"It is reported that the Manchu Government has recalled you. If that is so, I offer two suggestions for your consideration. First: It may be that the Government suspects your loyalty and intends by recalling you to deprive you of your military authority; in that case, you may disobey the summons by virtue of the military rule that a general need not obey an imperial edict when he is on service abroad. Second: If Peking is actually in a critical condition--I must tell you a story. During the Boxer rising, when the international force entered Peking, they summoned Li Hung-chang. That was an opportunity for Li to become Emperor. But he was stubborn and lost the chance. You may learn from his experience. Mencius said that a man with complete education will protect the people. I am but a military man and do not know much. I have learned largely from Mencius, so that I have no desire except to protect the people. It is believed that your experience and ability are much higher than mine. Yet I am sorry for you that you have to consider things so very long before you can make up your mind. Remember that we should not hesitate or delay in doing what is benevolent or righteous. We should do the right thing at once. "All the brethren of this land are waiting for you. Do not face me any longer with a mask." * * * * * This was Li Yuan Hung's last appeal to Yuan. All along Li had been anxious to avoid further bloodshed, but it soon became evident that the fight was to be to the bitter end. So after that short-lived lull, foreigners, with their trade quite paralysed, settled down again for war. About the Concessions, in the clubs, {107} in the houses, in the godowns, wherever foreigners congregated there was a feeling of deadening suspense hanging over all. That something terrible was about to happen every one agreed, but what no one cared to guess. In the native city, what of it was left, the abject desolation which the charred ruins and half-burned-up streets and shops presented to one, where a cold and hungry lot of people were endeavouring all too vainly to revivify trade, sunk into one's very being. One was glad, if he thus unwisely ventured far from the Concessions, to get back again and to walk along the Bund and look out over the unruffled river and hope for better times to come. There was no shipping, no life, no trade. The Concessions were in practically a state of siege, and all were waiting--for what, again, we knew not. All that one had to trouble about was the time that the mails closed and the time the boats were going down-river.