the exhibition that has been made since the young Emperor assumed full power, it must be admitted that the empire was not ill-governed under the regency. Absolutely without experience when she took the reins, the Empress-regent was loyally supported by Prince Kung and the wise statesmen already mentioned. Under their moderating counsels the empire was safely conducted through the Taeping rebellion, as well as a series of other insurrectionary crises which included the Mohammedan rebellion in Yunnan, that of Yakub Beg in Kashgar, all of them real dangers to the empire. The quarrel with Japan in 1874 was also adroitly smoothed over without a rupture of relations. And if the like success did not attend the issue of the dispute with France ten years later, it may be well to remember that the wise counsellors were gone, leaving only Prince Kung, between whom and the Regent there had grown up a bitter feud, and he was dismissed from office in the middle of the crisis in 1884.

While the Regent was learning the science of governing, which she did with avidity, during the first minority her legal status as mother of the sovereign was unassailable. Through that alone was she able to hold her ground with the Eastern Empress, the politic Kung contriving all the while to play off the one Regent against the other, so keeping his balance and maintaining his grip of power. This was gall and wormwood to the Western Empress, who soon became as impatient to get rid of Prince Kung as she had been of the Council of Regency. Prudence, however, restrained her from any overt attack on him, because her public authority would come to an end on her son's reaching his majority, though, so long as he lived, nothing could divest her of her maternal prerogatives. What Prince Kung left unfilled of her cup of bitterness was supplied by the pious Eastern Empress, whose thoughts were more congenial to the atmosphere of heaven than to the cruel world which her "Western" colleague was bustling in. A stab from such an unsuspected quarter was sharp indeed, but it fell out

in a perfectly natural though highly dramatic way.

After the assumption of power by the Emperor Tung-chih in 1873, a meeting took place between the Regents, his guardians. The senior Empress sent a message to her imperial sister proposing an official meeting in a certain pavilion in the Palace. After the ceremonial courtesies, the Eastern Empress said she had sought the interview because their common task had now been fulfilled, and it was fitting that they should lay down their office and take formal leave of each other. For her part, she added, she was well pleased to be relieved of the responsibility. She was also gratified that they two had been able to work so long in harmony for the welfare of the young Emperor and of the State. So far well, but the lady had a postscript to add, in the manner which is a stock device in plays and novels. She produced the private will of their late husband, and disclosed for the first time to her sister the powers which she had kept dormant these dozen years. "Now," she said, "there is no further use for such a document," whereupon she burned it before the eyes of the Western Empress. This dramatic scene made a terrible impression on the Empress-mother. She was not converted by it, but changed, giving way to sudden hatred of the deceased Emperor who mistrusted her, and to the woman who had been made the confidante of that distrust. How her relations to her ex-colleague in the regency, and even to her own son, were affected by this humiliating discovery can only be conjectured. What is known is that neither of them long survived the incident, and much speculation has been built on the sequence of events.

The life and death of the young Emperor Tung-chih, the son of Hsienfeng and the present Empress-regnante, seems little more than an episode in the career of his imperial-and imperious-mother. He died within two years of his full accession, removed by his own mother, as some would have us believe, but by quite other agencies, as others no less boldly affirm. Ama

teur coroners without evidence may well overreach the measured steps of the authentic chronicler. That the Empress was capable of doing away with her son, or a dozen of them if they stood in her way, may be conceded. -but not without a motive. And the motive for filiocide in this case has hardly been made clear enough to carry a verdict of wilful murder. In his brief career the young Emperor was the subject of much tea-house gossip in Peking. He was an original, and the son of his mother in more ways than one. He delighted in breaking bounds incognito, and in a species of revelry not conducive to good health. The common talk was that he died of one disease while being treated for another, the Court physicians not daring to give a true diagnosis. But any ChiBut any Chinese sick-room, more particularly a high and mighty one, is a dark corner where things are seldom what they

seem.

