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The Engagement Agreement, as binding as a marriage certificate, had been signed by the two families, and Everlasting Pearl's parents had returned it to Mr. and Mrs. Hsü. The girl of thirteen had her future settled for her before she had any idea of what such a future might mean. Her little girl-friends teased her, but there was an added respect in their treatment of her.
The Empress Dowager, however, wanted the honour of this move to reflect upon herself, and hoped to be able to bring it to a successful issue during her lifetime. There was strenuous opposition, and this most vigorous in the party in which she had placed herself when she dethroned Kuang Hsu.
The end of the chain is to be seen when the water is low. Hsü, the Dragon-slayer Hsü Chên-chün was a native either of Ju-ning Fu in Honan, or of Nan-ch'ang Fu in Kiangsi. His father was Hsü Su. His personal name was Ching-chih, and his ordinary name Sun.
"We returned to Peking early in the twenty-eighth year of Kwang Hsu and I had another dreadful feeling when I saw my own Palace again. Oh! it was quite changed; a great many valuable ornaments broken or stolen. All the valuable things at the Sea Palace had been taken away, and someone had broken the fingers of my white jade Buddha, to whom I used to worship every day.
I come now to the system of selecting officials by competitive examination, without which it is hardly likely that so literary and unsuperstitious a system as that of Confucius could have maintained its hold. The view of the modern Chinese on this subject is set forth by the present President of the Republic of China, Hsu Shi-chang, in his book on China after the War, pp. 59-60.
But now let us notice the animus of Kuang Hsu. He has been praised without stint for his leaning towards foreign affairs, when in reality was it not simply an effort on the part of the young man to make China strong enough to resist the incursions of the European powers?
A relative of young Hsü, with a red turban round his head, stepped forward, and took his stand somewhat reluctantly on the tigers. He had seen other mediums return with their bodily and mental health impaired, and he had no desire to risk his own; but his duty and brotherly love bade him perform this service for his young kinsman.
A few days later, old Grandfather Hsü appeared in her home. He had been thinking about the strange doctrine, and wanted to know more. Gladly Mrs. Lü explained the way of salvation to him, and pointed him to the Crucified and Risen Saviour.
And let us explain how it was that an imbecile could embody in his edicts of two or three months all the important principles that were necessary to launch the great reforms of the past ten years. I doubt if any Chinese monarch has ever had a more far-reaching influence over the minds of the young men of the empire than Kuang Hsu had from 1895 till 1898.
Those days which witnessed the imprisonment of Kwang Hsu were great because they opened wide the portals of the Romance of History: all who were in Peking can never forget the counter-stroke; the arrival of the hordes composed of Tung Fu-hsiang's Mahommedan cavalry men who had ridden hard across a formidable piece of Asia at the behest of their Empress and who entered the capital in great clouds of dust.
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