Enclosure No. 3.
Acting Viceroy to Mr. Scott.
Sir,
Canton, 23rd December, 1900.
229
With reference to my application for the extradition of Zang Chu Tan, I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your despatch of 9th December (Gives Precis of Mr. Scott's despatch No. 190).
On receipt of this, I at once ordered investigations to be made.
The Chiefs of the Head Police Office now report as follows:-
It is on record that the Yanhoi Magistrate, in sending up the prisoner Zang Hsiang Pu charged in this case, reported that he had been arrested by Ma, Colonel of the Chieh Regiment, and that the Magistrate requested that the man might be closely interrogated, and dealt with.
Accordingly, in co-operation with the examining Deputy, we summoned the prisoner and searchingly interrogated him, pressing him closely with cross-examination. He admitted intimate acquaintance in the past with Zang Chu Yun and Shih Ching Ju, and that in the 7th moon of this year he had had a meeting in the Office of the "Chinese Daily Press" with Zang Chu Yun, who informed him of a plot against the lives of various officials. In the 9th moon, Shih Ching Ju invited the prisoner to go to Hong Kong to see Zang Chu Yun; and Zang invited the prisoner and the following men:-
Chen Kuai Shih
Wang Chih Fu
王質甫
Teng Yui Nan
鄧彥南
Lien Yu Cheng
連懋貞
Li Chi Tang,
李紀堂
as well as Shih Ching Ju, to the top story of the premises of the "Chinese Daily Press" where they together discussed plans. Zang Chu Yun said the best plan for arranging the massacre was to secretly conceal dynamite (in various places) so that all might explode at once - and that the result would infallibly be fatal. He told the prisoner to undertake (the carrying out of the plan). The prisoner, seeing that the undertaking was a great one, dared not agree. Then Shih Ching Ju spoke forth and said that an old family servant of his named Sung Shao Tung could manage the affair. Thereupon Shih Ching Ju took over the management of it; and having mutually agreed upon this, they separated. Subsequently, Zang Chu Yun purchased dynamite, sent it to Canton, and Sung Shao Fung took it over and hired a house where he buried it. The prisoner had on successive occasions heard this from Sung Shao Tung, and he knew the actual facts, but had not joined in the plot. If Zang Chu Yun were brought into Court, he could identify and bear witness against him. The prisoner was examined again and again, and remained unchangeable in his statements.
We would point out that the evidence of this prisoner Zang Hsiang Pu shows clearly, as a picture, that Zang Chu Yun originated the scheme of using dynamite to blow up (certain) Yamens in the hope of turning the resultant disturbances to their purposes of robbery and looting.