Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/279

 lishing at Kirin an arsenal in European style, which was completed in 1883; and batteries at San-hsing (I-lan) and Hun-ch'un—completed in 1884 and 1888 respectively. For his men he wrote a guide-book to artillery practice, entitled 槍法準繩 Ch'iang-fa chun-shêng which was published in 1884. In 1881 he established colonization offices in the basin of the Hun-ch'un river to encourage Chinese settlement, owing to the fact that Russian and Korean emigrants were illegally inhabiting an area allotted to China by the Sino-Russian treaty of 1860 (see under ). Late in 1882 he lodged a protest with Russian border officials against encroachment by Russians and, early in the following year, memorialized the throne proposing that officials be appointed to make with Russian officials a joint survey of the Hun-ch'un border, as suggested by Russia. Some months later (October 1884), when a French force under Admiral Courbet (see under ) attacked the coast of Fukien, he was ordered to defend Tientsin with his border patrols. In November he and his troops arrived at Tientsin and were stationed there until the conclusion of the peace negotiations between China and France in the following year (see under ). After that he remained at Tientsin in the service of the Peiyang Squadron. At the close of the same year, immediately after the coup d'état of the Korean government, when Japanese and Chinese armies stationed at Seoul (Keijō) had an encounter (see under and ), he was despatched to the area as a commissioner of the Ch'ing government, with some 150 men under him. For about six weeks, beginning January 1, 1885, he stayed in Seoul, but did not have an opportunity to negotiate officially about SinoJapanese problems with the Japanese special envoy, Inoue Kaoru 井上馨. Returning to Tientsin in March, he assisted Li Hung-chang in the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese convention (see under ).

Early in 1886 Wu Ta-ch'êng was despatched to the Hun-ch'un region, where, from May to October, he negotiated with the governor of the Russian Maritime Province about the RussoChinese border east of Lake Hsing-k'ai. Thus, on the basis of the treaty of 1860, they defined the frontier, erecting three new boundary stones and re-establishing with stones eight old landmarks which had been made of wood. Wu Ta-ch'êng left two works concerning this mission: one entitled 吉林勘界記 Chi-lin k'an-chieh chi, a collection of official reports, printed in 1891 in the Hsiao-fang-hu chai yü-ti ts'ung-ch'ao (see under ); and 皇華紀程 Huang-hua chi-ch'êng, his personal diary during the mission—published in 1930. Upon his return to Tientsin, late in the same year (1886), he was appointed governor of Kwangtung. Arriving at his new post in February 1887, he took part in revising the customs duties on opium imported through European settlements in China, Hongkong and Macao. After the Sino-Portuguese protocol, about the opium trade and about the concession at Macao, was signed at Lisbon (May 26, 1887), he memorialized the throne on detailed measures to meet the situation, advocating the assumption of a firm attitude towards the Portuguese. The Ch'ing government, however, conceded to Portugal exclusive jurisdiction over Macao in a convention signed at Peking on December 1, 1887, between Thomas de Souza Roza and Sun Yü-wên (see under ). It was stipulated, however, that the territory could not be ceded to a third power without China's consent. In the autumn of 1888 Wu was made director-general of Yellow River and Grand Canal Conservancy in place of Li Ho-nien (see under ) who had been unable to cope with the embankments at Chengchow, Honan. He completed this work, with cement, early in 1889 and for this service was decorated with the Ruby Button of the first rank. Transferred to the governorship of Hunan in 1892, he made efforts to advance local industries; he established (1893) a sericultural bureau at Changsha, and planned to collect funds to encourage tea manufacture in Hunan with the object of making Chinese tea superior to Indian tea which had displaced the former in the English market. But the latter scheme failed to materialize, owing to the financial difficulties of the central government. With the declaration of the SinoJapanese War (August 1, 1894) Wu volunteered his services, and in September was ordered to defend Shanhaikuan with Hunanese and other troops. He was stationed there until March of the following year when he was deprived of his post because his troops met defeat at Newchwang. He returned to his former post in Hunan, but retired a few months later. In 1898 he became director of the Lung-mên 龍門 Academy at Shanghai. Stricken with paralysis in 1899, he died at his native place three years later.

Deeply interested in archaeological studies, Wu Ta-ch'êng made a rich collection of ancient 881