Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the mind of modern China

Citation preview

CH'I-CH'AO

AND THE MIND OF MODERN

CHINA Joseph R. Levenson

/

LIANG CH'I-CH'AO

AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

Liang Ctii-dCao

AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA by Joseph R. Lcvcnson

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES

1967

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles

Cambridge University

Press

London, England

959 BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE SECOND REVISED EDITION, I 959 (FIRST CALIFORNIA PAPER-BOUND EDITION)

COPYRIGHT 1953 AND

1

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS AND

WITH THAMES AND HUDSON

LTD.,

LONDON

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 53-5069

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER

PREFACE Liang Ch'i-ch'ao,

a

brilliant

figure, contributed heavily to

unwittingly to reveal

its

scholar,

and political and helped "visible" career and

journalist,

modern Chinese

meaning. Both his

history

the inner history of his thoughts fall naturally into three consecutive stages.

I

have

tried in the three parts of this study to be first

a chronicler, to recount his contribution,

comprehend

and next a

historian, to

it.

In Chapters

and V,

what meets the eye, the top of whose life is thus chronicled, could have done that much himself. He knew what he did. But only others could know what he was. Self-knowledge is a remarkably I, III,

describe

I

the iceberg, the public record. Liang,

elusive thing, for the self

Liang, trapped like any

is

man in his own present, could

He

himself and remain himself.

numbered

transformed in the knowing, and

chapters, Chapters

II,

hardly reveal

could not have written the evenIV, and VI.

Had Liang been able if a man had

to write them, he could never have been their subject;

the key to his

own

prison, he

Liang's prison was a

mind

would not

stay fixed

where he was.

laced with necessary inconsistencies,

incompatible ideas which he had to believe

—not for their logical

coherence but because of his personal need.

My

after

giving the record of what he did,

him

as

he did

it.

But

this

work

is

is

effort as historian,

to find out

not, in

its

what wracked

ends, a psychological

One should see in it rather a search for news about "mind of modern China," about history as well as biography, about the way a culture and a society, not just a personality, change study of Liang.

the

and develop. For all the steady concentration on Liang, my intent is to establish what his milieu expected of him and could offer him. When we find Liang using European ideas which in Europe agitated people in a different way, or when we find him putting a different construction on Chinese ideas from that which earlier Chinese had put on them, we learn something not only about Liang but about vii

PREFACE

Vlll

how and why China differs from Europe and the Ch'ing Dynasty from the Han. I have tried throughout the book to maintain an interplay between history and individual, bringing historical analysis to bear on Liang's writings and returning with what societies,

Liang's writings reveal to throw

To

light

upon

is

history.

to recognize the rela-

The very last impression I would like to make debating points and cut down a magnifreputation. When I speak of "inconsistencies," I mean to show

tivities

of his situation.

leave

that

icent

more

write historically of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao

is

I

want

to

not that Liang was ridicuolus to think as he did odiously presumptuous,

false,

and

in

any case

—which would be

historically irrelevant

—but that

it was reasonable for him to think as he did. And this is what gives him a specifically historical significance. A philosopher may test thought for an essentially timeless rationality. But an intel-

lectual historian

beneath

it

is

particularly concerned with thinking, to probe

for a time's questions

by divining

how

it is

reasonable—

perhaps in spite of or precisely because of imperfect rationality.

This approach, and the main conclusions of the work, are found principally in the analytic chapters, the second chapters in the three parts.

The

reader

may

feel upset shuttling

back and forth between

these speculative chapters, with their intuitive treatment of the

material and their broadly significant hero, and the earthbound, declarative chapters, following a line fill.

narrow individual

through Chinese history. But perhaps

it is

like a thin red

helpful to back and

We must be reminded periodically that Liang thought of him-

self as a force,

not as a symbol.

He

did not

mean

to live that

we

might deduce. We want to generalize about history from the individual and see him as in some way representative, but the person we see had a single, particular life, and we need to know it. It is a difficult task to discover

of the

mind,

is

in a man's mind. A knowledge which China afforded to the owner

modern China

of his career, of the possibilities a check

on our discovery.

many students of Chinese history, I am deeply indebted John K. Fairbank for great kindness, information, keen criticism, and stimulating ideas. Francis Cleaves and Lien-sheng Yang have Like so

to

PREFACE

ix

read portions of the manuscript and have assisted

me

generously,

with textual and translation problems. I am to A. Kaiming Chiu, Chase J. Duffy, Marius Jansen,

especially in connection

grateful, also,

Thomas

C. Smith, Arthur Wright, and

ful suggestions,

Murphey

and

Mary Wright for their useDavid Aberle, Marion Levy, and Rhoads

for our conversations, over a period of years, which helped

me in writing this serious

to

The book

is

me

book, but which were important to

grounds than

on more

that.

largely a product of

the Society of Fellows at Harvard.

my I

years as a Junior Fellow of

can hardly express

my

grati-

tude to the Society for the intellectual stimulation and material support I

it

has afforded me.

thank Faber and Faber, Ltd., and Harcourt, Brace and Co.

for

permission to quote several lines from "The Dry Salvages," by

T. S. Eliot.

A considerable portion of Chapters

I

and

II

has appeared

in the Journal of the History of Ideas.

Chinese characters have not been inserted in the body of the text.

They

names,

will be

titles,

found

in the end, in a glossary of transliterated

terms, and phrases.

J.R.L.

February 1959

Postscript

Unfortunately,

it

has not been possible for

vision of the original 1953 text.

Some

me

slight

to

make

changes

a serious rein

wording

could be included in the 1959 edition, which must remain the basis of the present reprint.

A

considerable

amount

of

new

material

bearing on Liang's career has been published in recent years, beginning with the documentary collection, Wu-hsii pien-fa (The

Reform of 1898) (Shanghai, 1953). Most important, of course, is Ting Wen-chiang, Liang fen-^ting hsien-sheng nien-p'u ch'angpien ch'u-\ao (First draft of a chronological biography of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao) (Taipei, 1959). This has contributed markedly to the composition of recent monographs, notably Chang Peng-yuan, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao yu Ch'ing-chi \o-ming (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the

PREFACE

X

revolution at the end of the Ch'ing period) (Nan-kang, Taiwan,

As a biography, then, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China is very far from "definitive." I hope, however, that 1964).

it

will

its

still

seem

to offer at least a serviceable biographical context to

real subject: the evocation of history

from the writings of a

life-

time.

J.R.L. July 1966

CONTENTS Introduction: intellectual history and the individual

THINKER, Part I

One

1

873-1 898:

I

metamorphosis

LIANG AND THE REFORM MOVEMENT,

15

Youth and Education. Reform Activity in Peking. The Shih-wu poo. Liang at Changsha. The "Hundred Days." II

THE BREAKDOWN OF THE CONFUCIAN WORLD,

34 Revision of Tradition and Social Change. Syncretism: Western "Idea of Progress" in a Chinese Context. Analogy of Patterns of Culture-Growth and Analogy of Culrural Values.

Inflationary Distortion. Obscurantism

and Sclf-EfTacement.

Rejection of Tradition.

Part III

TWO

1898-1912: BRAVE

EXILE IN JAPAN

NEW WORLD

AND THE

The Escape

to Japan.

WEST,

and Reformers. Liang's Work waiian Journey.

The Hankow

in Japan, 1900-1903.

Liang

Exile. Liang's Influence in

IV

55

Relations between Revolutionaries

in

1 898-1899. HaLiang Overseas and America. The Last Years of

in

His Japanese Years.

THE SUBSTITUTE FOR TRADITION, The Bankruptcy

Japan,

Rising.

84

of Liang's Confucian Traditionalism. dition.

The Last Stage The Break with Tra-

of the Chinese Tradition.

More Blows

against the Historical Culture as the

and Nationalism. The Chinese Nation Confronts the West. The Logical Contradictions in Liang's Second Position: The Role of the InBasis of Comparison. Culturalism

dividual in History,

The Aims

of the Historian, "Patriotic

Schizophrenia." OfT-Stage Trumpets: First Heralds of a

New

Synthesis.

Liang and the Revolutionaries. xi

CONTENTS

Xll

Part Three

V FROM

191 2-1929:

remembrance of things past

POLITICS

TO SCHOLARSHIP,

Politics.

Liang

in Office.

173

The Monarchical Plans

The Yunnan Revolt. Return Arena. The Last Decade.

Shih-k'ai. cal

VI

BACK TO CHINA—THE LAST DEFENSE, Liang's Recapitulation.

The Decline

to the

of

Yuan

Peking

Politi-

193

of the West.

The New

Syncretism. Persistence of Earlier Rationalizations. Liang's Hostility to Communism. The Area of Agreement between Liang and the Communists. Liang and the Pro-Western Liberals. Conclusion.

Appendix: the controversy over the authenticity OF THE CONFUCIAN CLASSICS, 221 Bibliography, 224 Glossary, 230

Index, 249

LIANG CH I-CH AO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

:

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES

Ch'ing-shih kjio [Draft history of the Ch'ing Dynasty]

CA CR CSM CSK

Hsueh-heng

HH

China-Archiv (Archiv fur den Fernen Osten) Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal Chinese Students' Monthly

[Critical

Review]

\ ne relinquished

left

under

his editorial post to

Wang

K'ang-nien

Changsha. 49

there, in collaboration

he organized the

Nan

with T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang and others,

hsueh-hui, which endeavored to coordinate

the political science studies of scholars in the southern provinces.

The newspaper or

was meant

A

letter

and here again he felt, hand of Chang Chih-tung. 51 Liang had left Changsha),

also claimed his attention,

to feel, the restraining

May

dated

from Chang

to

60

11,

1898 (after

Ch'en Pao-chen and

tribute to the talent

and

Huang

Tsun-hsien,

intellect flourishing in

now and

ship over other provinces. But every

Hunan,

first its

pays

leader-

then corrupt prac-

Chang, as witness the Hsiang hsueh-pao, pubsome completely erroneous material, with prejudice and partiality extreme. People are startled and angry, Chang continues, and he requests an investigation. 52 tices spread, writes

lishing

Liang's main

however, were concentrated on the Shihwhere Chinese and Western studies were combined. He lectured in the classroom four hours a day and spent his evenings writing. There were only forty students in his first Liang, in one class, but of these several were extremely talented account, singles out Li Ping-huan, Lin Kuei, and Ts'ai Ao (with whom he was later to associate in the Yunnan Revolt against Yuan 53 Shih-k'ai) Eight of the students became ardent revolutionaries;

wu

efforts,

hsiieh-t'ang,

—

48

Wu,

65. Liang,

made upon

first

"Ch'u kuci-kuo yen-shuo-tz'u,"

YPSWC

57.1D-2 [Addresses

returning to China].

49 Liang, "San-shih tzu-shu," 27. 50 "Tan Ssu-t'ung chuan," PCCP, 12.24. 51 Ch'en Ch'iu, "Wu-hsii cheng-pien shih

YCHP

fan-pien-fa jen-wu chih cheng-chih

62 [The political thought of the antireformists during the "Hundred Days of Reform"]. 52 Chang Wen-hsiang kung ch'iian-chi [The collected works of Chang Chihtung] (Peking, 1928), 155.20.

ssu-hsiang,"

25

(June,

1939),

53 Liang, "Ch'ing-tai hsiieh-shu kai-lun," 62.

.

lianc ch'i-ch'ao and tre mind of modern china

26

some followed Tang Ts'ai-ch'ang in the Hankow rising against Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi (iooo) and some figured prominently in the founding of the Republic. Liang considered the school a nerve center in the struggle for change. "The war cries

the

new and

of the

the old rose at the

the waves moved

in the capital."

