By the terms of the treaty, Japan was to be left in possession of Port Arthur and Liao-tung. But this arrangement was in fatal opposition to the policy of a great power which had already cast covetous eyes on the rich provinces of Manchuria. Securing the support of France and Germany, Russia compelled the Japanese to withdraw; and in the course of three years she herself occupied those very positions, kindling in the bosom of Japan the fires of revenge, and sowing the seeds of another war.[*]

[Footnote *: The Russo-Japanese war lies outside of our present programme because China was not a party to it, though it involved her interests and even her existence. The subject will be treated in another chapter.]

The effect of China's defeat at the hands of her despised neighbour, was, if possible, more profound than that of her humiliation by the English and French in 1860. She saw how the adoption of Western methods had clothed a small Oriental people with irresistible might; and her wisest statesmen set themselves to work a similar transformation in their antiquated empire. The young Emperor showed himself an apt pupil, issuing a series of reformatory edicts, which alarmed the conservatives and provoked a reaction that constitutes the last act in this tremendous drama.

ACT 5. THE BOXER WAR

The fifth act opens with the coup d'état of the Empress Dowager, and terminates with the capture of Peking by the combined forces of the civilised world.

Instead of attempting, even in outline, a narrative of events, it will be more useful to direct attention to the springs of action. It should be borne in mind that the late Emperor was the adopted son of the Dowager Empress. After the death of her own son, Tung-chi, who occupied the throne for eleven years under a joint regency of two empresses, his mother cast about for some one to adopt in his stead. With motives not difficult to divine she chose among her nephews an infant of three summers, and gave him the title Kwangsu, "Illustrious Successor." When he was old enough to be entrusted with the reins of government, she made a feint of laying down her power, in deference to custom. Yet she exacted of the imperial youth that he visit her at her country palace and throw himself at her feet once in five days—proof enough that she kept her hand on the helm, though she mitted her nephew to pose as steersman. She herself was noted for progressive ideas; and it was not strange that the young man, under the influence of Kang Yuwei, backed by enlightened viceroys, should go beyond his adoptive mother. Within three years from the close of the war he had proclaimed a succession of new measures which amounted to a reversal of the old policy; nor is it likely that she disapproved of any of them, until the six ministers of the Board of Rites, the guardians of a sort of Levitical law, besought her to save the empire from the horrors of a revolution.

For her to command was to be obeyed. The viceroys were her appointees; and she knew they would stand by her to a man. The Emperor, though nominally independent, was not emancipated from the obligations of filial duty, which were the more binding as having been created by her voluntary choice. There was no likelihood that he would offer serious resistance; and it was certain that he would not be supported if he did. Coming from behind the veil, she snatched the sceptre from his inexperienced hand, as a mother takes a deadly weapon from a half-grown boy. Submitting to the inevitable he made a formal surrender of his autocratic powers and, confessing his errors, implored her "to teach him how to govern." This was in September, 1898.

Stripped of every vestige of authority, the unhappy prince was confined, a prisoner of state, in a secluded palace where it was thought he would soon receive the present of a silken scarf as a hint to make way for a worthier successor. That his life was spared was no doubt due to a certain respect for the public sentiment of the world, to which China is not altogether insensible. He having no direct heir, the son of Prince Tuan was adopted by the Dowager as heir-apparent, evidently in expectation of a vacancy soon to be filled. Prince Tuan, hitherto unknown in the politics of the state, became, from that moment, the leader of a reactionary party. Believing that his son would soon be called to the throne by the demise of the Emperor, he put on all the airs of a Tai-shang Hwang, or "Father of an Emperor."

Here again the patria potestas comes in as a factor; and in the brief career of the father of the heir-apparent, it shows itself in its most exaggerated form. Under the influence of the reactionary clique, of which he was acknowledged chief, the Empress Dowager in her new regency was induced to repeal almost everything the Emperor had done in the way of reform. In her edict she said cynically: "It does not follow that we are to stop eating, because we have been choked!" Dislike to foreign methods engendered an ill-concealed hatred of foreigners; and just at this epoch occurred a series of aggressions by foreign powers, which had the effect of fanning that hatred into a flame.

In the fall of 1897 Germany demanded the cession of Kiao-Chao, calling it a lease for 99 years. The next spring Russia under the form of a lease for 25 years obtained Port Arthur for the terminus of her long railway. England and France followed suit: one taking a lease of Wei-hai-wei; the other, of Kwang-chou-wan. Though in every case the word "lease" was employed, the Chinese knew the transfer meant permanent alienation.