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As this was the first occasion on which Europeans saw the young emperor, the fact that he made a favorable impression on them is not without interest, and the following personal description of the master of so many millions may well be quoted. "Whatever the impression 'the Barbarians' made on him the idea which they carried away of the Emperor Kwangsu was pleasing and almost pathetic.
When Kwangsu ascended the throne the preparations for the campaign against Kashgaria were far advanced toward completion, and Kinshun had struck the first of those blows which were to insure the overthrow of the Tungani and of Yakoob Beg.
On September 22, appeared an edict ostensibly signed by Kwangsu announcing that he had requested the empress-dowager to resume authority over the affairs of State. It has been since reported that he has been killed.
The Emperor Kwangsu agreed to receive him in the Cheng Kuan Tien Palace, or pavilion which forms part of the imperial residence of Peace and Plenty within the Forbidden City. In pursuance of this arrangement, the British representative, attended by his suite, proceeded to this pavilion on December 13, 1892, and was received at the principal entrance by the high court officials.
The only two men who possessed the requisite qualifications were Prince Kung and Li Hung Chang. The former, however, being a prince of the imperial family, and the uncle of the reigning emperor, Kwangsu, could not be induced to submit to the humiliation of proceeding to Japan and suing for peace.
The unpopularity caused by his proposed innovations proved fatal to Kwangsu; for the party at court, headed by the Empress-dowager Tsi An, took advantage of it to arrest and imprison him. Kang Yu Wei, having received warning of the conspiracy, had fled, and succeeded in gaining an asylum under the British flag, but many of the emperor's personal followers were put to death.
This audience, which lasted a considerable time, was certainly the most satisfactory and encouraging yet held with the Emperor Kwangsu by any foreign envoy, and it also afforded opportunity of confirming the favorable impression which the intelligence and dignified demeanor of the Emperor Kwangsu have made on all who have had the honor of coming into his presence.
On the return of Li Hung Chang to Pekin, he not only failed to recover the viceroyship of Chihli, but he found his relations with the Emperor Kwangsu quite as unsatisfactory as they had been after his return from Shimonoseki.
In February, 1887, in which month falls the Chinese New Year, it was announced that his marriage was postponed in consequence of his delicate health, and it was not until the new year of 1889, when Kwangsu was well advanced in his eighteenth year, that he was married to Yeh-ho-na-la, daughter of a Manchu general named Knei Hsiang, who had been specially selected for this great honor out of many hundred candidates.
The time had again arrived for giving it effect, and, after long discussions as to the place of audience and the forms to be observed, Kwangsu issued in December, 1890, an edict appointing a day soon after the commencement of the Chinese New Year for the audience, and also arranging that it should be repeated annually on the same date.
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