This is no place to enter into the controversial aspect of Yuan
Shih-kai's action in 1898 which has been hotly debated by partisans for
many years. For onlookers the verdict must always remain largely a
matter of opinion; certainly this is one of those matters which cannot
be passed upon by any one but a Chinese tribunal furnished with all the
evidence. Those days which witnessed the imprisonment of Kwanghsu were
great because they opened wide the portals of the Romance of History:
all who were in Peking can never forget the counter-stroke; the arrival
of the hordes composed of Tung Fu-hsiang's Mahommedan cavalry--men who
had ridden hard across a formidable piece of Asia at the behest of their
Empress and who entered the capital in great clouds of dust. It was in
that year of 1898 also that Legation Guards reappeared in Peking--a few
files for each Legation as in 1860--and it was then that clear-sighted
prophets saw the beginning of the end of the Manchu Dynasty.

Yuan Shih-kai's reward for his share in this counter-revolution was his
appointment to the governorship of Shantung province. He moved thither
with all his troops in December, 1899. Armed _cap-à-pie_ he was ready
for the next act--the Boxers, who burst on China in the Summer of 1900.
These men were already at work in Shantung villages with their
incantations and alleged witchcraft. There is evidence that their
propaganda had been going on for months, if not for years, before any
one had heard of it. Yuan Shih-kai had the priceless opportunity of
studying them at close range and soon made up his mind about certain
things. When the storm burst, pretending to see nothing but mad fanatics
in those who, realizing the plight of their country, had adopted the
war-cry "Blot out the Manchus and the foreigner," he struck at them
fiercely, driving the whole savage horde head-long into the metropolitan
province of Chihli. There, seduced by the Manchus, they suddenly changed