20 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA THE BEGINNINGS OF REFORM 21 later,in 1901,was made Chinese minister to England.3 In 1893,when some of them translations from Western works but the majority written His Imperial Majesty,Kuang Hsu,decided to study English,the teachers by the missionaries themselves.3 To Chinese desirous of gaining a knowl- chosen for him were Tungwen graduates.35 edge of Western thought and institutions these works were indispensable, The influence of the missionary schools and Tungwen College was since most of them knew no Western language and had therefore to rely perhaps exceeded by that of the missionary publications.Their most im- either on translations into the Japanese or those made by the missionaries. portant periodical was the Wang Kwoh Kung Pao,or Review of the The only other important symptom of Westernization was the sending Times,a monthly magazine founded in 1889.They also did good work in to America of the first Chinese educational mission under the direction the translation into Chinese of Western works.The chief center of this of Dr.Yung Wing.40 After receiving his elementary education in mission activity was the Christian Literature Society,or,to give it its other schools in Macao and Canton,he was taken to the United States and there name,the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge attended preparatory school and later Yale,from which in 1854 he re- (S.D.K.).In 1891 the headship of this society passed to Dr.Timothy ceived the first A.B.granted to a Chinese by an American college.After Richard,s an important figure in the history of reform.Richard,who his return to China he formulated a scheme for sending more young had been in China since 1869,had seized every opportunity to discuss Chinese to America for education.He at last succeeded in persuading a with high officials the causes of China's weakness and the most feasible group of prominent officials,including the great Tseng Kuo-fan,conqueror remedies.Among those whom he thus approached were Li Hung-chang, of the Taipings,to memorialize on behalf of the project. Chang Chih-tung,Chang Yin-huan,and Weng Tung-ho.In 1890 this They wisely incorporated in their proposal,as a sop to the conserva- energetic missionary and reformer had accepted the offer made to him tives,the nomination of Chin Lan-pin,a Hanlin Academician and thus by Li Hung-chang and others to become the editor of a daily paper in representative of Confucian learning,to share with Yung Wing the Chinese,the Shik Pao,and had used this periodical for the propagation control of the proposed mission.The maneuver was successful;in the of his ideas.On being chosen editor of the S.D.K.,however,Richard winter of 1870 the imperial approval was granted.The atmosphere in gave up his post with the Shik Pao and left Peking for Shanghai.Under Peking was comparatively auspicious.Under the leadership of Prince his direction the S.D.K.carried on its work vigorously.Prizes were Kung,Wen Siang,and Tseng Kuo-fan the metropolitan government had offered for the best essays by Chinese M.A.candidates on such subjects been dabbling with educational reform by giving patronage to Tungwen as the benefits of the Imperial Maritime Customs and the bettering of College and discussing alterations in the examinations for office.Yung China's relations with the West.The holding of provincial and prefectural Wing and Chin Lan-pin were chosen to be joint commissioners to head civil service examinations served as an excellent opportunity to distribute the mission.In all,120 students between the ages of twelve and fifteen tracts and pamphlets.37 A fair cross-section of this missionary literature were to go.In the summer of 1871 a preparatory school was opened in may be obtained from the titles of the works given to all students who Shanghai to give preliminary training to the first group of thirty,who attended the Changsha examinations in 1902.Each potential mandarin went to the United States in 1872.Yung Wing,remembering his own was given a packet including a copy of the Gospel,a copy of The Gate of pleasant schooldays in New England,chose Hartford,Connecticut,as the Wisdom and Virtue,an eighty-page book prepared by Dr.Griffith John, center of the mission.All went satisfactorily for several years,the annual an article on religious toleration drawn from Chang Chih-tung's Learn, installments of youths arriving as had been arranged.But unfortunately a tract against fout-binding,an article on the nature of God,and a sermon for the enterprise its firm supporter,Tseng Kuo-fan,had died in 1871, on creation and redemption.3 In addition to such works,the S.D.K.and and the dominant position in Peking had passed to Li Hung-chang,who, also the Educational Association,which started life as the School and while not a conservative,was more concerned with military reorganization Text-Book Series Committee,published books on science and history, than with the sending to America of Chinese students.The new educa- tional commissioner who was chosen to succeed Chin as Yung Wing's s Morse,International Relations,II,187. s For lists of books published by the missionary presses,see Fryer,Educational 3s Martin,A Cycle of Cathay,p.316. Directory for China,1895,and Report of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian 30 Richard,Forty-five Years in China,pp.217-218. and General Knowledge,1900. a71bid,pp.215-217,221-224. 40 Yung Wing,My Life in China and America.The account of his educational NCH,October 1,1902. mission given here is drawn from this work. [201 [21]
