Chapter XI: The Japanese as Conquerors

Possibly the partial military evacuations of Newchwang were of the nature of rehearsals for the real event which took place in the small hours of the morning of July 25, after the heavy firing throughout the day. I saw the Censor at Yingkow as late as ten o’clock on Sunday night; he had no news, and was amusing himself with his fiddle. About two hours later, when the Japanese had rushed the trenches at Taipingling, twenty-five miles away, there came a telephone warning for all Russian Government employees to hurry away, as the evacuation of Newchwang had been ordered. By dawn there was scarcely a Russian soldier left in the town, only four of the military police.

I was early astir, but the Press Censor had fled; he had taken with him his fiddle, and some one else’s easy chair, and so many things that in their quarters there was nothing left for the Chinese to steal. Then I went to the telegraph office at Yingkow, but the Russian official notices remained posted, and the clerks would not accept uncensored messages for transmission. I sent the news down by train, for this day there were no scrutineers in Russian employ, no Russian postman accompanied the mail.

Soon the military refugees began to come in from over the water. They arrived weaponless Russian soldiers, but they tore off their shoulder straps, pulled their tunics up loose to fall and hide their belts, donned straw sailor hats or tweed caps, and were hardly distinguishable from the many sutlers and camp followers with which the station had been thronged for months past.

Before eight o’clock, right away to the east, over the river above the Russian settlement at Yingkow, two miles in a bee line, a cloud of smoke arose and drifted south. Russia-town was burning. The Russians had left beyond recall, and Russian rule in the treaty port of Newchwang ended thus ingloriously.

We did not know that the Russian authorities had instructed the Chinese coolies to take from the buildings everything there was, that a complete and habitable settlement might not fall into the hands of the enemy. A visit there in the forenoon showed that the instructions were being filled to the letter. A mob of rough Chinese, numbering perhaps a thousand, were demolishing the buildings for the value of the wood and other materials of which they were constructed. This rabble struggled and fought for plunder; if there was not enough to satisfy their greed there, they would need but little inducement to rush the foreign settlement for the loot it contained.

There is no civic life at Newchwang. Mr. Bandinel, who had foreseen this period of anarchy, and had appealed to his fellow residents to be prepared for it, and have a programme and an organization ready for the emergency, had not been supported. It was daylight; early morning, and the Japanese forces would arrive before danger reached the town or threatened the residents in the foreign settlement. You cannot bring into being in an instant a self-governing, orderly municipality. In Newchwang the sense of common control needed to be created, and the material at hand did not promise success. The character of the foreign residents was demonstrated by incidents in the change of rulers.

By mid-day the Russian flag had disappeared in Newchwang. In its place on all Government buildings flew the tricolour of France, elsewhere were the national colours of almost every European country, and the stars and stripes of the United States of America. It may as well be stated that many of these flags were flown without sufficient authority, and, unfortunately, the British flag is such a well recognized commercial asset that the right to fly it was to all intents and purposes purchased by people who had no moral claim to its protection. It must not be thought that the British Consul sold the right, allowed it as a privilege, or granted it as a favour. The people who wished to have it transferred their property, on terms, to persons registered as British subjects. Other flags were similarly procured. The Japanese and the Russian alone were not flown on that day. It is true there were exceptions. Before mid-day the Russian Administrator was flying a new consular flag of the Russian empire; in the afternoon over his residence the tricolour of France braved the breeze, and before his gates Japanese scouts planted their war-flags.

Noon passed before any inquietude was felt. After tiffin people began to crowd the square before the Administration buildings, and ask each other when the Japanese were coming. The Chinese crowded their house tops and gazed over the open country to the south, expecting to see there some sign of the conquering army.

At last five scouts of the west wing of the army, who had been trying to get in touch with the Russian pickets by following the branch railway line from Tashichiao, reached the settlement from Niuchatun. They found the town ungarrisoned. That they did not expect; they rode in expecting sooner or later to find Russian soldiers, and they were prepared for them. This burden of a Russianless town was not entirely to their liking, but they were equal to the occasion. They knew the town, went through the by-paths of the settlement, and discovered and held up promptly two of the Russian military police. A third, behind the wall of a compound, tore off his shoulder straps, threw away his cap, and tried to pass as a civilian, but he surrendered to these five men--only five men, and they captured and held the town.

They spake neither English, Chinese, nor Russian--they were scouts, and they went carefully hither and thither seeking. I have in memory now one of these, a man not five feet two inches high, mobbed by a crowd of Chinese and foreign residents curious to see him, and he disregarding every one and mounting a boundary stone in order to see over their heads.

After five o’clock four Japanese scouts rode into the square. They were mounted on sorry tired horses, all mud spattered and rough. The men wore uniforms stained and torn by campaigning, one had tied the sole of his boot to the uppers with a straw band, but they were soldiers, and knew it.

The people regarded them with interest, but without any display of emotion. They were not welcomed, nor was their intrusion resented. Then arrived four more, later another four, with a non-commissioned officer. To him came the chiefs of the Chinese guilds with greetings. The foreign residents held aloof for the expected army, the officers, and the General.

