Munroe Kirk
The Blue Dragon: A Tale of Recent Adventure in China

CHAPTER XXV
IN CHINA'S CAPITAL CITY

China's capital, the great northern city of Pekin, is situated on a plain one hundred and twenty miles from the sea, and near the eastern base of a low mountain-range known as the Western Hills. It is divided into two nearly equal parts, the northern being the Manchu, or Tartar City, while the other is called the southern, or Chinese City. The northern city is surrounded by a vast brick wall ten miles in length, fifty feet thick at the base, sixty feet high, and forty feet wide on top, pierced by nine massive gateways, two on the north side, two on the east, two on the west, and three on the south. These last open into the southern city, which is of about the same size as the other, and also is surrounded by a lofty wall having seven gates. In the southern city, standing in the middle of a forty-acre park, is the great Temple of Heaven, in which the Emperor alone may worship.

In the centre of the northern, or Tartar City, and occupying one-eighth of the enclosed space, is located the Forbidden City, surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of red brick coped with tiles of imperial yellow. This wall has but four gates, and within it are the yamens, or palaces of high-rank mandarins, besides parks and pleasure-grounds. Inside of the Forbidden City is yet another, known as the Imperial City, strongly fortified, and containing the palaces, pleasure-grounds, lakes, and lotus ponds of the imperial family.

While Canton, in the far south, has been called the most wonderful city of the world, Pekin is almost as remarkable, although in an entirely different way. Canton streets are noted for their extreme narrowness, and those of Pekin for their width, some of the latter being one hundred feet wide. In Canton there are no wheeled vehicles and no beasts of burden, while Pekin streets swarm with blue-covered, two-wheeled carts, very heavy, and drawn by large, fine-looking mules, two-coolie jinrikishas, bullock-carts, wheelbarrows loaded with passengers or freight, pushed by one coolie and pulled by another, long caravans of shaggy, two-humped camels, besides innumerable riding ponies and donkeys. Also, in Pekin, may occasionally be seen the smart European brougham, drawn by a high-stepping American horse, of some wealthy mandarin, though most of those who can afford to ride prefer to do so in sedan-chairs. Of these chairs, those used by members of the imperial family are roofed and curtained in yellow, those of the higher-class mandarins are red, those of the next lower grade are blue, and so the descent is continued through green to black, while mourning chairs of every class invariably are white.

In Canton a large proportion of the houses have two stories, while in all directions tower lofty, six-to-nine-storied pawn-shops, looking like flat-topped grain elevators; but in Pekin all dwellings and shops, even including the imperial palaces, have but a single story. The only buildings in all the city that exceed this height are the pagoda-like Temple of Heaven, the great drum-tower, the great bell-tower, the fortified gate-towers surmounting the city walls, and certain foreign establishments belonging to missions, legations, or business firms that have been erected since 1900.

Pekin is well provided with wide breathing spaces in the shape of temple and palace grounds, and shade trees are fairly abundant throughout the city. Most of its broad avenues are unpaved, and it is visited by suffocating dust-storms at certain seasons of the year, while at others it wades through fathomless mud.

In 1897 the capital was connected with Tien-Tsin, eighty miles away, and with the sea by rail, but the track was compelled to end two miles outside the southern wall. In 1900 came the great Boxer uprising, the siege of the foreign legations in Pekin, and the capture, occupation, and terrible punishment of the city by the troops of nine foreign powers. These retained possession for a year, during which time they carried the railroad into the very heart of the city, largely increased the area of legation "concessions," established a clean-swept neutral zone three hundred feet wide around the legation territory, paved Legation Street, built commodious barracks for the foreign troops that were to remain as permanent legation guards, and erected handsome legation buildings; while the United States and Germany took possession of and will permanently control a quarter of a mile of the city wall adjoining their legations. After a year of foreign control Pekin was restored to its Chinese rulers, and the self-exiled imperial court returned to their capital city. During 1903 a number of large foreign buildings, including a European hotel, banks, hospitals, chapels, schools, etc., were erected, and many more were projected for this year (1904). Electric lighting on an extensive scale, as well as electric trams, are already planned for. The Pe-Han (Pekin-Hankow) Railway, over a portion of which our lads travelled, and which was wholly destroyed by Boxers immediately afterwards, has been restored and the track extended southward to the Yellow River. Beyond this construction is being so rapidly pushed from both ends that the completion of the whole line is promised by 1906.

