1926.11 南京: 东方的杰作

shiyi18

Oriental Battlepieces
By Eleanor Lattimore
NOVEMBER 1926 ISSUE
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I. THIRD-CLASS TRAVEL
TRAVELING third class in China is an uncomfortable process, and in war time it is little short of an ordeal. Then inducements must be great indeed that lure one into a train.

I was lured once last winter to attempt a trip to Nanking, and fortune favored me. I had spent the night in the station master’s office in Tientsin. He had told me that the train up from Nanking would probably be in sometime during the night and that as soon as it arrived it would start back again; and as the station was full of rowdy soldiers he had hospitably offered to let me wait in his office, had swept pens, ink, and papers from a long desk in the corner so that I could roll up in my fur coat and attempt to sleep, and promised to wake me when the train arrived.


All night the office was bedlam — messages pouring in from military officials demanding a private train to go here or so many troop trains to be sent there, officers themselves in clanking swords coming in to curse the station master because a certain troop train was not ready on the track or to complain insolently that a private car had not been properly arranged, until I marveled that any attempt at all was made to continue ordinary passenger service.

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About five in the morning the Nanking express pulled in, having taken nearly five days to make what was ordinarily a thirty-five-hour trip. The station master sent a clerk with me to the train, from which bleary, weary, and disheveled passengers were pouring, rejoicing to have at last arrived. Hurrying the length of the train, we found one third-class compartment car, a relic of the Blue Express. The clerk helped me into an empty compartment and admonished me not on any account to leave my seat or I should lose it. Whereupon I rolled up in my steamer rug and went to sleep.

When I awoke the train was jolting along and the compartment was full. There were several women, two with babies, and an old gentleman who had removed his long silk coat and was carefully folding it, leaving him feeling more comfortable and at home in his gray padded trousers and short black jacket. As I fell asleep again he was taking a noisy drink of tea from the spout of a teapot.

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We jogged along all that day, stopping interminably at stations to wait for troop trains to pass and getting farther and farther behind schedule. Late in the afternoon I was just dropping off to sleep again when we stopped at a station and I heard a great bustle in the aisle. The compartment next to ours was being cleared out for some new passengers. A guard looked at my ticket. He looked at the tickets of the others in the compartment, and three of the women who were not going all the way to Nanking were put out with their babies and their bundles into a crowded car behind.

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We stayed an hour at that station for much switching about of cars and engines. The new passengers seemed to have been shaken down into their places, and no one had come into our compartment. But I did n’t breathe freely until the bell rang for the train to start. Then curiosity got the better of me and I went out into the aisle to see what important people had caused all the commotion. I had just come out of the door when a fat, pompous little man in civilian clothes emerged from the next compartment. He smiled and bowed and, fumbling inside his silk jacket, produced a large calling card, with Chinese printing on one side and English on the other.

‘My name Wu. I brigadier general,’ he said ostentatiously, pointing to the name and title on the card. ‘I go to Nanking. You also go. We go very quick. Other cars not go.’

And sure enough, we were pulling out of the station and leaving all the other cars of our train sitting on a siding. I never knew how long it took them to reach Nanking, but our one car, attached in foolish solitary grandeur to the engine and carrying the retinue of the important little brigadier general who for some reason needed to get to Nanking in disguise, forged ahead. We no longer stopped at stations; troop trains waited on sidings for us to pass. Heat mysteriously appeared in the once cold pipes; I no longer needed my coat, and the old man in our compartment shed another jacket. We had room to lie down for a good night’s sleep. And, the involuntary beneficiaries of the power of the military, we arrived in Nanking an hour ahead of time instead of three days late.

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Inducements to travel proved great again this spring, and I set out to journey from Peking to Kweihwa, on the border of Mongolia, during this year’s war against the Kuominchun. Even to set out was more difficult than I had anticipated. For several weeks the other lines out of Peking, to Hankow and to Tientsin, and even the little railway into the Western Hills, had run no passenger trains, but trains on the line north from Kalgan had continued to be more or less regular.

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I finally found a friend who had a friend who knew the station master, and the station master promised to tell his friend to tell my friend to tell me when a train would leave. The next midnight word came that a train had come down from Kalgan and would probably start back about nine in the morning. I packed, collected a Mongol girl whom I had promised to take as far as Kalgan, and reached the station at eight. There was the train, nearly full already. After I had deposited girl and baggage in the least crowded car and stood in line for half an hour to buy the tickets, I was dismayed to find that the train was going only to Kalgan, about a third as far as I wanted to go. I trusted to luck, however, that there would be another train on from Kalgan, and bought the tickets.

When I returned to the train I found our car jammed full. A large family of Mongols had just crowded through the door, plunked their bedding rolls on the floor, and sat on them in such a position that the door could be neither opened nor closed, that the conductor could not even enter, much less walk, that the man who made the tea could not budge to deliver it, that the boy who sold cigarettes and pink sugar candy could not find space to stand to call his wares. There they sat, dressed in dirty gay red and yellow and purple and orange clothes, the women with gorgeous headdresses and rings and bracelets of heavy silver and coral and decked in extra bits of finery they had purchased on their visit to Peking, the men with gilt and yellow caps and sashes hung with pipes and tobacco pouches and pipe cleaners, knives, chopsticks, flints, and tinder boxes. The conductor, the guard, the tea man, and the candy boy all tried to move them into another car, but there they sat like potatoes, affecting neither to listen nor to understand. The louder and angrier grew the voices of the conductor and the guard and the tea man and the candy boy, the more dumb and placid grew the expressions on the faces of the Mongols, until finally the attendants were driven to the use of force, and one by one they shoved them out of the car on to the platform and dumped their luggage after them.


The Mongol girl with me regarded all this with a placid smile. She was not dressed in Mongol clothes, but wore a homely modern Chinese cotton coat and felt herself superior to her barbaric countrywomen. Besides, her father was a prince in his tribe, and although when she had left Mongolia she had had no nose at all, she had been to the foreign hospital in Peking and plastic surgery had presented her with a new one. It was rather sketchy and amateurish, and it had only one nostril; still it was a nose. When it was healing she had been given a complicated gauze bandage which tied around her head with tapes. The nose was quite healed now, but she liked the bandage. When she looked in the mirror it made her laugh; and no one else had anything like it at all. It was getting a little dirty, but still she continued to wear it. It gave her a feeling of distinction. She could speak very little Chinese, and of course no English, though one of the internes at the hospital had taught her to say ‘Top hole’ when the nurse asked her how she was in the morning, and she used this on every occasion.

All that afternoon the journey was delightful, and it did n’t seem to matter how late we got to Kalgan. It did n’t even matter that Mongols never wash, for a warm spring breeze blew through the open windows to keep the air fresh and sometimes even fragrant with spring blossoms. The unusually slow pace of the train and the long stops were pleasant as we rolled along through blossoming orchards and between long lines of vividly new green willow trees, and up beyond Nankow we had glimpses of the Great Wall climbing up over the ridges of the bare hills which loomed high above us. And, for contrast, beyond it were gentle slopes of orchards and a little brook and the glow of the sunset on them all.


The trip from Peking to Kalgan usually takes about six hours, but it was already dark and we were only halfway there, and the passengers were philosophically disposing themselves for the night. New Nose stretched out on the part of the bench where we had both been sitting, with the bundle which composed her luggage as a pillow under her head. I climbed up into the wide baggage rack, put one suitcase under my head and the other at my feet so that they could n’t be stolen without waking me, and tried to go to sleep.

At four in the morning we finally arrived at Kalgan. My instructions had been to drop New Nose at the station, but she was terrified at arriving in the night and assured me that she did not know where to go. On inquiring I found that a train would probably leave for Kweihwa at seven that morning. I knew that there was a small hotel at Kalgan kept by Americans and I determined to try to find it, in order to leave New Nose with someone who would see that she found the friends who were to take her the next lap of her journey, and to rest and wash and get something to eat in preparation for the next lap of mine.

