The Pei-ho Plugged

The great river Pei-ho forms the high-waterway through Peking and Tientsin to the Yellow Sea. By the terms of the Boxer Protocol of 1901 it must be kept open in the interest of the Great Powers. Last week a handful of Chinese mercenaries blocked it to shipping.

Bombardment. The mercenaries were those of Super-Tuchun Feng, who has long controlled Peking. They rolled up a few pieces of field artillery behind the old fort of Taku at the mouth of the river. Merrily they blazed away at all ships which tried to enter it-at many Chinese ships, at one Norwegian steamer, at the Japanese destroyers Fuji and Suzuki.* All this the mercenaries did because they feared that other mercenaries hired by Super-Tuchuns Chang and Wu, the War Lords of Central and Northern China, might be going to sneak up the Pei-ho to capture Tientsin.

Rage. The representatives of the Powers at Peking recalled the Boxer Protocol to the Chinese and threatened a joint naval intervention. Enraged factions staged the usual anti-foreign demonstration at Peking. The net result seemed that the mercenaries at the mouth of the Pei-ho fired a little less often.

Strategem. A comic touch was added by the fact that the mercenaries "mined" the river elaborately with "large dark objects" which were later declared to be not real mines but dummies intended to intimidate the credulous.

*Killing nine Japanese.