twenty-seven
decrees that this young Chinese statesman made this observation. If his
most intimate advisers had had the perspicuity to have foreseen the
final outcome of such precipitance might they not have advised the
Emperor to have proceeded more deliberately? When one remembers how
China had been worsted by Japan, how all her prestige was swept away,
how, from having been the parent of the Oriental family of nations, a
desirable friend or a dangerous enemy, she was stripped of all her
glory, and left a helpless giant with neither strength nor power, one
can easily understand the eagerness of this boy of twenty-seven to
restore her to the pedestal from which she had been ruthlessly torn.

Another reason for his haste may be found in the seizure of his
territory by the European powers. A few months before he began his
reforms two German priests were murdered by an irresponsible mob in the
province of Shantung. With this as an excuse Germany landed a battalion
of marines at Kiaochou, a port of that province, which she took with
fifty miles of the surrounding territory. As though this were not
enough, she demanded the right to build all the railroads and open all
the mines in the entire province, and compelled the Chinese to pay an
indemnity to the families of the murdered priests and rebuild the
church and houses the mob had destroyed. China appealed to Russia who
had promised to protect her against all invaders. Instead of coming to
her aid, however, Russia demanded a similar cession of Port Arthur,
Talienwan and the surrounding territory which she had refused to allow
Japan to retain two years before. Not to be outdone by the others,
France demanded and received a similar strip of territory at
Kuang-chou-wan; and England found that Wei-hai-wei would be
indispensable as a kennel from which she could guard the Russian bear
on the opposite shore, but why she should have found it necessary also
to demand from China four hundred miles of land and water around
Hongkong was no doubt difficult for Kuang Hsu to understand.

When the Empress Dowager turned over the reins of government to her
nephew she did it very much as a father would place the reins in the
hands of a child whom he was teaching to drive an important vehicle on
a dangerous road--she sat behind him still holding the reins. Among the
things reserved were that he should kotow to her once every five days
whether she were in Peking or at the Summer Place, and sh