Hsu Ting, Kang Yi, Ch’i Shin, Ch’ung Ch’i, Ch’ung Li, Na T’ung, and Li Ping Heng became his warmest friends and admirers, and formed a cabal which soon controlled the entire administration of government. By Tung’s direction all important offices, as they became vacant, or could be readily made so, were to be filled by the Manchu friends of the cabal or, if Chinese, as rarely occurred, then a Chinese who was of their own set and their own creature. This gave them a powerful patronage under their disposal in the lucrative taotaiships and other posts formerly more or less evenly divided between Manchu and Chinese, but now almost entirely limited to Manchus. [Illustration: BRIDGE AT WAN SHOA SHAN, NEAR PEKING That the Chinese appreciate the picturesque, both in situation and in architecture, is shown in this picture.] Kang Yi was sent on a mission southward through all the provinces to extort money to raise more armies, as well as to feel the pulse of the people in regard to, and encourage them in, their anti-foreign tendencies. Li Ping Heng was sent to examine and report on all the defenses of the Yangtze valley, as well as to denounce any official of progressive tendencies. Yu Hsien was to succeed the latter as Governor of Shantung, and to sow in that province the seeds of disorder and riot that yielded such a bitter crop when they ripened; just as only a poorly-organized, semi-patriotic, but fully looting society could do—an organization that was to be called the I Ho Ch’uan or Boxer organization. This programme has been fully carried out, and what the result has been will be described in part only (as we in the north only know part) in the following chapters. CHAPTER II _YU HSIEN APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF SHANTUNG, REMOVED BY BRITISH DEMANDS, ONLY TO BE REWARDED—YUAN-SHIH KAI SUCCEEDS HIM—CAUSES OF HATRED OF CONVERTS BY PEOPLE AND BOXERS—THE BOXERS AND THEIR TENETS—THE EMPRESS CONSULTS ASTROLOGERS_ [Illustration: HSU CHING CHENG Ex-minister to Germany, member of Tsung-li-yamen. Beheaded Aug. 9, for favoring peace.] WITH the appointment of the Manchu Yu Hsien as Governor of Shantung province, to be the successor to the anti-foreign Li Ping Heng, whose removal the Germans had succeeded in effecting, commenced the governmental recognition of the Boxers’ society as an agent to expel missionaries, merchants, and diplomats alike. This man, whose hatred of foreigners exceeded that of his predecessor, was no sooner in office than he caused the _literati_ all over the province to revive among the masses the “Great Sword” and “Boxer” organizations, which had been a bit shaken by the removal of their encourager, Li Ping Heng. The foreign residents of Shantung, who had hoped the new government would be an improvement over the old, soon found they were worse off than before. The native Christians were persecuted most bitterly by their heathen neighbors, and their complaints at the yamens treated with disdain.