With a fleet of fifty
or more good ships the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company
are able by the aid of subsidies and special privileges to compete
for a share in the coasting trade; but as yet they have no line
trading to foreign ports.
In 1860 a wild horde with matchlocks, bows, and spears, the land
army is now supplied in large part with repeating rifles, trained
in Western drill, and dressed in uniform of the Western type. The
manoeuvres that took place near Peking in 1905 made
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a gala day for the Imperial Court, which expressed itself as more
than satisfied with the splendour of the spectacle. The contingent
belonging to this province is 40,000, and the total thus drilled
and armed is not less than five times that number. In 1907 the
troops of five provinces met in Honan. Thanks to railways, something
like concentration is coming within the range of possibility. Not
deficient in courage, what these raw battalions require to make
them effective is confidence in themselves and in their commanders.
Lacking in the lively patriotism that makes heroes of the Japanese,
these fine big fellows are not machines, but animals. To the mistaken
efforts recently made to instil that sentiment at the expense of the
foreigner, I shall refer in another chapter. A less objectionable
phase of the sentiment is provincialism, which makes it easy for an
invader to employ the troops of one province to conquer another.
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