"Nobody understands the meaning of the term 'arrogance' who didn't know Yuan in those years 1884-94. He was arrogance personified. He would not {222} meet or associate with the Ministers of other Powers unless he was allowed to occupy a sort of throne and 'receive' them as though they were vassal envoys. At a Korean State dinner he always occupied the foot (one end) of the table, which then became the head." [1] The _China Press_, Shanghai, December 8, 1911. {223} CHAPTER XV YUAN SHIH K'AI'S RETIREMENT Perhaps the one personage in China most impressed by the utter inability of four hundred million Chinese to stand up against the forty million Japanese was the Chinese Resident in Seoul. Formerly in charge of the Chinese troops in Korea, he had been promoted to be China's representative at the Court of what was so soon to pass away. That impact of the new and the old, that utter collapse of the feeble resistance offered by the proud Imperial troops to the disciplined modern army of Japan, convinced the Resident that China was tottering to her fall unless she, like Japan, could absorb the knowledge and civilisation of the West. This lesson was--to use a Chinese phrase--"engraved upon his heart." That Resident was Yuan Shih K'ai. [Illustration: YUAN SHI-K'AI. Prime Minister of the Manchu Government and subsequently First President of the Provisional Military Government of the United Republic of China.] From that time onwards he set his hand to the plough of reform. And so straight a furrow did he plough, with never a swerve from his purpose, that he was everywhere spoken of as Yuan the Reformer. Discredited by the Japanese, neglected by the Chinese Government, vegetating for a time in that out-of-the-way port of Wenchow, it was not until 1898 that Yuan began to come to his own. As the result of a personal interview with the Emperor Kwang Hsu, he received his first military command under the Reform movement, being made expectant Vice-President of a Board with control of an army corps. In his new, environment Yuan had the opportunity of his life; he {224} proved his real greatness by rising to the occasion. Beginning with the control of a few modern-trained soldiers, he so entered into the development of the idea in his brain that China's Model Army was the result, and their proved superiority over the Wuchang Modern Army at the engagements near Hankow was the proof that henceforth the properly trained, armed, and disciplined Chinese soldier is a force to be reckoned with. At this stage of his career Yuan united honesty of purpose with singleness of aim. He took the attitude of the old "sea dogs" of the British Navy--he was straight and true with his men, and worked with them. Honest himself, he saw to it that his officers were men of integrity. Foreigners applauded him, and when in 1900 he became Governor of Shantung, all the civilised world recognised that the man who would succeed Li Hung-chang had arrived.