# The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey/The Province of Chihli

THE PROVINCE OF CHIHLI
By the Rev. Thomas Bryson, London Missionary Society.
Chihli, as the name "Direct Rule" implies, is the seat of the supreme government of the Empire, and therefore the most important of all the provinces of China. Some foreign maps (see Encyclopædia Britannica) erroneously limit its northern boundary by the Great Wall. That monumental landmark really divides the province into two nearly equal parts, the northern portion being occupied by a thinly scattered Mongol population, under the jurisdiction of Mongol princes, but subject also to the authority of Chinese officials who reside in the towns beyond the Great Wall.
The province is bounded on the north by the Hsilamulun river, a tributary of the Liao ho, and Inner Mongolia; on the west by Shansi; on the south-west by Honan; on the south-east by Shantung; and on the west by the Gulf of Pechihli and the Manchurian province of Shengking.
Confining our attention to the part south of the Great Wall, we notice the prevailing physical feature of the province is its Dutch-like dead level, subject to inundation in the wet season and from frequent bursting of the river embankments. The delta on the east is the flattest portion of that vast plain which, beginning near the capital, stretches southward for 700 miles through Honan to the Yangtse valley. The late Rev. Jonathan Lees has for ever described the sensations of the traveller who takes his first "Winter's Ride through Chihli."
It were best to leave behind
All hopes of an æsthetic kind,
Eye, ear, or nose small joy will find
Upon the plain of Chihli.
Look not for lake or rippling rill.
Or giant tree, or wood-crowned hill.
Or sweet wild-flower, or aught to thrill
Your artist sense in Chihli.
As a set-off, however, to this depressing flatness of the land, the climate may fairly claim to be the most invigorating and healthiest in China. The summer months are hot, the winters often intensely cold, with a cloudless sky almost all the year round.
For administrative purposes the province is divided, according to Consul Playfair's The Cities and Towns of China, into 11 prefectures, 3 sub-prefectures, 6 independent departments, 17 departments, and 124 districts. Of these beyond the Great Wall there are 1 "fu" or prefecture, 1 "ting" or sub-prefecture, 1 department or "chow," and 3 districts or "hsiens."
The principal cities are Peking, Paotingfu, Tientsin, Jehho, Tungchow, Chentingfu, Shanhaikwan, and Hochien. For nearly one thousand years, through varying fortunes with each change of dynasty, Peking has been the metropolis of the Empire. Paotingfu is the capital of the province, and, before treaties with foreign powers existed, was the residence of the Governor-General. During Li Hung-chang's viceroyalty, for convenience of intercourse with consuls and diplomatists, the yamen was transferred to Tientsin. Paotingfu witnessed the murder of several American and English missionaries during the Boxer year, and for this crime was visited by the allied troops, and severe punishment inflicted upon its responsible officials.
Tientsin, memorable as the place where Lord Elgin signed the Treaty of 1858, where the massacre of 1870 took place, and which shared with Peking the siege and bombardment of 1900, stands next to Shanghai in the volume of its trade and the extent of its foreign population. ​Five miles of frontage on the right and left banks of the Peiho river are owned and governed by foreign powers. As a result of the Treaty of 1860, the British and French had concessions allotted to them. The Japanese, after the war of 1895, acquired the same right; and now, since 1900, there are in addition concessions belonging to Germany, Russia, Austria, and Belgium. Jehho or Jehol lies outside the Great Wall, and is chiefly interesting to foreigners because Lord Macartney's embassy of 1793 was there received in audience by the Emperor Kien-lung; and to Jehho the Emperor Hien-fung fled before the advance of the Allies on Peking in 1860. Tungchow lies 12 miles east of Peking, and is now connected with the capital by a branch line of railway. Its former glory has departed. The imperial grain fleets which crowded the river and unloaded their harvest of tribute rice from the southern provinces at this northern terminus of the Grand Canal arrive here no more. Coasting steamships and railways have displaced the old junk traffic. The granaries of Tungchow are empty—its importance now is as an educational centre. Here are the splendid group of college buildings and professors' residences which constitute the North China Union College of the American Board Mission, with the Rev. Dr. Sheffield as Principal. Chengtingfu on the Chinghan railway, the residence of a Roman Catholic bishop, held its gates closed against the Boxer rebels, and sheltered within its walls a few Protestant missionaries who would otherwise have been massacred in 1900.
