Since the time of the Taipings a new element of contention had crept into State politics--the foreigner. Whether as missionary or merchant, as financier or diplomat, the "foreigner" was now a force to be reckoned with, and after this brief review we shall note how all these factors paved the way for perhaps the greatest movement of all, the Revolution of 1911-12. Away in the Kwan district of Shantung there existed a secret society rejoicing in the euphemistic title of Plum Blossom Fists. The late Tuan Fang, when issuing his famous proclamation that all missionaries should be protected in his province, compared these Boxers to the White Lily Society[4] which had done so much to {270} bring about the downfall of the Yuan Dynasty in the fourteenth century. But in these Plum Blossom Fists there was something more than the usual spirit animating the secret-society men. There was the newly awakened "patriotism"--a word and an idea just taking hold of the student throughout the country. The utter defeat of China in her short, sharp conflict with the Japanese, that hitherto despised "nation of dwarfs," caused a thrill of indignation throughout the Empire. "What are you going to do now?" I asked a young student, just through his college course. The answer came pat. "I am going to Japan to study military tactics, and so help _save my country_," a reply pregnant with meaning. But the Plum Blossom Fists had much to learn before they could come under the spell of that young student's idea. _They_ were the ones to save China. Themselves invulnerable, their mission from Heaven itself, their cause righteous, there could be only victory for them and salvation for their country!