22 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA colleague was an ultra-conservative and a talebearer,who sent home alarming reports of how New England education was ruining the Con- fucian morals of the young Chinese,and in 1881 all the students were II.THE "HUNDRED DAYS"OF REFORM recalled from the United States.They were viewed with some suspicion on their return and were not given official posts of any importance,but in It was China's disastrous and dramatic defeat by Japan in 1894 and time the prejudice against them wore off.The anti-foreign elements had 1895 which first aroused a considerable number of the educated class to terminated the mission,but they could not stamp out its influence.After the realization that China's very existence might depend on the acquisition spending the most impressionable years of their lives in the West,it was of the Occidental methods and institutions which Japan had studied to only to be expected that these returned students would be somewhat such good effect.The defeat at Pingyang,the disaster of the naval battle critical of China upon their return,especially in view of the treatment at the mouth of the Yalu,the northward retreat of the Chinese forces,the which was accorded them.They were thus a factor to be reckoned with in loss of the Liaotung Peninsula,and the surrender of Weihaiwei were the interpenetration of liberal ideas.Among the members of Yung Wing's grave shocks to those who believed that China had sufficiently modernized mission who subsequently attained prominence were Tang Shao-yi,who her army and navy.The news of the unfavorable terms of the peace of served the Manchus in many capacities and was premier of the Republic; Shimonoseki was the last drop of bitterness.Among the younger literati Liang Tun-yen,at one time president of the Waiwupu;and Jeme Tien- there were signs of unrest and of desire to rejuvenate China so that she yew,who won note as a railway engineer. might wipe out the great humiliation of her defeat by diminutive Japan. These evidences of reform,few as they were,seemed sufficient to Missionary literature was eagerly read.'Many memorials urging reform convince many Chinese and Westerners that China was on the way to were submitted to the Throne.Among the memorialists was Sun Yat-sen, renewed vitality.Anson Burlingame,when he served as China's repre- one of the group of Cantonese radicals who united to advocate the need of sentative to the Occident in 1868-1869,spoke glowingly of China's recep- constitutional government.This proposal having been denounced as trea- tivity to Western inventions,learning,trade,and religion.Marquis sonable,Sun took part in a foolhardy attempt to capture Canton and set Tseng declared in 1887 that "though China may not yet have attained a up a liberal regime there.When the venture failed,he fled from China position of perfect security,she is rapidly approaching it."4 It is true with a price on his head and in time became the leader of the revolutionary that in the years after the Taiping Rebellion a portion of the Chinese party.3 Far more conspicuous among the memorialists in 1895 and for literati began to take an interest in Western institutions,which formerly many years thereafter was Kang Yu-wei,the"Modern Sage." they had been inclined to view as the curious ways of a barbarian people, That both Sun and Kang were Cantonese is significant,for Kwangtung unworthy of imitation by the Middle Kingdom.But to all those who Province had long been the center of advanced thought in China.Its thought that the inauguration of a few railway lines,the formation of one people were traditionally anti-Manchu and resentful of control by Peking. modern army corps and a small navy,and a tentative interest on the part "Rebellion makers in ordinary to the Chinese people,"J.O.P.Bland has of the government in Western learning constituted an adequate reforma- called them.The fact that Canton had for generations been the only port tion of the Empire the Sino-Japanese War was a rude awakening. open to foreigners,the proximity of the Portuguese territory of Macao and the British holdings of Hong Kong and Kowloon,and the steady Bland,Recen:Events and Present Policies in China,p.81. 2Williams,Anson Burlingame,pp.138-139. stream of returning Chinese who from Kwangtung and Fukien had gone abroad as emigrants-all these factors made Western ideas more current 4a Marquis Tseng,"China,The Sleep and the Awakening,"in Asiatic Quarterly Review,January 1887. in Canton than in almost any other part of the empire.A typical product of this liberal milieu was Kang Yu-wei,born in Canton in 1858. He received a classical education of the approved variety,eventually Richard,Forty-five Years in China,pp.230-232. 2 Cantlie and Jones,Sun Yat Sen and the Awakening of China,pp.108-109; Kent,The Passing of the Manchus,p.11. a Bland,Recent Events and Present Policies in China,pp.196-197. [22] 【23] [23
