Chang Tsung-hsiang ( 1 877- ?) studied law in Japan and served the early republican government in such positions as minister of justice. Tuan Ch'i-jui appointed him minister to Japan in 1916, and he helped to negotiate the Nishihara loans in 1917-18. When opposition to the secret agreements with Japan gave rise to the May Fourth Movement, he was branded a traitor.
Born in Wuhsing, Chekiang, in 1877, Chang Tsung-hsiang received a good classical education from tutors and in local schools in Chekiang. After passing the first government examinations for the degree of sheng-yuan in 1895, he went to Japan to study law at Tokyo Imperial University. He was one of the earliest Chinese students to seek a modern education in Japan, and at that time he became acquainted with Ts'ao Ju-lin (q.v.), who was also a student in Tokyo. When Hu Shih-lun, dean of the Ching-shih tahsueh-t'ang, the predecessor of Peking University, visited Japan on an inspection trip, Chang Tsung-hsiang served as his interpreter. Chang received the LL.B. degree from Meiji University in 1903.
After his return to China, he taught for a time at the Ching-shih ta-hsueh-t'ang at Peking, and he was granted the degree of chin-shih by the Ch'ing court. From 1905 until 1911 he held government posts at Peking. He first became a compiler in the law revision office and assisted Tsai Chen, president of the Board of Trade, in the field of commercial law. In 1907 he became an official in the Board of Trade at Peking. He also served in the bureau of laws and regulations of the Board of Interior and, concurrently, was chief of the bureau responsible for legal codification, part of the effort to prepare for constitutional government in China. When Hsu Shih-ch'ang (q.v.) was appointed the first governor general of the Three Eastern Provinces in 1907, Chang accompanied him on an inspection trip to Fengtien. In 1908, Chang became superintendent of police at Peking in the new police system then recently established by Lu Tsung-yu, who had been graduated from Waseda University in Tokyo. Chang held that post until 1910, and reportedly extended a measure of protection to Wang Ching-wei (q.v.) when Wang was arrested in April 1910 for the attempted assassination of the Manchu prince regent. Chang also made a trip to Germany about this time. In 1910, however, he returned to the field of legal work at Peking as assistant chief of the law compilation bureau. In June 1911 he was appointed deputy commissioner of the constitutional department of the Ch'ing cabinet. In these legal positions, Chang was again associated with his former schoolmate in Japan Ts'ao Ju-lin.
After the outbreak of the Wuhan revolt in October 1911 and the recall of Yuan Shih-k'ai to the service of the Ch'ing court, Chang was designated by Yuan to participate in T'ang Shao-yi's negotiations with the republican revolutionaries at Shanghai. When T'ang resigned his position as head of the northern delegation in January 1912, Chang also gave up his assignment. In April 1912, after Yuan Shih-k'ai had assumed the post of provisional president of the Republic, Chang Tsung-hsiang was named chief of the legal department of the cabinet. In July he was appointed minister of justice, but the Senate rejected his and five other cabinet appointments. He was then named chiefjustice of the Supreme Court in July 1912, and, concurrently, head of the law codification commission. In February 1914, when Sun Pao-ch'i succeeded Liang Ch'i-ch'ao as premier, Chang finally received the post of minister ofjustice at Peking. In April, he was designated by Yuan Shih-k'ai to serve as minister of agriculture and commerce as well. As Yuan Shih-k'ai approached the zenith of his political power at Peking during 1914, Chang Tsung-hsiang, as a loyal subordinate, appeared to have a promising political future.
