dictator of China was then only twenty-five years old.

His very first contact with practical politics gave him a peculiar
manner of viewing political problems. The arrival of Chinese
troops in Seoul marked the beginning of that acute rivalry with
Japan which finally culminated in the short and disastrous war of
1894-95. China, in order to preserve her influence in Korea
against the growing influence of Japan, intrigued night and day in
the Seoul Palaces, allying herself with the Conservative Court
party which was led by the notorious Korean Queen who was
afterwards assassinated. The Chinese agents aided and abetted the
reactionary group, constantly inciting them to attack the Japanese
and drive them out of the country.

Continual outrages were the consequence. The Japanese legation was
attacked and destroyed by the Korean mob not once but on several
occasions during a decade which furnishes one of the most amazing
chapters in the history of Asia. Yuan Shih-kai, being then merely
a junior general officer under the orders of the Chinese Imperial
Resident, is of no particular importance; but it is significant of
the man that he should suddenly come well under the limelight on
the first possible occasion. On 6th December, 1884, leading 2,000
Chinese troops, and acting in concert with 3,000 Korean soldiers,
he attacked the Tong Kwan Palace in which the Japanese Minister
and his staff, protected by two companies of Japanese infantry,
had taken refuge owing to the threatening state of affairs in the
capital. Apparently there was no particular plan--it was the
action of a mob of soldiery tumbling into a political brawl and
assisted by their officers for reasons which appear to-day
nonsensical. The sequel was, however, extraordinary. The Japanese