24 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA THE“HUNDRED DAYS'”OF REFORM 25 winning the degree of chin shih,or Doctor of Philosophy,a distinction Liang Chi-chao,one of the most voluminous and able of Chinese writers sufficient to guarantee the scope of his classical knowledge.At the age of on political topics. twenty-nine he started a six-year tour of China,and was greatly impressed The fact that Kang taught Western learning indicates that his interest by the cleanliness,efficiency,and good order prevailing at Hong Kong and in the Occident had persisted.After studying through translations the in the model settlement at Shanghai.His interest thus awakened in West- history and philosophy of foreign nations,he produced a group of books ern civilization,Kang lost no time in acquiring further knowledge of the to indicate to the educated class in China the state in which their country Occident through Japanese works and missionary writings and transla- would soon be if she did not awaken and the examples in Western history tions.5 His classical studies brought him to view the works of the sage on which she should model herself.A glance at the titles of these works Confucius in a light radically different from that dictated by the standard is sufficient to show that the scope of Kang's reading had been amazingly commentary of Chu Hsi.Soon the literati were startled by a new com- extensive,and that his resulting knowledge must of necessity have been mentary on Confucius,which,casting aside the traditional view of the superficial.The most sweeping of his efforts was The Study of Funda- sage as the main prop of conservatism,pictured him as an advocate of mental Principles,in which he essayed to trace the whole course of progress and change.Like those in the West who have subjected the modern thought.Another on a similarly vast scale dealt with The Rise Bible to the process of literary criticism,Kang passed over the accretion and Fall of the Nations of the World,which included a considerable study of commentaries on Confucius which more than two thousand years had of European colonization of America and Africa,for reasons sufficiently produced and proceeded to examine,unhampered by the customary views, obvious.Kang was not doing research;he was writing propaganda,to the original group of writings by and about the sage.These studies con- convert China to the necessity of reform.It was for this purpose also that vinced him that,while Confucius had declared himself an admirer of he composed The History of the Glory and Downfall of Turkey.To virtuous antiquity in a decadent age,his true aim was to lead China away Kang,the decline of the Ottoman power had a parallel in the waning of from barbarism and toward civilization according to the means best suited China.Turkey,once so feared by her neighbors,had become the sick man to the times,and that therefore he was in essence not a reactionary but a of Europe;China was in a fair way to become the sick man of the progressive.Kang also commented afresh on Mencius,the most demo- Far East. cratic of ancient Chinese philosophers in his insistence on the right of Kang was never an advocate of republicanism except as an ideal as yet the people to revolt against the sovereign who had ceased to rule them unrealizable for China,and always remained in the right wing of the well. liberals,in contrast to those like Sun Yat-sen who preached the overthrow These liberal interpretations of the classics produced a veritable storm of the Manchus and the establishment of popular government.In the of comment and led to the formation of a new literary party,which English constitution as he understood it Kang believed that he had found claimed Kang Yu-wei as master.Because of his novel views of the the government best suited for China at the time,and to urge its adoption classics he received the sobriquet of the"Modern Sage,"applied ironically he wrote A History of the Constitutional Changes in England.In his by his opponents but in all sincerity by his disciples.In 1891 he opened History of Contincntal Europe he endeavored to sketch the outline of in Canton a school for the teaching of the new learning,which included in European history with particular reference to three phases which had its curriculum four main divisions-the Confucian classics,Buddhistic value as object lessons-the unification of Germany,the history of France literature,Chinese history,and Western learning.Many scholars of since 1879,and the career of Peter the Great.The Chinese reformer eminence enrolled in the school,the best known in after years being was greatly attracted by the character of the forceful ruler who had per- sisted in his determination to Europeanize Russia.The moral,for China, of Peter's career was patently one of the benefits which she might obtain 4Richard,op.cit.,p.253. from a ruler of similar perception and energy.As we shall see,the Tsur,"Kang Yu-wei,the Great Reformer,"in National Review,July 3,1915. Wen Ching,The Chinese Crisis from Within,pp.34 f.Bland and Backhouse s Tsur,"Kang Yu-wei,the Great Reformer,"in National Review,July 3,1915; describe this writer as "one of Kang Yu-wei's most ardent disciples,"so that his Reinsch,Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East,p.159. account of the reformer's views may be considered reasonably exact. This account of Kang's literary work is drawn from Wen Ching,op.cit., 1 Legge,The Life and Works of Mencius (The Chinese Classics,Vol.II),pp.143, Pp.31 ff.,and to a lesser extent from Tsur's article in the National Reziew,July 3, 151,305. 1915,also referred to above. [24] 125]
