The Red Spears, 1916–1949

Front matter

KENNETH G. LIEBERTHAL AND RICHARD H.

ROGEL CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies No. 54

Conclusion

Scholarship on the Red Spears has come some distance since Tai Hsüan-chih published his pioneering study. While this recent work suggests elaborations and qualifications to some of Tai's arguments, on the whole his book has stood the test of time very well. However, as I am sure Professor Tai would agree, many unanswered questions about the Red Spear Society — from its origins to its demise— remain. Let us hope that scholars will push ahead with the necessary field and documentary research so that one day we may be better able to do justice to this important chapter in modern Chinese history.

Translator's Introduction Ronald Suleski

Among both rural peasants and local officials, the Red Spears Society has been widely known in China since the 1920s. Using information gained from meticulous research, Professor Tai Hsiian-chih has attempted to outline the origins and organization of the society. His studies have shown that no single group can be identified as the Red Spears, and no single form of organization characterized the groups that used the name.

Because so many elements of Chinese popular and rural cultures were incorporated into the Red Spears, a society might appear anywhere and any secret society could call itself a Red Spears group. All that was needed to found such a society were reasons to form it, the organizational resources to do so, and a name. The dangers faced by a community due to the breakdown of effective local government generally provided reason enough and existing local groups supplied the necessary organizational resources. The name frequently seemed to emerge from popular local usage or an unspoken consensus; it was not, in fact, an important aspect of the secret society. That is why there were so many groups, with different names and practicing a variety of rituals, which Tai identifies as Red-Spears-type organizations.

It was important to have a name because it helped marshall the energies of the peasants in organizing and maintaining the groups, and it fostered a certain esprit de corps among the members as they engaged in the serious business of the society. Believing that the chanting of magic slogans and the use of weapons decorated in distinctive colors gave them power, secret-society members sometimes defeated the armed forces of local officials, and even overcame the defenses of county seats to claim authority for themselves. After such victories, a mixture of fear and respect would sweep the surrounding countryside. The name of the society would quickly become part of local legend and its exploits would be recorded in the next edition of the local gazetteer.

xxlü xxiv Translator's Introduction

In the long run the secret societies were no match for well-organzied military forces or for a trained government bureaucracy, but they could, and frequently did, capture a county seat or halt government troops marching through the countryside. Once in control, however, they seldom followed their initial military and psychological successes with effective administrative or economic control. Their victories over organized government or military authority were always temporary.

Secret societies like the Red Spears emerged in response to the pressures of daily life and the beliefs and attitudes of the peasant population. They acted spontaneously, so no group outside of the local popular culture, be it the provincial government or a more broadly based political entity, could direct the energies of the secret societies for any length of time. All the political groups in modern China, including the central government in Peking, provincial warlords, the Kuomintang, and the Communist Party, tried to manipulate the secret societies, and all of them failed.

The only individuals who successfully maintained control over a secret society for as long as three to five years were locally known and respected men. These were given such titles as “great master” [ta-fa-shih] by the society members.

The twentieth century brought new methods of warfare to China and changed the way war was fought. Since it was a time of political turmoil, all of China's legitimate and illegitimate armies quickly adopted machine guns, telegraph communications, railroads for troop transport, and, when they could, airplanes. This might have increased the effectiveness and power of the secret societies, but available records indicate that these groups never adopted the modern tools of war. The faith of secret-society members lay, not in machinery, but in individual discipline combined with magical powers obtained through the guidance of a teacher. Their weapons and tactics remained unchanged from those of centuries before. Thus, in their development and behavior the groups Tai describes are very much like other secret societies in Chinese history. However, Tai's research provides more detailed information about the Red Spears and its activities than was usually found in earlier historical accounts.

Tai Hstian-chih was born in 1922 in Hsin-tsai hsien, Honan province, into a family which owned about four hundred mou of land near the Hsin-tsai county seat. His father was the clan elder who counseled clan members and every spring supervised the distribution of free food to members in financial trouble.