Hsiang River," he wrote, "and

4

The 'Hundred Days" The reform was

was indeed flowing

in 189S

when

height.

tide

in the capital

it

reached

its

in the early spring, after a near-fatal illness.

and Liang himself

He

55

left for

Peking

In April, he took

once more the triennial examination for the chin-shih degree.

was

It

his last quest for the blue-bird.

Even

as

he tried to meet the classical system on

he was trying to remake

it

on

his.

He

its

own

terms,

used the convocation of

scholars as an occasion for a blast against the "eight-legged essay,"

examination which had called such rigidity

that feature of the

into the old educational

scheme; but hardly a hundred of the

won

over when Liang tried to get K'ang Yu-wei, representing Liang presented a memorial on this subject in

thousands of candidates were

signatures for a mass petition. 58

and the other the fourth

signatories,

month (May 20-June

18).

67

This particular memorial elicited no response, but K'ang and Liang were drawing near to their moment of power. The Hundred Days of Reform were ushered in by the imperial decree of June

11,

service. 4

a

sweeping statement

in

w

58

Weng

,

Franke, Ostasiatuche Xeubildungcn

'

and educa-

T'ung-ho, one of the imperial tutors, had voiced

u 54. ; 15 Liang, "San-shih tzu-shu," 27. 56 O. 5

favor of military

reform and the nurture of talent for an effective diplomatic

tional

Mai Chung-hua

fed.),

(Hamburg. 1911),

76.

Nan-hat hnen-sheng wu-hsii tsou-k^ao [K'ang Yu-wei's

memorials

in 1898] ( probably Shanghai, 1911), 30-8; hereafter referred to as Ttou-kao. Chao Feng-t'ien, 197, says this memorial was submitted in the third

month 58

(April

PG

21-May 19;

(1898;, 32-34.

THL

144.160-17.

:

1

873-1 898:

METAMORPHOSIS

27

K'ang-Liang-T'an group had ten times the 59 It was inevitable that, under the new dispensation, the reformers would find their way into the inner the opinion that the

ability of the ministers.

circle.

n

had many repercussions. One of the memorial from the Hanlin recorder Hsu Chih-ching, commending the example of Japan, whose Emperor Meiji, it was

The

decree of June

was

first

a

implement his plans for reform, had taken where he found them, regardless of their station;

suggested, in order to

men the

of talent

Emperor

of China, said the memorialist,

Japanese example to

heart,

would

among others, to high positions. 80 Chang Yin-huan, ex-minister to

raise

if

he would take the

K'ang, Liang, and Tan,

the United States

and

a

mem-

ber of the Tsungli-yamen (the Chinese foreign office, 1861-1901),

exerted himself to

win imperial favor

June 13 decree in response to

Hsu

for the reformers.

61

The

Chih-ching's memorial offered

K'ang Yu-wei and Chang Yiian-chi, ordered Huang Tsun-hsien and Tan Ssu-t'ung summoned to Peking, and concluded, "As for Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, let the Tsungli-yamen examine him and memorialize." 62 Liang was on the inside. He had been eloquent for years on the 63 now, by a decree of necessity of translation of foreign books;

imperial audience to

59

Wu,

60

KHCY2 4 .i2b-i3.

78.

81

Wen,

55.

82

THL

144,

18b; also

KHCY

24.13.

The

decree

is

translated in

PG

(1898),

Concerning Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, the translation concludes, the Tsungli-yamen should "find out where he is at present and report to us." This is a faulty render-

34-

ing of the last phrase, "ch'a-k^'an chii-tsou." 63 For examples,

"Therefore, lation of

see

the

following works by Liang,

(a)

"Hsi-hsueh shu-mu-

YPSWC

piao hsu-li," if

3.54 [Preface to an index of Western scholarly books] the nation desires to strengthen itself, let it make large-scale trans-

western books the basis." {b) "Ta-t'ung i-shu-chii hsu-li,"

YPSWC

4.3

[Remarks on the Ta-t'ung Translation Bureau]: Liang pleads for translation of Western books to make innovations possible; he complains that the Tung-wen Kuan (foreign language college in Peking), the Shui-shih hsueh-t'ang (Naval Academy at Tientsin), and the Chih-tsao chii (Arsenal of Shanghai) have been translating for thirty years, have published only 100 books in that time, and

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

28

64

with a he was made director of a translation bureau, budget of Tls. 1000 per month. He soon found that his agency was seriously embarrassed by a paucity of competent translators. In July, through the Minister of France, he asked Monsignor Gamier

July

3,

(the Vicar Apostolic of Ching-nan) to authorize Father Joseph

Ma

Hsiang-pei to direct a "college of translators" to be founded

Peking. Mgr. Gamier acceded to the request and authorized

at

the participation of

Ma, who, however,

that the college be established at

laid

down

the conditions

Shanghai and that the

Jesuits of 65

and Zicawei should take part. These conditions were accepted, the proposition cleared official channels with a memorial by Sun

who

Chia-nai,

reported Liang's desire to found such a school, and

with the decree of August

promised tax

and

26,

exemption

suspended

which granted Liang permission

for materials used.

66

(c) "Hsi-shu t'i-yao nung-hsiieh tsung-hsii,"

have recently

all

YPSWC

[General preface to Western books elucidating agronomy]: Liang

4.5

activities,

avers that the key point in reference to China's agricultural

ills

is

the fact that

book outlining new agricultural techniques is available in Chinese, (d) "Tu Jih-pen shu-mu-chih shu-hou," YPSWC 4.8b-n [Postscript to a reading of a Japanese bibliography]: A threnody of "translate" runs all through the text; on 9: "The strength of the West lies not in its soldiers or its guns but in the study by its sons of books about new methods." 6 *CSK, Pen-chi section, 24.7b. THL 145.8: "The chu-jen Liang Ch'i-ch'ao is granted brevet rank of the sixth class and will manage the affairs of the translation bureau." Liu, 135, says that Liang was put in charge of the Peking Univer-

only one Western

sity as well as of the translation bureau. Actually, Sun Chia-nai was chosen to administer the University. Liu perhaps was led astray by the fact that both appointments were made on the same day and are recorded together in CSK, Pen-chi section. Ma Te-chih, 54, gives July 26 as the date of Liang's appoint-

He seems to have used carelessly a memorial and imperial decree of July 26 which refer to the fact that Liang by previous decree had been designated head of a translation bureau; see THL 146. 5D-6 and KHCY 34.310-32. H. F. MacNair, China in Revolution (Chicago, 1935). M-I5. g» v « August 16 as the date of ment.

He appears to have misread the decree of August 16 which urges speedy action by Liang's translation bureau to supply Western books for the Imperial University; see 146. 16D-17 and PG (1898),

Liang's appointment.

THL

54.

65 d'Elia, 254. J6

SR

THL

8

147.5b;

PG

(1923), 449

memorial

directly to

as the initiator.

(1898), 61. Yano Jinichi, "Bojutsu no

[The reform and

hempo

oyobi seihen,"

change of 1898], attributes the Liang, but the imperial decree mentions only Sun Chia-nai political

1

873-1 898:

METAMORPHOSIS

29

Liang's absorption in the affairs of the translating bureau kept

him from

On

reverting to his old role as editor of the Shih-wu pao.

July 17, the Censor

Sung Po-lu memorialized suggesting

the Shih-wu pao of Shanghai be transformed into an

The Emperor, on (Grand

the

same day,

official

sent a decree to the

that

organ.

Nei

Ko

Sun Chia-nai should "take the matter into consideration and memorialize the throne upon 67 his deciding satisfactorily how to manage the affair." Sung Po-lu had recommended Liang as editor, but Sun Chia-nai, in his Secretariat)

directing that

memorial, noted that Liang, by the decree of July 3, had been designated head of the translation bureau and was too pressed to

undertake the Shih-wu pao project. K'ang was suggested instead,

and 67 68

into

was so ordered by decree on July

it

THL THL an

145.29;

PG

146.6;

also

official

26.

68

(1898), 44KHCY, 34-310-32. This conversion of the Shih-wu pao

newspaper was not accomplished without

nicn keenly resented his expropriation.

He

bitterness.

Wang

K'ang-

turned to publication of a counter-

Ch'ang-yen pao [Straight-talk journal], with Liang and fought a pen- war with the new Shih-wu pao (Ko, 126). Liang entered the polemical controversy with a biting article, "Ch'uang-pan Shihwu pao yuan-wei chi" [An account of the circumstances of the founding of the Shih-wu pao], written to controvert the implication of a notice published by Wang and beginning, "K'ang-nien, in autumn, 1896, founded and managed the Shih-wu pao in Shanghai and extended an invitation to the chii-jen of Hsin.*' hui Liang Chuo-ju to be editor-in-chief. Liang goes into detail about the origins of the Shih-wu pao to blot out the impression that the Shih-wu pao had been founded solely by Wang and had then been taken over by a K'ang-Liang cabal. Liang's article, which is reprinted in Ko, 137-141, presents the facts as follows: In the ninth month, 1896, K'ang Yu-wei was in Shanghai as director of the branch Ch'iang hsiieh-hui. Because of the sickness of his aged mother in Kwangtung, K'ang was forced to leave Shanghai. Wang K'ang-nien was summoned from Hupei to take over the directorship. By the time of his arrival in Shanghai, the society had been closed. Tls. 700 remained in the Ch'iang hsiieh-hui treasury and Tls. 500 were realized from the sale of books and office fixtures. The Shih-wu pao \uan thought it politic to conceal the origin of its finances. Therefore, Wang took it upon himself to enter the funds in the books as "contributions of Wang K'ang-nien et al." Huang Tsun-hsien changed this to read "Wang K'angnien and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao et al." {ibid., 137). reformist newspaper called

Ting- fen

as editor,

.

Britton, 92, has an account of these financial manipulations.

lows Liang's

article

He

generally fol-

but simplifies, so that the implication of subterfuge by

Wang

Liang gives the credit for the Shih-wu pao groundwork to Huang Tsunhsien, Wu Chi-ch'ing, Chou Chang-shu, and himself; he refers to Wang contemptuously as a "self-styled founder" (Ko, 138).

is

lost.

LIANG CH'l-CH'AO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

30

One may

Sun Chia-nai was motivated less by consideration for Liang than by a desire to shunt K'ang Yu-wei to Shanghai, away from the center of power. Reactionary sentiment was crystallizing, and even in circles supposedly favorable to reform, K'ang's influence on the Emperor was decried. The undercurrent was clearly discernible in the battle to set up a constitususpect that

tional bureau.

This was one of the most cherished aims of the reformers. K'ang had submitted his first memorial on this subject in the first month (January 22-February 20), 1898. His plea for the establishment of a constitutional or a policy bureau (Chih-tu chu)

drew

heavily on the reformers' arsenal of shining models

awful

examples

Annam,

India.

the old

and

Japan's

first

—Emperor

Meiji,

Peter

the

Great,

and

Poland,

"Reform and be strengthened," he wrote, "guard Japan had been strengthened, and one of and basic moves had been the establishment of a die."

constitutional bureau.

In the seventh

69

month (August 17-September

15) he tried again,

70 Other mewith the same emphasis on the Japanese precedent.

morials were submitted by

Liang made the

last

Sung Po-lu and Yang Shen-hsiu;

attempt. Speaking through his father-in-law,

Li Tuan-fen, the president of the Board of Ceremonies, he sub-

mitted a memorial which sought, the ministers into creating

The memorial asked

that

among

some kind of mou-ch'in

a

other things, to spur

central planning body. tien

(energetic

labor

pavilion) be established to determine policy; that the regulations of the Six Boards be revised;

and

that court officials be sent to

Sun Chia-nai obstructed action memorial, and K'ang's enemies charged that his aim was the Six Boards, the Grand Secretariat, and the provincial

supervise the provincial schools.

on

this

to ruin

governments. 71

On 68

70

September

KHCY,

11,

Tseng Lien

24.4-7.

