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Court Life in China-Part29_Issac Taylor Headland(1859-1942)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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student of the Chinese classics and of such foreign books as had

been translated into the Chinese language, but he has never



studied a foreign tongue nor visited a foreign country. Here then

rests the first element of his greatness--that without any



knowledge of foreign language, foreign law, foreign literature,

science of government, or the history of progress and of



civilization, he has occupied the highest and most responsible

positions in the gift of the empire, has steered the ship of



state on a straight course between the shoals of conservatism on

the one hand and radicalreform on the other until he has brought



her near to the harbour of a safe progressivepolicy.

He has always been what the Chinese call the tu-ti or pupil of Li



Hung-chang, and it may be that it was from him he learned his

statecraft. Certain it is that he always basked in the favour of



the great Viceroy, and it may be that he had more or less

influence with him in his earlier appointments, for he rose



rapidly and in spite of all other officials.

On his return from Korea he was made a judge. He was then put in



charge of the army of the metropolitanprovince, and with the

assistance of German officers he succeeded in drilling 12,500



troops after the European fashion.

It was about this time that the Emperor conceived the plan of



instituting and carrying out one of the most stupendousreforms

that has ever been undertaken in human government--that of



transforming four thousand years of conservatism of four hundred

millions of people in the short space of a few months.



Given: A people who cannot make a nail, to build a railroad.

Given: A people who dare not plow a deep furrow for fear of



disturbing the spirits of the place, to open gold, silver, iron

and coal mines.



Given: A people who in 4,000 years did not have the genius to

develop a decent high school, to open a university in the capital



of every province.

These are three of the score or more of equally difficult



problems that the Emperor undertook to solve in twice as many

days. In order to the solution of these problems there was



organized in Peking a Reform Party of hot-headed, radical young

scholars not one of whom has ever turned out to be a statesman.



They were brilliant young men, many of them, but they so lost

their heads in their enthusiasm for reform that they forgot that



their government was in the hands of the same old conservative

leaders under whom it had been for forty centuries.



They introduced into the palace as the private adviser of the

Emperor, Kang Yu-wei, as we have already shown, to whom was thus



offered one of the greatest opportunities that was ever given to

a human being--that of being the leader in this great reform. He



was hailed as a young Confucius, but his popularity was

short-lived, for he so lacked all statesmanship as to allow the



young Emperor to issue twenty-seven edicts, disposing of

twenty-seven difficult problems such as I have given above in



about twice that many days, and it is this hot-headed and

unstatesman-like young "Confucius" who now calls Yuan Shih-kai



an opportunist and a traitor because he did not enter into the

following plot.



After the Emperor had dismissed two conservative vice-presidents

of a Board, two governors of provinces, and a half dozen other



useless conservative leaders, they plotted to overthrow him by

appealing to the ambition of the Empress Dowager and induce her



to dethrone him and again assume the reins of government. They

argued that "he was her adopted son, it was she who had placed



him on the throne, and she was thereforeresponsible for his

mistakes." They complimented her on "the wisdom which she had



manifested, and the statesmanship she had exhibited" during the

thirty years and more of her regency. To all which she listened



with a greedy ear, but still she made no move.

During this time were the Emperor and his young "Confucius" idle?



By no means. They had hatched a counterplot, and had decided that

what they could not do by moral suasion and statesmanship they



would do by force, and so they sent an order to Yuan Shih-kai,

who as we have said had drilled and was in charge of 12,500 of



the best troops in the empire, urging him to "hasten to the

capital at once, place the Empress Dowager under guard in the



Summer Palace so that she may not be allowed to interfere in the

affairs of the government, and protect him in his reform






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