The military organization of even the best regular troops is feeble. Constant word reaches the press of soldiers revolting for lack of pay. In one such instance nine hundred men near the Manchuria border mutinied and were put down with difficulty, tying up the caravans for some time. Aside from questions of discipline, and considering number only, it is doubtful if, in the whole empire of four hundred million people, one hundred thousand decently armed and drilled troops could be gathered, in an extremity, for defensive purposes. Drilled and armed men in whatever numbers are, however, but one element of a country’s defensive power. Organization, transportation, commissary, and supply are factors of hardly less importance. The troops that get there are the ones which count, and even a Chinese army marches on its belly. Russia’s defective transport, to mention but one case, undoubtedly decided both the Crimean and the Japanese wars. The question of territorial defense is one of several dimensions, first of which is how soon could a given force, with its necessary commissary and ammunition-supply, be disposed along the various lines of possible attack. Making the round of the Chinese Empire, it is apparent that Tibet and Mongolia, for all the resistance that could be made, might be taken by England and Russia respectively whenever they were minded to cross the border. The Chinese could throw out barring columns no further westward than Sze-chuan, no further northward than the Great Wall. On the frontier of Corea, the Yalu River formerly defined the first line of defense. But this frontier has been moved westward by the Japanese, so that it would be a political impossibility to put men there even were it practically possible. The present line would of necessity be between Shan-hai-kwan and Yung-ping. Perhaps withdrawals from the northern provinces, the viceroys permitting, might admit massing here fifty thousand troops. But this, as well as any other possible line, is entirely unfortified, giving hardly more advantages to the repelling than to the attacking forces. There would be no second line of defense, nothing to fall back upon but the old Tatar Wall of Peking. Beyond this fifty thousand any quota brought from the south would consume a very considerable time, probably a month, even allowing that their semi-independent viceroys did not discreetly hold off altogether. Further east, at Shan-tung, Germany’s railway pierces to the heart of the Confucian province; while from the Chinese military centre in Chi-li there is no corresponding railroad, Chinese-manned, giving them access, were it necessary to repel aggression. The Anamese railways afford the French means of bringing up troops, where China could assemble an army only after weeks of marching. The Burmese frontier of Britain’s dominion is similarly vantaged.