18 MARY CLABAUGH WRIGHT INTRODUCTION 19 died of sadness.Weeping crowds viewed the bodies and threatened Out of all this turmoil a National Debt Redemption Associa- an uprising and refusal to pay the land tax.as Thirty million tion was formed:It did not accomplish its purpose,but in its taels were reportedly pledged toward redemption of the line.The formation and activities it revealed the depth and passion of the accuracy of the precise details is less important than the fact that nationalism behind the drive to recover national independence they filled the national press,and that the area directly concerned by paying off national debts,a passion that reached a new pitch was plastered with posters. in 1911,when the new catchword "blood and iron"was every- During the first decade of the twentieth century,every possible where in the news.Persistent rumors of the impending partition method of redeeming China's railways was attempted.In Canton, of China led to an increased number of mass meetings,in the with the support of merchant organizations,a merchant raised schools and in public,as did the increasingly wide distribution more capital than had been believed possible.Subscriptions poured of revolutionary pamphlets with titles like "Disaster!Help!" in from the provinces of Kwangtung,Kwangsi,Hupeh,and (Shou-k'u chiu-man).News of a patriotic character from the re- Hunan,the city of Shanghai,and the Overseas Chinese in Cochin motest part of China was broadcast everywhere.All over,projects China and Singapore.Coolies and blind musicians were reported were put forward for"saving the nation,"including the proposal, to have joined merchants and gentry in their eagerness to finance given more and more prominence,to establish a people's army for a Canton-Hankow line free of foreign and central government defense against the imperial powers. control.39 The two were now becoming identified as targets,in China might still be weak,but popular feeling was so aroused spite of the government's own efforts to free itself,because it had that the British consul in Chungking warned that if any power too often been forced to pledge railways as security for the loans intervened,"the resentment of the people will be so great that without which it could not have survived for long. I doubt if any one person will leave this port alive." A similar but more explosive situation was developing in Szech- wan,as is well known.Yet the capital was inadequate,and after Nationalism vs.Provincialism a short time investment dwindled as the enormity of the problem Nationalism,in this first phase of the revolution,meant more became clear. than anti-imperialism.It meant also the triumph of nationalism Whatever one may think of widespread stories of little girls over provincialism who saved for months to send a dollar"to help buy back China," In response to several years of widespread press agitation and protests and suggestions came from all quarters,reaching a peak massive petitions,the imperial government in 1908 authorized the in 190g-11.When electric lights were introduced into Hunan in election of provincial assemblies in every province of China ex- 1911,the province was placarded with statements that this was cept Sinkiang,where the literacy rate in Chinese was minimal. the way to fight foreign petroleum.40 The leading reform-minded These provincial assemblies in turn elected the National Assembly. officials were urged to form an organization to put pressure on all Nearly go percent of the men elected had received degrees under officials to donate go percent of their salaries;a youth group sug- the now defunct Examination System,but approximately half gested collecting two dollars from every man,woman,and child were holders of lower degrees,the lower gentry who,even in in China;student organizations hoped that a sweeping drive more stable periods,were far more varied in background and for small contributions might prove infectious.Provincial assem- occupation than the upper gentry.These gentry assemblymen did blies demanded publication of the full facts as a basis for con- not function as the solid phalanx of the old elite,determined certed action.The imperial princes were reported to have taken to preserve the status quo.On the contrary,they reflected their the lead in contributing sums up to $50,000.1 fluid status in a new China and their passionate concern with national as distinct from local issues. 38.Rodes,Chine nouvelle,pp.191-93,54-57. Mr.Chang and Mr.Fincher both treat these questions in de- 39.NCH (March 16,1go6):Maybon,Pt.3.Pp.207-11. 40.Rodes,Celeste Empire,pp.128-29. 42.Brown,Chungking (Oct.31,1911),FO 371/1098,no.51644;Amoy Consular 41.Notes on Money Matters with Special Reference to China,reprinted from Intelligence Report for quarter ending June 1911,FO 228/1801:Hankow Consular the National Review(Shanghai,1910). Intelligence Report for quarter ending March 191,FO 228/1801
