Why then should Yuan Shih-kai have been made the scapegoat of the court and the officials, and branded as a murderer in the face of the whole world? That may be another plot. The radical reformers, followers of Kang Yu-wei, have been making such a hubbub about the matter ever since the death of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager that somebody had to be punished. They said that Yuan had been a traitor to the cause of reform, that he had not only betrayed his sovereign in 1898, but that now he had encompassed his death.
Now to satisfy these enemies, the Prince Regent may have decided that the best thing to do was to dismiss Yuan for a time. I think that the trivial excuse he gives for doing so favours my theory—with "rheumatism of the leg," to which is added, "Thus our clemency is manifest"—a sentence which may be severe or may mean nothing, and when the storm has blown over and the sky is clear again, Yuan may be once more brought to the front as Li Hung-chang and others have been in the past. Which is a consummation, I think, devoutly to be wished.
XX
Peking—The City of the Court
The position of Peking at the present time is one of peculiar interest, for all the different forces that are now at work to make or mar China issue from, or converge towards, the capital. There, on the dragon throne, beside, or rather above, the powerless and unhappy Emperor, the father of his people and their god, sits the astute and ever-watchful lady whose word is law to Emperor, minister and clown alike. There dwell the heads of the government boards, the leaders of the Manchu aristocracy, and the great political parties, the drafters of new constitutions and imperial decrees, and the keen-witted diplomatists who know so well how to play against European antagonists the great game of international chess.—R. F. Johnston in "From Peking to Mandelay."
XX
PEKING—THE CITY OF THE COURT
In the place where Peking now stands there has been a city for three thousand years. Five centuries before Christ it was the capital of a small state, but was destroyed three centuries later by the builder of the great wall. It was soon rebuilt, however, and has continued from that time until the present, with varied fortunes, as the capital of a state, the chief city of a department, or the dwelling-place of the court.
It is the greatest and best preserved walled city in the empire, if not in the world. The Tartar City is sixteen miles in circumference, surrounded by a wall sixty feet thick at the bottom, fifty feet thick at the top and forty feet high, with six feet of balustrade on the outside, beautifully crenelated and loopholed, and in a good state of preservation. The streets are sixty feet wide,—or even more in places,—well macadamized, and lit with electric light. The chief mode of conveyance is the 'ricksha, though carriages may be hired by the week, day or hour at various livery stables in proximity to the hotels, which, by the way, furnish as good accommodation to their guests as the hotels of other Oriental cities.