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4 CHANG TSO-LIN’S STRUGGLE

CHAPTER I HOW NORTH-CHINA

Again there was a great storm. Witte’s Memoirs clearly inform us how that incident was settled. Those two modern Caesars, the Tsar of Russia and the German Kaiser, meeting at a family conclave, agreed after a brief discussion that Germany should retain Kiaochow while Russia would immediately seize Port Arthur—Germany guaranteeing Russian rights in Manchuria for all time.

That ushered in the next conflict—the Boxer war of 1900. For these arrangements, being duly confirmed willy-nilly by China under the leasing agreements of 1898, England now took over Weihaiwei and France Kwang-Chow- Wan (in South China) on more or less the same terms. The Chinese peasantry, outraged by the spectacle of the Manchu Imperial House putting up their country to auction, rose in gloomy bands, much resembling the Red Spear societies of to-day, and sweeping northward from Shantung burning and killing, finally invested Peking and Tientsin, and brought about foreign intervention.

The destruction of the Boxers and their military allies was not a difficult feat. Eight nations participated in the military operations, and when they were over, signed the Protocol

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