ebellion 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 in
his lot with them together with all his troops. Of this Yuan Shih-kai
became aware through his extraordinary system of intelligence; and
following his usual practice he had ordered General Feng Kuo-chang to
Peking as Chief of the General Staff--an appointment which would place
him under direct surveillance. First on one excuse, then on another,
General Feng Kuo-chang had managed to delay his departure from day to
day without actually coming under the grave charge of refusing to obey
orders. But finally the position was such that he telegraphed to General
Tsao-ao that unless the Yunnan arrangements were hastened he would have
to leave Nanking--and abandon this important centre to one of Yuan
Shih-kai's own henchmen--which meant the end of all hopes of the
Yangtsze Valley rising _en masse_.

It was to save Feng Kuo-chang, then, that the young patriot Tsao-ao
caused the ultimatum to be dispatched fourteen days too soon, _i.e._,
before the Yunnan troops had marched over the mountain-barrier into the
neighbouring province of Szechuan and seized the city of
Chungking--which would have barred the advance of the Northern troops
permanently as the river defiles even when lightly defended are
impassable here to the strongest force. It was largely due to the
hardships of forced marches conducted over these rugged mountains, which
raise their precipi