Political and Economic Organization MORSE, H. B. The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire. Longmans Green & Co. 1908. xi, 451. JEBNIGAN, T. R. China in Law and Commerce. New York, 1905. vii, 408 pp. KING, F. H. Farmers of Forty Centuries. Madison, 1911. An admirable description of the agriculture of the Far East, especially China, by a specialist. Language, Literature, and Art BUSHELL, S. W. Chinese Art. % vols. London, 1910. DOUGLAS, R. K. The Language and Literature of China. London, 1875. GILES, H. A. A History of Chinese Literature. New York, 1909. viii, 448 pp. The best brief review in English. LEGGE, J. The Chinese Classics. 1861-72. 266 BIBLIOGRAPHY This is the standard edition in English and con- tains valuable prolegomena. It also appears without the Chinese text, in the Sacred Books of the East Series (edited by Max Miiller). SOOTHILL, W. E. The Analects of Confucius. Yoko- hama, 1910. The best translation into English. Religions GROOT, J. J. M. DE. The Religion of the Chinese. New York, 1910. vii, 230 pp. A good short account. There is a larger work by the same author which is exhaustive. GILES, H. A. Confucianism and its Rivals. New York. 1915. ix, 271 pp. This is chiefly an account of Confucianism. SOOTHILL, W. E. The Three Religions of China. London, 1913. xi, 324 pp. One of the best brief summaries. Magazines The North China Herald, Shanghai, is probably the best weekly in English. The Journal, of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Shanghai, is an annual publication, noteworthy for its excellent reviews on the books of the past year. INDEX Administrative conference, 213. Agriculture, 75, 87, 90. Americans, begin trade with China, 80. See also United States. Amherst Mission, 143. Amur River, 153. Analects, 25. Ancestor worship, 132. Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 198, 218, 219. Animism, 18, 123. Annam, 59, 79, 168. Arabs in China, 9, 52. Architecture, 121. Arrow War, 149. Art, 120, 121; early, 19. See also Painting, Procelain, Sculpture. Asiatic Petroleum Company, 233. Assemblies, provincial, 205. Assembly, national, 205, 213, 227. Assessors in mixed courts, 160. Astor, John Jacob, 80. Banking, 95, 96. Boundaries of China as influenc- ing her culture, 6-13. Boycott on American goods, 206. Boxer uprising, 191-95, 201. British-American Tobacco Com- pany, 233. British East India Company, 80, 143. Buddhism, 7, 9, 35-37, 126-28, 255, 257; comes to China, 35- 37; grows, 43, 44, 50; under the Sung, 55; under the Manchus, 70. Buddhist art, 46. Bureaucracy of China, 81, 98, 103. Burlingame, Anson, and his Mis- sion, 165. Burma, 59, 62, 69, 79, 166, 167, 183. Canals of China, 3, 93. Canton, 81, 162; opened to trade, 146; riots in, 149. Caravan routes, 7, 8, 26, 52. Cathay, 65. Chang Chih Tung, 158, 192. Changes, Canon of, 25. Characters, 110-13, 120. Ch'ien Lung, 71-85. Ch'in, state and dynasty, 26-30. Ch'in Shih Hwang, 27-30. China, origin of name, 28. Chou dynasty, 17-27; constitu- tion of China during, 18. Christianity, 230, 256; tolerated, 151; progress of, 162, 163. See also Missionaries, Nestorian Christianity. Chu Hsi, 55, 74. Chu Ko Liang, 41. Ch'un Ch'ra, 25. Chung Yung, 25. Chu Yiian Chang, 61. Civil-service examinations, 31, 51, 56, 63, 70, 100, 101, 108, 190, 194, 202. Classics, 25. Climate of China, 2. Clipper ships, 149. Coal, 5, 184, 203. Cochin China, 168. Co-hong, 81. Columbia River, 80. 