Grand Secretaries that she might be able to hear both sides of

all important questions.
One of these conservatives was Jung Lu, the father-in-law of the

present Regent. When she placed Yuan Shih-kai in charge of the
army of north China, she also appointed Jung Lu as

Governor-General of the metropolitanprovince of Chihli. One was
a progressive, the other a conservative. Neither could make any

important move without the knowledge and consent of the other.
Whether the Empress Dowager foresaw the danger that was likely to

arise, we do not know, but she provided against it. We refer to
the occasion when in 1898 the Emperor ordered Yuan Shih-kai to

bring his troops to Peking, guard the Empress Dowager a prisoner
in the Summer Palace, and protect him in his efforts at reform.

The story belongs in another chapter, but we refer to it here to
show how the Empress Dowager played one official against another,

and one party against another, to prevent any such calamity or
surprise. It would have been impossible for Yuan Shih-kai to have

taken his troops to Peking for any purpose without first
informing his superior officer Jung Lu unless he put him to

death, much less to have gone on such a mission as that of
imprisoning as important a personage as the Empress Dowager, to

whom they were both indebted for their office.
Another instance of the way in which the Empress Dowager played

one party against another was the appointment of Prince Tuan as a
member of the Foreign Office. After his son had been selected as

the heir-apparent it seemed to the Empress Dowager that for his
own education and development he should be made to come in

contact with the foreigners. Most of the foreigners considered
the appointment objectionable on account of the "Prince's anti-

foreign tendencies. But to my mind," says Sir Robert Hart, "it
was a good one; the Empress Dowager had probably said to the

Prince, 'You and your party pull one way, Prince Ching and his
another--what am I to do between you? You, however, are the

father of the future Emperor, and have your son's interests to
take care of; you are also head of the Boxers and chief of the

Peking Field Force, and ought therefore to know what can and what
cannot be done. I thereforeappoint you to the yamen; do what you

consider most expedient, and take care that the throne of your
ancestors descends untarnished to your son, and their empire

undiminished! yours is the power,--yours the responsibility--and
yours the chief interests!' I can imagine the Empress Dowager

taking this line with the Prince, and, inasmuch as various
ministers who had been very anti-foreign before entering the

yamen had turned round and behaved very sensibly afterwards, I
felt sure that responsibility and actual personal dealings with

foreigners would be a good experience and a useful education for
this Prince, and that he would eventually be one of the sturdiest

supporters of progress and good relations."
IV

The Empress Dowager--As a Reactionist
The most interesting personage in China during the past thirty

years has been and still is without doubt the lady whom we style
the Empress Dowager. The character of the Empress's rule can only

be judged by what it was during the regency, when she was at the
head of every movement that partook of the character of reform.

Foreign diplomacy has failed, for want of a definite centre of
volition and sensation to act upon. It had no fulcrum for its

lever. Hence only force has ever succeeded in China. With a woman
like the Empress might it not be possible really to transact

business? --Blackwood's Magazine.
IV

THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--AS A REACTIONIST
It was between November 1, 1897, and April 16, 1898, that

Germany, Russia, France and England wrested from the weak hands
of the Emperor Kuang Hsu the four best ports in the Chinese

empire, leaving China without a place to rendezvous a fleet. The
whole empire was aroused to indignation, and even in our

Christian schools, every essay, oration, dialogue or debate was a
discussion of some phase of the subject, "How to reform and

strengthen China." The students all thought, the young reformers
all thought, and the foreigners all thought that Kuang Hsu had

struck the right track. The great Chinese officials, however,
were in doubt, and it was because of their doubt--progressives as

well as conservatives--that the Empress Dowager was again called
to the throne.

Now may I request the enemies of the Empress Dowager to ask
themselves what they would have done if they had been placed at

the head of their own government when it was thus being filched
from them? You say she was anti-foreign--would you have been

very much in love with Germany, Russia, France and England under
those circumstances? That she acted unwisely in placing herself

in the hands of the conservatives and allying herself with the
superstitious Boxers, we must all frankly admit. But what would

you have done? Might you not--I do not say you would with your
intelligence--but might you not have been induced to have

clutched at as great a log as the patriotic Boxers seemed to
present, if you had been as near drowning as she was?

"It is generally supposed," says one of her critics, "that Kang
Yu-wei suggested to the Emperor, that if he would render his own

position secure, he must retire the Empress Dowager, and
decapitate Jung Lu." If that be true, and I think it very

reasonable, the condition must have been desperate, when the
reformers had to begin killing the greatest of their opponents,

and imprisoning those who had given them their power, though
neither of these at that time had raised a hand against them.

Have you noticed how ready we are to forgive those on our side
for doing that for which we would bitterlycondemn our opponents?

The same people who condemn the Empress Dowager for beheading the
six young reformers stand ready to forgive Kuang Hsu for ordering

the decapitation of Jung Lu, and the imprisonment of his
foster-mother.

There were two powerful factions in Peking, the progressives,
headed by Prince Ching; and the conservatives, headed by Jung Lu.

Now the Empress Dowager may have reasoned thus: "The progressives
and reformers have had their day. They have tried their plans and

they have failed. The only result they have secured is peace--but
peace always at the expense of territory. Now I propose to try

another plan. I will part with no more ports, and I will resist
to the death every encroachment." She therefore took up Li

Ping-heng, who had been deposed from the governorship of Shantung
at the time of the murder of the German missionaries, and

appointed him Generalissimo of the forces of the Yangtse, where
he no doubt promised to resist to the last all encroachments of

the foreigners in that part of the empire while Jung Lu was
retained in Peking as head of all the forces of the province of

Chihli and the Northern Squadron. She then appointed Kang Yi,
another conservative, equally as anti-foreign as Li Ping-heng, to

inspect the fortifications and garrisons of the empire, and to
raise an immense sum of money for the depleted treasury. In his

visits to the southern provinces, Kang Yi at this time raised not
less than two million taels, which was no doubt spent in the

purchase of guns and ammunition and other preparations for war.
Yu Hsien, another equallyconservative Manchu, she appointed

Governor of Shantung to succeed Li Ping-heng, and it is to him
the whole Boxer uprising is due. Moreover when he, at the

repeated requests of the foreigners, was removed from Shantung,
she received him in audience at Peking, conferred upon him

additional honours and appointed him Governor of the adjoining
province of Shansi, where, and under whose jurisdiction, almost

all the massacres were committed. Indeed Yu Hsien may be