20 MARY CLABAUGH WRIGHT INTRODUCTION 21 tail in this volume and conclude that the provincial assemblies and various province-centered activities of the period were not only for the restoration of external customs duties and for the establish- of more significance than we have hitherto thought but were steps ment of a civil and commercial code."She concludes that "the toward,rather than away from,the creation of a new national import-export trade replaced Confucian doctrines as the school society and polity.As Mr.Fincher puts it,"Through the cul- in which the bourgeoisie learned the principles of national unity." tivation of abstract loyalties such as allegiance to large territorial Discussion of many local issues inevitably led to national issues units,and to a people conceived as voting citizens,Chinese pro- concerned with resistance to imperialism;for example,when a vincialism facilitated the rise of nationalism." local branch of the Self-Government Association of Kwangtung Historians of China have overlooked the unprecedented charac- objected to the visit of a British river patrol,it was led inexorably ter of the elections of 1g09 and 1912,the rapid expansion of the to challenge the validity of the whole treaty structure.Similarly the electorate from 1 to 25 percent of the adult male population, frustrations of a local chamber of commerce trying to expand and the manner in which,in the process of discussion,yesterday's trade through zones with different currencies led directly to a most advanced proposal was today assumed as established practice. demand for national monetary reform.The point is so obvious, We have also overlooked the speed with which the assemblymen and the evidence so overwhelming,that it is curious that we have acquired parliamentary skills,and the fact that by January 1911 for so long considered the provincial constitutionalists to be of they had forced upon the imperial government what almost little importance except as being nationally divisive. amounted to a parliament. Opposition to Manchu Rule This form of nationalism may not have evoked such strong pas- sions as did the fear of imperialism,but the issues debated in the In the Kuomintang orthodoxy that has influenced so much writ- assemblies were not academic;there were suicides and self-mutila- ing on this period,revolutionary nationalism has had a third, tions to underscore the demands for a national constitutional and to the Kuomintang,major meaning-Chinese ethnic opposi- government. tion to alien Manchu rule as reactionary in domestic policy and The assemblies were not the only instruments through which cowardly in foreign affairs.Viewed dispassionately,the evidence local interest became propelling forces of the new nationalism. suggests that this anti-Manchu strain of nationalism was probably This was an era of societies for the prohibition of opium,for the the least important and certainly the least revolutionary of the abolition of footbinding,for equal rights for women,and so on, three.Although the constitutional reformers made increasingly and the meetings of these societies gave local leaders platforms sharp demands on the court,they would generally have agreed with on which to develop their forensic skills and organizations through their leading spokesman Liang Ch'i-ch'ao that the Chinese mon- which they could and did cooperate with like-minded groups else- archy was by this time no more alien to its people than was the Brit- where.The mushrooming of publications and the extension of ish monarchy. rail and postal services added to the channels through which local It should be remembered that the Manchus were not a single interests and loyalties were increasingly seen in a national context. ruling group with a single policy.The Sino-Manchu amalgam In his discussion of the new armies,Mr.Hatano similarly notes that had been developing since the eighteenth century had that the new provincial institutions were transitional to nation- reached its full maturity in the mid-nineteenth century,when do- alism,and not vice versa.Mme.Bergere points out that if it mestic rebellion threatened the entire upper class and foreign was to develop,China's new bourgeoisie needed a national mar- aggression threatened the entire country.Reforms of the old re- ket and reforms that only an effective national government could gime in the early twentieth century-characteristic of this as of institute.For example,the Provincial Assembly of Kwangtung, other great revolutions-were reforms in which divisions on policy often considered the most self-centered province of China,de- did not match ethnic divisions.Among the imperial princes there clared that the abolition of the hated likin tax would be "useless were reformers and antireformers,as there were throughout the unless coordinated with measures taken by a central government bureaucracy.Indeed,as Mr.Chang shows,the Manchu Banner- men were among the groups to which the provincial assembly lead-
