[Pearl Buck’s Chinese history for children.]
Pearl Buck The Man Who Changed China: The Story of Sun Yat-sen, Random House: NY, 1953, 185 pp.
[p. 94] "The newspapers were already printing colorful stories of the dramatic arrival of the great Chinese reform leader, Kang Yu-wei, the teacher of the young Manchu Emperor of China. He was received by President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington and was given a splendid reception in Philadelphia by dignified and wealthy Chinese. Wearing a maroon-colored robe of brocaded satin he was escorted by two lines of young Chinese cadets in bright blue uniforms, carrying the dragon flag of Imperial Peking side by side with the Stars and Stripes while a hired band provided martial music. Thus Kang Yu-wei proceeded in state, accompanied by his military adviser, an American named Homer Lea, at his side.
"A strange little figure, that military adviser, a twisted hunchback with burning eyes, a warped body encased in a fantastic uniform! But behind the burning eyes was a daring and imaginative brain.
[p. 95] 7 The Hunchback
"Homer Lea was a little American with a big dream. He had an agile and brilliant mind, but it had been shaped by the misfortune of his body. He longed to be big and he was small. He longed to be strong, and he was weak and almost never free from pain. He longed to be powerful and admired, and he feared he could be neither.
"With all his longings, it was inevitable that Homer Lea’s active and constantly revolving mind [p. 96] should center early on militarism and the power of weapons and war. By reading and study, he became an expert in military subjects. His hero was Napoleon, that hero of many men of small stature. Becauses of his passionate interest in wars and weapons and because he was born in California where there are many Chinese, Homer Lea early became interested in the Chinese Revolution, especially after the failure of the Boxer Rebellion. When he was still a very young man he made a trip to China financed by San Francisco Chinese as their agent. The trip was supposed to be a secret, but he was so happy about it that he could not keep it quiet. An article about him in a San Francisco paper spoiled his mission, and although he went anyway he could not accomplish anything. Back in San Francisco again he organized the Reform Cadets, a group of young Chinese who hoped to go to Chinea and form a modern army, Lea was called General and he designed for himself a [p. 97] gaudy uniform, put uniform on the cadets and trained them daily in marching. When Kan Yu-wei came to America, he attached himself at once to this famous man.
"Homer Lea was no fool, in spite of his oddities. It took only a little while for him to decide that the aristocratic scholar was not his man. He left Kang Yu-wei and went back to his cadets and considered what he should do next. Meantime, he worte a novel about China, a thriller. He kept on reading about China and Japan, and meditated his next book, not a novel, but a thriller of a different sort. It was to be entitled The Valor of Ignorance, and it would warn Americans that one day Japan would rise up to fight them.
"Sun Yat-sen, meanwhile, had returned to China to make his third attempt at a revolution. He set up his headquarters in Canton. From there he directed his plot for a co-ordinated uprising over the country carried out by the secret societies and [p. 98] helped locally by students. It was very difficult to keep every move secret. Somehow or other the plot was discovered by government spies, and SunYat-sen and his Hawaiian friends had to leave on a moment’s notice in small rowboats manned by Cantonese boat women. Out in the river they bribed the women to change garments with them, and in this disguise they escaped.
"It was enough to discourage any man, and certainly Sun Yat-sen had his dark moments. His family was far away, he was seldom at home, and his children were growing up almost without his knowing them. What kept him from giving up? Only the daily sight of his countrymen—the hard-working, lowly and poor. They were everywhere about him, a fine honest industrious people, who had no chance for education or knowledge. Their children died in great numbers because there were [p. 99] almost no doctors. Even if they lived it was to work incessanty for food and shelter. Cruel taxes robbed them of most of their earnings. The courts were unjust and did not protect them. In fact, the Manchu government still did nothing for the people, and Sun Yat-sen felt more strongly than ever that only a new government could make life better.
"He would not give up. Three times his plans [p. 100] had failed, but he would try again. This time he went to Manila to raise money. While he was there he met an American, Judge LInebarger, who was to be his friend and supporter for the rest of his life. Judge Linebarger wanted to meet Sun Yat-sen for a curious and personal reason. He had a Chinese cook whom he liked. One day the cook had come to him and asked for a month’s leave. He confided that he had been sent for to help Sun Yat-sen. The judge gave the leave but the cook did not return for many months. When he did come back he was bone thin and scarred as from battle. But he was more enthusiastic than ever about the revolution, although his effort had failed, and he had been caught by government police, imprisoned, beaten and robbed of his possessions. Judge Linebarger was first indignant and then interested, and he determined that he must know Sun Yat-sen himself. From the day he met Sun in Manila he continued to be his friend.
