But in a country such as China new dangers have to be constantly
faced and smoothed away--the interests of the outer world pressing
on the country and conflicting with the native interest at a
myriad points. And in order to illustrate and make clear the sort
of daily exacerbation which the nation must endure because of the
vastness of its territory and the octopus-hold of the foreigner we
give two typical cases of international trouble which have
occurred since Yuan Shih-kai's death. The first is the well-known
Chengchiatun incident which occurred in Manchuria in August, 1916:
the second is the Laohsikai affair which took place in Tientsin in
November of the same year and created a storm of rage against
France throughout North China which, at the moment of writing has
not yet abated.
The facts about the Chengchiatun incident are incredibly simple
and merit being properly told. Chengchiatun is a small Mongol-
Manchurian market-down lying some sixty miles west of the South
Manchurian railway by the ordinary cart-roads, though as the crow
flies the distance is much less. The country round about is "new
country," the prefecture in which Chengchiatun lies being
originally purely Mongol territory on which Chinese squatted in
such numbers that it was necessary to erect the ordinary Chinese
civil administration. Thirty or forty miles due west of the town
cultivation practically ceases; and then nothing meets the eye but
the rolling grasslands of Mongolia, with their sparse encampments
of nomad horsemen and shepherds which stretch so monotonously into
the infinities of High Asia.
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