# A wandering student in the Far East/Yün-nan Fu

CHAPTER XI.
YÜN-NAN FU.
I spent a pleasant ten days in Yün-nan Fu as the guest of Mr Wilkinson, H.B.M. Consul-General for the two provinces of Yün-nan and Kuei-chow. Some day, when the railway from Tonking is completed as far as Yün-nan Fu, a British consulate is to be built on a pleasant site, already carefully marked out by Mr Wilkinson outside the city walls: for the present the representative of Great Britain resides in a modest Chinese house inside the city wall. Picturesque temples, hidden away in the surrounding mountains, provided an object for many a pleasant expedition, in which we were joined by the representative of France and by M. Barbézieux and his charming family, who occupied the position of doctor attached to ​the French consulate. Nor must I omit to mention the hospitable members of the China Inland Mission.
Compared with the capital of Ssŭch'uan, Yün-nan Fu is a poor affair. Poverty is as conspicuous a feature of the one as is prosperity of the other. The walls are solid, and, as is not infrequently the case in Chinese cities, the most conspicuous feature of the city; but they enclose a space of no very great extent, and cannot be more than three miles in circumference. A few rusty cannon lay strewn about on their summit, upon one of which I deciphered the unlooked-for superscription I.H.S.—a relic bearing witness to the mechanical genius of some forgotten Jesuit father.
Outside the city walls stands an imposing pagoda, built somewhat prematurely by one Ts'en Yü-ying to celebrate prospective victories over France; but more interesting perhaps at the present day, and infinitely more surprising, is a neatly laid-out station, with railway embankments curling away across the plain,—a forerunner of the line which France is pushing forward with dogged determination from ​the south. The bulk of the foreign goods that reach Yün-nan Fu already come through Indo-China viâ Lao-kai on the frontier and Mêng-tzŭ, though a certain proportion travels viâ the Yang-tsze and Sui Fu, and in one shop I found piece-goods which had come across from Burma viâ Tali Fu. Very little merchandise, however, reaches Yün-nan Fu from Burma at the present time. Cheap black Italians and figured lastings were on view, as well as the ordinary grey shirting, and were said to have a fair sale. Cheap furniture prints were also in stock. But it is cotton yarn that provides the chief importation from abroad, Indian, and latterly Tonkingese, yarn being readily purchased and woven by the people into a strong coarse cloth known as yang-sha-pu. According to the late Mr Litton, by whose sudden death while travelling near T'eng Yüeh in 1895 his country sustained a wellnigh irreparable loss, the great centre of the local weaving industry is the Hsin Hsing valley, three days south of Yün-nan Fu, where 40,000 piculs of yarn are disposed of annually. My experience goes to show that ​the weaving of foreign yarns into strong, loosely-knit cloth by the Chinese is an increasing industry, and is likely to continue to be so. The people have come to realise the advantage of buying the cheap machine-made yarns of India and Japan; and so far back as 1897 the members of the Blackburn Commercial Mission observed a placard on the walls of Yün-nan Fu, issued by a benevolent institution, exhorting women and girls to learn the art of weaving foreign yarn, quoting Confucian scripture to prove it was their duty, and, what would doubtless be more effective, showing by arithmetic that it was a profitable undertaking. So long as the mass of the people remain steeped in their present poverty, the less durable machine-made cloths from the looms of Lancashire will have little chance of competing with the yang-sha-pu. Moreover, the yang-sha-pu is made in widths (14 inches) which entail a minimum of waste when cut up for Chinese clothes, whereas the broader widths of English cloths necessitate no small waste,—a matter of vast importance to the frugal and needy Chinaman.
​In company with my host I called upon the Viceroy, a genial but pitifully weak ruler of the name of Ting. I expressed much interest in the opium and railway questions, but his Excellency passed by both these questions and professed immense interest in the fact that I was unmarried, indulging in absorbing speculations as to the rank and virtues of the lady whom he prophesied my parents would select for me on my return to my native land. Both opium and railways are at present embarrassing subjects in the yamens of Western China. The former, like the latter, deserves special consideration, and will be discussed in a separate chapter.
Soldiers of Yün-nan.
​by jowl with the very walls of the capital, a perpetual blister upon the temper of young Yün-nan; a French school, established by the Governor-General of Indo-China, and at the expense of that colony, was teaching some eighty Chinese students the language and the ways of France; and now Great Britain was scheming to lay hold of some part of Western China by constructing railways from Burma to Tali Fu. Such things should not be: so said the young reforming party, and a board came into being with the object of frustrating all further encroachments—it was recognised that the concession to France could not now be altered—under the title at first of "The Yün-nan-Ssŭch'uan," and subsequently "The Yün-nan-Ssŭch'uan-T'eng Yüeh Railway Co.," pledged to survey and undertake all necessary railways themselves. English and French alike were undoubtedly anathema maranatha to the young Yün-nan party.
Among the people generally the English were not disliked, such English travellers as have visited the province having almost invariably left a good impression behind them. ​I do not think the same can conscientiously be said of the French. Nothing could be more tactful or more correct than the attitude of the representatives of France whom I found at the capital; but throughout the province there was undoubtedly a feeling of distrust and suspicion of the ambitions and aspirations of that country. Nor can its official representatives claim complete immunity from blame. It was M. François, French Consul-General,—happily Consul-General no longer,—who in the summer of 1900 was responsible for a serious anti-foreign riot. Contrary to the laws of China, M. François crossed the frontier from Indo-China to Yün-nan with forty cases of arms and ammunition. Hokow, at which place was posted a French commissioner of Customs, was safely passed, but at Mêng-tzŭ the then commissioner passed the Consul-General's personal baggage but expressed a desire to examine such cases as he was taking to Yün-nan Fu for others. M. François blustered and carried off his goods by force, and reached the likin-station at the gates of the capital. Here his baggage was detained under ​orders from the Viceroy, who having received information to the effect that arms and ammunition were being smuggled in, despatched two prefects to examine it. The impetuous Frenchman drew his revolver upon the Chinese officers, thereby grossly affronting two Chinese gentlemen engaged upon a perfectly legitimate and necessary duty, and incidentally raising a wild storm of outraged Chinese humanity about the ears of the entire foreign population. Thanks to the firm attitude of the Viceroy under extremely trying circumstances, no lives were lost, and the European population was brought safely under a strong escort to the frontier. Thus was a serious international situation created by the unwarranted procedure of an obstinate and impetuous Frenchman. Yet M. François was reappointed Consul-General, a letter of apology wrung from the Viceroy, the two prefects deprived of their official rank, and a large indemnity extracted! And M. Paul Doumer thinks the French are popular in Yün-nan. "The engineers, officers, doctors," he declared, "whom Indo-China sent to Yün-nan, had for express direction, over ​and above their special task, to attach the people to themselves and to make loved the name of France. They have fully succeeded," he added.
The whole question of railway construction in Yün-nan has become a long story, involving as it does the rival schemes and pretensions of England and France, and the new attitude of self-assertion on the part of China, and will be dealt with at the conclusion of a brief account of my journey on from Yün-nan Fu to the Burmese frontier. It will be convenient, however, if, before embarking on the narrative of the remainder of my journey, I here interpose a chapter on a question of burning interest to Western China—namely, the question of the suppression of the opium traffic.
* ↑ 40,000 piculs = 47,619 cwt.
* ↑ He has since been succeeded by Hsi Liang, late Viceroy of Ssŭch'uan.