e fifteenth son of K'ien-lung; Tao-Kwang
(1821-1850) was the second son of Kia-k'ing; Hien-feng (1851-1861) was
the fourth of the nine sons who were born to the emperor Tao-kwang;
and T'ung-chi (1862-1875) was the only son of Hien-feng. The choice
now fell upon Tsai-t'ien (as he was called at birth), the infant son
(born August 2, 1872) of Yi-huan, Prince Chun, the seventh son of the
emperor Tao-kwang and brother of the emperor Hien-feng; his mother was
a sister of the empress Tsz'e Hsi, who, with the aid of Li Hung-chang,
obtained his adoption and proclamation as emperor, under the title of
Kwang-su, "Succession of Glory."

Imperial family nomenclature and rank.

In order to prevent the confusion which would arise among the princes
of the imperial house were they each to adopt an arbitrary name, the
emperor K'ang-hi decreed that each of his twenty-four sons should have
a _personal_ name consisting of two characters, the first of which
should be _Yung_, and the second should be compounded with the
determinative _shih_, "to manifest," an arrangement which would, as
has been remarked, find an exact parallel in a system by which the
sons in an English family might be called Louis _Edward_, Louis
_Edwin_, Louis _Edwy_, Louis _Edgar_ and so on. This device obtained
also in the next generation, all the princes of which had _Hung_ for
their first name, and the emperor K'ien-lung (1736-1795) extended it
into a system, and directed that the succeeding generations should
take the four characters _Yung_, _Mien_, _Yih_ and _Tsai_
respectively, as the first part of their names. Eight other
characters, namely, _P'u_, _Yu_, _Heng_, _K'i_, _Tao_, _K'ai_,
_Tseng_, _Ki_, were subsequently added, thus providing generic names
for twelve generations. With the generation represented by Kwang-su
the first four characters were exhausted, and any sons of the emperor
Kwang-su would therefore have been called _P'u_. By the ceremonial law
of the "Great Pure" dynasty, twelve degrees of rank are distributed
among the princes of the imperial house, and are as follows: (1)
Ho-shih Tsin Wang, prince of the first order; (2) To-lo Keun Wang,
prince of the second order; (3) To-lo Beileh, prince of the third
order; (4) Ku-shan Beitsze, prince of the fourth order; 5 to 8, Kung,
or duke (with distinctive designations); 9 to 12, Tsiang-keun, general
(with distinctive designations). T