THE NEW YELLOW PERIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19659, 10 June 1927, Page 14

THE NEW YELLOW PERIL.

STRIFE OX THE YANGTSE. HATRED OF THE BRITISH. AN AFFRAY AT WANHSIEN. HOMERIC STRUGGLE ON RIVER.

BY PUTNAM WRITE.

(All Eights Reserved.) X. SHANGHAI. March 23. The private war between the steamers on one sido and the soldiers and river population on the other ended a phase of the impending struggle on the Yangtse. Szechung was being constantly invaded from the south by troops from the neighbouring province of Kueichow. Kueichow, always a miserably poor province, had, owing to famine and civil war, become poorer still. A great part had gone out of cultivation, the population living on the roots of the giant ferns which grew in profusion among the stumps of the vanished forests. For, in the Manchu Conquest of China two hundred years before, the great Emperor Lang Hsi, finding that he could not subdue the country owing to the dense woods, had ordered all to be, burned, and from the undergrowth that remains the famished population fed itself or, seizing what arms it could, launched attacks on more prosperous regions. The river region which was most involved, owing to military concentrations, was Fengtu,'2s6 miles irom Ichang, and that place which had become so notorious, (Wanhsien, at the 174-mile point, just above the bottle-neck of the rapids. British steamers, having river gunboats to protect them, resolutely ret used to carry these troops, so senselessly engaged in internecine warfare, and signalled for naval help whenever an attempt was made to impress them. If no gunboats were near, they put on steam, and made a rush for it, regardless of the consequences. Punishment of Murderers. The British were soon the most feared. And because they were that, they were also the most hated. At W r anlisien in 1924 there had been the first incident which had lighted up popular feeling against them. "An American was beaten there, almost to death, by river boatmen and cast into the water; wherefrom H.M.S. Cockchafer took him aboard in & dying condition. When he had passed away, the commander, determined to teach a lesson, delivered an ultimatum to the town authorities for immediate acceptance. Either there must be an immediate execution of the culprits, accompanied by public penance of the civil and military officials by following the coffin of the murdered man to the graveside, or he would bombard and destroy the town. The ultimatum was accepted, and the culprits executed on the spot. The civil and military officials duly marched to tha cemetery behind the victim. This affair naturally became known to the whole river population and increased the hatred Every case of swamping of boats was now picked up and accusations became more and more bitter. In the summer of 1926, with the redoubling of the civil war and the rush of troops down-river to oppose the victorious Cantonese army, now advancing on Hankow, two British steamers were detained for a swamping case at Wanhsien and several hundred soldiers billeted on each. The self-same gunbe-at CocKchafer, which was anchored a few cables away, was rendered powerless by guns trained on her from shore. Any sign of hostility on her part would have led to the immediate massacre of the six white officers held captive on the ships. Attempting the Impossible. With 20.000 troops massed in the town, General Yang Sen, the local general, judged that at last he had the British safe in a trap, unable to answer him. He had. But the British Navy refused to admit it. A river steamer was quickly chartered, two pom-poms and four ma-chine-guns mounted on her and, with a boarding-party of 65 men, the navy set forth from Ichang to accomplish the impossible. The story is so recent that it is almost superfluous to speak of it, particularly as I have already mentioned the matter." But as I am writing this from the deck of the ship which carried out this amazing act. the Chiaowo, now flying the White Ensign, I cannot help repeating it. The Chiaowo came round the bend from Ichang and steamed alongside the first ship; grappling irons were thrown; the boarding-parties sprang across. They were met by a withering fire from concealed machine-guns which killed the leading officers. A homeric struggle followed, which resulted in unparalleled slaughter. The Szechnen troops, caught- like rats in a trap and decimated by the poi»-pom fire, were piled up on a mountain of dead and dying, and the scuppers ran red with blood." A desperate charge that they made was only beaten off with tha great- i est difficultv. The ship's officers were rescued from this first "ship, while the others in the second ship jumped into the water, one being drowned. The Cockchafer, sweeping the shore with her sis-inch guns, lost men. shot in the back, from a hail of rifle-fire coming from the shore, river gunboats suffering from totally inadequate gun-crew protection. After that the flotilla sheered off and steamed downriver, having partially failed in its objective since the two impounded river steamers were left behind. Opening Act of a New War. The significance of Wanhsien lies, however, elsewhere than in the occurrence narrated. It was the opening act of a new war to the knife on the tipper river. For a time events were obscured by the graver events proceeding round Hankow. But long before January 3 the commandeering of ships had reached such a pitch that shipping fled down-river for safety, leaving in a few weeks only the skeleton of former prosperity. The story of the British surrender at Hankow intensified the tipper-river movement and antiforeign hatred burned to a white flame. The order to evacuate all British and American missionaries from Szechnen came hard on the heels of these events, and the last chips were employed in bringing down thousands of refugees. Since then amazing things have come to light. Of the 11 ships flying the Italian flag, 10 have disappeared, leaving no trace at all. Where have they gone, and where are their foreign captains ? No one knows. Many other ships are missing, perhaps hidden up small rivers, perhaps repainted and their appearance changed like stolen motor-cars Trade has dropped to zero—there has been virtually no trade at all in the tipper river for weeks and months. Cwnmwe has been blotted out. And the junk trade cannot bo revived. Problem of the Future. , flltnro ' t0 bring ? No one Everything plainly waits on the is.tie °f the struggle between the Nationalist and North China armies That struggle will decide whether we are to go back 50 years and cancel all the progress that steam has brought; or oltimLtelv to resume traffic where it was interrupted. The Nationalists are glad to see this ruin. They beheve thoroughly in the Bolshevist principle of asserting their mas tcry by wiping out every vested interest Meanwhile the skeleton communities of foreigners in these small, up-river stations hang cn desperately, with ennboats the centre o? their lives, lit by the red gl eam of musketry. It would be a strange I enough story in any age and in any 1-nd Bnt here orsctirally m the middle of the twentieth century, with peace still nominally existing, despite cloaked warfare it k reallv amazing, something more a *uf»-