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Chu Tzu Lung, Hsiao K'e Chang, Lu Chin Piao, &c. There is another branch in league with the mounted bandits of Manchuria, and abroad with the Nihilists of Russia. They have also an understanding with them for mutual aid for anti-dynastie
movements.
Their official duties are divided into four Departments-viz., a Department of Ways and Means, Intelligence Department, Military Organization Department, and Department for Communications.
Apart from the permanent store-houses of the various branches of the com- missariat branch of the Ways and Means Department, the other officers have no definite head-quarters, and their appearance and movements are secret, and there is no means of knowing them.
The officers of the various branches of the different lodges can be roughly divided into four grades. Each lodge has one Grand Master (with full powers as regards his own lodge), six deputy Grand Masters who are —
1. The General Manager of the affairs of the whole district.
2. The Councillor, who is the officer for the improvements of methods in his own particular lodge.
3. The Financial Manager, who is specially in charge of the transport, and pays for his own particular district.
4. The Manager of religious matters. He opens inus in the port to attract recruits of all classes who may pass through, to afford protection, and to afford means of communication. This system is called a method of indirect correspondence. As an example of this, an agent of another lodge, or a recruit from any place whatever, is not allowed to have a personal interview with an agent of the same lodge. However important the subject of discussion, it must be dealt with entirely through the medium of this "religious ruanager," who is the mainspring of the organization of the lodge, and acts as a screen for its secrets.
5. The Proctor, whose business it is to select and send deputies, to place the members of all the Societies. As an instance, he sends so and so to manage a certain school, another to stay in a certain mining district, another to some railway, another to some body of modern drilled troops, another to some of the meeting places, another to watch the waterways, &c. These men are, as a rule, in great numbers in the schools of various places, and on the Yang-tsze in the An Yuan mines. This is their chief head-quarters, and there are about 10,000 there. The rest are in the various other mining districts, but they are most common in Liu Yang and P'u Chi districts in Yunnan Province. There are others, but not so many, in all the districts in Kiangsi, in Hunan, and, not so many at Nan Chou, and others among the salt smugglers on the Yang-tsze. They are the Black Division, and are in connection with the Red Division in every district. Again there are the hoatmen from all directions, and the sampan men, who are told off throughout the waterways to pirate boats. These are called the Green Division.
All the above elect from time to time men of any prominence to go amongst the new model troops of various localities, especially among the Hupei regulars, and, in lesser numbers, among the Nanking troops. There are many others among the Yang-tsze guardships, and others, but fewer, among the other regiments and the Fukian and Chekiang guardship men, and many among the troops of the two Kuang Provinces and in Kiangsi and Hunan, but these are fewer than among the literate classes. All these are under the direction of the Managing Proctor.
6. The Recorder. He is specially told off to deal with the correspondence from all the lodges, and the lists of members and account books.
These six officials are all specially responsible for their own duties, and cannot put them on to other shoulders or depart from their own special functions.
There are twelve junior masters distributed to serve under the Deputy Graud Masters, all acting as Heads or Directors of the various Secret Societies in the interior. Their ways are secret, and they are everywhere, but mostly in South Hunan, Hsiang T'an, Li Ling, Liu Yang, Ping Chiang, An Hua, Hsin Hua, Nan Chou, and Kiansgi, An Yuan, Ping Hsiang, Wan Tsai, Fen I, Nan K'ang, Hu K'ou, Kiukiang, and in Hupei, at Huang, and the Lower Yang-tsze, most being in Ch'inkiang, Ta Tung, &c. They are also among the pirates of Fukien and Chekiang, the Manchurian mounted bandits, and members of the white religion of Honan and Chihli. They are all seething with rebellion, which once broken out would be impossible to suppress.
We have discovered that the original intention was to bring in munitions of war
5
through Yunnan, but Great Britain would not allow this, so the project was dropped, and we now hear that the Society has changed its plans, and now intends to gradually smuggle the stuff in on trading vessels, and send it to the interior. They hollow out the inside of books and conceal revolvers, knives, and explosives in them. Then they replace the covers. There is no clue to the contents from the outside. Since the books are classed as "educational works," according to the practice of the Customs, which has obtained for a long time, when being examined they are simply counted and not carefully inspected. The long rifles are taken in two picces, and are packed in foreign cement and wrapped in bales of cloth. The ammunition, powder, &c., is concealed in bales of cotton yarn, and so can easily escape observation.
The ways of the Society are dark and secret, and it is impossible to find out the dates when these goods are transported. Instructions should be issued to the customs and li-kin stations that whenever goods of the above description are seen they must be most careful in their examination of them. If there is the least thing suspicious about them, samples should be at once taken out from them and examined as a measure of precaution. As a matter of fact the Society has established agreements, and merchants of all nationalities are in collusion, and take part in these malpractices. For example, this summer sixteen bales of foreign cloth went into Changsha. On the first occasion they were brought into the Ta Hsi Men, and were stopped by the guard for examination. The men carrying the bales were all members of the Society, and would not agree to the examination. They made a fuss and menaced the guard, saying that these goods were the property of a certain firm, and had already passed the Customs. If they were not allowed to enter the city they would take them back again to the foreign firm, and that they themselves could not be responsible for the opening for inspection. The guards thereupon allowed them to carry them away, but seven bales had already entered the city earlier. A caretul search was made in all directions, but not a trace of the goods could be discovered. It afterwards appeared that five bales had been taken in by the Hsiao Hsi Men, four by the Tsao The officer of the guard reported the case to the Governor, who immediately ordered that a very thorough search and inquiry should be made within and without the city, and privately offered a big reward. We hear that the goods are still somewhere in the city, but because the hauts of the Society are inaccessible to the ordinary man they cannot be discovered. It is evident that unless extraordinary precautions are taken against devils of this description they will ultimately escape us.
Ch'ao Mon.
Orders are accordingly being issued to the higher provincial authorities to send instructions to all officials, military and civil, to take stringent and secret measures of precaution against the Society, and to prevent the escape of its members through remissness. Important.
Dear Sir John,
Inclosure 3 in No. 1.
Consul Ker to Sir J. Jordan.
Nanking, October 30, 1906. I DELAYED replying to your telegram about the reported disaffection amongst the troops until I could get hold of the official on whom I depend chiefly for information. I managed to see him yesterday, and sent the result by telegram this morning. He particularly asked that his name should not be mentioned to Peking, so I can only say that he is in a position to have trustworthy information, and that I see no reason why he should want to mislead me. He speaks English.
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There is practically no standing army in these parts now, and the whole situation depends on how far Tuan Fang, who is said to be thoroughly alive to the danger, may succeed in instilling a spirit of discipline into the "Cheng Ping "the "modern troops levied locally in the last two or three years to take the place of the disbanded Hunanese. The recruiting of these was accompanied with a great flourish of trumpets. They were to be of a higher class, true patriots, and so on, and there was said to be a good deal of grumbling amongst them when, after being welcomed by school processions, waving banners, and chanting of patriotic odes, they were set to do the ordinary coolie work of soldiers in peace time. Praschma, German instructor in the Military College, who sees something of the military element here, tells me the feeling is much better now, but my Chinese informant denies this, and points to the rioting that took place last July on the occasion of a quarrel between "soldiers and
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