I explained to ricksha coolies that I wished to go to the foreign hotel. They appeared to understand perfectly. After pulling us for twenty minutes through narrow deserted streets lined with mud-walled houses weird in the light of the waning moon, they stopped before a great black gate. I had my doubts about its being the right gate because there was no name on it, but we knocked and finally aroused the gateman, who looked at us through a crack and disappeared. After several minutes the gate swung open and out tumbled a tousled sleepy Russian, who spit a torrent of explosive language at us and slammed the gate again. He was a foreigner and he may have kept a hotel, but it was n’t the hotel we wanted. The ricksha men had another bright idea in vain, and then another, but after knocking on several wrong doors and waking irate gatemen they finally managed to land us at the right place. By this time it was six o’clock and light, so all I could do was to leave New Nose in the care of the gateman, wash hastily, and return to the station, where I found my train already full to overflowing.


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I blew up my air cushion and prepared to make the best of a bad seat, my fellow passengers watching my every move with frank curiosity. After they had all become quite accustomed to what I looked like they began to talk to me. ‘China is bad, but America is very good,’ said an old workman, and I knew that the answer to that was, ‘Oh, no indeed; America is bad, but China is very good.’ ‘Ai, she is polite,’ they all nodded, and continued the conversation. ‘ Is America warmer or colder than China?’ ‘America is better than England. Americans are more polite to China. England is bad.’ ‘Yes. I heard,’ said one of the soldiers, ‘that Americans also do not like the English and that you had a revolution to free yourselves from their oppression.’ He spoke as if this had been a recent occurrence which somehow supplied a bond between us.

Doubtless inspired by the trend of the conversation, the two students across the aisle, who had evidently had a mission school somewhere in their past, began to sing softly, —

‘Jesus loves me, this I know,
(We will overcome the English!)
For the Bible tells me so;
(We will overcome the French!)
Little ones to him belong,
(We will overcome the Americans!)
We are weak, but he is strong.
(We will overcome all the foreigners!)’
By dark we were only halfway to Kweihwa and my seat had become so unbearably hard that I could scarcely face the prospect of a night on it. There was no room to stretch out, and the baggage racks in this car were far too narrow to sleep on. At about eight o’clock we stopped at a station and I went out to investigate the other cars in the hope of finding somewhere enough room to sleep. Each car I came to was as crowded as the next, but there was a half-empty baggage car the bare floor of which looked so inviting that I made bold to beg the guard to let me occupy a corner of it for the night. After several minutes’ parley he consented, hurried me in, and sent for my luggage. Delighted at the prospect of a good night, I immediately rolled up in my rug and went to sleep.

Alas, I had not slept long when I was awakened and gradually became aware of men standing over me and talking about me, and of a terrific clatter and chatter all about. I was terrified until I remembered where I was and realized that the men were only discussing whether or not to awaken me in order to ask me to move. I rose immediately and saw that the car had filled with soldiers who, when they had found it empty, had immediately appropriated it. I knew then that there would be no sleep that night, so I climbed on top of some sacks and made myself as comfortable as possible.

The soldiers were of course all curiosity at seeing a foreign woman, and immediately began discussing whether I was American or Russian. ‘There are four kinds of foreigners,’ proclaimed a soldier sitting on a high packing box and eager to exhibit his superior knowledge. ‘There are Americans, Japanese, English, and Russians. Japan is the largest foreign country, but I knew a man once who went to Russia. He traveled for days on a train and was so cold he nearly froze to death. This woman is probably an American. At any rate she is a Christian. All foreigners are Christians. A Christian is one who neither drinks nor smokes.’ Whereupon they all fell to discussing whether or not all foreigners were Christians, as several of them had seen foreigners smoking. It might be that some Christians smoked. Still, General Feng did not allow his soldiers to smoke because he was a Christian. The discussion was getting over their heads. And it seemed that some of them did smoke in spite of rules to the contrary, as cigarettes were pulled from pockets and passed from hand to hand. And then they started to sing, first a Chinese tune, then ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers,’ and a Chinese tune again.

The soldiers sang and chattered all night long and I stood for hours at the door of the car watching the moonlight on the high hills. Finally, at five, we arrived at Kweihwa, and I spied the servant who had come to meet me peering up and down the train with a lantern in his hand. He had been at the station all night and still clung to his lantern, though it was light by now.

I may add that I expected to return to Peking in a week, everyone having assured me that the troop movements would be over in a few days. But no one can prognosticate about Chinese wars. In a few days the trains stopped altogether. I have been in Kweihwa for two months. And sometimes I wonder if I would n’t rather spend my life here than travel back in a third-class train in war time.

II. WHERE THE CARAVANS START
The China that we are living in now seems as far a cry from the storied China of emperors and poets and the pursuit of ancient learning as does the America of Western frontier towns in the days Zane Grey writes of from the America of Emerson or Thoreau. For we are on China’s frontier, on the edge of the desert, in a land of horses and camels and the barter of sheep and wool and furs.

It is from this ‘Blue City,’as the Mongols call it, that the camel caravans have, since the beginning of history, started on their long trek across the desert to Chinese Turkestan and the west, carrying out tea and silk and sundry trade goods and returning with wool and skins and fur. It is one of the oldest trade routes in the world, continuing much the same to-day as it was two thousand years ago, and on the wealth of its cargo depends largely the prosperity of all this northwest country.

Kweihwa, as the Chinese call the city, was for centuries a part of Mongolia and was not counted as Chinese until the advent of the Manchus in the sixteenth century. At that time the Manchus built a new city a mile or so away from the old Kweihwa, and, in spite of its now being three hundred years old, it is still called the ‘New City,’ and its four walls look as strong as if they had been built three or thirty instead of three hundred years ago. With the fall of the Manchu dynasty, however, the glory of the New City has departed. Of the wall of the old city only one crumbling gate remains, but the city itself is far the more picturesque of the two, as it is the lively centre of the caravan trade and contains all the inns, shops, markets, and amusements incident to it.

When I first came to Kweihwa I marveled most at the camels. The streets were full of camels. The country all about was strung with camels, long caravans coming down from passes in the hills or smaller groups of three or four being led about the countryside for exercise or water. And in the town, through the half-open massive wooden doors cut into high brick walls which in Peking would reveal a flowery courtyard or a vine-clad moon gate, one here sees the wide bare clay-floored courts of camel inns with shaggy camels lying or standing about and sometimes an old-fashioned camel cart.

One of our first excursions was to the camel market, which was held every morning in an open space before a crumbling Lama temple. There were hundreds of the gorgeous great beasts, still shaggy in their winter coats and forming an unforgettable picture against the red walls and wide curlyroofed gate of the old temple, for the shape of a camel, with the great sweeping lines of its huge body and the supercilious tilt of its proud and placid head, makes it a most impressive animal.

The owners of the camels, or their representatives who had brought them there for sale, were quite as interesting as the beasts — a merry collection of rascals, shrewd and unscrupulous, and picturesque in their baggy padded clothes. The buying and selling, like all other business transactions in Kweihwa, were done through brokers — a most useful scheme, since slandering the owner’s wares, accusing him of swindling, or imputing niggardly qualities to the purchaser can be accomplished with far more freedom and abandon through a middleman. Moreover much ‘face’ is saved all around if, instead of both parties humiliating themselves by having to alter their original offers, the owner’s broker can say to the purchaser’s broker, ‘The owner has magnanimously consented to let you have them at so much less than his original price,’ and the purchaser’s broker can say, ‘I have with difficulty persuaded my customer to increase his offer to so much.’