Actually, although Yuan Shih-k'ai's power was in the ascendancy, his control over his principal military officers steadily diminished. As a result, Yuan was forced in the spring of 1916 to abandon his plans for restoring the monarchy. When Tuan Ch'i-jui (q.v.) organized a new cabinet in April 1916, Chang Tsung-hsiang remained briefly in the post of minister ofjustice, while his associate Ts'ao Ju-lin became minister of communications. With the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai in June 1916, however, considerable political reshuffling ensued at Peking, and Chang was dropped from his cabinet post. At the end ofJune 1916, Chang was appointed Chinese minister to Japan to succeed his friend Lu Tsung-yü. In October 1916, General Terauchi Seiki became premier at Tokyo in succession to Count Okuma Shigenobu, who had been associated with the chauvinistic nationalism of the infamous Twenty-one Demands which Japan had forced upon Yuan Shih-k'ai's government in 1915. Ts'ao Ju-lin in the autumn of 1916 presented a new proposal to Tuan Ch'i-jui, who then held much of the power that Yuan Shih-k'ai had formerly exercised at Peking. That plan envisaged the employment ofJapanese aid to assist the Peking government to attain the military unification of China under Tuan's direction. Chang Tsung-hsiang, because of his position as China's envoy in Tokyo and his intimate personal ties with Ts'ao Ju-lin, was the natural channel for negotiations. The discussions at Tokyo proceeded against the background of a power struggle at Peking between Tuan Ch'i-jui and Li Yuan-hung (q.v.), who held the presidency. That contest centered in a clash between the two men regarding the issue of war with Germany. Tuan Ch'i-jui, recognizing the benefits which might accrue to both China and his government through participation in a victorious war against Germany, finally succeeded in August 1917 in obtaining a formal declaration of war against Germany at Peking. Chang Tsung-hsiang thereby became involved in implementing the policy of collaboration with China's ally, Japan. Secret talks directed at obtaining large Japanese loans had started in the spring of 1917. Beginning in September 1917 and continuing until September 1918, a series of agreements, known as the Nishihara loans, was negotiated. Ts'ao Ju-lin and Lu Tsung-yü were prominent in the negotiations at Peking, while Chang Tsunghsiang was directly involved in the discussions in Tokyo. The resulting network of secret agreements made close ties between Tuan Ch'i-jui's government at Peking and Japanese military and financial interests. In return for substantial loans from Japan, Tuan granted Japan extensive railroad, mining, and other concessions in China and agreed to military cooperation between the two nations. Through these agreements, Japan's influence in China during 1917-18 reached a peak that was unsurpassed until after the occupation of Manchuria in 1931-32. As the Chinese minister to Japan, Chang Tsung-hsiang made one particularly unfortunate lapse in signing an exchange of notes with the Japanese foreign minister on 24 September 1918, stating that "the Chinese government gladly agrees" to Japan's proposal regarding her position in Shantung province. It was generally assumed that China had hoped, through her entry into the European war, to recover full sovereignty over Shantung, where Japan had moved in forcibly at the beginning of the conflict to occupy Germany's former privileged position. While the September 1918 exchange of notes effectively destroying that hope remained temporarily secret, the existence of that and other agreements with Japan became known at the Paris Peace Conference during the winter of 1918-19. The agreements made it virtually impossible for the United States to assist China in recovering the former German rights in Shantung.
The resulting wave of public indignation in China had major political consequences. Chang Tsung-hsiang, now charged with responsibility for the secret agreements with Japan, was recalled to Peking for consultation. On his departure from Tokyo in the spring of 1919, he encountered a large demonstration of Chinese students at the railroad station in Tokyo, charging him with treason. When Chang arrived back in China, he stopped for several days at Tientsin. Only after Lu Tsung-yu went there to meet him did he continue his journey to Peking on 30 April 1919. He maintained a residence in the capital, but chose to stay in the home of Ts'ao Ju-lin. When rumors circulated that Chang Tsunghsiang was going to Europe to replace Lu Chenghsiang as chief Chinese delegate at the Paris Peace Conference, popular indignation increased. In student meetings on the evening of 3 May, Chang, Ts'ao Ju-lin, and Lu Tsung-yu were condemned as the "three traitors" who had bartered Chinese rights and resources for Japanese loans. On the following day, a student demonstration turned into a march on the residence of Ts'ao Ju-lin. Lu Tsung-yü was not present when the demonstrators arrived, and Ts'ao Ju-lin succeeded in escaping and took refuge in the Legation Quarter. Chang Tsung-hsiang, however, was caught and beaten into insensibility. Initial reports stated he had been killed, but it was later discovered that he had been removed to the Japanese hospital in Peking and that his wounds, while painful, were not fatal. In the ensuing nationwide agitation known as the May Fourth Movement, one of the most persistent demands was for the dismissal of the three men who had become known as the "three traitors." Actually, the three had only acted as the agents of policies determined by Tuan Ch'ijui. Hsu Shih-ch'ang, who then held the presidency at Peking, at first refused to bow to the popular demand. Hsu issued orders for the arrest of the students involved in the attacks on Chang Tsung-hsiang and his associates and publicly praised those officials for their services. However, after the spreading of strikes and disorders, and particularly after the Shanghai merchants on 5 June declared a business strike and demanded the release of the students and the dismissal of the three officials, Hsu was forced to capitulate. On 10 June 1919, the Peking government relieved Chang Tsunghsiang and his associates of all official posts. In January 1920, Chang was awarded the Fourth Order of Merit at Peking. His political career, however, had already ended, since he was condemned in the public mind as a traitor. Subsequently, in 1925, he became general manager of the Peking Exchange Bank. In July 1928, after the overthrow of the Peking government, the new National Government at Nanking issued a formal order for his arrest. By that time, however, Chang Tsung-hsiang and other men in north China known for their Japanese connections had disappeared from public view. The place and manner of his presumed death during the 1940's is unknown. He left one unpublished volume, Tung-ching san-nien chi [a record of my three years in Tokyo] , which was later included in Wang Yün-sheng's work, Liu-shih-nien lai Chung-kuoyü Jih-pen [China and Japan in the past sixty years].
