grounds, and the foot-soldiers to pick up any stray conspirators
that could be found. A strong detachment was stationed so as to
surround the Empress Dowager and the child whom she had selected
as a successor to her son, and when the morning sun rose bright
and clear over the Forbidden City the surprise of the
conspirators who had slept the night away was complete. Of the
disaffected that remained, some were put in prison and others
sent into perpetual exile to the Amoor beyond their native
borders, and when the Empress Dowager announced the death of her
son, she proclaimed the son of her sister, Kuang Hsu, as his
successor, with herself and the Empress as regents during his
minority. When everything was settled, Li folded his tent like
the Arab, and stole away as silently as he had come.

The wisdom and greatness of the Empress Dowager were thus
manifested in binding to the throne the greatest men not only in
the capital but in the provinces. Li Hung-chang had won his title
to greatness during the Tai-ping rebellion, for his part in the
final extinction of which he was ennobled as an Earl. From this
time onward she placed him in the highest positions of honour and
power within sufficient proximity to the capital to have his
services within easy reach. For twenty-four years he was kept as
viceroy of the metropolitan province of Chihli, with the largest
and best drilled army at his command that China had ever had, and
yet during all this time he realized that he was watched with the
eyes of an eagle lest he manifest any signs of rebellion, while
his nephew was kept in the capital as a hostage for his good
conduct. Once and again when he had reached the zenith of his
power, or had been feted by foreign potentates enough to turn the
head of a bronze Buddha, his yellow jacket and peacock feather