Tsou-kao, 4 6- 4 8b. 71 Chao Feng-t'icn, 203-204.

of the

Hunan

Conservative Party

1

873- 1 898:

METAMORPHOSIS

31

{Hunan shou-chiu tang) submitted a memorial asking death for K'ang and Liang. 72 The Emperor still resisted such pressure; his 73 decree of September 12 was a eulogy of Western civilization. For some weeks now K'ang had been in secret meeting with the Emperor every night at the Palace. Liang and others had often accompanied him. They sat on lounges by the Emperor's side. All reserve and ceremony were thrown off as they planned real reforms which would attack not only the prejudices but the ma74 terial interests of the official class. The bold decrees of August 30-September 16 abolished sinecures, reformed the army, and introduced a budget system; but reaction was swift. A scholar who saw these dramatic September days in Peking in the next

month wrote

the following note in his diary: "In the

design of K'ang and Liang, the

new and

Chinese, England and Russia were

set at

the old,

Manchu and

odds, and so, truly, were

mother and son." 75 For in the palace counterrevolution of September 21, the Empress Dowager reasserted her authority, the Emperor, her son by adoption, was put into the shadows, and new decrees revoked the abolitions, the reforms, and the introductions.

76

On

September

22, the

Empress Dowager struck

at

K'ang and

77 The former was absent Liang with an order for their arrest. Liang still within the city days, but was from Peking in these

walls and in

imminent danger of capture and

certain death.

Nevertheless, before seeking refuge for himself, he joined T'an 72

"Liu Kuang-t'i chuan,"

7S

THL

7

*PG

75

147.22-220;

PG

PCCP

12.86 [Biography of Liu Kuang-t'i].

(1898), 74-75.

(1898), 78-79.

Yeh Ch'ang-ch'ih,

Yiian-tu lu jih-chi [Yiian-tu lu diary]

7-73-73^ (Entry of October 23, 1898). 76 Yen's reference to England and Russia

is

(Shanghai, 1933),

explained by his entry of October

He

mentions here the rumor brought from Tientsin to the effect that the K'ang-Liang reform ideas had been sponsored by England and Japan for their own purposes and that the Empress Dowager's regency was the fruit of a 21, ibid., 7.73.

Russian scheme. Therefore, not dare to intervene. 77

CSK,

Pen-chi, 24.9b.

when

the startling coup broke, England and Japan did

LIANG CH'l-CH'AO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

32

Ssu-t'ung in a private conference with

Timothy Richard about

Emperor. They decided that Yung Wing, being 78 should see the United States minister, an American citizen, Liang should see the Japanese, and Richard the British to induce them to move for the Emperor's protection. But the United States the threat to the

minister was

away

in the hills

and the

British minister

was

at

a water resort. 79

The

Japanese minister was in town. For the

Emperor he could

not intercede, but Liang was granted refuge in the legation, where last conversation with T'an Ssu-t'ung, the young man had met so short a time ago and set on the road to he martyrdom. T'an had waited in his lodgings all day and night, until he could slip past the cordon of men waiting to seize him.

he had his

whom

He made

his

way

to the legation to say good-by to his friend.

Liang begged him to come east with him to Japan. T'an said that there would never be a new China. until men had died for it. He left Liang and stepped back into the open, for capture, condemnation, and death. 80

The

city gates

were closed

to prevent the escape of the pro-

managed to reach Tientsin. The Japanese consul in Tientsin escorted him to Taku, and in the 81 Japanese gunboat Oshima he sailed into exile. The Empress Dowager followed him with decrees designed to make his life harder and a little shorter. On September 22, October 1, and December 5, she reiterated her demands for his capture, scribed reformers, but Liang

ordered his property confiscated, and offered a reward for his ap82

But it was the decree of September 29 which told Liang most succinctly how fondly he was regarded by the powers in Peking: "There is also the M. A. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, a devoted follower and fellow-conspirator with K'ang Yu-wei. Liang's writprehension.

78

Yung Wing had been

the

first

Chinese to be educated in the United States.

79 Richard, 266. 80 "T'an

Ssu-t'ung chuan," PCCP 12. 200-21; "T'an Ssu-t'ung chuan," CSK, Lich-chuan section, 470.5b. 81 For a further discussion of Liang's escape see below, Chapter III. 82

CSK,

Pcn-chi, 24.9b; 24.9b; 24.10b.

1873-1898: METAMORPHOSIS

33

and extravagant boastings, and and decapitated when caught." 83 This Peking Gazette translation does not indicate precisely what the reactionaries thought of Liang. He was only to be beheaded, K'ang was to be sliced; and a more literal rendition would describe him as "the chii-jen Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, helplessly dependent on K'ang Yu-wei." 84 "Helplessly dependent" is "lang-pei," a little animal with short legs, riding on the back of a wolf. It is not a heroic image and not fully exact. Liang said many things that his teacher said, but even in the nineties one can detect the germ of later divergence. K'ang Yu-wei finished the classical tradition. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao finished it and took the next step into the dark. ings have always been treacherous

he

is

83 8

also to be arrested

PG

(1898), 85.

*THL

148.8.

CHAPTER

II

THE BREAKDOWN OF THE CONFUCIAN WORLD Liang's writings are documents of acculturation, the process of

displacement or modification of the techniques, institutions, values,

and

attitudes of

one culture by those of another. There are four

conditions to acculturation

means

of change,

and

:

need for change, example of change,

justification of change.

out the existence of the

first

three conditions

Liang tried to point and to fulfill the last.

suggested in the Introduction that almost every time he urged

I

reform, he looked to the classics for justification. in this, to the old intellectual outlook; for

it

was

He was

faithful,

in the nature of

Chinese thought, historically oriented, to sanctify practice in terms 1

of precedent.

Liang

Yet, his traditional intellectual procedure swept

to nontraditional conclusions.

What was

this process?

How

did Confucian sanctions cover the disintegration of Confucianism?

Revision of Tradition and Social

Change

In an article written in 1896 Liang describes the historic experience of

West with

the

class

stratification

enforced by

a

hereditary governing nobility. Elimination of the hereditary principle,

which the West

desires

and has

yet to achieve,

was

claimed some thousands of years ago by Confucius. Liang that he has real

ing the

pro-

insists

grounds for eulogizing Confucius and proclaim-

utility of the classics.

grown with

stylistic

we compare

that phase of

But Chinese thought has been over-

embellishment and arid semanticism, and it

with modern thought,

how

if

can the

Chinese help but seem weak?

There 1

is

a

way

The Chinese term

out.

Read

the classics,

for this operation

is

the sanction for present-day changes."

34

Liang

t'o-k}t kai-chih

enjoins,

—"finding

and the

in antiquity

1

philosophers,

873-1 898:

and the

METAMORPHOSIS

histories, but

with certain points in mind.

traditional Chinese thought, he says,

If

35

to be a vehicle for

is

moderns, they must believe that Confucius' teaching that the Six Classics

were

all

is

primary;

written by Confucius; that prior to

Confucius there existed an older teaching; that the Six Classics were all books which changed the system of government; that Ch'in and

after the

heretical Hsiin-tzu, evil

Han periods all philosophers who made of Confucianism a

followed the belief in the

nature of man; that Confucius' oral sayings are

commentaries; that the "Ancient-character \\u-wen\ the Eastern

Han

are forgeries by

Liu Hsin;

all

in the

classics" of

that, to a large extent,

the corrupt texts of the ancient teachings have been restored by collators.

Some

2

interesting notes are struck here.

K'ang Yu-wei's

critical

There

are echoes of

study of the authenticity of the orthodox

Hsin-hsueh wei-ching J(ao (1891),3 and anticipations of K'ang's analysis of Confucius as a Reformer, the K'ung-tzu classics, the

\ai-chih

J(ao

(1897).

The

significance of this combination of

and reform, is brought home by further reading in Liang's work, which reveals the prominence he assigns to the Kung-yang commentary on the Ch'un-ch'iu, the Spring and motifs, iconoclasm

Autumn Annals. The Ch'un-ch'iu,

a chronicle of events

from

721 to 481 b.c,

was

work of Confucius himself, and his most important achievement. K'ang and Liang by ho means disputed this. What they did dispute was the acceptance of a text called the Tso-chuan as an authentic commentary on the Ch'unch'iu; for the Tso-chuan was one of those \u-wen texts which K'ang and Liang called forgeries. They advanced the claim of another commentary, the Kung-yang chuan, to be the only genuine

traditionally accepted as the

Now,

Confucian interpretation of the Ch'un-ch'iu. 2

Liang, "Hsi-hsiieh shu-mu-piao hou-hsii,"

YPSWC

4.2-ib

the striking

[Colophon

to

an

index of books of Western learning]. 3

Liang and Ch'en Tung-£u helped K'ang publish

t'icn,

188.

this

work. See Chao Feng-

LIANG CH'l-CH'AO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

36

about the Kung-yang chuan

fact

is

this:

on the one hand,

its

claims

had been on smothered for centuries by the reverently accepted Tso-chuan; on the other hand, it supplied texts which might seem to order drastic Confucian attention as a key to the Ch'un-ch'iu

change.

social

Here, in the linked textual and social unorthodoxies of the

Kung-yang tory,

school,

we have

the confluence of

two streams of

his-

streams mingling to dissolve the traditional Chinese ethno-

centrism. Sacred texts are stripped of their canonical character and alien institutions

come

of Chinese doctrine in the

in.

Western innovation and the subversion

—these

work

Chinese acculturation.

If

together, necessarily together,

one element of a culture hitherto

thought eternal (for example, the

canon) comes to be

classical

mind may open

change

in every

element. Liang asks for changes, changes dictated by

modern

seen as temporal, the

to accept a

Western encroachment and modern Western example. 4 But the foreign promise feeds on the native doubt, and Liang, becoming a westernizer, deserts a Chinese orthodoxy. For decades of Western incursion could not turn

him by

themselves; centuries of

made him ready. K'ang Yu-wei, says Liang, settled the "classics controversy." 5 K'ang was the man who surveyed the whole field of these classics whose authenticity had been questioned, first in Han times and again in Ch 'ing, and he made the definitive findings. 6 His work Chinese textual criticism had

first

flowed into them, and

on the false classics (Hsin-hsiieh wei-ching 1( a0 ) which linked Liu Hsin's forgeries to Wang Mang's usurpation (a.d. 8-23 the

—

"New

[Hsin] Dynasty"),

made

a great

stir

in the philosophical

4

For a clear exposition of the sense of urgency about China's future engendered War and the European menace, see Liang, "Nan hsueh-hui hsii," YPSWC 4.i5b-i8 [Introductory remarks on the Nan hsiieh-hui}.

by the Sino-Japanese 5

See the Appendix for the history of this controversy, which was the intel-

lectual point of departure for 6 Liang,

K'ang and Liang.

"Ch'ing-tai hsiieh-shu kai-lun," 54-55. Actually, K'ang's findings were

from definitive; his more radical conclusions are untenable. For a refutation of K'ang's thesis on the authorship of the classics, see Ch'ien Mu, "Liu Hsiang Hsin

far

fu-tzu nien-p'u,"

YCHP

7

(June 1930), 1189-1318

Hsiang and Liu Hsin, father and son].

[Chronological

lives

of Liu

1

873-1 898:

METAMORPHOSIS

37

world. His work on "Confucius as a Reformer" and his Ta-t'ung shu [Book of the Great Harmony] aroused even more excitement. "If the 'Study of the False Classics of the

Hsin Learning' may be

likened to a typhoon," wrote Liang, "then these two books were

one a volcanic eruption and one a mighty earthquake." 7

Syncretism : Western "Idea of Progress" in a Chinese Context

With

two works, most germinal for Liang's thought, K'ang achieved the wedding of the Chinese critical tradition to the impulse to introduce reforms from the West. In the first, by insisting that Confucius invented the Golden Age of Yao and Shun and did not really look back to it, he reoriented Confucianism toward the future. The Western idea of progress comes in, and that idea, in the nineteenth-century West, was linked with the scientific and social achievements which the reformers wished these

to borrow.