Thus China's capital, rudely roused by foreign guns from the sleep of ages, is now awake and in a fair way speedily to take a prominent place among the progressive cities of the world.

None of these things were thought of, however, on that June day of 1900 when Rob Hinckley, accompanied by his stanch friend, Chinese Jo, hesitatingly approached the great city; for at that moment it was shadowed by the darkness of despair. The tidal wave of Boxer uprising had reached and overwhelmed it. The I-Ho-Chuan were in complete possession, and Pekin, with its teeming population, its accumulated wealth of years, and, above all, with its hundreds of hated foreigners, diplomats, missionaries, business men, and legation guards, lay at their mercy. They had nothing to fear from imperial troops, for these, always in sympathy with their movement, already had begun to co-operate with them in their killing of Christian converts, their burnings and their lootings. Bolder and bolder they became, wilder and wilder grew their excesses, until shortly before the arrival of Rob and Jo they had started fierce conflagrations in all parts of the city, had destroyed two Roman Catholic cathedrals, and were regularly besieging a third with cannonade and rifle-fire. In this great fortress, and within its spacious, wall-enclosed grounds, ninety foreigners, forty-three of whom were French and Italian marines, and more than three thousand native converts had taken refuge. For sixty days this isolated stronghold of Christianity was shelled and bombarded with cannon-ball and rifle-bullet; but it held out to the end, and stands to-day a monument to the heroic endurance of its defenders. The attack on it had been begun three days before the arrival of our lads, and the sounds of heavy firing that had so aroused their anxiety was the cannonade directed against its walls.

With many misgivings they skirted the southern city, which seemed a seething caldron of riot and flame, and sought an entrance to the Tartar City through one of its western gates. Here, to Jo's great satisfaction, he found, in the officer of the guard who examined them, an acquaintance not only willing to admit them, but of whom he could ask questions. Believing Jo to feel even more bitterly than himself concerning foreigners, this officer did not hesitate to give him the very latest news. He confirmed the report heard at Pao-Ting-Fu of the defeat and driving back towards Tien-Tsin of the combined American and British relief expedition, under Admiral Seymour, told of the siege of the northern cathedral, and, most startling of all, informed Jo of the imperial edict, issued that very day, ordering the destruction of every foreigner within the walls of Pekin.

"Already," he said, "have the invincible troops of Jung Lu entered the city, and with them are the Kwang-su tigers, under the terrible Tung-Fu-Hsang, who thirsts for foreign blood as does a babe for its mother's milk. To-day they are placing guns to command the legations, and to-morrow at four o'clock, if the ocean devils have not left the city, they will be attacked and killed like rats in their holes."

It was fortunate that Rob failed to comprehend what the officer said, for he could not have listened unmoved as did Jo. That the latter did so was because he was not quite certain that he did not approve of the plan for driving all foreigners from China. Foreigners expelled Chinese from their countries, so why should not his people in turn expel foreigners from China? Still, he did not express any views on the subject at that time, but changed the topic of conversation by asking the officer if he could tell him where his father might be found.

For a moment the latter hesitated, and his face assumed a peculiar expression. Then he said: "Did you not know that his excellency Li Ching Cheng had been given a position on the Board of Punishment? It is doubtless at the yamen of that illustrious body that you will find him."

Thanking the officer for his courtesy, Jo and his companion took their departure, and, making their way through alleys and the quieter streets as remote as possible from conflagrations and all scenes of disturbance, they finally reached the yamen of the Board of Punishment, which corresponds to what in an American city would be a combined court-house and jail.

