CHAPTER I THE RIVAL EMPIRES OF THE FAR EAST ACCORDING to somepoliticalphilosophers it is a mark of advanced civilisation to set small store on military glory and to make little account of the mere soldier. If this were so, China would be in an exceptionally forward state of civilisation, and a pioneer of progress among the nations of the world. For strange as it seems to our old-fashioned Western ideas, in China the military class, from generals down to drummer boys, are regarded with something very like contempt. Forcenturies neither skill at arms, nor what we couldcallprofessional knowledge,have been the way to military command. Armies and fleets are intrusted to men who have proved their fitness for such a position only 1 rior knowledge of the Sacred Books ofConfucius,and even to such successful students a military command is only-given when the more valuable civilposts of honour have been exhausted infavour ofmore talented competitors. In fact, it may be said that the higher commands in the army of the Celestial Empire were assigned to the less efficientcandidates for the civil service.

Up to our own time one of the chief tests in the specially qualifying examination for militaryrank has been a competition with bows and arrows. Officers thus selected wereput in commandof troops recruited from the dregs of the population. The army was supposed to be the natural place for the criminal and the ne'er-dowell. Thus recruited andofficered the men were