story belongs in another chapter, but we refer to it here
to show how the Empress Dowager played one official against another,
and one party against another, to prevent any such calamity or
surprise. It would have been impossible for Yuan Shih-kai to have taken
his troops to Peking for any purpose without first informing his
superior officer Jung Lu unless he put him to death, much less to have
gone on such a mission as that of imprisoning as important a personage
as the Empress Dowager, to whom they were both indebted for their
office.

Another instance of the way in which the Empress Dowager played one
party against another was the appointment of Prince Tuan as a member of
the Foreign Office. After his son had been selected as the
heir-apparent it seemed to the Empress Dowager that for his own
education and development he should be made to come in contact with the
foreigners. Most of the foreigners considered the appointment
objectionable on account of the "Prince's anti-foreign tendencies. But
to my mind," says Sir Robert Hart, "it was a good one; the Empress
Dowager had probably said to the Prince, 'You and your party pull one
way, Prince Ching and his another--what am I to do between you? You,
however, are the father of the future Emperor, and have your son's
interests to take care of; you are also head of the Boxers and chief of
the Peking Field Force, and ought therefore to know what can and what
cannot be done. I therefore appoint you to the yamen; do what you
consider most expedient, and take care that the throne of your
ancestors descends untarnished to your son, and their empire
undiminished! yours is the power,--yours the responsibility--and yours
the chief interests!' I can imagine the Empress Dowager taking this
line with the Prince, and, inasmuch as various ministers who had been
very anti-foreign before entering the yamen had turned round and
behaved very sensibly afterwards, I felt sure that responsibility and
actual personal dealings with foreigners would be a good experience and
a useful education for this Prince, and that he would eventually be one
of the sturdiest supporters of progress and good relations."

IV

The Empress Dowager--As a Reactionist

The most interesting personage in China during the past thirty years
has been and still is without doubt the lady whom we style the Empress
Dowager. The character of the Empress's rule can only be judged by what
it was during the regency, when