Ronald Suleski XXV

Tai experienced personally the conditions which led to the formation of secret societies and the way in which they were organized. Before Tai’s birth and during his childhood, bandits flourished in the vicinity of his family’s home. In 1912 and 1913 local warfare around Tai's home became serious. Although the family employed armed bodyguards, Tai's older brother, then four years old, was twice captured by bandits and had to be ransomed. When Tai was an infant, he and his mother were taken hostage by bandits and held for ten days. The most serious encounter occurred in August 1926 when bandits stormed the Hsin-tsai county seat and captured most of the males in the family, including the five-year-old Tai, his father, and an eleven-year-old brother. After about a week Tai’s brother was released and told to return to the family home to secure cash for the ransom of his father. Tai was also released by the bandits. After a month in captivity, Tai’s father managed to escape and rejoin his family.

In the spring of 1927, another Tai relative was captured and apparently killed by bandits who demanded money and opium. His body was never found. To avenge this murder Tai’s father organized the Yellow Spears Society [Huang-ch'iang-hui], which resembled the Red Spears. A large room in one wing of the family house, where Tai and his brothers and sisters used to study, was designated as the meeting room [Aui-t’ang] of the society. A man known as Teacher Liang was invited to erect an altar in this room and prepare the written magic phrases. About sixty young men joined. Members gathered in the meeting room every evening after supper to practice with broadswords and perform many of the ritual training exercises described in Tai’s book. Tai, then a boy of six, would peer in the windows of the meeting room, observing the training of the society members,

Since his father was a graduate of a private academy in K’ai-feng, Tai has always felt that he did not personally believe in the power of magic incantations, but organized the Yellow Study Society so that clan members could protect themselves and their property from bandits. His father funded the society, but never took part in its rituals. It was formally disbanded in 1929 when the family left the countryside where they had been living since 1926 and returned to the Hsin-tsai county seat.

Tai has had a distinguished career as a historian. He graduated from National Hsi-pei [Northwestern] University in 1947, and taught at Taiwan National University from 1949 to 1969. He taught in the History Department of Nan-yang University in Singapore xxvi Translator's Introduction from 1969 to 1979, and served as chairman of the department from 1975 to 1977. He has been a visiting professor at National Ching-chi University in Taiwan since 1979.

Most of Tai's academic career has been devoted to studying the origins of secret socieites in modern China. Of the twenty-one articles he published between 1959 and 1978, the majority dealt with the White Lotus Society [Pai-lien-chiao] and the Heaven and Earth Society [T’ien-ti-hui]. His extensive work on the origins of the Boxer Movement resulted in the book Research on the Boxers. His book on the Red Spears, translated here, is entitled The Red Spears, 1916-49.

When reconstructing events in the history of the secret societies, Tai has been rigorous in his search for acceptable documentation. His research, in The Red Spears and elsewhere, is firmly based on a thorough investigation of local gazetteers and government records. He considers these the most reliable sources, their authors the most prone to seek out and report accurate factual information. He also realizes that a topic like the Red Spears demands documentation from additional sources, such as newspapers and personal accounts, and turns to those sources to supplement the official records.

My strongest criticism of The Red Spears is that although Tai deliberately declines to generalize about the role of secret societies in modern China, he also seems unsure of his evaluation of the role of the Red Spears within rural Chinese society. On the one hand he concludes that secret-society members were legitimately and effectively protesting corrupt officials and rapacious warlords. On the other hand he describes these people as ignorant and easily fooled by any smooth-talking and even slightly charismatic leader. He often discusses the unbearable conditions under which peasants struggled to survive, yet he seems to accept the view of many contemporary officials that the secret societies were composed of riff-raff and near-bandits living vagabond lives.

