en articles accompanying the Ultimatum of the
Japanese Government with the hope that thereby all the outstanding
questions are settled, so that the cordial relationship between the
two countries may be further consolidated. The Japanese Minister is
hereby requested to appoint a day to call at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to make the literary improvement of the text and sign the
Agreement as soon as possible.

Thus ended one of the most extraordinary diplomatic negotiations ever
undertaken in Peking.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Refers to preaching Buddhism.

[14] The reader will observe, that the expression "Hanyehping
enterprises" is compounded by linking together characters denoting the
triple industry.

[15] Six articles found in Japan's Revised Demands are omitted here as
they had already been initialled by the Chinese Foreign Minister and the
Japanese Minister.

CHAPTER VII

THE ORIGIN OF THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS

The key to this remarkable business was supplied by a cover sent
anonymously to the writer during the course of these negotiations with
no indication as to its origin. The documents which this envelope
contained are so interesting that they merit attention at the hands of
all students of history, explaining as they do the psychology of the
Demands as well as throwing much light on the manner in which the
world-war has been viewed in Japan.

The first document is purely introductory, but is none the less
interesting. It is a fragment, or rather a _precis_ of the momentous
conversation which took place between Yuan Shih-kai and the Japanese
Minister when the latter personally served the Demands on the Chief
Executive and took the opportunity to use language unprecedented even in
the diplomatic history of Peking.

The _precis_ begins in a curious way. After saying that "the Japanese
Minister tried to influence President Yuan Shih-kai with the following
words," several long lines of asterisks suggest that after reflection
the unknown chronicler had decided, for political reasons of the highest
importance, to allow others to guess how the "conversation" opened. From
the context it seems absolutely clear that the excised words have to
deal with the possibility of the re-establishment of the Empire in
China--a very important conclusion in view of what followed later in the
year. Indeed there is no reason to doubt that the Japanese Envoy
actually told Yuan Shih-kai that as he w