tial chair,
and General Hsu (commonly known as little Hsu, in distinction from old
Hsu, the president) was the energetic manager of the Mongolian
adventure which, by a happy coincidence, required a bank, land
development companies and railway schemes, as well as an army. About
this military centre as a nucleus gathered the vultures who fed on the
carrion. This flock took the name of the Anfu Club. It did not control
the entire cabinet, but to it belonged the Minister of Justice, who
manipulated the police and the courts, persecuted the students,
suppressed liberal journals and imprisoned inconvenient critics. And
the Club owned the ministers of finance and communications, the two
cabinet places that dispense revenues, give out jobs and make loans.
It also regulated the distribution of intelligence by mail and
telegraph. The reign of corruption and despotic inefficiency, tempered
only by the student revolt, set in. In two years the Anfu Club got
away with two hundred millions of public funds directly, to say
nothing of what was wasted by incompetency and upon the army. The
Allies had set out to get China into the war. They succeeded in
getting Japan into control of Peking and getting China, politically
speaking, into a seemingly hopeless state of corruption and confusion.

The militaristic or Pei-Yang party was, however, divided into two
factions, each called after a province. The Anwhei party gathered
about little Hsu and was almost identical with the Anfus. The Chili
faction had been obliged, so far as Peking was concerned, to content
itself with such leavings as the Anfu Club tossed to it. Apparently it
was hopelessly weaker than its rival, although Tuan, who was
personally honest and above financial scandal, was supported by both
factions and was the head of both. About three months ago there were a
few signs that, while the Anfu Club had been entrenching itself in
Peking, the rival faction had been quietly establishing itself in the
provinces. A league of Eight Tuchuns (military governors of the
provinces) came to the assistance of the president against some
unusually strong pressure from the Anfu Club. In spite of the fact
that the military governor of the three Manchurian provinces, Chang
Tso Lin, popularly known as the Emperor of Manchuria, lined up with
this league, practically nobody expected anything except some
manoeuvering to get a larger share of the spoils.

But late in June the president invited Chang T