[p. 101] "When Sun had talked to the Chinese in Manila, he returned to his old base in Japan and there gave a lecture on some of his ideas, later to become his famous book, The Three Principles of the People. This lecture was so successful and so talked about that the Manchu government in Peking heard of it and insisted that Japan banish the rebel from their shores. This meant that Sun had now to find a new base.
"He left the Japanese headquarters and its newpaper, The Peoples’ [sic] Paper, in the hands of some of his young men. Taking two of his best men with him, he went to Annam in Indo-China and set up a new base in Hanoi. He gave up now the hope of help from Japan. Instead he sought the French, who, he felt, understood well the necessity for a revolution, because, like the Americans, they had had one of their own. He was the more hopeful, because when he was in Shanghai on his way to Annam, and aboard the ship which lay in the [p. 102] harbor at Woosung, a French general had called on him and offered help from France. He was glad to accept, and eight retired French army officers were actually placed in different parts of Central South China. They were to work with the Chinese revolutionists secretly and to bribe or influence the officers of the local provincial armies to desert and come over to Sun Yat-sen.
"These efforts were so succcessful that very soon, too soon, alas, the revolutionaries held a large meeting in Wuchang, a midway city on the Yangtse River. In the audience was a general of the Imperial Army in disguise, who had been told of the meeting. Of course he reported all he heard to the Viceroy of the Province, who arrested and beheaded the Chinese leaders. The government sent a foreign spy to become friends with the old French officer in charge, who, trusting him, told him of the revolutionary plans. Upon this the [p. 103] Manchu government sent protests to the French government in Paris, but received no reply.
"Meanwhile Sun Yat-sen, always dauntless, was in Annam organizing men and buying munitions again from Japan. He was helped by French officers, and this time he laid his plans very carefully indeed, taking more than a year to perfect them. Guns and ammunition were to be sent from the group in Japan. His friend, Huang Hsing, was the vice-president of the whole movement. He had taken a military course in Japan and came to help organize an army. The revolutionary soldiers were stimulated and inspired until their morale was so high that they called themselves Dare to Die.
"Sun Yat-sen watched for his chance at a fourth try. It came soon. Just over the French border in China a rebellion against high taxes broke out, and the Manchu government sent two generals and some thousands of soldiers to quell it. Sun Yat-sen [p. 104] sent some of his men across to talk with the generals and soldiers and persuade them to help in the revolution. He sent other men to persuade the peasants and country people to help when the moment came for attack.
"His hopes were high. He believed that now his troops could march swiftly enough, gathering discontented soldiers and people aa they went, so that in a short time half of China would be in open revolt against the Manchus. Alas, he seemed doomed to failure by his own men! The guns and ammunition from Japan did not arrive in time at the proper place, and therefore the generals and soldiers sent by the Manchus prudently did not revolt. Wun’s men, left along, had to retreat. Sun, in despair, orgainized a second invasion, which he led himself, but the Imperial soldiers defeated him and he had to retreat again. This time the Manchu government insisted that the French government banish Sun Yat-sen. Again he had to change his [p. 105] base, leaving only subordinates to hold what they could. Sun went to Singapore.
". . .
[p. 106] ". . . From there two attacks were organized in an effort to capture the great and rich city of Canton. Both failed, and in the last attempt Sun Yat-sen lost seventy-two of his finest and most devoted young men.
"Ten failures, and the last one so costly! He had [p. 108] to go to America again and find money for the next trial. But he needed more than money. He needed advice, and where would he get that?
"One night after a revolutionary meeting in Chinatown in a great American city, a little hunchback with a long pale face came up to him.
“I should like to throw in my lot with you,” he said. “”I should like to help you. I believe your propaganda will succeed.”
“”Thank you,” Sun Yat-sen replied. He was not impressed with the small tragic figure, and later he asked a friend who the little hunchback was.
“That is Gerneral Homer Lea,” the man replied. “”He is perhaps the most brilliant military genius now alive. He is a master of modern warfare and the author of a first-rate book.”
“He has offered to throw in his lot with me!” Sun Yat-sen exclaimed.
“The next day he went early to call upon Homer Lea. The more he talked with the strange little man the more impressed he was.
[p. 109] "“When I am President of China,” he declared, “I will make you my chief military adviser.”
"“Do not wait until you are President of China,” Homer Lea replied. “You may want me before then.”
