Twentieth Century Chronicle

Page 229

However, their speculations did not prevent Germany from cooperating with Wuhan, nor did they prevent Yuan Shikai from following Jordan's advice to resolve the Wuhan issue by force. The Wuhan Workers' Party was not like Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang. Although Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang now controlled Guangdong, the Tongmenghui (Revolutionary Alliance) under his leadership was in complete disarray, and the Guangdong army was even more chaotic. Not only was there no unified command, but the various armies also had different allegiances—some supported the Tongmenghui, some supported local gentry, and some aligned themselves with forces from other provinces.

If Wuhan were as chaotic as Guangdong, Yuan Shikai could have borrowed a large sum of money from the diplomatic corps and confronted Wuhan directly, possibly even resorting to force. However, Wuhan was now backed by Germany and was developing well. Yuan Shikai had no confidence that he could defeat Wuhan militarily, or even financially. Therefore, he only gave perfunctory advice to Jordan and had no real intention of implementing it.

Chapter 731

Author: Fuchun Mountain Residence Number: 5011 Comments: 0 Update Date: 2023-09-09 12:25:19

However, Yuan Shikai soon realized that peaceful coexistence with Wuhan was impossible. In April 1909, the railway from Luoyang to Xi'an opened, which was good news for the people of Shaanxi, but it disrupted the power structure in the Northwest.

Previously, Wuhan had not competed with Beiyang for control of the Northwest, but Beiyang had not completely seized control of the Northwest either. This was because the local Manchu and other local forces were dissatisfied with Beiyang's attempt to completely control the Northwest before Wuhan took action to seize control of the Northwest. Therefore, they banded together to oppose Yang Shixiang, the highest military and political official of Beiyang stationed in the Northwest.

Although Yang Shixiang was Yuan Shikai's most important supporter, his actual status within the Beiyang clique was much higher than others. This was because he was promoted by Li Hongzhang and was also Li Hongzhang's assistant to Yuan Shikai in training troops at Xiaozhan. He was the one who created the Beiyang logistics system. Compared to his younger brother Yang Shiqi, Yang Shixiang did not rely on Yuan Shikai to achieve his current status.

Therefore, Yang Shixiang was perfectly capable of commanding the Beiyang Army, which was a major factor in Yuan Shikai sending him to the Northwest. Others either couldn't command the Beiyang Army or might break away after acquiring territory. However, as a shareholder of the Beiyang Group, Yang Shixiang was clearly not willing to sacrifice the greater good for a smaller gain.

Yang Shixiang himself was also outstanding in practical government affairs. He replaced Yuan Shikai as the governor of Shandong, effectively maintaining the Beiyang government's control over the region, and was much more well-regarded by the locals than Yuan Shikai. With such a powerful and capable official in charge of the Northwest, suppressing local forces in the region was not particularly difficult.

However, when Yang Shixiang entered the Northwest, it was at a time when the Manchus were losing power. This caused local forces to try to observe the situation and were unwilling to easily place their bets on the Beiyang Army. The Manchu forces in the Northwest, on the other hand, regarded the Northwest as their escape route and were unwilling to relinquish power to Yang Shixiang. Therefore, they supported these local forces in their rebellion against Yang Shixiang.

Although the situation in the Northwest stabilized somewhat after Russia declared war on China and the Wuhan army went north to resist Russia, this was partly because opposing the central government during the war would obviously lose the moral high ground, and partly because Wuhan's policies were much more radical than those of the Beiyang government. As a result, the local forces in the Northwest and the Manchu forces quieted down.

However, beneath the calm surface, the struggles behind the scenes never ceased, because local powers could not allow Yang Shixiang to extend his reach into grassroots governance. Even during the Qing Dynasty, except for Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai were all governed by local authorities. After all, these areas were home to many ethnic groups, and the central government simply did not have the energy to mediate conflicts among the various ethnic groups. It could only let them govern themselves, with the government only responsible for conflicts between major ethnic groups.

This method of governance meant that the central government's management of the Northwest region was rough and required a large amount of money and grain to be transferred from the interior to support the army and to buy off local forces. However, after losing the central government's unified finances, the Beiyang Army stationed in the Northwest could not rely entirely on the transfer of money and grain from the interior, and attempted to rebuild the local financial system to support itself with local money and grain.

This practice by the Beiyang government naturally angered local forces and the Manchus in the Northwest. After all, this portion of local taxes and levies was traditionally meant to support them. If the Beiyang government took these taxes and levies under the banner of the central government, what would they eat? The Northwest is not the interior; the land here is barren. Except for areas with water sources, there can be some harvest. Those arid areas are lucky if they can even feed their own farmers. So, trying to increase taxes would only force the local people to rise up in rebellion.

Therefore, before Wuhan's forces made a major incursion into the Northwest, the Beiyang clique and local powers were already locked in fierce conflict. The opening of the Luoyang-Xi'an railway in April 2009 effectively marked Wuhan's formal entry into the Northwest. The railway's effects were evident: before its completion, the Manchus held considerable power in Xi'an; after its opening, Wuhan's officials ordered the Manchus to dismantle the city walls and submit population data.

The Manchu city occupied more than a quarter of the area of ​​Xi'an city and had a population of nearly a quarter of the city's population. In addition to the eight or nine thousand Manchu and Mongol troops in the Manchu city, there were also five or six thousand Green Standard Army soldiers in the Han city. Although Xi'an eventually accepted the abdication edict of the Qing emperor, the Manchus still controlled the city's armed forces.

