ould at
least produce political disturbances by which they might profit, once
the old emperor was back in Peking. And this did soon happen. At first
the ransomed emperor was pushed out of sight into a palace, and Ching
Tsung continued to reign. But in 1456 Ching Tsung fell ill, and a
successor to him had to be chosen. The Yue clique wanted to have the son
of Ching Tsung; the Yang clique wanted the son of the deposed emperor
Ying Tsung. No agreement was reached, so that in the end a third clique,
led by the soldier Shih Heng, who had helped to defend Peking against
the Mongols, found its opportunity, and by a _coup d' etat_ reinstated
the deposed emperor Ying Tsung.

This was not done out of love for the emperor, but because Shih Heng
hoped that under the rule of the completely incompetent Ying Tsung he
could best carry out a plan of his own, to set up his own dynasty. It is
not so easy, however, to carry a conspiracy to success when there are
several rival parties, each of which is ready to betray any of the
others. Shih Heng's plan became known before long, and he himself was
beheaded (1460).

The next forty years were filled with struggles between cliques, which
steadily grew in ferocity, particularly since a special office, a sort
of secret police headquarters, was set up in the palace, with functions
which it extended beyond the palace, with the result that many people
were arrested and disappeared. This office was set up by the eunuchs and
the clique at their back, and was the first dictatorial organ created in
the course of a development towards despotism that made steady progress
in these years.

In 1505 Wu Tsung came to the throne, an inexperienced youth of fifteen
who was entirely controlled by the eunuchs who had brought him up. The
leader of the eunuchs was Liu Chin, who had the support of a group of
people of the gentry and the middle class. Liu Chin succeeded within a
year in getting rid of the eunuchs at court who belonged to other
cliques and were working against him. After that he proceeded to
establish his power. He secured in entirely official form the emperor's
permission for him to issue all commands himself; the emperor devoted
himself only to his pleasures, and care was taken that they should keep
him sufficiently occupied to have no chance to notice what was going on
in the country. The first important decree issued by Liu Chin resulted
in the removal from office or the punishment or murder of