WEAPONS OF THE CHINESE — BREECH-LOADING CANNON — VARIOUS FORMS OF THE JINGALL — CHINESE ARTILLERYMEN AND THEIR MAGAZINE — BOWS AND ARROWS — THE REPEATING CROSS-BOW AND ITS MECHANISM — CONSTRUCTION OF THE ARROWS — CHINESE SWORDS — THE DOUBLE SWORD, AND MODE OF USING IT — TWO-HANDED SWORDS — CRUELTY OF THE VICTORS — VARIOUS MODES OF TORTURE — KNEELING ON THE CHAIN — THE CANGUE — FINGER AND ANKLE SQUEEZING — USE OF TORTURE IN MONEY-GETTING — THE LARGE AND SMALL BAMBOO — MODE OF EVADING IT — EXPOSURE IN A CAGE — THE HOT-WATER SNAKE — CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS — SUICIDE BY ORDER — STRANGLING — CRUCIFIXION PREFERRED TO BEHEADING — EXECUTION OF A THIEF — SAWING ASUNDER — CONDUCT OF THE MANDARINS — THE “UMBRELLA OF A THOUSAND PEOPLE” — THE ROBE OF HONOR — TRANSFER OF RANK.

Without going into the question of warfare in China, we will mention one or two of the characteristic weapons.

Fire-arms have apparently been known to them for ages, but in all the years that we have been acquainted with China, no improvement has been made in these weapons, the cannon, the jingall, and the hand-gun being as rude and ineffective as they were two centuries ago. The cannon are little more than thick tubes of iron, mostly hooped to strengthen them, and of various lengths and bores. As to preserving any exactness of size in the bores, the Chinese care little for it, and if the ball is too small to fit the cannon, they wrap it up in cotton and then push it upon the powder. Wadding is thought to be needless in fire-arms. It is rather remarkable, however, that the Chinese have used breech-loading cannon from time immemorial. Each of these guns is supplied with several separate chambers, which can be kept loaded, and dropped one by one into the aperture of the gun as fast as they can be fired.

Clumsy as may be the jingall, it appears to be the most efficient of the Chinese firearms. It looks something like a duck-gun, and is supposed to carry an ounce ball, though the missiles sent from it are generally of a very miscellaneous character. Some of these guns are pivoted and fixed on tripod stands, while others are either supported on the shoulder of an assistant gunner while the firer takes aim, or rest upon two supports which are pivoted to the stock not very far from the muzzle of the gun. Of the manner in which the jingall is fired, Captain Blakiston gives a very amusing account, the whole proceeding having a very ludicrous aspect to an English artillery officer.

“We explained to them that we should like to see some practice with their artillery, on which the bombardier, as he seemed to be, went to the powder magazine, which was an old sack carefully tied up and lying under a bed in the hut, and brought forth the charge in a tea-cup. Then he mounted on a stool, and poured the powder in at the muzzle; the jingall was thumped on the ground, and with a long bamboo, which served as a ramrod, they rammed the powder home. A little of the already soft powder was then mealed, and the touch-hole filled with it.

“One man then held on tight to the butt, while another, coming out with a hot poker, discharged the weapon, the effect of which in noise and smoke was marvellous; but the poor fellow who was doing the marksman was knocked heels over head backward. He seemed, however, quite accustomed to that sort of thing, for, picking himself up in a minute, he performed what I certainly took for the coup d’état of the whole proceeding. Suddenly swinging round the jingall on its pivot, he applied his mouth to the muzzle, and blew violently down it, which sent the remaining sparks flying out of the vent, and then swung it back into its former position, by which manœuvre he nearly knocked my companion off his legs.

“The piece was then left with its muzzle inclined well upward, so that any rain which might fall would trickle nicely down the barrel and accumulate at the breech. The picket seemed to be without any shot for their jingall, for we tried to get them to put one in, so that we might fire across the bows of our junks, in order to test the courage of the boat coolies. Probably shot are not used in the warfare of the interior: our after experience was favorable to this supposition.”

Captain Blakiston rather maliciously adds, that the picket was placed there for the purpose of giving an alarm by running away as soon as any body of rebels might come in sight.