269 INDEX Commerce, 94; in Tang times, 52; under the Yuan, 60. Concessions, in treaty ports, 160. Confucianism, 38, 44, 50, 128-30, 231, 255, 257; influenced by Buddhism, 45; moulded by Chu Hsi, 55. Confucius, 21, 22-24. 25, 31. 38, 70, 74, 129, 231. Conservatism, 133-35. Constitution, political, 98-106, 205, 214. Contending States, 26. Corruption, political, 104, 241. Cotton, imported to China, 159; manufactures and mills, 203, 232, 246, 255. Courts, consular and mixed, 160. See also Law and legal codes. Culture, Chinese, materialistic, 86-88; indigenous, 89; not de- cadent, 89. Currency. See Money. Cushing, Caleb, 147. Customs duties, 195, 236, 239; regulated, 146, 151; collected by foreigners, 156. Customs service, 156, 186, 205. Dalai Lama, 77. Dalny, 222. Democracy in China, 137. Dialects, geographic reasons for, 4. See also Mandarin dialect. Doctrine of the Mean, 25. Drama, 61. Duke of Chou (Chou Kung), 17, 18. Dutch, 66, 82. Education, 107-10, 133, 164, 250-52. Educational Mission, 171. Eighteen Provinces, the, denned, 1. Emigration, 169. Emperor, institution of, 98, 102. Empire, reestablished, 215. Empress Dowager. See Tz'u Hsi. Encyclopaedias, 63, 74. England, 82, 167, 173, 183, 184, 186, 188, 193, 197, 198, 212, 217, 218; dominant in Chinese com- merce, 142; first war with China, 145; second war with China, 149. English (language), 202, 251. Exterritoriality, 236; begun, 147; developed, 160. Fa Hsien, 44. Family, the institution of, 19, 88, 131-37, 242, 243, 253. Famine, 93, 136, 207, 244. Feng shui, 124. Feudalism in China, 20, 31. "First Emperor," 27-30, 31. Five-power loan, 212. Five Canons, 25. Five Dynasties, 53. " Five Relationships," 132. Foot-binding, 137. Formosa, 66, 69, 176, 180, 223. Four Books, 25. France, 183, 185; first treaty with, 147; war with, 150, 168; aids Catholic missionaries, 162. Franciscan missionaries, 7, 60, 65. Fuhkien, 223. Gautama Buddha, 35-37. Genghis Khan, 58. Germany, 181, 183, 187, 188, 193, 195, 212, 219, 221. " Golden Horde." See Kin Tatars. Gordon, Major Charles George, 155. Governor, institution of, 99. Grand Canal, 3, 60. 270 INDEX Grapes, 34. Great Britain. See England. Great Learning, 25. Great Wall, 13, 28, 75. Greek influence on China, 9, 34, 46, 122; on Buddhism, 37. Grey, Captain, 80. Guilds, 92, 94. Han dynasty, 8, 14, 30-40, 47. Hangchow, 3. Hankow, 3, 186, 187, 203, 208, 222. Han Lin Academy, 51, 108. Han Wen Kung, 50. Han Wu Ti, 32. Hanyang, 222. Hart, Sir Robert, 157, 205. Hawaii, emigration to, 170. Hay, John, 188. Heaven, sacrifices to, 231; Tem- ple of, 129. Hideyoshi, 62, 177. History, Canon of, 25. Hiung Nu, 13. Hongkong, ceded to Great Bri- tain, 146. Hsia dynasty, 16. HsUan T'ung, 207. Hung Hsiu Ch'iian, 154. Hung Wu, 61. Huns, 12, 13, 33, 42. I Ching, 25. Imperial Academy. See Han Lin. Imperialism, 182. Indemnity, 195. Indemnity students, 195. India, 78, 143, 199. Indo-China, 59. Industrial Revolution, 97, 140-42, 182, 245. International settlement in Shang- hai, 161. Iron, 5, 203, 223. Irrigation, 18. Italy, 185. Ito, 199. Japan, 106, 173, 189, 193, 197, 238; adaptability contrasted with China, 11, 12; reached by Buddhism, 47; art of, 52; rela- tions with China under the T'ang, 53; under the Ming, 62, 