The ‘so much’ is never uttered, but is communicated by a mysterious system of wrist pressings, the bargainers’ clasped hands being entirely hidden under their long sleeves from the view of prying onlookers. By this means they ensure that business transactions carried on in a public market may be kept a private matter, and all about we saw lively bargaining going on beneath long sleeves. A good camel can be had now for the equivalent of fifty or sixty American dollars. One of the simplest ways by which one can tell a healthy camel is by the condition of his humps. If a camel is in good condition his humps are firm and upright, but if he is ill or underfed his humps flop limply to one side. The camels here are all the two-humped Bactrians of the type common in North China and Central Asia, and are larger and slower-going than their relatives, the dromedaries.

Most of the caravans from Kweihwa go straight across the Gobi Desert for 1500 miles to Barkul or Kuehengtze in eastern Chinese Turkestan. Fast camels can make the trip in seventy days, but the large caravans of heavily loaded freight camels sometimes take as long as five or six months, the custom being to make one round trip a year. An average caravan consists of 120 camels, each animal carrying about 280 catties or 375 pounds.

We often saw them going to or from the pass in a long line, tied nose to nose in groups of twenty, each group led by a bow-legged camel man, always shuffling along with his eyes on the ground, a habit acquired from long years of stolidly walking for endless dreary miles across the desert, accommodating his pace to the slow gait of the camels. And camel freight is the slowest freight in the world, as the animals travel only about two and a half miles an hour.

The last camel on each string wears a bell about two feet long, and the deep clang of these bells can usually be heard for an hour before the caravan comes into sight. The caravan is headed by black shaggy dogs that protect its encampments, and at the tail end rides the caravan bashi or leader, mounted high on a camel and armed with a heavy old blunderbuss.

Crossing the Gobi, the caravans usually camp during the day and travel at night, as the camels, which depend on the often scant desert grazing for their food, will not eat at night. They set out about five in the afternoon, travel all night, and pitch camp at daybreak. There are only three or four days during all of this long trip when it is not possible to find fresh water, though often it is necessary to dig deep into the sand for it.

My husband was making arrangements to join one of these caravans as a passenger, and this entailed long and circuitous discussions with representatives of camel transport firms. After long and tricky bargaining he finally came to an agreement. He was to be supplied with seven camels, one for himself to ride, one for Moses, his Chinese servant, and five to carry his luggage. They were to arrive in Kuchengtze within eighty days, and if they took longer a fine was to be paid of half a tael for every day they were late. His fuel and water were to be supplied and two pounds of flour apiece for himself and Moses. All other food for the journey he must carry himself, as there was no chance to obtain anything along the way, save for an occasional opportunity to shoot antelope or to buy a sheep from the Mongols.

Outfitting my husband for his journey proved an interesting task. We prepared large sacks of toasted bread like rusks and bought fat wicker flasks of vinegar and soya-bean sauce, dried onions, and canned goods from Peking. We went one day to the warehouse of a firm that sends many expeditions across the desert, and I have seldom seen so romantic a collection of junk as they have there for the outfitting of their caravans. We purchased a tripod and rough cooking utensils, felts to sleep on, and, best of all, a picturesque octagonal tent made of blue cotton bound in red, with a great scrolly design appliquéd on in white.

During these days of preparation we absorbed considerable information about the immense trade being carried on from Kweihwa, both with Outer Mongolia and with Chinese Turkestan. About twenty thousand camels leave Kweihwa for these two districts every year, seventy per cent of which go to Chinese Turkestan. They go out laden with brick and black tea from Hunan and Hupeh, pongee from Shantung, Hangchow silk, tobacco, paper, sugar, matches, and sundry articles. These goods are usually bartered for wool, fur, and skins, so that no money changes hands. The hide and wool dealers in Kweihwa sometimes stake the agents with the goods for barter in order to have an option on the wool that they bring back. This is risky business for the dealers, as there is no security for such stakes and unscrupulous agents are often known to disappear permanently from Kweihwa. Most business is done through verbal understandings, and a written contract is rarely seen.


The camels returning from Outer Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan are laden with the skins, fur, or wool of foxes, hares, bears, squirrels, goats, sheep, marmots, and camels. Dog skins and deer horns are brought from Mongolia, yak tails and rhinoceros horns are imported from Chinese Turkestan, as well as smaller quantities of medicines, raisins, apricots, melons, gold, quartz, and jade.

Until ten years ago caravans frequently suffered from the raids of bandits, but in 1916 the enterprising organization of Suiyuan merchants raised a protective corps of four hundred men, supported by taxes on incoming goods, and since then travelers have been well guarded.

All that I have written so far has been of the Kweihwa that we found when we arrived three months ago — a lively and prosperous trading centre, with goods pouring in from the west by camel transport and being sent on southward on the Peking-Suiyuan Railway. But to-day it is as a dead city, for its trading has completely stopped. No more goods are coming in from Mongolia or Turkestan, no more goods are being sent south on the railway, and what was caught here in transit is piled idle in the warehouses.

Our first indication of this sudden change came on the day of my husband’s departure for Chinese Turkestan. There had been many delays; one counts on delays in China. But at last the morning arrived when we heard the clang of camel bells and looked out of the window to see our very own camels filing into the courtyard, seven great gorgeous creatures. With them was a merry pigtailed camel man named Li, who marshaled the dunnage in a miraculously effective manner, slinging ropes about in a way to prove his statement that he had been assisting camels back and forth to Turkestan continuously for a vast number of years. And before we knew it they were loaded and filing out of our courtyard, accompanied by the noble Moses, carrying the teakettle.

I had expected to leave for Peking that same afternoon and had sent a servant to arrange for a cart to take me and my luggage to the station. To my dismay he returned with the news that there would be no train to Peking that day and probably none for several days. No one knew exactly why, except that it was on account of the civil war which has been dragging on for months between the various war lords of the republic for the control of the Peking government, and that it was probably the retreat of Feng Yu-hsiang’s soldiers from Peking that had blocked the railway.

I had been inconvenienced on other occasions in the past by Chinese wars stopping trains for several days at a time, and now I tried not to chafe at the delay. But I was rather dolefully unpacking when to my utter amazement my husband appeared at the door. At the entrance to the first pass into the hills his camels had been commandeered by soldiers and brought back to the yamen, where he learned that on that very morning an order had been issued by the military governor for the commandeering of three thousand camels to transport military supplies and that all the camels for miles around the countryside were being collected by the soldiers and police. All my husband’s pleas that he was a foreigner and that surely seven camels could make little difference to them when they were looking for so many proved of no avail, as most of the spring caravans had already left for the west and it would be a difficult task for them to collect three thousand very soon. Even Mongol-owned camels were being requisitioned — a drastic measure, since the Chinese are usually most careful not to offend the Mongols who contribute so largely to the prosperity of trade in Kweihwa.

This was two months ago, but the camels are not yet released and the trains are not yet running.

III. MARTIAL LAW
For three months we have been living among the soldiers of the Kuominchun on their last line of defense in China’s Northwest.

Most Chinese wars do not last long. The armies fight for a few months in the spring or fall, and nothing so effectively stops them as cold winter weather or a very hot summer. The fact that this present war has continued for nine months through a cold winter and into the beginning of a hot summer means that it is something new to be reckoned with. For more than a year the Peking government has been in the hands of a temporary compromise cabinet, while its fate has hung — as it has since the beginning of the republic, for that matter — on the manœuvres of the war lords who have been fighting for its control.

The present war, roughly speaking, is a combination of the chief tuchuns of China to eliminate Feng Yu-hsiang from their military chessboard. He originally came to power by betraying Wu Pei-fu, who was fighting against Chang Tso-lin. Then the ruling powers in China, hoping to get rid of him, induced him to take over the administration of the Northwest. Here, however, he built up his power until he was able to appear in national politics again by marching on Peking. His increasing power and his association with the New China and the Student Movement have appeared so serious a threat to the makeshift system of tuchuns or military governors by which all North China has been ruled since the death of Yuan Shih-kai that old enemies like Wu Pei-fu and Chang Tso-lin have united in an attempt to crush him, accusing him of betraying China to the Soviets.