The second work, on

the "Great

Harmony," even more

ex-

From

the

rivets the idea of progress to

plicitly

Kung-yang commentary on

the Ch'un-ch'iu, he takes the concept

of the san-shih, the three ages,

world of the Great

Confucianism.

Harmony,

and the last of the three is K'ang's which there is internationalism,

in

popular election, emancipation of women, general education, hospitalization of the sick,

and

institutional care of the aged.

8

The

sequence of the three ages became by far the most recurrent

symbol

The 7

in the writings of

three ages,

Liang,

which

Liang

Ch'i-ch'ao.

in Liang's writings

The

"Ch'ing-tai hsueh-shu kai-lun," 57.

undergo multiple

Usin-hsiieh wei-ching k!ao

was burned by imperial decree. In 1894 the censor Yii Chin-san and others memorialized accusing K'ang of "deceiving mankind and oppressing the masses" (huo-shin wu-min) of blasphemy and lawlessness (fei-shcng wu-fa), and asked y

for

the

burning of the book. The censor

An

An

Hsiao-fen also memorialized for

Han-chang (a brother of Li Hung-chang), the Governor General at Canton, ordered him to have the book examined (see ibid., 2.ib-2b). The blocks were destroyed. Liang, in Peking, tried to assist K'ang during this episode, but to no effect. See Chao Feng-t'ien, 189. destruction

its

8

(See ICTP, 2.1 -ib).

edict to Li

Liang, "Ch'ing-tai hsiieh-shu kai-lun," 58-59.

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

38

definition, are the chii-luan shih

(Chaos), the sheng-p'ing shih

(Peace), and the t'ai-p'ing shih, (Great Peace).

chieh-shuo"

9

In

"Tu Meng-tzu

explanation of Mencius], 1898, Liang associates

[An

three concepts of the nature o±

man

with the three ages.

In the words of Confucius, character too has three interpretations.

The

character of the people of the chii-luan shih

of the people of the sheng-p'ing shih

is

good and

is

evil; the

evil,

character

has potentialities

for both; the character of the people of the t'ai-p'ing shih

good.

is

Hsiin-tzu teaches the words of the chii-luan shih; Mi-tzu, Ch'i T'iaotzu,

and Shih-tzu teach the words of the sheng-p'ing shih; Mencius words of the t'ai-p'ing shih. 10

teaches the It

is

important here to

recall that the

human

concept of

per-

Western idea of progress in its eighteenth-century flowering and that it was indispensable to men like Timothy Richard and his favorite historian, Mackenzie, who from an appreciation of the advances of science distill an unqualified optimism about the destiny of man. If human nature were not fundamentally good, scientific techniques might only magnify man's power to tear society apart. It is not surprising, fectibility

was fundamental

who

then, that Liang,

to the

believed in the beneficence of science,

should stand with Mencius on

we

human

nature.

And

the circle

is

Mencius becomes Liangs principal Chinese repository of the humanitarian ideas which the reformers associated with western technological civiliclosed completely

when,

as

shall see below,

zation. •Liang.

"Tu

Jih-pcn

shu-mu-chih

shu-hou,"

(widespread confusion). K'ang, weaving his

8b,

calls

own work

in

the

age po~lan

first

with the

classics in

elaborate network, says that the Kung-yang's sheng-p'ing shih (Peaceful

Age)

an is

equivalent to the hsiao-^'ang (Peaceful Era) of the Li-yiin, a chapter of the Li-chi,

and that

the

Kung-yang's

to the Li-yiins ta-t'ung

2000 years has been

t'ai-p'ing shih

(Age of the Great Peace)

is

equivalent

(Great Harmony). K'ang states that China for the past

China does not seek change but This was K'ang's theory before the 1898 reform. After the failure of the reform he decided that China had not reached the second stage, but was still in the first. See Kuo Chan-po, Chin wu-shih nien Chung-kuo ssu-hsiang shih [A history of Chinese thought in

clings to the past,

it

in the hsiao-^'ang state. If

will be controverting Confucius' idea.

the last fifty years) (Peking, 1926), 8-9. 10 Liang,

"Tu Meng-tzu

chieh-shuo,"

YPSWC

1.14D-15.

1

Liang used

873-1 898:

METAMORPHOSIS

39

this ethical interpretation of the three ages in his

He

blasts against the practice of foot-binding.

principles of the

Annals"

the chii-luan age, the

Age

—oppression

by force

appealed to "the is

of Chaos, but not of the

the regime of

two succeeding

The world today has already moved into the second age, and therefore the evil custom of oppression is gradually passing 11 away. In another essay he elaborates on this sequential pattern of moral progress. In the chii-luan age, he wrote, one triumphed by force; in the sheng-p'ing age, by force and wisdom; in the fai-p'ing age, by wisdom. "In the transition of the world from chaos to peace, the sources of success pass from force into wisdom." 12 Liang also interpreted the three ages in economic and political terms. In discussing the problem of fostering national prosperity, he states that the practice of financial speculation {kjuan shih-pien che) exists in the first two ages but not in the Age of the Great ages.

Peace.

What is the

reason for this ?

comes from differences in market market value come from inequities and unevenand these come from lack of commercial intercourse. Either the

So-called "fluctuation" {shih-pien)

value; differences in ness,

transportation routes are difficult or customs barriers mutually breed 13

separation.

.

,

But Liang has already,

in this article, coupled "speculation" with

"utilization of resources"

economic

activity

and

extractive,

and the

{chin

industrial work."

formers wish to further, and left to

ti-li

che) as the two forms of

latter process is

this

14 is

This

defined as "agricultural, is

the fai-p'ing age, in which speculation will

11 Liang,

"Chieh ch'an-tsu hui hsu,"

what the

exactly

re-

the type of economic activity

YPSWC

no longer be

4.23b [Statement for the anti-

footbinding society). 12 Liang,

"Pien-fa t'ung-i,"

YPSWC

1.28.28b [The general principles of re-

form]. 18 Liang, "Shih-chi huo-chih lieh-chuan chin-i," ciples derived

YPSWC

from the Shih-chi biographies of those

increase of their wealth]. 14 Ibid., ob.

1.10

who were

[Modern

prin-

successful in the

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

40

operative because "fluctuation" cannot occur.

tortured reasoning whereby "progress"

is

We

tied to a

see here the

quasi-Confucian

philosophy of Utopia. Financial speculation the national barriers

is

which

impossible in the t'ai-p'ing age because foster

it

by interfering with the natural

Liang comes to this conclusion by a political application of the Kung-yang's three-age formula. The first age is that of many sovereigns, the second is that of one sovereign, the third is that of the people. Using this framework, free

market will be

leveled.

Liang courses through a generalized account of Chinese, Japanese, Russian, English, and French histories. In the West, he writes, the multi-sovereign phase was long, the single-sovereign phase was short. In China it operated the other way. Here Liang comes to the crux of his argument about barriers. He asks whether the United States and France may be said to be in their t'ai-p'ing age. It might appear so, says Liang, but actually no nation, whatever the extent of popular rule within its borders, living in the t'ai-p'ing age as long as

is

it

claims the attributes of

From a world viewpoint, we many sovereigns. 15

sovereignty.

age of the

This great system of Liang's, despite

its

are

all

in the chii-luan

fanciful character, has

from the Kung-yang doctrine of the three ages to science, democracy, prosperity, and peace, the same goods Timothy Richard offered without benefit of Con16 fucius. But that is only one facet of Liangs syncretism. The a certain coherence. All roads lead

15 Liang,

[A

"Lun chiin-cheng min-cheng hsiang-shan

chih

popular government]. See also Liang, "Shuo-ch'un hsu,"

YPSWC

li,"

discussion of the principle of the succession of monarchical

3-i-4b

government and

YPSWC

3.45b [Preface

"There are the people of a nation and the people of the world. Western government is by the people of the nation; we have not yet attained to government by the people of the world. In the age of the Great Peace, far and near, great and small in the world will be one." to Shuo-ch'un]'.

.

.

16 It may be remarked here that Hsu Chih-ching, in his memorial recommending Liang and others for office (see above, page 27), said that he was acting on the principle

from impoverishment to eternal peace." This phrase, is part of the terminology which Liang borrowed from the classics and used to describe the trend of history. Cf. Liang, "Tu Jih-pen shu-mu-chih shu-hou," 8b, where he gives ch'iung tse pien, pien tse of

ch'iung pien

"evolution

Sung

chiu (from l-ching),

t'ung as a statement of Confucius' world-view.

1873-1898: METAMORPHOSIS

41

evolutionary doctrine has two great characteristics, very revealing

The

symbols of the corrosion of Confucian tradition. acteristic is its inconsistency

The second

is

the theory

char-

first

with certain other of Liang's writings.

which

it

implies of the universal applica-

tion of Confucianism. Discussion of each of these points will lead

us far afield.

Analogy

The

and

of Patterns of Culture-Growth

Analogy

of Cultural Values

inner inconsistency in Liang's reasoning stems from the

equivocal tradition.

manner in which he relates innovation to Chinese Li angs constant concern is to protect r.hinp^p mltm-p

from the imputation^ o^Jajhnx^Therefore^borro wings must

bej

/converted into natural elements of the native tradition) Using the evolutionary san-shih, three-age formula,

elements in the future

Liang

locates these

—an authentic Chinese future which Con-

fucius counted on. This rationalization

we

shall call

"analogy of

patterns of culture-growth." Chinese history, following native,

its

own

Confucian course, points to the goals which the West has

reached.

But

at

other times, using an "analogy of cultural

Liang's apologia for China

is

values,"

of quite a different kind: he finds

not parallel courses of history but identical essential ideals, and

he holds that the desired innovations are not really new, for they

China in the olden times. Using almost a goldenage legend of his own, he speaks of divergence from a past that must be recaptured. We have already glimpsed this idea in the

had existed

first article

cited in this chapter, "Hsi-hsiieh

[Colophon will

recall

hereditary

modes

to its

shu-mu-piao hou-hsii"

an index of books of Western learning]; the reader

remarks about China's ancient rejection of the

principle

and about the

effectiveness

of traditional

of thought before bad scholarship had choked them

What history

in

this represents

and

value.

I

is

ofr*.

Liang's crack-up in his effort to reconcile

shall cite

two

texts

which together

the intellectual weakness thrust on Liang by the

illustrate

demands

of his

:

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

42

The argument of one of these texts explicitly contradicts the argument of the other, but given Liang's historical situation, his illogicality might logically be expected. In 1896 Liang discussed the theory that democracy had existed in the ancient world in the West. time.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao emphatically does not agree. Western histories and Rome. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao considers that age to have been non-democratic. If that is .

.

.

say that the democratic conception arose in Greece

called democracy, then to

our China,

too, in ancient times

could be said

have democracy.

He

then undertakes his san-shih analysis and affirms that

all

the

world must proceed from the first age to the Great Peace, when 17 democracy at last will be real. In an article written the same year, Liang did say that ancient

China had democracy. He wrote that the secret of Western was parliamentary democracy, the hallmark of which is the precedence of law over king. Ancient China, although it lacked the institution, had the idea. He cites, in abridged form, a passage from Mencius to the effect that a king should hearken strength

not to his great

not to those about him, but to the voice

officers,

of the people

When listen to

all

those about you say, "This

them.

When

all

your great

death," don't listen to them. serves death," put

him

When

to death.

to be the parent of the people.

.