With the disappearance of her son, the last plank in the legal platform of the Empress-mother disappeared. But But her appetite had grown by what it fed upon. She had now had fourteen years' schooling in statecraft, and she resolved. that, per fas et nefas, reign who might, she would govern. It is not necessary to credit her with very lofty patriotic sentiments, though the friends of China were satisfied throughout her reign that the Empress was "the right man in the right place," there being, in fact, no other competent ruler, either within the imperial circle or outside of it, so far as was then known or has as yet appeared. Of this no better proof could be adduced than the mere fact that this audacious woman, with no locus standi, should have planned and executed the coup d'état whereby the natural heir was passed over, and she was permitted to exercise the last prerogative of an emperor in nominating his successor nay, more, of achieving the seeming impossibility of the posthumous adoption of a second son by the Emperor Hsien-fêng, who had been dead fourteen years. She stood on no ceremony, and waited neither for precedents nor soothsayers.

The story of her second coup d'état of January, 1875, has been often related-how the Empress so-called caused her own sister's child to be snatched out of its warm bed on a bitter night and conveyed into the Palace, whence he was proclaimed Emperor at daybreak. By this stroke the Regent at once aggrandized her own family, made a friend of a younger brother-inlaw, the father of the child, to replace the elder, who had become an enemy, and, to sum up all, secured for herself a new lease of power. For she who could thus make an emperor could also make a regent. The infant who had greatness in this way thrust upon him is the Emperor who has reigned twenty-three years under the style of Kwang Su-for it is well to remember that these terms are not proper names -and many a time, no doubt, has that soft young man lamented the fate that dragged him from his peaceful cot to a bed that has decidedly not been for him one of roses.

The new succession necessitated a rearrangement of family influence, for many changes had taken place. In the early portion of her legitimate rule, as we have seen, the Regent leaned upon Prince Kung, the Grand Secretary Wên-si'ang, and others, while the Eastern Empress was a strong moral support to her. The last-named statesman died in 1875, as did also the Eastern Empress. It is easy, of course, to suggest foul play in her case also; but men have died, and women, too, from time to time, and not by poison. The more charitable theory among the Chinese admirers of the deceased lady was that she had made a virtuous suicide as a protest against the scandals of the Palace, which she could neither control nor endure. Which also may be an amiable fiction.

But it was the relations between Prince Kung and the perpetual Regent that now became the most interesting feature. Their intercourse had been strained from the outset. Their alliance was not a holy one, and there is no more treacherous bond of union than participation in a common crime. As in the case of more commonplace con

spirators, they quarrelled over the spoil, each tried to overreach the other and to grasp the whole power, for power means patronage, and in China patronage means great worldly prosperity to the patron. We hear from time to time of the vast wealth of the Li family -absurdly exaggerated-but few speak of the wealth of the Peking magnates, who could weigh out gold against silver with most of the provincials. His struggle for the mastery with his sister-in-law was the real business of Kung's life, his perfunctory attendances at the Tsungli-yamên and occasional interviews with foreign Ministers only rather wearisome by-play. The two antagonists were like wrestlers watching intently for the grip. They were well matched, and the struggle was prolonged for twenty years before one got a decided advantage over the other. The Prince thought he saw his chance already in the early sixties. Scandal was rife, and he thought he could fish something for himself out of the dirty pool. The chief eunuch was his bête noire, because he was the Empress's right hand. Rumor even

credited them with relations not altogether consistent with the man's status. Prince Kung intrigued very cleverly to get him sent on a mission to the provinces; it was to buy porcelain for the Empress. His plot was to get rid of the eunuch and justify the public suspicions at one stroke. So he engaged the Governor of Shantung, Tingpao-ching, to arrest the eunuch as he passed through his province, on a charge of treason, execute him on the spot, and expose his body coram populo, which was done. Prince Kung scored on his first point, for the eunuch was dead, but failed in the second. Imagine the fury of the Regent at this treachery and indignity to herself, the more terrible that she dared not betray her feelings, but could only watch for occasions to deal underhand blows at her rival. Once she ventured on an open attack, and degraded the Prince by edict, reinstating him next day, merely to show her power and her feeling.