63; war with, 174-82; early his- tory of, 174, 175; Chinese stu- dents in, 202; interests in China, 220; demands on China (1915) 221-25. Jesuit missions in China, 66, 83. K'ang Hsi, 71-85. K'ang Yu Wei, 189. Kanishka, 37. Kiaochow Bay, 184. Kin Tatars, 54, 59, 67. Korea, 33, 48, 59, 180, 198, 200; history of, 177; Chinese and Japanese rivalry in, 178; an- nexed by Japan, 200. Koxinga, 70. Kublai Khan, 59. Kuldja affair, 167. Kung, Prince, 152. Kwang-Chow-wan, 185. Kwang HsU, 190. Kweichow, 33. Kwo Ming Tang, 212. Kwangtung, 161, 189, 227. Lamaism, 77. Language, written, 20, 37, 110- 16, 252; spoken, 116-19, 252. Lao Tzu, 21, 22. Law and legal codes, 70, 101, 205, 232. Leadership, lack of, 241. Lhassa, 77, 217. Liang Ch'i Ch'ao, 189. 271 INDEX Liaotung Peninsula, 179, 180, 181, 183. Li Chi, 25. Li Hung Ch'ang, 158, 179, 180, 192. Likin duty, begun, 155. Lin, attempts to abolish opium traffic, 145. Li Tai Po, 51. Literati, 137. Literature, 24, 25, 74, 119, 120; under the Han, 37; under the T'ang, 51; under the Sung, 54; under the Yuan, 61; under the Ming, 63. Li Tzu Ch'eng, 68. Li YUan Hung, 216. Liu K'un I, 192. Loess, 2. Lun YU, 25. Macao, 65. Macartney Mission, 143. Machinery, absence of, 91. Malay States, 87. Manchuria, 76, 179, 183, 184, 186, 196, 197, 198, 200, 222, 244; geography of, 1; partly con- quered by the Han, 33; and by the T'ang, 48. Manchus, 13, 67; conquer China, 68, 69. Manchu emperors and dynasty of. See Ta Ch'ing dynasty. Mandarin dialect, 118. Manicheans, 52. Manufactures, 92. Marco Polo, 7, 60, 64, 65. Maritime customs. See Customs. Marriage, 227. Medicine, 164, 206, 231, 244. Mencius, 21, 24, 25; Book of, 25. Military Emperor (Han Wu Ti), 32. Minerals of China, 4. Ming dynasty, 62-69. Mining, 91. Missionaries and missions, Chris- tian, 148, 152, 162, 193, 206,230, 256. See also Christianity, Franciscans, Jesuits. Mohammedanism, 130. Money, 95, 96, 232, 247. Mongols, 12, 13, 58. Mongol emperors. See Yuan dy- nasty. Mongolia, Inner and Outer, 13, 33, 76, 77, 217, 218, 222, 226, 244. Moscow, 83, 197. Municipal Council, Shanghai, 161. Nankeens, 245. Nanking, 209, 216; treaty of, 146; captured by T'ai P'ings, 154. Nerchinsk, treaty of, 83. Nestorian Christianity, 7, 52, 128. New Territory. See Sinkiang. Newchwang, 185, 187, 197. Newspapers, 202. Novel, the, 61. Nurhachu, 68. Odes, Canon of, 25. Open door, 188, 197. Opium, 80, 203; traffic in, 144. Oregon, 80. Origin of Chinese, 9, 15. Painting, under the T'ang, 51; under the Sung, 57; under the Ming, 63. Paper, origin of, 38. Parliament, 205. Patriotism, lack of, in old China, 105; growth of, 243, 258. Peiho, 151. Peking, 3, 59, 62, 66, 67, 83, 151, 152, 155, 213, 217; language of. 118; siege of, 193. Perry, Commodore, 175. 272 INDEX Pescadores, 66, 180. Petroleum, 5. Philippines, 65, 87, 188. Pidgin English, 81, 160. Population, 64, 79, 136, US. Porcelain, 63, 75. Port Arthur, 179, 180, 184, 197, 199, 200. Portuguese, 64, 65. Portsmouth, Treaty of, 200. Postal service, 228. Presidential term, 213. Prices, 232, 233, 248. Printing, invention of, 54, 120. Pukow, 187. Punitive expedition, 212. Queue, 70, 226. Railway, 172, 186, 208, 219, 231; Peking to Hankow, 186; Shang- hai to Nanking, 187; Tientsin to Nanking, 187; Canton to Han- kow, 187. Reforms of 1898, 189-91. Religion, 87, 122-31. See also