But in a period of such national travail as China was passing through, it would have been unwise just then to build too much upon the claims of mere common sense, even where people in many ways so eminently sensible as the Chinese were concerned. Immense forces, of which we could not yet pretend to estimate the energy, had been set in motion for better or for worse; and, when once elemental forces have been set in motion, they cannot easily be arrested. In pleading for the maintenance of the Dynasty, Yuan Shih K'ai himself did not conceal his belief that its overthrow would be followed by a series of internal convulsions extending possibly over several decades. Time may prove Yuan to be right. But though we may hope that the world may be spared such a calamity, {136} it was now impossible to look forward to the future without apprehension. The old order of things had departed, never to return. But it would have been then, and still is, idle to expect that a new and stable order of things can be immediately evolved by any magic wand out of the existing chaos. However rotten the old fabric may have been, it cannot be destroyed and a new fabric built up in a day. Japan went through some fifteen years of internal strife and turmoil before modern Japan emerged from the ruins of the old feudal Japan. And Japan not only had the good fortune to possess an influential class inspired by great patriotic ideals, ready to lead her in the path of national regeneration, but she had also, in the restoration of the Imperial authority, an ancient national tradition round which modern ideas of reform could crystallise. Whether China possessed a class equally competent to steer her through the breakers had yet to be seen--and has still; but it was only too clear, unfortunately, that the present Dynasty could never be a rallying point for patriotic enthusiasm such as the reigning Dynasty proved to be in Japan. The future alone could show whether any effective substitute could be found for it. [Illustration: THE THREE-EYED BRIDGE, Seven miles north of Hanyang, where some of the hottest fighting took place. The Revolutionists held the bridge and the adjoining hills till the fall of Hanyang made the position untenable.] The fall of Hanyang gave to the Imperial cause an impetus it was hard to estimate. But it had cost the Chinese as a people a lot during its fall. * * * * *