22 MARY CLABAUGH WRIGHT INTRODUCTION 3 ers appealed for support,along with such groups as the Associations of the revolutionary movement least concerned with revolution of Education and of Commerce and the Overseas Chinese. as social upheaval.In Kwangtung and in the Overseas Chinese When in July 1905 the revolutionary Wu Yueh threw a bomb communities the slogan "Overthrow the Manchus,restore the at a party of high officials about to go abroad to study reform in Chinese"aroused real feeling.Whenever the revolutionaries at- various fields,he was not attacking the Manchus,for there were tempted to work with the secret societies,the old slogan could be Chinese in the mission.Of the two who then withdrew from the used. group in fright,one was Manchu,one Chinese.As I see it,Wu was The intensity of anti-Manchu sentiment differed by time as well unconsciously attacking reform for ambivalent reasons:he doubted as by place.The deaths in 1908,both of the Empress Dowager the efficacy,the "sincerity"of reform from the top and at the same Tz'u-hsi who had held the imperial apparatus together for nearly time he feared that it might be effective enough to dissipate revolu- half a century,and of the Kuang-hsui Emperor,a pathetic and tionary pressures. popular figure who had been under palace arrest since 1898,pro- As the Sino-Manchu elite included both reformers and reaction- duced a crisis in leadership since the new Emperor was a child. aries,so also it included both fiery anti-imperialists and compro- The last three years of the dynasty were marked by court rivalries misers.Here again it seems impossible to draw an ethnic policy between the factions of the inept Prince Regent and the new line.There seems little foundation for the charges by revolution- Empress Dowager.The regent did not block the reform program- aries that the Manchus as Manchus were wrecking the country by on the contrary it was accelerated-but he allowed the imperial opposition to modernization and by pusillanimity in the face of princes to play an increasing role in government and assembled imperialism.The proper target for such charges was the whole of more and more Manchus around him in high place.On this score, the traditional Chinese state and society,and the charge could he broke nearly every rule of Manchu self-restraint established legitimately be made only by the extreme radical wing of the rev- by his ancestors in their consolidation of power in the mid-seven- olutionaries.Revolutionary pamphlets like"Tien-t'ao"(Heaven's teenth century.The Manchu throne thus became an easier target Punishment)attacked leading Chinese statesmen from Tseng Kuo- for Chinese nationalism.Veiled protest often took the form of cross- fan to Yuan Shih-k'ai.This obviously was an attack on the imperial road shrines to the memory of the late Kuang-hsui Emperor,where system rather than on the Manchus as such.As the historian Ku irate local gentry could insist that unpopular officials dismount Chieh-kang later recalled:"A race revolution was only an insignif- in humility.It was a curious mixture. icant part of our program.We would not consider our revolution- Thus in some circumstances anti-Manchu sentiment could feed ary tasks accomplished until we had abolished government,had the new nationalism by arousing racist sentiments and by pro- discarded the family system,and had made currency unnecessary." viding symbolic acts of liberation such as the cutting off of the The gentry,of whom Ku himself was a member,was the real bar- queue.The revolutionaries'later treatment of the Manchus,how- rier."I could not rest until this class was eliminated."4 ever,supports the hypothesis that the depth of this sentiment in This "Great Leap"strain,prominent in the whole history of the country as a whole has been grossly exaggerated.In some the Chinese Revolution,was based on the belief that China could instances,massacre may not be too strong a word to use,although by an act of will skip the stages of history that the reformers were the firsthand accounts vary widely.More often,it proved im- so fond of discussing,On such an assumption,it was a foregone possible to distinguish Manchu from Chinese,and the Manchus conclusion that the monarchy and much else would be promptly disappeared into the population at large.The ruling house was dispatched;but the ethnic issue was irrelevant. accorded extraordinarily favorable treatment,but aside from a Simple anti-Manchu xenophobia certainly existed,but it was few high Chinese officials who honored the Confucian code of most prominent in limited geographic areas and in those wings loyalty to their sovereign and the later Japanese conquerors,who 43.Ku Chieh-kang,The Autobiography of a Chinese Historian,trans.and an. misread modern Chinese history,the world forgot the Ch'ing notated by Arthur W.Hummel (Leyden,1931).p.28. dynasty
