RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 130 The Treaty showed Japan that white races would stand together against the yellow, and the Japanese as a race were mortified at what they were convinced was a dishonourable peace. The peace treaty provided for, amongst other things, the mutual withdrawal of Russian and Japanese armies from Manchuria within eighteen months; and the return of Manchuria to China except for the leased territories of Liaodong (Guandong) and the southern section of the Manchurian Railway which was transferred to Japan by Russia. However, at a Conference held in Peking in December 1905 at which the Chinese government approved the Treaty, the now enfeebled and impotent Qing dynasty gave Japan even greater rights in Chinese territory than had been agreed in Portsmouth. The Japanese had now acquired rights and concessions on Chinese territory for the first time. Chinese involvement It has not been my intention to describe the detailed progress of the war as this has been covered in numerous books and articles, but to highlight how the Chinese were involved. It has proved disappointing to find that even when China and the Chinese position are referred to, writers usually skim over the subject in a single page or two. The Russian promise to evacuate territories in Manchuria occupied after the Boxer insurrection was ignored and the progressive Russification of the Three Provinces could only mean one thing - that the Russians had no intention of withdrawing. During 1903 the Chinese Government showed a firmer attitude in their request for promises from the Russian Minister relating to the evacuation of Manchuria. Japanese strong moral support acted as an incentive to the more progressive Chinese to strengthen the influence of the few patriotic Chinese statesmen who had the welfare of the Empire at heart. Meetings of the literati in most of the larger cities in China during October 1903 denounced Russia in no uncertain terms. Little could be expected from the Empress Dowager and her clique. One day she ranted on hearing some real or fancied desecration by Cossacks in the former Manchu capital at Mukden where the ancestors of the Manchu ruling clan were buried, and threatened reprisals; the next day she was considering possibilities of closer links between Russia and China and even, perhaps, Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 136 which they searched the holds for contraband and pulled the pigtails of the Chinese crew to see if they came off, and thus discover a Japanese on board in disguise. 5 There were few descriptions of the experiences of Chinese townsmen or peasants during the battles between Japanese and Russians, and the passage through their land by the armies of the two contenders. Several short paragraphs in the contemporary illustrated volumes simply mention in passing how in, for example, the old walled town of Port Arthur, the Russian residents started to flee north at an early stage and those who had hung on had finally to be evacuated on crowded trains, leaving behind their property and livelihoods. Also, there were several passing comments that after each battle there were Chinese loitering, waiting to loot. As the winter set in Russian troops tore down many Chinese villages to provide material for quarters for their Army, and cut down trees for firewood, commandeered pigs, cattle, chickens and grain. Chinese refugees fled from Mukden ahead of the Japanese to avoid being caught up in the fighting, and nearby the Russians looted Chinese houses for food, clothing and women. In contrast - as the Russian reinforcements arrived in Manchuria across the Trans-Siberian Railway so the requirement for accommodation and stores fell upon the Chinese population. "The Chinese village of Mudzetun, a short distance to the south-east of Mukden, was utilised as a Cossack camp. The Chinese inhabitants had disappeared in a body, and their old quarters had been swept and garnished; the little courtyards had been cleansed of filth in which pigs and children had played together; several Russian baths had been constructed and strict sanitary regulations enforced. Sometimes some miserable-looking Chinese might be seen collecting from the banks of the frozen stream the discarded entrails of the cattle that had been killed for food, accompanied by outcast dogs that had been ousted from the village by its new masters." Manchurian native bandits Sparsely populated, and wild and poverty-stricken, Manchuria was a natural breeding ground for bandits, either as individuals or gangs. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 137 Most were mounted on Manchurian ponies, and were rough, brutal and, beyond the bounds of towns, unrestrained. Occasional bandit-suppression campaigns and schemes to tame or buy off thugs were only temporary checks. There were two generic names for bandits in Manchuria, one mainly reported across the south, was Red Beards, Hong Huzi (in the romanisation of the day - Hung Hutse) while the less well-known term for those across the north was Chunchuse. Red Beards included a mixture of seasonal bandits who came over to rob and pillage from Shandong. This mutated into the Red Beards, local criminal thugs, both individual groups and those part of a larger network, thieving as a way of life due to endemic poverty. Any act of brigandry in southern Manchuria was blamed on the Hong Huzi; hence, sketches in British illustrated journals of Chinese robbing the dead and dying on the field of battle all bore the caption naming the robbers as Hong Huzi. One of the better-known Chinese "brigands," a seasonal worker from Shandong, was Wang Delin.* By 1899 he had established a considerable following among Chinese workers in Manchuria opposed to Russian encroachment, and in 1903 he openly declared his opposition to both the Russians and the non-Chinese Qing dynasty. His band operated along the eastern part of the China Eastern Railway, attacking trains and Russian shipping on the rivers. His men had a code of conduct based on three rules: They were forbidden to harass or harm Chinese They should not kill captured Russians without reason And, they should assist the poor and helpless. His band was typical of the gangs roaming Manchuria with their various motives, some simply thugs and robbers others political, but all were generically referred to as Hong Huzi. Westerners writing about their travels in Manchuria were not slow in providing valid reasons for their nickname. Harvey Howard in his Ten Weeks with Chinese Bandits [1927] explained that 'during the 18th and 19th centuries roving bands of unshaven, red-bearded Russians ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 141 One such snippet dated 12 May, 1904, described how 'when the Russians withdrew from Wafangtien, contemporaneously with the Japanese advance, bands of Hunhuses throughout Manchuria began to show great activity, especially in the region of Yantai, a station between Mukden and Liaoyang, thus adding enormously to the dangers and preoccupations of the Russians. There were reports that these bands were led by Japanese, which were not improbable, since the Japanese had a perfect right to make use of their hostility to the Russians of the population of Manchuria. At the same time, in all directions, attacks on the railway began, under the direction of officers of the Japanese General Staff. Two such officers had been captured by General Kuropatkin in April and, as there was no doubt as to their mission since they had upon them a large quantity of dynamite, fuses and tools for destroying the line, they were promptly executed.' On the page facing this snippet is a photograph of the decapitation of several Hong Huzi with the caption 'How Russians deal with the Hunhuses who destroy the railway.' Although it does not in any way help clarify the employment of Chinese bandits as irregular troops by the Russians, a British observer writing on the horsemanship of the Cossacks, noted that ‘after a comparatively small force of Japanese cavalry at Sha-ho had acted as a sufficient counter-check to the larger masses of Russian horsemen, the Cossack was deficient in courage and staying power, but was well mounted. There was a long and exposed line of the Manchurian Railway for them to guard, and the Russian cavalry had the Hunhutses [sic] always with them, but these marauders on their diminutive horses should not have been able to ride round the horsemen of the steppes in the manner they seem persistently to have done.' Although captions on photographs of captured Chinese claim they were being executed for espionage, mainly spying for the Japanese, it tended to have been more a matter of individual banditry and any resultant monetary reward rather than prisoners having been 'resistance fighters.' There is also a photograph of "The Head Chief of the Hunhuses.' It shows four Chinese and one Japanese (said to have been an Intelligence Officer, who worked in Newchwang [Niuzhuang] during the Russian occupation as a shoemaker). The central figure is described as 'the chief named Chin, said to be in Japanese employ who is a well- ================================================================================