If ever a time seemed favourable to the Revolutionary cause, surely this was the time. The Taiping rebellion was not yet quelled, China was embroiled with England, and the rebel chief was able without serious opposition to hold on his triumphant way. Yakub Beg was so brilliantly successful in his "holy war" that he was styled the "Champion Father" by the {268} Mohammedan world. At last had arisen the man who would, under Allah's blessing, purge away the stain of insult from the "Faithfuls'" escutcheon. It did really seem as if a permanent kingdom had been founded in this north-western section of the Flowery Land, and that a new leader was to be the first of a long line of Mohammedan kings. Then one of those unanticipated changes occurred--that is, unanticipated by the casual observer of things Chinese. In little more than a decade from the first raising of the standard of rebellion, Yakub Beg died, a broken and a beaten man, away in far distant Korla. For the army which had been trained in the hard school of experience of fighting the Taipings was, under the excellent leadership of General Tso, practically invincible when the undisciplined fanatic hordes hurled themselves against it. City after city was retaken, until in 1878 the rebellion was at an end, and the times that had been were only a horrible nightmare in the memories of those who had endured, suffered, and fortunately escaped with lives. The last of these great political movements, which must be briefly referred to here was generally known as the Boxer uprising. This, like the Taiping rebellion, had as its origin that spirit of enmity that has ever been manifested between the north and the south. Never was this struggle so manifestly obvious as during this great movement that is still taking place in China. The very names of "Northern Army" and "Southern Army," used by the Hankow populace in everyday parlance when speaking of the opposing forces under Yuan Shih K'ai and Li Yuan Hung respectively, vouches for evidence of the truth of the statement. In that valuable contribution towards the history of the inwardness of the Boxer movement, "China Under the Empress-Dowager,"[3] this eternal quarrel between the north and the south is well worked out. We need do {269} no other than refer the reader to it in passing. In fact, the cause of the Reform movement of 1898 was that the versatile scholars of the south had captivated the mind of the young Emperor, and had led him to issue his celebrated Reform Edict. On the other hand, jealous of their southern opponents, the wily men of the north used their influence with Jung-Lu and the Empress-Dowager to bring about the _coup d'état_ that practically dethroned the Emperor and was the first of a series of retrogressive steps culminating in the enlisting of the Patriotic Harmony Train-bands (Boxers), to Rid China of the Accursed _Presence_ of the Foreigners.