-date and conversant with modern
theories of government.

These reports had at the time greatly concerned Yuan Shih-kai who heard
it stated by all who knew him that the Yunnan leader was a genius in his
own way. In conformity with his policy of bringing to Peking all who
might challenge his authority, he had induced General Tsao-ao, since the
latter had played no part in the rebellion of 1913, to lay down his
office of Yunnan Governor-General and join him in the capital at the
beginning of 1914--another high provincial appointment being held out to
him as a bait.

Once in Peking, however, General Tsao-ao had been merely placed in
charge of an office concerned with the reorganization of the land-tax,
nominally a very important piece of work long advocated by foreign
critics. But as there were no funds available, and as the purpose was
plainly merely to keep him under observation, he fretted at the
restraint, and became engaged in secret political correspondence with
men who had been exiled abroad. As he was soon an open suspect, in order
to avoid arrest he had taken the bold step at the very inception of the
monarchy movement of heading the list of Generals in residence in Peking
who petitioned the Senate to institute a Monarchy, this act securing him
against summary treatment. But owing to his secret connection with the
scholar Liang Chi-chao, who had thrown up his post of Minister of
Justice and left the capital in order to oppose the new movement, he was
watched more and more carefully--his death being even hinted at.

He was clever enough to meet this ugly development with a masterly
piece of trickery conceived in the Eastern vein. One day a carefully
arranged dispute took place between him and his wife, and the police
were angrily called in to see that his family and all their belongings
were taken away to Tientsin as he refused any longer to share the same
roof with them. Being now alone in the capital, he apparently abandoned
himself to a life of shameless debauch, going nightly to the haunts of
pleasure and becoming a notorious figure in the great district in the
Outer City of Peking which is filled with adventure and adventuresses
and which is the locality from which Haroun al-Raschid obtained through
the medium of Arab travellers his great story of "Aladdin and the
Wonderful Lamp." When governmental suspicions were thoroughly lulled, he
arranged with a singing-girl to let him out by the backdoor of her house