24 MARY CLABAUGH WRIGHT INTRODUCTION 5 moved much of the premium on Chinese classical learning and THE IMPERIAL REFORMS cleared the way for the new educational system,the first steps Nationalism propelled the imperial government into a series toward which had already been taken.A careful study concluded: of reforms that proved to be one of the main revolutionary forces "Never has a country accomplished more in so short a time after of the period both indirectly and directly;indirectly because the establishment of a new system of education.4 of the fundamental changes they instituted in nearly every sphere The new schools began opening immediately in 1901-02.A of Chinese life,and directly because they precipitated political few random examples illustrate the staggering proportions of what revolution.Most of the imperial government and bureaucracy followed.In Kansu,where deforestation and the great mid-century shared the anti-imperialist nationalism and the centralizing na- rebellions had wreaked havoc,there were by 1910 seven modern tionalism that were agitating the country as a whole.It hoped to high schools with adequate libraries,plus a number of technical combat the anti-Manchu element in the new nationalism by dem- schools.Foreign languages were being taught by the Berlitz sys- onstrating that it could provide the ideas,plans,and leadership tem in Lanchow.45 In Sian,in addition to new schools there for a united national effort.I have already discussed those which, were two well-equipped "colleges"with 8oo politically attuned, like the campaign against opium,were directly related to foreign idealistic students who spent their spare time spreading the slogan relations.I turn now to those that were more generally related of"China for the Chinese."In Yunnanfu (Kunming)there were to the modernization of the country's institutions. nine primary schools,one middle school,one high school,one In an era where one new idea led to another with the force normal school,and,in addition,technical schools and girls' and speed of converging rapids,there was a drive to change almost schools.The educational plan for Kwangtung and Kwangsi was everything except land tenure.The most important reforms, nearing complete realization except for some lag in the elementary viewed retrospectively,were the creation of an educational system school program.There were of course greater numbers of new new in both form and substance in a country with the world's schools in the long-established centers of learning,but it is the oldest continuously educated upper class;the modernization of activity in areas that had been beyond the cultural pale-or dis- the army in the country that had invented gunpowder;and the advantaged at least-that is the most impressive.Education was introduction of the electoral process and organs of local self- perhaps the single most talked of subject in the country,not government in a country where an elite of merit had impressive only in the new journal Chiao-yii shih-chieh(Educational World) claims to moral and political preeminence. but in the whole range of new publications. The first steps were taken immediately after the government The new schools'limitations were clearly apparent.There was resumed power following the Allied occupation of Peking in 1go0. a shortage of trained teachers and texts;and the fervor of demon- The dispatch in 1905 of a mission to study constitutional govern- strations with what seemed facile slogans caused European ob- ment abroad marked the first acceleration of reform.Then came servers to doubt the academic solidity of the new institutions. a retrenchment in consequence of the bombing of the mission The more one reads,however,the more one is impressed with how by a revolutionary,immediately followed by a further accelera- much was in fact accomplished. tion,a more severe retrenchment in the wake of the assassina- There was certainly some local misappropriation of educational tion of the governor of Anhwei in 1907,and then from 1908 funds,and in some cases sharp resistance by the peasantry to an until the abdication,a leaping reform thrust.The point here is innovation for which they payed extra taxes but which seemed not that court politics and other complex factors affected the trends for gentry benefit.Schoolboys,proud of their new uniforms, of the weeks,but that the trend of the years is unmistakably clear. seemed arrogant.But on the basis of the available firsthand ac- The abolition of the Examination System in 1905 and the simultaneous creation of a Ministry of Education altered with 44.Harry Edwin King,The Educational System of China as Recently Recon- one stroke the basis of gentry power and of the recruitment of structed,U.S.Bureau of Education Bulletin no.15 (Washington,D.C.,1),p.103. 45.G.E.Morrison from Lanchow,Feb.24.1910,in the Times (London,April 9. the bureacracy,points which I shall discuss below.It also re- 1910-
