"A rising, which is manifestly very serious," said the _Times_ editorial, "has taken place at Wuchang, the great city in the province of Hupeh which seemed destined to become the centre of the Chinese railway system and of the internal trade of the Empire. How serious it may prove to be and how serious the movement from which it springs are matters on which Europeans have but few materials for judgment. We have not sufficient information to show whether the present insurrection is connected with the disturbances in Szechwan which looked threatening enough a month ago. If they are their significance, it need hardly be {56} said, would be materially increased, but even if they are both altogether local they are symptomatic of the general instability of the actual situation. Two years hence a full Parliament of the Empire is to be convoked, and a Ministry responsible to it is to be appointed--so at least the Imperial Edict of last November has promised. The results of so tremendous an innovation cannot be looked forward to without misgivings. Is China, the oldest, and to all outward seeming one of the most effete, of Oriental monarchies, fit for so vast a change? The reception of the Edict of last year does not argue well for the future. The National Assembly, which had unanimously demanded this very reform, denounced it as too tardy the moment it was granted. Yet surely three years was not too long a time for China to prepare herself for constitutional government. There is much that is admirable in the Young China party. They realise the absolute necessity of reform, and many of them desire it out of genuine patriotism. But hitherto they have shown no sense of prospective, no powers of leadership, and no gift of construction. Last year one of their number, himself a subordinate official, who would certainly lose by a change, blurted out to a European in a moment of confidence that in his opinion nothing could save the country but a bloody revolution, making a clean sweep of everything. That was in the city of Wuchang. Is the present insurrection an attempt to save China in this way, and if it is, what popular force is behind it, or will gather behind it, unless it is immediately quelled? A good deal for us and for all European Powers with interests in the Far East depends on the answer." [1] October 10, 1911. [2] A small magistrate. [3] See _Central China Post_, January 15, 1912. [4] Chang Piao was the General in command of the Hupeh Army, who took the field in the first engagement of the war, and who was interviewed by the author, as printed on page 61. {57} CHAPTER VI THE EARLY HOSTILITIES