Hankow means literally Han Mouth, being situated at the juncture of the
Han River and the Yangtze. Across the way, as I write, I can see
Han-yang, with its iron works belching out black curls of smoke, where
the arsenal turns out one hundred Mauser rifles daily. (This is but a
fraction of the total work done.) It is, I believe, the only
steel-rolling mill in China. Long before the foreigner set foot so far
up the Yangtze, Hankow was a city of great importance--the Chinese used
to call it the centre of the world. Ten years ago I should have been
thirty days' hard travel from Peking; at the present moment I might
pack my bag and be in Peking within thirty-six hours. Hankow, with
Tientsin and Nanking, makes up the trio of principal strategic points of
the Empire, the trio of centers also of greatest military activity. On
the opposite bank of the river I can see Wu-ch'ang, the provincial
capital, the seat of the Viceroyalty of two of the most turbulent and
important provinces of the whole eighteen.
Hankow, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang have a population of something like two
million people, and it is safe to prophesy that no other centre in the
whole world has a greater commercial and industrial future than Hankow.
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