Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
- CHAPTER II OVER CROWDING
- CHAPTER III SOLIDARITY
- CHAPTER IV HUMANITY IN BUNDLES
- CHAPTER V DEAD-LEVELS
- CHAPTER VI RUTS
- CHAPTER VII THE “NATIVE FOREIGNER”
- CHAPTER VIII SOME ACTORS IN THE TRAGEDY OF 1900
- CHAPTER IX MANDARINDOM
- CHAPTER X THE LAND OF ÆSTHETIC TRADITIONS
- CHAPTER XI THE TRIPLE LANGUAGE OF CHINA
- CHAPTER XII A CHINESE BOOKSTALL
- CHAPTER XIII A DAILY NEWSPAPER
CHAPTER VIII - SOME ACTORS IN THE TRAGEDY OF 1900
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
- CHAPTER II OVER CROWDING
- CHAPTER III SOLIDARITY
- CHAPTER IV HUMANITY IN BUNDLES
- CHAPTER V DEAD-LEVELS
- CHAPTER VI RUTS
- CHAPTER VII THE “NATIVE FOREIGNER”
- CHAPTER VIII SOME ACTORS IN THE TRAGEDY OF 1900
- CHAPTER IX MANDARINDOM
- CHAPTER X THE LAND OF ÆSTHETIC TRADITIONS
- CHAPTER XI THE TRIPLE LANGUAGE OF CHINA
- CHAPTER XII A CHINESE BOOKSTALL
- CHAPTER XIII A DAILY NEWSPAPER
Summary
The condensed statement of the causes of the upset of 1900 with which the previous chapter ended, would seem to invite expansion, especially as the whole series of facts forms a drama as thrilling as any that have been acted during recent centuries upon the great stage whereon all are actors.
The first scene opens with the introduction of a Manchu girl (born 1835), as imperial attendant into the dissolute Court of the throned debauchee, Hsien Feng, somewhere in the fifties. The half deified weakling who became her master—but whom she was to dominate in the end—is described by contemporary writers as “tottering to his grave, a decrepit, wornout man of barely thirty years of age” in 1861. Yet did not his life stand out in glaring contrast to his environment, for it is generally understood that he had a Court to match.
During the year of his enthronement began the Taiping rebellion, and his death did not see the end of it; although in 1855, nine years before its close, this same weak monarch, feeling that the situation was getting desperate, issued an edict declaring that a certain hero of the third century, and one who had been half deified in 1594, had appeared in visible form, had crushed the Taipings, and was therefore to be worshipped as a god indeed throughout the length and breadth of the land.
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- Information
- China Under the Search-Light , pp. 110 - 147Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010