I possess a specimen of the jingall. It is exactly seven feet in length, and is, in fact, nothing more than a heavy iron tube mounted on a stock, and supplied with the rudest imaginable arrangement for the match. Altogether, I think that the risk of firing it would be rather greater than that of being fired at with it.

As for the bow and arrow, they are substantially the same as that which has been described when treating of the Tartars, the weapon having been taken up by the Chinese, and its use carefully learned after the same fashion as has been mentioned.

The most characteristic Chinese weapon with which I am acquainted is the repeating crossbow (shown on page 1425), which, by simply working a lever backward and forward, drops the arrows in succession in front of the string, draws the bow, shoots the missile, and supplies its place with another. The particular weapon from which the drawings are taken was said to have been one of the many arms which were captured in the Peiho fort.

It is not at all easy to describe the working of this curious bow, but, with the aid of the illustration, I will try to make it intelligible.

The bow itself is made of three strong, separate pieces of bamboo, overlapping each other like the plates of a carriage-spring, which indeed it exactly resembles. This is mounted on a stock, and, as the bow is intended for wall defence, it is supported in the middle by a pivot. So far, we have a simple crossbow; we have now to see how the repeating machinery is constructed. Upon the upper surface of the stock lies an oblong box, which we will call the “slide.” It is just wide and long enough to contain the arrows, and is open above, so as to allow them to be dropped into it. When in the slide, the arrows necessarily lie one above the other, and, in order to prevent them from being jerked out of the slide by the shock of the bowstring, the opening can be closed by a little wooden shutter which slides over it.

Through the lower part of the slide a transverse slit is cut, and the bowstring is led through this cut, so that the string presses the slide upon the stock. Now we come to the lever. It is shaped like the Greek letter π, the cross-piece forming the handle. The lever is jointed to the stock by an iron pin or bolt, and to the slide by another bolt. Now, if the lever be worked to and fro, the slide is pushed backward and forward along the stock, but without any other result.

Supposing that we wish to make the lever draw the bow, we have only to cut a notch in the under part of the slit through which the string is led. As the slide passes along the stock, the string by its own pressure falls into the notch, and is drawn back, together with the slide, thus bending the bow. Still, however much we may work the lever, the string will remain in the notch, and must therefore be thrown out by a kind of trigger. This is self-acting, and is equally simple and ingenious. Immediately under the notch which holds the string, a wooden peg plays loosely through a hole. When the slide is thrust forward and the string falls into the notch, it pushes the peg out of the hole. But when the lever and slide are drawn backward to their full extent, the lower end of the peg strikes against the stock, so that it is forced violently through the hole, and pushes the string out of the notch.

We will now refer to the illustration. Fig. 1 represents the bow as it appears after the lever and slide have been thrust forward, and the string has fallen into the notch. Fig. 2 represents it as it appears when the lever has been brought back, and the string released.

A is the bow, made of three layers of male bamboo, the two outer being the longest. B is the string. This is made of very thick catgut, as is needed to withstand the amount of friction which it has to undergo, and the violent shock of the bow. It is fastened in a wonderfully ingenious manner, by a “hitch” rather than a knot, so that it is drawn tighter in proportion to the tension. It passes round the end of the bow, through a hole, and then presses upon itself.

C C show the stock, and D is the slide. E is the opening of the slide, through which the arrows are introduced into it, and it is shown as partially closed by the little shutter F. The lever is seen at G, together with the two pins which connect it with the stock and the slide. H shows the notch in the slide which receives the string. I is the pivot on which the weapon rests, K is the handle, and L the place whence the arrows issue.

If the reader should have followed this description carefully, he will see that the only limit to the rapidity of fire is the quickness with which the lever can be worked to and fro. As it is thrust forward, the string drops into its notch, the trigger-peg is set, and an arrow falls with its butt just in front of the string. When it is drawn sharply back, the string is released by the trigger-peg, the arrow is propelled, and another falls into its place. If, therefore, a boy be kept at work supplying the slide with arrows, a constant stream of missiles can be poured from this weapon.