A main entrance through the street wall led to a court, reached by the descent of several steps. This court was surrounded by low buildings, occupied as offices of the board, and in its centre was a pond of water. As no person of whom they could ask questions was to be seen here, our lads passed on to a second or inner court that opened from the first. It also contained a stone-bordered reservoir of water, and was surrounded by fantastically ornamented buildings. In one feature that was immediately noticeable, these low buildings differed from any other that Rob ever had seen in China. They were provided with cellar-like basements, divided into small compartments, from each of which a little, grated window opened into a tiny outside well-hole.

About one of these well-holes stood a group of half a dozen Chinese officials, towards whom Jo made his way, intending to ask them where his father might be found. As he drew near and was about to speak, he glanced downward to see what so had attracted their curiosity that no one of them had turned at his approach. What he saw was a human face, tortured and livid, pressed against the grating, and straining upward in mute agony. The man was supporting himself by hands clinched about two bars of the grating, and evidently was standing on tiptoe.

Rob, looking over Jo's shoulder, also saw the awful face, and for an instant wondered at the black line that seemed to cut it at the uplifted chin. Then it flashed across him that this was a line of black water, slowly but surely rising, and that in another moment the man would be drowned. And no one dared try to save him, even were it possible to do so, for he was a condemned prisoner suffering one of the innumerable, ingeniously awful forms of Chinese capital punishment.

"What was his crime?" asked one of the fascinated spectators of another.

"He was that member of the Tsung Li Yamen who, before circulating the palace edict, 'Feng yang jen pi sha'" (whenever meeting foreigners, kill them), "dared alter 'pi'" (kill) "into 'pao'" (protect).

"It is enough, and his punishment is righteous," declared the other.

Rob did not quite understand this, but Jo did, and, seizing his comrade's arm with so fierce a grip that the latter winced, he dragged him from the awful scene. As they gained the street he whispered, in choking voice:

"From this moment I am with you and with the foreign people, until the Empress is overthrown. Let us get to your legation."

"Was it any one you knew?" asked Rob, not yet comprehending.

"He was my father."

CHAPTER XXVI
WAR CLOUDS

China, in her ignorant self-confidence, and goaded to desperation by foreign aggressions, was defying the world. Not only was she killing missionaries, together with their converts, wherever found, and putting to shameful death such of her own people, from highest mandarin to lowest coolie, as dared lift a hand to save them or speak a word in their behalf, but by imperial order Chinese troops were preparing to attack foreign ministers in their own legations. Thus China deliberately was about to commit the gravest of international crimes. For some time the foreign ministers, foreseeing the dangers of the apparently uncontrollable Boxer uprising, had been calling upon their respective governments for protection. In response an ever-increasing fleet of war-ships was gathered off the mouth of the Pei-ho, which was as near as they could approach to Pekin. From those ships which first arrived a mixed force of marines, four hundred in all, and representing eight nations, was sent to the capital to act as legation guards, and the train that brought them was the last to reach Pekin for many weeks.

These marines arrived on the first day of June, and forty-five of them immediately were detailed to protect the great northern cathedral, while twenty more were sent to the compound of the American Methodist Mission. A week later the Empress Dowager returned to Pekin from her summer palace in the Western Hills. From that moment the situation grew so rapidly worse that the ministers again telegraphed the foreign fleet to send at once a strong force for their further protection.

In response to this urgent request Captain McCalla, the senior American naval officer with the fleet, declared that he should start for Pekin the next day. The British admiral, Seymour, promptly proposed to join him, and other commanding officers entered so heartily into the project that on the following morning, when the expedition started by rail from Tongku, the nearest landing-point, it comprised 2066 troops. Of these 112 were Americans, 915 British, 450 Germans, 312 Russians, 158 French, 54 Japanese, 40 Italians, and 25 Austrians.

This force, made up of sailors and marines, well provided with light artillery and rapid-fire guns, set forth in high spirits, expecting to reach Pekin that very night, or, at any rate, within twenty-four hours. Nine days later saw them still twenty miles from their destination, short of ammunition and food, encumbered with two hundred wounded men, cut off from their base of supplies by the destruction of the railway behind them, as well as in front, unable to communicate either with Pekin or the outside world on account of the telegraph-line having absolutely disappeared, while couriers with despatches were caught and killed as fast as sent out.