Buddhism, Taoism, Confucian- ism, Mohammedanism, Chris- tianity, Manicheans, Animism. Republic, 209-26. Revolution of 1911, 208, 209. Rice, 91. Rites, Canon of, 25. Riukiu Islands, 176. River system of China, 3, 93. Romanization of Chinese sounds, 117. Rome, contact of China with, 34. Roosevelt, 200. Russia, 82, 152, 167, 173, 178, 180, 183, 184, 186, 188, 196, 197, 198, 212, 217, 219. Russo-Japanese Agreement of 1916, 225. Russo-Japanese War, 198-200. Salt monopoly, 236. Sanmen, 185. Schools, 21, 171, 190. 202, 206, 228. Sculpture, 38. Seoul, 178. Shanghai, 160, 161, 236, 255; opened to trade, 146. Shan-hai-Kwan, 185. Shang dynasty, 16. Shantung, 23, 179, 184, 185, 186, 221, 225. Shimonoseki, Treaty of, 179. Shih Ching, 25. Shu Ching, 25. Shun, 16. Si-an-fu, 193. Siam, 87. Siberian Railway, 153, 180, 183, 184, 186, 200, 219. Silk and silks, 34. Sinkiang, 13, 78, 107. Socialism, 104. Spaniards, 65. Specie, 80. Spheres of influence, 185. Spring and Autumn Annals, 25. Ssu Ma Ch'ien, 37. Standard Oil Company, 233. Sui dynasty, 47. Sumerians, 15. Summer palace, burned, 152. Sung dynasty, 54-59. Sun Yat Sen, 208, 209, 232. Szechuan, 32, 33, 203. Ta Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty, 14, 69 Jf.; threatened, 154; weak- ened, 157; falls, 209. Ta Hsioh, 25. Tael, 96. T'ai P'ing rebellion, 154, 155. T'ang dynasty, 8, 14, 47-53. T'ang T'ai Tsung, 49. Taoism, 44, 70, 255; origin, 82; 273 INDEX development. 28, 29, 38, 50; influenced by Buddhism, 45; described, 125. Tatars, 13; conquer North China, 54. Taxation, 102. Tax reform, 231. Tea, 80, 245. Telegraph, 172, 203. Telephone, 228. Temple of Heaven, 129. Three Kingdoms, 41. Tibet, 13, 76, 78, 107, 217, 218. Tientsin, 187, 193, 255; forts cap- tured, 150; treaties of, 150; opened as port, 152; riots in, 170. Tigris-Euphrates Valley, influ- ence of ancient culture on China, 9. Tokyo, 202. Tongking, 62, 168. Treaty ports, inaugurated, 146; developed, 160. Tsingtao, 184, 203, 221. Ts'eng Kwo Fan, 155, 158, 168. Tso Tsung Tang, 158, 168. Tsongkhaba, 76. Ts'ung-li Ya-men, 165. T'ung Chih, 158. Tz'u Hsi, 49, 157, 191, 192, 201, 207, 208. United States, 187, 195, 197, 206, 212, 238; 6rst treaty with, 147; court in Shanghai, 160; emigra- tion to, 170; exclusion acts, 170, 245. Ussuri River, 153. Viceroy, institution of, 99. Village government, 101. Vladivostok, 153. Wages. 95, 232. Wang An Shih, 55-57. Wang Mang, 40. Wang Yang Ming, 63. War, first war between England and China, 145; second war be- tween England and China, 149; war of 1914, 218. Ward, 155. Wei-hai-wei, 179, 184. Wen Wang, 17, 18. Wilson, President, 212. "Wind and Water." See Feng shui. Witte, Count, 183. Women, position of, 136, 253. Writing, origins of, 19. Wuchang, 208, 216. Wu Fu, 49. Wu San Kwei. 68, 72. Wu Tao Tzu, 51. Wu Wang. 17, 18, Xavier, St. Francis, 66. Yale, 171. Yang Chow, sacked by Manchus, 69. Yangtze River and Valley, 2, 33, 41, 105, 118, 151, 161, 185, 186, 208; riots in, 170. Yao, 16. Yellow peril, 181. Yellow River, 2, 3, 73. Younghusband, 217. Yti, 16. Yilan (Mongol) dynasty, 8, 14, 59-61. YUan Shih K'ai, 158, 178, 192, 204, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 215. Yung Wing, 164, 171. YUnnan, 33, 203. / CAMBRIDGE: . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . 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