Liaodong Peninsula

“ The command of the sea definitely gained by the Japanese at the battle of the Yalu, now enabled another expeditionary force to be landed on the shores of China, this time on the Shantung peninsula, which juts out between the Gulf of Pechili and the Yellow Sea on the south, as the Liao-Tung peninsula does between the Gulf of Laio-Tung and Corea Bay on the north. Since that eventful action, the Chinese fleet had remained in port, and the Japanese had been free to use the water-ways of the east, as if no enemy’s ships existed. To undertake a new enterprise was merely a question of men and means. ”

“ Many of them become Mohammedans. They live almost entirely upon fish. They are altogether restless and impatient of control, but, unlike some savages, are passionately fond of music, and are most ingenious in handicrafts, specially in boat-building.
The Chinese in the Peninsula and on the small islands of Singapore and Pinang are estimated at two hundred and forty thousand, and their numbers are rapidly increasing, owing to direct immigration from China. It is by their capital, industry, and enterprise that the resources of the Peninsula are being developed. ”

“ They were treated so harshly that even the humble peasant took up arms, and thus the peninsula, instead of serving as a basis of supplies, had to be garrisoned perpetually by a strong army.
The Koreans, having suffered for their loyalty to China, naturally looked to her for succour. Again and again appeals were made to Peking, and at length a force of 5000 men, which had been mobilized in the Liaotung Chinese Intervention. peninsula, crossed the Yalu and moved south to Phyong-yang, where the Japanese van had been lying idle for over two months. ”

“ Captain Hall argued that the Kowloon Peninsula would afford much needed sea-frontage for commercial building lots and additional barrack accommodation; that the British occupation of Kowloon would remove the danger with which the mercantile shipping, anchored during the typhoon season in close proximity to the settlement of lawless Chinese vagabonds at Tsimshatsui, was threatened ”

“ And the peninsula wrested from us is once more under our care, the neglected graves of those who perished in the unsuccessful struggle ten years ago are once more being properly attended to. The story of how over one million [xvi] men left their homes and country, ready and willing to die for the great cause, and of how they passed eighteen months of hardship and privation among the mountains of Liaotung, on the plains of Manchuria, and on the waters of the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, will forever be told to posterity in the history of our country. ”

“ But this Board reported (March 7, 1861) their inability to come to any agreement. The matter had to be referred home. Sir Hope Grant claimed—that the idea of appropriating the peninsula had originated with the Military Authorities; that the Colonial Office had approved of the occupation of Kowloon for military purposes; that the lease had been obtained by his own authority; that the peninsula ceded by the Peking Convention should therefore be converted into a purely military cantonment separate and apart from the Government of Hongkong ”

“ To these clauses were added the renewal of the concession of the Yunnan Railway, and finally the cession on a long lease of the Bay of Kwang-chau-Wang, situated on the eastern coast of the Lei-chau Peninsula opposite Hainan, and, moreover, the Chinese engaged to appoint a French Director-General of Posts. ”

“ The centre and eastern are occupied by mountain ranges running N.E. and S.W:, between which lie fertile valleys, while the north-western, southern and western portions form part of the great deltaic plain of the north of China. The mountainous region projects seaward beyond the normal coast line forming a large peninsula, the shores of which are deeply indented and contain some good harbours, such as that of Kiao-chow. ”

“ The inhabitants of the city have the power to use the roads from Kinchow to the north boundary of the leased territory, and the waters usually required near the city, the use of which has been granted to Russia ”

“ The Peninsula is as unique in its scenery as in its history — combining the three great features of the desert, the mountains and the sea; the sands, the cliffs, and the rolling waters — all which have a peculiar fascination when seen in a pure, transparent atmosphere, with the lights and shadows of sunrisings and sunsettings. Passing through such a country, not as an explorer, but only as a traveller, the writer has been content to accept what came within his personal observation, and to describe only what he could see with his own eyes. ”

