The circumstances which had made instant action necessary were as
follows. As we have seen from the record of the previous risings,
the region of the Yangtsze river has superlative value in Chinese
politics. Offering as it does an easy road into the heart of the
country and touching more than half the Provinces, it is indeed a
priceless means of communication, and for this reason Yuan Shih-
kai had been careful after the crushing of the rebellion of 1913
to load the river-towns with his troops under the command of
Generals he believed incorruptible. Chief of these was General
Feng Kuo-chang at Nanking who held the balance of power on the
great river, and whose politics, though not entirely above
suspicion, had been proof against all the tempting offers South
China made to him until the ill-fated monarchy movement had
commenced. But during this movement General Feng Kuo-chang had
expressed himself in such contemptuous terms of the would-be
Emperor that orders had been given to another high official--
Admiral Tseng, Garrison Commissioner at Shanghai--to have him
assassinated. Instead of obeying his instructions, Admiral Tseng
had conveyed a warning to his proposed victim, the consequence
being that the unfortunate admiral was himself brutally murdered
on the streets of Shanghai by revolver-shots for betraying the
confidence of his master. After this denouement it was not very
strange that General Feng Kuo-chang should have intimated to the
Republican Party that as soon as they entered the Yangtsze Valley
he would throw his lot with them together with all his troops.
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