The arrows are very much like the “bolts” of the old English cross-bow. They are armed with heavy and solid steel heads, and are feathered in a very ingenious manner. The feathers are so slight, that at first sight they appear as if they were mere black scratches on the shaft. They are, however, feathers, projecting barely the fiftieth of an inch from the shaft, but being arranged in a slightly spiral form so as to catch the air, and impart a rotatory motion to the arrow. By the side of the cross-bow on Fig. 2 is seen a bundle of the arrows.

The strength of this bow is very great, though not so great as I have been told. It possesses but little powers of aim, and against a single and moving adversary would be useless. But for the purpose for which it is designed, namely, a wall-piece which will pour a series of missiles upon a body of men, it is a very efficient weapon, and can make itself felt even against the modern rifle. The range of this bow is said to be four hundred yards, but I should think that its extreme effective range is at the most from sixty to eighty yards, and that even in that case it would be almost useless, except against large bodies of soldiers.

Of swords the Chinese have an abundant variety. Some are single-handed swords, and there is one device by which two swords are carried in the same sheath, and are used one in each hand. I have seen the two-sword exercise performed, and can understand that, when opposed to any person not acquainted with the weapon, the Chinese swordsman would be irresistible. But in spite of the two swords, which fly about the wielder’s head like the sails of a mill, and the agility with which the Chinese fencer leaps about and presents first one side and then the other to his antagonist, I cannot but think that any ordinary fencer would be able to keep himself out of reach, and also to get in his point, in spite of the whirling blades of his adversary.

Two-handed swords are much used. One of these weapons in my collection is five feet six inches in length, and weighs rather more than four pounds and a quarter. The blade is three feet in length and two inches in width. The thickness of metal at the back is a quarter of an inch near the hilt, diminishing slightly toward the point. The whole of the blade has a very slight curve. The handle is beautifully wrapped with narrow braid, so as to form an intricate pattern.

There is another weapon, the blade of which exactly resembles that of the two-handed sword, but it is set at the end of a long handle some six or seven feet in length, so that, although it will indict a fatal wound when it does strike an enemy, it is a most unmanageable implement, and must take so long for the bearer to recover himself, in case he misses his blow, that he would be quite at the mercy of an active antagonist.

Should they be victorious in battle, the Chinese are cruel conquerors, and are apt to indict horrible tortures, not only upon their prisoners of war, but even upon the unoffending inhabitants of the vanquished land. They carry this love for torture even into civil life, and display a horrible ingenuity in producing the greatest possible suffering with the least apparent means of indicting it. For example, one of the ordinary punishments in China is the compulsory kneeling bare-legged on a coiled chain. This does not sound particularly dreadful, but the agony that is caused is indescribable, especially as two officers stand by the sufferer and prevent him from seeking even a transient relief by shifting his posture. Broken crockery is sometimes substituted for the chain.

The most common punishment in China is that of the cangue, a sort of moveable pillory. A piece of wood, some four feet square and nearly four inches in thickness, has a hole in the middle, through which the culprit’s head is passed. The machine opens with a hinge, and when closed is locked, and a placard designating the offence is pasted on it. As long as the cangue is worn, the unhappy delinquent cannot feed himself, so that he would be starved to death were he not fed by casual contributions. Fortunately, it is considered a meritorious action to feed a prisoner in the cangue, so that little risk of actual starvation is run, and the principal terror of the cangue lies in the pain caused by carrying such a weight upon the neck and shoulders. This instrument is often worn for weeks and sometimes for three months, which is the extent of its legal use.

Finger squeezing is another torture which is frequently used. Four pieces of bamboo are tied loosely together at one end, and a string passes through the other ends, so arranged that by drawing it they can be pulled closely together. The fingers are introduced between the bamboos, and by pulling at the string they can be crushed almost to pieces. This torture is often employed by the mandarins, when endeavoring to extort money from persons whom they suspect of concealing their wealth. The ankles are squeezed after a similar fashion, only in this case the bamboos are much larger. Both these modes of torture are shown in the illustration on the next page.

