During these days Li Yuan Hung remained at Wuchang; here drilling was going on feverishly. There was organising and preparing for the great effort which was to strike at the central stronghold of the Imperialists. But in Li's heart there was the hope still that Yuan would show a more reasonable front. I was in close touch with Li about this time. Every one who saw him daily, looked upon a man, definite to a degree in aim and purpose, free from self-aggrandisement and selfishness in any form. His aim first and last was to uplift his country, to win the throne for the Han people, and to work with all his might for the downfall of Manchu rule, for by that alone, he believed, could China forge ahead as such a mighty nation deserved and as her brightest sons desired that she should. And now, although others declared that in the new Republican party there would be dissension and strife when the Government were brought down to a concrete basis, General Li Yuan Hung declared that he had sufficient faith in the cause to believe that all his political associates, far from desiring personal benefit, would readily concede the highest positions to the men best fitted to fill them. That was the keynote of Li Yuan Hung's popularity; he believed in the cause, and he had faith in his supporters. When at the start he refused to take the lead, and, essentially Chinese, tried all sorts of schemes to test the safety of his position, he nobly declared what his policy whilst in office would be. He declared that he would set out to work, at all costs and no matter what the personal consequences, for a course that would be straight and true for China and the Chinese. He declared his ambition would first be concentrated in the overthrowing of the Manchus; what subsequently {117} would be his course was to be decided mainly by the trend of resulting circumstances. At the gathering of the officers of the Revolutionary party, who were anxious to make him their leader, I do not think there was a single man present, even Liu King, who, looking into the future as far as he then could see, thought that in less than a month this Japanese-trained officer of the Hupeh Army, with nothing about him to strike one that he was a born leader of men, would have come to the very forefront of the platform of the political world. Liu King certainly did not believe Li Yuan Hung had so much in him.