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. The Empress stands by her aunt, the Empress Dowager,
while the eunuchs now are all her tools. The officials who go
into the palace to audiences are all conservative and hence
against him, though I suppose they never see him."
"Do you suppose he ever sees the edicts issued in his name?"
"Not at all. They are made by the conservatives and the Empress
Dowager and issued without his knowledge."
"And what do you propose to do?" we inquired.
"I shall leave for Shanghai as soon as I can safely do so," he
replied.
Before the year had passed the Empress Dowager had been induced
or compelled to select a new Emperor. We cannot believe that she
did it of her own free will, and for several reasons. First, the
child selected was the son and the grandson of ultra conservative
princes, and we cannot but believe that as she had placed herself
in the hands of the conservative party, it was their selection
rather than hers. Second, it must have been a humiliation to her
ever since she discovered that her nephew, whom she had selected
and placed upon the throne in order to keep the succession in her
own family, being the same generation as her son who had died,
could not worship him as his ancestor, and hence could not
legally occupy the throne, though as a matter of fact such a
condition is not unknown in Chinese history.
But if her humiliation was great, that of our boy-prisoner was
still greater, for he was compelled to witness an edict,
proclaimed in his own name, which made him say that as there was
no hope of his having a child of his own to succeed him, he had
requested the Empress Dowager to select a suitable person who
should be proclaimed as the successor of Tung Chih, his
predecessor, thus turning himself out of the imperial line
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