Most of the so-called minor tortures, i. e. those which are not directly aimed at life, are employed for the purpose of extorting money. The fact is, the mandarins who are set over districts only have a limited term of office, and may, indeed, be transferred at any time. As during their term of office they have to make up a certain sum demanded by their superiors, and have also to keep up considerable state on a nominal salary, it follows that they oppress the people to the utmost of their power, looking upon them merely in the light of tax-producing animals. It is, therefore, no wonder that a Chinaman of any ability strives for literary rank, and the privilege of wearing the button, which exempts him from arrest except by imperial order.

Beating with the bamboo is another common punishment. There are two kinds of bamboo for this purpose, the small and the large; the latter being capable of producing death if used with severity. Indeed, even the lesser bamboo, if the blows be struck with the edge, instead of the flat, bruises the flesh so completely as to bring on mortification, of which the sufferer is sure to die in a few days. This punishment is chiefly used by the peculative mandarins, in order to extort money, and is employed for men and women alike; the only difference being that the man is thrown prostrate on the ground, while the woman suffers in a kneeling posture.

A man of forethought, however, never suffers much from the bamboo, and, if possible, nothing at all. In the former case, he bribes the executioner, who strikes so as to produce a very effective sounding blow, but in reality inflicts very little injury. In the latter case, he bribes a man to act as a substitute, and, just as the first blow is about to be struck, some of the officers, who are also bribed, get between the judge and the culprit, while the latter rolls out of the way, and the substitute takes his place. A similar ruse is enacted at the completion of the punishment. It may seem strange that any one should act as a substitute in such a business; but in China men care little for their skins, or even for their lives, and it is possible to purchase a substitute even for capital punishment, the chief difficulty being not to bribe the substitute, but to find enough money to bribe all the officials, who must act in concert.

Powerful as they may be, the mandarins have not all the power of life and death, though they can inflict punishments which practically lead to the same result. Mr. Milne mentions a case of this kind. Two men had been arrested in the act of robbing a house during a fire. This is rightly held to be the most heinous kind of theft, and is generally punished with decapitation. The mandarin of the district had not the power to inflict death, but contrived to manage that the men should die. Accordingly, he had two tall bamboo cages made, placed a man inside each, and tied him by his tail to the top bars of the cage. The cages were placed in the open air, in charge of officers, who would not allow any communication with the offenders. The natural consequence was, that privation of food, drink, sleep, and rest of any kind, together with exposure to the elements, killed the men as effectually as the sword of the executioner.

A modification of this mode of punishment is by covering the top of the cage with a board through a hole in which the head of the sufferer passes. It is, in fact, a fixed cangue. The top of the cage is adjusted so that the man is forced to stand on tiptoe as he is suspended by the neck. His hands being bound behind him, relief is impossible. This mode of punishment is shown in the last figure but one, on the right-hand side.

The other figures speak for themselves, except that of the kneeling figure with snakes coiled round his body. These snakes are tubes of soft metal, fashioned in the shape of snakes with open mouths. They are coiled round the naked limbs and body of the sufferer, and boiling water is then poured into them, producing the most horrible torture.

As to capital punishments, they are inflicted in various ways. The mode that is thought to be the least terrible is the command to commit suicide, because in that case they can avoid the mangling of the body, and so make their appearance in the spirit world whole and entire. This is a privilege only accorded to officers of very high rank, and is conferred upon them by sending the “silken cord.” No cord is really sent, but the mandate implies the instrument of death. When it is received, the doomed man takes some of his nearest relatives and most valued friends to his house, fastens the silken cord to a beam, places himself on a stool, passes the noose round his neck, and then leaps off the stool, and so dies. Officers of lower rank, when they see that they will probably be condemned to death, generally anticipate their sentence by hanging themselves on their own responsibility.

For criminals of no status, strangulation is the mode of death most preferred. It is accomplished in a manner exactly resembling the Spanish garrote. The criminal stands with his back to a post, through which a hole is bored at the level of his neck. The two ends of a cord are passed through the hole, the loop embracing the man’s neck. The ends are then twisted round a stick, and, by a few rapid turns of the stick, the man is killed. The rapidity of the process is such that Mr. Lockhart mentions an instance where he and a friend saw a file of soldiers coming along, carrying a pole and a pinioned man in a basket. They stopped, lashed the pole to an upright post, took the man out of the basket, tied him to the pole, and strangled him before the foreigners could find out what they were doing. The strange part of the business was that the officials had bribed the apparent culprit and his friends, as they wanted to make the foreigners believe that he was an opium smuggler, and that they were doing their best to stop the trade. Truly it is a strange country.