.

man

deserves death," don't

officers say,

the people

You must

man

"This

all say,

"This

act in this

way

deserves

man

de-

in order

18

17 Liang, "Yii Yen Yu-ling hsicn-sheng shu," YPSWC 4.27 [Letter to Yen Fu]. Sec also Liang, "Lun chun-cheng min-cheng hsiang-shan chih li," 3-3D, where he rules out the claim that ancient .Greek representative institutions were equiva-

lent to modern parliamentarianism. He skeptically believes them to have been manipulated by great families like those of the ancient Chinese feudal states.

The

alleged parliamentarianisms of Greece

and

Rome were

still

specimens of the

multi-sovereign government. 18 Translation of

1895), 165-166.

Mencius

is

from

J.

Legge,

The Chinese

Classics, 2

(Oxford,

1 873-1 898:

He

METAMORPHOSIS

43

quoted also from the l-ching and the Shu-ching to bolster

his contention that

once China had recognized the ideal of democ-

racy. "Therefore,"

he wrote, "although there was not the name of

representative government, there

was

19

yet the fact of

it."

obvious that between the respective premises in these two

It is

articles there

history

and

a logical chasm. In both he

is

assumptions. In the

first

tarianism because

is

it

concerned with

he ascribes value to parliamen-

article,

considered to be in the stream of Chinese

Confucius said

history.

is

two arguments proceed from opposite

value, but his

should therefore wish

was coming, and good Confucianists he locates

it

it

to come. In the second article,

parliamentarianism in the stream of Chinese history because he considers is

it

Western experience has shown

to have value.

that

it

a good thing, but Chinese must not believe that they were

incapable of thinking

And

so

directions.

it

up

for themselves.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao is setting off simultaneously in two On the one hand, he is a determinist, but not a con-

vinced or convincing one, for his determinism

is

compounded

of

disparate beliefs: that change occurs because an end (the Great

Peace) has been appointed to history, and that change occurs because effective natural causes of mutation exist in 19 Liang,

"Ku

i-yiian

k'ao,"

YPSWC

1.1-ib

life

itself.

20

[Researches into ancient parlia-

ments]. 20 Biological illustrations are not

nature

is

in continual

uncommon

development, so

—

it

against innovations"

would be absurd now ("Pien-fa

chinesischen Reformschriften

de

l'

to

want

t'ung-i," quoted

vom Ende

life

work,

viz.:

(a)

"As

of society in the state.

all

The

shows also thoroughgoing transforma-

history of China, in conformity with nature, tions in the state

in Liang's

the

is

in

to barricade oneself artificially

O. Franke, "Die wichtigsten

des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts," Bulletin

Academic Imperiale des Sciences de

St.

Petersbourg, fifth series, 17 [1902],

quote from K'ang Yu-wei: "The triumphed over the ones who came first; in the human realm, the later men exceed their predecessors. Reforms in the West came slowly. It is five hundred years since it turned its back on its beginnings, and the art of government in the West is in a developmental stage. Japan's march in the 050)., (b)

Darwinist coloration ot

Social

late-comers on

footsteps of the

this

earth

West was quick.

It

is

Japanese art of government has reached

thirty years since the restoration, its

fine flowering"

and the

("Tu Jih-pen shu-mu-

chih shu-hou," 10).

For evidence of

a

tinge of the racism associated in Europe with Social Dar-

LIANG CH'1-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

44

This

is

and two of the most uneasy bedfellows

the association of a pseudo-Confucian teleology

pseudo-Darwinian

science,

On

the philosophical roster.

the other hand, he

is

a in

a voluntarist.

He cannot believe that Chinese history has been rigidly determined, because that would rule Mencius, for example, out of court as a witness to the basic soundness of Chinese culture. The question he must answer

is,

"Why,

tory, did these ancient values

some point

at

in

Chinese

his-

disappear from Chinese society?"

—

For Liang never romanticizes about modern China he knows that the values have been lost: "Mencius says that the people are to be held in honor, the people's affairs

The governments

may

not be neglected.

Western states come near to but China alas, is cut off from the

of present-day

conformity with this principle, teachings of Mencius." 21 If

the inflexible course of Chinese history blotted out the ideals

which

is

Mencius

as

of Mencius, then the society history certainly cannot use

given

premises,

its

the culmination of that

one of

its

showpieces.

If,

Chinese history could have come into

its

modern phase only as it did, then the observed differences between the two civilizations and the higher valuation set on Western ways would leave the Chinese with only dust and ashes for his culture.

a

The

only possible explanation for the apologist

moral one. Blame

it

on corruption, blame

it

on

stupidity,

is

on

anything humanly remediable, but never say that Chinese culture, by the eternal law of

its

being, could not encompass literacy,

democracy, or science.

Thus we abortive in

find Liang saying that the parliamentary efTort was China "because parliamentarians are what self-serving

leaders in high places have least use for."

22

Again, he writes that

winism, sec Liang, "Lun Chung-kuo chih chiang-ch'iang,"

YPSWC

3.8

cussion of the strengthening of China): Liang holds that the calibre of lated

to race

and that the black and brown

and unhappy. 21

Liang,

22 Liang,

"Tu Meng-tzu chieh-shuo," "Ku i-yuan k'ao," 2.

14.

[A

man

dis-

is re-

races are stupid, lazy, irresponsible,

1

873- 1 898:

METAMORPHOSIS

45

lie in the progressive enhancement power of the monarch and the sapping of the people's rights. The blame for this lies heaviest, some say, on Ch'in Shih Huang-ti; on Yuan Tai-tsu, on Ming T'ai-tsu, say others. 23 Elsewhere Liang says that Western inventions often came accidentally from a common or simple event. "We Chinese are not less clever than they and yet we have not invented anything. The reason lies 24 in the lack of thought." And in the same article, originally delivered as an address to the scholars at the Changsha school, he made his point of view crystal clear: "Now you gentlemen, who wear the scholar's robes and read the writings of the sages, must find out whose fault it is that our country has become so crippled,

the roots of Chinese weakness of the

our race so weak, our religion so feeble." 25 Liang, then, puts the emphasis on corruption, which ruins the system, rather than on the system, which begs for corruption.

Thus, for example, he can plead eloquently for education of

women, with

the force of moral exhortation,

and from the same

premises, argue for industrialization without seeing any connection

between the two except a

t'ai-p'ing

age.

He

common

identification

with the

never sees that female education might be

causally linked to an antecedent industrialism

which would do

it

the preliminary service of shattering the Confucian family system.

Liang could not admit that

women

it

was the system which deprived

of educational opportunity. Thus, in one article, urging

he implies that it was an authentic part of the traremarks begin with a statement of Mencius which 26 likens the person of no learning to the birds and beasts.

this education,

dition; his

23 Liang, "Hsi-hsueh shu-mu-piao hou-hsii," 3. 24 Liang, "Hu-nan Shih-wu hsiieh-t'ang hsueh-yiieh,"

Aims

of the

Hunan Modern

YPSWC

4.41D-46 [The

School]; text and translation in E. Morgan, Wenli

Styles and Chinese Ideals (Shanghai, 1931), 228-229. 25 Ibid., 214.

26 Liang, "Pien-fa t'ung-i,"

1.

17D-34.

Liang, "Ch'ang she nu-hsiieh-t'ang ch'i," the establishment of schools for

women].

The same emphasis may be found

YPSWC

in

4-48-49 [Statement advocating

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

46

Inflationary Distortion

Liang's necessary emphasis on

human

was one of the

failings

elements involved in his theory of the universal application of

Confucianism, that second characteristic of the san-shih doctrine

which we mentioned above. Confucianism was in decay, he wrote, because scholars were ignorant of its true aims; Confucianism should be saved. stitutional rather

27

An

observer

who

could think in in-

than moral terms might conclude from the same

data that Confucianism was in decay not because the Chinese no

longer served it, but because it had ceased to serve the Chinese; Confucianism should be scrapped. Decay of Confucianism, in either case,

was apparent, and Liang, with

world, was helping to scrap

the best will in the

it.

its true aim was that it was meant to conquer the "The Spring and Autumn Annals were not for one coun-

His idea of world. try

but for the world," he wrote, "not for one time but for

eternity." rules,

28

"Now

is

the time to reveal the sentiments, teachings,

and essence of the Six

learning;

Classics

and

test

each with the

new

then Confucius will be once more regarded as the

example and model of ten thousand ages and the pattern of the world."

29

of peace

Students should

vow

to spread the

and brotherhood among

Analects to justify this:

all

Confucian religion

nations.

He

"The master was wishing

to

quoted the

go and

live

and "My doctrines make no way, I will get upon a raft and float about on the sea." 30 The formula of the three ages, which served the dual purpose of making world history fit a Confucian pattern and fitting a Confucian China into world history, was a striking application of this uni-

among

the nine wild tribes of the east,"

versalism.

Of

course, universalism

27 Liang, 28 Liang,

"The Aims

of the

was

a

little

more than Confucianism

Modern Hunan School,"

"Ch'un-ch'iu Chung-kuo

i-ti

pien hsu,"

in

Morgan, 234-236.

YPSWC

the Ch'un-ch'iu's distinction between the natures of Chinese 29 Liang, in

Morgan, 234-236.

80 Ibid., 234-236.

3.49b [Preface to

and barbarians].

1

could bear. it

The

873-1 898:

METAMORPHOSIS

47

which made

particular appeal of Confucianism

worth saving to a Chinese came from

with China. Liang

is

its

particular association

the perfect symbol of the transitional age,

adapting Confucianism to modern

and adapting

life

into the

it

ground.

When

Confucianism

synthetic alloys the

is

being called upon to join

world over,

it

The

parochial barriers in the Chinese world should stand.

little

Hunan

very sentence in which Liang describes to the their

Confucian obligations

"It is

only the courage that dares face hell or the

risk

kinds of

all

not to be expected that the

is

life,

is

phrased in Buddhist terminology:

in governing, that will

encompass

is

dying.

A

when

society which,

spirit that

success."

31

It

dares is

not

natural

when

self-sufficient,

could

surprising that the lines are blurred. Eclecticism

a tradition

scholars

is

enjoy the luxury of supporting mutually exclusive creeds must pool

its

resources

when

the foreign onslaught comes.

Obscurantism and Self-Effacement

There were two varieties of reaction to this onslaught which Liang wished to avoid. The first was obscurantist refusal to consider change; the second

was Chinese

self-effacement

which might

be corollary to acceptance of foreign values. Obscurantism he

fought by an appeal for realism. 32 31 Ibid., 218. 32

tion

Buddha must go The argument is twofold:

He

fought self-effacement,

to hell to be a savior.

inevitability of

(a)

against palpable weaknesses. Examples:

(a)

change and (b) need for

"Pien-fa t'ung-i"

1.18:

ac-

"From

beginning to end, for thousands of years, there has been no time without change, Those who speak against change say 'mainnothing which has not changed. .

tain the old,

.

maintain the old unaltered.'

do not know the

What

infinite

number

How

surprising

is

it

that they certainly

of changes from extreme antiquity

—

...

to the

and so preserved what departures they are from the ideas of the ancients'" (b) Liang begins "Po-lan mieh-wang chi," YPSWC 1. 1 6-1 7b [The record of the destruction of Poland], with an account of Poland's degradation under the Russian regime. He traces its history from the seventeenth century when, he remarks, it was one of Europe's virile, strong nations. Cause of its collapse: an unreformed government. In "Shen-shih yin-shu hsu," YPSWC 3.46b [Preface to Mr. Shcn's phonetic writing], Liang expresses present.

are today regarded as old laws

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

48 first,

by the

efforts

we have

seen to smuggle Western values into

Chinese tradition, and second, by conjuring up an equal and

would be saleable Liang believed in the universality of science. He could believe no less of Confucius. In the doctrine of Confucian universality we see the beginnings of the matter-spirit dichotomy, that simplifying formula by which the ethos of Europe and the ethos of China may be dif-

opposite reaction, a Chinese institution which

and could

restore the balance of trade.

ferentiated, to the implied fully articulated, because

term "materialism" in

and

still

its

this

latter. It is

not yet

period never applied the

derogatory sense to Western culture

believed in the possibility of synthesis. 33 But, as the whole

emphasis of that

advantage of the

Liang in

this

chapter has indicated, he was extremely concerned

be a synthesis, that Chinese culture should not wither,

it

his concern

illiteracy. Germans and Americans are 96 to 97 per more than 80 per cent literate. "China, trumpeting its civili-

about Chinese

cent literate, Japanese

zation to the five continents, has yet not attained to

20%

literacy."

