This article is written by Li Yudong
Author: Li Yudong, researcher of Chahar Society, famous writer. He graduated in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Glasgow in June 2010. He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, the Chinese Essayists Association, and the Shanxi Writers Association. His works include the essay collection "Crazy As a Virgin", "Thorny Shakespeare's Dream", the novels "Night Case", "Miao", "The Barking of Dogs on Earth", and "Out of Focus". In recent years, he has begun to study the fields of politics and international relations, in which the communication between Chinese and Western cultures is the most concerned issue for Li Yudong, a young returnee writer. He joined the Chahar Institute research team in 2016.
"Dancers on the Corpses - 100 Years of Chinese Workers in World War I" is a long article written by Li Yudong to commemorate the centenary of the end of The First World War and the Chinese laborers who worked hard and sweat in the First World War, with a total of more than 45,000 words, which will continue to be serialized on the major platforms of the "Chahar Society".
"Chinese Workers" is one of Gao Wenjue's Chinese labor series, painted in Beijing in 2018, which expresses the commemoration of a century-old Chinese workers in a documentary manner.
On February 24, 1917, on the calm Mediterranean Sea, a submarine from Germany fired a fish at its long-trailing target. Then the deep sea was shaken, and the peaceful waves flooded with huge waves. There was a flash of fire on the surface of the sea, and a cry was heard. In the light of the fire, a French cruise ship named "Arthur" was hit by a torpedo. In the midst of the crying, it was shaky, overwhelmed, panicked—suddenly tilted, and suddenly a fierce son was planted into the vast sea, turning into a nameless memory, or a cold skeleton, and just like that, quietly and silently, it lay still here.
And in the narrow cabin of the cruise ship, 543 Chinese young men who came from afar stopped breathing forever.
Most of them were illiterate, much less able to understand the international situation of the time, or of the imminent catastrophe. Most of them come from Shandong, where 38 million people are struggling to survive on a land of less than 160,000 square kilometers. They don't have any ambitions, and they don't have much "skill." However, they are kind and simple, and they have traveled far and wide, just to sell their physical strength, to find a few more full meals for the family, and to live a good life for a few days.
They also do not know that when they board the ship that sails away and into the narrow, suffocating cabin, their lives are no longer their own—they are the weak motherland behind them, the chips in the game with the imperialist powers. It is forty thousand compatriots who bear the burden of humiliation and hope for the future.
The cruise ship that was shot sank.
They could no longer see their warm wives and children and return to their distant homeland. Their strong bodies will sleep quietly and slowly decay in the cold sea.
Maybe soon, maybe for a long time— but time flies, and their descendants will no longer remember their names, and even the strings of numbers embedded in the copper hoops will eventually be forgotten and dusted with the passage of time.
They became the first Chinese workers to die.
But even so, behind them, more cruise ships, more compatriots, are still walking on this difficult road...
In a world of the weak and the strong, it is not easy for a weak, long-colonial, ancient country to have a fair dialogue with the world.
1914 - Just earlier in the outbreak of the First World War, after some argumentation, the top level of the Beiyang government authorities had decided to put all the bets on the final victory of the "Allied" side. Liang Shiyi, then a senior aide to President Yuan Shikai and secretary general of the Presidential Office, was the first to put forward this view, and soon personally held a dialogue with Zhu Erdian, the British minister to China, on the possibility of China participating in the war as an "Allied Country" in person. During the dialogue, Liang Shiyi proposed on behalf of the Chinese side that the Chinese and British armies could take advantage of Germany's lack of time to look east and take advantage of the surprise to jointly open up a battlefield in Asia, and then take Qingdao, which had been occupied by the German army since 1897, in one fell swoop, and wipe it out on the surface of Jiaozhou Bay together with the Austro-Hungarian fleet.
Admittedly, the British were unwilling and unable to accept this proposal. Imagine how it is possible that an imperialist power that was the first to open the door of China with its guns and cannons, an invader who colonized China and even all of Asia, could easily allow the countries it has invaded and plundered to have the right to sit on an equal footing with itself? They have not yet fully assessed the development of that war. It is said that the British at that time even had some arrogance at one time that the war was far less bad than people had feared, and that it would take only a short time to be put to an end by them. But the British had their own unique concerns about the consequences of allowing China to join the "Allied" side.