Shanhaikwan, a strongly fortified town at the eastern extremity of the Great Wall, has been occupied by detachments of foreign troops since the Boxer year, and has also a small European community of railway employés.
Hochien Fu was the scene of the recent military manœuvres of the Northern Army under H.E. Yüan Shih-kai, which so greatly impressed the foreign attaches and newspaper correspondents who were invited to witness it.
The population of the province is stated as nearly ​twenty-one millions. Peking and Tientsin are supposed to contain a population of about one million each.
Under the enlightened rule of powerful viceroys such as H.E. Li Hung-chang and the present H.E. Yuan Shih-kai, Chihli has been foremost in the adoption of Western ideas and industries. The first mining enterprise conducted with foreign machinery was started at Tangshan; and the Kaiping collieries are to-day the largest in China. From the pit-head to Hsu Kochuang, a distance of 7 miles, the first line of railway was laid. From Hsu Kochuang to Lutai the first canal on European principles was constructed, and at Tangshan the first locomotive was built. No longer is the Lutai canal needed for its original purpose, to carry coal to the river, for the railway has been extended to Tientsin and Peking in one direction, and to Shanhaikwan and Newchwang on the other. Gold mining has been tried, but with less satisfactory results.
To these industrial enterprises have to be added various educational reforms dating from the establishment in 1861 of the famous Tung wen College, under the patronage of the Government and the presidency of Dr. Martin, down to the great revival of learning, mainly under Japanese guidance and teaching, since the close of the Russo-Japanese War. The old order of education has changed. The old system of examinations has been abolished. New schools are being everywhere established; and we may soon see a law passed enacting compulsory education.
For lack of sufficient Board School accommodation, the old temples, cleared of their idols, are being freely used. Attention is also being paid to Industrial and Technical Schools, Girls' Schools, Normal and Medical Colleges, Prison Reformatories, and Sanitary Science. Of newspapers, there are in Tientsin alone seven dailies published, and the Public Lecture Halls have been opened in the city to spread the modern ideas among the adult population. A great wave of patriotism is spreading through all ranks of the people. The spirit of independence and emulation is abroad; and the electric tramway now running on broad ​macadamised roadways where once the walls of Tientsin stood, may be taken as an index and sign of the movement in all departments of the life, governmental, industrial, and educational, of this metropolitan province.
Christianity, in the form of Roman Catholicism, was introduced into Chihli towards the end of the thirteenth century. The province is divided into three Vicariates; the north and west under the jurisdiction of the Lazarists, and the south or south-east in charge of the Jesuits. The number of their converts cannot be less than 200,000.
The Greek Church has been in Peking for more than two hundred years. It had its origin in the border wars between Russia and China in the time of the great Kang-hsi. A colony of Christian Tartars from the fort Albasin on the Amoor river were carried captive in 1685. This was used by Russia to establish an ecclesiastical mission in the capital, with an Archimandrite at its head. The Mission has never been aggressive in seeking to make Chinese proselytes.
Among the large group of Protestant missionaries gathered at Shanghai in 1859 and 1860, waiting eagerly for the opening of new ports on the northern coast and along the Yangtse valley, were Drs. Blodget, Burdon, Lockhart, Edkins, John, and Messrs. Innocent and Hall. With the exception of Dr. John, who in the providence of God followed the "pillar of cloud" to Hankow, all the others here mentioned became pioneers in the province of Chihli. Dr. Blodget of the American Board Mission began preaching in the streets of Tientsin in 1860. The Rev. J. Innocent of the Methodist New Connexion Mission (English Methodists) settled there in 1861, and was closely followed by Dr. Edkins of the London Mission.