This is also why Sheng Yun, the former Governor-General of Shaanxi and Gansu, stayed in Xi'an after being dismissed from his post. He believed that the Manchus could still rely on Xi'an to fight against the Beiyang and Wuhan armies, thus stabilizing the situation in the Northwest. However, he did not expect that the Han and Hui people in the Northwest would abandon the Qing Dynasty and immediately declare their support for the Republic of China after the Qing Emperor abdicated. As a result, Xi'an became an isolated city. Under strict orders from Beijing, Sheng Yun had no choice but to return to Beijing and abandon his idea of ​​confronting the two major military groups, Beiyang and Wuhan.

Even after Sheng Yun left, the Manchus in Xi'an were unwilling to submit to Yang Shixiang, the highest military and political official sent by the Beiyang government to the Northwest. Faced with the resistance of the Manchus, Yang Shixiang, who once wanted to move the political center of the Northwest to Xi'an, had to give up the idea.

When the country was unified, the Governor-General of Shaanxi and Gansu was stationed in Lanzhou to maintain public order in the Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai regions and to ensure the security of the Hexi Corridor, which connects with Xinjiang. However, in this great struggle between the North and the South, it was certainly more important for the Beiyang government to control Xi'an than Lanzhou.

However, because the Manchus did not accept the Beiyang Army's entry into Xi'an, and Wuhan also firmly disagreed with transferring the Northwest military and political center to Xi'an, stating that if the Beiyang Army refused to control Lanzhou, then Wuhan would no longer accept the situation of the Beiyang Army controlling the Northwest, the Beiyang Army was forced to continue to move westward to Lanzhou.

After the Beiyang Army left Xi'an, the city immediately returned to its old ways. Although some Han gentry gained some power in managing civil affairs, such as road construction and factory opening, political and judicial power remained largely in the hands of Manchus and Han officials pro-Manchu. Xi'an largely ignored the orders issued by Yang Shixiang.

Before the railway reached Xi'an, the city remained largely unchanged from the Qing Dynasty, with the Manchus still in control. However, after the railway was completed, Wuhan unceremoniously demanded that the Manchus demolish the city walls and submit population data, clearly indicating that they would not allow the Manchus to continue controlling the city.

Unlike the Han Chinese in Xi'an who remained indifferent when the Beiyang Army entered Shaanxi, the Beiyang Army did not promote revolution. Although their discipline was better than that of ordinary Qing troops, their behavior was not much different from that of ordinary Qing troops. Apart from not looting or raping, conscription and labor services were still traditional practices. Therefore, in the eyes of these Xi'an citizens, the Beiyang Army and the Manchu soldiers were actually on par. However, at least the Manchu soldiers were fed by the people of Xi'an, while the newly arrived Beiyang Army was of unknown character. Therefore, they chose neutrality when conflicts arose between the Manchus and the Beiyang Army.

Although Wuhan had not previously sent troops into Shaanxi, its victories in the war against Russia, its land reforms in the interior, and its denunciation of the imperial system made it very clear to the citizens of Xi'an that the Wuhan army was revolutionary and wanted to overthrow the privileges of the Manchus. Therefore, when the Wuhan army entered Xi'an by train, it was immediately welcomed by the citizens of Xi'an.

The number of troops from Wuhan entering Xi'an was not large. In principle, this army was there to protect railway operations, not to be stationed in Shaanxi. However, after the opening of the railway from Luoyang to Xi'an, the journey between the two cities was shortened from seven days to 12 hours, and a large amount of equipment could be carried. The Manchu generals in Xi'an naturally realized what this meant, and their previous attempt to use the terrain to resist Han armed forces from entering Shaanxi was no longer feasible.

Their resistance would only give Wuhan the opportunity to send troops to Xi'an, leading to a repeat of the tragedies suffered by the Manchus in Jingzhou and Wuchang. After the Manchu cities in Xinjiang and the south were cleared out one by one, the Manchus in Xi'an were no longer as agitated as they had been when they first heard about the fate of the southern Manchus. The vast disparity in strength and the legalization of the treatment of Manchu cities after the establishment of the National Assembly led most of the Manchus in Xi'an to advocate obedience to orders and believe that the laws promulgated by the National Assembly could resolve the issues between the Manchus and the Han.

General Wenrui of Xi'an was transferred from Qingzhou, Shandong. After the Xin Chou Incident, Wenrui was inclined to reform, believing that the old Eight Banners system could no longer be maintained. Therefore, when he was in Qingzhou, he followed the example of the Han people to open factories and establish schools. When he was transferred to Xi'an, he did the same. However, Xi'an had been a closed place for a long time, and the Manchus in Xi'an were much more conservative than the Manchus stationed in Shandong. Therefore, the results were far less than those of the Manchu city in Qingzhou.

When the railway reached Xi'an, Wenrui knew that the city could not be saved. After receiving the request from the representatives of Wuhan and discussing it with his colleagues, he decided to obey Wuhan's order.

Wen Rui said this to some conservative diehards: "Once the railway is completed, it will be possible to travel directly from Hankou to Xi'an. Even the Russians are no match for Wuhan. How can we, with our thousands of untrained old and weak, withstand a blow from Wuhan?"