Liang anticipates the pai-hua movement. He traces the growth of illiteracy from the composition of the Confucian canon. Scholars read this in their own spoken language Liang compares this to translation of the Western classics into English, French, Russian, and German. Later generations of scholars abandoned contemporary speech and would not condescend to use it. Liang holds that the cleavage between the spoken and written languages is a source of injury. The gap grew ever wider after the third century of the Christian era (end of the first empire-period), the study of the written language gradually becoming more difficult (47-47D). Note the suggestion of moral responsibility In

the

last

essay,

—

for illiteracy. 33 Liang frequently urged that action be based

on a correlation of Chinese and Western experience. Examples: (a) In "The Aims of the Hunan Modern School" Liang insists that to discover the principles of government, one must understand the classics and compare them with the works of the Chou and Ch'in scholars and with western books about international politics and law. He urges comparison of the dynastic histories with the histories of Greece

234).

The same emphasis may be found

YPSWC

4.33b [Letter to the prefect Lin Ti-ch'en

shan-ch'ang shu,"

YPSWC

4.39-4^

and Rome,

in Liang, "Yii |

etc.

(Morgan, 232-

Lin Ti-ch'en t'ai-shou shu,"

and

in Liang,

"Fu Liu Ku-yu

[Letter in reply to the educator Liu Ku-yu].

(b) In a discussion of Chinese foreign policy, Liang cites Mencius' injunction that attainment of success or failure rests on one's own efforts if one relies on others he courts disaster. Therefore, says Liang, when he hears someone advise China to join Russia in order to ward off England, he points to Poland; if someone advises

—

joining England to

3.20

[On

ward

extra taxes]).

off Russia,

he points to India ("Lun chia-shui,"

YPSWC

1873-1898: METAMORPHOSIS

49

should not simply be displaced by the culture of the modern West. To that end, he meant to be selective.

He in

wanted

any

inheritance

ment

selected values

civilization,

many

from the West, but he

realized that,

institutions are preserved purely

and have no

mood

intrinsic value. In a

from another

a culture will take

with the good, and that

mark

the

is

through

of self-efface-

these worthless accretions

of complete decay. Thus,

though both Tseng Kuo-fan and Liang favored selectivity, Liang was moved by a more extreme sense of urgency, and the difference in tone between Liang's plea for selectivity and Tseng's is the gauge of Confucianism's failure of nerve in the space of one generation. Tseng was sure he could pick and choose. Liang had no

such confidence. Both feared the material danger of foreign conquest, but only

Liang saw the specter of inner

collapse.

no teaching of patriotism, become infected with the evil ways of the lower order of Westerners and will no longer know that they The virtuous man, then, will become an have their own country. If

there

is

no moral culture

in the schools,

students will as a result only

.

.

.

employee of the foreigners in order to seek his livelihood; the degenerate man will become, further, a traitorous Chinese in order to subvert the foundations of his country. 34

A hundred times more than Western soldiers, Western commerce weakens China. In the state of disrepair of Chinese armaments, we see one road to weakness; in the stagnation of culture, a hundred roads. 35

Liang of course by no means implies isolation. On the contrary, he goes on failure to see that in the

it

and trade

China should

profits the

They sought only

home country

does the country which comes in quest of

drew

into a "dry well'

34 Liang,

"Cheng-p'ien

and closed

yuan-yin

ta

its

it.

twice as

k'o-nan,"

YPSWC

to

trade,

much

as

But China with-

eyes to foreign things.

friend's questions about the causes of the coup d'etat}. 35 Liang, "Shih-k'o-chai chi-yen chi-hsing hsu," 45D-46. 36 Ibid., 46.

desire

to castigate the Chinese

beginning Westerners desired neither

acquire lands nor destroy the country. says Liang,

that

3.23

36

[Answers

to

a

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

50

Rejection of Tradition Japan, as the nation which had climbed out of well,

was

was the beau

ideal of the reformers.

37

The

its

own

dry

Liang

fact that

able to reconcile political opposition to Japan with cultural

admiration

another index of the inroads of westernization.

is

would have been impossible for the early official whom it was inconceivable that there be a Chinese national interest severed from pride in the Chinese culture. Until ethnocentrism has broken down, a nation cannot disentangle itself intellectually from its way of life, for the way ot life completely dominates the mind which would examine it. Not Such an

attitude

westernizers,

to

its dogmatic sanctions can and examine it, and only then

until a culture has been stripped of

one of

its

does

compete

it

Once they

participants stand back in the

a people

may

and

open with possible

its

alternatives.

traditional culture have been put asunder,

That view, was not possible whose great effort was to paste

possibly be thought of as mutually opposed.

associated today with the Chinese revolutionaries, for the 37

young Liang

Examples of

this

Ch'i-ch'ao,

Japanophilism have already appeared in the

text. I

include

here a few of Liang's expiessions of this feeling: In "Cheng-p'ien yuan-yin ta k'o-nan," 24b, he

Ba\umatsu

Japanese reform as model for China, but thinks the ac-

cites

cumulated corruptions

in

China much more serious than those of Japan in the YPSWC 3.52b [Colophon to of lessons learned from Huang Tsun-hsien's history of

period. In "Jih-pen kuo-chih hou-hsii,"

Annals of Japan), he tells Japan (completed 1887); on page 53, Liang emphasizes Japan's rise to strength in period of mere thirty years. In "Shang Nan-p'i Chang shang-shu shu," YPSWC 4.25 [Letter to Board President Chang of Nan-p'i] he lauds Japan for its successful fusion of East and West.

"The Japanese reform made

schools its first concern, and government the most important thing. Japan took western legal principles and adapted them to Japanese circumstances." In "Chihch'ih hsueh-hui hsu," YPSWC 4.1 8- 19b [Remarks on the Chih-ch'ih study society] the name of which society is taken from the reformers' slogan, "Know the shame {chih-ch'ih) of not being like Japan" Liang cites causes of shame for

Japanese schools considered

—

—

China: lag in material development, shocking degree of

illiteracy,

etc.

He

ends

"That the lustre of Confucianism is dimmed and no stop put to corruption in high places; that the dominion of the Great Peace makes no headway and that no sign is there of the Great Harmony that is Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's

rhetorically,

—

shame."

1873-1898:

together philosophically

METAMORPHOSIS

what he and

blowing apart. The disharmonies

set

his fellow

up

in

51

Reformers were

such an effort have

already been remarked, and, in the last analysis, they could never

When

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao linked reform to the auwere shifting under his feet, for the reforms he urged would finally destroy the one society which could do the classics reverence. be resolved.

thority of the classics, the sands

PART TWO 1898-1911:

BRAVE NEW WORLD

CHAPTER

III

AND THE WEST

EXILE IN JAPAN October 1898:

A

Shanghai dispatch of the

Reform

of the

party,

is still

1st inst. says that

at large.

He

is

Ryo

Kei-cho, a leader

believed to be under the

protection of a certain Power. 1

The

search ot the boat of the Japanese Consul at Tientsin by a

Chinese man-of-war would, apart from Treaty considerations, appear to have had some warrant, foi it is now reported that the Oshima, which recently returned from Taku, has a foreigner, presumably a Chinese, on board. Many rumours have been in circulation on this matter, and there appears to be no doubt that a Chinese of position

has been assisted to escape by the Japanese authorities, but has not at present been disclosed.

One

nounced that the Oshima was bringing Japan.

who

it is

telegram a few days ago ana "very valuable present" to

2

Two

distinguished Chinese refugees have

The Escape

When

to

now

reached Tokyo.

3 .

.

Japan

Empress Dowager turned suddenly on the partisans Count Ito Hirobumi, then in Peking, received secret Japanese orders to facilitate the escape of K'ang Yu-wei and Liang 4 Ch'i-ch'ao. K'ang was away from the capital when the troubles the

of reform,

1

Kobe

Chronicle, October

of the characters in Liang's

8,

1898,

2 Ibid.,

October 22, 1898, 338.

3 Ibid.,

October 29, 1898, 369.

4

Kuzu

Yoshihisa,

30L "Ryo Kei-cho"

is

the Japanese reading

name.

Toa senka\u

shishi \iden

[Historical records of East Asian

624. This publication

pioneer adventurers]

(Tokyo, 1933-1936),

the

Kokuryukai (Black Dragon Society) and

archives

of

the

I,

is

drawn from an important

is

source.

Shumbo K5

tsuijokai (Prince

Shumbo

eulogy society), ltd Hirobumi den [Biog-

(Tokyo, 1942), the standard Japanese biography of Ito, 394-401, reports his presence in Peking from September 14 to September 29,

raphy of Ito Hirobumi] III,

55

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

56

many vicissitudes he reached Hong Kong, where named Miyazaki Torazo (Toten) met him and desig-

began, and after a Japanese

nated himself escort for the trip to Japan.

5

In Peking, the task of

spiriting Liang out of the country was handled by one Hirayama

Shu.

He

visited

Liang and

his associate

Wang Chao

in their

them change into Japanese Taku, and the Oshima.6 When

refuge in the Japanese legation, had

and got them

clothes,

to Tientsin,

the gunboat put in at Miyajima, on the Inland Sea, Takahashi

Kichitaro of the Japanese Foreign Ministry was there to welcome

them. Escorted to Tokyo, they were installed in lodgings already prepared. address.

A

few days

later,

Miyazaki ushered K'ang to the same

7

Who were these good fairies, Miyazaki and Hirayama? They were Japanese pan-Asiatics, and in 1897 they had become the personal agents of Inukai Takeshi, the lieutenant of

The

was then foreign minister

latter

(popularly

Okuma's of private

known

as the

"Matsukuma"

great political stature). life,

Okuma became

the cabinet included Inukai,

Sun Yat-sen has

of

in the

8

Count Okuma.

Matsukata cabinet

cabinet, in recognition of

In June 1898, after an interlude

foreign minister again. This time

whom

an old revolutionary partisan

called the Japanese leader

most interested

new government in China. 9 That summer, when Sun Yat-sen returned to Japan

at

that time in seeing a

after several

years of conspiratorial, anti-Manchu travels, Inukai sent Miyazaki

and Hirayama to Yokohama to welcome him. They took Sun 1898, but is

it

life

5

China was taken on his own initiative, and there from whatever source, concerning K'ang and Liang.

states that his trip to

no mention of

Ito did,

to

instructions,

however, according to

of one of the reformers,

this account, intercede

with Li Hung-chang for the

Chang Yin-huan.

Miyazaki Torazo, San-ju-san nen no

yume

[Thirty-three years' dream] (Tokyo,

1926), 155. 6 Feng Tzu-yu, Ko-ming (Chungking, 1943). I, 48. 7

Kuzu,

I,

8 Ibid., I,

i-shih

[Historical

reminiscences of the revolution]

624. 612.

9

Feng Tzu-yu, Chung-hua min-\uo k!ai-\uo-ch'ien \o-ming shift [History of the revolution prior to the establishment of the Chinese Republic] (Chungking, 1944),

II,

no.

