28 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA THE“HUNDRED DAYS”OF REFORM 29 the happenings of the immediate past,and a safety valve was desirable. head of a.college on the modern order to be opened in Changsha.One The autumn of 1895,therefore,saw the establishment of the Kiang Hsteh important symptom was the-great spread of newspapers.There had been Hxi or Reform Club,as it was called by Europeans,centering at Peking, about nineteen in China in 1894;at the end of 1897 Richard set the figure but with affiliated societies at Shanghai,Hankow,Nanking,Wuchang and at seventy.18 Tientsin.The moving spirit in the organization was Kang Yu-wei.The This continued eagerness for reform on the part of a small but active Peking group included members of the Hanlin Academy and of the Board group was partly the reflection of political events.China's humiliation of Censors,and undersecretaries of various metropolitan boards.Among was not limited to her defeat at the hands of the Japanese.The powers its principal members were Liang Chi-chao,Kang's enthusiastic disciple; who had intervened to lighten for China the severity of the Shimonoseki Weng Ting-shih,a Hanlin member of the family of Weng Tung-ho; treaty did not give their services gratis,and China was forced to pay a Tseng Chung-peh,grandson of the famous Tseng Kuo-fan;Yuan Shih- heavy price for the retrocession of Liaotung.Russia arranged for her kai,later to prove Kang's arch-enemy;and Chang Chih-tung's eldest son. reward when Li Hung-chang was in St.Petersburg in 1896 as Chinese These young men turned for advice to Dr.Timothy Richard.They representative at the coronation of Nicholas II.Li,in exchange for an brought him the rules of the society for suggestions and established a alliance with Russia,agreed on behalf of China that Russia should have paper which took the same title as the missionary publication,Wang Kwoh the right to carry the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok across North Kung Pao or Review of the Times,and consisted chiefly of reprints from Manchuria.The French,not to be deprived of their deserts,had already that periodical.Reform,for a time,was fashionable,and such well-known asked for and received "rectification"of the Indo-Chinese frontier.The officials as Chang Chih-tung and the imperial tutors,Weng Tung-ho and murder of two missionaries in Shantung in November 1897 gave Germany Sun Chia-nai,gave the club their patronage.1s her excuse,and using this act as a provocation she obtained from China in The Peking Reform Club succumbed to attack with an ease which March 1898 a ninety-nine-year lease of the Kiaochow Bay region,plus showed clearly how tenuous was its hold on life.The post-war sentiments certain railway,mining,and preferential rights in Shantung Province.. which had afforded it protection inevitably weakened with time.The The idea of leaseholds was seized upon with avidity by other powers. radicalism of Kang's grand memorial of December 1895 did much to Russia,who had been eyeing Port Arthur covetously as a desirable ice- arouse those officials who had never viewed reform schemes with enthu- free port,procured a twenty-five-year lease of the Liaotung Peninsula siasm.On January 22 it was denounced to the Throne by a newly admitted and the right to build a railway from Port Arthur to connect with the member,and was promptly banned.15 Its members were vigorous in Chinese Eastern line.On April 19,1898,France requested a ninety-nine- memorializing for its revival,and it was finally reopened,but in an year lease of Kwangchow-wan,in southern Kwangtung,and a railway emasculated form.16 concession from Tongking into Yunnan,and received them soon after. The failure of the grand memorial and the fading out of the Reform Great Britain then entered the lists and secured leases on Kowloon,on the Club did not mean that the reform movement had spent itself or been mainland near Hong Kong,and Weihaiwei.Not content with virtual effectively curbed.Richard,who left for England in February 1896, annexation of portions of Chinese territory,the powers next won from found on his return that the reformers were hard at work.Undeterred China promises not to alienate certain portions of her territory except to by the closing of the Peking Reform Club,Kang and his disciples were the power concerned in the particular non-alienation agreement.Thus, busy encouraging similar associations throughout the southern provinces.1 the Chinese government promised Great Britain,on February 11,1898, Liang Chi-chao had founded in Shanghai the Chinese Progress,which that she would never part with the Yangtze Valley,by lease,cession,or became the organ of the reform party,and even,for a brief period in any other means,to any power other than Great Britain.Similarly,France 1898,of the government itself.So pervasive was the new spirit that the staked out the provinces near her Indo-Chinese possessions as her "sphere hitherto conservative province of Hunan had asked Liang to become the of influence,"Japan marked Fukien as hers in case of eventualities, while Russia regarded the north with a hopeful eye.What with the crop NCH,November 22,1895;Richard,op.cit.,pp.253-255. of leaseholds and the ominous non-alienation agreements,it seemed to is Richard,op.cit.,D.255. 10 NCH,April 7,1896. many early in 1898 that the break-up of China was impending 17 Kang Yeu Wei,"The Reform of China and the Revolution of 1898,"in Cow temporary Review,August 1899. i8 Richard,o.cit.,pp.260-261. 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