Читать книгу China's Revolution, 1911-1912: A Historical and Political Record of the Civil War онлайн

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To my companion (representing the New York Herald) and myself the Revolutionists were most courteous. Whilst we preferred to stand, they bade us to be seated, a couple leading us to a point on the platform where was seated the Commander-in-Chief of the Field Forces, a portly fellow, full and hearty, typically Chinese, delighted to see us. Down below were the field-guns and the dark-clad troops, battered railway trucks, officers' horses grazing by the line, men rushing hither and thither, all enthusiastic upon getting something done and wasting no time. But here was the Commander-in-Chief—the Buller of the campaign—calm, quiet, courteous, extending to me with the simplicity of a boy the usual Chinese felicities. He was seated in his official war-chair, had upon him all the paraphernalia of war, and waited as he talked with me for his scouts to return before he could make up his mind what the day's programme was to be.

Allow us to take his photograph?—certainly he would, and stood up and put on a straight face purposely for the occasion, waving back a scout who hurriedly came in whilst I snapped a picture. Then he attended to the scouting parties, taking careful notes of all that they told him. I wished to exchange cards—delighted, he would do it in a moment, and wrote his full name on the back. He laughed over the simplest incident, was exceedingly solicitous on my behalf, assured me that they would win; when he spoke of battle his face hardened, his keen eyes sparkled, full of fire. His aide-de-camp, quite a youngster, dressed in a foreign tweed suit—queueless, of course—and bearing no traces whatever that he was an army official, gave us all the news he could. He waved his hands to the captured railroad trucks, containing the captured supplies, and asked us blandly if we could solve the problem of living without food—because he couldn't, and he didn't suppose that the Loyalists could. "And they won't," he vociferated. But that was in the early days of the war. During those days it was interesting to any fair-minded foreigner to watch the intensity of feeling displayed by the Revolutionary Army as opposed to the downhearted attitude of the small Imperial force which took the field.