The kindness of the Empress is as boundless as the sea.
Her person too is holy, she is like a deity.
With boldness, from seclusion, she ascends the Dragon Throne,
And saves her suffering country from a fate we dare not own.

--"Yuan Fan," Translated by I. T. C.



II

THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--HER YEARS OF TRAINING

The year our little Miss Chao entered the palace was a memorable
one in the history of China. The Tai-ping rebellion, which had
begun in the south some three years earlier (1850), had
established its capital at Nanking, on the Yangtse River, and had
sent its "long-haired" rebels north on an expedition of conquest,
the ultimate aim of which was Peking. By the end of the year 1853
they had arrived within one hundred miles of the capital,
conquering everything before them, and leaving devastation and
destruction in their wake.

Their success had been extraordinary. Starting in the southwest
with an army of ten thousand men they had eighty thousand when
they arrived before the walls of Nanking. They were an
undisciplined horde, without commissariat, without drilled
military leaders, but with such reckless daring and bravery that
the imperial troops were paralyzed with fear and never dared to
meet them in the open field. Thousands of common thieves and