1

Tokyo

898-I9I

for a conference

I

:

BRAVE

NEW WORLD

with Inukai, their

extremely cordial one. Inukai introduced

first

him

57

meeting and an to

Okuma, and

Sun's relations with Japanese political circles were at lished.

last estab-

10

Sun chose Yokohama as his headquarters, and Miyazaki writes Sun settled there, he and Hirayama set out for 11 Shanghai. What was the purpose of their journey? According to the Kokuryukai publication, they were anxious to help Sun keep up his contacts in China and further the revolutionary 12 cause. Feng Tzu-yu suggests a different motive: Sun, hearing of the plight of K'ang and Liang, had urged the two Japanese to go to China and get them out of danger. 13 But Miyazaki's account justifies no such conclusion. At the time of his departure, K'ang and Liang were having no discernible trouble. When he left Sun, he writes, the Emperor Kuang-hsii was under the influence 14 of K'ang and planning reforms. Miyazaki passes through Can15 ton and mentions that K'ang is in Peking. Later he writes of hearing rumors, then the facts of the coup d'etat, but nowhere does he mention consultation with Sun even by telegram, much that, after seeing

16 by conversation, about the course of action to be taken.

less

Feng

is

for this false

evidently embroidering the truth, and a plausible reason is

easy to find.

He

is

trying to put

K'ang and Liang

in a

moral position with regard to Sun Yat-sen; for though Sun

sought eagerly,

at first, to unite their forces, the reformers,

who

opposed the Empress Dowager but supported the dynasty, contemptuously rejected the idea of coalition, and from then on the

two

parties struck at each other in bitter conflict,

one period of both their

throughout the

exiles.

10

Sun Yat-sen, "Tzu-chuan" [Autobiography], in Chung-shan ch'iian-shu f Colworks of Sun Yat-sen] (Shanghai, 1926), I, 19. "Chung-shan," in Japanese reading "Nakayama," was the name which Sun assumed in Japan.

lected

11

12

Miyazaki, 133. Kuzu, I, 622-623.

13

Feng, Ko-ming i-shih,

14

Miyazaki, 133.

**Ibid., 135. 16 Ibid., 138.

I,

48.

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

58

Relations between Revolutionaries

and Reformers

no burning need to make an enemy of Sun. Some sort of liaison between the two groups had been established well before the Hundred Days of Reform, and Liang

for a considerable time felt

was K'ang who precipitated the final break. There is a story when both were in Canton, Sun sent word to K'ang that he was anxious to meet him. K'ang is supposed to have replied that, if the young man wished to meet him, he should formally apply as a pupil in K'ang's school and send in one of it

that in 1894,

the written applications.

By

1896

we

17

are definitely out of the age of fable in this matter

of contact between reformers

Kuang

and

revolutionaries. In that year,

Feng Ching-ju, and others organized a school for the children of Chinese in Yokohama, which was Sun's headquarters at that time. They deliberated with Sun about inviting teachers from China. Sun, feeling that K'ang and Liang had asJu-p'an,

pirations for

China similar

to his

own and

being well aware of

K'ang's experience and success as a teacher, drafted a invitation to K'ang.

Kuang

Ju-p'an took

it

to

letter of

Shanghai and there

met with the "modern sage," who declined the post himself but recommended several others. One of these, Hsu Ch'in, went to Japan, conferred with Sun, and appeared to the latter acceptable. However, when Hsu took charge of the school, he gradually subverted Sun's position

and drew many Chinese

camp. 18 Also in

tried to affiliate

1896,

Sun

with K'ang for

templative ends than education. Sun's

Hong Kong, broached the subject jen. He repeated the suggestion

into the reformist

man Hsieh

of joint action to

less

con-

Tsan-t'ai, in

K'ang Kuang-

in the following year, but the

younger K'ang reported that his brother was definitely committed to peaceful change and would have no relations with the revolutionaries,

for he

—

17 Carl Glick

Past 18 Li

Hong Sheng-Hwa, Swords (New York, 1947), 113.

and

and Present

was counting on the support of

officials

Chien-nung, Tsui-chin san-shih nien Chung-\uo cheng-chih shih China in the last thirty years] (Shanghai, 1930), 68-69.

history of

like

of Silence: Chinese Secret Societies

[Political

1

898-1 91 1

:

BRAVE

NEW WORLD

59

Chang Chih-tung. However,

in 1898, Hsieh wrote a letter on the same subject to K'ang and Liang, and even this letter, which remained unanswered, would not be his final attempt. 19 Sun made his first personal bid for a rapprochement almost

immediately after the refugees reached Tokyo in 1898.

A

confer-

ence was arranged between Sun, his friend Ch'en Shao-pai, K'ang,

and Liang. At the appointed time, no K'ang appeared.

He

had

been unavoidably kept away, explained Liang, and had commissioned him spokesman. until

The

three conferees aired their views

dawn.

later, Ch'en and Hirayama were sent by Sun to on K'ang. This time the latter put in an appearance, together with Wang Chao, Hsu Ch'in, Liang T'ieh-chun, and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. Ch'en spoke of the rotten corruption of the Ch'ing dynasty, the futility of hoping to change it or to save China by its agency. He pleaded with K'ang to become a revolutionary; K'ang replied that his views would not change. Suddenly, Wang Chao burst out in bitter protest against the restraints on his movements put upon him, he alleged, by K'ang since their coming to Tokyo. Black rage was K'ang's reaction. Liang T'ieh-chun pushed the^gesticulating Wang out of the room at a word from K'ang, who was shocked and angry at this defection, the fore-

Several days

call

many

runner of

in the years to

come.

20

For a few seasons he had reason to wonder whether even Liang was safe and sound. In the spring of 1899, Liang, in his

Ch'i-ch'ao

old capacity as newspaper editor, printed tures of a Beautiful

Woman"

"The Strange Adven-

{Chia-jen ch'i-yu chi)> a translation

of a Japanese article with an anti-Manchu tone. this,

When K'ang saw

he banned reprinting and delivered stern admonitions to 21

was only with K'ang's departure on a world tour, very soon after this newspaper episode, that Liang's nervous flirtation with the rival coterie assumed any real proportions. Renewed blandishments came from the Sun party, but Liang Liang.

19 Feng, 20 Feng, 21 Ibid.,

But

it

Chung-hua min-\uo, I, Ko-ming i-shih, I, 49. I,

63.

38.

LIANG CH'l-CH'AO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

60

at first, uncertain

and hard

On

no confidence.

June

backing and

to please,

6, 1898,

Yang Ch'u-yun,

filling,

inspired

a close associate

man, Hsieh Tsan-t'ai, was introduced to Liang by Feng Ching-ju, who was then nominally editor-in-chief (Liang did most of the work) of the reformers' Yokohama newspaper, the Ch'ing-i pao. After this meeting, held in Yokohama, of Sun's old

Yang wrote felt

liaison

Hsieh that Liang did not desire early

to

rather that each party ought to attend

ment and await some

Yang noted

first

to

coalition; he

its

own move-

future, undefined opportunity for union.

a sense of exaggerated self-importance

on the part of

the K'ang party and advised abandonment of the idea of fusion, which would do more harm, he thought, than good. Hsieh, for-

merly so eager for amalgamation,

lost

the spirit for

22 it.

Sun, however, was not yet reconciled to the breach and undertook direct discussion with Liang. conceived.

Sun was

What

vice-president.

dispensation

?

Sun

is

position

plan of union was actually

new society, Liang to be would K'ang have under the new

said to have

answered

— with another "when the disciple position then

A

to be president of a

is

this

the leader,

question of Liang's is

not the teacher's

one to be respected?" 23 Liang seems to have been

but he was greatly mistaken if he imagined that K'ang would abdicate leadership and sit quietly with his old scrolls and his memories, cherishing the cryptic and hypocritical implication that Sun Yat-sen regarded him as his master. Liang drafted a letter which was to try delicately to win K'ang over to this arrangement. The signatories were thirteen of K'ang's disciples. Soon Liang took another step toward implementing the plan. Visiting Sun's aide Ch'en Shao-pai in Hong Kong, he recommended that Ch'en for the revolutionaries and Hsu Ch'in satisfied,

for the reformers draft articles of union.

such as

it

old reformers, that

2

Mai Meng-hua, he wrote K'ang, then

Liang was

22 Feng, 23 Feng,

*Ibid.,

falling into the snare.

Chung-hua min-\uo, I, 38. Ko-ming i-shih, I, 64-65. II,

But Hsu's enthusiasm,

was, rapidly chilled, and, together with another of the

31-32; Li, 69.

24

in Singapore,

1

898-I9I I

:

BRAVE

NEW WORLD

61

K'ang had by this time received the letter from the thirteen and was already unrestrainedly angry. The letters of Hsu and Mai brought another turn of the screw. Far from retiring gracefully, he asserted his position as commander by ordering Liang to put Sun behind him, leave Japan, and strictly in the reformers' interests, get to Honolulu, that great city, wherein were many Chinese and also much money. 25 Liang went

to

Honolulu, but nowhere in

indication that this trip

his papers is there

was the upshot of a somewhat shady

backstairs intrigue. Rather he explains

it,

twice, as a response to

an invitation from America, where, owing to K'ang's initiative, sympathizers in American-Chinese business circles had established the Chinese

and would

{Chung-\uo wei-hsin hui)

Society

from

a

prominent reformer; circum-

however, prevented his getting beyond the Hawaiian

stances,

Islands.

Reform

appreciate a visit

26

Feng Tzu-yu's recollections of company with the principals of the would be Liang's motives in overlooking

Yet, the facts as stated in

those days,

which he

lived in

story, are as plausible as

them. There was indisputably a close rapport between Liang and

Sun

elder brother in

him

Sun gave Liang a letter of introduction to his Hawaii, Sun Te-chang, a letter which would give

at this time.

entree into a milieu

where Sun's

ideas,

with his

society, the

Hsing-Chung hui (Revive China Society), were well established.

27

That Sun could have such confidence in Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (though not, of course, that it would take this form) would not have remained unknown to K'ang, and there were only two gestures he could have made: either excommunication and an abandonment of Liang to the contagion, or injunction to a prophylactic and penitential mission. So on December 20, 1899, Liang left on his first travels outside the Far East, after something more than a year in Japan, during which, really, his efforts had not been confined to futile conversation alone. 25 Feng, Ko-ming i-shih, II, 32; Li, 69. 26 Liang, "San-shih tzu-shu," 27b; Liang, "Hsin-ta-lu yu-chi chieh-lu,"

38.2 [Travels in the 27 Li, 69.

New

World].

YPSWC

LIANG CH'i-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

62

Liang's

The

Wor\

in Japan, 7^98-/899

Ch'ing-i pao [Pure Criticism Journal]

28

was

first

in the

series of journals which Liang Ch'i-ch'ao published in Japan and

which wielded tremendous influence among Chinese overseas and those many Chinese at home who broke the law and read the word. Liang writes in his autobiography that he founded the Ch'ing-i pao in the tenth 1898,

month (November 14-December

12),

with the financial backing of Chinese merchants in Yoko-

hama. 29 The paper's great theme was restoration of the Kuanghsii Emperor to power. The Empress Dowager, Jung Lu, and Yuan Shih-k'ai were targets of attack. Along with these articles of sarcasm and invective directed against the conservatives in Peking, Liang published pages in bulk of political and social philosophy. left for

Mai Meng-hua took charge

Hawaii. 30

A fire in

when Liang Yokohama, in the

of the paper

the printing plant in

winter of 1900, put an end to publication of the Ch'ing-i pao. 31

Liangs other main concern was formal education. In September 1899, having collected $3000 (Mex.) from various Chinese of Yokohama, he founded the Kao-teng ta-t'ung hsiieh-hsiao (Great Harmony Secondary School) in Tokyo. Liang was headmaster and one of Inukai's assistants, Kashiwara Buntaro, was the executive secretary. The curriculum was in large part concerned vith English and French political philosophy. Of the students, eleven had once studied at Liang's old headquarters, the Hunan shih-wu hsiieh-t'ang, and seven were products of another Ta-t'ung hsiiehhsiao which had been established in Yokohama in late spring, 32 After Liang went to Honolulu, the school passed through 1898. a series of changes in name. By 1902 it was called Ch'ing-hua 28

The

title

derives

from the "pure-criticism" movement conducted by scholars

in the second century of the Christian era. 29 Liang,

San-shih tzu-shu, 27.