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When this combined movement began, Feng Yu-hsiang was in occupation of Peking and continually threatened to extend his control down to the seacoast at Tientsin. The attack of the allies, however, forced him to withdraw behind the hills which at Nankow, thirty miles from Peking, shut off the northwest province from the North China plain. This was in April, and since then the war has developed into an effort to dislodge him by attacking him from Shansi through Tatung, which is at the centre of the PekingSuiyuan Railway, his only line of communication through the length of his territory, from Paotow on the Yellow River to Suiyuan, Kalgan, and Nankow.

Here in Kweihwa, only a few hours west on the railway from Tatung, around which the fighting has centred for the last two months, it has been almost impossible to keep in touch with the developments of the war, as all communications with the outside world have been cut off and so effective a censorship is enforced by the Kuominchun that little news leaks through. A few mails have struggled in, sent overland by cart by a long and roundabout route through Shansi, but the stray foreign newspapers that they have contained have been so many weeks old that as news they have lost all value. Chinese newspapers from the South have been rigidly kept out. Local newspapers are obviously retained, and everyone knows that the occasional official proclamations on the progress of the war are almost sure to be untrue.


Even without news, however, we are continuously conscious of the nearness of the war and of living under rigid martial law. The country swarms with soldiers. We continually hear them counting or singing as they march past on the road.

A Chinese soldier is an unmilitarylooking object. His baggy gray trousers are unshapely, the sleeves of his gray cotton jacket are usually shrunk half to his elbows, and his insignia are merely a ragged armband inevitably pinned on with a large safety pin. The spring style in Kuominchun headgear consists of a wrinkled and drooping cotton hat, which gives the wearer the appearance of a down-at-the-heels and very overgrown boy scout. Many of the soldiers, those trained for hand-tohand fighting, do not carry rifles, but are armed with Mauser pistols and huge swords, which they wear slung across their backs. These swords are known locally as ‘cheese-cutters’ and look as if they were made of tinfoil and came from a theatrical costumer’s, though in reality they are rather bloody weapons and evidently meant to hack with, as they are too wide and blunt to stab. To Westerners perhaps the most unmilitary in effect of all the Chinese soldiers are the buglers. At any hour of the day, but particularly at dawn and dusk, we hear them struggling pathetically to produce the Western bugle calls, always off the tune.

Chinese people are always afraid of soldiers. Moses, our Chinese servant, appeared one morning with a tale of a soldier who took from a food vendor some of the white cornstarch jelly the Chinese are fond of eating in the summer time, ate it, and then refused to pay him. The vendor naturally set up a hue and cry, which attracted the attention of a passing officer who saw that a soldier was involved in a fracas and came up to see what the trouble was. The vendor accused the soldier of having eaten the jelly and not paid for it, and the soldier insisted that he had eaten nothing. The officer crossquestioned them both and the trembling vendor still vowed that the jelly had been eaten, and the bystanders affirmed that he was telling the truth. ‘On your life?’ asked the officer. ‘On my life,’ insisted the vendor. ‘Well, we’ll see,’ said the officer, and ordered his bodyguard to rip open the stomach of the soldier with a ‘cheese-cutter.’ Then they looked carefully at the poor fellow’s gory insides, but could find nothing that looked like the white jelly, so in punishment for the false accusation the officer caused the execution of the food vendor, his wife, his mother, and his four children.

There are, however, comparatively few such stories about the soldiers of the Kuominchun, and they seem never to be reported from the place that one is in, but always from another place.

In contrast with other Chinese armies the discipline and esprit de corps of the Kuominchun seem a remarkable phenomenon and one which is largely due to the genius for organization and the understanding of human psychology possessed by Feng Yuhsiang. He has often been called a hypocrite by both Chinese and foreigners. There are many missionaries who support and believe in him implicitly, because he calls himself a Christian, because he has Bible classes and evangelists in his camps, and because his soldiers sing hymns and are not allowed to smoke or drink. Yet unprejudiced observers know that his policies and tactics are no more Christian than those of other war lords, and that his betrayal of Wu Pei-fu, by which he originally rose to power, was generally considered exceptionally underhanded.

His attitude toward opium affords an example of the way in which missionaries and others are sometimes deceived as to his Christian principles.

I have heard supposedly intelligent men praise the Christian general for his influence against the iniquitous opium traffic because he does not allow his soldiers to smoke it. And yet the Northwest, which he completely controls, is partly financed by revenue from opium. Here in Kweihwa the use, sale, and transport of opium are quite open. Opium pipes and lamps are sold everywhere on the streets and there are public inns where an opium smoke may be had for a few coppers. And this year, with the extra need of money, poppy growing has been not only licensed but encouraged.


But in spite of opium the Northwest is exceptionally well governed, and, whether he is a Christian or not, Feng Yu-hsiang is an exceedingly clever man. For certain it is that opium smoking does not make strong soldiers, nor do cigarettes or strong drink, while just as surely hymn singing does help in the building up of a loyal army. He has been intelligent enough to see the psychological value of the Christian ‘line,’ and he has used it to instill into the simple minds of his soldiers the Christian virtues of temperance and loyalty and patriotism, of contentment and submission and a hope for the hereafter, which have made them into a strong and powerful force. He pays them little and often that little is heavily in arrears, but since they are not allowed to smoke and drink there is little for which they need money, and to prevent them from pining for those forbidden pleasures he keeps them busy and happy with games and athletics and tree planting and hymn singing and thoughts about their souls. All this interest in their morals and their souls naturally inspires a loyalty which has gone a long way toward keeping up the morale of the men through retreats and defeats and exceedingly trying circumstances.

Whether Feng Yu-hsiang believes in Christianity or not, he has used it as an effective tool. And his other clever stroke has been the opportune championing of the cause of the ‘New China.’ When he was stranded high and dry, without political affiliations or a strong army or strategical territory, he had the astuteness to champion a growing movement when it needed a strong champion, and it has given him a backing which he could not otherwise have acquired. This connection, and his dependence on the supply of arms and ammunition from Russia, which also champions the New China, have naturally brought upon him the accusation of being Bolshevist. And the fact that he took up first with the Christians and then with the New China has earned him the reputation of being somewhat of a faddist or a crank. But it would seem that there is method in his madness and that he is shrewd enough to be a crank only when it pays him.


The Kuominchun has also earned for itself the reputation of being antiforeign. It would probably be truer to say that, being of the New China, its leaders are sensitive in regard to their dignity. If this dignity is recognized we have found them always friendly. It is true that our freedom has been hampered and that, together with the Chinese, we have felt the severity of their martial law. Other parties have continually made exceptions of foreigners, granting them special privileges and being afraid of restricting or displeasing them, and under such parties we might have fared better. Yet in spite of our own personal discomfort we cannot help having respect for a party that has the courage to rule firmly and without kowtowing to us because we happen to be foreigners.





