In the town no Russian or foreign citizens left their houses and all remained armed and ready to act.

At night armed sentinels stood guard in all their court-yards.
It was the Chinese who induced such precautions.

By order of their Commissioner all the Chinese merchants with stocks of rifles armed their staffs and handed over any surplus guns to the officials, who with these formed and equipped a force of two hundred coolies into a special garrison of gamins.

Then they took possession of the Mongolian arsenal and distributed these additional guns among the Chinese vegetable farmers in the nagan hushun, where there was always a floating population of the lowest grade of transient Chinese laborers.

This trash of China now felt themselves strong, gathered together in excited discussions and evidently were preparing for some outburst of aggression.