"I still have some lingering affection for the Beiyang clique, so we can argue with them without fear of them turning against us. However, I harbor deep hatred for Wuhan. If we refuse, Wuhan probably won't negotiate with us; instead, they'll directly declare us a rebel, and then we'll be cut off from all escape routes."

Wenrui's judgment was correct. Cai E had already led his troops into Luoyang, and if a rebellion broke out in Xi'an, he was prepared to enter Shaanxi to quell it, thus avoiding interference from Beijing. As for Wuhan, the reason it hadn't previously contested the Northwest with the Beiyang Army was because the Central Plains were still unstable, and transportation between the Central Plains and the Northwest was inconvenient; dividing its forces would obviously weaken its own strength.

However, after the Luoyang and Xi'an railways opened, the situation changed. At that time, the Datong-Puzhou railway and the Chengdu-Hanzhong railway were under construction in Shanxi Province. This meant that Shaanxi had become a hub connecting the southwest and Mongolia. Naturally, Wuhan wanted to bring Shaanxi under its control.

Once the railway networks of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan are connected, the Wuhan-controlled area will become a unified whole, no longer as fragmented as before. According to Comrade Lin Feng's vision for China's industrialization, industrialization is the reintegration of regional resources; therefore, without establishing a rapid transportation network, industrialization cannot be promoted.

The establishment of the transportation network connecting Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan provinces doesn't just give Wuhan four more provinces' worth of territory; it gives Wuhan an additional economic hinterland. In the future, Wuhan will no longer be just one economic and industrial center. Relying solely on Wuhan's industrial center, the Workers' Party already possesses the material foundation to suppress various domestic forces. With a few more such industrial cities, other forces will have absolutely no chance to challenge Wuhan.

Comrade Lin Feng's decision to build the railway to Xi'an first, rather than to seize control of Shaanxi, has now proven to be the right move. As soon as the railway reached Xi'an, the people of Shaanxi completely sided with Wuhan, making the use of force unnecessary.

The reason for this situation is that Shaanxi today is not the Shaanxi of the Tang Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, Shaanxi was a true land of abundance, with the Qin River Valley (known as the "Three Hundred Li Qin River Valley") being enough to support its people. However, by the late Qing Dynasty, Shaanxi was almost a barren land plagued by disasters. Excessive development had reduced the vegetation in Shaanxi to an extremely sparse level. Not only was it difficult for the loess plateaus to retain water, but even the Guanzhong Plain, known as the "Three Hundred Li Qin River Valley," experienced frequent droughts.

Shaanxi is suitable for growing cotton, and the quality of cotton is the best in China. However, Shaanxi cannot produce enough cotton cloth for its own use and has to import it from other places. Before the railway was built, 100 catties of wheat in Gansu was worth 1,000 copper coins, but 1 catty of cotton cloth was worth 700 or 800 copper coins. Even in a year with good weather, a farmer could not afford to buy a cotton coat for each member of his family.

Therefore, most of Shaanxi's land was converted to opium cultivation in the late Qing Dynasty. Compared to the high price of opium, the exorbitant transportation costs were insignificant, and no matter how strictly the government prohibited it, it was difficult to stop farmers from planting it. So when the railway opened, the people of Shaanxi immediately favored Wuhan, not only because Wuhan had strong economic power, but more importantly because Wuhan could extend the railway into Shaanxi, which would solve Shaanxi's disaster and livelihood problems.

Yuan Shikai was astonished to discover that Wuhan, by simply building the railway from Luoyang to Xi'an, had eroded a large swathe of the Northwest region controlled by the Beiyang government—the most fertile part of the Northwest. So what was the Beiyang government doing in Lanzhou? With Wuhan gaining complete control of Shaanxi, it was clear that Gansu and Ningxia would also fall behind.

Therefore, upon receiving Yang Shixiang's telegram, Yuan Shikai immediately lodged a protest with Wuhan, demanding that Wuhan withdraw its troops from Shaanxi and refrain from interfering in Shaanxi's civil and military affairs. However, Wuhan played coy with the Beiyang government, with Qin Lishan, representing the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee, replying to the State Council that Wuhan had not sent troops to Shaanxi; those were railway police forces, an armed force established to maintain railway security.

In his telegram, Qin Lishan further stated that the demolition of Manchu cities and the requirement for Manchus to submit population data were resolutions issued by the National Assembly to Manchu cities in various regions. The Beiyang government, as the actual controller of the Northwest region, had consistently failed to implement the National Assembly's orders, and now it was making unwarranted accusations against those who were implementing the National Assembly's resolutions. This was clearly an overreach by the government, not their problem.

Qin Lishan's telegram, after much circling, essentially conveyed one message: it was impossible for the people of Wuhan to evacuate Shaanxi; the people of Shaanxi had the right to development, and the State Council should not obstruct this. Before Yuan Shikai could even refute Wuhan's telegram, bad news arrived: Yang Shixiang had died suddenly, further jeopardizing the Beiyang government's control over the Northwest.

On the one hand, Yuan Shikai needed to select a suitable person from within the Beiyang government to succeed Yang Shixiang in Lanzhou; on the other hand, he also had to contend with Wuhan for control of Shaanxi. This situation was actually very detrimental to him. This was because the Beiyang government and Wuhan had reached a tacit understanding rather than a written agreement. Yang Shixiang was nominated by the State Council and approved by the National Assembly as the highest military and political official in the Northwest, not an internal transfer from the Beiyang government.