To beheading the Chinese have the strongest aversion, because they shrink from the idea of appearing headless in the next world, and they will therefore do all in their power to avoid it. A most remarkable instance of the extent to which a Chinaman will go to avoid decapitation is given in the following extract from a letter to an Indian newspaper. The man was a well-known and most abandoned criminal, who with his wife had been arrested.

“On his trial before his judge he refused to criminate himself, although repeatedly scourged until his back was raw. If a female witness fails in giving satisfactory evidence in a court of justice, she is beaten with a leather strap across the mouth. His wife, desirous of sparing her husband, refused to give evidence, but after two or three applications of strap her courage gave way. She confessed his guilt. The prisoner was then sentenced to decapitation,—deemed by the Chinese to be the most severe of punishments, because they imagine that if a man leaves this world minus any of his members, he appears in the same condition in the next. The culprit, therefore, prayed to be crucified instead of being beheaded.

“The cross was of the Latin form, the foot being inserted in a stout plank, and the criminal, standing on a board, had nails driven through his feet, and his hands stretched and nailed to the cross-beam. His legs were fastened to the cross with an iron chain, and his arms bound with cords, and on the cord round his waist was inserted a piece of wood on which was written his name and offence; a similar piece on his right arm contained his sentence, namely, to remain on the cross night and day until he died; another on his left arm had the name of the judge, with his titles and offices.

“The criminal was nailed to the cross inside the Yamun in the presence of the magistrate, and then carried by four coolies to one of the principal thoroughfares leading from the city, where he was left during the day, but removed at night inside the prison for fear of his friends attempting to rescue him, and again carried forth at daylight in charge of two soldiers. He was crucified at noon on the Wednesday, and Mr. Jones conversed with him at five in the evening. He complained of a pain in the chest, and thirst. On Thursday he slept for some hours, when the cross was laid down within the jail compound. No one was allowed to supply him with food or drink, and during the day there was quite a fair in front of the cross, people being attracted from a distance, and the sweetmeat venders driving a large trade.

“On Saturday he was still alive, when the Taotai was appealed to by a foreigner to put an end to the wretch’s sufferings, and he immediately gave orders that the vinegar should be administered, which he expected would produce immediate death; but the result was otherwise, and at sunset, when the cross was taken within the jail, two soldiers with stout bamboos broke both his legs, and then strangled him.”

It is no matter of wonder that the woman confessed her husband’s guilt, for the face is sometimes beaten with a hard leather strap until the jaws are broken, and the whole of the lips fall from them. In all probability she was quite as guilty as her husband, so that she was not altogether deserving of pity.

Decapitation is always conducted with much judicial solemnity, and, as a rule, is restricted to certain seasons of the year, when large batches of criminals are executed. There are, however, occasional exceptions to the rule. The instrument employed is a sword made expressly for the purpose. It is a two-handed weapon, very heavy, and with a very broad blade. The executioners pride themselves on their skill in its management, and, in order to show their powers, will draw a black-ink line round a turnip, and sever it at a blow, the cut never passing on either side of the line. Before a man is admitted to be an executioner, he is obliged to prove his ability by this test.

The criminal is carried to the place of execution in a bamboo cage, and by his side is the basket in which his head will be removed. He is pinioned in a very effective manner. The middle of a long and thin rope is passed across the back of his neck, and the ends are crossed on the chest, and brought under the arms. They are then twisted round the arms, the wrists tied together behind the back, and the ends fastened to the portion of rope upon the neck. A slip of paper containing his name, crime, and sentence is fixed to a reed, and stuck at the back of his head. See illustration No. 1, on page 1451.

