first, at the age of twenty-six, as
a member of the commission that tried the minister who failed to make
good his promise to induce Lord Elgin and his men-of-war to withdraw
from Tientsin in 1858. The following year he was made a member of the
Colonial Board that controlled the affairs of the "outer Barbarians,"
and a year later was left in Peking, when the court fled, to arrange a
treaty of peace with the victorious British and French after they had
taken the capital. "In these trying circumstances," says Professor
Giles, "the tact and resource of Prince Kung won the admiration of his
opponents," and when the Foreign Office was formed in 1861, it began
with the Prince as its first president, a position which he continued
to hold for many years.

It was he, as we have seen, who succeeded in outwitting and
overthrowing the self-constituted regency on the death of his brother
Hsien Feng, and, with the Empress Dowager, seated her infant son upon
the throne, with the two Empresses and himself as joint regents. This
condition continued for some years, with the senior Empress exercising
no authority, and Prince Kung continually growing in power. The
arrangement seemed satisfactory to all but one--the Empress-mother. To
her it appeared as though he were fast becoming the government, and she
and the Empress were as rapidly receding into the background, while in
reality the design had been to make him "joint regent" with them. In
all the receptions of the officials by the court, Prince Kung alone
could see them face to face, while the ladies were compelled to remain
behind a screen, listening to the deliberations but without taking any
part therein, other than by such suggestions as they might make.

Being the visible head of the government, and the only avenue to
positions of preferment, he would naturally be flattered by the Chinese
officials. This led him to assume an air of importance which
consciously or unconsciously he carried into the presence of their
Majesties, and one morning he awoke to find himself stripped of all his
rank and power, and confined and guarded a prisoner in his palace, by a
joint decree from the two Empresses accusing him of "lack of respect
for their Majesties." The deposed Prince at once begged their
forgiveness, whereupon all his honours were restored with their
accompanying dignities, but none of his former power as joint regent,
and thus the first obstacle to her reestablishment of the dynasty