less than two million taels, which was no doubt spent in the
purchase of guns and ammunition and other preparations for war.
Yu Hsien, another equally conservative Manchu, she appointed
Governor of Shantung to succeed Li Ping-heng, and it is to him
the whole Boxer uprising is due. Moreover when he, at the
repeated requests of the foreigners, was removed from Shantung,
she received him in audience at Peking, conferred upon him
additional honours and appointed him Governor of the adjoining
province of Shansi, where, and under whose jurisdiction, almost
all the massacres were committed. Indeed Yu Hsien may be
considered the whole Boxer movement, for this seems to have been
his plan for getting rid of the foreigners.

But while thus allying herself with the conservatives, the
Empress Dowager did not cut herself off from the progressives. Li
Hung-chang was appointed Viceroy of Kuangtung, Yuan Shih-kai
Governor of Shantung and Tuan Fang of Shensi while Liu Kun-yi,
Chang Chih-tung, and Kuei Chun were kept at their posts, so that
she had all the greatest men of both parties once more in her
service. Then she began sending out edicts, retracting those
issued by Kuang Hsu, and what could be more considerate of the
feelings of the Emperor, or more diplomatic as a state paper than
the following, issued in the name of Kuang Hsu, September 26,
1898.

"Our real desire was to make away with superfluous posts for the
sake of economy: whereas, on the contrary, we find rumours flying
abroad that we intended to change wholesale the customs of the
empire, and, in consequence, innumerable impossible suggestions
of reform have been presented to us. If we allowed this to go on,