Certainly the society members were all these things, and perhaps we should thank Tai for refusing to accept a single analytical line merely for the sake of interpretive consistency. There is a difference, however, between a poor peasant forced to beg and a local bully who joins a secret society for the gang protection it affords him. To describe the peasants as ignorant and easily manipulated ignores the fact that within the context of rural life the secret society and its magic rituals provided a fairly effective means of organizing a supravillage group to deal with pressing problems. I sometimes felt in reading The Red Spears that Tai simply copied standard phrases

Ronald Suleski xxvii from the old government reports without determining whether they truly expressed his sentiments.

These problems will not be apparent to the readers of this translation. The original Chinese-language version is written in a style which most non-native speakers of Chinese would find difficult to understand. Tai writes in a combination of early colloquial [pai-hua] and semi-classical newspaper prose. It is replete with short phrases that are better read for the general feeling they convey than for their literal meaning. In translating the book, I have usually avoided strongly literal translations in favor of natural-sounding English sentences which provide the content of the original and often use the same words, but could never be translated back into Tai's original Chinese.

A similar approach has been used in organizing paragraphs and in deciding which sections of the book to translate. Some sections contain so many names of places and individuals that they would greatly burden any English text, while not giving useful information to the typical reader of the translation. Further, in many cases a large number of similar incidents are illustrated to help Tai make his point, and general points in one chapter may be repeated in following chapters for the sake of continuity. Since these aspects detract from the organization demanded by a good English text, some sections of the book have been sumarized rather than translated, and a few have been omitted altogether. The chapter and section headings used in the translation correspond to those in the original, which should help any reader who wants to compare the two.

Professor Tai sent me a copy of The Red Spears in 1973, shortly after it was published. I was working at the Japan Foundation in Tokyo and, after reading parts of the book, decided to prepare a summary translation. The bulk of the translation was accomplished between 1976 and 1978, when I was teaching at the University of Texas at Arlington. I was fortunate to have the assistance of two native speakers of Chinese who prepared the original translation of Some portions of the book. Ms. Chang Yi-Yüan made the initial translations of chapter 1 and portions of chapter 2, and Mr. Lau Yue-ding made a draft translation of portions of chapter 2. After the translation was completed, it was checked against the original by Mr. Shi Yong in Peking during the summer of 1980. The final version was prepared in Tokyo in 1982.

Preface T'ao Hsi-sheng

In this book,’ T'ai Hsüan-chih explores the role of the Red Spears secret society in the complex period between the 1911 Revolution and the Northern Expedition of 1928, and the ways in which the Red Spears were involved in the social and political problems caused by the warlords and the constant warfare which plagued China at the time. This historical period is too often neglected.

In the early Republican period such self-defense organizations as the Red Spears were largest and most numerous in Honan province. Before the 1911 Revolution I travelled with my parents throughout Honan, including the cities of Lo-yang and K'ai-feng, where I lived while a middle-school student. After the 1911 Revolution, I often visited Hsin-yang. My travels gave me the opportunity to become well acquainted with the social and political conditions of north China through personal observation. There are several stories I can recall about local self-defense groups such as the Red Spears.

The area where the provinces of Honan, Anhwei, and Shantung meet, where as a boy I once travelled with my father, is notorious for bandits who shot whistling arrows to announce their coming. Although the common people there armed themselves for self-protection, they did not lightly oppose these bandits. Usually the police could not capture the highwaymen because they lacked information about their movements. Even if they managed to capture a well-known bandit leader, the leader might make a confession, or deny everything, but would never involve other members of the band or implicate those who helped him.

Southwestern Honan is mountainous and at that time was another area filled with bandits. At the end of the Ch’ing dynasty the highwaymen had strict codes of conduct among themselves. In one case, when a girl was raped the leader sentenced the responsible band member to public execution and all the members took this as a warning. One year, when I was a middle-school student returning to xxix

XXX Preface

K'ai-feng from a summer vacation, our carriage passed through an area where the bandits came and went freely and the common people had built fortifications and earthworks to protect themselves. This brought to mind stories of similar situations in China's past. The memory is still fresh in my mind.