On arriving at the place of execution, the officials remove the paper, and take it to the presiding mandarin, who writes on it in red ink the warrant for execution. The paper is then replaced, a rope loop is passed over the head of the culprit, and the end given to an assistant, who draws the head forward so as to stretch the neck, while a second assistant holds the body from behind; and in a moment the head is severed from the body. The head is taken away, and generally hung up in a bamboo cage near the scene of the crime, with a label announcing the name and offence of the criminal, and the name of the presiding mandarin by whose order he was executed. In some places these heads are unpleasantly numerous. In many cases the rope and assistants are not employed.

There is even a lower depth of degradation than mere beheading. This is called “cutting into small pieces.” Before striking the fatal blow, the executioner makes long but not deep cuts on the face and in all the fleshy parts of the body, taking care to avoid the chief blood-vessels, so that when the culprit is released by the loss of his head, he may enter the next world not only without a head, but with scarcely any flesh on his bones.

The last of the punishments which will be mentioned in this work is that of sawing asunder, a punishment which of late years has been but rarely inflicted, and we may hope is dying out, though in reality it does not cause nearly as much pain to the sufferer as many of the minor punishments. The mode in which it is performed may be seen from an anecdote related by Mr. Fleming, in the work which has been already quoted. There was a distinguished Imperial officer named Sun-kwei who was taken prisoner by the rebel leader Kih-yung. Knowing the ability of his prisoner, the rebel leader offered to spare his life on the condition that he would accept a command in his army. Sun-kwei flatly refused to do so, saying that as he was defeated he must die, for that to take service against his emperor was impossible. Bribes, threats, and promises were of no avail, and at last Kih-yung ordered his prisoner to be sawn asunder.

The executioners began to exercise their dreadful office, but with all their endeavors could not make the saw enter the body of their victim, who only jeered at them for their ignorance in not knowing how to saw a man asunder. At last Sun-kwei was good enough to instruct them in their business. “You dead dogs and slaves,” said he, “if you would saw a man asunder, you should compress his body between two planks; but how could you know it?” The men followed his advice, and sawed him and the planks asunder at the same time, he never relenting, but scoffing at them to the last moment.

It is with some reluctance that I describe, however briefly, these horrible scenes, but to pass over them would be to omit some of the most characteristic traits of this strange people. Those who know the Chinese nation will be aware that I have touched the subject very lightly, and that the most revolting modes of punishment have not been, and for obvious reasons cannot be mentioned at all.

Although the mandarins are generally hated by those over whom they are placed, there are exceptions to the usual rule, and men are found who resist the temptation of extorting money from the people,—a temptation which is rendered the stronger because a mandarin who can report that his district has paid a very large sum into the Imperial treasury is sure of promotion, and if he has “squeezed” a large tribute out of a district that previously had paid but a small sum, he may almost reckon on obtaining the coveted peacock’s feather, with all its privileges.

When an honest and kind-hearted mandarin vacates his post at the expiration of his term of office, the people subscribe to present him with an umbrella of state, called “The Umbrella of Ten Thousand of the People.” It is made of red silk and satin, with three rows of flounces, and bears upon it the names of the chief donors written in golden characters. When he takes his formal leave of office, the umbrella is carried in procession by his attendants, and he is followed for a certain distance by those who presented it.

The highest honorary reward of this kind that can be given is an outer garment made of the same material as the umbrella, and also decorated with the names of the principal donors. This robe of honor is carried in procession, hung within a kind of pavilion that all may see it, and accompanied by a band of music. Such a robe is very seldom presented, and the recipient naturally values it very highly.

While treating of honorary rewards, one particular kind must be mentioned. If a man distinguishes himself greatly, and feels that he is under great obligation to some person who has no real claim on him, he will solicit some high title from the emperor, and then ask permission to transfer it to his benefactor. Thus it has frequently happened that a man, without any rank of his own, has taken upon himself the education of a young lad of promising abilities, and has been afterward rewarded by finding himself raised even to a higher rank than that of his protégé. Sometimes, when a man who has been thus educated is presented to a higher title, the emperor bestows on his benefactor the lower rank from which he has been raised. Thus it will be seen that in this country every incentive is employed to promote education among the people, and that not only the educated man obtains the reward which his powers have earned, but that those by whom he was educated have their share in his honors.