“At dawn, on the 21st day of the 7th Moon (15th August) your Majesty’s servant proceeded to the Gate of Reverend Peace (inside the Palace), and learned that your Majesties’ sacred chariot had left for the West. While there I came across Ch’ung Ch’i,[106] the President of the Board of Revenue, and we were proposing to hurry after your Majesties, when we learned that the North-Eastern and Northern Gates of the city had fallen. So we left Peking by another gate, my first object being to try and rally some of the troops. But after several conferences with Generals Sung Ch’ing and Tung Fu-hsiang, I was forced to the conclusion that our repeated defeats had been too severe, and that, in the absence of large reinforcements, there was no hope of our being able to take the field again. Our men were in a state of complete panic and had lost all stomach for fighting. I therefore left and came on to Pao-t’ing fu, and lodged there with Ch’ung Ch’i in the “Water Lily” Garden. All night long he and I discussed the situation, hoping to see some way out of the misfortunes which had overtaken the State. Ch’ung Ch’i could not conceal the bitterness of his grief, and on the morning of the next day he hanged himself in one of the outer courtyards, leaving a letter for me in which was enclosed his valedictory Memorial to your Majesties, together with a set of verses written just before his death. These I now forward for your Majesty’s gracious perusal, because I feel that his suicide deserves your pity, just as his high sense of duty merits your praise. He was indeed a man of the purest integrity, and had all the will, though, alas, not the power, to avert the misfortunes which have befallen us. He had always looked upon the magic arts of the Boxers with profound contempt, unworthy even of the effort of a smile from a wise man. At this critical juncture, the loss of my trusted colleague is indeed a heavy blow, but I am compelled to remember that the position which I hold, all unworthily, as your Majesty’s Commander-in-Chief, necessitates my bearing the burden of my heavy responsibilities so long as the breath of life is in my body. “Such makeshift arrangements as were feasible I made for the temporary disposal of Ch’ung Ch’i’s remains, and I now forward the present Memorial by special courier to your Majesty, informing you of the manner of his decease, because I hold it to be unfitting that his end should pass unnoticed and unhonoured. Your Majesty will, no doubt, determine on the posthumous honours to be accorded to him. “It is now my intention to proceed, with what speed I may, to T’ai-yüan fu, there to pay my reverent duty to your Majesty and to await the punishment due for my failure to avert these calamities.”