Lion and Dragon in Northern China. Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston

the first time, though the city chosen as the centre of government was not Wên-têng but a place called Pu-yeh-ch'êng, and the hsien or magisterial district was accordingly known as Pu-yeh-Hsien. This city, which is said[28] to have been founded by one Lai-tzŭ in the "Spring and Autumn" period twenty-five centuries ago, is now a small village in the modern Jung-ch'êng district, a short distance from the British frontier on the Chinese side, and whatever glory it may once have possessed has totally departed. The origin of the name, which means "Nightless," is unknown, though naturally one would like to connect it in some way with the Sunlit Vale of the astronomer Ho. The new hsien city was assigned to the prefecture of Tung-lai, then the most easterly prefecture in the province.

      

      From this time onward all the north-eastern part of Shantung, including the districts with which we are specially concerned, remained under the civil administration of China. From time to time various changes were made in the seat of district-government and in the boundaries of the prefectures, but these it would be superfluous to follow in detail. In the fourth year of T'ien T'ung (568 of our era), Wên-têng city became the magistrate's headquarters, and the district was placed in the Ch'ang-kuang prefecture under the name of Wên-têng-shan Hsien. Early in the period K'ai Huang (581–600), the abolished Ch'ang-kuang prefecture gave place to Mou Chou, and Wên-têng was placed in the Tung-lai prefecture, to which Pu-yeh had formerly been assigned. Passing over many similar administrative changes of no special significance we come to the Ming dynasty, which began to reign in 1368. In the ninth year of Hung Wu (1376) the present prefecture of Têng-chou was created. Both Wên-têng and Ning-hai districts were assigned to the new prefecture and have remained under its jurisdiction ever since.

      Before Jung-ch'êng (in the neighbourhood of the Shantung Promontory) was made a separate magistracy, which was not till 1735, the position of Wên-têng was most responsible and often perilous, for it faced the sea on three sides—north, east, and south. The chronic danger that menaced these shores came from the restless Japanese. From the time of the Northern Wei dynasty (401 of our era) onwards, the Chinese Government found it necessary to take special measures for the protection of the Shantung coasts from Japanese pirates. Elaborate military precautions, say the records, were taken in 742, during the epoch of the mighty T'ang dynasty, and again in 1040 (Sung dynasty) and in 1341 (Yüan dynasty). The failure of the warlike Mongols (who founded the last-named dynasty) when they took to over-sea expeditions, is no less remarkable than their wonderful successes on land. The armadas despatched in 1274 and in 1281 by the great Kublai Khan for the purpose of reducing to obedience the refractory Japanese has been spoken of as an unwarranted attack on the liberty of a free and gallant people, which met with well-deserved failure; but when we know how the pirates of Japan had repeatedly harassed the coasts of China and, more particularly, had made innumerable murderous attacks on the helpless farmers and fishermen of the eastern coasts of Shantung, an entirely new light is thrown upon Kublai's Japanese policy.

      The whole history of Asia and of the world might have been changed (perhaps for the worse, but not necessarily so) if the mighty Mongol fleet that set sail for Japan in 1281 had not been scattered by hostile winds and waves and defeated by its brave human adversaries. This was the only serious attempt ever made by China to conquer Japan, and though the Chinese dynasty of that day had carried its victorious arms through a great part of the Euro-Asiatic continent it utterly failed in its efforts to reduce to vassalage the island Empire of the East. Yet it was not always Japan that represented enlightenment and civilisation: it was not always China that stood for stagnation and barbarism. When Kublai sent envoys to Japan in 1275 and in 1279 they were not treated with the courtesy that the world has in more recent years learned to expect from the natives of Japan: they were simply deprived of their heads.

      The disasters to their fleets appear to have discouraged the Chinese from again trying their fortunes on the ocean; while the Japanese, always intrepid sailors and fighters, re-entered with zest into the profitable occupation of raiding the coasts of China and robbing her of her sea-borne merchandise. "The spacious days of great Elizabeth," made glorious for England by knightly freebooters and gentleman pirates, were to some extent anticipated in the north-western Pacific during the twelfth and succeeding centuries of our era. Japan took more than ample revenge for the insult offered her by the great Kublai. The whole coast-line of China lay open to her attacks and she utilised the situation to the utmost, but it was north-eastern Shantung that suffered most of all. For a long time the people of Wên-têng and neighbouring districts, who were only poor fisher-folk and farmers, sparse in numbers, vainly implored the Government to save them from their miseries and protect them from the sea-rovers. The measures hitherto fitfully employed to safeguard the coast had been repeatedly shown to be inadequate. Soon after the commencement of the Ming period (1368) the Imperial Government at last began to make a serious effort to keep inviolate the shores of the Empire and to succour the people who "had in the past suffered grievous hurt," so runs a Chinese account of the matter, "from the pestilent outrages committed by the rascally Dwarfs."

      PART OF WEIHAIWEI CITY WALL (see p. 47).

      Photo by Fleet Surgeon C. M. Beadnell, R.N. THE AUTHOR AND TOMMIE ON THE QUORK'S PEAK (see p. 397). (Summit of Mount Macdonald.)

It may be mentioned that in the Chronicles of Wên-têng and Weihaiwei the Japanese are never referred to except as Wo or Wo-jên, which literally means Dwarfs. This term was not current only among the unlettered classes: it was regularly employed in official documents and memorials intended for the inspection of the Shantung Provincial Government.[29] A great Chinese geographical work published in the tenth century of our era is even more uncomplimentary, for it states[30] that "since the later Han dynasty [which reigned from 25 to 220 A.D.] the country [Japan] has been known as that of the Dwarf-slave country," and it gives details as to the tribute said to have been paid by Japan to China for a period of many centuries.

The new defensive measures taken by the Government consisted in the establishment of Military Districts (Wei)[31] at various strategic points round the coast of Shantung. Of these Districts Weihaiwei was one and Ch'êng Shan was another. These two Wei were created in 1398, thirty years after the establishment of the Ming dynasty. The carrying out of the project was entrusted to two high officials, one of whom took up his temporary residence on Liukungtao. A wall was built a few years later (1403) round the village of Weihai, the modern Weihaiwei "city," and the headquarters of Ch'êng-shan-wei, known to us as the town of Jung-ch'êng, was similarly raised to the dignity of a walled city. Military colonies—that is, bands of soldiers who were allowed to take up agricultural land and to found families—were brought into every Wei under the command of various leaders, the chief of whom were known as chih-hui. This title, generally applied to the chiefs of certain non-Chinese tribes, was in many cases hereditary. Even in Weihai, Ning-hai and Ch'êng-shan the chih-hui were petty military chieftains rather than regular military officers. There were other commanders known as li ssŭ, ch'ien-hu and pai-hu,[32] all of which titles—being generally applied to petty tribal chiefs—were probably selected in order to emphasise the two facts that the Wei system was extraneous to the general scheme of Chinese civil and military administration and that the officers of a Wei were not only soldiers but also exercised a general jurisdiction, civil as well as military, over the affairs of the Wei and its soldier-colonists.

      The Chinese Government has always done its best, in the interests of peace and harmony and general good order, to inculcate in the minds of its subjects a reverence for civil authority. Hence, besides appointing a number of military officials whose enthusiasm for their profession