Soon the scouts, evidently having met at this rendezvous for directions, went on with their work; four only remained on the parade ground before the Administration buildings and the residences of the leading foreign families. It was on this spot that, a short while previous, British ladies had provided free teas and free refreshments for the Russian troops arriving from outlying camps, and for recruits after doing their drill-ground exercises. No one had anything to offer these tired, battle-worn men; they tendered not even so much as a light for a cigarette, or a drink of water to the thirsting beasts the men rode. The Chinese looked on with as much indifference as the foreigners showed. Hours passed; it began to get dark, and the expected army was no nearer the town. The officials and residents became anxious. They questioned the scouts, they sought about for an interpreter. What did the scouts know? When would the troops arrive? Who was going to protect property in the town?

There you have the foreign resident in China in his entirety. For the men who had won battle after battle, for men who came straight into their midst after two days’ continuous fighting, for the race with whom Britons have an alliance, no word of good cheer, no ready hospitality, no neighbourliness at all. To the foreign resident the Japanese are yellow men--a race apart. They might be useful in guarding the white men’s property, but to treat these men after war as Russian soldiers were treated in peace time was not thought of even. Japan has not yet bridged the gulf by war. Among the bulk of the foreign residents of Newchwang Japan has still to win her way--the war will be finished long before so little is accomplished.

The Consuls and the general public loitered near the Administration building. As it grew dark they drove the Chinese away from the Russian barracks fronting the parade ground, who again and again made futile attempts to steal doors, windows, and fittings from the deserted buildings.

It seemed that the Japanese army would never come. Mr. Bush was not the type of man who waits for things to happen. Prevailing with one of the scouts to accompany him, he rode out by the south gate and through Niuchatun to where the nearest detachment of the Japanese forces was believed to be bivouacking. There he explained to the commanding officer that the property of the town was in danger, and induced him to send fifty men at once to police the streets. It was past midnight when they arrived. The Chinese, although they had been prevented from injuring the deserted buildings near foreigners’ residences, had completely gutted the Russian post office, jail, and other deserted premises; had pulled out door and window frames and even torn up the wooden floors and carried away the flag poles!

When the Japanese were in the town the Russian Administrator, who that morning only had flown the special consular flag of Russia, hauled it down before their eyes and hoisted the tricolour of France. The men regarded the incident without betraying the least feeling. They stood at the gates of his house with pistols ready, and patiently waiting the advent of a person in authority. When a Japanese officer did arrive, he was only a lieutenant; the Russian Administrator would not see him. The lieutenant did not insist, nor did he complain of the French flag, but he ordered the gilt eagle, the symbol of the dominion of the Tsar of all the Russias, which is upon every Government building in Russia, to be taken down forthwith. A Chinaman removed it from the pinnacle above the Administration building. Next, word was conveyed to the late Governor that he must leave the town. He was conveyed in privacy across the river by the pilot launch, and a private car was placed at his disposal by the railway officials. Every consideration was shown to him that the attention and foresight of the new authorities prompted as due to his official position.

The Japanese appear to possess a talent for organization which amounts almost to genius. In a few days the visitor would have believed that they had been in military occupation of the treaty port for months.

Their officials came as though at the call of some conjuror, and fell into their work at once, work to which some of them were well accustomed, as they were merely reinstated in their former positions. The Yokohama Specie Bank reopened; the Japanese special war notes were redeemed; there was a censor appointed, and he could always be found. The Russian undesirables were requested to remove from the town, and did so. Drinking saloons closed because there were no customers, and the shipping in the port increased. The Japanese transports arrived with troops, railway material and rolling stock. Japanese schooners laden with provisions and stores thronged the river. Everywhere were administrative officials and military guards, intent upon their work, neglecting nothing and doing everything intelligently. Again the streets were lighted, lanterns were seen flitting through the thoroughfares at night. The Chinese merchants brought back their families, and the town entered upon a new era of activity and prosperity.

The Chinese made some “squeeze”; the first morning after the Japanese invasion I walked along the Chinese Bund and found nine-tenths of the frontagers busy with their fences, always moving them nearer the water’s edge and stealing a few feet from the roadway. Some more boldly fenced in long and broad stretches of footway; roads were closed, short cuts and passages were sealed and taken into the adjoining compounds; the individual was enriching himself at the expense of the public.

Japanese stores reopened; many new ones sprang into existence. There was a general expansion of business and a much needed tidying up of public property. Within a week the Russian occupation was no more than a memory; there were no signs remaining of its existence, and the evidence of the war was confined to the few empty cases on the Bund of the mines lifted from the river bed. The Russian lettering disappeared from the signs and public notices--the Chinese covered up theirs under white paper the very day of the Russian evacuation--and than the Chinese none seemed more pleased to be under the new regime, none showed so unmistakably that public confidence was restored.

The Chinaman does not regard the Japanese as being good business people. He thinks they are good soldiers. He knows they get the best guns, and the best ships, and with these drive the Russians back. As to the future, the Chinaman believes the trade of Manchuria will belong to him.

A large number of small Japanese merchants started in business in Newchwang, and after a very few days it was found that the small capital they had possessed was already in the hands of the Chinese. At present the Japanese are using as interpreters a large number of Mahomedans, some of Tung-fu-hsian’s men, and others from Shantung, who have Japanese women in their harems. These Mahomedan Chinese are doing all the business for the Japanese with the natives of the Fengtien province, and they are making large profits, and will do better as the Japanese army extends farther north. The Chinese have no fear of Japanese business competition; when it is a matter of buying and selling, the Chinaman is sure of being able to hold his own. He knows the Japanese will not take bribes, but he has found out that the Japanese like to find money in their pockets without knowing how it got there, and John Chinaman is going to show Mr. Jap how to do business in Manchuria; and make money whilst teaching him the lesson.