26 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA THE“HUNDRED DAYS'”OF REFORM 27 sovereign who then occupied the Dragon Throne,His Imperial Majesty ment of public libraries,newspapers,and magazines;the sending of Kuang Hsu,was far indeed from resembling in active qualities the Russian Chinese abroad to study foreign countries;and,in the political field,the whom Kang put before him as an example. extension of the right to memorialize the Throne directly (only officials of There was one phase of history which had a more immediate signifi- high rank could then address the Throne without previous censorship of cance for China than all the vicissitudes of European development-the their proposals)and the formation of an advisory council to the Throne story of the opening and modernization of Japan.Here was ready to to be composed of delegates elected by the people,one for every 500,000. Kang's hand a pattern so near in space and time that it was already It is especially noteworthy that this memorial,representing the views of familiar to his readers.On Japan he wrote two works.The first dealt candidates for the highest degree under the old system,asked that the with the recent literature of Japan,to which Kang was so greatly indebted same subjects be taught in China as in the West,that technical education for his knowledge of the West.The second treatise,which dealt with be stressed,and that the examinations be revised to fit the new curriculum. reform in Japan,was greatly to augment Kang's fame and influence in later years.In it he qualified as a political prophet of no mean ability by The memorial endorsed one native institution,namely,Confucianism, making the shrewd statement that if China remained inert it would not be looked upon as a source of national strength and a counterpoise to many years before the possession of Liaotung and Formosa passed to her Christianity.China's state was desperate,Kang declared in conclusion, and required such desperate remedies as the memorial embodied. more alert neighbor.The fulfillment of this prediction in 1895 led to Such was Kang's cure for a powerless China.When he had his day Kang's connection with Weng Tung-ho,tutor to the Emperor,who in of power in 1898 these were the measures which he induced Kuang Hsu 1898 recommended Kang to his imperial pupil and thus gave the"Modern to promulgate.The memorial of 1895 indicates the content of the reforms Sage"his great opportunity. of three years later,but also betrays their weaknesses.Kang's knowledge Kang was especially eager that the government should take notice of his teachings.His first chance came at the end of the Sino-Japanese War, of the West which he was so anxious to imitate was inadequate.His when the loss of the Liaotung Peninsula and Formosa had come to pass faith in the efficacy of imperial fulminations was excessive;experience and the air was full of proposais for the revitalizing of China.The agi- was to demonstrate that to issue a reform edict was one thing and to render it effective another.Above all,Kang failed to consider the im- tation was especially acute among the crowd of holders of the chn jen or Master of Arts degree who were then in Peking to take the metropolitan portant factor of time.So conscious was he of the imperative need of examination.After a number of memorials submitted by members of this a new order in China that he was prone to disregard the ancient maxim, group had failed to receive official notice,they chose Kang Yu-wei,as festina lente,which has special applicability when one proposes to alter one of the most conspicuous figures in the academic world,to draft a the whole structure of a most ancient empire.This over-eagerness,natural grand memorial protesting against the hated treaty of Shimonoseki and enough under the circumstances,was one of the chief reasons for the failure of 1898. proposing reform measures.1 The resulting document,submitted early in December 1895,advocated The grand memorial was void of results,for the more conservative of nothing less than the thoroughgoing Westernization of the empire,to be the imperial advisers deemed it too radical in tone.Weng Tung-ho asked effected at once by imperial decree.The changes to be introduced in- Kang's co-operation in the drafting of edicts on railways and mining cluded:a house-cleaning and reform of the official system;the stimula- development and the extension of the study of foreign languages,but they tion of patriotic spirit;the promotion of young and energetic officers to never saw the light of the imperial gazette.1 Perhaps Kang's connection improve the morale of the forces;the removal of the capital inland to with all these attempts militated against their success,for his radical Sian;the encouragement of banks,railways,postoffices,machinery,mines, interpretations of Confucian literature had already been singled out by better coinage,and improved methods of agriculture;the establishment the government as heretical.1 of reformatories,a system of poor relief,and patent laws;the develop- However,Kang was not without high-placed friends in Peking.A number of the chief officials were kindly disposed toward reform if pur- 10 Kang Yeu Wei,"The Reform of China and the Revolution of 1898"in Con- sued with proper decorum.The younger men in Peking were stirred by femporary Review,August 1899. 11 An account of this memorial will be found in NCH,December 6,1895. 1 Wen Ching,op.cit.,p.52. 1a Richard,of.cit.,p.253;NCH,November 22,1895. 