This means that if Yuan Shikai and Wuhan continue to fight for control of Shaanxi, they may face obstruction from Wuhan regarding the selection of a leader for the Northwest. If the State Council's nomination cannot be approved by the National Assembly, then Yuan Shikai's appointment will be invalid. It is estimated that no one in the Beiyang government would take such a big risk to accept the appointment, because if Wuhan considers it an illegal appointment, war may break out in the Northwest, and no one would think that the Beiyang government could defeat the Wuhan army in the Northwest.

As a result, internal conflicts in China intensified due to the control of Shaanxi and the Northwest. For a time, public opinion in China focused on the conflict between Wuhan and the Beiyang government, and attention to cooperation between China and Japan was greatly reduced.

In June 09, two incidents occurred in North Korea, causing tensions to rise again in Sino-Japanese relations. The first incident was the convening of the Second International Peace Conference. Both peace conferences were convened by the Russian Empire. However, at the first peace conference, the Russians had not yet started a war in the Far East, so European countries still gave the Russians considerable face.

However, after the first peace conference, Russia provoked a war in the Far East, which made the international peace conference a laughing stock. Therefore, when Russia proposed to convene another international peace conference after the Far East war ended, few in Europe were willing to listen to the Russians. However, the Bosnian crisis led Britain and France to believe that they were not yet fully prepared for war at home, and that maintaining peace in Europe was in their own interest. This led them to change their attitude and support the second international peace conference convened by Russia.

The peace conference was held in The Hague, Netherlands. Although it was nominally a peace conference, it was essentially a coordination between major powers. It was held in June 09. Due to the tense situation in Europe, a large number of small countries participated in the conference, with 17 more representatives than the first conference.

Ten days after the conference began, three North Koreans appeared at the venue, claiming to be representatives of North Korea and requesting to speak at the conference to denounce Japan's oppression of Korea. Because other countries recognized the legitimacy of the Japan-South Korea protection agreement, North Korea lacked independent diplomatic rights, and therefore the qualifications of the three North Korean representatives were not recognized. However, the British, needing to undermine Japan-China cooperation, tacitly approved the proposal from other countries to support the North Korean representatives speaking at the conference. This led to the Hague Secret Envoy Incident, dealing a severe blow to Japanese diplomacy.

Chapter 732

Author: Fuchun Mountain Residence Number: 4732 Comments: 0 Update Date: 2023-09-10 12:43:52

The Japanese government was in a panic regarding the Hague secret mission incident. Yamamoto Gonnohyōe felt he had become a scapegoat because he had no say in Korean affairs. Ito Hirobumi had not yet officially stepped down as the Governor-General of Korea, and the Korean garrison was under the control of the army. Whether as the Prime Minister or the Admiral, Yamamoto could not interfere in Korean affairs.

What displeased Yamamoto the most was that, in order to succeed Ito as Governor-General of Korea, the army had imposed a news blackout on the Korean Peninsula to the cabinet. As a result, the cabinet was completely unaware of the thoughts and feelings of the Korean king and the people. Like the general public, they could only learn about what was happening in Korea from the newspapers. Under such circumstances, it was clearly unacceptable for Yamamoto to bear the negative international impact of the Hague secret envoy incident.

At the expanded cabinet meeting, which is to invite elders to participate in the decision-making on important matters, the scale of such meetings is almost equivalent to that of the Imperial Council. However, the Imperial Council is a process used by elders to check and balance the cabinet. In other words, if a decision is made at the expanded cabinet meeting that is in line with the elders' wishes, the elders will not request to convene the Imperial Council to overturn it. After all, the cabinet has one vote at the Imperial Council, while the elders have a numerical advantage.

At this meeting, aside from the Navy's attempt to shift blame to the Army, the other parties unusually sided with the Army, believing that the Army should not be held responsible and that the government should resolve the issue. Everyone tacitly refrained from pursuing the responsibility of Ito Hirobumi, the Governor-General of Korea, because neither the Army nor the Navy wanted him to be on the opposing side.

However, the desire to protect interests on the Korean Peninsula ultimately outweighed the maintenance of Japan's international image. Therefore, the navy attempted to ease tensions between the Japanese and Korean people by adjusting its policy toward Korea, but this was ultimately overwhelmed by the various parties' advocacy of covering up the contradictions.

After discussing with Foreign Minister Nobuaki Makino, Hirobumi Ito instructed the Japanese Minister to the Netherlands and representative of the World Peace Conference, Kaoru Tsuzuki, to question the identity of the secret envoy and request the World Peace Conference to send a telegram to Seoul to verify the identity of the secret envoy. Under Hirobumi Ito's arrangement, Yi Wan-yong replied on behalf of the Korean Emperor in the name of the Korean Empire government, denying that a secret envoy had been sent.

Meanwhile, the Japanese ambassador to Britain requested assistance from the British government in this matter. Britain's aim was merely to put pressure on Japan and create conflict between Japan and China, not to help Korea achieve independence. The secret envoy incident had already sown seeds at the World Peace Conference, where Chinese delegates expressed sympathy for the Korean envoy and supported his speech at the conference. The British believed they had achieved their objective and therefore ceased further provoking Japan.

The so-called World Peace Conference was essentially a diplomatic strategy implemented by Britain, France, and Russia to maintain the current peace in Europe. In fact, the main topics of the conference were discussed in closed-door meetings by Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Even the Americans were not able to participate in the discussion of these core issues. As for peace issues outside Europe, they were simply raised for discussion, but no substantive decisions were made.

