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Updated: May 23, 2025
It is gratifying to note that the negotiations for a loan to the Chinese Government for the construction of the trunk railway lines from Hankow southward to Canton and westward through the Yangtse Valley, known as the Hukuang Loan, were concluded by the representatives of the various financial groups in May last and the results approved by their respective governments.
The Powers then thought that China was breaking up, and entered upon a scramble for concessions and spheres of influence. The Belgians built the important line from Peking to Hankow; the Americans obtained a concession for a Hankow-Canton railway, which, however, has only been constructed as far as Changsha.
These efforts were not always successful, and Tien Wang's arms experienced as many reverses as successes. The important city of Kanchang, the capital of the province of Kiangsi, was besieged by them for four months, and after many attempts to carry it by storm the Taepings were compelled to abandon the task. They were more successful at Hankow, which they recovered after a siege of eighty days.
Already in Shantung the same policy is being pursued and there are indications that it is being thought of in Fuhkien; whilst the infantry garrison which was quietly installed at Hankow 600 miles up the Yangtsze river at the time of the Revolution of 1911 is apparently to be made permanent.
The most comfortable and the most restful travelling in the world that I know of is on board the large river steamers running up the Yangtse for six hundred miles from Shanghai to Hankow, and then transhipping to somewhat smaller vessels, for the additional four hundred miles to Ichang.
At the extreme left were large business houses and a club. Hankow is a great depository for tea, and, with the two adjacent cities of Han-yang and Wu-chang, it has an immense population, reaching into the millions. Many religious denominations are said to be represented in Hankow, but we saw no pretentious churches.
From Hankow to Chungking my money was remitted by draft through a Chinese bank. West from Chungking the money may be sent by draft, by telegraph, or in bullion, as you choose. I carried some silver with me; the rest I put up in a package and handed to a native post in Chungking, which undertook to deliver it intact to me at Yunnan city, 700 miles away, within a specified time.
In the French concession we noticed the same naming of streets and buildings that we had seen in Shanghai; this was also true of the German and English concessions, thus making of each a little miniature city. There is a fine English club at Hankow, and a long line of tea factories called godowns; the odor of tea was distinctly noticeable for three blocks.
It was a portion of this field-force which captured and destroyed the chief revolutionary base in the triple city of Hankow, Hanyang and Wuchang in November, 1911, and which he held back just as it was about to give the coup de grace by crossing the river in force and sweeping the last remnants of the revolutionary army to perdition.
Even then the matter dragged along but slowly. Li Han Chang, who, as the brother of Li Hung Chang, was an exceptionally well-qualified and highly-placed official for the task, and whose appointment was in itself some evidence of sincerity, did not leave Hankow until August, and the English commissioners, Messrs.
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