“ Liao-yang is a walled city lying on the direct road from Moukden to Newchang and Port Arthur, and even more picturesquely situated than the capital. Three miles north of the city flows the Tai-tse-ho, taking a northerly course by the north-east corner of the walls. The railway passes at some distance to the west, making an acute angle with the western end of the city. Southward the ground rises gradually. ”

“ The Liao plain, thirty miles wide, and the central Sungari plain, are the largest in Manchuria, forming together a long narrow valley floor between two parallel mountain systems and extending northeasterly from the Liao gulf, between Port Arthur and Shanhaikwan, up the Liao river and down the Sungari to the Amur, a distance of eight hundred or more miles. These plains have a fertile, deep soil and it is on them and other lesser river bottoms that Manchurian agriculture is developed, supporting eight or nine million people on a cultivated acreage possibly not greater than 25,000 square miles. ”

“ A few good bungalows and a large and well‐built hotel mark where the future Brighton of North China has already begun to claim a recognition; for in the summer months the European residents of Tientsin, Pekin, even of Shanghai are commencing to congregate there in search of cool breezes and a healthy climate. High up above all towers the chain of rugged hills from whose summits the victorious Japanese gazed down on the wrecked Chinese fleet and the battered forts of the island. Behind it, forty miles away, lies the little‐known treaty port of Chifu with its prosperous foreign settlement. ”

“ THREE years ago West China seemed at the back of beyond. To make your way in you had either to traverse the length of Upper Burma and then cross the great rivers and ranges of western Yunnan, a weary month-long journey, or else spend tedious weeks ascending the Yangtse, the monotony of the trip tempered by occasional shipwreck. To-day, thanks to French enterprise, you can slip in between mountain and river and find yourself at Yunnan-fu, the provincial capital, after a railway journey of only three days and a half from Haiphong, the port of Tonking. ”

“ From the north came China's foes, the sturdy horsemen from Mongolia, the mountain men from the Manchurian Hills, and because the peaceful, industrious inhabitants of the rich; alluvial plains feared greatly the raiders, they, just at the Nankou Pass, where these inaccessible hills might be passed, built watch-towers and kept ward. There they stand, even to this day, upon jutting peaks where the pass opens into the plain, grey stone watch-towers with look-outs and slits for the archers, and beacon-towers which could flash the fiery warning that should rouse the country to the south. ”

“ The opening of the Yangtze River, which is navigable as far as Kingchau, on the borders of Szechwan province, commanding the trade of at least six or seven provinces along its whole course of nearly three thousand miles to the ocean, presents a spectacle of unbounded possibilities for the amelioration of nearly a third of the human race, if only the grasping ambition of the West will let the territorial integrity and the independent sovereignty of China remain intact. ”

“ As usual, through the Yalu Valley these soldiers bear an evil reputation among the natives, from whom they commandeer at pleasure. Striking away from An-tung is the Pekin “Great Road,” which runs to Liao-yang. Above An-tung the river divides and shoals exist, the water being so shallow that none but native craft can ply. Wi-ju is situated about ten miles to the eastward, and at a point west of Mao-kewi-shan, four miles below An-tung, there is the terminus of the branch of the Manchurian railway, which is to strike the river. The construction of this work will begin in the spring of 1904. ”

“ The Taitse, of large and ancient establishment, runs westward from Liaoyang for twenty-five miles, and in a well-earned bed, portions of which are worn in the rock. Morning rode along the north bank, thus avoiding altogether a crossing of the Taitse, since his journey continued westward from the point where the river took its southward bend. From thence it paralleled the Hun in a race to join the Liao. The main stem of the latter was beyond the Hun, and these two arteries of Asia broke Morning’s trail. ”