From the beginning they had been harassed by hordes of Boxers, and now they were confronted by five thousand imperial troops, including a strong body of cavalry, armed with modern rifles and well supplied with artillery. Under the circumstances a farther advance was impossible, and a retreat was ordered. At the end of another week the unfortunate expedition reached Tien-Tsin exhausted, demoralized, and sadly depleted in numbers, but having learned the bitter lesson that no small force of foreigners, no matter how brave and well-armed, could traverse the interior of China against the wishes of the Chinese.

During the absence of this expedition the fleet of war-ships lying off the Taku bar, at the mouth of the Pei-ho, had been strengthened by numerous additions. The Taku forts had been captured after six hours of fighting, and an army of ten thousand troops had advanced to the relief of the foreign portion of Tien-Tsin, which was being besieged by Boxers from the walled city of Tien-Tsin proper. Now the allied foreign troops turned their attention to this stronghold and set about its capture; but it held out for three weeks, and did not fall into their hands until the 14th of July.

But let us return to the middle of June and the city of Pekin, where a handful of foreigners, cut off from all communication with the outside world, were anxiously but confidently awaiting the coming of the McCalla-Seymour relief expedition. All sorts of rumors were afloat concerning its progress and position, and one of these so persistently asserted that it would reach the city by the very evening on which Rob and Jo entered Pekin that many persons ascended the city wall near the American legation, and remained there for hours, straining their eyes for a sight of the expected troops. But they did not come; and as the sun, transformed to a blood-red ball by the smoke from many conflagrations, disappeared in the lowering west, the disappointed ones returned to their homes doubly weighted with anxiety.

After dinner that evening two guests sat with the United States minister and his wife, earnestly discussing the situation. They were an American tourist and his daughter, who, not realizing the danger of their position, had lingered one day too long in Pekin, and then, owing to the sudden destruction of the railway, found it impossible to leave. The subject of their present conversation was a note from the Tsung Li Yamen (Chinese State Department) received by the minister a few hours earlier. It declared the situation in Pekin to have reached such a stage that the authorities could not undertake to protect the ministers longer than twenty-four hours from the date of the note, which also urged their departure, under Chinese escort, for Tien-Tsin.

"Are you going to accept that proposition?" asked the tourist.

"Frankly, I don't know," replied the minister. "Certainly we cannot leave within the time limit specified. It won't do for us to abandon the missionaries, and they declare they will not desert their converts, whom we, of course, could not take with us."

"What means of transportation should we have if you did decide to leave, now that the railway is no longer in operation?"

"We have demanded carts, boats, provisions, and that a member of the Tsung Li Yamen high in authority shall accompany us. This, of course, is playing for delay, that we may have more time in which to hear from Seymour's expedition. It is now four days since the last word came from it, and we must know its position before starting. No, I don't believe we will leave within twenty-four hours, though some of my colleagues think differently and already are packing their effects."

"My daughter and I will not try to carry out anything but our hand-bags, which can be made ready at a moment's notice," said the tourist.

"You are wise. I shall attempt to carry very little myself, and my baggage will consist largely of state papers, which already are packed for transportation."

"Then you are pretty certain that we will go sooner or later?"

"Yes, sooner or later, for the city is growing untenable. The hour of our departure probably will be decided by the morning advices from the Tsung Li Yamen. If no word should come from them, Von Ketteler, who does not agree that it is necessary for us to leave Pekin, declares he will go to them and demand satisfactory guarantees for our safety."

"It will be a bold thing to do."

"Yes, it will, especially as Von Ketteler recently incurred the additional ill-will of all Boxers by personally beating with his stick one of them whom he caught parading Legation Street in the full regalia of his infamous society. He is a brave man, but, unfortunately, he regards the Chinese with a contempt that will, I fear, lead him into difficulties."

At this moment a servant announced Lieutenant Hibbard.