东方的杰作
作者：Eleanor Lattimore
1926年11月号
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I. 三等舱旅行
在中国乘坐三等舱是一个不舒服的过程，而在战争时期，这几乎是一种折磨。那么引诱人上火车的诱因肯定很大。

去年冬天，我有一次被引诱尝试去南京旅行，幸运之神眷顾了我。我在天津的站长办公室里过了一夜。他告诉我，从南京来的火车可能会在夜里的某个时候抵达，一旦抵达就会再次启动；由于车站里到处都是吵闹的士兵，他好心地提出让我在他的办公室里等待，从角落里的长桌上扫出笔、墨水和文件，以便我能够卷起毛皮大衣试图睡觉，并承诺在火车抵达时叫醒我。


整个晚上，办公室都是一片混乱--军方官员的消息纷至沓来，要求有一辆私人火车开到这里，或者有那么多的部队火车开到那里，军官们自己拿着叮叮当当的剑进来咒骂站长，因为某辆部队火车没有在轨道上准备好，或者无礼地抱怨私人汽车没有被妥善安排，直到我惊叹于任何继续提供普通客运服务的尝试。

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凌晨五点左右，南京的快车停了下来，花了将近五天的时间，完成了通常为35小时的行程。车站站长派了一名办事员和我一起上了火车，从火车上下来的乘客个个面色苍白，疲惫不堪，衣衫不整，为终于到达而欢欣鼓舞。我们匆匆走过火车，找到了一节三等车厢，这是蓝色快车的遗物。店员把我扶到一个空的包厢里，告诫我无论如何不要离开我的座位，否则我会失去它。于是，我卷起我的蒸汽毯，进入了梦乡。

当我醒来的时候，火车正在颠簸地行驶，车厢里已经坐满了人。有几个女人，两个带着孩子，还有一个老先生，他脱下了他的长丝大衣，正小心翼翼地叠好，让他穿着灰色的软垫裤和黑色的短外套，感觉更舒服，更自在。当我再次睡着时，他正从一个茶壶的壶嘴里嘈杂地喝着茶。

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那一天，我们一直在慢跑，在车站无休止地停下来，等待部队的列车通过，而且比计划的进度越来越远。下午晚些时候，当我们在一个车站停下来时，我又要睡觉了，我听到过道里有很大的喧闹声。我们旁边的车厢正在为一些新的乘客进行清场。一个警卫看了看我的票。他看了看车厢里其他人的车票，其中三个不打算一直去南京的妇女带着她们的婴儿和包袱被赶到后面拥挤的车厢。

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我们在那个车站呆了一个小时，换了很多车和引擎。新来的乘客似乎已经被摇到了自己的位置，没有人进入我们的车厢。但是，直到火车开动的铃声响起，我才自由呼吸。然后我的好奇心得到了满足，我走到过道上，想看看是什么重要人物引起了所有的骚动。我刚从门里出来，一个穿着便服的肥胖、浮夸的小个子男人从旁边的车厢里走了出来。他微笑着鞠了一躬，在他的丝绸外套里摸索着，拿出一张大的电话卡，一面印着中文，另一面印着英文。

我姓吴。我是准将，'他指着卡片上的名字和头衔，浮夸地说道。'我去南京。你也去。我们走得非常快。其他车不去。

果然，我们开出了车站，把我们列车的其他车厢都留在了侧线上。我不知道他们花了多长时间才到达南京，但我们的一节车厢，以愚蠢的孤独的宏伟姿态附在发动机上，载着重要的小旅长的随从，由于某种原因需要伪装到南京，奋勇向前。我们不再停在车站；部队列车在边线上等着我们通过。曾经冰冷的管道里神秘地出现了热气；我不再需要我的外套，我们车厢里的老人也脱下了另一件外套。我们有地方可以躺下好好睡一觉。而且，作为军队力量的非自愿受益者，我们提前一小时而不是晚三天到达南京。

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今年春天，旅行的诱因再次被证明是巨大的，我开始从北京到蒙古边境的桂花，在今年与国民党的战争中。即使是出发，也比我预想的要困难。几个星期以来，从北京出来的其他线路，到汉口和天津，甚至到西山的小铁路，都没有开行客运列车，但从卡尔根向北的线路上的列车仍然或多或少地定期运行。

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我终于找到了一个朋友，他有一个认识站长的朋友，站长答应告诉他的朋友，让他告诉我的朋友，告诉我什么时候有火车离开。第二天半夜传来消息，有一列火车从卡尔冈下来，可能会在早上九点左右开回去。我收拾好行李，带着我答应过的一个蒙古女孩一直走到卡尔甘，在八点到达车站。火车就在那里，几乎已经满员。我把女孩和行李放在最不拥挤的车厢里，排了半个小时的队买票后，我沮丧地发现，火车只开到卡尔甘，大约是我想去的三分之一的路程。不过，我相信运气，会有另一列火车从卡尔冈开出，于是买了票。

当我回到火车上时，我发现我们的车厢被塞满了。一大群蒙古人刚刚挤进车门，把他们的被褥卷放在地板上，坐在上面，以至于车门既不能开也不能关，售票员甚至无法进入，更不用说走路了，泡茶的人也无法挪动身子去送茶，卖香烟和粉红糖糖的男孩也找不到地方站着叫卖了。他们坐在那里，穿着脏兮兮的红色、黄色、紫色和橙色的衣服，女人戴着华丽的头饰，戴着重银和珊瑚的戒指和手镯，穿着他们在访问北京时购买的额外的装饰品，男人戴着鎏金和黄色的帽子，腰间挂着烟斗、烟袋和烟斗清洁器、刀子、筷子、火石和火绒盒。列车员、警卫、茶水员和糖果男孩都试图将他们移到另一辆车上，但他们像土豆一样坐在那里，既不听也不理解。车长、警卫、茶水员和糖果店老板的声音越大、越愤怒，蒙古人脸上的表情就越呆滞、越平和，直到最后，乘务员不得不使用武力，他们一个接一个地把他们从车上推到月台上，并把他们的行李扔在后面。


和我在一起的蒙古族女孩以平和的微笑看待这一切。她没有穿蒙古族的衣服，而是穿了一件家常的现代中国棉衣，她觉得自己比她野蛮的女同胞要高明。此外，她的父亲是他所在部落的一位王子，虽然她离开蒙古时根本没有鼻子，但她曾到北京的外国医院就诊，整形外科为她做了一个新鼻子。它相当简略和业余，而且只有一个鼻孔；但它仍然是一个鼻子。当它正在愈合时，她得到了一个复杂的纱布绷带，用胶带绑在她的头上。现在鼻子已经完全愈合了，但她喜欢这个绷带。当她照镜子的时候，它让她笑了；而且没有人有类似的东西。绷带已经有点脏了，但她仍然继续戴着它。这给了她一种与众不同的感觉。她只会说很少的中文，当然也不会说英文，不过医院的一个实习生教她在护士问她早上怎么样的时候说'顶呱呱'，她在每个场合都用这个。

整个下午的旅程都很愉快，我们到达卡尔冈的时间有多晚似乎并不重要。蒙古人从不洗澡，这一点也不重要，因为温暖的春风吹过敞开的窗户，使空气清新，有时甚至有春暖花开的芬芳。火车的速度异常缓慢，停靠的时间也很长，我们在开花的果园里和一长排鲜艳的新绿柳树之间滚来滚去，在南口之外，我们瞥见了爬上光秃秃的山脊的长城，在我们头上高高耸立。作为对比，长城之外是平缓的果园坡地和一条小溪，夕阳的余晖洒在这些地方。


从北京到卡尔冈的旅程通常需要六个小时，但天已经黑了，我们只走了一半的路程，乘客们都在哲理地安排自己的夜晚。新鼻子在我们俩坐过的那段长椅上伸了个懒腰，把组成她行李的包袱放在头下当枕头。我爬上宽大的行李架，把一个行李箱放在头下，另一个放在脚下，这样就不会在不叫醒我的情况下被偷走，并试图入睡。

凌晨四点，我们终于抵达卡尔冈。我的指示是把新鼻子送到车站，但她对在夜间到达感到害怕，并向我保证她不知道该去哪里。经询问，我发现有一列火车可能会在当天早上七点开往桂花。我知道卡尔甘有一家美国人开的小旅馆，我决定设法找到它，以便把新鼻子交给一个人，让她找到带她走下一圈的朋友，并且休息、洗漱和吃点东西，为我的下一圈旅程做准备。

