Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/99

likely to make as fine a soldier as the Turk, the Japanese, the Teuton, or the Anglo-Saxon, there is certainly no visible reason why with good training, good equipment, good leadership, and a good cause, he should not be able to hold his own for defensive purposes. But it is hard to carry imagination to the extent of picturing him as a successor of the Huns and the Goths, or of seeing his units combine to form that wave of yellow peril which, according to some eminent publicists, may yet sweep over Asia and Europe from the East.

Reverting from this lengthy digression to the machinery of administration in Peking, the fact, incidentally mentioned above, should be repeated here, namely, that a Naval Board (Haichun Yamên) was established in the capital in 1886, and that it had for its first President Prince Chun. This Board nominally controls all affairs relating to the Empire's sea-forces, but in practice the range of its authority has hitherto been limited to the northern section of the Navy, the business of the southern section being under the direction of the Viceroy at Nanking. At the present time, however, China can scarcely be said to possess any fleet. She certainly has no force that could make itself felt at sea against any of the foreign squadrons in the Pacific. Her Northern Fleet was annihilated by the Japanese in 1894–1895, and her Southern is almost a negligible quantity.

The fifth Board among the governing bodies in