orm caused changes to be made, six boards charged with the
conduct of public affairs. They were: (1) _Li Pu_, the Board of Civil
Appointments, controlling all appointments in the civil service from
the rank of district magistrate upwards. (2) _Hu Pu_, the Board of
Revenue, dealing with all revenues which reached the central
government. (3) _Li Pu_, the Board of Ceremonies. (4) _Ping Pu_, the
Board of War. It controlled the provincial forces. The Manchu forces
were an independent organization attached to the palace. (5) _Hsing
Pu_, the Board of Punishments. It dealt with the criminal law only,
especially the punishment of officials guilty of malpractices. (6)
_Kung Pu_, the Board of Works. Its work was limited to the control of
the construction and repair of official residences.

As rearranged and enlarged there are now the following boards, given
in order of precedence:--

1. _Wai-wu Pu_.--This was established in 1901 in succession to the
_Tsung-li Yamen_,[33] which was created in 1861 after the
Anglo-Chinese War in 1860 as a board for foreign affairs. Previous to
that war, which established the right of foreign powers to have their
representatives in Peking, all business with Western nations was
transacted by provincial authorities, chiefly the viceroy at Canton.
The only department at Peking which dealt specially with foreign
affairs was the _Li Fan Yuen_, or board of control for the
dependencies, which regulated the affairs of Mongolia, Tibet and the
tributary states generally. With the advent of formally accredited
ambassadors from the European powers something more than this was
required, and a special board was appointed to discuss all questions
with the foreign envoys. The number was originally four, with Prince
Kung, a brother of the emperor Hien Feng, at their head. It was
subsequently raised to ten, another prince of the blood, Prince Ching,
becoming president. The members were spoken of collectively as the
prince and ministers. For a long time the board had no real power, and
was looked on rather as a buffer between the foreign envoys and the
real government. The importance of foreign affairs, however,
especially since the Japanese War, identified the _Yamen_ more with
the grand council, several of the most prominent men being members of
both. At the same time that the _Tsung-li Yamen_ was created, two
important offices were established