f 1900.
These men were already at work in Shantung villages with their
incantations and alleged witchcraft. There is evidence that their
propaganda had been going on for months, if not for years, before any
one had heard of it. Yuan Shih-kai had the priceless opportunity of
studying them at close range and soon made up his mind about certain
things. When the storm burst, pretending to see nothing but mad fanatics
in those who, realizing the plight of their country, had adopted the
war-cry "Blot out the Manchus and the foreigner," he struck at them
fiercely, driving the whole savage horde head-long into the metropolitan
province of Chihli. There, seduced by the Manchus, they suddenly changed
the inscription on their flags. Their sole enemy became the foreigner
and all his works, and forthwith they were officially protected. Far and
wide they killed every white face they could find. They tore up
railways, burnt churches and chapels and produced a general anarchy
which could only have one end--European intervention. The man, sitting
on the edge of Chinese history but not yet identifying himself with its
main currents because he was not strong enough for that had once again
not judged wrongly. With his Korean experience to assist him, he had
seen precisely what the end must inevitably be.

The crash in Peking, when the siege of the Legations had been raised by
an international army, found him alert and sympathetic--ready with
advice, ready to shoulder new responsibilities, ready to explain away
everything. The signature of the Peace Protocol of 1901 was signalized
by his obtaining the viceroyalty of Chihli, succeeding the great Li Hung
Chang himself, who had been reappointed to his old post, but had found
active duties too wearisome. This was a marvellous success for a man but
little over forty. And when the fugitive Court at length returned from
Hsianfu in 1902, honours were heaped upon him as a person particularly
worthy of honour because he had kept up appearances and maintained the
authority of the distressed Throne. As if in answer to this he flooded
the Court with memorials praying that in order to restore the power of
the Dynasty a complete army of modern troops be raised--as numerous as
possible but above all efficient.

His advice was listened to. From 1902 until 1907 as Minister of the Army
Reorganization Council--a special post he held simultaneously with that
of metropolitan Viceroy--Yuan Shih-kai's great effor