Therefore, the Joseon king's attempt to use the International Peace Conference to restrain Japan's annexation of Korea was nothing but an unrealistic delusion. Aside from being used by the British to damage Japan's international image, it did not secure any rights for Korea. After the British abandoned the Koreans, although the representatives of the smaller nations at the conference sympathized with the Koreans' plight, they could not prevent the conference from expelling the Korean envoys.

The Chinese representative to the International Peace Conference was Song Jiaoren. Regarding this peace conference, two opposing opinions emerged within China. One was advocated by the bourgeois revolutionaries, including Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, and Song Jiaoren, who believed that this conference could usher in a new era and that China should actively participate. The other opinion was that the world was still a dog-eat-dog world, and this peace conference would not help world peace, especially since Russia, which convened the peace conference, launched an invasion of China a year later.

Of course, although they believed the World Peace Conference was meaningless, the starting points of Wuhan and Beiyang were different. Beiyang's starting point was to retain the Qing government's view on the first World Peace Conference and the indifference of other countries after Japan's forced annexation of the Korean Peninsula after the East Asian War. Therefore, Beiyang lost most of its confidence in the great powers' concept of protecting world peace.

Wuhan, however, based its conclusion on the view that peace between nations under capitalist private ownership cannot be guaranteed, thus concluding that the International Peace Workers' Union was nothing more than a trick used by imperialism to deceive people around the world.

Because of these two differing opinions, China was not enthusiastic about participating in the International Peace Conference, and Song Jiaoren ultimately attended as its representative. However, on the issue of the Korean envoy, Song Jiaoren offered sympathetic support, believing that after Russia's withdrawal from the Far East, Sino-Japanese relations would inevitably descend into fierce confrontation over Korea and Manchuria. Therefore, maintaining Korea's independence could curb Japan's ambitions in Manchuria.

The Wuhan side's insistence on the Korean independence stance advocated by the Treaty of Shimonoseki was also recognized by Song Jiaoren. Therefore, when the Korean envoy appeared outside the meeting venue, Song Jiaoren disregarded the telegram from the Beiyang government and abandoned his neutral stance, choosing to support the Korean envoy's participation in the meeting.

However, Song Jiaoren soon discovered that the justice he had hoped for had not triumphed over power. Although Japan was a newly emerging power with colored people, it was still a member of the great powers. On the issue of the colonized peoples, the European powers, which had always been racially discriminatory, once again sided with Japan, thus depriving the representatives of the Korean people of their right to represent Korea.

In Song Jiaoren's view, the identity of the Korean envoy was not important. What the conference should be concerned about was whether the oppression of the Korean people by Japan as described by the Korean envoy was true. Before the major powers expressed their opinions, everyone could sympathize with the plight of the Korean people. However, after the major powers expressed their support for Japan, these representatives thought that they were liars and therefore had no right to stand at the conference and speak on behalf of the Korean people. This was obviously against the principles of justice.

After the Korean envoys were expelled from the meeting, Song Jiaoren visited the three envoys in a private capacity. One of them, Li Jun, was so angry that he was bedridden, while the other two envoys were also disheartened and believed that the annexation of Korea by Japan was irreversible.

Seeing the sorrow and anger of the Koreans, Song Jiaoren could only offer words of comfort: "Our country sympathizes with the plight of your people. According to the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the independence of Korea is unshakeable. I will certainly emphasize this point to the National Assembly after I return home. Please tell the Korean people the position of the Chinese people when you return to Korea."

However, the two North Korean envoys had no intention of returning to North Korea, and they lacked trust in China's promises. The younger Li Weizhong asked Song Jiaoren with suspicion: "But hasn't China been advocating for Sino-Japanese reconciliation and the establishment of an Asian alliance on that basis? Can Mr. Song really persuade the Chinese parliament to support North Korea's independent status? In my opinion, this is just wishful thinking on your part and does not represent China's position."

However, the older Lee Sang-seop was closer to China than Lee Wi-jong. Not wanting to embarrass Song Jiaoren, he tried to smooth things over by saying, "The friendship between Korea and China did not begin in a day. During the Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty helped our country resist the Japanese invasion, so we are grateful to China."

Of course, after the Manchus entered the Central Plains, Chinese civilization declined, which is why Europeans were able to dominate East Asia. Therefore, we believe that once China rises again, it will inevitably help Korea regain its independence.

But the question now is, who truly represents China—Wuhan or Beijing? If this question isn't resolved, China won't be able to make its voice heard in East Asian affairs. We have high expectations for China, but we don't believe China is currently turning its attention abroad. Therefore, we don't expect China to step in to defend North Korea's independence. And the only country capable of curbing Japan's ambitions right now is the United States…”

Song Jiaoren found himself unable to answer the North Koreans' views. The current situation in China was just as the North Koreans said: China was better able to protect itself than to speak out. After all, China had not yet truly established a unified central government. According to traditional Chinese history, this meant that China was still in a period of weakness, and all forces would focus their energy on vying for the opportunity to unify, rather than interfering in the political situation of neighboring small countries.

According to the traditional Chinese worldview, once the world was unified, the surrounding vassal states had no choice but to pledge allegiance to the central dynasty. Of course, we are now facing unprecedented changes in three thousand years. The advent of machines has cracked this old worldview. Ultimately, machines have greatly bridged the huge size gap between the surrounding small states and China. The overwhelming national power that existed in the agricultural era no longer exists in East Asia.

