empress dowager’s strong-box no longer furnished funds. Only three out
of twenty-one provinces, and three territories, were now remitting to
Peking, but Peking had the mighty northern army.
On November 17th, the revolutionists under Generals Li and Hwang
attacked the imperial lines at Hankau, and despite their poor equipment
in machine guns and artillery, led by a regiment of Roundheads called
“Dare to Die” (Pu Pa Tsze) men, commanded by Colonel Wen, who graduated
from West Point in 1909, they took three of the four parallels by
cold steel charges, sapper work and bomb throwing. One of the rebel
shells from Wuchang punched a hole in a 2,000,000-gallon tank of oil in
Hankau, and the streets were flooded two feet deep with kerosene. It
was the first time that Chinese had met Chinese in scientific modern
war, and it marked the entrance of China into the modern arena, where
Might strikes for Right, instead of only arguing for it. China had
begun to find herself. Meanwhile there was distress in Singan in the
north, which city had declared for reform on October 24th. The Manchus
had retaken the suburbs of the city, for it was in their sphere of
control, and had begun, with their mobs, to massacre missionaries, as
was expected. The China Inland Mission outside the city was attacked,
and the English Baptist, Scandinavian and American missions throughout
the province were struck at. Blame was put on the Mohammedans wherever
possible.
Let us go down to Nanking for a moment, to see how the war is
progressing. To keep Nanking and Shanghai in touch, the Americans had
brought up their beautiful cruisers _New Orleans_ and _Albany_, for the
American Vice-consul Gilbert and the intrepid American missionaries,
Doctor Macklin, President Bowen, Mr. Blackstone, Mr. Garrett and
others were in the city. General Hsu of the imperialists, with the
Thirty-fifth Regiment of Infantry, on November 21st, hoisted the red,
white and blue flag and left the strong lines of Purple Mountain and
the Tartar city to join the rebel ranks, which were being reinforced
from Canton and other directions also. Bloody General Chang the Second,
the imperial commander, immediately had all General Hsu’s relatives in
Nanking murdered in revenge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account