章宗祥
字:仲和
章宗祥(1877—?),曾在日本学法律。早期民国政府中担任司法总长。1916年段祺瑞任命他为驻日公使,1917—1918年参加西原借款的谈判。因反对与日本订立秘密协定而掀起了五四运动,章宗祥被斥为卖国贼。
1877年,章宗祥出生于浙江吴兴,在浙江从塾师习读经书典籍,1895年中秀才后不久去日本,在东京帝国大学学法律。他是在日本接受近代教育的最早一批中国留学生,在日本结识了同时在东京求学的曹汝霖。北京大学的前身京师大学堂教长吴汝纶去日本视察,章宗祥曾充当他的翻译。1903年,章宗祥取得日本明治大学法学士学位。
他回国后,一度在北京京师大学堂教书,清庭授予进士衔。1905—1911年间,他在北京政府机关做事。最初在法制局当编审,协助工商部尚书载振审订商法。1907年在工商部任职,他还在内务部法制局工作,同时兼任为清政府立宪作准备的法典编纂局的负责人。1907年,徐世昌出任东三省首任总督,章宗祥陪同徐去奉天视察。1908年章任北京巡警厅丞,新的巡警制系由早稻田大学毕业回国的陆宗舆创立。章宗祥在北京巡警厅任职至1910年。1910年4月汪精卫因谋刺摄政王被捕,据说章宗祥设法保护汪精卫。此时,章宗祥曾去德国。1910年章返回法律工作岗位,在北京任法典编纂局编修。1911年6月,他被任命为清内阁法制局副职。章宗祥在担任这些制法工作中,和在日本的老同学曹汝霖共事。
1911年10月,武汉起义爆发,清政府召回袁世凯,袁世凯派章宗祥去上海随唐绍仪和共和革命党人谈判。1912年1月唐绍仪辞去北方代表团首席代表职务,章宗祥同时辞职。1912年4月,袁世凯当了共和国临时大总统,任章宗祥为内阁法制局长,7月又任命为司法总长,参议院反对章宗祥和其他五个人的内阁任命。1912年6月章宗祥改任大理院首席法官兼法制委员会主任。1914年2月,孙宝琦继梁启超而为内阁总理,章宗祥终于取得了司法总长的地位。4月,袁世凯任命他为农商部总长。1914年袁世凯在北京的政治权力声势赫赫,他的忠诚部下章宗祥的政治前途亦大可乐观。
袁世凯的权威虽达到了顶峰,但他对手下的主要军官的控制却在逐步减弱。由此,1916年春,他终于被迫放弃了他恢复帝制的计划。4月,段祺瑞组新阁,章宗祥临时留任司法总长,他的同伙曹汝霖留任交通总长。6月,袁世凯去世,接着在北京政治上进行大改组,章宗祥失去了他在内阁中的职位。
1916年6月底,章宗祥继其友陆宗舆之后出任驻日公使。1916年10月,寺内正毅继大隈重信为日本首相。重信任内,曾于1915年迫袁世凯政府接受声名狼藉的二十一条。1916年秋,曹汝霖向段祺瑞提出一项新的建议,段祺瑞在北京当时具有当年袁世凯差不多的权力,这个建议提出借用日本的帮助,使段祺瑞用武力统一全国。章宗祥既是驻东京的使节,又是曹汝霖的密友,就成为进行谈判的当然渠道了。