As Song Jiaoren pondered the impact of the unprecedented changes in three thousand years on China's worldview, his actions in The Hague had already drawn strong protests from Japan. Makino Nobuaki instructed the Japanese minister to China to protest to the State Council, arguing that the Chinese representative's protection of the Korean envoy at the peace conference was a provocation against Japan's rights on the Korean Peninsula, and raised the issue of Japan's interests in southern Manchuria.

After the East Asian War, Wuhan opposed Japan's so-called special interests in Manchuria and insisted on taking back the South Manchurian Railway and the Kwantung Leased Territory. Faced with Wuhan's uncompromising stance, the peace and mutual assistance agreement reached between the Republic of Chita and China after its establishment, coupled with the rise of the Korean Righteous Army movement on the Korean Peninsula, led the Japanese government to finally make concessions.

However, the Japanese government's concession came at the cost of relinquishing its political interests in Manchuria. Japan had been entangled with China regarding the economic interests of Japanese businesses in Manchuria. Northern Manchuria was relatively better; Japan hadn't controlled the region much during the war. After the agreements reached between Wuhan and the Republic of Chita, the Japanese army had to retreat to Primorsky Krai because it couldn't withstand the military pressure from China and Russia in the Heilongjiang and Songhua River basins, and Japan simply couldn't find a supply area in that region.

However, in the southern Manchuria region, due to its proximity to the Korean Peninsula and ports such as Dalian and Dandong, Japan established a local civil administration system under its control during the war. Although the Beiyang Army later took over southern Manchuria, a large number of the local officials appointed by the Japanese and the local institutions established by them were retained. Together with some of the former Qing Dynasty government offices restored by the Beiyang Army, they constituted the ruling regime in southern Manchuria.

Given the situation in southern Manchuria, it became extremely common for Japanese merchants to seize large amounts of property belonging to former Russians and Chinese. The Beiyang government needed Japanese military assistance, and while Britain verbally supported the Beiyang government, it was unwilling to invest, shifting a large part of the responsibility to its ally, Japan.

Japan itself was not a powerful nation. Every penny it gave to the Beiyang government was intended to be recouped with interest of more than double the principal. Moreover, it would demand interest on loans given today and interest on them tomorrow. This interest would naturally come from the mineral resources and commercial interests of Manchuria.

Therefore, the Beiyang officials boasted shamelessly that they didn't have to repay the money they borrowed from Japan. In reality, the Japanese had already taken back the money they lent them from this economic encroachment. It's just that it wasn't the Beiyang group that repaid the money, but the ordinary people of southern Manchuria.

The resources that Japan actively plundered in Manchuria after the war were mainly timber, iron ore, and coal. However, the Japanese soon discovered that as long as the South Manchurian Railway and the port of Dalian were not in their hands, they could not transport these resources back to Japan at a low cost. Therefore, taking advantage of Song Jiaoren's support for the secret envoy from Korea at the peace conference, Foreign Minister Makino once again proposed to Yuan Shikai the joint development of the South Manchurian Railway and the port of Dalian.

The phrase "once again" refers to the fact that after the Japanese government was forced to abandon its claim that the South Manchurian Railway and the Kwantung Leased Territory were spoils of war, it continued to attempt to gain control of the South Manchurian Railway and the Port of Dalian through commercial cooperation.

Yuan Shikai was also deeply troubled by this situation. With the changes occurring in the Northwest, Japan began to make trouble on the issue of South Manchuria, which made him feel like he was being attacked from both sides.

At an internal meeting of the Beiyang government, Duan Qirui, Wang Yitang, and others advocated cooperation with Japan because South Manchuria was directly threatened by the Japanese army and navy. They felt that if a conflict were to break out, the Beiyang government would not be able to defend South Manchuria. If they fought Japan to the point of mutual destruction, wouldn't that give Wuhan a free ride?

However, Tang Shaoyi, Feng Guozhang and others opposed cooperation with Japan, believing that Japan had great ambitions for South Manchuria. Japan's investment in industry and mining in South Manchuria had already surpassed that of other countries, and it was gradually gaining a dominant position. If Japan were to control the railway and Dalian Port, would South Manchuria belong to China or Japan?

Behind Tang Shaoyi, Feng Guozhang, and others were actually British and American capital. They agreed that Japan could enjoy certain special interests in southern Manchuria, but opposed Japan monopolizing those interests. In particular, the Americans had just reached an agreement with Wuhan on a plan to develop Manchuria. This was a grand plan by American capital to stimulate domestic production through overseas investment and thus emerge from the economic crisis. Of course, the Americans could not allow the Japanese to occupy the passage into Manchuria; otherwise, what would be the point of American capital developing Manchuria?

Amid this delicate situation, a second event detrimental to Japan occurred. In June 09, Japanese military and police launched a crackdown on anti-Japanese elements in the Jiandao area, the supposed stronghold of Korean volunteer soldiers.

Jiandao, originally named Jiajiang, is a sandbar in front of Guangjiyu in Helong County, Yanbian Prefecture, Jilin Province, on the north bank of the Tumen River. It originally belonged to Chinese territory and was permitted to be "leased and cultivated by Koreans." When Japan and Russia were vying for control of the Korean Peninsula, the Japanese did not pay much attention to this issue. However, as Russia suffered setbacks in the Far East, Japan, which gained control of the Korean Peninsula, recorded these disputed areas with China, preparing them as conditions for negotiations with China.

