The Fight for the Republic in ChinaPutnam Weale, B. L. (Bertram Lenox)
History
The Fight for the Republic in China
Putnam Weale, B. L. (Bertram Lenox)
China -- History -- Republic, 1912-1949; China -- Politics and government
The campaign was short and inglorious. The South, ill-furnished with
munitions and practically penniless, and always confronted by the same
well-trained Northern Divisions who had proved themselves invincible
only eighteen months before fought hard for a while, but never became a
serious menace to the Central Government owing to the lack of
co-operation between the various Rebel forces in the field. The Kiangse
troops under General Li Lieh-chun, who numbered at most 20,000 men,
fought stiffly, it is true, for a while but were unable to strike with
any success and were gradually driven far back from the river into the
mountains of Kiangse where their numbers rapidly melted away. The
redoubtable revolutionary Huang Hsin, who had proved useful as a
propagandist and a bomb-thrower in earlier days, but who was useless in
serious warfare, although he assumed command of the Nanking garrison
which had revolted to a man, and attempted a march up the Pukow railway
in the direction of Tientsin, found his effort break down almost
immediately from lack of organization and fled to Japan. The Nanking
troops, although deserted by their leader, offered a strenuous
resistance to the capture of the southern capital which was finally
effected by the old reactionary General Chang Hsun operating in
conjunction with General Feng Kuo-chang who had been dispatched from
Peking with a picked force. The attack on the Shanghai arsenal which had
been quietly occupied by a small Northern Garrison during the months
succeeding the great loan transaction, although pushed with vigour by
the South, likewise ultimately collapsed through lack of artillery and
proper leadership. The navy, which was wholly Southern in its sympathies
and which had been counted upon as a valuable weapon in cutting off the
whole Yangtsze Valley, was at the last moment purchased to neutrality by
a liberal use of money obtained from the foreign banks, under, it is
said, the heading of administrative expenses! The turbulent city of
Canton, although it also rose against the authority of Peking, had been
well provided for by Yuan Shih-kai. A border General, named Lung
Chi-kwang, with 20,000 semi-savage Kwangsi troops had been moved near
the city and at once attacked and overawed the garrison. Appointed
Military Governor of the province in return for his services, this Lung
Chi-kwang, who was an infamous brute, for three years ruled the South
with heartless barbarity, until he was finally ejected by the great
rising of 1916. Thoroughly disappointed in this and many other
directions the Southern Party was now emasculated; for the moneyed
classes had withheld their support to the end, and without money nothing
is possible in China. The 1913 outbreak, after lasting a bare two
months, ignominiously collapsed with the flight of every one of the
leaders on whose heads prices were put. The road was now left open for
the last step Yuan Shih-kai had in mind, the coup against Parliament
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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