Whether the Imperialists were getting to know more about that for which they were fighting, whether a {76} great many in the rank and file were anxious to throw up the sponge and go back to their homes, whether a certain section of them were anxious to change coats and go over to the other ranks and shoot down those by whose side they had been trained did not affect the general position. The Imperialists were the cogs of the machine, and for their life they could not stop fighting. They might have been half-hearted, as many said they were, but their organisation was almost perfect. [Illustration: FOES MEETING AS FRIENDS. A regiment of soldiers casting in their lot with the Revolutionists against whom they had lately fought.] As I sat on the railway sleepers a crowd of soldiers soon gathered. Some held their rice-bowls up to me, and with their chopsticks as they ate asked me to _chi-fan_, and when I took a hard piece of bread from one of the infantry and began to munch at it to show that there was not the slightest ill-feeling they all screamed with laughter, and each swore that I was a good all-round sort of fellow. And then we fell to talking. "Ah!" indignantly yelled the officer, when I asked him why Chinese were fighting Chinese, "these men are rebels--_ding kuai, ding kuai tih ren!_[1] They are making it nasty for the foreign Concessions, and our Government are going to put it down. They are not real soldiers. They are only robbers and wicked men; they can't fight. We [and the man stroked himself down] are the fighters." And then he invited me to go a little way with him, until we came in sight of the guns then sending out the shells. "We have guns here that would blow those fellows into that great river, and if they don't give up soon that's what we are going to do. We are not going to leave a house standing; it is Yuan Shih K'ai's orders, and in a few days it will all be over, and we shall all go back to Peking and have a holiday. Yuan Shih K'ai," he softly said, "is down at Kilometre Ten,[2] and {77} he will not come up farther. He is a wonderful fellow. He has his fingers on the situation, and is merely waiting his time. The Revolutionists think that he is afraid because our men are not fighting to-day, but you wait; presently you will see all the people in this city killed. We are killing anybody we can see, and shall kill many, many more yet." "But don't you think that that's a funny sort of _tao li_ for Chinese to kill Chinese?" Then the man turned his head away and did a half-hearted smile. "Ah! that's altogether another question. That was the old style. We are a new army, and we are told to fight for a New China. We don't want our country to fall into the control of all those wicked men." "Yes, I can see that right enough. But these poor fellows that your crack shooting is knocking over are good fellows, and are all fighting for the good of their country too----"