In essence, the Gando issue was that the Yangban (Korean ruling class) occupied all of Korea's land, forcing landless Korean farmers to cross the border to cultivate the land. Since Korean landlords dared not go to the territory of their suzerain state to collect rent, these Korean farmers who crossed the border actually gained some freedom.

For China, due to the Manchu Qing dynasty's implementation of the Willow Palisade policy, large swathes of Manchurian land were left uncultivated. Consequently, the Qing dynasty was unable to react in time to the encroachment on its border territories. Russia repeatedly revised treaties and seized territories along the Sino-Russian border, employing this method of immigration and land reclamation, and then using the reclamation as leverage to demand the return of territory. As a result, the Qing dynasty was ultimately forced to lift the ban on Manchurian immigration.

The Gando issue was not much different from the Sino-Russian border dispute. It was just that Korea, as a vassal state of China and a weak one, dared to invade the territory of its suzerain state, which gave the Manchu officials the desire to resist. If it had been the Russians, the Manchu officials might have just given in.

Previously, neither Japan nor China wanted to cause trouble on the border, so they shelved the Gando issue. China acknowledged that North Korea could send personnel to manage the settlers, but the area was under the jurisdiction of the Chinese military. To ensure no direct conflict occurred between Japan and China, China required its volunteer troops not to attack North Korean ports or the road connecting the North Korean ports to Rajin Port, in order to ensure the export of goods from Jilin. However, this time Japan secretly deployed troops to the border and carried out armed action, violating the agreement between the two sides.

Chapter 733

Author: Fuchun Mountain Residence Number: 5028 Comments: 0 Update Date: 2023-09-11 13:48:09

Unlike the other timeline, the Russians did not withdraw their troops after the signing of the Boxer Protocol. Therefore, the Korean imperialists, who were supported by the Russians, did not provoke the Gando War. After all, in the eyes of the Russians, the entire Manchuria was Russian territory, so why would they instruct their puppets to attack Gando?

However, after Japan and Russia went to war, these Korean imperialists turned to Japan and joined forces with the anti-Russian volunteer army led by Ahn Jung-geun. They crossed the Tumen River. Of course, these Korean soldiers with imperialist ideas did not go to rescue the Chinese. They tried to occupy the Gando region under the pretext of sending troops to help China.

Initially, Ahn Jung-geun's advocacy of Asian alliances was only among a minority in the military. However, after the Japanese army occupied Seoul and forced the Korean government to sign the Japan-Korea Protocol, declaring the Korean Empire a protectorate of Japan, the rank-and-file officers and soldiers of the Korean army, feeling the crisis of national subjugation, immediately abandoned imperialism and began to support Ahn Jung-geun's brotherhood between China and Korea.

Following the signing of the Second Japan-Korea Agreement, which resulted in Japan seizing diplomatic power from the Korean Empire, even the most staunch imperialists in the military, such as Lee Kyung-soon, Seo Sang-mo, and Lee Beom-yoon, turned to nationalism. Ahn Jung-geun's advocacy regarding the Mugando issue between China and North Korea gained widespread support within the Volunteer Army.

The situation in China was different from that in another time and space. Unlike the Qing government's comprehensive conservative strategy, the Qing government regarded peace as the best policy on border issues. As long as neighboring countries did not make sovereignty claims, issues such as grazing, land reclamation, illegal mining, and illegal logging across borders were all left to local officials to handle, and were never elevated to the level of national diplomatic issues.

It is under the guidance of this comprehensive conservative ideology that Russia and South Korea raised territorial disputes after a large amount of unauthorized land reclamation occurred. The Russian logic is that if you say this land belongs to you, then the fact that we have been reclaiming it for so many years without you raising any formal protests, only having local officials drive us away, shows that your government does not consider this to be its territory, and therefore the ownership of the land is naturally in dispute.

Therefore, during the Qing Dynasty, China was always passive in border disputes because the central government did not want to cause trouble, but required local officials to protect the territory from being encroached upon. As a result, border officials were often in trouble. Being tough was not an option, nor was being weak. No one above them was responsible, and they could not solve the problems themselves. After all, the Russians had the support of an entire country to promote their border advance policy, while China relied on local officials to negotiate on their own.

Thus, problems arose everywhere along China's land borders. The other side was constantly pushing its luck, while the Qing government was constantly putting out fires, and when it couldn't manage to do so, it had no choice but to cede territory. After the abdication of the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China took the lead on border issues in Wuhan. Wuhan's stance on border issues was to maintain the offensive momentum in areas with convenient transportation, while adhering to its position in areas with inconvenient transportation, but suppressing conflicts to prevent losses.

Following this line of thinking, Wuhan deployed heavy troops at both ends of the Middle East Railway. Only after the Republic of Chita and China signed a border memorandum did Wuhan begin to ease military tensions on the Sino-Russian border. However, in the Primorsky Krai region, the standoff between China and Japan was actually escalating.

As the war was drawing to a close, the Japanese army, though willing to withdraw from Manchuria, believed that the area east of the Ussuri River should be occupied by the Japanese, since this region was connected to northern Korea and backed by the Sea of ​​Japan. Therefore, the Japanese believed that they had the advantage in this region.

However, in the southern part of the former Primorsky Krai of Russia, the population was actually predominantly Korean and Chinese, while the towns along the railway line were mostly inhabited by Russians and Chinese. In other words, the largest population in Primorsky Krai was Chinese, followed by Russians and Koreans. The Japanese only had a few hundred merchants in the region and were simply unable to assist the Japanese army in managing it.