Like any oppressor, they fear the object of their oppression and use every favorable opportunity to break free from their greedy clutches and become equal opponents. Allowing China to join the Allies was, in the eyes of the British, tantamount to reserving an important seat for these yellow-skinned, dark-eyed guys in the new world pattern of the future.
This was extremely detrimental to the "colonial cause" of the British Empire.
Zhu Erdian rejected Liang Shiyi's proposal. After this conversation, Chinese was not able to participate smoothly in the war. At this moment, however, the ambitious Japanese, an ally of the British, saw such an opportunity. Taking advantage of the void, they crushed the German forces in Shandong, China, and then, in a condescending posture, arbitrarily demanded that the Chinese side recognize them as the "natural replacements" for Germany's rights and interests in China.
There is no place to complain, no one will sympathize. The European powers, which have high hopes Chinese, are all acquiescence to this act of aggression. Weak China has nowhere to cry out, and the boiling people can only take to the streets, shout slogans, and fight with patriotic enthusiasm.
However, all this, in the face of a powerful enemy, seems so pale and powerless.
On January 18, 1915, during a secret meeting with the Chinese, the arrogant aggressors showed their greedy faces. They submitted a long list to the Chinese side and threatened to ask the other side, "Absolute confidentiality, reply as soon as possible." ”
There are five items on the list, namely:
(1) Recognize that Japan inherits all german rights and interests in Shandong, and Shandong Province shall not give up or lease other countries.
2. Recognize that the Japanese have the privilege of living, traveling, operating industry and commerce and mining in southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia. The lease period of Lushun and Dalian and the management period of the Nanman and Anfeng railways were extended to 99 years.
3. Change China's first generation of new-style steel joint enterprises into Sino-Japanese joint ventures, and people outside the company are not allowed to mine in nearby mines.
4. All coastal harbors and islands of China shall not be leased or ceded to other countries.
5. The Chinese government employs Japanese as political, military, and financial advisers. China and Japan jointly run police and arsenals. The construction rights of the railways between Wuchang and Nanchang, Nanchang to Hangzhou, and Nanchang to Chaozhou were ceded to Japan. In Fujian Province, Japan has priority in mining, building seaports and shipyards, and building roads.
The specific provisions of this list consist of twenty-one paragraphs. In that period of suffering that belonged to the Chinese nation, it coldly outlined the outline of the powerless and weak Chinese, and another shameful memory.
Historically, they were called "twenty-one articles."
Yuan Shikai, then The President of the Republic of China, accepted the "Twenty-One Articles" Picture source: Wiki
And this humiliating treaty, which further persecuted the weathered country, made up its mind and embarked on a long and difficult road.
In 1917, the French "Arthur", which was full of Chinese workers, was attacked by a German submarine and died on the bottom of the sea, and all 543 Chinese workers on the ship were spared and all were killed.
But behind them, more and more cruise ships leave the port, set off, and sail firmly to the sea, firmly to the unknown far away, riding the wind and waves...
4.
On May 25, 1915, after some game, Yuan Shikai finally accepted the first four clauses in the "Twenty-One Articles". Some people believe that the reason for making such a major compromise with the Japanese side was only because at that time, he was impatient to want feudal restoration, wanted to be the emperor of the "Chinese Empire" himself, and to do this, he had to first curry favor with the Japanese who were looking at the tiger. Later historians debated this view — but in any case, even at this moment, the opportunistic politician was really selfish and deceitful, and in the face of the current crisis, he had to come up with a way to turn the passive into the active.
Thus, the discussion of participation in the war was once again on the agenda.
In May 1915, President Yuan Shikai's special representative accepted the "Twenty-One Articles" Picture source: National Museum of China
But in this world where the weak eat the strong, when did the weak and small countries have the power to determine their own destiny? In order to achieve the goal, the Beiyang government has made careful arrangements. On November 6, at a point where the mass casualties on the European battlefield were getting worse and worse, they sent a note to the British government, making clear that China would formally declare war on Germany. In order to avoid the Japanese from obstructing it, the Chinese side also requested Britain, France and Russia to invite China to participate in the war as an Allied country. All that is done is to throw in the towel and to invest the Chinese factor in it when the great powers have demanded something.
