As soon as peace was concluded, the first care of Taou-Kwang was to
punish the champions who had clamoured for war, but proved cowards in
the fight. Some had already died of grief, some had committed suicide,
and others had fled. But those who remained within the monarch's
grasp, besides many civil and military officers who had been compelled
to surrender their cities, were treated with merciless severity.
Keshen's extreme sentence was reversed, and he was made pipe-bearer to
the emperor.

A new era had now commenced. It had been proved to a demonstration,
that the mandarins were common mortals, and that the great emperor did
not sway the whole world. Democratic assemblies rose in every part of
the land; the people must be consulted where their happiness was
concerned; the citizens and peasants turned politicians; and if in any
case remonstrance failed, they proceeded, _en masse_, to the
government offices, and carried by force what was denied to courtesy.
The emperor learning these movements, instantly took the popular side;
laid all the blame on the mandarins, and superseded those who had
given offence. The taxes which had been refused, he remitted as an act
of sovereign favour; and the laws were relaxed--often to the injury of
well-disposed citizens. The people were again and again termed the
dear children of the emperor, and every member of the cabinet found
his best interest in advocating popular measures.

The rest of Taou-Kwang's reign was spent chiefly in endeavours to
improve his naval and military forces, and in fruitless struggles to
replenish the exhausted treasury of the state. His own, meanwhile, was
full to overflowing, having received immense accessions from the
confiscated property of his unsuccessful generals and degraded