INTRODUCTION 26 MARY CLABAUGH WRIGHT 7 counts.I have the impression that in the majority of towns and The imperial government's military reforms were,like its ed- villages the new schools were welcomed.The propagandists of ucational reforms,double-edged,as the chapters by Mr.Hatano the new learning were skilled orators and they were addressing and Mr.Young demonstrate.The modern armies made possible audiences who were accustomed to the idea that education opened the Chinese Empire's resistance to foreign encroachment on her the path to advancement;when they were told that the new ed- frontiers,but this very role,coupled with their modern training, ucation opened paths to an advancement that would save China, made them highly receptive to ideas of revolution in the name of nationalism. there was often a powerful response. The campaigns to raise private funds for education met with Chinese military prowess came as a revelation to observers with a knowledge of the defeats of China's demoralized and under- surprising success.High officials,wealthy merchants,and promi- nent gentry seemed to respond to such appeals willingly.Tuan- equipped armies during the nineteenth century.Behind the mount- ing of the Tibetan expedition and the firmness on all frontiers fang established a girls'school in a part of his official residence. People of modest means also contributed,and patriotic suicides stood the new programs of recruitment,training,supply,and in- left notes asking that contributions in their memory be made to doctrination.There is abundant outside professional evidence on the scope of the military reforms and the speed with which results education.The total sums raised were hopelessly inadequate,as were obtained. in the case of the campaign to buy back the railways,but the gen- A German officer who watched the maneuvers of the Yunnan eral public concern with modern education for a widening sector forces in 1g09 and again in January 1911 commented that although of society was manifest. there were some tactical errors as a result of the youth and in- Change in the subjects studied was accompanied by change in the language itself.For several years a national commission under experience of the officers,remarkable progress had been made in the direction of the distinguished scholar-entrepreneur Chang only two years.47 As of 1g10,the British Foreign Office review Chien worked on the problem of establishing a national language of military intelligence reported that it was no longer feasible to exert local pressure on China through gunboats."The Chinese (kuoyi)and simplifying the characters in which it was written. Language specialists from all provinces worked for a time in Pe- forces have improved enormously in the last year or two"and king and then returned home to set up national language centers. might well retaliate by seizing the legations.The War Office Formal proposals for establishing the basis of nationwide action concurred:"The new model Chinese army has been made to pre- were completed in June 1911.4 Meanwhile,new phrases had been vent foreign powers exerting pressure except at the cost of a war." coined for new ideas;foreigners who had known the pre-1goo When the revolution broke out in Wuhan it was noted that Chinese language well had to study the newspapers to add to "the very business-like conduct of this army has been a revelation their vocabularies the Chinese expressions for ideal,purpose in to those here."The supply system was good;"Professional pride life,society,reform,the public good,taking the initiative,volun- is noticeable in each branch."The men were cheerful and quick to joke,"but there is a decided air of independence which is teering one's services,sweeping away obstructions,and so on. admitted by all to be quite 'New China.'"4 In the long run-if there had been a long run-China might have followed the Japanese pattern;she seemed at the time to be The third major group of imperial reforms included general lagging by no more than twenty years and to be capable of making reorganization of the entire administrative apparatus of the Em- up time.In the short run,the new schools funneled into an already pire,of which the most important feature for the present study strained society hundreds of thousands of young people,touched was the authorization of elected assemblies at the provincial and in one way or another by the new schools and new ideas,con- national levels and of other organs of local self-government.Al- though the assemblies were intended to be consultative at the fident of their own mission to create a new world,and exerting outset,their leaders quickly seized the reins.Petitions for an early an influence out of all proportion to their numbers. 47.Enclosure in FO 28/1809. 46.Wen-tzu kai-ko ch'u-pan she,Ch'ing-mo wen-tzu kai-ko wen-chi (Documents 48.F0371/867,n0os.10g62and11571. on Language Reform at the End of the Ch'ing Period)(Peking,1958),PP.143-44