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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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the Chinese had to fight the French in Tonquin, they were
obliged to send out to the farms and villages, offering men
who would fight rather higher wages than they would get in
ordinary civil life. In this way the generals of a district would
raise a certain number of men, say a couple of thousand. These
would be sent off to the war under four colonels, who would
receive from government the pay for each man. But the
colonels had to feather their nests, so they would give a certain
number of men a premium to go off home again, and then they
(the colonels) would go on drawing the pay of the absentees
from government, and put it all into their own pockets. Thus,
out of the two thousand who were originally sent off, probably
about one thousand only would reach the seat of war, while the
colonels would pocket the pay of the other thousand. So there
were not half the number of troops in Tonquin that were re-
ported to have been there.
Then the numbers of the French troops which Chinese
generals reported to Peking as having been opposed to them
is marvellous. I had an opportunity once of reading, side by
side, the despatches of the Chinese commander (published in
the Peking Gazette) and the despatches of the French general
(published by the French Government) about the same battles.
It was most instructive reading. The Chinese reported to the
emperor, and the emperor, I suppose, solemnly believed, that
the French had from ten to twenty times the number they
really had ; and the slaughter these gallant Chinese soldiers
effected beats everything previously recorded in history.
According to the Peking Gazette, no less than 1,800,000 French-
men were actually killed in the Tonquin war ; and, according
to the same authority, Admiral Courbet was killed on forty-six
separate occasions.
While our preparations were in progress, Mr. Clarke and I
took many walks through Kwei-hwa-cheng. It is a curious
town and seems to have outgrown itself on two separate
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