"Excuse me, sir, for disturbing you," said this individual, after he had saluted those present, "but it seemed best to report a rather peculiar case. Two young Chinese, wearing the Boxer uniform, have just been arrested, and are now held by the guard at the gate. They demand an interview with the American minister, and, curiously enough, both of them speak English remarkably well – at least, so the corporal of the guard says, for I have not yet seen them myself."

"Are they armed?" asked the minister.

"Yes, sir. That is, they were armed with revolvers, but, of course, those were taken from them."

"Very well, let these English-speaking Boxers be brought in, under guard, and we will hear what they have to say for themselves – unless this young lady objects to their presence," he added.

"Oh no, sir; of course I don't!" exclaimed the girl, who hitherto had listened in silence, but with intense interest, to the conversation between her father and the minister. "I want ever so much to see a Boxer whom I can be certain really is one."

In another minute the prisoners, guarded by two heavily armed marines, were ushered into the room. "Pretty tough-looking characters, aren't they?" asked the lieutenant of the girl, by whose side he had taken a position as though to protect her in case of trouble.

"Yes," she replied, hesitatingly. "But do you know," she added, in a low tone, "the face of one of them seems very familiar. I mean the one with the queue."

"Oh, all Chinamen look alike," replied the officer, carelessly. "I've seen a hundred that you'd think were twin brothers of the other one, the tougher of the two. I expect he has murdered more converts than he could count."

Just here the minister, who had stepped for a moment into his office, returned, and at once proceeded to question the prisoners.

"I am told that you speak English; who are you, and why do you come here?" he asked.

"Are you the American minister?" cautiously inquired the one whom the lieutenant had indicated as being the tougher-looking of the two.

"I am."

"Well, then, we've come to tell you that the American and British relief expedition you are expecting has been attacked by more than five thousand imperial troops. It has been badly cut up, and now is in full retreat towards Tien-Tsin."

"Impossible!" gasped the minister.

"It is true, sir; and if you leave this city to-morrow in the hope of reaching Tien-Tsin you will be killed as soon as you pass the city gates. An edict was issued from the palace to-day for the extermination of all foreigners in Pekin, and an attack on the legations will be begun at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

"Who are you?" demanded the startled minister, "and what proof can you give that your astounding statements are true?"

"I am an American, of course," replied Rob, in a tone expressive of surprise that any one should question his nationality, "and my friend here is a son of Mandarin Li Ching Cheng, recently a member of the Tsung Li Yamen. He was put to death a few hours since for having tried to protect foreigners instead of killing them. My friend and I got acquainted in the States, where he was being educated, and – "

"His name is Joseph Lee!" cried the American girl, no longer able to restrain herself, and springing to her feet in her excitement. "I knew I had seen him before!"

"But who are you, sir? What is your own name?" interrupted the minister, sternly.

"Hinckley," replied Rob, but not withdrawing his eyes from the flushed face of the girl; and, speaking to her, he added: "I knew you and your father as soon as I saw you, Miss Lorimer, but I thought that perhaps you wouldn't care to recognize us in this costume."

"As if any one could!" cried Annabel Lorimer. "I am sure you wouldn't recognize yourself if you could see how horrible you look. Even now I only recognize your voice. Should you have known him, papa?"

"No," replied Mr. Lorimer, staring hard at Rob; "and I am not certain that I do even now."

"Is your first name Robert?" asked the lieutenant of marines; "and were you ever on board the United States monitor Monterey?"

"Yes, my name is Robert Hinckley. I was aboard the Monterey about four months ago, and you are Ensign Hibbard," was the reply.

"He's all right, sir!" exclaimed the lieutenant, turning to the minister. "I know him well, and can swear that somewhere about him he's got a skin as white as mine."

"Well," said the minister, his stern face breaking into a smile, "I'll take your word for it, Mr. Hibbard, but even you must acknowledge that its whiteness is pretty effectually concealed at present. Mr. Hinckley, I am much pleased to meet you, especially as you must be a son of Dr. Mason Hinckley, whom I long have counted as among my friends. But the news you bring is of such momentous character that I must ask for further details, even before extending to you the hospitalities of the legation. Will you and your friend sit down and kindly tell us everything that you know concerning the situation?"