On this understanding everything became smooth sailing, and the consummation of their plans, as far as Tuan’s interest was concerned, occurred, when in solemn conclave of all the princes of the blood and great ministers of state, on January 24, 1900, Pu Chun, son of Prince Tuan, was solemnly named as successor to the previous emperor, Tung Chih; and poor sickly little Kuang Hsu was succeeded without a successor to himself, but a successor to his uncle being appointed, which, by imperial edict, makes him an interloper.
CHINESE STATESMEN
A group of Chinese officials of the highest class; in Peking, previous to the Siege.
This was a nice piece of vengeance the Empress Dowager worked out, partly to avenge herself on her nephew for his unsuccessful attempt to shelve her and run his government himself. Tung’s intensely anti-foreign sentiments soon made him many friends at court, among the oldest and most conservative Manchus, as well as some of the Chinese. But it was among the former that his influence was greatest.
Many of these men, stupid in the extreme, and too cowardly themselves ever to have originated any of the designs that have since been worked out, joyfully fell in with the plans inspired by his ambition for his own success, but always put forward as for the salvation of his country.
Hsu Ting, Kang Yi, Ch’i Shin, Ch’ung Ch’i, Ch’ung Li, Na T’ung, and Li Ping Heng became his warmest friends and admirers, and formed a cabal which soon controlled the entire administration of government. By Tung’s direction all important offices, as they became vacant, or could be readily made so, were to be filled by the Manchu friends of the cabal or, if Chinese, as rarely occurred, then a Chinese who was of their own set and their own creature. This gave them a powerful patronage under their disposal in the lucrative taotaiships and other posts formerly more or less evenly divided between Manchu and Chinese, but now almost entirely limited to Manchus.
BRIDGE AT WAN SHOA SHAN, NEAR PEKING