To the south of the Lo River in Lo-yang hsien a road once ran into the mountains. At the end of the Ch'ing dynasty this was an area where the bandits and common people often confronted one another. In nearby regions, at the end of the Ch'ing, one could still travel to visit the temples there, but by the beginning of the Republic even the beautiful Ch'ien-ch Temple was used as a bandit headquarters.

Most of the men who lived in the village on the plain practiced . the martial arts. My middle school in Honan was one of the first in the province and so it was well known. Behind the school was a large athletic field where, in addition to gymnastics, the students practiced the martial arts. I remember the most skillful students, two brothers who came from Lin-hsien and an uncle and his nephew from Sui-p’ing. In Lin-hsien every March a large competition in the martial arts was held just outside the city in which most of the youth participated. The best participants would dress as well-known heroes from Chinese history such as Chang Fei, Kuan-kung, and others. In Sui-p’ing hsien, people often encouraged their sons to. train in the martial arts. They even employed teachers to instruct them, which accounted for their expertise. Young girls would stand at the edge of the field watching the competition and if they found a boy they liked they would seek out the head of his house to see about a marriage. My classmates at the middle school were some of these skillful boys from Lin-hsien and Sui-p’ing hsien.

The above remarks give an impression of the lives of the people in Honan at the end of the Ch'ing dynasty, but with the beginning of the Republic many political and social changes took place. During the late Ch'ing, the people of the plains encouraged their children to study the martial arts as an aid in protecting their villages. They did not believe in the use of magic practices like amulets and rituals as a means of protection. For example, when my father was working in Yeh-hsien there was a self-defense group which practiced a form of martial arts which they said could be mastered in eighteen days. My father would use his head as a weapon, hitting it against a brick without suffering any injury. He also claimed not to fear bullets, though he dared not face these “steel balls without smoke.” Later, when I was in Lo-yang, I saw secret society members who did use

T'ao Hsi-sheng xxxi magic charms to protect themselves. By the end of the Ch'ing many villages had earthen walls and other means of defense, but after the beginning of the Republic these were no longer sufficient. With the coming of the warlords and the increase in banditry, society became even more unstable and fighting was so widespread that it could occur anywhere. Át the same time the common people reverted to belief in magic, probably because they had no other means of protection.

At the end of the Ch'ing period the bandits usually practiced a code of honor among themselves. This was because the suppression of such rebellions as the T'ai-ping Heavenly Kingdom [1851-64] left provincial and county governors with plenary powers to impose sanctions upon bandits. At that time, provincial governors could deploy troops and local officials could even order executions. Long ago China did not have a police force because villagers organized for their own defense and local authorities supported the people by granting legal permission to carry out death sentences. If bandit groups became so strong that the people and the authorities could not subdue them, regular army forces were summoned. When this occurred, the local people sometimes suffered as much as the bandits at the hands of the government troops. Thus, villagers with martial skills assisted local authorities. But, if they could not overcome the bandits they often struck a bargain with them. In such cases the bandits would agree to cease operations in the immediate vincinity and in return the people would not organize against them.

In the early 1900s, I observed local officials who were appointed to posts in the countryside under orders to eliminate banditry. They considered themselves responsible only for chasing the bandits out of their Asien and sometimes they resorted to negotiation to accomplish this task. Knowing that their reputations would be enhanced if the bandits left the Asien, they would agree to refrain from punitive action if the gangs would abandon the area. In such a case they protected their own territory by moving the brigands into a neighboring jurisdiction.

With the beginning of the Republic conditions deteriorated greatly due to the imposition of special taxes, the spread of warlordism, and so on. Local officials did not protect the people and people could not protect themselves. Bandits were everywhere. They even invaded the towns and killed officials. Obviously these authorities could not protect themselves, let alone protect the people, and the army protected no one. The warlords had no morality and the bandits no code of conduct. Where was order to come from?

xxxii Preface

Once in the late Ch'ing a bandit known as White Wolf was captured, but the government released him with only a light punishment. In the early Republic this man became the leader of a bandit gang. Whenever the gang marched, White Wolf would lock himself in a covered sedan chair and give the key to his followers to show that he had no intention of abandoning his comrades.

