PRESENT CONDITIONS IN CHINA 
assemblies with power to discuss but not 
yet legislate. This gave them a taste of 
power the effects of which the adminis- 
trators of China, Chinese and Manchus 
alike; had long feared. The government 
installed a bureau in Peking to restrain 
these assemblies, which were soon out of 
control, not merely discussing but under- 
taking reforms. 
The student class operated newspapers 
and brought all assemblies and students 
into touch. In Szechuan, the largest and 
wealthiest province of China, a large per- 
centage of the members of the provincial 
assembly were students returned from 
Japan, and one of them, Pu Tien-chun, 
their leader, was president of the assem- 
bly. No other assembly was more free 
in its criticisms of the authorities. 
It had a constitutional struggle with 
the viceroy and won. It espoused the 
causes and grievances of the Hunan and 
Hupeh provincial assemblies, the mem- 
bers of which executed the main revolt 
at Wuchang, and its leaders in these 
grievances, which were centered in the 
opposition to foreign loans for internal 
improvements, organized the Anti-For- 
eign Loan Society and brought about the 
first rebellious outbreak, that of Septem- 
ber 6, 1911, at Chengtu, their vice-regal 
capital (see page 1131). 
THE MOST ANTI-FOREIGN PROVINCES 
However, Hunan and Hupeh prov- 
inces, adjoining them on the east, and of 
which Wuchang is the vice-regal capital, 
furnish almost the whole history of the 
rise of the revolution. ‘This is the in- 
dustrial, commercial, and strategic center 
of China. The three sister cities of 
Wuchang, Hankow, and Hanyang repre- 
sent the heart of the Empire. In 1908 
an American university sent a costly 
mission around the world and to China 
to determine the future Chinese center 
of national interest, intellect, and power, 
with a view of establishing there a great 
Western university to save China from 
foreign and self-destruction. It was then 
determined that the three cities forming 
this center would be permanent—would 
remain on the map, so to speak, when 
1127 
the locations of other cities, marts, and 
the center of communications and popu- 
lations would change through industrial 
regeneration. No calculations were then 
dreamed of that took into account such 
destruction of two or three cities as has 
taken place recently. 
Hunan and Hupeh are the two prov- 
inces surrounding these cities and form- 
ing this center, and it was the reformers 
there and the troops of these provinces 
who, following the Szechuan outbreak, 
precipitated war against the existing rule 
of China. 
It is believed that in these provinces 
three to four millions of people were in 
destitute condition at the time of the 
outbreak, due to flood and famine, and 
that over 100,000 persons had lost their 
lives. This desperation may account for 
a part of the determination of the in- 
habitants in their revolt; but from the 
first this center was rebellious. It hada 
previous reform history, which ended in 
bloodshed and defeat in 1898. Hunan 
was the first to ask for a constitution for 
China. On August 27, 1908, the throne 
sanctioned the general principles of a 
constitutional system, to commence at 
once and be in full operation in nine 
years; but this did not satisfy the Hu- 
nanese. ‘They established a society for 
independent action in public affairs which 
was incorrigible, and from the Chinese 
standpoint unlawful. Rebellion thus 
found its first strong soil in Hunan. 
Hunan had always had the name of 
being the most incorrigible and anti- 
foreign province of China, suspected of 
being concerned in revolutionary out- 
breaks, such as the destruction of a rail- 
way carriage by a bomb and wounding 
of several high officials at Peking in 1905 
and the assassination of the governor of 
Anhui province in 1907. Yang Tu, a 
Hunanese, was then the leader of the 
younger or reform party, whose agita- 
tion among the Chinese students in Japan, 
where anarchy had already established 
itself, caused the so-called “strong man 
of China,” Yuan Shin-k’ai, to offer him 
office in order to arrest his revolutionary 
work, 