Realizing the Japanese army's intention to seize Primorsky Krai, the Koreans and Russians in the region eventually sided with the Chinese government. The Japanese army quickly discovered that maintaining military occupation of the entire Primorsky Krai would be costly, not much less than during wartime. Due to attacks on Japanese forces by Russian and Korean militias in the region, coupled with an agreement between China and the Republic of Chita to further strengthen their military presence around Suifenhe, Japan ultimately made concessions in negotiations. After gaining control of the Vladivostok-Khabarovsk railway line, Japan accepted joint administration pending a future referendum by the region's population. China, in turn, seized the land south of the Chinese Eastern Railway and north of the Tumen River, while Japan retained sole control of the Vladivostok region.

From the Army's perspective, this plan was tantamount to a betrayal of the military by the civilian government. They had shed so much blood on the battlefield, yet the Chinese were the ones who benefited the most. In particular, the land China ceded from Primorsky Krai opened a passage to the Sea of ​​Japan, which clearly contradicted the military's strategy of monopolizing the Sea of ​​Japan. Furthermore, this territory severed the land route between northern Korea and Vladivostok, making the Army feel that its defense perimeter on the mainland had been undermined.

Therefore, the Army Command in Korea has always wanted to overturn the negotiation results, believing that the Tumen River and the Ussuri River should be used as the dividing line between Japan and China, and that the Chinese should be driven out of the edge of the Sea of ​​Japan, thereby forming an absolute defense circle with the Japanese archipelago as the core and the edge of the Northeast Asian continent as the defense, thus ensuring the absolute security of the Japanese archipelago.

Therefore, this time, the provocation of the conflict between Japan and China in Jiandao can be described as a united effort by the entire army, and it was also a plan set up according to the idea of ​​an absolute defense perimeter of the Japanese archipelago. The person in charge of this plan was none other than Tanaka Giichi, a rising star of the Choshu faction.

However, Tanaka Giichi was also aware that now was not the time for a full-scale war between Japan and China. Therefore, he specifically emphasized in his plan that no attack should be launched on the southern coastal area between the Tumen River and the Chinese Eastern Railway. Although this area was also a base of anti-Japanese forces in Korea, Japan had already recognized the area as Chinese territory during the Japan-China negotiations. Therefore, an attack on this area would be an invasion.

The choice of Jiandao to provoke a conflict between Japan and China is significant, aside from the unresolved ownership of Jiandao between the two countries. More importantly, this conflict is intended to counter pressure from various political factions within Japan on the army, not to drag Japan into a new war. Therefore, it's necessary to limit the scope of the conflict. Of course, for a Japanese person to believe that the border issue between China and Korea is a dispute simply because it hasn't been confirmed by Japan is itself a form of imperialist thinking.

While the Japanese deployed a large battalion and several hundred policemen to cross the Tumen River into the Jiandao area to arrest anti-Japanese elements, Ahn Jung-geun was in Jilin at the time, discussing with the head of the Jilin Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Committee the railway construction plan to extend the Jichang Railway eastward to the Tumen River.

After returning from India, Ahn Jung-geun's thinking had undergone a great change. He accepted the ideas instilled in him by Lim Shin-il, that the colonial people's desire to resist the mother country and gain independence actually depended not on defeating their opponents, but on economically crippling the mother country's finances, thereby triggering political struggles within the mother country.

Lin Xinyi argued that agricultural countries cannot confront an industrial country head-on, especially an industrial country that has basically established an industrial system. If the two sides were to engage in a direct confrontation, the agricultural country would be at a disadvantage in terms of both economy and manpower. When a large number of young and able-bodied men were killed in battle, the agricultural economy would collapse, and the country would have no choice but to accept the colonial rule of the industrial country.

Therefore, colonies rebel against their mother country in two ways: first, by undermining the mother country's colonial rule, making its investment in the colony exceed the wealth it plunders, thus creating anti-colonial public opinion within the mother country; and second, by developing the colony's industrial power, narrowing the gap in industrial strength between the colony and the mother country as much as possible.

This was the ideology that Lin Xinyi used to guide the Indian national independence movement against the British Empire. Applying this ideology to Korea's resistance against Japan would also be equally valid. However, given Japan's distance from the Korean Peninsula and its larger population, Ahn Jung-geun's experience in India could not be directly replicated. Therefore, he quickly and thoroughly shifted towards Asian allianceism. Only under this allianceism could China become the rear base for Korea's independence struggle.

The brilliant victory achieved in the war against Russia in Wuhan further strengthened Ahn Jung-geun's confidence in Asian alliances. When he first went to Wuhan, it was just a major economic center in the south under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The Workers' Party, led by Jeon Jun-il, had just begun to promote the construction of an industrial city there. However, when he returned from India, Wuhan had become the logistical base of the Chinese revolution. With the industrial production capacity of Wuhan, the Chinese revolutionary forces not only defeated the Qing Dynasty, but also drove powerful imperialist powers like Russia out of Manchuria.

Therefore, upon hearing about the Japan-South Korea protection agreement, Ahn Jung-geun did not react with the same anger as those nationalists, who spent their days thinking about expanding the military, fighting the Japanese, and then restoring Korea's 3,000-mile homeland. He kept pondering one thing: what exactly was Korea's Wuhan?