我向人力车司机解释说，我想去外国旅馆。他们似乎完全明白。他们拉着我们走了20分钟，穿过狭窄荒凉的街道，两旁的泥墙房屋在残月的照耀下显得十分诡异，他们在一扇巨大的黑门前停了下来。我对这扇门是否正确表示怀疑，因为上面没有名字，但我们敲了敲门，终于惊动了门卫，他透过缝隙看了看我们，然后消失了。几分钟后，大门被打开了，一个满脸皱纹、昏昏欲睡的俄罗斯人走了出来，他向我们吐了一通爆炸性语言，然后又把大门关上了。他是个外国人，他可能开了一家旅馆，但那不是我们想要的旅馆。人力车司机又想了一个聪明的主意，但没有成功，后来又想了一个，但在敲了几个错误的门和叫醒了愤怒的门卫后，他们终于设法将我们送到了正确的地方。这时已经六点了，天也亮了，我只能把 "新鼻子 "交给门卫照看，匆匆洗漱，然后回到车站，发现我的火车已经满载而归了。


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我吹起了我的气垫，准备充分利用这个糟糕的座位，我的同伴们以坦率的好奇心看着我的一举一动。在他们都相当习惯于我的样子之后，他们开始和我交谈。'中国不好，但美国很好，'一个老工人说，我知道答案是：'哦，确实不是；美国不好，但中国很好。'艾，她很有礼貌。"他们都点了点头，继续谈话。'美国比中国更温暖还是更冷？''美国比英国好。美国人对中国更有礼貌。英国很糟糕。'是的，我听说，'其中一个士兵说，'美国人也不喜欢英国人，你们进行了一场革命，把自己从他们的压迫中解放出来。他说得好像这是最近发生的事情，以某种方式在我们之间提供了一种联系。

无疑是受到谈话趋势的启发，过道对面的两个学生，显然在过去的某个地方上过传教士学校，开始轻声唱歌，----------。

'耶稣爱我，这我知道。
(我们将战胜英国人！）。
因为圣经这样告诉我。
(We will overcome the French!)
小孩子们属于他。
(We will overcome the Americans!)
我们是软弱的，但他是强大的。
(我们将战胜所有的外国人！)'
到了天黑，我们只走了一半的路程就到了桂花，而我的座位已经变得非常难受，我几乎无法面对在上面过夜的前景。没有空间可以伸展，而且这辆车的行李架太窄了，无法在上面睡觉。大约八点时，我们在一个车站停了下来，我出去调查其他车厢，希望能找到有足够空间睡觉的地方。我来到的每节车厢都和下一节车厢一样拥挤，但有一节半空的行李车厢，其光秃秃的地板看起来非常诱人，我大胆地请求警卫让我在其中的一个角落过夜。经过几分钟的交涉，他同意了，催促我进去，并让我去拿行李。我为今晚的美好前景感到高兴，立即卷起毯子睡觉了。

唉，我还没睡多久就被吵醒了，并逐渐意识到有人站在我身边谈论我，而且周围都是可怕的喧哗声和议论声。我吓坏了，直到我想起我在哪里，并意识到这些人只是在讨论是否唤醒我，以便要求我搬家。我立即站起来，看到车上坐满了士兵，他们发现车上没有人，就立即把车占了。当时我就知道，那晚是睡不着的，所以我爬到一些麻袋上面，让自己尽可能地舒服。

士兵们看到一个外国女人，当然都很好奇，并立即开始讨论我是美国人还是俄国人。有四种外国人，"一个士兵坐在一个高高的包装箱上，急于展示他的高超知识，宣称。'有美国人、日本人、英国人和俄罗斯人。日本是最大的外国国家，但我曾经认识一个人，他去了俄罗斯。他在火车上旅行了好几天，冷得几乎要冻死了。这个女人可能是个美国人。不管怎么说，她是个基督徒。所有的外国人都是基督徒。'基督徒就是不喝酒也不抽烟的人。于是，他们都开始讨论是否所有的外国人都是基督徒，因为他们中的一些人看到外国人在抽烟。可能有些基督徒会抽烟。但是，冯将军不允许他的士兵吸烟，因为他是基督徒。这场讨论已经超出了他们的想象。而且似乎他们中的一些人确实在抽烟，尽管有相反的规定，因为香烟被从口袋里掏出来，从一个人传到另一个人。然后他们开始唱歌，先是一首中国曲子，然后是《前进吧，基督徒士兵》，又是一首中国曲子。

士兵们整晚都在唱歌和唠叨，我在车门口站了几个小时，看着月光下的高山。最后，在五点，我们到达了桂花，我发现那个来接我的仆人手里拿着灯笼，在火车上来回地看。他在车站呆了一晚上，仍然紧紧抓住他的灯笼，尽管现在天已经亮了。

我可以补充说，我预计会在一个星期内回到北京，每个人都向我保证，部队的调动会在几天内结束。但是，没有人能够对中国的战争作出预测。几天后，火车就完全停止了。我已经在桂花镇呆了两个月了。有时我在想，我宁可在这里度过我的一生，也不愿在战时乘坐三等列车回去。

II. 大篷车的起点
我们现在所处的中国似乎与帝王和诗人以及追求古代学问的传奇中国相去甚远，就像赞恩-格雷笔下的西部边陲小镇的美国与爱默生或梭罗笔下的美国一样。因为我们在中国的边疆，在沙漠的边缘，在一片马和骆驼以及羊、羊毛和毛皮交易的土地上。

正是从这个被蒙古人称为 "蓝城 "的地方开始，骆驼商队自有史以来就开始长途跋涉，穿越沙漠，前往中国的突厥斯坦和西部，运送茶叶、丝绸和各种贸易品，并带着羊毛、皮毛返回。这是世界上最古老的贸易路线之一，至今仍和两千年前一样，其货物的财富在很大程度上取决于这个西北国家的繁荣。

中国人称桂花市，几个世纪以来一直是蒙古的一部分，直到十六世纪满族人的到来，才被算作是中国人。当时，满族人在离老桂花一英里左右的地方建造了一座新城，尽管它现在已经有三百年的历史，但它仍然被称为 "新城"，它的四面墙看起来就像三三两两而不是三百年前建造的一样坚固。然而，随着满清王朝的衰落，新城的荣耀已经离去。老城的城墙只剩下一个破败的门，但城市本身是两个城市中更美丽的，因为它是活跃的商队贸易中心，包含所有的旅馆、商店、市场和与之相关的娱乐活动。

当我第一次来到桂花时，我对骆驼感到非常惊讶。街道上到处都是骆驼。全国各地都有骆驼，长长的骆驼队从山上的山口下来，或由三四头骆驼组成的小队被牵着在乡下运动或喝水。而在城镇里，透过半开的巨大木门，在高高的砖墙上，可以看到一个花团锦簇的庭院或一个葡萄架下的月亮门，人们在这里看到的是骆驼旅馆宽大的光秃秃的土炕，里面躺着或站着毛茸茸的骆驼，有时还有一辆老式的驼车。

我们最初的一次游览是去骆驼市场，每天早上在一座破败的喇嘛庙前的空地上举行。那里有数百头华丽的大牲口，它们仍然蓬头垢面，在老庙的红墙和宽大的卷曲屋顶大门的映衬下，形成了一幅令人难忘的画面，因为骆驼的形状，其巨大的身体线条，以及其骄傲和平静的头部的傲慢倾斜，使它成为最令人印象深刻的动物。

骆驼的主人或他们的代表把骆驼带到那里出售，他们和骆驼一样有趣--一群快乐的流氓，精明而不择手段，穿着宽松的软垫衣服，风景如画。买卖，就像桂花的所有其他商业交易一样，都是通过经纪人完成的--这是一个最有用的计划，因为通过中间人，诽谤主人的商品，指责他诈骗，或者指责购买者吝啬，都可以更自由、更随意地完成。此外，如果双方不因不得不改变其原始报价而自取其辱，而是由业主的经纪人对买方的经纪人说："业主已经宽宏大量地同意以比原价低这么多的价格让给你，"而买方的经纪人可以说："我好不容易说服我的客户将其报价提高到这么多。

