Lion and Dragon in Northern China

Less than a dozen years have passed since the guns of British warships first saluted the flag of their country at the Chinese port of Weihaiwei, yet it is nearly a century since the white ensign was seen there for the first time. In the summer of 1816 His Britannic Majesty's frigate Alceste, accompanied by the sloop Lyra, bound for the still mysterious and unsurveyed coasts of Korea and the Luchu Islands, sailed eastwards from the mouth of the Pei-ho along the northern coast of the province of Shantung, and on the 27th August of that year cast anchor in the harbour of "Oie-hai-oie." Had the gallant officers of the Alceste and Lyra been inspired with knowledge of future political developments, they would doubtless have handed down to us an interesting account of the place and its inhabitants. All we learn from Captain Basil Hall's delightful chronicle of the voyage of the two ships consists of a few details—in the truest sense ephemeral—as to wind and weather, and a statement that the rocks of the mainland consist of "yellowish felspar, white quartz, and black mica." The rest is silence.

From that time until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 the British public heard little or nothing of Weihaiwei. After the fall of Port Arthur, during that war, it was China's only remaining naval base. The struggle that ensued in January 1895, when, with vastly superior force, the Japanese attacked it by land and sea, forms one of the few episodes of that war upon which the Chinese can look back without overwhelming shame. Victory, however, went to those who had the strongest battalions and the stoutest hearts. The three-weeks siege ended in the suicide of the brave Chinese Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Ting, and in the loss to China of her last coast-fortress and the whole of her fleet. Finally, as a result of the seizure of Port Arthur by Russia and a subsequent three-cornered agreement between Japan, China and England, Weihaiwei was leased to Great Britain under the terms of a Convention signed at Peking in July 1898.

The British robe of empire is a very splendid and wonderfully variegated garment. It bears the gorgeous scarlets and purples of the Indies, it shimmers with the diamonds of Africa, it is lustrous with the whiteness of our Lady of Snows, it is scented with the spices of Ceylon, it is decked with the pearls and soft fleeces of Australia. But there is also—pinned to the edge of this magnificent robe—a little drab-coloured ribbon that is in constant danger of being dragged in the mud or trodden underfoot, and is frequently the object of disrespectful gibes. This is Weihaiwei.

Whether the imperial robe would not look more imposing without this nondescript appendage is a question which may be left to the student of political fashion-plates: it will concern us hardly at all in the pages of this book. An English newspaper published in China has dubbed Weihaiwei the Cinderella of the British Empire, and speculates vaguely as to where her Fairy Prince is to come from. Alas, the Fairy Godmother must first do her share in making poor Cinderella beautiful and presentable before any Fairy Prince can be expected to find in her the lady of his dreams: and the Godmother has certainly not yet made her appearance, unless, indeed, the British Colonial Office is presumptuous enough to put forward a claim (totally unjustifiable) to that position. By no means do I, in the absence of the Fairy Prince, propose to ride knight-like into the lists of political controversy wearing the gage of so forlorn a damsel-in-distress as Weihaiwei. Let me explain, dropping metaphor, that the following pages will contain but slender contribution to the vexed questions of the strategic importance of the port or of its potential value as a depôt of commerce. Are not such things set down in the books of the official scribes? Nor will they constitute a guide-book that might help exiled Europeans to decide upon the merits of Weihaiwei as a resort for white-cheeked children from Shanghai and Hongkong, or as affording a dumping-ground for brass-bands and bathing-machines. On these matters, too, information is not lacking. As for the position of Weihaiwei on the playground of international politics, it may be that Foreign Ministers have not yet ceased to regard it as an interesting toy to be played with when sterner excitements are lacking. But it will be the aim of these pages to avoid as far as possible any incursion into the realm of politics: for it is not with Weihaiwei as a diplomatic shuttlecock that they profess to deal, but with Weihaiwei as the ancestral home of many thousands of Chinese peasants, who present a stolid and almost changeless front to all the storms and fluctuations of politics and war.