Dr. Lockhart had the honour of being the first Protestant missionary to reside within the walls of Peking. He rented a house next to the British Legation, and immediately opened a dispensary. The Society's report for 1862, referring to this event, says: "We indulge the sanguine expectation that the introduction of Christianity to the ​inhabitants of Peking, in connection with the exercise of benevolence to the afflicted, will tend to conciliate their regard for foreigners." How wonderfully this expectation has been fulfilled was witnessed in the opening of the Union Medical College on February 13, 1906. Every one has heard of the contribution of Taels 10,000 by the Empress Dowager to the building of this institution. H.E. Na-tung, a member of the Inner Council, was specially deputed to represent the Empress on the occasion of the ceremonial opening of the College, and he was accompanied by a brilliant assembly of the highest dignitaries of the Court, by members of the various Legations, Sir Robert Hart, and other residents in the capital. H.B.M. Minister, Sir Ernest Satow, and Sir Robert Hart, both of whom were personally acquainted with the late Dr. Lockhart, paid a high tribute to the character and labours of the pioneer missionary to Peking, and first English Medical Missionary to China; and called attention to the fact that his memory was being fittingly perpetuated by the golden letters inscribed on the central gable of the building, "The Lockhart Medical College."
The American Board Mission, commenced by Dr. Blodget, is now strongly represented in five centres of foreign occupation. These are, in their chronological order: Tientsin, 1860; Peking, 1864; Kalgan, 1865; Tungchow, 1867; and Paotingfu, 1873. Large country districts are vigorously worked from these head stations. The foreign staff includes 14 ordained missionaries, 3 physicians, 8 single ladies, 3 ordained native pastors, over 50 unordained preachers, nearly as many teachers, and about 40 Bible women and female teachers. Communicants in 1904 were 1822. The well-equipped college and seminary at Tungchow are the educational headquarters of this Mission.
The English Methodist New Connexion Mission occupies a most extensive field in the north-east corner of the province, following the line of railway towards Shanhaikwan. ​Their training school for preachers is in Tientsin. Work was begun in Tientsin, 1861 ; in Tangshan, 1884. The Yungping circuit was formed in 1902, and the Wutingfu circuit in 1904. The staff consists of 3 ordained missionaries, 3 doctors, 28 native pastors and evangelists, as many local preachers, 8 school teachers, and 8 female helpers. Their communicants number about 1000 in Chihli.
The London Missionary Society's stations are : Tientsin, 1861; Peking, 1861; Chichow, 1888; Weichen, 1894; and Tsangchow, 1895, The country lying between Peking and Tientsin has been worked for many years by a foreign missionary residing at Tungan. The Chichow and Tsangchow fields were originally out-stations of Tientsin. Weichen was begun by the Rev. A. H. Bridge, an independent missionary, but was joined to the London Missionary Society on his becoming a member of that Mission in 1899. Yenshan was the headquarters of the Tsangchow field till the transference of the foreign missionaries to the latter city on the Grand Canal in 1895. Work among the Mongols was carried on by the lamented James Gilmour, who during the later years of his life made his home in Chaoyang. That station, soon after Gilmour's death, was handed over to the Irish Presbyterian Mission. Besides the distinguished place which the medical branch has occupied in the evangelical operations of this Society, as seen in the lives of Lockhart, Mackenzie, and Roberts, mention should be made of the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin, under Dr. S. Lavington Hart and a staff of foreign and native teachers, which has now over 250 pupils. An Anglo-Chinese Church of over forty members meets every Sunday in the College chapel.
The latest statistics of the London Missionary Society for Chihli are reported thus : — Missionaries — men, 18 ; women, 5 ; native preachers, 48 ; teachers, 32 ; Bible women and female teachers, 21 ; church members, 1998.
The Church Missionary Society maintained a staff in Peking for many years, the work having been commenced in 1861 by the Rev. J. S. Burdon (afterwards Bishop of ​Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/164 ​Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/165 ​Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/166 ​Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/167 ​Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/168 ​Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/169