“ Unlike the thoroughfares in the cities of central and southern China, the streets of Peking are wide and open, but, being unpaved and the soil being light and alluvial, they easily become almost impassable from mud in wet weather and ankle-deep in dust in dry weather. The inhabitants of Peking being consumers only, and in no way producers, the trade of the city is very small, and the article of the European treaties which prohibits foreign merchants from trading within the walls is, therefore, to be regretted only as an instance of the narrow-mindedness of the Chinese Government. ”

“ Europeans who have experienced the biting winds of Peking, the damp heat of Canton, or the gray skies of Chengtu find in the bright days and cool breezes of Yunnan some mitigation of their exile to this remote corner of the empire. The city itself is not very attractive in spite of its many trees, for it seems a network of narrow lanes, only broken here and there by a temple enclosure or a stretch of waste land, the whole shut in by sound thirty-foot high walls ”

“ Fallows shivered, and turned the subject, but Morning knew he would come back.... They heard the sentries on the stone flags below. It was monotonous as the sound of the river. An east wind had blown all afternoon. Dust was gritty in the blankets, sore in the rifts of lip and nostril caused by the long baking wind. Their eyes felt old in the dry heat. Daily the trains had brought more Russians; daily more Chinese refugees slipped out behind. Liaoyang was a mass of soldiery—heavy and weary with soldiers—dull with its single thought of defense. ”

“ The Chinese drove, or perhaps walked, but did not "go in for games" as the "foreign devils" do; it is better, they think, to pay people to do all this to amuse them.
The steamer quitted Shanghai, and made her way into the Yellow Sea, which is beautifully blue, and derives its name from the Ho, or Yellow River. Near the land it is more muddy, but steaming at sea through the ocean depths the water is blue as an Italian sky. We made our way up to Taku, or Tien Tsin, the well-known port of Northern China. ”

“ Peking stands at the end of the great seacoast plain as you go up from Tientsin by railway or by boat. Beyond rise the Hsi Shan (Western Mountains) and the Mongolian plateau and mountains. It is the most expansive city in the republic, because it is more built up than spacious Nanking; a court, a legation, a trading, an art, an educational, a health center in autumn, a military, but not a manufacturing center as yet, though it will be. It is more Mongolian and Manchu, perhaps, than pure Han Chinese. ”

“ There are a few islets, of which one of the most conspicuous is Chi-ming-tao—"Cock-crow Island"—lying ten miles from the most easterly point of the Weihaiwei harbour. All the mainland from here onwards lies within the territory directly ruled by Great Britain. On the port side of the steamer as she enters the harbour will be seen a line of low cliffs crowned by a lighthouse; on the starboard side lies Liukungtao, the island of Liukung.
As in the case of Hongkong, it is the island that creates the harbour ”

“ Soon rain began to fall, and it steadily continued while we rode over the vast level plain, through unending fields of kao-liang, interspersed with plots of beans, peanuts, melons and cucumbers, and mud and brick-walled villages whose squalid wretchedness was hidden by the abundant foliage of the trees, which are the only beauty of Chinese cities. At almost every railway station, roofless buildings, crumbling walls and broken water tanks bore painful witness to the rage of the Boxers. ”

“ The Ta Liang Shan, or "Great Cold Mountains," the country of the independent Lolos, is a mountainous region extending north and south some three hundred miles, which constitutes to this day an almost impenetrable barrier between east and west, crossed voluntarily by no Chinese, unless in force, and from which but one European party has returned to tell the tale. On the outskirts of this territory a little mission work has been undertaken with some success, but as yet no real impression has been made upon the people. ”

“ Lighter vessels can enter the river, only by being towed over the sands which lie at its mouth.—The promontory of Shantung is equally inaccessible, from its ruggedness. It possesses but a few good harbours, and many Chinese junks are annually dashed to pieces on its shores.—Keangsoo is easy of approach; but, though the two largest rivers of China, the Yellow river, and the Yang-tsze-keang, both disembogue themselves into the sea within its confines, yet it possesses but one good port, which is Shang-hae-Heen, near the frontiers of Chekeang. ”