Feb. 17.
NovHING so dramatic has happened for many a day as the overthrow and flight of Tuchun Tang} Chi-yao- of Yunnan, nor could better proof be found of the utter) rottenness of the foundations of power of even those seemingly most powerful in modern China. Tf Peking cannot rule in the provinces, it can intrigue. If it is short of money to pay its own' troops, it can. find the where-wittal to bribe those of an opponent. Six months ago General Tang appeared omnipotent in Yi unnain, Kueichow and Szechuan, following on the defeat of Hsiong Kel-wu in the latter province; and details were published of the organization he was preparing for his domain, cutting it up into new divisions that obliterated te old provincial frontiers and appointing his own lieutenants to each.. Yet a very few weeks and the fabric of this kingdom was shattered by a series of events that appear to be' directly connected with Tang's overthrow in Yunnan to-day. For his chief general then in Szechuan was Koo Pin-chun, who now rules in Yunnanfu, and it is whispered that Koo was "not wholly blameless in respect of the} defeat of the Yunnanese troops, when Hsiong Keh-wu, through a! new turn in the jealousies of the Szechuan leaders, was enabled to renew the attack. As everybody knows, Hsiong Keh-wu reigns again in Szechuan and has there declared his adhesion to Peking: and it is said that from this region went the money to Yunnanfu which caused Tuchun Tang Chi-yao's ninth division to mutiny, so} that he is to-day a fugitive, last reported at Mengtze and said to be en route for Japan.
Barely forty years of age, the fallen Tuchun is unquestionably one of the most interesting and dominating personalities that the revolution in China has brought; forth. As a boy he was taught in the Chinese Confucian school but! later entered a military college, went thence to complete his! training in Japan and entered the Chinese army in 1910, where he rose so rapidly that in 1912 Yuan Shih-kai appointed him acting Tutuh of Kueichow. On the outbreak of the second revolution in 1913 he was sent as commander-in-chief of the Yunnan and Kuei-
Szecknan, and as a reward for his. services he was made Acting Tutuh in his native province of Yunnan, an appointment at that time conflict with all Chinese tradition, although now the principle of every province its own officials is not only approved but even demanded as part of the self-governing movement. A few weeks later the civil as well as' the military powers in Yunnan were combined in him under the title of Governor. In the autumn of 1915, in preparation for his proclamation of himself as Emperor, Yuan Shih-kai created the young Governor a Marquis, but Tang declined the honour, threw in his lot with the late General Tsai Ao and launched the revolt against Yuan's intended throne, which frustrated the great ruler's hopes and undoubtedly hastened his death. Since then Tang Chi-yao has reigned undisputed in Yunnan. The history of the part he played in the formation, in 1918, of the Southwestern Federation, which was supposed to embrace all provinces south of the Yangtze except Kiangsi, but including Szechuan, together with the patronage he extended to the remnant of the old 1913 Parliament, is so familiar in its broad outlines and so tedious in detail that no recapitulation need be attempted. But these—salient facts should be remembered. In 1918 the two leading figures in the Federation were Tang Chi-yao, of Yunnan, and Lu Yungting, Governor General of Kuangtung and Kuangsi, but essentially 2 Kuangsi man and representa-five of the Kuangsi domination in Canton, When the latter city rose against the Kuangsi faction and expelled it early last autumn, Tang Chi-yao sided with the Canton-for-Cantonese party (the leaders of which are Dr. Sun Yat-sen and his friends and General Chen Chiung-ming). The alliance between Peking and Lu Yung-ting, always more or less suspected, has since become patent to all the world and the plot which has overthrown Tang Chi-yao is merely another phase of the Peking-Kuangsi combina tion.
'This, then, is. the immediate outcome of Tang Chi-yao's downfall, that the South is' thereby confronted with the fear of renewed warfare. Though himself a Yunnanese, General Woo Pin-chun, the newly elected com-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.