|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: from the great mass of Chinese officials, whether progressive or
conservative. Prince Kung was for forty years the leading figure
of the Chinese capital outside of the Forbidden City. He appeared
first, at the age of twenty-six, as a member of the commission
that tried the minister who failed to make good his promise to
induce Lord Elgin and his men-of-war to withdraw from Tientsin in
1858. The following year he was made a member of the Colonial
Board that controlled the affairs of the "outer Barbarians," and
a year later was left in Peking, when the court fled, to arrange
a treaty of peace with the victorious British and French after
they had taken the capital. "In these trying circumstances," says
|
