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they could get out of it, other western correspondents provided a different picture. What may have been a comparatively common experience was described by a correspondent in the area just south of Mukden in June 1905:
'Hamlets and farmhouses studded the landscape, and it seemed to us that we were wandering through a veritable Arcadia. The inhabitants, too, seemed fitted to the land, being a peaceable, amiable people of pleasant countenance and fine physique. In this portion of this now strictly neutral country, China, the agricultural population is apparently quite faultlessly neutral. The people seem altogether heedless of the two foreign armies that are sweeping across their land. Of international politics they know nothing. Their one care in the world is that the local representative of the Imperial Government in Peking does not wring extortionate taxation from them. A man ploughing in his fields does not take the trouble to look
up when a regiment of Japanese or Russians marches by.'
However, elsewhere it was reported that during the land campaign Chinese peasants fled to the hills as Japanese forces approached but soon returned to their farms and cottages once the fighting had passed them by. Foreign correspondents frequently reported that they had seen only goodwill between the Japanese officers and men and the Chinese working man.
Chinese in general took every opportunity to earn whatever cash they could obtain from both the Russians and the Japanese. Typical were the junk owners who were of inestimable value to the Russians carrying messages and messengers from besieged Port Arthur across to the Shandong Peninsula, and even when the Japanese imposed a tight net of patrol ships the wily Chinese managed to get the messages through by enclosing them in steel containers fastened to the bottom of the hull on the outside. Finally, when the Japanese had confiscated or sunk every Chinese junk they could lay their hands on, the Chinese posed to the world as long-suffering martyrs, who, because they were endeavouring to turn an honest dollar, suffered ruin at the hands of the Japanese.
The Russians also employed their fast patrol boats and destroyers to patrol the coastlines to ensure that foreign vessels were not aiding the Japanese cause. They frequently boarded likely vessels, during
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they could get out of it, other western correspondents provided a different picture. What may have been a comparatively common experience was described by a correspondent in the area just south of Mukden in June 1905:
'Hamlets and farmhouses studded the landscape, and it seemed to us that we wandering through a veritable Arcadia. The inhabitants, too, seemed fitted to the land being a peaceable, amiable people of pleasant countenance and fine physique. In this portion of this now strictly neutral country, China, the agricultural population is apparently quite faultlessly neutral. The people seem altogether heedless of the two foreign armies that are sweeping across their land. Of international politics they know nothing. Their one care in the world is that the local representative of the Imperial Government in Pekin does not wring extortionate taxation from them. A man ploughing in his fields does not take the trouble to look
up when a regiment of Japanese or Russians marches by.'
However, elsewhere it was reported that during the land campaign Chinese peasants fled to the hills as Japanese forces approached but soon returned to their farms and cottages once the fighting had passed them by. Foreign correspondents frequently reported that they had seen only goodwill between the Japanese officers and men and the Chinese working man.
Chinese in general took every opportunity to earn whatever cash they could obtain from both the Russians and the Japanese. Typical were the junk owners who were of inestimable value to the Russians carrying messages and messengers from besieged Port Arthur across to the Shandong Peninsula, and even when the Japanese imposed a tight net of patrol ships the wily Chinese managed to get the messages through by enclosing them in steel containers fastened to the bottom of the hull on the outside. Finally, when the Japanese had confiscated or sunk every Chinese junk they could lay their hands on, the Chinese posed to the world as long-suffering martyrs, who, because they were endeavouring to turn an honest dollar, suffered ruin at the hands of the Japanese.
The Russians also employed their fast patrol boats and destroyers to patrol the coastlines to ensure that foreign vessels were not aiding the Japanese cause. They frequently boarded likely vessels, during
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