Soon, in order to increase the chips for participation in the war, the Beiyang government, through Liang Shiyi, through Hong Kong, secretly supported at least 30,000 guns to the British army. This is undoubtedly a blessing in disguise for Europe, which is full of wars and severe attrition. The Allies welcomed this. And in the crisis that forced the imperialist powers to bow their heads and compromise, the possibility of China's participation in the war seemed to be loosening to a certain extent as a side of the Allied group.
However, all this was seen by the Japanese living in the Far East. As far back as the Ming Dynasty, toyotomi Hideyoshi, the leader of the island nation, was already salivating at her. Conquering China, that is their dream through hundreds of years. Time and space rotate and dynasties change, but this dream has never faded. In modern times, they have relied on the "Meiji Restoration" movement of "total Westernization" to use the development of modern industry, education, and military to become among the great powers. In 1895, they defeated the Beiyang Naval Division, known as the "First Water Division of the Far East" of the Qing Dynasty, and forced the Manchu Qing government to sign the Treaty of Maguan with it, with which it lost all dignity— and this new rise
The imperialist powers of East Asia have revived their former ambitions.
How can Japan, Chinese, which wants to participate in the "Allies" and has not yet divided it up, agree?
They raised a seemingly absurd point to the Allies: they claimed that the East Asian physique was not suitable for fighting in the cold European mountains and forests, so they would not allow their own troops to travel to Europe, nor would they approve of the Chinese army advancing into the battlefield. The results needed by the Japanese side are well understood. They must not only guarantee their military strength in Asia, but also resolutely oppose the future reorganization of the international order, and hand over any seat of dialogue on an equal footing to the Chinese.
To this end, they even hinted to the Allies that once China sent troops to the war, the Japanese side would most likely take some "extraordinary measures."
However, the Japanese, who were good at calculation, did not calculate the problem thoroughly this time.
As for the concerns among the imperialist powers, Chinese have long been prepared. Liang Shiyi, who was in a high position in the Beiyang government, in addition to participating in the war with arms, had already deployed another plan for China's participation in the war.
As early as June, he began to try to bring his own ideas to communicate and negotiate privately with Britain and France. When the proposal for "armed personnel" to enter the war was rejected, Liang Shiyi, who was forced to a dead end, suddenly decided to remove the word "armed" and directly send a group of workers to the battlefield to assist in the production and labor of his rear.
Chinese workers who are about to go to France Image source: Archives of the YMCA of the Kauts Family, University of Minnesota
And these workers are the later "Chinese workers.")
Arrogant Britain once again rejected the Chinese proposal.
But France, the main battlefield and suffered heavy casualties, quickly showed its support.
On January 17, 1916, the project was launched. After research, they decided to send an "agricultural technician" to China to recruit Chinese workers. This man's name was Tao Lude, and he was originally a retired colonel. Here, he represents the French government.
However, China at that time could not completely decide its own destiny. On parts of Beijing and Tianjin, Germany and Austria-Hungary still had their own armies. In this way, China has to remain nominally neutral and avoid the use of its hostile forces to further harm China – which is the main reason why Colonel Tao Lude, who represents the official, should come as an "agricultural technician" in the private sector, rather than as a military.
With the cooperation of the Beiyang government, a "private" company called "Huimin" commercial company opened in Beijing. The company's figure soon spread in Tianjin, Jiangsu Pukou, Hong Kong, Shandong Qingdao and other places.
And it is the platform used by the French to recruit Chinese workers.
Thus – in 1916, when the meat grinder-like First World War, with its characteristic smell of blood, entered its ruthless third year; in France, which had a total population of only 40 million, but as the main battlefield, the mortality rates of men aged 15-49 and men aged 13-30 in the country were staggering 13.3 per cent and 33.3 per cent, respectively; just when the intransigent and flesh-and-blood war caused the disastrous situation of officers below the rank of french lieutenant and below, who could not survive on the battlefield for even three months - Yellow-skinned, dark-eyed, they finally came.
To be continued...
(This article was first published with the authorization of the author, and may not be reproduced without permission)