Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1900-10-11
A CHINESE BUTCHER
UNPARALLELED ATROCITIES BY
AN OLD-TIME KING.
CHANG HEN CHUNG'S DEEDS
Ordered 100000 Persons Massacred on
One Occasior-Most UnprincipIed
6rigand of tiistory-His Sole Am
bition to Take the Lives OF Every
One He Warred Against.

| The fendishness of the Chinese char
acter is shown in the brief career OF
the usurper Chang Hen Chung, whose
love for bloody deeds visited upon his
own subjects is probably unrivaled in
the worlds history. He Is beyond
question the most unprincipled brigand
and wholesale butcher that ever lived
in China, if what is related of him is
true, and the evidence seems to come
from pretty good authority.
Chang Hen Chung lived in the seven
teenth century. When young he
usurped the title of king in the prov
ince then called by writer's Suchuen,
now Sze-Chuen, in western China, bor-
dering on Thibet. From whence he
| sprung is not related, but before ap-
| pearing in Sze-Chuen he had raided
other provinces, filling them, as an
| cient ecclesiastical chronicles put it,
| with rapine, death, fire and sword" 1t
is only when he appears upon the SEE
| Chuen scene that the story Of his ap-
| palling career begins. His atrocities
were not perpetrated in open warfare,
but upon the defenseless people of his
province for the personal qualification
Of ffendish nature.
Martin Martini, for several years a
Catholic missionary in remote western
China, wrote to Rome an interesting
report on the Tartar wars and the
shifting dynasties of the Chinese en-
pire. This work, entitled "Bellum Tar
taricum,' was published in London in
1865. A copy is in the Astor library,
New York
AS Martini had evidently large ap-
probation of the fact that his record
of the acts OF Chang might not be cred
tied by the western world, so over
shadowing then of all known bloody
deeds of an individual were they, that
he took great care to write:
Il am ashamed and also touched
with kind of horror to declare
| Chang's villainies, both in respect as
| they seem to exceed all belief, and
therefore l may be declared to write
fables, as also because it is no grateful
thing to make reflections on such sub
| jects."
The priest author is very careful to
state that his narrative is based on the
written statements of 1.-TWO religious
| persons" who had lived in Sze-Chuen,
and who, like Martini himself, had
preached the gospel in the province
over which Chang, some devil trans
vested in our human nature" exercised
authority.
The acts of this self-styled king of
| SZe-Chuen could today be interpreted
as those of an insane being. But it is
the more remarkable that they were
permitted to be perpetrated upon the
enormous population of the province.
In 1914 Chang entered Sze-Chuen
and captured the principal city, Cheng-
Tu. The ruler (king) of the province
was killed, together with his mobiles.
This was the prelude to all Chang's
barbarities. At that time the divided
| class of China entertained the single
ton and they strove to the utmost to
stay that country's growing power.
Chang was fighting the Tartars already
lodged in the north. This naturally
tiyes in the field Of his operations. To
enforce his dominant power he resort
ed to the most heinOus crimes ever
committed by ancient or modern ruler.
! No slaughter Of western history COM
pares with them. Gazing slew his peO-
pie for his own amusement, just to
crafty any violent or sudden notion
Of furious cruelty. No matter how
slight an offense to his ideas Of respect
of the kingly person or if he even sus-
pected others of being offended with
him he commanded that they be mas
sacred. There was no appeal from his
word, his whim was supreme law. The
priests who were in the province dur
ing his bloody career tell these among
other things concerning him:
Frequently for single mans fault
some trif1ing matter-Chang would Or
der all the members of family mas
sacred. Neither children nor women
with child were respected.
On many occasions he massacred a
whole street of a town where an Of
fender lived
Once he sent a man hurriedly into
the province of Xensi (Shen-Si) north
of Sze-Chuen-sent him on a mission.
This man, glad to be out of the tyrants
control, refused to return. 70 get even
with this defiance of authority, Chang
ordered that all the quarter of the city
in which his rebellious subject had
dwelt before his departure for Xensi
should be burned and every person in
it murdered. 1t was done.
Changes favorite was a particular
headsman This delectabIe individual
sickened, and despite the efforts Of the
medicine men to save his life, died.
This incensed the monarch, who in
sisted that the physicians were respon-
sibIe for the calamity. Toeven accounts
the doctor who had attended the heads
man was publicly executed. Next 100
other physicians were taken into the
open and sacrificed to the ghost of
Chang's favorite official
Chang is said to have been consider
ate with his army so long as they per
formed any valorous deeds. His usual
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