"It was new inspiration for Sun Yat-sen, and he needed it. He was living in a cheap hotel in a bare and wretched litte room. He had a few clothes, a few books and nothing else. A price of five hundred thousand dollars was on his head, but he had no guards to protect him as he came and went. Yet he was not discouraged. When an American friend told him that he should not be alone, lest he be killed, he replied tranquilly:
"“”If they had killed me some years ago. it would have been a pity for the cause. I was indispensable then. Now my life does not matter. Our organization is complete. There are plenty of Chinese to take my place. It does not matter now if they kill me.””
[p. 110] 8 The Outbreak
"Ten failures, Sun Yat-sen had counted, and there must have been many lonely nights when he pondered over them . . . What he did not know was that thse failures, made in different parts of his country by young Chinese from all over the world, were not failures. They had touched the hearts of many Chinese people, lighting hope everywhere for a government of their own. The could take [p. 111] their beloved country back again from the foreign Manchu rulers, they could build roads . . . The old sleeping China, the giant of four thousand years, must wake . . . [p. 112] . . .
"Even the old Empress Dowager knew it in Peking, and unwillingly she allowed her ministers to make more reforms. She did not really change, however, and of the three men she declared she would never forgive Sun Yat-sen was one . . . 1908 . . .
. . . [p. 113]
"All this was happening while Sun Yat-sen was traveling in America, trying to collect more money from the Chinese there, and talking with Homer Lea about building an army. Homer Lea told him that he must not try to fight with untrained men. He coud not succeed and the men would be sacrificed. Sun must, Homer Lea said, build a real military academy, for the training of soldiers of the revolutionary army. It sounded impossible. Where would Sun Yat-sen get money enough to build a military academy to train soldiers? Nevertheless he listened to the little American, learning all that he could of miltary science. remembering it for the future.
"One day in the fall of 1911 while he was traveling in a western state, Sun received a cablegram from Hankow. He could not read it because it was in code. He had packed his code book in his trunk and sent it ahead to Denver, Colorado, where he planned to stay for a few day's . . [p. 114] . . . he read the telegram. It said, “We Wuching revolutionists are ready to attack. Send money.”
". . . Morning came and he rose early as usual. He left his cheap hotel room . . . he bought a newspaper . . . the headlines Wuchang Occupied by Revolutionists! [p.116] . . . Ought he go back? He decided to go to New York, where there were the most Chinese . . . to help. He bought a ticket for a day coach to the East, and when the train stopped in St. Louis . . . he bought another newspaper . . . The revolutionists . . . were setting up a republican form of government, based on the American pattern, and Sun Yat-sen was to be the first President!
". . .
[p. 117] ". . .
". . .
"How could he help those brave young men? [the revolutionists of Wuchang] Besides money they needed friends. Most of all, they needed recognition from other governments . . . [p. 118] . . . an alliance had been made between the British government and the Japanese government. England was much more powerful than Japan. [p. 119] If he could win the approval of the British government. . . His old friends, Dr. and Mrs. Cantlie, . . .
[p. 119] "Mrs. Cantlie had received a coded telegram from the new Wuchang government asking Sun Yat-sen to be the President of the new Chinese Republic.
"But he [did] not go home at once. He [had to ] make sure that the British government would be friendly to his new government.
"A group of bankers from Western nations, called the Consortium, had for some years been making loans to the Manchu government to help build railways in China. Very few railroads were built, but now another loan was about to be made. Sun Yat-sen called upon the Consortium and boldly asked that the loan be made instead to the new government of the Republic of China. The Consortium replied that if amd when other governments recognized the new government, they would so make the loan.
". . . He asked tha he be allowed to enter freely the British colonial ports of Singapore and Hongkong. That permission was given . . .
". . . Homer Lea, who had been very ill, was in Europe for his health. Now he was better. He told Yat-sen that he wanted to go to China as his military adviser and help him to organize a good army. Sun Yat-sen agreed, and after a friendly meeting with Clemenceau in Paris, he took ship at Marseilles. On the ship he found Homer Lea, bright with enthusiasm and rich with plans. The little hunchback was a born lover of publicity and he determined to keep Sun Yat-sen before the world. Of course he himself would be there, too, close at Sun’s side.
Together then the two friends crossed the sea. At Singapore a mighty crowd waited for Sun on the dock and a wealthy Chinese took him off to spend the night at his home. But Sun Yat-sen did [p. 122] not delay his journey. He was dreaming of his own country.
". . .
[p.128] "Troubles began to cluster again about Sun Yat-sen like crows in a corn field. First of all, Homer Lea died before he could help to make an army. Then Yuan Shih-kai, the Chinese Premier of the Manchu Emperor, still in Peking, and in control of the North, would not accept the Republic in the south uner Sun Yat-sen . .
[Sun Yat-sen resigned his Presidency a few weeks later.]
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