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28 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA THE“HUNDRED DAYS”OF REFORM 29 the happenings of the immediate past,and a safety valve was desirable. head of a.college on the modern order to be opened in Changsha.One The autumn of 1895,therefore,saw the establishment of the Kiang Hsteh important symptom was the-great spread of newspapers.There had been Hxi or Reform Club,as it was called by Europeans,centering at Peking, about nineteen in China in 1894;at the end of 1897 Richard set the figure but with affiliated societies at Shanghai,Hankow,Nanking,Wuchang and at seventy.18 Tientsin.The moving spirit in the organization was Kang Yu-wei.The This continued eagerness for reform on the part of a small but active Peking group included members of the Hanlin Academy and of the Board group was partly the reflection of political events.China's humiliation of Censors,and undersecretaries of various metropolitan boards.Among was not limited to her defeat at the hands of the Japanese.The powers its principal members were Liang Chi-chao,Kang's enthusiastic disciple; who had intervened to lighten for China the severity of the Shimonoseki Weng Ting-shih,a Hanlin member of the family of Weng Tung-ho; treaty did not give their services gratis,and China was forced to pay a Tseng Chung-peh,grandson of the famous Tseng Kuo-fan;Yuan Shih- heavy price for the retrocession of Liaotung.Russia arranged for her kai,later to prove Kang's arch-enemy;and Chang Chih-tung's eldest son. reward when Li Hung-chang was in St.Petersburg in 1896 as Chinese These young men turned for advice to Dr.Timothy Richard.They representative at the coronation of Nicholas II.Li,in exchange for an brought him the rules of the society for suggestions and established a alliance with Russia,agreed on behalf of China that Russia should have paper which took the same title as the missionary publication,Wang Kwoh the right to carry the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok across North Kung Pao or Review of the Times,and consisted chiefly of reprints from Manchuria.The French,not to be deprived of their deserts,had already that periodical.Reform,for a time,was fashionable,and such well-known asked for and received "rectification"of the Indo-Chinese frontier.The officials as Chang Chih-tung and the imperial tutors,Weng Tung-ho and murder of two missionaries in Shantung in November 1897 gave Germany Sun Chia-nai,gave the club their patronage.1s her excuse,and using this act as a provocation she obtained from China in The Peking Reform Club succumbed to attack with an ease which March 1898 a ninety-nine-year lease of the Kiaochow Bay region,plus showed clearly how tenuous was its hold on life.The post-war sentiments certain railway,mining,and preferential rights in Shantung Province.. which had afforded it protection inevitably weakened with time.The The idea of leaseholds was seized upon with avidity by other powers. radicalism of Kang's grand memorial of December 1895 did much to Russia,who had been eyeing Port Arthur covetously as a desirable ice- arouse those officials who had never viewed reform schemes with enthu- free port,procured a twenty-five-year lease of the Liaotung Peninsula siasm.On January 22 it was denounced to the Throne by a newly admitted and the right to build a railway from Port Arthur to connect with the member,and was promptly banned.15 Its members were vigorous in Chinese Eastern line.On April 19,1898,France requested a ninety-nine- memorializing for its revival,and it was finally reopened,but in an year lease of Kwangchow-wan,in southern Kwangtung,and a railway emasculated form.16 concession from Tongking into Yunnan,and received them soon after. The failure of the grand memorial and the fading out of the Reform Great Britain then entered the lists and secured leases on Kowloon,on the Club did not mean that the reform movement had spent itself or been mainland near Hong Kong,and Weihaiwei.Not content with virtual effectively curbed.Richard,who left for England in February 1896, annexation of portions of Chinese territory,the powers next won from found on his return that the reformers were hard at work.Undeterred China promises not to alienate certain portions of her territory except to by the closing of the Peking Reform Club,Kang and his disciples were the power concerned in the particular non-alienation agreement.Thus, busy encouraging similar associations throughout the southern provinces.1 the Chinese government promised Great Britain,on February 11,1898, Liang Chi-chao had founded in Shanghai the Chinese Progress,which that she would never part with the Yangtze Valley,by lease,cession,or became the organ of the reform party,and even,for a brief period in any other means,to any power other than Great Britain.Similarly,France 1898,of the government itself.So pervasive was the new spirit that the staked out the provinces near her Indo-Chinese possessions as her "sphere hitherto conservative province of Hunan had asked Liang to become the of influence,"Japan marked Fukien as hers in case of eventualities, while Russia regarded the north with a hopeful eye.What with the crop NCH,November 22,1895;Richard,op.cit.,pp.253-255. of leaseholds and the ominous non-alienation agreements,it seemed to is Richard,op.cit.,D.255. 10 NCH,April 7,1896. many early in 1898 that the break-up of China was impending 17 Kang Yeu Wei,"The Reform of China and the Revolution of 1898,"in Cow temporary Review,August 1899. i8 Richard,o.cit.,pp.260-261. [28] [29]