During this week the Yangtze River for six hundred miles presented
a remarkable scene, as Tang Shao Yi, the emissary of Dictator Yuan,
sailed down to Shanghai to discuss peace terms with the revolutionists
at the Town Hall at Shanghai, which was guarded by British, Sikh and
other troops of the international settlement. At Hankau the last yellow
dragon flag of the imperialists was seen, as the imperial legates, Tang
Shao Yi, Yen Shih Si and Yang Shih Chih, on the steamer _Tung Ting_,
sailed between the new navy of the rebels on patrol of the great river,
which was now their six hundred miles of front. The fine cruiser _Hai
Chi_, with New York Chinese among the crew, the companion cruisers _Hai
Yung_ and _Hai Sun_, the gunboats _Kwang Kang_, _Kwang Poa_, _On Nam_,
etc., headed the republican fleet, which flew the red, white and blue
sun flag. The armistice was not kept in Shansi or Shensi provinces by
the imperialist general, Sheng Yun. When the pourparler opened, the six
powers, at America’s suggestion, informed Wu and Tang that they would
appreciate a settlement, because neither side seemed to be able to
keep down piracy, it being as bad along the Liao River in the north as
along the Si valley in the distant south. It will be recalled that the
Manchus of Shansi province early in the campaign assassinated the great
rebel general, Wu Lu Cheng. It was now rumored that the Chinese had
induced Tuan Fang’s troops in the same province to murder that noble
Manchu, who was the greatest friend the foreigners had among the Manchu
officials in the dark “Boxer” days of 1900. Tuan had been governor of
Pechili and Szechuen provinces, head of the railway development in
the Yangtze basin, and above all head of the famous constitutional
committee (Hsien Cheng Pien Cha Kuan), which, in 1906, went abroad to
study foreign parliaments and congresses. He was the noblest of the
Manchus, a repetition in character of Prince Kung of Victorian days,
and he died like a modern hero. “Kneel and be decapitated,” his troops
demanded. “You’ll shoot or cut me down where I stand,” he declared.
Individual virtue does not belong exclusively to any organization.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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