Reports came from Peking that the boy emperor, Pu Yi, was utterly unconscious of trouble and the tottering of the oldest and widest throne on earth, in all this ebb and flow of war and intrigue. Deserted by his guardians, parent and tutors, he was left most of the time in the Forbidden City with eunuchs, who humored his every whim, with the result that his temper took on true Manchu characteristics. When opposed, he threw the first thing at hand at those near him. When the food displeased him, he cracked the dishes over the heads of his kneeling servitors. The _Break-Up of China_ indeed, but by another author than Lord Charles Beresford! On January 26, 1912, the armies got in motion again, one corps leaving Tsinan, the capital of Shangtung province, to checkmate the republican expedition which had landed at Chifu. Up the Nanking-Tientsin railway, General Chang the Second, of the imperialists, and General Hsu met in an engagement at Kucheng, in northern Nganhwei province, and the former was defeated. At Wuchang, General Li’s Hupeh forces, reinforced with Cantonese troops, got in motion to meet General Feng’s imperialists up the Peking-Hankau railway. Large consignments of Mauser and Krag rifles and ammunition for Krupp guns, ordered from German firms for the imperialists, on this day passed through St. Petersburg on their way to Peking by the Siberian railway. On January 28th, the provisional republican Senate of forty-two members (three each from fourteen rebel provinces) convened at Nanking in foreign clothing and without queues. A remarkably enthusiastic scene occurred at the close of President Sun’s address, which address urged unity. The members all rose and cheered for the republic, while a modern band played martial music. The republicans for the first time in modern history instituted the use of a remarkable regiment of bomb-throwers. They went to the front with large canvas bags of dynamite bombs hanging from their shoulders. It required exceptional bravery to enlist in such a corps, as when a bag was hit by an imperialist’s bullet, the explosion not only shattered the bomb-thrower, but detonated the bags of his fellows if they were near. This corps was uniformed in the British military peaked cap, and they wore tunics and puttees, and had no queues.