'这个'这么多'从来没有说过，而是通过一个神秘的按腕系统来传达，讨价还价者紧握的双手完全隐藏在他们的长袖下，不被窥视的围观者看到。通过这种方式，他们确保在公共市场上进行的商业交易可以保持私密性，而且我们看到在长袖下进行着热烈的讨价还价。一头好的骆驼现在可以用相当于50或60美元的价格买到。判断一头健康的骆驼最简单的方法之一是看它的驼峰状况。如果一只骆驼状况良好，它的驼峰就会坚挺，但如果它生病或吃不饱，它的驼峰就会软软地倒向一边。这里的骆驼都是中国北方和中亚常见的双峰骆驼，比它们的亲戚单峰骆驼大，走得慢。

大多数商队从桂花出发，直接穿越戈壁沙漠，行程1500英里，前往中国东部突厥斯坦的巴尔库尔或库亨特泽。速度快的骆驼可以在七十天内完成旅行，但大型商队的重载货运骆驼有时需要长达5或6个月的时间，人们的习惯是每年进行一次往返旅行。一个普通的商队由120头骆驼组成，每头骆驼约有280斤或375磅重。

我们经常看到它们排成长队往返于山口，二十人一组，鼻子对鼻子，每组由一个弓形腿的骆驼人带领，他总是盯着地面趿拉着脚步，这是多年来在沙漠上无休止的沉闷行走中养成的习惯，他的步伐适应了骆驼的缓慢步态。骆驼货运是世界上最慢的货运，因为这些动物每小时只走大约2.5英里。

每根绳子上的最后一只骆驼都戴着一个大约两英尺长的铃铛，在商队进入视线之前，通常可以听到这些铃铛的低沉叮当声。商队由保护其营地的黑色毛茸茸的狗领头，尾巴上骑着商队的Bashi或领导人，他高高地骑在骆驼上，装备着沉重的老式雷击枪。

穿越戈壁时，商队通常在白天扎营，夜间行进，因为骆驼的食物通常依靠沙漠中稀少的牧草，它们在夜间不会进食。他们在下午五点左右出发，走了一整夜，天亮后就扎营。在整个漫长的旅途中，只有三四天找不到淡水，尽管经常需要在沙地上深挖。

我丈夫正在安排以乘客身份加入这些商队之一，这需要与骆驼运输公司的代表进行漫长而曲折的讨论。经过漫长而棘手的讨价还价，他终于达成了一项协议。他将得到七头骆驼，一头自己骑，一头给他的中国仆人摩西，还有五头驮他的行李。他们要在八十天内到达库车，如果时间长了，每迟一天就要交纳半两的罚款。他的燃料和水将被提供，他自己和摩西每人将得到两磅面粉。旅途中的所有其他食物他都必须自己携带，因为沿途没有机会获得任何东西，除了偶尔有机会打到羚羊或从蒙古人那里买到一只羊。

事实证明，为我丈夫的旅行提供装备是一项有趣的任务。我们准备了大袋的烤面包，如芦花，并从北京买了肥大的柳条瓶，装着醋和酱油、干洋葱和罐头等物品。有一天，我们去了一家公司的仓库，这家公司派遣了许多探险队穿越沙漠，我很少看到像他们在那里为他们的大篷车提供装备的那么浪漫的垃圾收集。我们买了一个三脚架和粗糙的炊具，还有睡觉用的毛毯，最重要的是一个风景如画的八角形帐篷，用蓝色的棉布包扎成红色，上面用白色贴着一个巨大的图案。

在这几天的准备工作中，我们吸收了大量关于从桂花出发的巨大贸易的信息，包括与外蒙古和中国土耳其斯坦的贸易。每年大约有两万头骆驼离开桂花前往这两个地区，其中百分之七十的骆驼前往中国的突厥斯坦。它们满载着湖南和湖北的砖茶和红茶、山东的海绵、杭州市的丝绸、烟草、纸张、糖、火柴和各种物品。这些货物通常是用羊毛、毛皮和兽皮来交换的，因此没有金钱上的交换。桂花的皮毛商有时会把货物押给代理商进行易货贸易，以便对他们带回的羊毛进行选择。这对经销商来说是有风险的，因为这种赌注没有任何保障，而且据了解，无良的代理商往往会从Kweihwa永久消失。大多数生意是通过口头协议完成的，很少看到书面合同。


从外蒙古和中国的突厥斯坦回来的骆驼身上都带着狐狸、野兔、熊、松鼠、山羊、绵羊、旱獭和骆驼的皮、毛或羊毛。狗皮和鹿角来自蒙古，牦牛尾巴和犀牛角来自中国突厥斯坦，还有少量的药品、葡萄干、杏子、瓜子、黄金、石英和玉石。

直到十年前，商队经常遭受土匪的袭击，但在1916年，绥远商人的进取组织成立了一个由四百人组成的保护团，由进货的税收支持，从那时起，旅行者得到了良好的保护。

到目前为止，我所写的都是我们三个月前到达时发现的桂花--一个活泼而繁荣的贸易中心，货物从西部通过骆驼运输涌入，并通过北京-绥远铁路向南发送。但是今天，它就像一座死城，因为它的贸易已经完全停止。不再有货物从蒙古或突厥斯坦运来，不再有货物通过铁路运往南方，在这里转运的货物在仓库里闲置着。

我们对这一突然变化的第一个迹象是在我丈夫出发去中国突厥斯坦的那天。耽搁了很多时间；在中国，人们对耽搁的时间是有数的。但终于到了早晨，我们听到了骆驼铃铛的声音，从窗户向外看去，看到我们自己的骆驼排着队走进院子，七个巨大的华丽的生物。和它们在一起的是一个名叫李的快乐的小辫子骆驼人，他以一种奇迹般有效的方式管理着这些干粮，并以一种证明他所说的他已经连续多年协助骆驼往返于突厥斯坦的方式吊着绳索。在我们意识到之前，他们已经装好了东西，在高贵的摩西的陪同下，抬着茶壶走出了我们的院子。

我本来以为当天下午就会去北京，于是派了一个仆人去安排一辆车，把我和我的行李送到车站。令我失望的是，他回来时告诉我，当天没有去北京的火车，可能几天内都没有。没有人知道确切的原因，只知道是由于共和国各军阀之间为争夺北京政府的控制权而进行的内战已经拖了几个月，而且可能是冯玉祥的士兵从北京撤退时堵住了铁路。

在过去的其他场合，我曾因中国的战争使火车停运数天而感到不便，现在我试图不为这种延误而烦恼。但当我正兴致勃勃地整理行李时，我的丈夫出现在门口，令我大吃一惊。在进入山区的第一个山口，他的骆驼被士兵征用并带回了衙门，在那里他得知，就在那天早上，军事长官下达了征用三千头骆驼运送军事物资的命令，而且士兵和警察正在收缴乡下方圆数里的所有骆驼。我丈夫恳求说他是个外国人，在他们寻找这么多骆驼的时候，七头骆驼肯定不会有什么影响，因为大多数春季商队已经前往西部，他们很快就能收集到三千头骆驼，这将是一项困难的任务。甚至蒙古人拥有的骆驼也被征用了--这是一个严厉的措施，因为中国人通常都很小心地避免得罪蒙古人，因为蒙古人对桂花的贸易繁荣做出了很大贡献。

这是两个月前的事，但骆驼还没有被释放，火车还没有运行。

III. 军法
三个月来，我们一直生活在国民军的士兵中间，在中国西北的最后一道防线上。

大多数中国战争都不会持续太久。军队在春天或秋天打几个月的仗，没有什么比寒冷的冬天或非常炎热的夏天更能有效地阻止他们。目前的战争已经持续了九个月，经历了一个寒冷的冬天，并进入了一个炎热的夏天，这意味着这是一场值得重视的新战争。一年多来，北京政府一直掌握在一个临时的妥协内阁手中，而它的命运--就像它自共和国成立以来一样--一直悬在争夺其控制权的战争大佬们的操纵上。