The roving bandit gangs were broad-based organizations but it is inappropriate to speak of them as heores or romantic adventurers. To protect themselves the common people formed their own broad-based organizations. These groups arose partly as a reaction to rampant warlordism and partly as a response to the depredations of the bandits. The Red Spears was this sort of popular self-defense group.

In this book Tai Hsiian-chih has provided an overview and analysis of the Red Spears and their organization, and the social and political environment which spawned them. The recollections from my youth are intended as an added, more personal glimpse of the Red Spears.

Section 1: Rise of the Village Militia

The Red Spears can be considered the legitimate offspring of the Boxer Movement and the heirs of China's village militia, so any investigation of them must begin with a consideration of the village self-defense groups. Regulations establishing the pao-chia system of mutual protection and responsibility first appeared in the Northern Sung period [960-1126 A.D.]. These regulations, which marked the beginning of legal recognition of organized self-defense units, permitted adult men to keep weapons such as bows, arrows, knives, and swords in their homes and to gather to practice the martial arts." Regulation of self-defense forces was strictly enforced in the early Ch’ing dynasty [mid-1600s to early 1700s], when a tablet was placed on the door of every peasant home listing the name of the household head and the number of adult men dwelling there.

Based on units of ten, the pao-chia system formed every ten households into a p'ai [shield] with a headman [tou], every ten shields into a chia [armor] with a chief [chang], and every ten armor units into a pao [protector] with a commander [cheng]. The leaders of each unit were chosen from among locally prominent families, and the pao-chia organization was the basic method of maintaining law and order in the local areas.

During the T’ai-p’ing Rebellion of the 1850s and 1860s, the T'ai-p'ing troops captured most of south China, sending tremors of fear through north China where the imperial court was located. In encouraging local citizens to strengthen their self-defense organizations, the imperial court issued a regulation regarding the building of forts and walls as a protection against the T’ai-p’ings. The regulation stated,

The best way to meet the current problem is to encourage local people to build a number of forts, each consisting of ten or more villages, or even several score of villages. When a threat is posed by bandits, the people can alternate manning the walls, and when the bandits are absent the people will be free to go about their ordinary business, farming and protecting their families individually. This network of forts would give the people courage to defend themselves against the bandits. Two or three civil officials, military officers, and several members of the local gentry would be assigned to each fort to supervise its defensive activities. Regardless of where the bandits strike, it would be difficult for them to break through the defensive network because the deep ditches and strong walls would be everywhere. Moreover, the people would not be captured by the bandits and their grain, domestic animals, and poultry would be safe. Encouraging powerful militia would progressively reduce the numbers of bandits.”

The imperial court also adopted a proposal submitted by Kung Ching-han, a commissioner for border affairs, which contained further details on the best way to meet the threat posed by the T’ai-p’ings. It suggested, that officials travel in the countryside, encouraging local people to organize for self-defense and build forts; that through administrative reorganization some small villages be annexed to larger ones; and that present defensive positions in exposed areas be relocated to more easily defensible territory. When there are no bandits, the people can go about their farming and trading in a peaceful manner. When bandits approach, the people can close the gates and man the towers, defending the forts together. The government could provide a unit of two or three thousand soldiers. Such a force would not have to meet the bandits head on, but could pursue the enemies from the rear or cut them off in front. If the - bandits attack a fort troops would be sent to relieve the people within, and if the bandits begin to withdraw the troops would pursue them.?

Rise of the Village Militia 3

In February 1853, Li Hui, governor of Shantung province, ordered local citizens to organize self-defense units, to strengthen defensive earth-works, and to clear flat ground to provide unobstructed fields of vision. Several high officials were appointed by the imperial government to oversee the creation and management of this militia. These included Li Hsiang-fen, former viceroy for the transportation of tribute rice, Feng Te-hsing, former governor of Hunan province; and Tien Tsai-tien, a number of the imperial guard. Further, the Ch'ing court approved the appointment of certain officials to manage local militias in their areas.

