e gift of
special treatment. How absurd to again place the Tsing house on the
top of a high wall so that it may fall once more and disappear for
ever.

Chi-jui, after his dismissal, resolved not to participate in
political affairs, but as he has had a share, however insignificant,
in the formation of the Chinese Republic, and having served the
Republic for so long he cannot bear to see its destruction without
stretching out a helping hand. Further, he has been a recipient of
favours from the defunct dynasty, and he cannot bear to watch
unmoved, the sight of the Ching House being made the channel of
brigandage with suicidal results. Wherever duty calls, Chi-jui will
go in spite of the danger of death. You, gentlemen, are the pillars
of the Republic of China and therefore have your own duties to
perform. In face of this extraordinary crisis, our indignation must
be one. For the interest of the country we should abide by our oath
of unstinted loyalty; and for the sake of the Tsing House let us
show our sympathy by sane and wise deeds. I feel sure you will put
forth every ounce of your energy and combine your efforts to combat
the great disaster. Though I am a feeble old soldier, I will follow
you on the back of my steed.

(Sgd) TUAN CHI-JUI.

Following the publication of this manifesto a general movement of troops
began. On the 5th July the important Peking-Tientsin railway was
reported interrupted forty miles from the capital--at Langfang which is
the station where Admiral Seymour's relief expedition in 1900 was nearly
surrounded and exterminated. Chang Hsun, made desperate by the swift
answer to his coup, had moved out of Peking in force stiffening his own
troops with numbers of Manchu soldiery, and announcing that he would
fight it out to the bitter end, although this proved as false as the
rest had been. The first collision occurred on the evening of the 5th
July and was disastrous for the King-maker. The whole Northern army,
with the exception of a Manchu Division in Peking, was so rapidly
concentrated on the two main railways leading to the capital that Chang
Hsun's army, hopelessly outnumbered and outmanoeuvred, fell back after a
brief resistance. Chang Hsun himself was plainly stupefied by the
discovery that imperialism of the classic type was as much out of date
in the North as in the South; and within one week of his _coup_ he