Such being the normal relations be

tween the two leading personages in China, it is not difficult to comprehend the animus of the Regent in supplanting the son of Prince Kung, who was the legal heir to the throne, nor the mortification of the Prince on seeing the Empress's eunuch so handsomely avenged. It was his turn to grin and bear it, as it had been the Empress's before; but sombre acquiescence in the accomplished fact did not prevent the two mortal enemies from worrying each other for another nine years, until a pretext was found in 1884 for degrading and dismissing the Prince from his offices.

The accession of his son, of course, raised the Seventh Prince, younger brother of Kung, who was the sixth son of Tao-kwang, to a position of the first importance; though nine years elapsed before he accepted public responsibility. On his authority as parent the Regent leaned to maintain herself; and she had consequently to buy him at any price. But he was a weak man, and with Kung in possession of the offices, Prince Ch'un was an inadequate factotum. Her Majesty required a second string to her bow, and finding nothing to suit her purpose in the capital, she set her affections on a provincial statesman who was abler than Kung, and more versed in foreign affairs, which were the plague of the Peking Government. For prestige and legality she had the Emperor's father; for executive action, Li Hung-chang, who became the confidant of both. So the Empress-regent's position was assured during the minority of Kwang

su.

The crisis in her fate, as was anticipated, arrived on the present Emperor's coming of age, marriage, and assumption of the Government. Would the Regent frankly resign or still cling to power? and if so, by what means and under what pretext? The Emperor attained his majority in a rather novel manner. It was not a sudden phenomenon, but a gradual process, resembling the dawn of a summer day in high latitudes rather than the abrupt rising of the equatorial sun. Clearly the Regent was extremely reluctant to lay

down the sceptre, and when it was impossible further to retard the unwelcome ceremony, her devices to retain the reality, even when obliged to part with the form of power, were deep and tortuous. It would be impossible, and also unprofitable, to trace these; but the most remarkable of them all deserves particular notice, because of the light it throws on the recent intrigues in Peking, and on the contentions of the last ten years.

The Regent entered into a private treaty with the Emperor whereby, in making over to him full powers, she specifically reserved to herself certain articles, twenty-five in number; and she retained in her possession a most important seal, without which the Emperor's authority could never be complete. It is this convention, signed, sealed, and delivered, between Emperor and Regent that is at the bottom of the struggle and the defeat of the weaker party, which has been announced within the last month. Let us trace shortly the progress of the strife, that we may the better appreciate the outcome. Notwithstanding this unique convention, the Emperor continued more Sinico under the influence of his tutor, Wên-tung-ho, who made it his business to fill the pupil's mind with abhorrence of the illegal compact to which he had nade himself a party, and of the illegality of the Empress's whole position. His Majesty imbibed the inspiration, and lent himself to measures which he did not himself understand, calculated to release him, one by one, from the capitulations. His ceremonial visits and obeisances to his adoptive mother were punctually performed, and there were frequent notices in the Peking Gazette and other Chinese papers, dwelling with suspicious iteration on the model filial conduct of the Emperor. But while observing the utmost punctilio in his intercourse, the Emperor, as prompted by his advisers, confined himself strictly to what etiquette demanded neither consulting the late Regent nor discussing any public matters with her. An Emperor's party was formed to counteract the ex-Regent, and they scored many successes, some

of which emerged clearly into the light of day. Encouraged by these successes, the Emperor's advisers, soon after his full accession, sought and found an occasion for an open attack on the Dowager's party; and, in view of recent occurrences, it is interesting to remember that the casus belli in 1889 was then, as now, reform. The only difference is, the parties have changed places. Then it was railway extension -proposed by Li Hung-chang, approved by the Empress-dowager, and nominally sanctioned by the Emperor himself-that was selected by the Emperor's party as the battle-ground. The reactionaries triumphed, and the railway between Tientsin and Peking had to be for the time abandoned. A local critic commented on the incident in the following terms:

"It would be premature to conclude from the struggle over the railway extension that the new Emperor will be wholly given over to a blind and bigoted conservatism. When the new combinations are once settled in their places, and the party which is to rule in the State has made good its position, the immediate cause of hostility to the Tungchow Railway may cease to operate, and the question which is now debated at fever-heat democratic countries on the eve of elections, may, like those questions which agitate fall into wholesome neglect, under cover of which the real statesmen may resume their beneficent projects without the fear of provoking deadly opposition."