30 Feng, Ko-ming i-shih, 31 Britton,

I,

63.

119.

32 Feng, Ko-ming i-shih, I, 72; Feng, Chung-hua min-kjuo, Yokohama Ta-t'ung hsiieh-hsiao, see Kobe Chronicle, October 15, it

is

called

Daido-Gakkp,

II,

no. For

the

1898, 305, where

after the Japanese readings of the characters.

1

hsiieh-hsiao

zz

898-1 91 1

:

and was ready

BRAVE

NEW WORLD

also for a

63

change in

spirit; its last

phase was as a school of orthodox principles under the direction

Chun,

of.Ts'ai

the Chinese minister to Japan.

The Chinese government was

34

well aware of these labors of

Liang and the other reformers. An imperial edict issued December 20, 1899, was a plain incitement to assassination a reward was promised for seizure of K'ang and Liang or for proof of their

—

deaths.

As

previously in a censor's memorial of 1894 (see note 7 K'ang was charged with "deceiving mankind and

of Chapter II),

The Emperor, so ran Empress Dowager to instruct the gov-

oppressing the masses" (huo-shih wu-min). the edict,

ernment

had asked the

and "bring tranquillity out K'ang Yu-wei and his sworn confederate Liang Ch'i-ch'ao had already fled examination and death, and beyond the seas, they still were recklessly making mis35 chief. "The hearts of the rebellious wolves have not changed. ." Their heads, however, grew more valuable. The continental circulation of the Ch'ing-i pao terrified the Chinese government, and an edict of February 14, 1900, offered a new grand prize of to take the rebels prisoner

of danger" (chuan wei wei an). But

.

Tls. 100,000 (or official preferment) for delivery of their persons

good news of their deaths. 36 Two weeks later, the newspapers noted a rumor that assassins dispatched by the Empress Dowager were on their way to K'ang and Liang. 37 All things considered, Liang was no hero to the mandarins.

or for the

Japanese officialdom liked him better. As long as Okuma's Progressive Party

(Shimpoto) was

in power,

K'ang and Liang were

given Japanese government funds. 38 K'ang, as a matter of

fact.

38 Liang, "San-shih tzu-shu," 27b. 34

Feng, Ko-ming i-shih,

I,

72.

THL 36 THL 35

i575-5b. 158.3b. This edict is summarized in Britton, 119, and a portion of it is translated in Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China (Chicago, 1936), 98. Lin unaccountably gives its date as January 15. Chao Fengt'ien, 215, mentions the edict, but he, too, dates it wrongly fifth month (May 28June 26), 1900.

—

87

Kobe

88 Feng,

Chronicle,

March

Ko-ming

i-shih,

1, I,

1899, 156. 48.

— LIANG CH'1-CH'aO AND THE MIND OF MODERN CHINA

64

lodged with

on

Okuma

for a time; then for a half-year, until he left

he lived

his travels in 1899,

Okuma was

America and Europe,

at

Waseda

University, of

which

39

When he left Waseda for the trip to Okuma provided him with Tls. 7000 for ex-

president.

40

In June 1899 we see Liang planning a reception for the Marquis in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Kobe. 41 There is no doubt but that Okuma was a friend. penses.

Liang had many friends Yoshida Shin.

in Japan.

On December

from Yokohama, Liang wrote have the feeling that here

is

He

took the Japanese

1899, the

19,

name

day before he sailed

in his diary, "Truly, in Japan,

my second

I

home." 42

Hawaiian Journey Liang's vessel, the

Hong Kong Mam,

ran immediately into

rough water, and Liang has left us a thoroughly conventional account of the voyage: heavy seas mal de mer heavier seas waves like thunder like snow-capped mountains. When Liang was on his feet, he had long conversations with two Catholic

—

—

—

year, the

Hong Kong Maru

was reported on the

put in

at

43

On the last day of the Honolulu. Bubonic plague

veteran missionaries in Kansu.

priests,

and transient passengers were

for-

bidden to land, but Liang came ashore and was met by a

col-

league

who had

island,

arranged for his temporary lodging

ton Hotel. Liang's

first

at the

Arling-

concern seems to have been to register

at

the Japanese Consulate. 44 39 Okuma K6 hachi-ju-go nen shi hensan \ai [Collected papers on the Marquis Okuma] (Tokyo, 1926), II, 536. 40 TP, X, 328. 41

Kobe

important

life

of

Chronicle, June 7, 1899, 446. In 1904, Liang translated into Chinese an speech, Toyo no heiwa wo ronzu [On peace in the Far East].

Okuma

This speech, delivered in October 1904, reinforced his May address, Nichiro senso to se\ai no heiwa [The Russo-Japanese War and world peace], which had been published abroad as the "Okuma Doctrine." The speech translated by Liang pleads the basic affinity of China and Japan in race and culture and maintains that only Japan can lead a sick China to health. (See Oh,uma Ko hachi-ju-go-nen shi hensan k]

Jft

&f

^£- fJL.

Ch'un-ch'iu

4=- ft Ch un-ch'iu Chung-kuo i-ti pien-hsii Chung wei-hsin hui >^ &£. jfr ^-

Chung-hua min-kuo Chung-hua min-kuo

^

^

^

8

£&^^

jgj

k'ai-kuo-ch'ien

« « * **

^&+

*.

232

ko-ming shih

^

^p. %, §9

>f

i

^ J

Chung-Jih chiao-she hui-p'ing

rf

g

^

|)

Chung-hua min-kuo shih

Chung-kuo Chung-kuo

chi jo su-yiian lun ch'ien-t'u chih

^

j^

-£

&



%$hsi-wang

yii

-pL

-#v

#jj

kuo-min

Chung-kuo chih wu-shih-tao + lf| ]

ft*

#

s

K'ang Ch'ang-su hsien-sheng nien-p'u kao

K'ang Kuang-jen K'ang Yu-wei

&

& *


$

3£

jjt

kung-chu

£ff

v

i

'ft"

JR ^

* 2"

JfL

£

Kung-ho chien-she t'ao-lun hui f* j£ ft Kung-ho chii-chin hui ^p ^4 iS> fr Kung-ho tang £ :ftf Kung-ho ts'u-chin hui -ft fa X/^ ^f" — Jf Kung-ho t'ung-i tang •£

^ ^ 1

Kung-yang Is -jt. K'ung An-kuo JL -^ K'ung Ying-ta JL If

it

® ft*

^

4

KuoChan-po tf Kuo wen yii yuan chieh

S

ffr t"

f ^

j)

K'ung-tzu chiang-sheng ^L -f K'ung-tzu kai-chih k'ao

^

^

^

^

Kung-shang-hsiieh pao

kuo-chia

tt,

4"

Kung-chi K'ang Nan-hai hsien-sheng wen

££

i.

it j|

£|J

Ju-p'an

'chan-shih

^H f ^ f ^ ^

|

kuo-chi kung-fa'

lC

^

flf. 2fc.

X

i

^1

H"

^

>$,

tt

f;

Kuo-fengpao Kuo-hsing p'ien

tifi

Jg|

#L

$JL

£

•}&.

Kuo-min hsin-cheng she Kuo-mintang §) ^

IS

J

Kuo-nei ta-shih chi 1^

fl

ft,

|jjr

^ ^

Kuo-t'ichan-chengkung-lit'an

)fi

237

?X

&

1(L

ft

Hf JRJltt

*&"

Kuo-tu

shih-tai lun ij.

Kuzu Yoshihisa $ Kwangtung JJ Kweichow -jr 9f|

&.

Ifr

fl»

*k

SJJt

Kuwabara Sadamasa 4L K

*^

($.

%

Shui-shih hsiieh-t'ang fc if ty fX. £ il Shumbo ko tsuijokai

&

Shun

fit

^

$ %h

Shuoyu-chih

** *£

Shuo-ch'iin hsu

1&

Ssu-maCh'ien

3 Jb

Ssu-shih tzu-shu Su-ch'ih

3£

^

# jj_

+

t?

i£.

£ ^L

Sun Chia-nai

3fc

% $

&

& & & 4£ ^ t-

SunYat-sen

•#.

Sung Chiao-jen SungPo-lu Szechuan

«

»|

Ta Chung-hua & t •£ Ta Chung-hua fa k'an-tz'u * + Ta Chung-hua min-tsu kuo iy + ^ R *£ 4 Ta mou-pao ti-ssu-hao tui-yii pen-pao chih polun

£**!#

Ta-feng

A.

$1

Ta-t'ung (place-name) £> ta-t'ung

A

it

1*1

242

%

&.

"ft.

Ta-t'ung hsueh-hsiao °k Ta-t'ung i-shu-chu

Ta-t'ung shu

A

TaiChen jR

J[

^

l»l

&

hsii-li

Is]

fe.

if 4r X

&#!

:$-

l§)

&$

TaiK'an Tai Tung-yuan

sheng-jih erh-pai nien chi-nicn-hui yuan-ch'i

A4

TaiHsii

Tai-p'ing shih

& & -f*

TanSsu-t'ung

%

^

Takahashi Kichitaro

ft

iff.

H

Tan Ssu-t'ung chuan tf Tang A TangChi-yao

t

i|

%

%

*|

TangHua-lung

-s§

Jfc,

ft,

Taoteching taotai aS. 6

it.

!f»

Q

4$

f

:}*

-4

H

t

4§1

*fc 1*

te-chih

Te-yuchien

£

Tendai Ti-li yii

'A%

*

wen-ming chih kuan-hsi

Tientsin

k.

t'ien-hsia

\

mou-pao

Jt.

Tsai po mou-pao chih

If*

Ts'aiChiin

|

#v

at

»f t

X #> *• * t

|?

£

|*J

Ts'an-cheng yuan

^

tf

*X 3u

$

I

Tseng Kuo-fan

Tseng Lien

tf -t

J&.

"ft

£

it.

TB I

H*

Toa senkaku shishi kiden Tokyo |L J Toyo no heiwa wo ronzu

Ts'aiAo

*i 5*

"F

t'o-ku kai-chih

Tsai-chen

*t>

%

Ting Jih-ch'ang

Tsa-ta

A

4

TangChiieh-tun

Tang Ts'ai-ch'ang & TangYueh * {$

jfj|

fl

&

Tseng-kai tsui-chin Shang-hai chin-jung shih If

*P

!Il

t£ jL

3ft

I

WangWen-shao

Wei Hu-an

Wei

15

X.

Wang Yang-ming i Waseda ? i& «

T§ bQ

ching-kao Ou-Mei p'eng -yu

kai yueh wen-t'i ching-kao yu-pang

Wei Yuan

%

A

?£ %% ft j$ jj^.£

&*

Wen * Wen T ing-shih wen-yen

ft it J, ft.* ft

X

X

M

£

iq

^

^

WengT'ung-ho

$fc

Wu Chi-ch'ing & £Wu Ch'i-ch'ang fu $ S Wu nien lai chih chiao-hsun -J-

£•

-*f»

^N ^- A\.

»n |

Wu-hsii cheng-pien shih fan-pien-fa jen-wu chih cheng-chih ssu-hsiang

J$^#.$4*ft*^** *.*.# * S

Wu-hsii chia-tzu chi-nien hui

Wu-ssu yun-tung shih

Wuchang

K

X$ &>%>t

ft