They
Were All Agreed In The Policy Of Recovering, At The Earliest Possible
Moment, What They Considered To Be The Natural And Prescriptive Right Of
The Occupant Of The Dragon Throne To Treat All Other Potentates As In No
Degree Equal To Himself.
No respect for treaties would have deterred them
from reasserting what had solemnly been signed away, and the permanent
success of the faction at Jehol would have entailed, within a
comparatively short period, the outbreak of another foreign war.
But the
continued residence of the emperor at Jehol was not popular, with either
his own family or the inhabitants of Pekin. The members of the Manchu
clan, who received a regular allowance during the emperor's residence at
Pekin, were reduced to the greatest straits, and even to the verge of
starvation, while the Chinese naturally resented the attempt to remove the
capital to any other place. This abnegation of authority by Hienfung, for
his absence meant nothing short of that, could not have been prolonged
indefinitely, for a Chinese emperor has many religious and secular duties
to perform which no one else can discharge, and which, if not discharged,
would reduce the office of emperor to a nonentity. Prince Tsai and his
associates had no difficulty in working upon the fears of this prince, who
held the most exalted idea of his own majesty, at the same time that he
had not the power or knowledge to vindicate it.
While such were the views prevailing in the imperial circle at Jehol,
arrangements were in progress for the taking up of his residence at Pekin
of the British minister.
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