目前的战争，粗略地说，是中国主要的土司们为了把冯玉祥从他们的军事棋盘上消灭掉而进行的一次联合。他最初是通过背叛对抗张作霖的吴佩孚而上台的。然后，中国的统治者希望摆脱他，诱使他接管了西北地区的管理。然而，在这里，他建立了自己的权力，直到他能够通过向北京进军再次出现在国家政治中。他的权力越来越大，加上他与新中国和学生运动的联系，对袁世凯死后统治整个华北的土司或军事长官的临时制度构成了严重的威胁，以至于像吴佩孚和张作霖这样的老对手都联合起来试图打垮他，指责他把中国出卖给苏联。


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当这场联合运动开始时，冯玉祥占领了北京，并不断威胁要将他的控制权延伸到天津的沿海地区。然而，盟军的进攻迫使他撤到距北京30英里的南口的山丘后面，这些山丘将西北省份与华北平原隔开。这是在4月，从那时起，战争发展成了从山西通过大同攻击他的努力，大同位于北京-绥远铁路的中心，这是贯穿其领土长度的唯一交通线，从黄河上的Paotow到绥远、卡尔根和南口。

在桂花这里，从大同向西走几小时的铁路，过去两个月的战斗都集中在这里，几乎不可能与战争的发展保持联系，因为与外界的所有通讯都被切断了，国民军实施了如此有效的审查制度，几乎没有消息泄露出去。有几封邮件挣扎着寄来，是用马车从陆路绕过山西送来的，但其中所包含的零星的外国报纸都是几周前的，作为新闻，它们已经失去了所有价值。来自南方的中国报纸被严格地拒之门外。地方报纸显然被保留了下来，而且每个人都知道，官方偶尔对战争进展的宣布几乎肯定是不真实的。


然而，即使没有新闻，我们也不断意识到战争的临近和生活在严格的戒严法之下。全国各地的士兵蜂拥而至。我们不断地听到他们在路上数数或唱歌。

一个中国士兵是一个没有军事色彩的物体。他的灰色长裤很不结实，灰色棉衣的袖子通常缩到手肘处，他的徽章只是一个破旧的臂章，不可避免地要用一个大的安全别针别上。国民春头饰的春季款式包括一顶皱巴巴的下垂棉帽，这让佩戴者看起来就像一个落魄的、非常臃肿的童子军。许多士兵，即那些接受过徒手格斗训练的士兵，并不携带步枪，而是用毛瑟手枪和巨大的剑来武装，他们把这些剑斜挎在背上。这些剑在当地被称为 "切奶酪者"，看起来好像是用锡纸做的，来自戏剧服装店，但实际上它们是相当血腥的武器，显然是用来砍的，因为它们太宽太钝，无法刺伤。对西方人来说，所有中国士兵中最没有军事效果的是号手。在一天中的任何时候，特别是在黎明和黄昏，我们听到他们可怜地挣扎着发出西方的号声，但总是走调。

中国人总是害怕士兵。一天早上，我们的中国仆人摩西出现了，他讲述了一个士兵从一个食品摊贩那里拿了一些中国人在夏天喜欢吃的白色玉米淀粉果冻，吃完后又拒绝付钱给他。小贩自然是大喊大叫，这引起了一位路过的军官的注意，他看到一名士兵卷入了一场争吵，于是上前查看究竟发生了什么事。小贩指责士兵吃了果冻却没有付钱，而士兵则坚持说他什么也没吃。军官盘问他们俩，颤抖的小贩仍然发誓说果冻被吃掉了，而旁观者也肯定他说的是实话。'以你的生命为代价？'警官问道。'以我的生命为重，'小贩坚持说。'好吧，我们走着瞧，'军官说，并命令他的保镖用'奶酪切割器'撕开士兵的肚子。然后他们仔细查看了这个可怜的家伙血淋淋的内脏，但没有发现任何像白色果冻的东西，所以为了惩罚这个错误的指控，军官将这个食品商贩、他的妻子、他的母亲和他的四个孩子处死。

然而，关于国民军士兵的此类故事相对较少，而且这些故事似乎从来没有从自己所在的地方报道过，而总是从另一个地方报道。

与其他中国军队相比，国民军的纪律和团队精神似乎是一个了不起的现象，这主要是由于冯玉祥拥有的组织天才和对人类心理的理解。他经常被中国人和外国人称为伪君子。有许多传教士含蓄地支持和相信他，因为他自称是基督徒，因为他在营地里有圣经课和传教士，因为他的士兵唱赞美诗，不允许抽烟或喝酒。然而，没有偏见的观察家们知道，他的政策和策略并不比其他军阀的政策和策略更基督教化，而且他对吴佩孚的背叛--他最初就是通过这种方式上台的--被普遍认为是非常不光明的。

他对鸦片的态度提供了一个例子，说明传教士和其他人有时在他的基督教原则方面受到欺骗。

我曾听到一些所谓的聪明人赞扬这位基督教将军对不公正的鸦片贩运的影响，因为他不允许他的士兵吸食鸦片。然而，他完全控制的西北地区，部分资金来自鸦片的收入。在桂花这里，鸦片的使用、销售和运输是相当公开的。街上到处都有鸦片烟斗和灯，还有一些公共客栈，只要花几个铜板就能抽上一口鸦片。今年，由于对金钱的额外需求，罂粟的种植不仅被许可，而且被鼓励。


但是，尽管有鸦片，西北地区的管理还是特别好，而且，不管他是否是基督徒，冯玉祥都是一个非常聪明的人。可以肯定的是，吸食鸦片不会造就强大的士兵，香烟和烈酒也不会，而唱赞美诗同样有助于建立一支忠诚的军队。他很聪明，看到了基督教 "路线 "的心理价值，他利用它向他的士兵的简单头脑中灌输了节制、忠诚和爱国主义的基督教美德，满足和服从以及对未来的希望，这使他们成为一支强大而有力的力量。他给他们的工资很少，而且常常严重拖欠，但由于他们不允许吸烟和喝酒，所以他们几乎不需要钱，而且为了防止他们对那些被禁止的快乐耿耿于怀，他让他们忙于游戏和运动，植树和唱赞美诗，以及对他们灵魂的思考。所有这些对他们的道德和灵魂的兴趣自然激发了他们的忠诚，这在很大程度上使他们在撤退和失败以及极其艰难的环境中保持士气。

无论冯玉祥是否相信基督教，他都把它作为一个有效的工具。他的另一个聪明之举是适时地倡导 "新中国 "的事业。当他被困在高处，没有政治关系，没有强大的军队或战略领地时，他有一种精明的头脑，在一个成长中的运动需要一个强有力的支持者时，为其提供了一个他无法获得的支持。这种关系，以及他对同样支持新中国的俄国的武器和弹药供应的依赖，自然使他被指责为布尔什维克主义者。而他先是与基督教徒打交道，然后又与新中国打交道的事实，为他赢得了某种程度上的狂热分子或怪人的名声。但是，他的疯狂中似乎有方法，而且他足够精明，只有当他得到报酬时才会成为一个怪人。


国民春报》也为自己赢得了反外国的声誉。或许可以说，作为新中国的领导人，他们对自己的尊严很敏感。如果这种尊严得到承认，我们发现他们总是很友好。诚然，我们的自由受到了阻碍，而且，我们和中国人一起感受到了他们戒严的严厉。其他党派不断地将外国人作为例外，给予他们特殊的特权，害怕限制他们或使他们不高兴，在这样的党派下，我们可能会有更好的发展。然而，尽管我们个人感到不舒服，但我们不能不对一个有勇气坚定地进行统治，并且不因为我们碰巧是外国人而向我们磕头的政党表示尊重。