东京的谈判在段祺瑞和总统黎元洪之间进行权力斗争的背景下进行。他们争论的中心是对德宣战的问题。段祺瑞认为对德宣战而获胜则全国和他的政府都可以受益,段祺瑞终于获胜,1917年8月在北京向德国正式宣战。从此章宗祥一心一意实施与中国盟友日本合作的政策。为获得日本大笔贷款的秘密谈判从1917年春季开始。1917年9月起到1918年9月,商谈一系列称为西原借款的协定。谈判过程中曹汝霖、陆宗舆是在北京的主要人物,而章宗祥则是在东京直接参与谈判的人物。秘密协定的结果是把段祺瑞的北京政府和日本的军事、财政利益紧紧联结在一起。为酬答日本的巨大借款,段祺瑞把中国的铁路、矿产以及其他权益出让给日本,并同意两国军事上进行合作。通过这些协定从1917年到1918年日本在中国的势力登峰造极无可匹敌,一直到1931—32年占领满洲。
作为中国驻日公使,章宗祥犯了一个特别不幸的过错,当1918年9月24日他与日本外务相签订换文时,日本政府提出日本在山东的地位的要求,章宗祥说了一句“中国政府欣然同意”。一般都认为中国希望通过参加欧战收复山东的全部主权,日本在欧战爆发时就强行进入山东,夺取了德国在山东原有的特权。1918年9月换文,使一度曾是暗中的希望归于破灭。同时中国与日本订了该协定和其他协定这件事,在1918—1919年冬天巴黎和会上公开了。这些协定,使得美国想帮助中国收复德国在山东的原有权利无能为力了。
中国公众对此掀起的愤怒浪潮产生了重大的政治效果,和日本签订密约负有责任的章宗祥被召回京磋商。1919年春,他离东京时遭到中国留日学生在车站举行了规模很大的示威,怒斥他的卖国行径。章宗祥回国后先在天津逗留了几天,1919年4月30日,陆宗舆到天津去把他接到北京。他在北京自有住宅,但是却住在曹汝霖家中。谣传章宗祥将去欧洲代陆征祥担任巴黎和会的中国首席代表,公众的愤怒更加高涨了。5月3日晚北京学生纷纷集会怒斥章宗祥、曹汝霖、陆宗舆为“三个卖国贼”,他们出卖中国的权利和资源换取日本的借款。第二天,学生的示威队伍向曹汝霖的住宅前进。当示威队伍抵达时,陆宗舆不在场,曹汝霖逃进使馆区避难,唯独章宗祥被捉住了殴打得不省人事。当时传说,章宗祥被打死,但不久发现他已转入北京的一家日本医院,他的伤势并不严重,当然有点疼痛。
随之而来的称之谓五四运动的全国抗议运动,最坚决的要求之一是将被称为“三个卖国贼”章、曹、陆三人免职。其实这三个人不过是段祺瑞政策的代理人而已。当时北京政府的总统徐世昌最初拒绝学生们的要求。他发出指令逮捕袭击章宗祥等人的学生们,并对那些忠于职守的官员公开地加以赞扬。但是,因此而起的罢工骚乱到处发生,特别是6月5日上海商界罢市,要求释放学生、罢免章、曹、陆三人,徐世昌被迫屈服。1919年6月10日,北京政府免除章宗祥等人的全部职务。
1920年1月章宗祥获得四等奖章,但是他在人们的心目中是一个卖国贼,他的政治生涯早已终结了。1925年他任北京通商银行总经理,1928年7月,北京政府垮台,南京的国民政府正式下令逮捕章宗祥。从此以后,章宗祥以及在华北的其他一些与日本有关系的人物在公开场合销声匿迹了。1940年传说他已死去,但在什么地方以及怎样死的都不得而知。章宗祥存有文稿《东京三年记》,转载在王芸生所编的《六十年来中国与日本》一书中。