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As the edicts continued to come out in such quick succession my
Hanlin friend became alarmed. He came to me one day after the
Emperor had censured the officials for trying to delay the
establishment of the Imperial University and said:
"I must return to Peking."
"Why return so soon?" I inquired.
"There is going to be trouble if the Emperor continues his reform
at this rate of speed," he answered.
It was when the Emperor had issued the sixth of his twenty-seven
decrees that this young Chinese statesman made this observation.
If his most intimate advisers had had the perspicuity to have
foreseen the final outcome of such precipitance might they not
have advised the Emperor to have proceeded more deliberately?
When one remembers how China had been worsted by Japan, how all
her prestige was swept away, how, from having been the parent of
the Oriental family of nations, a desirable friend or a dangerous
enemy, she was stripped of all her glory, and left a helpless
giant with neither strength nor power, one can easily understand
the eagerness of this boy of twenty-seven to restore her to the
pedestal from which she had been ruthlessly torn.
Another reason for his haste may be found in the seizure of his
territory by the European powers. A few months before he began
his reforms two German priests were murdered by an irresponsible
mob in the province of Shantung. With this as an excuse Germany
landed a battalion of marines at Kiaochou, a port of that
province, which she took with fifty miles of the surrounding
territory
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