And this very railway is now in full running trim, having been opened to traffic this year.

We have written so far to little purpose if any reader believes that it is questions of reform or any other question but the old one of "ins" and "outs" that divide the Chinese imperial family. Things are not what they seem, and any stone is good enough to throw at an enemy.

Their success in blocking the railway scheme encouraged the Emperor's party to persevere with their plan for extricating his Majesty from the twenty-five reservations, while the ex-Regent had the misery to see her influence melting away while she was powerless to arrest the process, or to do more than set spies on the proceedings of the plotters-and wait.

The Japanese war widened the rift in the lute. The Empress-dowager was for peace at any price, as she always has been, while the Emperor's advisers, probably out of simple opposition, demanded war to the knife and got it. Li Hung-chang was loyal to his Mistress, and, both from policy and conviction, did what in him lay to evade the war. He was superseded in his territorial and administrative functions, though, with that fatuity which we find it so difficult to understand, he was, nevertheless, left to carry on the war! During this time the Emperor's tutor, Wên-tung-ho, went secretly to Tientsin to spy upon and confer with Li Hungchang on the situation, which he either failed to understand, or wilfully perverted the truth in the report which he submitted. The issue of the war, of course, stultified the Emperor's party, whose energies were then concentrated on the search for a scapegoat. Not a difficult task in itself, this was rendered easier by the secret communications which Li's subordinate, the famous Shêng, carried on with his enemies.

Passing over for want of space the peace mission to Japan,* the Palace feud came to a head on the return of the envoy with the treaty of Shimonoseki. This was a most critical juncture. Every preparation was made in Peking to impeach Li Hung-chang and have him executed. A cordon of 25,000 men was supposed to have been placed round the city, into which Li entered virtually a prisoner. The Emperor received him badly-made him come forward, on his knees, that his Majesty might put his finger on the alleged bullet-wound on Li's face, as intimating disbelief of the fact. A memorial to the throne, setting forth his crimes and misdemeanors and praying for his execution, was signed by the members of the Inner Council, and implicitly accepted by the Emperor without reference to the Empress-dowager, and in direct violation of the twenty-five reservations. The lictors were told off, and the place and time

* Described in "Maga," September, 1895: "The Japanese Imbroglio."

of execution fixed. One thing only was wanting, the assent of Prince Kung. The Prince, who had been summoned out of his retirement by the Empressdowager before Li Hung-chang was sent to Japan-a bitter pill for her Majesty-opposed the attempt on Li. He knew well it was not Li, but the Empress-dowager herself, who was aimed at in this violent action. So, while the other members of the Council proposed to have Li executed first, and report to the Emperor after, Kung's protest saved him.

While these things were going on, the Empress-dowager remained quiescent. Whether she was secretly, through her spies, informed of all that was passing or not, she had no official knowledge of it, and no ostensible ground of action. Possibly she saw no chance of saving Li, and would only have consummated her own defeat by an attempt to save him. But she took courage when the independent action of Prince Kung was reported to her, and at once resumed an active interest in the intrigues. First, she made strenuous efforts to get Kung (on some ceremonial visit to her) to say who they were who were alienating the Emperor's mind from her, his mother and protectrice. But the Prince was silent. Next, on the first occasion when the Emperor was in her presence, making filial obeisance, she suddenly demanded who had advised him in these evil courses. His Majesty trembled, giving some opening for her suspicions and for further questions. Putting him completely in the wrong as unfilial, she advanced from cne point to another until she had put all the conspirators in a fright, and driven them—especially Wen-tung-ho-to seek each a scapegoat for himself.

Thus by sheer energy she gathered up the threads one by one, regained her position gradually, and took back the powers of which she had been deprived by the machinations of the Emperor's advisers.

How the Empress used her victory would bear telling; but let it suffice to say that by a course of truculent procedure she so cowed, not only the Em