WITH the appointment of the Manchu Yu Hsien as Governor of Shantung province, to be the successor to the anti-foreign Li Ping Heng, whose removal the Germans had succeeded in effecting, commenced the governmental recognition of the Boxers’ society as an agent to expel missionaries, merchants, and diplomats alike. This man, whose hatred of foreigners exceeded that of his predecessor, was no sooner in office than he caused the literati all over the province to revive among the masses the “Great Sword” and “Boxer” organizations, which had been a bit shaken by the removal of their encourager, Li Ping Heng.
The foreign residents of Shantung, who had hoped the new government would be an improvement over the old, soon found they were worse off than before. The native Christians were persecuted most bitterly by their heathen neighbors, and their complaints at the yamens treated with disdain.
Yu Hsien did his work thoroughly and rapidly, knowing the foreign power which had compelled the removal of Li Ping Heng would also cause his removal. But as he was only placed in Shantung for the deliberate purpose of making trouble, his removal would mean for him a better post as the reward of his success.
This came when the “Boxers” of Chianfu prefecture attacked and murdered a young missionary of the Church of England named Brookes, who was traveling from Chianfu city to his station of P’ingyin.
The British government demanded his removal from office, and the Chinese government acquiesced; but their treatment of him upon his arrival in Peking alone would have sufficed for an intelligent observer to make clear the policy of the Empress without any other confirmatory evidence, abundance of which, however, was not lacking.
Instead of being reprimanded, we find him granted immediate audience with the Empress, and the next day’s Court Gazette informed an astonished world that the Empress had written with her own brush the character “Fu,” happiness, and conferred it upon him publicly. Then followed his appointment as Governor of Shansi, a rich mineral province in which the “Peking Syndicate,” an Anglo-Italian company promoted by Lord Rothschild, held valuable concessions. In this province, too, were the long-worked missionary establishments of the American Board (Congregationalist) and the China Inland Missions.
The Chinese all understood this as an appreciative approval from the Empress, and so, too, did all the older foreign residents; but the diplomatic corps, beyond a feeble remonstrance from the British and United States ministers, did nothing. So, to-day Yu Hsien is pursuing in Shansi the same policy he did in Shantung, the results of which must turn out similarly.
The Empress appointed as successor to Yu Hsien the man who had turned traitor to the unfortunate young Emperor, Kuang Hsu, Yuanshih Kai. This man is well known to foreigners. He was formerly Chinese resident at Seoul, and it was largely due to him that the China-Japan war occurred. After the war he was made commanding-general of a force of foreign-drilled troops stationed at Hsiao Chan, south of Tientsin.