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It was to save Feng Kuo-chang, then, that the young patriot Tsao-ao caused the ultimatum to be dispatched fourteen days too soon, i.e., before the Yunnan troops had marched over the mountain-barrier into the neighbouring province of Szechuan and seized the city of Chungking which would have barred the advance of the Northern troops permanently as the river defiles even when lightly defended are impassable here to the strongest force.
Any people less prodigal of their strength, less determined and less resourceful than the Chinese, would have given up the struggle before it was begun, and Szechuan would have slumbered undeveloped and forgotten, instead of being as it is now the richest and most advanced part of the empire.
But this is the sole highway to Szechuan; all the trade of China's largest province, the one best endowed by nature, must pass up and down here.
It was the morning of April 29, when we finally started, my caravan being now increased to seventeen men, as I had advanced the interpreter to a three-bearer chair and given his old one to the cook, who as a Szechuan man should have been able to walk. But he seemed hardly up to it, in fact he gave me the impression of an elderly man, although he owned to forty-one years only.
Only three months later and Chia-ting was aflame with the fires of revolution, for it was the first city in all Szechuan to declare for the Republic, and there was many a fierce contest in its narrow, winding streets.
There is, in fact, a real Western flavour about the rivalry of the two Szechuan cities, recalling the relations of Chicago and St Louis. As a purely trading centre Chung-king lacks some of the interest of the capital, but the merchant class, the backbone of China, is well represented here, and is famed for its intelligence and initiative. Through the kindness of Mr.
Troops were dispatched towards Szechuan in great numbers, being tracked up the rapids of the upper river on board fleets of junks which were ruthlessly commandeered. Now commenced an extraordinary race between the Yunnan mountaineers and the Northern plainsmen for the strategic city of Chungking.
The natives account for it in various ways, the use of white salt or the drinking of water made from melting snow. On the 20th of April we reached Hui-li-chou. The approach to the town or group of towns which make up this, the largest place in southern Szechuan, was charming, through high hedges gay with pink and white flowers. In the suburbs weaving or dyeing seemed to be going on in every house.
The scene was desolate and barren in the extreme, nothing but rock and sand; and had it not been cloudy the heat would have been very trying. But we were now among the Cloud Mountains, where the bright days are so few that it is said the Szechuan dogs bark when the sun comes out.
I hated to leave, but as I had plainly lost my way there was nothing to do but go back and seek to overtake the men who were pounding along on the right path, trying to come up with me. It is here that the great Szechuan road begins, a pathway galleried into the solid rock for the whole length of the gorge at about one hundred and fifty feet above the winter level of the river.
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