Governor Li Hui urged the people of each locality to develop a specific strategy for meeting the threat of the T’ai-p’ings. He feared that policies imposed from above might lead to corruption and irregularities at the local level. He wrote to the emperor,

Because of the different circumstances among the provinces, each area should develop its own program for training militia so that these local forces will be accepted by the people. Parts of Shantung province, because they have major roads or are near Honan and Kiangsu, where the T’ai-p’ings are concentrated, are ravaged by bandits. Other districts have remained peaceful, so there is no need to form militia there. To do so would waste the people’s time, interrupt their work, and needlessly upset local activities. My personal suggestion is to deal separately with the issues of annexing villages and militia training. Some areas could unite for better protection, but do not necessarily have to form militia now. In other places it is not only necessary to unite, but the people should be ordered to learn drill and to use basic military techniques. In some areas banditry is so widespread that other districts will probably prefer not to make cooperative arrangements with them. In fact, annexing such districts might force some of the local population into banditry. It would be better in those places to form local militia only and not unite them with other districts.*

The emperor agreed with Governor Li’s proposal and adopted it as the guideline for action.

A Origins of the Red Spears

Li Hui apparently feared that local officials could not effectively explain the regulations and organize the militia, and that people would not accept the plan if the units were organized by government clerks. He felt the plan would fare better if locally prominent and respected gentry served as a bridge between the common people and government officials by advocating and implementing the scheme. This would enable the government to achieve twice as much with half the effort. He located eight fairly high-ranking officials who were on leave from government service and residing at their homes in Shantung province, and ordered them to organize the local militia. Among these men were Fu Sheng-hsün, former governor of Kiangsu province, a former vice-minister of public works, and a former provincia! treasurer of Honan province. Various county magistrates were sent to low-level administrative districts to explain the new rules to the local gentry and the common people. They were asked to maintain high public visibility and to establish contact with as many citizens as possible. Li then gave overall responsibility for supervision of this operation to Tao-tai Li En-kuang and Expectant Tao-tai Liu Ching-k'ai.?

Because the province had been stable for some time, the scheme met with very little active cooperation. Most civil officials did not understand military needs, and the people could not imagine having to abandon their homes because of fighting. Wealthy families were unwilling to contribute funds, and the poor were afraid of losing their jobs. So, although the plan was advocated by many officials, the people would not participate.

A detailed progress report on the organization of local militia was sent to the emperor by Mao Hung-pin, one of the officials in charge of the project. His report stated,

Having received the order from the emperor, I returned to my hometown to organize the local militia. As I understand it, the idea of maintaining militia in local areas began with the system of quartering troops in the homes of villagers. Such a system could never be implemented today, partly because customs have changed since ancient times and partly due to the current attitudes of the people. The country has been at peace for so long that people have almost forgotten that war exists. They live comfortably, happily, and safely, and if anything untoward happened they would not know how to deal

Rise of the Village Militia with it. My region is located at the confluence of several jurisdictions, and the people feel no responsibility for the situation in surrounding areas; this makes my task even more difficult and complicated.

Although we have vigorously promoted the present plan, people are wary of it and doubt its necessity. If someone attempts to carry out our suggestions, the majority criticize him. Despite hardships and criticism, my staff and I have tried to implement the project. First, we drafted and announced the regulations. We visited each Asien in search of upright and prominent people to undertake the leadership of local militia units. We taught these men to annex villages by redistricting, to provide for mutual defense, and asked them to encourage their people to build forts and dig trenches. We established eight bureaus to instruct the people in military drill and supplied them with food. We organized a corps of militia composed of the strongest men, one that could mobilize quickly in response to a threat. Finally, when people began to understand the concept of mutual defense, they no longer considered military training unbearable.