His last
phase as a pawn had come.
Few foreign diplomats calling at China's Foreign Office to discuss
matters during that short period which lasted barely a twelve-
month, imagined that the square resolute-looking man who as
President of the Board gave the same energy and attention to
consular squabbles as to the reorganization of a national fighting
force, was almost daily engaged in a fierce clandestine struggle
to maintain even his modest position. Jealousy, which flourishes
in Peking like the upas tree, was for ever blighting his schemes
and blocking his plans. He had been brought to Peking to be tied
up; he was constantly being denounced; and even his all powerful
patroness, the old Empress Dowager, who owed so much to him,
suffered from constant premonitions that the end was fast
approaching, and that with her the Dynasty would die.
In the Autumn of 1908 she took sick. The gravest fears quickly
spread. It was immediately reported that the Emperor Kwanghsu was
also very ill--an ominous coincidence. Very suddenly both
personages collapsed and died, the Empress Dowager slightly before
the Emperor. There is little doubt that the Emperor himself was
poisoned. The legend runs that as he expired not only did he give
his Consort, who was to succeed him in the exercise of the nominal
power of the Throne, a last secret Edict to behead Yuan Shih-kai,
but that his faltering hand described circle after circle in the
air until his followers understood the meaning.
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