years minister to China, "that the Empress Dowager has been the
first of her race to apprehend the problem of the relation of
China to the outer world, and to make use of this relation to
strengthen her dynasty and to promote material progress." She was
fortunate in having Prince Kung associated with her in the
regency, a man tall, handsome and dignified, and the greatest
statesman that has come from the royal house since the time of
Chien Lung.

Here appears one of the chief characteristics of the Empress
Dowager as a ruler--her ability to choose the greatest statesmen,
the wisest advisers, the safest leaders, and the best guides,
from the great mass of Chinese officials, whether progressive or
conservative. Prince Kung was for forty years the leading figure
of the Chinese capital outside of the Forbidden City. He appeared
first, at the age of twenty-six, as a member of the commission
that tried the minister who failed to make good his promise to
induce Lord Elgin and his men-of-war to withdraw from Tientsin in
1858. The following year he was made a member of the Colonial
Board that controlled the affairs of the "outer Barbarians," and
a year later was left in Peking, when the court fled, to arrange
a treaty of peace with the victorious British and French after
they had taken the capital. "In these trying circumstances," says
Professor Giles, "the tact and resource of Prince Kung won the
admiration of his opponents," and when the Foreign Office was
formed in 1861, it began with the Prince as its first president,
a position which he continued to hold for many years.

It was he, as we have seen, who succeeded in outwitting and
overthrowing the self-constituted regency on the death of his